The Blessing of Writer's Block

“We have fallen into the place 

where everything is music.” ~ Rumi

A few weeks ago I used this line from Rumi to prompt some amazing poetry from British youth. And I moved to London because that’s how it feels, like I’ve fallen straight into the bruising heart of a symphony. Outside my window, trains pass. Construction workers whistle as they crack cement. A dog growls like a stomach that’s never full. Kurdish hymns drift up through the floorboards. Pop music pulses through the walls.

I came here, in part, to find my voice as a writer, my music as a poet. But finding your voice in a world full of voices is a bit like listening for your name at a party that everyone’s been invited to. We’re all talking at once, shouting over each other. Yet I think each of us wishes for a brief lull - a moment when all the sounds and stories can be ordered and absorbed. And then, with love, forgotten.

In Greek mythology, Lethe (forgetfulness) is one of the five rivers running from the underworld. Virgil writes that only when the dead have their memories washed away by the Lethe can they be reborn again.

Perhaps the voice must go on a similar journey. First, there’s the business of living to be done. The voice needs plenty of grist. And London is full of it. The city is constantly metamorphing. New cities spurt up each day, carrying their old bones with them.

Blitzed churches become gardens butting up against glass-and-steel bulwarks. London Bridge may fall but it will be replaced overnight - doubtless by something bold and controversial. The smell of curry mixes with car exhaust and the stale perfume of Victorian pubs.

Then, amid all this music, there’s a pause. A moment, not of death, but of silence. Writer’s block. When, despite the overabundance of material, your hands hover over the keyboard, or the blank pages of a journal. When you take long walks, and wage hot war on wordlessness.

As much as I dislike these pauses (and I do), part of me knows they are good. Necessary even. For how else can the voice be born except by forgetting all that’s come before? All the voices it has heard and mimicked over the years?

Emily Dickinson called Nothing “the force that renovates the World.” I think something similar can be said of silence. Silence is the force that renovates the Word. Yet with the 24-hour news cycle and the constant pressure to publish, writers seldom allow themselves a good dose of guilt-free silence.

Of course, true silence is more than just the absence of noise. 'Renovation' comes from a Latin word meaning 'to make new' and was originally used to indicate spiritual rebirth. When faced with writer’s block, sometimes it’s the soul that needs reviving more than anything. So put down your pen, and putter in the garden. Visit a new city. Teach a child to ice-skate. Do something that gives your word-smithing a rest and at the same time replenishes your wonder and engagement with the world.

Or take singing lessons, where learning to breathe is just as important as the notes produced. Then next time you find yourself lost for words, or wondering where your muse has flitted off to, you’ll just think of it as the big, deep breath we all must take before plunging headfirst into song.

Divided Mind/United Mind

I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of art today. Much of contemporary art and literature seems to suffer from similar ills - disorientation, dissatisfaction, disillusionment. Artists hold up a mirror to society, it’s true. So of course it makes sense that art should reflect the world’s turmoil and confusion. But can the artist sit back once she's held up her mirror and say to the viewer, “There. This is what you look like. Isn’t it dreadful?”

I think this is where much of art fails. It skims the surface without seeking the essence, or attempting to search for the cause and purpose of all this upheaval. Our fractured society is reflected in the shattered mind of the artist, who often dredges up his or her own internal battles to inform art that may be cathartic, but is rarely enlightening.

In the Bhagavad Gita, a seminal text of early Hinduism, Krishna instructs the warrior Arjuna on the ways of true life. He tells Arjuna that the divided mind is the source of suffering, and the cause of anger, attachment, and selfish desires. But the united mind enables us to shed anxiety, and to perform our work “as a man established within himself.”

I’m struck by this phrase, “a man established within himself.” It seems like this is what most of us are searching for - to be comfortable in our skins, poised, confident, and at the same time, un-self-conscious. And paradoxically, the more of our Self we find, the less it concerns us, and the more attention and service we can devote to others.

But how does the mind's unity or division relate to the state of art today? Much great art, it can be argued, stems from struggle - often the artist’s internal wrestling, but also external conflict. Perhaps a fully united mind could never have created Picasso’s Guernica, or Beethoven’s Fifth. Yet there is more than chaos in these works. There is also a drive toward empathy, honesty, and insight.

So perhaps the true artist is a person who is not perfectly at peace, but also does not surrender to confusion and chronic anxiety. Art that lasts is not purely a reaction to its time and place, though of course it is informed by both. And art cannot reside fully in the skin of its maker - though personality and humanity should both shine through.

Yet the beautiful and transcendent faces of art are often forgotten in a quest for cleverness and self-confession. Beauty? the critics scoff. That's so old-fashioned. And anything hinting at soul or spirit is looked at with skepticism if not outright derision.

This saddens me, because I feel that one of the primary tasks of the artist is to see the world with new eyes, without distortion but with love. And love is a dimension I find missing in much contemporary art. Love is a force of attraction, and attraction leads to unity. So perhaps the artist does not need to begin with a unified consciousness, but must have a great capacity to love, and an ability to translate this love into words or images that enlarges this capacity in others.

I'm not speaking of romantic love, of course, or even the Platonic ideal. The kind of love I'm speaking about is what the Gita calls 'devotion.' Devotion is love detached from any expectation of outcome or success. It is love coupled with hard work and service. It is a commitment to small acts of beauty that bring joy or understanding to people's lives.

Space to Sing

Space to Sing

What is the most perfect music?

Silence.

~ Sting

And with this quote to tickle our muses, I began a poetry and spoken word workshop with three young women at London's Eastside Educational Trust.

For me, poetry must have at least four ingredients:

- words

- silence

- music

- soul

The teens at the workshop had words, music and soul in abundance. So I worked on giving their poems plenty of silence to breathe - and space to sing.

Silence and space are often overlooked in music and poetry. But the places where we draw breath, pause, and look into the listeners' eyes, is for me the essence of poetry - its quiet heart that our words must honour.

At the same time, poetry's living music is also essential. So I asked the girls to write me a poem starting with this line from Rumi: 

"We have fallen into the place where everything is music."

Here are their creations:

Rashana

We have fallen in the place
where everything is music.

From the beat of your chest,
to the oceans and the seas -

waves of mood-setters
playing that magnificent tune.

Speaking to you, calling out to you -

from behind the shadows
of the trees,

down to the last grain of sand -

blares that burning
sweet melody,

fluorescent in all its beauty
and glory.

Tides are put to rest in disbelief.

Carmen

We have fallen
into the place

where everything
is music.

Music affects the soul
in ways that a surgeon

never could,

and it gathers space
for a new sound

to complete the orchestra,

along the road 

we call “life.”

Silence is
the loudest beat

in a symphony.

Hannah


We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The rushing of wind mixes
with people’s meaningless chatter.

The beating of birds’ wings mingles
with the sea’s angry movements.

As I lie here I imagine
the rapid beats of my heart

sending trembles
through the ground.

Fear and passion all in one.

But, above it all, an unheard silence
lingers in the air.

Like a mystical ghost,
an unwanted stranger.

Now, stop and listen.