The other day, I was talking to a wizard about feeling creatively blocked. It’s not a bad blockage, I said, it’s more like a cauldron filling slowly to the brim, boiling and building up the pressure until it finally cracks open from the heat. Spilling everywhere. But that time hasn’t arrived yet. I told the wizard I had a writing deadline, but no words. He said: “Just write one sentence.”
After he left, I took a pen to paper for one single sentence. It went:
“Why do you need to sleep so much? Is it to hold the weight of this time?”
And then another sentence rang in my mind, as if trying to answer:
“Let this darkness be a bell tower” – from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Then I thought of a picture I made some weeks ago, which reminds me of the simultaneity of sweetness and sorrow. Holding both of these truths close to my heart. Resting, whenever possible, with the weight of it all.
I couldn’t keep the full Rilke poem from you, especially when my own words are still simmering in the cauldron of time. This poem was translated from German by Joanna Macy:
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.– Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
This is me writing one sentence. Just one sentence at a time. A tiny bell in the orchestra of unimaginable noise and quiet heartwarming harmonies. Ringing out towards you, hoping it reaches you ringing out there in this uncontainable night as well.
I recently discovered a rendition of this poem set to song, you can find it here.
Curious about the work of this wizard with sage advice? Find his podcast here and his website here.
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