Nothing, Nope, Nada: Emptiness is the Next Big Thing for Me

Literature in Western culture emerged out of the Greek festival of Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy. Plays came into existence because of the need for entertainment at these festivals, amphitheaters were built to stage the plays, and Dionysus came to be associated with creative inspiration as well as wine, which is, after all, a spirit of a sort.

When Dionysus is sculpted, his face typically looks mask-like. This is also the origin of the Druidic "green man" we see depicted in garden ornaments. This representation means something: that behind the eyes of Dionysus is emptiness, or at least, a seeming void which, if you know your science, is never truly empty in spite of how it appears.

The Mysteries of Dionysus, a religion active at the time of Christ, taught that it's only when you're empty, or "emptied out" and, therefore, open to something new, that you receive direction. So the way to creative inspiration is through giving into instinct and feeling (at least part of the time) and the apparent emptiness that often follows so that something new has a chance to come in.

It's a little like burning the prairie to destroy the invasive weeds so the wildflower seeds have a chance to get some sunlight, germinate and grow. It's also similar to what people strive to reach in various forms of Eastern meditation. The idea in Mahayana ("Great Vehicle") Buddhism is that nothing has a self, a soul or an essence. You can read this two ways: either as if no thing has a self, soul or essence, or, as if nothing-ness has a dimension or identity of its own, just like "something-ness."

The last couple weeks emptied me out pretty thoroughly as two relationships that had been meaningful to me for many years died. One hit some bumps a few months back, and I let it ride, but decided to call the person over the weekend and get her take on it. I'm glad I did. I agree with some of what she said but not all, and after thinking about it I realize we haven't had much in common for quite a while. It's hard to let go of what's familiar, but it's time to move on.

I'm not as sure what happened with the other friendship, though I could list a lot of passive-aggressive hiccups felt on this end, ebbing and flowing well over 10 years. That's not to say I'm perfect--I'm actually quite sure I've not been what she thought I should be for some time, and it was mutual. This last go-round I asked for something I thought we'd already agreed on. The answer I got back befuddled me--like she'd read a different email than the one I sent--so I asked for clarification and whether something was wrong. But I heard no more. Whether she gets over it or not is irrelevant now; I'm done. I'm ready for something new.

I had a dream several years back that gave advice relevant here. An inner voice said "Coppa di guare, god of nothing." Coppa di guare, I discovered through a little research, is Italian (which I've never studied) for "cup of healing, cure or recovery." So healing means residing in the place of nothing.

A poet I studied with once told me that it was a poet's job to do that very thing as a regular practice, and not everyone who tried to go there could make it. "Once you reach it," he added, "then you have to learn to be comfortable living there, lost and empty."

I actually find it quite easy to get lost but hard to be comfortable there. The world sidetracks me all the time. I worry about the perceptions of people I don't even know. Sometimes I don't feel all that useful because I'm not writing that much. I spent so much of my life defining myself by what I did and how much I earned that now I'm self-conscious about working at something our culture disregards because it pays little and requires much.

And I think it's oddly interesting that right now is the time this one relationship chose to break down, given that I'm producing more new work than I have in years.

The Romantic poet John Keats called this quality of emptiness negative capability and described it as "capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."

Well, okay, I'm not quite there; I have uncertainty, mystery and doubt down pat, but I still reach after fact and reason, and I'm pretty irritable about it--ask my husband.

My goal, though, if I can master it like Keats, is to take part in the life of the hawk shopping for a sparrow breakfast in the shrubs beneath the window over my desk.

Or the squirrel running back and forth between his home in the trees behind the houses across the street and my front lawn, where he buries and excavates meals day in, day out.

But it's impossible to do when people are playing mind games with you.

Sometimes I wonder if I pursue relationships that aren't good for me to give me an excuse for not working at my craft.

"A poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence," Keats said, "because he has no identity--he is continually in for--and filling some other body." Another poet, Mary Oliver, who writes about Keats and negative capability in A Poetry Handbook, says that this quality "is the vehicle that holds, then transfers from the page to the reader an absolutely essential quality of real feeling. Poetry cannot happen without it..."

I'm not presumptuous enough to put myself and my writing alongside either Keats or Oliver, but they are pretty good standard-bearers, and theirs is the path I try to stumble down daily. Wish me luck on my journey to nowhere, and hope that emptiness does, indeed, find me. Maybe we'll meet along the way.

Pearl Diver

Make a wish as the oyster opens:
No story will come of it.

The sea is broken and
the salt water is too deep.

No one really knows how to breathe
in the bed the ocean made.

You are on your own.

PROMPT: Magnetic word tiles selected on the basis of what appealed to me that day. (I have LOTS!)

Squirrel Haiku

PROMPT: A rough western equivalent of the Japanese Haiku is a poem of three lines with a syllable pattern of 5-7-5. I used that structure for multiple stanzas on three consecutive days, but I also chose my words from my magnetic tile stash!

1.
Does   he see   me see

him  dig his secret dinner

from my grass and smile?

2.

How to plant seeds so

they feast me   but do not grow?

Maybe the nut knows.

3.
He dances the dirt
as at my window  I spy--

this watch, the day's gift.

Susan Acrostic

Stream
Under
Steel
Answering
Night

PROMPT: Have each person use their first, last or full name to do a name acrostic that helps them introduce themselves to the group. I chose my words using magnetic tiles, which I store sorted in cupcake tins by beginning letters.

If You Want to Write:A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit

by Brenda Ueland

This book first appeared in 1938 when its author was 44 years old. She grew up in Minneapolis, Minn., but lived in Greenwich Village, New York City for a while and rubbed elbows with the likes of Eugene O'Neill. She eventually returned to Minnesota, where she earned a living as a writer, editor and teacher of writing. In her later years, she set an international swimming record for people over-80 and was knighted by the King of Norway. She lived to be 93.

That said, you've likely never heard of Brenda Ueland. I hadn't either until I found a reference to this book in somebody else's book on writing. I liked the excerpt quoted, and I ordered the book. I listed all those quirky tidbits about the author because the book is a bit of a quirk itself. But please understand, I mean that in the most lovely way.

This is a charming, breathless, exuberant book about living in a bigger way as the path to finding the writing life you feel you were always meant to have. The chapter titles alone inspire me: (1) Everybody is talented, original and has something to say; (7) Be careless, reckless! Be a lion, be a pirate, when you write; and finally, (10) Why Women who do too much housework should neglect it for their writing. What's in between the titles is even better!

I initially read this book when I was experiencing a long period of block in my life. Part of dismantling that block involved developing a better understanding of how creativity really works. It isn't "bidden" or "commanded forth" when we are ready to use it, like one knight's sword pulled and pointed at another. Coming from a business and journalism background, that was hard for me to understand. I'd always driven myself, written about things that interested me only mildly or not at all and managed to make them interesting for other people.

But it wore me out after 25 years. Ueland helped. She didn't think much of the ways of business either, and she made me feel much better about my pulling into myself:

So you see the imagination needs moodling--long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas, such as: "I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget." But they have no slow, big ideas....If good ideas do not come at once, or for a long time, do not be troubled at all. Wait for them. Put down the little ideas however insignificant they are. But do not feel, any more, guilty about idleness and solitude. (pp. 32-33)

Mostly, Ueland says, we need to learn to trust ourselves and not judge ourselves, at least not too soon--both principles that fit well with the Amherst Writes & Artists philosophy I teach in my workshops. She suggests we "prime" our imagination each day like a pump, using a splash of solitude and idleness to keep the waters flowing. I couldn't agree more.

With that said, I'll leave off writing. I've got some moodling to attend to. When you get yours in, then and only then, read her book. Finish it only if you absolutely can't put it down. I'm guessing that's the way she'd want it.

Things I Didn't See Today

PROMPT: The title, course! This prompt is actually one you could use over and over with the same writers because each day we miss new things.

I didn't see the ash tree

outside the window where I write.

I didn't notice that its leaves fell weeks before
in a shower of gold that set
the rest of autumn sparking.

Zeus wore such a guise

to visit Danae in her cell, and so
Perseus was conceived.
I had forgotten.

I had forgotten how once
I dreamed a golden shower,
light dancing down into my sleep.
Loosed from the bonds of matter
it free-fell into a purple land.
So long ago it was
I had forgotten how I woke up
feeling warmed by love.

I didn't see the leaves
huddle at the curbs this year,
ready to be swept away and burned
as fuel for the winter to come.

I didn't see the buds

already taking shape on
the undressed branches
of the ash.

Chicken Stock

Chickens don't get
the sweet respect they earn
every day.

It cannot be easy to give up
all those eggs or
to watch their more robust sisters
become someone's dinner.

Free-range, fresh, fluffed,
raw, cleaned, roasted or fried--
the story of their lives
clucks secret sentences
onto makeshift menus
for The Man:

Feel-good fiction to comfort
the breast of friends.

PROMPT: Magnetic word tiles selected on the basis of what appealed to me that day. (I have LOTS!)