Poem a Day Project
July 30, 2013
Garnette Arledge ©
Easiest Path to
Enlightenment: hearing the stories of the saints and being in their company, p.
60-62, Sai Chitarita of Shirdi Sai Baba
Why? When the world is
spinning the other way to stories of disaster, horror and ugly fantasy? For simply,
we are like a glass bottle thrown into the sea of Earthly life. Open it for the
message yet automatically inhale the aroma-residue of the liquid it once contained.
So I choose to fill my body
bottle and my time with what I love. I am free. Therefore I choose to imagine
spinning a gossamer web, each thread shining with Light. That’s what happens inside
me when I write. Listening to the muse in my fingers and heart, passing over
rocks, Steering the Craft as Ursula
LeGuin said. Sailing on the ocean – that fabric of light, wind, spirit blowing
the plot along whist it will.
Manifest goodness and glory,
dancing on the head of a pin with all the angels. In my case, the pin is a
laptop. Knowing I’m in the lap of Creativity in the straight chair, at my
mother’s desk, with five coffee table books for ergonomics holding up the world
which is the IBM ThinkPad.
Romp! Yes. Effort, of course.
Getting the translation exact later with commas, semicolons and spelling
steadies the course. And miracles can unfold word by word for readers,
partakers, friends who later come on board for the publsihed voyage into the
stars within.
Hearing the stories of saints
not difficult. Once one remembers every living being is a saint come marching
in.
Writing what I hear in the
story of saints, mind fills like a billowing sail, swiftly flying across the
sea of Samsara. Worldly existence in
English. We know it as a boon to the spiritual journey. The body is for
writing, living, loving, breathing. Stalwart the body-boat – Avast me beauties!
Calls the Admiral, steer forth, skim by the storms. Waves may buffet: just more
ballast for the tale. Write on, write on, there’s treasure inside, all sparkly
and dancing, plethora to share. Make each word ecstatic like exultation. Inhale
glory, exhale joy, color it with pain, and anchor it with fear. Plot your
course as you go, or chart it ahead, no matter. Sail on.
Re-hearing, re-reading,
writing the stories of the ‘saints’ is keeping their company. Increase
non-attachment to later marketing and responses. Be indifferent to pleasure and
pain – some of your best writing is awful in the modern sense. Some will be
awe-some but don’t critique yet – just write with the flow of the tides.
Writing a bit after
meditation in the morning leads onward – always more stories come to the
uncluttered mind.
Take refuge in a quiet cove
today inside yourself, take refuge whole-heartedly. It will carry you safely
across the white sea of paper. And the ocean of time.
No ocean, you live in the
mountains? You get to adjust the metaphors, babe. Stories are like baths. They
wash away your cares and woes, enmeshed in the story. And you will want to do
another the next morning. So it is with meditation. Or a walk in the woods. So
it is with writing following meditation, walking or sitting meditation.
Visualize your (wor)ship
giving you grace after meditation. Then, now, run, run to your pen or keyboard
without censure, just write.
Thank you for listening, hope
you didn’t drown in all the metaphors. I’ll tone it down from bliss for the
blog. Or maybe not, be true to your self in writing, in life. Love, Garnette
