Why I Write
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Lit From Within
“The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.”
I believe that people who read my books and see my photos will sense spirit speaking to spirit, encouraging them to discover their own inner awakening. Not so much by trying to convince by argument (though I try my best to be logical) but by Presence, because if I am "awake" or "translucent" the light shared will enlighten others and speak to that in them which is ready to awaken. It's a quality of being, supported by authenticity and positive action. Deep calling to deep. I don't always live up to the brightness of the books I write. I have a strong melancholy streak and have not always made the best choices. The books are wiser than I am and teach me as well as my readers. But I also trust the Something Greater is calling me to continue writing.
My books and my photos are my response to my own fear. They tell me, and tell others, that we must choose our sanity, and choose to move beyond our fears, our unreasoning emotions that see a threat lurking in every corner. I look for the light, the luminous Reality beyond dark and threatening circumstances. And the play of light and shadow reminds me to be brave once again.
I find myself more surrendered to the mystery, realizing that whatever ideas I might have about the evolution of my writing may be true in essence, but may unfold with unimaginable consequences. I open to all possibilities. I'm seeing that my foundational work is to continue deepening my spiritual walk, so that no matter what form the work takes, it will be done in a spirit of integrity and translucence (open to the light, even in the times I'm feeling opaque). It is vital that I live what I write, teach, speak, sing, and share. It is my service to the world.
“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.”
White Lantern
But the inner life sits at home, and does not learn to do things, nor value these feats at all. 'T is a quiet, wise perception. It loves truth, because it is itself real; it loves right, it knows nothing else; but it makes no progress; was as wise in our first memory of it as now; is just the same now in maturity and hereafter in age, it was in youth. We have grown to manhood and womanhood; we have powers, connection, children, reputations, professions: this makes no account of them all. It lives in the great present; it makes the present great. This tranquil, well-founded, wide-seeing soul is no express-rider, no attorney, no magistrate: it lies in the sun and broods on the world. A person of this temper once said to a man of much activity, "I will pardon you that you do so much, and you me that I do nothing."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Success
“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
Purple Glow
“In each soul, God loves and partly saves the whole world which the soul sums up in an incommunicable and particular way… By his fidelity he must build—starting with the most natural territory of his own self—a work, an opus, into which something enters from all the elements of the earth. He makes his own soul throughout his earthly days; and at the same time he collaborates in another work, in another opus, which infinitely transcends, while at the same time it narrowly determines, the perspectives of his individual achievement: the completing of the world.”
