Lovely piece. On a surface level I have to admit that I often reflexively read and write to re-discover what I already know, to confirm. Maybe even collude? After about 6 pages in my journal tho I run out of things to say and that’s when it gets interesting … if I make it that far. I often don’t. The first six pages still helps me sort and cleanse. But yeah, the deeper aspects of writing come through after that. And now I have to ask myself, is there a similar process with my reading? When do I read to discover what’s beyond? Thanks for the prompt to this meditation
I know what you mean about the sorting and cleansing function of the first burst of journal writing, followed by the potential appearance of something deeper. For me, linking my search there, and also in my other writing, to my felt quest as a reader was a bridge-spanning moment.
I too am attracted to writings that mirror what I feel and think and help me to become more clearly conscious of what passes through me. At the same time I look for voices capable of busting all my presuppositions, opening up unimagined perspectives. In my attempts at creative writing I similarly try to start from the core of what I feel and then to let it take me to conclusions I had not expected. Could these two so different experiences actually emanate from the same spiritual process, a struggle like a serpent's molting?
I think you're definitely intuiting things clearly, Gabriele. I'm inclined to say that the things we feel ourselves naturally attracted to, and that we feel a natural affinity with and for, serve within their further reaches to reveal the very unimagined perspectives and vistas that you mention -- if, that is, we engage with them honestly and openly, and let their natural self-transcendence reveal itself. Nothing lives, dies, or exists unto itself. All things point back toward the ultimate transcendence, the ultimate Other that turns out to be nothing other than our very own being, which we allowed ourselves to believe had been obscured and even lost for a time by a projected dream of separation. Put more concisely: Our very longing, the core desire that we're most familiar with, always leads beyond itself, and leads us beyond ourselves, if we learn to focus on it and let it serve as the spiritual and ontological GPS that it truly is.
Wonderful to hear that this post connected with you in the very way it describes, Melanie. I'm glad it resonates.
I feel like I’ve been on a parallel path, still searching for that daimon. Thank you for opening my mind further on this subject.
Appreciate you, DT. It feels good to know that other people understand from the inside, doesn't it?
It does.
Lovely piece. On a surface level I have to admit that I often reflexively read and write to re-discover what I already know, to confirm. Maybe even collude? After about 6 pages in my journal tho I run out of things to say and that’s when it gets interesting … if I make it that far. I often don’t. The first six pages still helps me sort and cleanse. But yeah, the deeper aspects of writing come through after that. And now I have to ask myself, is there a similar process with my reading? When do I read to discover what’s beyond? Thanks for the prompt to this meditation
I know what you mean about the sorting and cleansing function of the first burst of journal writing, followed by the potential appearance of something deeper. For me, linking my search there, and also in my other writing, to my felt quest as a reader was a bridge-spanning moment.
I too am attracted to writings that mirror what I feel and think and help me to become more clearly conscious of what passes through me. At the same time I look for voices capable of busting all my presuppositions, opening up unimagined perspectives. In my attempts at creative writing I similarly try to start from the core of what I feel and then to let it take me to conclusions I had not expected. Could these two so different experiences actually emanate from the same spiritual process, a struggle like a serpent's molting?
I think you're definitely intuiting things clearly, Gabriele. I'm inclined to say that the things we feel ourselves naturally attracted to, and that we feel a natural affinity with and for, serve within their further reaches to reveal the very unimagined perspectives and vistas that you mention -- if, that is, we engage with them honestly and openly, and let their natural self-transcendence reveal itself. Nothing lives, dies, or exists unto itself. All things point back toward the ultimate transcendence, the ultimate Other that turns out to be nothing other than our very own being, which we allowed ourselves to believe had been obscured and even lost for a time by a projected dream of separation. Put more concisely: Our very longing, the core desire that we're most familiar with, always leads beyond itself, and leads us beyond ourselves, if we learn to focus on it and let it serve as the spiritual and ontological GPS that it truly is.
Yes! This! We are what we read and write… or is it that we write and read what we are?
The clear answer to your paired duality or complementarity of questions is: Yes. 🙂