Sneak up

"Sneak up on your material.
Don't go crashing after it through the forest
with a machete.
Sit down,
be quiet,
let the material catch up with you."

Carolyn See, Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers

See that? It flashes by in my mind every once in awhile. Wait for it ... wait for it ... look! There it is again. Like a falling star - I have to be looking sort of out of the side of my eye - using my peripheral vision. But every once in awhile, I see it. The creative act of writing (or painting or sculpting or making music) is a religious - no ... it's a spiritual experience. The act of creativity always requires the practice of inner silence -- or ... um ... inner readiness. Inner listening. It does not require the kind of readiness that can only take place somewhere, someday, in some idealized setting where nothing will intrude. No, creation needs only the kind of inner readiness that sees and openly welcomes each small particle and every open space - not looking for ways to fill the space, but being willing to inhabit it. The act of creation is love with breath in it.