the river

dive. float. swim. drown.

The river is within us

~ t.s. eliot

Once upon a time there was a river.

Once upon a time, I stood on the edge of a river. The water was fast and deep. It terrified fascinated terrified me.

There was nothing I would’ve loved more than to hurl myself in, let myself be carried away by the current. The thrill of submersion, of absolute surrender…

Sometimes I would let myself leap. I would find myself swept off my feet and for a moment it was beautiful. Then I would panic and flail my way back to the surface, crawl back onto the shore, gasping for air and making promises I couldn’t wouldn’t keep.

Fear. Motherhood. Fear.

Responsibility.

That’s not for you. That’s for other people. Stop being selfish.

Life and love consumes you.

You tell yourself stories.

Not the stories you want to tell - the ones that make it okay, noble, even, to resist.

Everyone knows what happens when you listen to the Siren’s song.

So I spent a lot of time with my toes curled over the edge, watching the water rushing by.

Susan G. Wooldridge calls it the undersong. It’s the Everything that lives below the surface. It’s the neverending flow of creative Source, the connection to our soul, our wild, unconscious mind, the current to which we all have access.

You just have to step in.

There are two ways you can write (paint/sculpt/compose/sing/dance): you can make things up, or you can let things in/through.

The first can be quite effective - to a point.

The second changes everything.

Life was complicated for a very long time. It still is, but there’s a measure of peace that wasn’t there before.

Healing. Forgiveness. Radical acceptance.

Time to dream again.

Time to let go of the wrong stories and pay attention to the right ones.

Once upon a time, I stand at the edge of a river.

The water is deep and fast.

It fascinates terrifies fascinates me.

Fascinate: transitive verb

1. to transfix, to hold spellbound by an irresistible power

2. (obsolete) bewitch

In some stories, the Sirens are Persephone’s friends.

If you got this far, thank you for indulging me . 😉

Things are shifting in my creative life, rather seismically, it seems. I can’t point to one particular thing to have caused it; I suspect there are a thousand small synchronicities converging at last. Suffice it to say, there’s a sense of freedom now that hasn’t been there for a very long time.

Natalie Goldberg would call it wild mind.

(I have other names for it, as do other people, but that’s a story for another day.)

I’ll attempt to write about it - hopefully more coherently - but for now, there’s just what fell out of my fingers, this perfect autumn Saturday afternoon.

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread…

- William Butler Yeats, The Song of Wandering Aengus

more, soonish,

~m. xo