Hunkering down (My Sacred Life, Sunday)

It has not been unusual for most of my life to be in what my wife would call a "hunker down" phase this time of year, and this year has proven, at least to this point, to be one of hunkering down, too.

I'm glad that, this last September when Julia and I vacationed in her sister's wonderfully rustic, 100-year-old cottage on Lake Michigan, I was reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. She mentioned something in that book, one she wrote as a sort of combination of how-to-write and how-I-live book, which hit home with me.

She said that when writers reach the point where all they feel is an emptiness and a sense that the creative well has gone bone dry, that they can rejoice, not suffer. All it means is, it is time to experience life as the precious, one-moment-at-a-time adventure that it is. Because, my friends, it is the living that fills the well. The noticing of the living we are doing is what builds back the strength in those creative muscles. Anne emphasized that needing to replenish is no cause for alarm at all. It is simply a call to replenish. And, we all have that replenishment all around us, with every breath, with every moment we experience.

By means of this introduction, I'm declaring myself to be empty of anything to write at the moment, and devoid of the energy to seek such topics by doing what many do, which is to sit and write and see what comes out when they don't feel they have anything.

It is no crisis or cause for concern, as I am devoted to the Lamott theory that I have been called to replenish my supplies, to fill my well, to stock the shelves with all the goodies which cause my spirit to soar. It's not about being depressed, but about preparing for the next flight of fancy.

So, this Sacred Life Sunday, I honor those times such as right this minute when I can pause and relax in the emptiness, knowing that the very letting go I am doing will prompt the next opportunity to take wing again. The universe is set up to obliterate any vacuum it finds, so my 'empty' will resolve and transform, as if by magic, with the help of the natural way things are and progress. This is a process which will happen at a rate determined by a flow I plan to be part of. Too long, I struggled to be the determiner of the river's current, it's speed. No more. Flowing is so easy, and Easy World promotes it. If you need me, that's where I will be.

Now if I can only figure out how to enlist universal forces to fill my vehicle's gas tank as magically...