February 2020
The 16th.
“Be prepared for strangeness and for new ways, my bears.” —The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
I had a moment last night (or was it early this morning?) when I felt like I needed to start investing in things that make my soul come alive. It was such an intense feeling, like I have been slipping into a black and white world of strategy and productivity and appearances and my soul is dying for some color. I almost ordered Care of the Soul and Romancing the Ordinary last night because those are the books I think of when that subject comes up for me.
I think all of this is coming up because I am starting to feel the pressure cooker of owning/running a business heat up. I get afraid that I can’t handle it, that I’m going to sacrifice the last scraps of my sanity for this thing. And all I want to do is something with my hands. Something where I can surround myself with beauty. Something I can succeed at, that’s slightly less Sisyphean.
I won’t escape into that fantasy, but I do need to stop and make sure the foundations that make life worth living are strong. And let my feelings flow through me. Every one of them, especially the ones I don’t want to feel.
The 17th.
“Many progressive management gurus ask that the person’s soul life be included fully in their work but imagine that the vast, hidden, Dionysian underworld of the soul erupting into everyday work life can only be positive. The darker side of human energy is very often sanitized and explained away as the product of bad work environments. Change the environment, they say, and all good things will fall into place, but this displays an untested middle-class faith in the innate goodness of humanity that is only partially true, one doomed to fail when faced with the terrifying necessity of the soul to break, if necessary, every taboo and wend its vital way onward, irrespective of family, corporation, deadline, or career.” —David Whyte, The Heart Aroused
All of this is so good for me this morning. The truth is, the cost of happiness is accepting the things we fear will make us unhappy. We can’t pursue a fantasy where we’ve removed all unpleasantness or risk of unpleasantness. To do so is impossible, but not only that, we are attempting to sanitize the fertilizer of the soul. We are trying to rid ourselves of the very things our souls require.
It’s especially interesting when I think about this in the context of what I’ve been trying to do at &yet. My first priority has been to keep us safe. But maybe my first priority should be to keep our souls alive. Maybe I need to allow for the risks we are taking and not explain them as the most strategic thing we could do.
The 24th.
“We cannot neglect our interior fire without damaging ourselves in the process. A certain vitality shoulders inside us irrespective of whether it has an outlet or not. When it remains unlit, the body fills with dense smoke…the toxic components of the smoke are resentment, blame, complaint, self-justification, and martyrdom.” —David Whyte, The Heart Aroused
I’m so grateful for this perspective. I can see it in every pattern of my work/creative life and &yet’s. We kindle the fire, we get scared, we fall back on safer, cooler things. But does that work either? We lose creative progress to give ourselves respite from the fears that accompany it. Or at least we try to. The respite isn’t really real; it is only our hope that is dampened.