Stained with Light

It is six A.M., and I am working. I am absentminded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt.

Mary Oliver

I listened recently to an interview with poet and writer, David Whyte. I love Whyte's insistence on a fierce and disciplined conversation with what he calls the frontier between what you think is you and what you think is not you. And I wonder, where are the edges along which new frontiers shimmer and call to me? In what ways do I retreat from them, and how can I engage with these so that I keep moving into a more spacious sense of who I am and what I am here to do?

Oliver speaks of being stained with light. It's a beautiful line, calling to mind the way writers are often stained with ink, unconcerned with anything but the joy of their work. But the words reference stained glass windows too, the notion that Oliver herself is a window through which light enters the world, light in the form of her words, bright and luminous on the page. The association with cathedrals is a reminder that there is something sacred about this work.

In his interview, Whyte is asked about the struggle writers often have with giving themselves permission to write, and he speaks of the challenge we all experience to simply allow ourselves to settle into what we love, into delight. As a deeply introverted creative I often find myself worrying about the meals without mustard, the flat tires, the forgotten social obligations. And in failing to give myself more consistently to creative work, I retreat from the very frontiers that enlarge my capacity to give with integrity and grace.

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time. These are strong words (again from Oliver), but bracing ones. If I'm honest, some of my resistance has to do with fear and vulnerability. Creative work of value is of necessity revealing of the self. I fear been seen; I fret about the things undone because I am engaged with creative work instead of other responsibilities, but I fear regret more.

I leave you with a few final words from David Whyte: What if the world is holding its breath -waiting for you to take the place that only you can fill?

With appreciation,

Carri.

P.S. You can find the interview with Whyte here. Oliver's wise and powerful words are from the essay Of Power and Time, in Upstream.