Thursday, January 24 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico
I said it wouldn't happen.
I said I had a much bigger emotional investment in my novel, The MoonQuest.
I said I wouldn't cry.
But as I rip open the FedEx envelope and pull out one of the two advance copies of my new book, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, the tears begin to flow.
In a way, these tears -- like those I shed when I held my first copy of The MoonQuest -- are identical to the ones I shed when my daughter was born.
A book -- any artistic creation of the heart -- is like a child. It births from the deepest core of your beingness. It carries parts of you but isn't you. It emerges from a co-creative act that is an expression of your passion.
I've heard other authors claim one of their book as a favorite. But I could no more choose one of mine over the other than I could with my children, if I had more than one.
The call, in art as in life, is to love all our creations -- to love them fully, unconditionally and without judgment, even as we acknowledge their inevitable faults and flaws.
Neither The Voice of the Muse nor The MoonQuest is perfect. Neither is my daughter, though I love her beyond love itself.
Yet I can love my books and my child not despite their imperfection but because of it. Because of it it, they will grow. Because of it, I will grow. Because of it, all those whose lives they touch will also grow.
That's part of the miracle of creation, and that's why I'm crying. It's a miracle that takes something insubstantial and etheric -- an idea, a soul -- and, through the perfect imperfection of human creatorship, moves it from the realm of the heart into the physical world, where it can touch and be touched.
Creation in all its forms is the ultimate act of alchemy -- giving substance to what has none, revealing meaning where none was apparent, allowing love to create form that is now free to transfigure its creator...and the world.
That's why I dedicated The Voice of the Muse not to any individual, but to the creator alchemist in us all.
Writing is alchemy...truly a tool of wizards, witches and sorcerers. It’s the magic wand, the incantation, the wave of the hand that transforms all...
~ The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write
Art by Mark David Gerson: Genesis #115
1 comment:
How amazingly lovely and lovingly you write. Just in your post alone here. I congratulate you for thinking with your heart and not your head - and then sharing with us.
"Writing is alchemy...truly a tool of wizards, witches and sorcerers. It’s the magic wand, the incantation, the wave of the hand that transforms all..."
One small thing: tools do not create the magic, although they may direct it or augment it (the latter, as in the case of crystals for example). The magic comes from US and our intentions.
Bright blessings from a Wiccan priestess, witch, and follower of faerie,
Suze
P.S. Lest you think me too big-headed, during the last pagan holiday, Imbolc (Candlemas, Brigid's Day...okay, Groundhog's Day), I was juggling working with a drum and my athame (ritual knife) and managed to stab myself. Ah, it helps to laugh! A former HPS used to call magic/ritual "serious play".
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