The Artist of
POSSIBILITY
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The Spontaneous Writing Circle is a peer-led group in The Mystery School.
In timed sessions, a member will read a poem or excerpt of prose after which the group write what's present to each of them, unedited and uncensored. The intention is to have the words appear while any effort to create them is surrendered. Each person then reads their writing to each other, and no critique is offered. This absence of distinctions and value judgments has created an open and lively space of ease, appreciation and creativity and a constant experience of wonder. This piece was written in one of these circles.
In the midst of Covid lockdown, someone in our circle read a beautifully descriptive, detailed excerpt from a journal about the author’s sighting of tens of thousands of migrating birds along the Oregon coast. As he stood at the ocean edge, noting species and numbers, he flipped his pencil in surrender to the futility of estimating the vast number of birds in sight. We listened to the reading and then each wrote for a few reflective moments, heading in whatever direction inspired us. This was my brief writing:
Flipping a pencil in the air over the number of birds migrating past and nesting in view! How sweet the pencil flip and how majestic the image of ten miles of nestled birds in ocean cliffs. How hopeful and enriched I feel just hearing those words!
Almost at a standstill in wonder. Slowly the pen approaches another word, but cautiously. I’m standing at the water’s edge, struck by the beauty of flight and swells of both ocean and birds, though just ‘birds’ seems diminutive to the sight. ‘Winged wonders’ more apt.
In the midst of such change and loss and uncertainty, there is still flight – and beauty – and rebirth and renewal. In moments like this, I understand “Hope springs eternal.”
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