Member-only story
Creative Consciousness
Rilke on the Lonely Patience of Creative Work …
“Leave to your opinions their own quiet undisturbed development from deep within and cannot be pressed or hurried by anything. Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist’s life; in understanding as in creating.”
*
William Faulkner gave a writing class at his alma mater. “You want to be writers?” he addressed the huge class. “So write.” And he walked out. Great class.
*
I used to think bearing witness was a passive act. I don’t believe that anymore. I think that when we are present, when we bear witness, when we do not divert our gaze, something is revealed — the very marrow of life. We change. A transformation occurs. Our consciousness shifts.
— Terry Tempest Williams
“If you’re really listening, if you’re awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold evermore wonders”.
Andrew Harvey
