Wise Words: Emily Knows

(Emily Dickinson, Final Harvest, selected and with an introduction by Thomas H. Johnson, Back Bay Books: New York, 1964, p. 258)

The Roots Of My Unbecoming

I must become comfortable in my unknowing, more adept at my unlearning—and perhaps too a kind of unbecoming*—growing into a rooted, earthy being who is not a label, an identity, or any kind of deliberate intention—but the process of myself : an exploration of instincts, animal urges, intuition, and all that is natural and wild—married to, dancing with, intellect and knowledge. 

A wholeness is what I am, and have always been, self-contained within the porous shell that is my body.  

As I grow older, I become more essentially myself. 

I think this is part of the maturation process. Going from individualism, and a great emphasis on a sense of self and identity (through clothing, musical preferences and so on), to a more expansive sense of self that includes the land around me, and is therefore more organic. A stripped back, biological and ecological (though still human) identity, if you will, as opposed to a constructed, artificial one.

Myself as a root—of the land as the land is of me. Connected.

I gentle myself, kindling a kindness for what I have endured in life, and cannot yet face, or heal. My unbecoming will be my becoming.

*‘Unbecoming’ means ‘unflattering’, as well as ‘unseemly’ or ‘inappropriate’. Thus it seems quite an apt word for the subversiveness it suggests. I refuse to please, to be seemly or appropriate. I can only be myself.

Tree Sketch (Emergence), water-mixable oils and acrylics on oil sketch paper, 2012

Wise Words: On The Gift Of Creativity

Creativity is a gift. Too many of us refuse it unwittingly. Assaulted by self-doubt we fail to believe that it has been put into our hands. We diminish it by insisting we should have been child prodigies. We insist its only proof is commercial gain. But the creative is a gift to us from another realm, and it comes to us when it comes.

…

This has been my experience: whenever someone has determination, has a clear intuition or belief that he is “meant to write” or that she “has something to say,” there is substance to it. Sometimes this intuition occurs without any immediate evidence of the ability to express oneself “appropriately,” whatever that means to the individual. Sometimes the something that must be spoken eludes him or her. Still, if the intuition or determination is there, it is probably a reflection of inner knowledge. The task, then, is to find the way.

(Deena Metzger, Writing for Your Life: A Guide and Companion to the Inner Worlds. Harper San Francisco: New York, 1992, pp. 15 and 18)

~

When we are engaged in the creative process, we are engaged with higher forces. Mysterious forms and forces seek entrance through us, and we had best cooperate.

For this reason, I often say that art is an act of the soul and not of the ego or intellect. To make great art requires great humility, the willingness to be obedient to what would be born through us. We are immersed in our creative projects. We are subject to them as to a great wind. 

(Julia Cameron, The Sound of Paper: Inspiration and Practical Guidance for Starting the Creative Process, Penguin: London, 2004, pp. 212–213)