Click here to listen to Creativity, Faith, and the Turning Tide in the season 2 archives on buzzsprout
“If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.”
—-William James
The words above are the epigraph to a chapter in Annie Dillard’s book “The Writing Life.” In this podcast, I share a story from Dillard that helps me greet the day and take up my work despite uncertain outcomes. I hope that it does the same for you.
I’ve also included two poems written by members of our Myth Matters story circle. Thank you to Dick Sumpter and Elise Kost for sharing your hearts and thoughts in this way!
A poem is so much more than a string of words. You’re invited to email me the text of a poem, or a recording of yourself reading a poem, if you have one that you’d like to share with other listeners.
Thanks for listening, and keep the mystery in your life alive.
Transcript of “Creativity, Faith, and the Turning Tide”
Hello, everyone and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and why myth matters to our lives today I’m your host, and personal mythologist Catherine Svehla., Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle.
I’m checking in with you a little bit earlier than our usual bi-weekly schedule because I came across a little story that Annie Dillard tells in her book “The Writing Life,” that I really want to share with you. It’s been a companion of mine on my morning walks in the desert recently, and it’s helping me remember that creation and destruction truly are two sides of the same coin, that dissolution and disintegration are part of the creative process. This Dillard piece also reminds me that when you step into a creative process without a clear sense of the outcome, when you begin with an interest in the process and a willingness to see where it’s going to go, a willingness to see and to bring into the world something that’s totally new, well, that kind of creative process is an act of faith.
Now, before I turned to Dillard I want to read a poem that was sent to me by Dick Sumpter, who is a member of this story circle and lives in the Kansas City area. Thank you to all of you, who sent me poems to share on the podcast. Please continue to do that. You can either send me a poem that you would like to hear me read, or you can send a recording of yourself reading it.
02:28. This poem is titled “On Discovering a Person,” and was written by Dick Sumpter.
On Discovering a Person
Like a special place in the woods I’ve come to call mine:
Where I know every tree –
how they’ve bent with the wind’s weight
till by its touch they arch over,
roofing a stream’s deep places.
A place where I feel I fit –
like a smooth river stone
whose heft and roundness fills your hand
Just to be there is good – and I should.
It’s where I belong.
Where light lances through leaf-roof
and stipples the shade
with shafts that shatter
on wood
and water,
rim-lighting rises and shadowing shallows;
shapes curving, converging, in hollows,
and then emerging as lines
tracing a view
that’s familiar, but new
each time I explore.
A place that calls, “Come! Come as you are! Come see!
Come and be!,” and I am.
Dick Sumpter, 1964
03:41. “On Discovering a Person” by Dick Sumpter. Thank you, Dick, for sharing that beautiful poetic meditation with all of us. And now for a little Annie Dillard. As I mentioned earlier, you can find this in her book titled “The Writing Life.”
The back story here is that Annie Dillard used to go out to the San Juan Islands every summer and one of her friends out on the islands was a painter, a man named Paul Glenn. Dillard says that she went out to visit Glenn one morning and they started talking about his work, and he told her that he had started experimenting with a new process. He was dripping colors on water and then pulling the paper up through them and getting a range of effects. Some that were, you know, not anything to get too excited about and some things that were very interesting to him. He shared with her his intent to keep experimenting and trying to understand the nuances of this process, and he also told her that there were many possible uses for this paper too, so once he got the hang of this new painting technique, there were going to be many other questions and possibilities to explore.
05:28. Dillard left at the end of the season, and when she came back the next summer, she discovered that Glenn had spent the whole winter out on the islands. She went to go and visit him, and while they were talking, of course, she asked him how his work was going. Glenn mentioned another man, a man named Ferrar Burn who used to live on the island, and proceeded to tell Dillard a little bit about him and where he lived and what he looked like. This was a man who had died about 20 years earlier.
Dillard thought to herself, “Okay, well, apparently Paul doesn’t want to talk to me about his artwork. Fair enough, right? That’s the prerogative of every creative person.” So let me turn to Dillard’s words now.
“‘One evening, he went on, ‘Ferrar saw a log floating out in the channel. It looked yellow, like Alaska cedar; he hoped it was Alaska cedar. He rowed out to get it.’ Everyone on the island scavenged the valuable logs for building. If the logs did not wash up on the beach, it took a motorboat to get them in; they were heavy in the water.”
“‘It was a high tide slack. Ferrar saw the log, launched this little skiff at Fishery Point, and rowed out into the channel. Sure enough, it was that beautiful Alaska cedar, that pale yellow wood–just a short log about eight feet, or he never would have tried it without a motor. I guess he thought he could row it in while the tide was still slack. He tied onto the log’– such logs often have a big iron staple hammered into one end–‘and started rowing back home with it. He had about twenty feet of line on it. He started rowing home, and the tide caught him.'”
“From Paul’s window, I could look north up the beach and see Fishery Point. One of Ferrar’s sons still used that old rowboat– a little eight foot pram, now painted yellow and blue. Paul’s blue eyes caught mine again.”
“‘The tide started going out, and it caught that log and dragged it south. Ferrar kept rowing back north toward his house. The tide pulled him south down the strait here’– Paul indicated the long sweep of salt water in front of his house—‘from one end to the other. Ferrar kept rowing toward Fishery Point. He might as well have tied onto a whale. He was rowing to the north and moving fast to the south. He traveled stern first. He wanted to be going home, so toward home he kept pulling. When the sun set at about nine o’clock, he’d swept south the length of this beach, rowing north all the way. When the moon rose a few hours later–he told us– he saw he’d swept south past the island altogether and out into the channel between here and Stuart Island. He had been rowing through those dark hours. He continued to row away from Stuart Island and continued to see it get closer.'”
“‘Then he felt the tide go slack, and then he felt it coming in again. The current had reversed.'”
“‘Ferrar kept rowing in the half moonlight. The tide poured in from the south. He kept rowing north for home– only now the log was with him. He and his log were both floating on the current, and the current was bearing them up and carrying them like platters. It started getting light at about three o’clock, and he rowed back past this island’s southern tip. The sun came up, and he rowed all the length of this beach. The tide brought him back on home. His wife, June, saw him coming; she’d been curious about him all night.'”
“Paul had a wide, loose smile. He shifted in his chair. He raised his coffee cup, as if to say, Cheers.”
“‘He pulled up on his own beach. They got the log rolled beyond the tideline. I saw him a few days later. Everybody knew that he’d been carried out almost to Stuart Island, trying to bring in a log. Everybody knew he just kept rowing in the same direction. I asked him about it. He said he had a little backache. I didn’t see the palms of his hands.'”
“Paul looked into his empty coffee cup, pleased, and then looked through the window, still smiling. I started to carry my coffee cup to the sink, but he motioned me down. He wasn’t finished.”
“‘So that’s how my work is going,’ he said. What? “You asked how my work is going,’ he said. “That’s how it’s going. The current’s got me. Feels like I’m about in the middle of the channel now. I just keep at it. I just keep hoping the tide will turn and bring me in.'”
12:00. Just keep at it. Keep hoping the tide will turn and bring you, bring me, bring us in. No one knows what is being created right now. No one knows what may come into being. We do have many stories, the old myths and stories like this one from Dillard, that tell us about the process of creation and encourage us to make that leap of faith.
And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. I want to close with a recording of another beautiful poem that I received. This one is titled “Union” and it’s being read by the poet Elise Kost, who lives here in the high desert. The poem is from her recently published book, “Temple of Changes,” and I will be posting a link to Elise’s website if you would like more information about the book. It’s also available here locally at the Grateful Desert. Thank you so much my friends, for your support of this podcast, in whatever form it takes— from sharing it with others to being in touch with me, commenting on the Facebook page, joining me on Patreon. I’m so grateful for all of it. And now here is Elise’s recording. Thank you so much Elise.
13:54 “Union” by Elise Kost.
“Judging the problem, even your own doubt, or why, when, where,
with whom you close your heart is not useful for your joy,
wholeness or sense of belonging.
Nor is it useful for the problem itself,
or any darkness anywhere.
Breathe softly.
Rest in the unknown we all walk.
Step gently like the leopard.
Be fierce grace with your truth,
whiskers spanning both shadow and light.
The world needs your wisdom.
Speak bravely,
share generously the gift of your wild and sweet love.
The space between us is smaller than you know.
In fact, there is no such thing.
Trees root and stars shine.
What exists beyond the fragrance of fascination,
reveals itself only in union.”
by Elise Kost
Useful links:
Elise Kost and “Temple of Changes” at https://templeofchanges.com/poetry
Annie Dillard and “The Writing Life” at https://bookshop.org/books/the-writing-life/9780060919887
As a matter of principle, I’m no longer using Amazon. Bookshop.org supports authors and independent booksellers and is one of many alternatives. Maybe you can make such a move too?
Annie Dillard’s website: http://www.anniedillard.com
