Although I see the stars, I no longer pretend to know them

I think creativity and mysticism return me to a deeper selfhood. Which might mean that my deeper selfhood is creative and mystical, right? 

I went back to some old notes and found these quotes I'd gathered. 

The poet Christian Wiman writes: “Who knows what atomic energies are unleashed by a solitary man or woman quietly encountering some arrangement of language that gives their being—shunted aside by chores and fears and who knows what—back to them?”

Yes, who knows.

And another one: “Although I see the stars, I no longer pretend to know them,” writes the monk/mystic Thomas Merton.

And more than fifty years later the poet Joy Harjo has a reply: “a sky thrown open / to the need of stars / to know themselves against the dark.”

Yes, I think our creative and spiritual practices become a waltz of Being-ness, of seeing the stars and then losing them and realizing that maybe the stars themselves do this finding/losing thing too. 

It's a waltz of flexibility and courage, of faithfulness and lightheartedness, of making a turn and being frightened and scrambled, of making a turn and feeling yourself stable and present. 

I think it's serious work and it’s holy play.

I'm here for it. 

What about you? Do you think your deeper selfhood is creative and mystical? Do you like to waltz? I really would love to know. 

With care,
Brianna