Happy 2019 Everyone! I hope that your entrance into this new calendar year is full of direction and promise.
I realize that I neglected to establish the scope of this blog in my first post, so I wanted to take the opportunity this week to do so before we journey any further together. The possibilities within my own studio and herbal practice often feel quite endless, and it takes constant reflection to determine what is exploration for the sake of expanding a line of thought, and what is distraction from the collective narrative, pursued for the sake of novelty.
The fact that I have tasked myself with writing this weekly blog is laughable to a part of myself that does not take the practice of writing seriously within my own work. So I guess that part of me was doubtful I’d get to even writing this second post. Ha! I showed them.
That point takes me to one common aspect of the creative process, so I’d like to include it in the scope of my blogging/writing efforts: doubt. Am I doing this the right way? Good question. I believe that I will always be the foremost authority on the integrity of my work, so when I try to insert a question of what is right to do vs. what is wrong, I realize that I’ve been asking the wrong question, but I’m glad when I can get that question out of the way. A great follow up question I like to ask is, “Does this make sense?” Is the new idea finding a connection back to, or building in relationship to earlier themes in the work? So, yes, I think doubt is more a matter of not yet having arrived at the right question, versus doing anything that is actually bad or wrong. And, while we’re on the subject, I really love meditating on feelings of wrongness in my studio work, because we all have shame and regret. I like looking to the things we have in common so that we can be in conversation with one another and the work.
We all know what it feels like to experience regret. We all know some version of what that feels like for us. There is something that feels so deliciously right to me about pointing those feelings of wrongness back to us through the peculiarly distorted lens of my own perspective. Some things that are wrong, are unquestionably so, or at least they feel that way to many of us. And this is where good, bad, wrong, right all dip into morality. I think my own practice needs to maintain some reference to a moral compass, even if sometimes it’s just to take the piss out of that compass. Wait…what am I talking about? This line of thinking doesn’t all quite make sense. Not yet. I’ll come back to this in later posts, because time here is limited.
In order to con myself into writing regular weekly posts - at least for now - I am limiting the amount of time that I allow myself to work on each post. I can only spend an hour and a half on writing and editing. No more, no less. Whatever can be typed and edited for grammar and some semblance of reason within this time restriction gets posted. I don’t intend for any reader to take what I write from one week to the next as my supreme thesis on any one topic. These are my thoughts today, and next week, my thoughts will be focused on a new line of self-imposed investigation. This is a conversation.
Some weekly posts will be longer than others. I am thinking right now about how short this post feels in relation to my first one. Why can’t I get my thoughts more together like I did in that first one? I’m gonna blame that on the holiday season. I think they, the holidays, can really draw some of the creative, productive focus from us, and that’s okay. Passing from one season to the next takes energy from us that we might otherwise be expending differently in mid-Fall or mid-Winter, and so on. It feels right to recognize and honor that transition with concentration and attention. I’ll be back next week, with a different energy and focus, and so on.
Establishing the scope of this blog will be ongoing.