Relinquishing Control

It came to me last night that another great thing for me about this blog is that it enables me to practice relinquishing control, an important permaculture principle. When a permie designs a garden the idea is to design a system that works so well that the gardener can step back and let it flourish on its own. Anyone who writes or paints or performs knows how difficult this can be. We want the audience to "get" what we're doing--we want their interpretation to match our own. Of course not every artist thinks this way, but it has definitely been part of my development as a writer. We even talked about this in college in literary theory classes. It was called reader/response criticism, which believed that every meaning came from the interaction of writer and reader. As a writer this was much more appealing than the death of the author posited by Roland Barthes, or deconstructionism, which says that ultimate meaning is not possible because language is an arbitrary system of sign and system. Alas, I was seduced by these French philosophes, mostly I think, out of intellectual pride. Their works were so obtuse, my brain swelled when I was actually able to decipher what they were saying. Reader/response seemed so simplistic and banal because it was so direct. This elevation of complication eventually led me into deep despair. I gave up my dreams of wanting to be a word artist for a few years, but like a meandering river, I found my way out of the silt clogged byways and made it back to the sea, where I have been floating and catching waves ever since.

When I am able to relinquish control of my writing, I am able to let go in a multitude of ways. First, I stop caring what people will think and write whatever comes out of me. Second, I get the fascinating opportunity to get to know other people by hearing how my work has affected them. One can learn much when one views opinion as a character study instead of taking offense or feeling wounded that one has been misunderstood. As a creative writer, I have not had too many opportunities to relinquish control of my writing. I have published a book of poems, had poems published in lots of journals, and had a couple of people read the manuscripts of my two novels. I have also been in writing workshops. However, this is just a tip of the iceberg considering how much I have written! I'll admit, I have a desire to be heard by a large audience. Part of this is ego, of course, but part of it is also because, for a long time, I have felt that I was receiving messages that people needed to hear. One of my totems is the hawk, considered a messenger between the spirit world and this one. The hawk is far-seeing, flying high above the earth. It can detect a tiny mouse from a vast height and plunge down to clutch it in its talons. The mouse is also one of my totems, scurrying around in the grass investigating everything. Mice see the details. This ability to see the details and to see the big picture is a potent combination. I see a lot and I have a lot to say. As a poet, I have emphasized artfulness over transparency,--poetry is indirect, the language of the soul, like dreams. To me, the best poems don't give up their meaning easily. They have to be earned, like a lover, they flood through the body like ecstasy. However, I try to make myself transparent in my poems, which I do by exposing my vulnerability. Poetry is a paradox. An art form of words in which the best poems can't be explained in words. Interpreting poetry often reduces it, or more likely, reduces the interpreter, instead of expanding their soul until it feels, as Hildegard of Bingen wrote, a feather on the breath of God. In our culture of instant gratification and insistence on the existence of objective truth, poetry has been pushed to the fringes. Many people don't have the time to read it, or if they do, can't relate to language in this way. Poetry is not empirical. To me, it reflects the structure of the universe itself, each word in a good poem tolls like a bell, is a vibration that can't be contained, has infinite meaning as it opens up doors in our body and mind, poetry is the chariot on which the soul rides.

I think people who write do so because they have a desire to communicate. Naturally a poet, I sought out audiences in other venues as a writer because I have a compulsion to express myself. For a time I wrote for The Block Island Times, a good training ground for relinquishing control. However, because journalism is supposed to be unbiased, as writers we had to anticipate what would happen when our work was released to the public every Friday. I found this frustrating and deadening after a while. Sometimes when I wrote a feature I really liked, my soul got a snack, but newspaper writing never gave me a feast!

I've debated whether or not I should be so honest with the ups and downs of my daily emotional life in this blog. Is my primariy intent to encourage people to create a new world through permaculture? If so, then detailing my emotions may not be the best way if my feelings end up inoculating them, so that they feel the same way. I feel a responsibility. I want my words to encourage change. Language is such a mysterious creature. Where does it come from? On a physical level it is the product of teeth and tongue and voicebox. Language is our body. And where does our body come from? Our body is the earth. This is not metaphorical. There is nothing in our bodies that doesn't come from the earth. Except our soul--if you believe in the soul. Many believe that the seat of the soul is the pituitary gland. People have even weighed the body right after death and discovered that it loses a small amount of weight that may be the result of the soul's departure. Of course this could be gas leaving the body. People who are long-winded with words are sometimes said to be full of gas. But being long-winded can also be a form of play. For example, I am having fun with words right now, rolling them out, letting one connect to the other as my fingers dance--however language came into being, it is what structures our consciousness. Our mind is built on words. Do we want to build a house with a shaky foundation? No! I'm still up in the air about my intent with this blog, because to be frank, it is such fun to just write everything out, such a relief to unburden myself of my emotions, more fun than simply spreading information about permaculture. Whatever I decide, I will be aware of you my readers, and that by relinquishing control of these words I may form galaxies in universes I've never heard of.