Yesterday, I wrote for two hours and the dogs barked to make me let them in, I did, and when I came back, I accidently deleted everything I had been writing. Damned dogs, I am sick of them being my critics, and master over my every move. Today, I start again.
Sure, dogs can be better companions than some people, but very much like people, they interrupt the flow of trying to do what a writer does. Finding a quiet spot has been difficult for me.
Lately, I have had to write from the dining room table, as the room for my office had to be relinquished a few months back when natural disasters (and welcomed visitors) insisted I share that room with other people. So, I moved into a corner of the dining room. Yesterday, I decided to move my writing space into the garage. I am almost there, but for now, I am sitting here at my dining room table contemplating the books pulled for reference this week and the list is kind of telling:
The Spirit of Trees, by Fred Hageneder, Mother and Child Vibration Heart Exhibition, by Popx as a Creative New Zealand project, The Expressionists by Wolf-Dieter Dube, Van Gogh by Lara Vinca Masini, Art Book Kandinsky by Dorling Kindersley, Essence & Purpose of Yoga by Raphael, Woodstock 3 Days of Peace & Music by Richard Havers & Richard Evans and Conversations with God Book 3 by Neale Donald Walsch.
Looking at this selection I can remember my writing week.
I pulled The Spirit of Trees to reference a poem I wanted to write for a friend. She has a birch tree outside her window that she reflects upon every morning. Fred Hageneder does for “standing people” (Native American expression for trees) what prophets have always done for other people...provide inspiration. My friend cannot go outside to see her tree, nor can she stand, I wanted to bring the tree into her heart even further:
Birch Spells Love (for Diana)
Liberated mind,
connecting with a birch tree,
struck into reverence, grand, grander still...
...three hundred millions worth and counting by Hageneder,
whose friendly science combined with inspiration
intermingles and unites one ecosystem
between a mind and a tree, a birch tree for thee...
...uncaged emotionally, intuiting, rooting
electricity and magnetism, vitality, growth and maintenance
to be on schedule is prudent for perpetuating a species
through the ages and myths preceding the gaze...
of a birch tree, by thee...
responsive to the wind, brightening the dark solitude and heaviness of life
rarely reaching one hundred and twenty, like us, the birch lives
giving way to other trees
coming and going like the wind
leaving bark for boats, canoes, containers, and called
‘the tree of the beginning’, preparing the Earth as well as the soul
in ancient Ireland, the ‘mother of learning’,
presiding over the alphabet:
the first letter b (beth) represents the Birch
as the universal soul described in myth by many names—
Frigga, Demeter, Aphrodite, Venus—
divine mother and goddess of love.
(I can’t say I really wrote this poem, but simply extracted information out of Hageneder’s chapter on birch trees and put it together to convey some of the things I thought my friend might find interesting)
Oddly, the front cover of Mother and Child Vibration Heart Exhibition has a happy nude pregnant woman leaning against a massive tree. There are two of these books sitting on my table because my daughter and I were both in the exhibition that this book is about and she wanted me to write something in her book. I did this week. I simply wrote “You are already the best Mother—I know, Love Mom”. And, she is...she mothers everything and everyone with such a balanced vibration even though she is not physically a mother, internally she is spot on.
The Expressionists arrived in the mix because my daughter was studying these works and commenting on them this week. I stood amazed that she understood the language of Art so innately. However, I shouldn’t have been stunned, she comes from a family rooted in Art for generations...watching her interpret works makes me believe our DNA has a memory, but it does not dictate everything, just enough to show that The Expressionists always belongs in our family mix anyway.
Van Gogh is lying there because he has always been one of my favourite artists and because the book belongs to a friend and I must remember to give it back. This book has been trying to stay in my mix for too long now...I decided to keep it close to me until I could return it. This is the practise of writing something down to make it happen which I seldom see fail for me. Now, the return of Van Gogh is imminent.
The Art Book Kandinsky is a book that I have been reading on for years. I have collected many paintings by a man who calls himself Domingo (for Sunday, the day he was born) and posted a few on my blog. For years I have been trying to complete a book about Domingo’s work. Six years ago I showed a mock up of what my book would be like to a publisher and he said he was interested. I told him I would be back with him in a few weeks, that was SIX YEARS ago. So, what happened? Life, that’s what. I had six other people living with me for a long time, I am in recovery. So, why the Kandinsky book? Domingo says his only inspiration for his own paintings comes from Kandinsky alone, he claims, there are only two artists, Kandinsky and Domingo. How’s that for hubris?
The Essence and Purpose of Yoga is lying there to help me remember to go to Yoga classes each Sunday evening. There are two wonderful yoga instructors giving free (gold coin donation) classes once a week to Christchurch residents because of the earthquake stress. It is, without a doubt, the best thing I do for myself since the events that have unfolded which I am trying not to write about so much anymore, everything about my life at this moment, is defined by the ongoing events and the anticipation of more. After yoga class, I am like Rhet Butler, “And frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” This is a good way to feel in view of the subject matter I am trying not to write about so much.
The Woodstock book was pulled to clarify for myself what I was writing wherein I proclaimed “I was scared shitless” by the earthquakes. The first time I heard this expression uttered publicly was through the Woodstock experience when Crosby, Stills, Nash, and yes, Young were on stage. I could not remember if Neil Young was with Crosby, Stills and Nash at that time, or what. My memory leaks a lot. Anyway, I found the answer, yes, and my article remains factual though unpublished. It is titled: “Tits and Nuts” and uses the famous expression compared with ‘e-mail forwards’ currently going around that threatens you if you do not reply. Perhaps I will post it one day when I become less afraid.
And finally, Conversations with God, Book 3, I pulled because a friend of mine had written to me about a relative that had committed suicide. I vaguely remembered reading the best take on suicide I had ever read inside this book, pulled it off the shelf and found it tabulated just so I could find what I needed. It is an amazing take on suicide and I typed up a few of the pages and sent them to my friend hoping it might alleviate some of her pain. I think it did, it sure helped me. We talk a lot about suicide in New Zealand; it has one of the highest suicide rates for young men compared to anywhere else in the world.
So, this is why my desk is messy at the moment. And, like every morning, I sit here and contemplate what it is that I need to say so much so that I arrive every morning like clockwork to sit and write, read, study and write some more. Painting use to take pride of place, but then, that was back when people bought what I painted. Now, I just paint for pleasure, but writing is akin to breathing. It is something I must do to stay alive.
This week I wrote about our relationship with nature, being a mother, Domingo, being scared shitless and suicide. I guess I can see better now why writing is so important. Even the dogs have not bothered me this morning, only the cat.
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