Tag: creativity

Holy Wild, Mythology & History

Not Really Dead (or, Bigger On The Inside)

Alison Leigh Lilly

We know he can’t stay in his current state of denial — we know he has the potential for greatness that demands he rise to the occasion, to become better than he was before. But that doesn’t make that transformative moment any less painful, nor the grief at the loss of humble John Smith, the old, limited self, any less poignant. The truth is that we grieve the old self because we love the old self, deeply, and the old self was a self of love. It had to be. Otherwise, we could never have been able to transform in the first place.

Holy Wild, Poetry & Music

How to Become a Poet

Alison Leigh Lilly

When I was a sophomore in high school, I applied for a really exclusive summer school for aspiring student artists. I had been fancying myself a writer since first grade, and more specifically a poet since fourth or fifth. I was anxious but confident. I made it past the first round of interviews.... but I didn't get in. Today I stumbled across two pieces of internet flotsam that reminded me of that teenage, poetry-ridden self of mine. The second was an article by Jim Moore, who recently saw his seventh book of poetry into print. Moore writes: "People sometimes ask, especially parents of aspiring writers, 'What does it take to become a poet?' From my own experience I would say four things matter most. Everything else takes care of itself. ..."

Contemplation & Meditation, Holy Wild

The Three Realms

Alison Leigh Lilly

First, I knew the sea. The dark waters and the deep. That seeping, salty body that sloshes crest to trough and back again, ebb and flow in a dance with the moon. We carry an ocean in our blood, blue or purple beneath our skin, and only sometimes flushed pink or deeper red. The sea, like the past, seeps into the hidden depths within us where it works its erosion through memory and dream. Ancestors trickle through our fingers like water, each one of the beloved dead like a raindrop that enters the river that runs to join its source again. You can feel it sometimes, just as you are drifting off to sleep — that spinning, floating, rocking — as though the present were only a tiny raft upon a great heaving sea of time. And then there is the sky. The bright air, the heights that hold the stars and sun like mighty pillars, fluted columns circling to make a temple to the gods.

Holy Wild, Poetry & Music

body politic | A Sonnet

Alison Leigh Lilly

body politic noun : (1) human organ of many heads ; tongues swarming from them [ as in, unison of insects ] ; hands, tangled beds of nails on which to rest evenly so as to spread weight, pressure without injury : (2) threat posed by ground swellings ; manifestation of projected intent to harm [ as in, the body of our enemy is dead, but not his intention ] : (3) the myth of history (archaic) [ ‘twas his own love that killed this shepherd, not our need to kill, and we remain innocent ] ; public will ; institutionally anointed gore to ensure death passes over our door

Holy Wild, Muse in Brief

Quote of the Week

Alison Leigh Lilly

"The room where I live is plain as a skull, a firm setting for windows. A nun lives in the fires of the spirit, a thinker lives in the bright wick of the mind, an artist lives jammed in the pool of materials. (Or, a nun lives, thoughtful and tough, in the mind, a nun lives, with that special poignancy peculiar to religious, in the exile of materials; and a thinker, who would think of something, lives in the clash of materials, and in the world of spirit where all long thoughts must lead; and an artist lives in the mind, that warehouse of forms, and an artist lives, of course, in the spirit. So.) But this room is a skull, a fire tower, wooden, and empty. Of itself it is nothing, but the view, as they say, is good."

- Annie Dillard, from Holy the Firm

Holy Wild, praxis, Rite & Ritual

Shaman & Priest: How America’s Cultural Landscape Shapes Its Religious Institutions

Alison Leigh Lilly

For several years now, I have thought of waiting tables as a hunter-gatherer kind of job. Each morning, I stalk my prey at their usual watering hole, serving up coffee and eggs with a sleek and casual smile; I am quiet, unobtrusive; I bide my time. My earnings are gifts from the gods of generosity and good luck, coming in unpredictable floods and trickles. I gather the silvery coins from the tabletops, I fold the bills into my apron pocket, and I move on again, cleaning, preparing for the breakfast rush, the lunch rush, the next herd to come and go. I'm no agriculturalist.