A few months ago, my energy was high and I felt productive, engaged with everything around me, inspired, connected. This is the life cycle-the Springtime of the creative process which makes me thrilled to be alive, affirmed on my path, open to all that wants to pour in and fill me up, allowing me to give back out and keep the generous circle moving.
When the death cycle begins, that Skeleton Woman time when the moon disappears for a few days, I feel depleted, blocked, disconnected, disengaged. I don't even want to be in the same room with anyone. It feels like grieving. Nothing works. The discomfort of being dormant causes me to seek solitude in a near-desperate way.
This has been a fucking hard year. A year of loss and surrender. All of the shedding and letting go of the outmoded has left me feeling stripped, raw, vulnerable. Everything feels outmoded-babies are going out with bathwater left and right.
I ask myself, what am I left with? It's surely how a tree feels when all of it's leaves have fallen off and the bitter cruel of winter shuts down it's warm bark, sending it into dormancy. “Don't look at me!”, I imagine it to say. Which is about how I feel tonight. Leave me alone to sit quietly in the dark and the cold to sit and wait for Spring to come again.
In the early days of pregnancy, it's unbelievable that anything is actually happening in the womb at all, (until the queasy desire to smell nothing and hurl at the thought of everything provides a subtle reminder). Those first six weeks are spent hoping, waiting anxiously, feeling a bit grouchy, peeing on sticks and not believing what they say either way.
Working as an artist to me is no different. It requires so much trust, as well as a courage and willingness to take risks, some which will disappoint. It also brings quiet periods of reflection, nurturing, and contemplation without getting too attached to outcomes. Birthing is exhilarating, but exhausting. It's easy to forget that this cycle never ends. As soon as creative energy comes to fruition for me, it births, and the whole process begins again, in a dark and quiet emptiness. The vacancy of possibility exists, but I cannot see it or even feel it. I can only trust it.
During the various emotions of life-death-life-death-life, trust is the only thing that gets me through the death part. I'm not afraid of the dark and quiet. Perhaps it's that daily life and relationships don't mingle well with the death phase. In moments of doubt, employment as a barista starts to sound heavenly.
I'm wishing I had a profound conclusion to insert here so that I would sound wise and all-figured-out. But this is where I'm at. Standing at the dark, uncomfortable crossroads of stripped and vulnerable. My walking stick, which helps me tap tap my way across the intersection, is forged of trust.
Crossroads, Jen McCleary.
