vol 5 issue 18
Greetings,
I have been dreading telling you this.
Why dread? Like so many words anymore, we say it casually, as if it’s a chum. One online dictionary even tossed it in this declarative phrase that is more innuendo than declaration:
Well, I get that, but is New Jersey going to cause her to cease to exist? Isn’t that what dread actually is: A fear of the state of nonexistence? Are we talking about the NJ Turnpike at Exit 13 where all hell breaks loose in Elizabeth, as drivers hellbent for catching their plane at Newark International try to avoid getting creamed while navigating their way past the seaport, the Goethals, and the Ikea?
In that case, maybe so, but a little more explanation is warranted. As I said, we assume a lot from lazilily making words our chums. Let’s give New Jersey a little love and benefit of the doubt here and demand some context.
In my case, what I dread telling you is this: I have to take a short but as yet open-ended break.
It’s actually an insignificant admission in the scheme of things such as they are globally, and I will explain the consequences for my subscribers in a moment, but my fear is of creating in my audience a crisis of faith in me. Still, I am trying to respect this moment of transition.
Already this year, as I previously have shared, I was given a scholarship to get an alternative business education, the “mini-MBA” as the school calls it. I have loved every moment of every class I have taken. And while I knew this already, now I really know it: being good at business is predicated on being good at listening and communicating. That’s been the emphasis of my learning.
Having applied these skills, I find myself being given yet another scholarship which will allow me access to a career I previously never conceived of. So, I need time off to concentrate and learn the argo of the next thing.
Right now, I am unwilling to be more specific because there is such a weirdness to it all. How this opportunity transpired is so odd as to have a touch of feeling sacred, so I will just let it be. Plus, I will have to train and be tested before I am admitted into this new field; I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
So, that’s it. I just need to take time off from writing and publishing.
In the past, to avoid burnout, I previously took a break, but at the time, I knew I would resume exploring how democracy is being harmed by monopolies and dark money.
This time, when I resume publishing, I have no idea what I will be drawing from. The timing is perfect however, since I had begun to suspect I don’t have much to add to the old beat I had created for myself. There are many folks covering it now, some better than others. I doubt my insights on that front are as novel as they once were.
I have suspected for a while now that there are other ways I can contribute to this potent moment in the collective, which is why I also created News from the Ensouled Universe, but I what is my beat exactly? It turns out that while I thought it was one thing, it might be another. I am not sure. I need to listen for it.
What I believe this new venture will mean is that I will be able to map the american psyche in a way I previously was unable to perceive as even possible, because it wouldn't have occurred to me that I would even want access through the entry point which I potentially am about to receive.
Probably, I need two months off. But at the same time, I foresee the two months as a liminal space, Jung’s “numinous” gateway into what is too big to name because I haven’t shaped myself into and around it yet.
One thing I am considering is that after a little time off to focus solely on my new venture, I will publish the chapters of the book I am working on. And of course, there are my ‘rundles’. That too is evolving.
So, I am pausing payments.
Meanwhile, especially for new readers, here are the “chapters” of the journey that brought me to this point:
My year on the D List: divorce, death, deception, and other duh’s
I wish you were this lucky
A meditation on grief (and pie)
And speaking of New Jersey, I am reminded here of that state’s most favored son, Bruce Springsteen.
During the making of his seminal album Born in the USA, Springsteen essentially fired his band and went off by himself with his guitar and a drum machine in order to explore questions and realities only he could hear, ones which when he tried to play them out with the band, didn’t sound right to him. He still had questions about loss and longing unique to the American experience, ones which remained with him even after his spooky acoustic album Nebraska, which certainly addresses those topics, had been released.
But after only a few months, Bruce came back, re-assembled the band, and replaced guitarist Stevie Van Zandt with Nils Lofgren and added his future wife, Patti Scialfa, to sing the high notes Van Zandt was no longer around to hit. And then they smashed it.
Born in the USA is a classic album, pulsating with resonant images of American life that the most cynical of American political spinsters from both the right and the left have claimed it speaks for them and their audience rather than for us all.
When I consider what Springsteen did, and the pressure that would have been on him to just keep churning out the hits rather than pause and listen to his own heart and mind, I think about how there is being a (fill in the blank), and there is being an artist.
“To know the Creator, you must create!” ~ Unknown
Living life is a creative act. All of us have the capacity to be artists. I believe what it requires is the courage to listen to what our hearts and minds – and also our gods – are telling us.
Artistry is many things, including the refinement of skill, but what I have come to see as essential to living creatively is less about flourish and more about simply being willing to move forward.
It means not clinging to the past, not insisting on the old “hit making machines”, but hearing the call to explore new territories, and responding with the faith that you will end up somewhere rather than “nowhere”, and that place will be exactly where you are meant to be, so fill it with your passion.
Such confidence in one’s self leads to confidence in what you cannot see, as I have discovered and documented over these past months. And with that combined confidence, it is easier – although certainly not easy! – to move through the inchoate lands of transition.
Transition is that space in between what was and what will be. It’s essentially a momentary cessation of existence; where what we are familiar with and so assume is real and enduring, isn’t.
To not exist — it causes dread.
I am not equating myself with Bruce Springsteen. But I am inspired by his having had the guts to do what no one expected nor wanted him to do in order to honor what called him from within, a call which subsequently led him to produce something so transcendent and true, power mongers wanted to siphon its energy to their own ends while the rest of us just wanted to recognize ourselves in the beat.
And with just a little time out, he delivered.
For me now, what has happened as I have stepped beyond what was, is that I have lost my language. I can’t assume chumminess with any vocabulary at present. I really don’t know what I am trying to describe anymore. That does stir dread, but it is also a moment thumping with potential…
Thanks everyone. See you again soon.
Peace,
Whitney
PS: I still recommend you use the app to read the docu-mental archives!
Belated blessings on your journey. I’m trusting my god for your care and guidance.
W -- I hope your adventures will be as exciting and transcending as they sound they might be. And I'm eager to know all about them. xo