"In all the questioning about what makes a writer, and especially perhaps the personal essayist, I have seen little reference to this fact; namely, that the brain has become a kind of unseen artist’s loft. There are pictures that hang askew, pictures with outlines barely chalked in, pictures torn, pictures the artist has striven unsuccessfully to erase, pictures that only emerge and glow in a certain light. They have all been teleported, stolen, as it were, out of time. They represent no longer the sequential flow of ordinary memory. They can be pulled about on easels, examined within the mind itself. The act is not one of total recall like that of the professional mnemonist. Rather it is the use of things extracted from their context in such a way that they have become the unique possession of a single life. The writer sees back to these transports alone, bare, perhaps few in number, but endowed with a symbolic life. He cannot obliterate them. He can only drag them about, magnify or reduce them as his artistic sense dictates, or juxtapose them in order to enhance a pattern. One thing he cannot do. He cannot destroy what will not be destroyed; he cannot determine in advance what will enter his mind."
~Loren Eiseley
...in someone else's terms: "Loren Eiseley likened the brain of a writer to 'an unseen artist's loft' in which 'pictures from the past' were stored and brought forth to be magnified or reduced in order to form a pattern."
~Loren Eiseley
...in someone else's terms: "Loren Eiseley likened the brain of a writer to 'an unseen artist's loft' in which 'pictures from the past' were stored and brought forth to be magnified or reduced in order to form a pattern."
~from the Loren Eiseley Society website
This speaks to me. To envision my mind as an artist's loft, not cluttered but decorated with creations and arrangements, some half-finished, some crumpled and intended to be forgotten, others pinned to the wall and referenced daily...that feels about right. They're not all my own arrangements and creations; some are collected from other artist's oeuvres. My own streams of words and twists of the pen and catalogs of associative properties combine with words strung together by others that have grabbed me from yellowing pages in worn-out paperbacks or through shoddy headphones connected to whatever device at the moment is delivering my dose of vocalized poetry...collectively, those curated snips and segments decorate the space that I report to daily to do my work...unnamed work, unpaid work, undefined work, but work that I know, without question, is imperative for me to engage in.
Sometimes I write to document ephemeral feelings or unseen trials that despite their demureness carry rich and valuable messages. At other moments I write in pursuit of my own deep inner wisdom which, in its coquette moments, demands to be pursued at a frenetic pace with scribbles from micro-tip pens on college-ruled paper or, in its deep and sensual moments , asks for a slow and deliberate approach by way of long rambling poetic sentences calligraphed into a sketchbook...
But back to what Eiseley was saying. The dragging, the magnifying, the reducing, the juxtaposing to enhance patterns. For me this looks quite literally like using scissors and tape and push pins and post-its and vibrantly colored markers and highlighters and page tabs as it they were borne into my possession. Carrying notebooks and favorite pens with me all the time to capture insights and clarities and questions that can arise at any given moment from any given source. Using my bedroom walls and refrigerator door as giant bulletin boards. Reading 4-5 books at one time. Ingesting as much visual inspiration as possible (often this means looking out with a sense of wonderment and not expectation and asking many questions of and listening for answers from the natural world surrounding me, listening to and keeping beat with the rhythms of the earth). Soundtracking my days with poets who sing to a place in me that feels untouched. Spending 30-60 minutes a night writing, just writing. About anything and everything that comes to mind. Then rereading all that and pulling out the good parts. Saving them up for those rare days where I do attempt to collage their disparities together until consistencies resonate and emerge. It's a lengthy process, a chaotic and disorganized one that cannot be directed but that requires deep attention, persistent responsiveness and constant readjustment.
A few years ago I went to a hypnotherapist and the memory from the journey I took that day hangs on the 'referenced-daily' section of the wall in the loft of my mind. I forget what the intention of the journey I took that day was, if there even was one. Eyes closed, situating deeply into the seat of my Self, I set out. The journey began, not too shockingly, in a kitchen. It was the kitchen of an old house...the kind of house with wooden entry floors and curio cabinets and linoleum kitchen floors and a rickety screen door out into the backyard. I was drawn out into the yard and down some stairs. I remember asking that my little cat Ginger come with me; I knew she'd like to be along as I descended into the unknown. Together, we were led, by whom I don't know, but he was kind and elderly and wise, into a basement much like the one I remember from my Grandmother's home in Eastern Pennsylvania. In that basement were dusty Ball jars and warped boxes full of papers and trinkets, all lined up on shelves. There were cobwebs all over and a faint musty smell permeating the air, the smell of imprisoned wisdom and shrouded memories. I picked up some of the glass and blew its dust off, then started to shine it with my sleeves, revealing brilliant and reflective surfaces. In my searching the shelves I also came across something that I can only now remember as solid mylar heart, deeply red. I told my guide that I'd like to bring my discoveries into the light. He encouraged me and I brought to the surface my excavated repositories, presumably for further shining so their luminescence could speak. My journey came to an end as consciousness regained control, but I later found a trinket that reminded me of the mylar heart I discovered and that heart hangs above me now as I sleep. And I think often of bringing dusty brilliance to the surface and unburdening it so that it may again shine. And I think of that when I write. And it ties into what Eiseley was saying about bringing forth pictures from the past and magnifying them....
More to come, slumber insists I concede...
But back to what Eiseley was saying. The dragging, the magnifying, the reducing, the juxtaposing to enhance patterns. For me this looks quite literally like using scissors and tape and push pins and post-its and vibrantly colored markers and highlighters and page tabs as it they were borne into my possession. Carrying notebooks and favorite pens with me all the time to capture insights and clarities and questions that can arise at any given moment from any given source. Using my bedroom walls and refrigerator door as giant bulletin boards. Reading 4-5 books at one time. Ingesting as much visual inspiration as possible (often this means looking out with a sense of wonderment and not expectation and asking many questions of and listening for answers from the natural world surrounding me, listening to and keeping beat with the rhythms of the earth). Soundtracking my days with poets who sing to a place in me that feels untouched. Spending 30-60 minutes a night writing, just writing. About anything and everything that comes to mind. Then rereading all that and pulling out the good parts. Saving them up for those rare days where I do attempt to collage their disparities together until consistencies resonate and emerge. It's a lengthy process, a chaotic and disorganized one that cannot be directed but that requires deep attention, persistent responsiveness and constant readjustment.
A few years ago I went to a hypnotherapist and the memory from the journey I took that day hangs on the 'referenced-daily' section of the wall in the loft of my mind. I forget what the intention of the journey I took that day was, if there even was one. Eyes closed, situating deeply into the seat of my Self, I set out. The journey began, not too shockingly, in a kitchen. It was the kitchen of an old house...the kind of house with wooden entry floors and curio cabinets and linoleum kitchen floors and a rickety screen door out into the backyard. I was drawn out into the yard and down some stairs. I remember asking that my little cat Ginger come with me; I knew she'd like to be along as I descended into the unknown. Together, we were led, by whom I don't know, but he was kind and elderly and wise, into a basement much like the one I remember from my Grandmother's home in Eastern Pennsylvania. In that basement were dusty Ball jars and warped boxes full of papers and trinkets, all lined up on shelves. There were cobwebs all over and a faint musty smell permeating the air, the smell of imprisoned wisdom and shrouded memories. I picked up some of the glass and blew its dust off, then started to shine it with my sleeves, revealing brilliant and reflective surfaces. In my searching the shelves I also came across something that I can only now remember as solid mylar heart, deeply red. I told my guide that I'd like to bring my discoveries into the light. He encouraged me and I brought to the surface my excavated repositories, presumably for further shining so their luminescence could speak. My journey came to an end as consciousness regained control, but I later found a trinket that reminded me of the mylar heart I discovered and that heart hangs above me now as I sleep. And I think often of bringing dusty brilliance to the surface and unburdening it so that it may again shine. And I think of that when I write. And it ties into what Eiseley was saying about bringing forth pictures from the past and magnifying them....
More to come, slumber insists I concede...
