March 8, the Landscape of the Unknown Self
"Blessed be the gifts you never notice...
Take time to seek the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
Keep something beautiful in your heart
To survive difficult times
And enjoy good times...
So at the end of the day
We give thanks
for being betrothed to the unknown.
-Jon O'Donohue
Today I set out to revisit a creative endeavor-in this case working on a novel. This work is interior work for me, and when I have been apart for it for a while, it is like a hike out to a wild and rugged place. I have been here before, I know my way around it, but it still seems a place with pitfalls and snares that could be dangerous if I am not careful.
Upon first revisiting it, I wince inwardly at the journey ahead, confronted with the danger and hardship of such a journey. What is the point? Why take a hike that will be rough upon limb. I am determined to take this hike, but at the same time I am confronted by my fear of the unknown. I don't know where I will end this journey, or it's outcome, and I am all too aware of my own shortcomings I am bound to be confronted by as I trek across the place: I am weary before I ever begin. I don't seem worthy of the beauty and majesty of such a wild and marvellous space. I have done nothing to earn such a journey and perhaps I will be punished for having the hubris to even try. Surely the burden of my past failures and present bad tendencies will be a stumbling block that will lead me into disaster. I might just as well seek out the comforts of the humdrum, after all there is nothing wrong with that.
These are the stumbling blocks that guard against my journey into the wilds of the unknown creation as I set out. Fortunately, I have a friend, what O'Donohue summons from the celtic Imagination: the Anam Cara. The soul friend. Recently, my very best friend of over 20 years suddenly passed away, and my friends and I struggle with our loss of this magnificent Anam Cara. In her eulogy of him, his pastor remembered his celtic imagination. This imagination and his close association of it with the gifts of soul and Christian inspiration have been a shot of bravery that helps me cross into my own journey. I can hope to be as brave as Devin was as I set out into the wild and woody seascapes , with shipwreck and sailboat alike. I need this bravery, for it is not an easy journey.
-IN REMEMBERANCE OF DEVIN BLAKE POWELL
