excellence

i have always incorporated subconscious work into my process. so, robert a. johnson's inner work, is just a confirmation that i have been doing something i hadn't even realized was valuable, shall we say. that seems to be the way it is with me, i try things and find they work, then come to find a tradition of some sort or another which promotes this type of behaviour as essential.

my process though is less of a dictation process, though i do write what i hear. my process is more of a quieting yourself and listening. the difference being i'm not recording a scene or interactions, like one example given of the greater exercises of saint ignatius of loyola, who advises, participating in gologotha by imagining yourself there, smelling the dust, watching the scene, moving with the throngs. you see the difference between my process and this is, it just happens to me. i had no plan to write death shroud. it sought me out, somehow.

then, i found myself, over the course of the next year, living out my life and seeing various scenes which became the eventual poem. the most poignant example i can give is watching the gulf fritillary lose its spikey skin, the red pool of liquid beside the tiny crown of thorns thrust me into the experience of mary removing the thorned crown from Jesus. i didn't intend to make that connection. it was just so utterly obvious to me that is what that experience demanded. i was there, feeling it, seeing it, living it, but i had never sat down to contemplate it as it were. do you understand this?

so my process varies greatly from johnson's in that i live my life this way. walking in and out of subconscious imaginative experiences. which then usually become poems. i sometimes have to sit and seek out the words i need for a poem, pausing, momentarily, consciously apprehending a word. but usually, the words just flow from my pen as i'm listening to the poem in my mind. i hear my poems. i don't just chop and refit words together in a frankensteinian approach to making a poem. i let them live or die on their own without much intervention on my part. without life support, essentially.

my process is more clear to me now as i see it in contrast with johnson's methods. it is striking how i've come to this place naturally. now that i am reading about artificially incorporating these processes into one's life, it makes me feel a little better about something i have found so integral to my process but people look at me like i'm nutz when i tell them what i do. i know they don't try it. they just walk away and forget what i said. but it really works.

i am cutting loose the distractions i have battled sound with here in ny. though the noxious noise is still troubling, it does not help to compound the noise. to trouble the waters. i need a still place, a reservoir within me. somehow.

still not quite sure how to go about that. the silence permeated my being in texas because i was steeped in it. here, i have to fight for the still place. i have to block out the distractions and focus on stillness. silences.

in texas, i did this thing where i'd do exercises in silence. i'm thinking i need to practice that again. for small increments, use no words. be absolutely silent. intentionally. the thing about it is, i don't talk much now. so for me to intend silence, i need to go further. stilling my turbulent mind. being quiet of mind and heart. i race all around emotionally, intellectually. time to settle down.

i find when i do talk, my words come racing out. i've got to slow it all down. way down. i'm racing again in my deep places and it is troubling me.

my thinking is, i simply have to focus on the pace of my life, internally, externally. i must consciously, meditatively, approach my life. kind of like the japanese attention to detail.

my beloved will tell you, i let many details go. i don't do finely detailed work. but perhaps it is time i try. to focus again on one thing at a time. and doing that job with excellence.

i have heard the term excellence used in a snobby way. a judgmental way. be excellent was code for, perfect. i'm not saying that at all. perfection be damned. i'm into doing things with full attention and love. sometimes i fire through my day and slap the food in a pan, slap the food on a plate, shovel it down, the whole process is devoid of life, of excellence, of love. my husband is right. i have no love for cooking, but perhaps i'll find some way to excel at it.

excellence in action. yes, that's it.