Written in the Stars
We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
–Carl Sagan
Every blank page and every working draft holds a secret. I can’t wait to get to the desk in the morning to discover what it is. Some days I excavate it—aha! Most days I make a bit of progress around the edges, and either way I feel like an archeologist on a momentous dig or a birder scanning the spring woods with binoculars or an armored knight questing for the grail. The search itself is thrilling. What will I uncover today?
I might find an insight, a wholeness where previously there was brokenness, the birth of an entirely new image or narrative, or a fresh way of being in the world; I might find a surprising turn of phrase, a personal wound suddenly healed, a new flexibility in my thinking, or a burst of beauty. The secret can be any number of discoveries, sometimes intuited in the background, sometimes conscious. We writers write to find out what we know. The journey is worth it because it makes us more aware.
What exactly is awareness? Since increased awareness is the whole point of spiritual practice, it’s worth asking. I’m fond of a definition from Kathleen Dowling Singh, Buddhist practitioner, transpersonal psychologist, and hospice worker: “‘Who’ I am is awareness.” This understanding, that our essential selfhood somehow resides in awareness, is found in the mystical lineages of all major faith traditions. “We are not so much the details of our biography but the awareness that lives the life,” Singh continues. David Frenette, a Centering Prayer teacher coming from Christianity’s contemplative tradition, says, “Pure awareness is the effect in consciousness of eternity breaking into time.” Or, as Carl Sagan says, it’s the cosmos knowing itself through us.
We can’t think or feel or intuit our way to greater awareness, but we can engage in practices that help us release what stands in the way. Writing does this. How? Why? Despite having given my career to these questions, I still don’t know. But here’s what I’ve observed at my writing desk that reminds me of meditation: Writing slows me down. It invites me to pay closer attention. The discipline of giving languageless experiences language changes me. Writing requires compassion, for myself and my readers. Done well, it demands that I release my attachments—to a draft, to success, to being the center of my readers’ attention. Writing foists me into increasing awareness. It’s exceedingly uncomfortable, painful even, but it feels truthful. In an age of untruths, I’m hungry for this.
If Kathleen Dowling Singh is right and who we are is our awareness, the holy grail of writing is essence—our essential being, which is universal and infinite. No wonder I can’t wait to get to the writing desk! Even a whiff of this essence is worth the effort.
–Elizabeth
Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash
