Today is the summer solstice. I always have trouble writing in this season. This year more than usual, the lines are too bright, the focus too close, the colors oversaturated.
For me, writing is an exploration of the world that plays at the edge of my senses. A world seen only in the interplay of light and darkness, heard only behind the distant wind. It's an unmistakable, yet unidentified scent, a taste without food, a feeling that makes my untouched skin tingle.
It is a place many have explored but few have charted. Those who left maps drew smudged lines colored by riddle and paradox. The journey is full of obstacles, most of which I create for myself to make the journey seem more hazardous so that when I overcome them, I get a feeling of accomplishment. Another trap I set whose only prey is me.
I search the landscape not to make a new discovery or to claim some new territory, but to revel in its beauty, ponder its mystery and seek my place within it. On the stained and smeared chart that is my soul, I’ll mark that dark circle “Here be dragons” and call it life.
I know I’ll do better as the winter solstice draws closer. Night is the great equalizer. In daylight, anyone can see.
© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III
Summer Solstice 2012 - a reading (on YouTube)
--------------------------------
ReplyDeleteNotes and asides:
--------------------------------
This is a repurposing of something I wrote for a Daoist discussion board several years ago. I haven’t been able to write much recently, due to circumstances some of you may know. To write, I first have to be able to relax. With my father’s death after battling lung cancer for six months and my mother in the hospital for the third or fourth time in that same period, that is not a feeling that comes easily or often these days.
Picture notes:
ReplyDeleteKaren started with the map of my fantasy world that she drew back when we lived in Maryland. She used Photoshop to create an aged, parchment look with rough borders then added the lettering in an Old English font. Finally, she created a silhouette from a pewter dragon I’ve had for many years and added it to the bottom.