I've been thinking about what I want to focus on in 2019. A recurring prompt for me has been to explore, and most of all, to trust my own inner life, and to have the courage to face it without escaping into numbing distractions.
Who am I in silence? What wants to be born? What needs to be said? What comes to the surface if uncensored? What emerges if given time?
I spend hours scrolling through Instagram in awe over other people's art and poetry. I have countless notebooks filled with other people's words. Now I want to find my own voice, my own poetry and art. I want to finally remain quiet long enough to hear the voice of my own soul.
As I was thinking and journaling about all this, through some magical synchronicity, I came across an interview of David Whyte by Krista Tippet on NPR's OnBeing. Here's the excerpt that most spoke to me:
"The deeper discipline of poetry is overhearing yourself saying things you didn't want to know about the world and something that actually emancipates you from the smaller self out into this larger dispensation that you actually didn't think you deserved.
And so, one of the things we're most afraid of in silence, is the death of the periphery, the outside concerns. The place where you've been building your personality and where you think you've been building who you are starts to atomize and fall apart, and it's one of the basic reasons why we find it difficult even just to turn the radio off, or television, or not to look at our gadgets - it's that giving over to something that's going to actually seem as if it's undermining you to begin with and lead to your demise.
And the intuition, unfortunately, is correct, you are heading towards your demise but it's leading towards this richer, deeper place that doesn't get corroborated very much in our everyday outer world." -
Who am I in silence? What wants to be born? What needs to be said? What comes to the surface if uncensored? What emerges if given time?
I spend hours scrolling through Instagram in awe over other people's art and poetry. I have countless notebooks filled with other people's words. Now I want to find my own voice, my own poetry and art. I want to finally remain quiet long enough to hear the voice of my own soul.
As I was thinking and journaling about all this, through some magical synchronicity, I came across an interview of David Whyte by Krista Tippet on NPR's OnBeing. Here's the excerpt that most spoke to me:
"The deeper discipline of poetry is overhearing yourself saying things you didn't want to know about the world and something that actually emancipates you from the smaller self out into this larger dispensation that you actually didn't think you deserved.
And so, one of the things we're most afraid of in silence, is the death of the periphery, the outside concerns. The place where you've been building your personality and where you think you've been building who you are starts to atomize and fall apart, and it's one of the basic reasons why we find it difficult even just to turn the radio off, or television, or not to look at our gadgets - it's that giving over to something that's going to actually seem as if it's undermining you to begin with and lead to your demise.
And the intuition, unfortunately, is correct, you are heading towards your demise but it's leading towards this richer, deeper place that doesn't get corroborated very much in our everyday outer world." -
