Deeper, Not Wider
On waking in the night with words on my tongue and following their trail
Last night I woke at 2:13 AM with words on my tongue. I have learned to write them down and not rely on my sleepy brain to remember. I used to keep a notebook at my bedside, but that requires that I turn on a light. So I don’t disturb my sweetheart as he sleeps, I’ve taken to using the Notes app on my iPhone. Sometimes those mid-of-night digital scribbles make zero sense in the light of morning, but I still transfer them to my notebook as soon as I’m at my desk.
Here are few strange ones, exactly as they appear on my phone:
Things drawing are like memories the could never be made same twice. Krim is a fox. She draws him blows he is real.
She notices a bristly hair on her chin she needs to remember to pluck it. Remembers her gramma other sitting with tweezer I. Her east chair, pku mind hairs from her chin. How did she know where they were?
Bet sixties. She isn’t even in her sixty yet. she bmis still flying. She eats more peanuts the shells mounting like birthdays. Is this what a panic attack feels like?
I think you get the idea. Nonsense—snippets of dreams perhaps—but always with a kernel of truth I may want to explore later. Luckily the words on my tongue so early this morning made a little more sense: Well, not a clear path, but breadcrumbs at least.
We see too much and know too little.
And that’s what I want to explore with you, here, today. Bear with me, if I wander a bit, as I’m not entirely sure where it leads.
This weekend I took part in a Haiku event through Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico. Yesterday morning we heard from Natalie Goldberg, a writer I have long admired. I made a few notes, but mostly I listened for the jewels within the vessel of her offering. One thing she said that strongly resonated was “Pick something and stay with it. That is how we go deep.” That right there is a jewel I have been trying to polish for years now, perhaps decades.
It’s a fact that throughout my years of being an artist I continue to be easily seduced by new techniques, new tools, new mediums and ways of working. This constant state of curious exploration might make me a more engaging and diverse teacher, but in my heart I know that it keeps me from ever going as deep as I long to go in my own work. This is a code I have been working to crack open for a long time, and it is a subject I often touch upon in my teachings for my students. We teach what we also want to learn deeper. We teach about the river we want to enter most. Deeper. But even though a river might be deep, it is still never the same river twice, always moving, changing, flowing toward the vast seas, right? I wonder…can I always be exploring and evolving on the surface of things and still go deep?
There is a sutra that can bring tears to my eyes every single time that I encounter it. Not because it is sad or tugs at my heart, but because I recognise a real longing within me when I read it. It is Verse 62 of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, and in particular a translation of it by Lorin Roche, PhD, in his luminous book, The Radiance Sutras.
Cast aside the ten thousand things,
And love only one.
Don’t go on to another.
Engage your lively awareness
With this one focus–
One object, one thought, one symbol.Now go inside,
Find the center.
The soul, the heart.
Right here,
In the middle of the feeling,
Attend the blossoming–
Attention vast as the sky.
In the back of the book Lorin explores each sutra in his own words. This one has the Sanskrit title Niruddha and he gives the possible translations of the word: held back, withheld, held fast, stopped, shut, closed, confined, restrained, checked, kept off, removed, suppressed, covered, veiled. He writes: “When we are devoted to someone {or in my case, something} we focus on them naturally and close ourselves off (niruddha) to other affections.” Is that what it is for me? That I have not yet found what I really love in my drawing and painting practice, so I am still searching through the 10,000 things? Or is it that my real vocation, my real love, writing, is necessarily pushed aside and diluted every time I pick up a brush in my hand to do my artwork, which is how I earn a living? While I love painting and drawing, is it, in truth, just keeping me away from sitting with my notebook, pen in hand, words flowing onto the page? Is that why I never feel quite settled and keep on exploring? Is that why I can never seem to go as deep as I long to go? Do I see and do too much, and know too little?
I feel this in other areas of my life as well. In many instances the smart phone, social media, and texting have taken the place of real time, face-to-face conversation, and I have to admit it is a bit easier for an introvert like me who doesn’t love social events or talking on the phone, no matter who is on the other end of the line. Let’s just say, I have embraced the technology, but over the past couple of years I have started waking up to its cost.
An example: a few weeks ago I ran into an acquaintance at the grocery store. I had not seen her, except for posts on Facebook, since before COVID-19, maybe longer, and even then just in passing at a social event. I use the word acquaintance because I also feel that we have come to use the word friend too loosely since the advent of “friending” people on social media; I will touch back on that later. Anyway, it was nice to see her and we moved aside from the aisle traffic to casually visit for a bit, catching up on big things like grandchildren and each showing one another photos of our own, agreeing on what a life-changing event it is when your children have their own children. Then the conversation shifted and I learned about a tragic thing that had happened in her family, the kind of thing not always shared on social media. It was something I probably would not have shared with anyone but my closest of friends. I truly felt heartache for this person, but it felt a little uncomfortable that she shared it with me, as I don’t really know her or the people involved.
When we came to the end of our visit and each moved on with our shopping I thought for a long while about how social media gives us the illusion that we know people and what is going on in their lives each and every day, and it does so for hundreds of people we might only casually know, and even some we have never met or perhaps even seen for decades. The acquaintance I ran into at the store was someone I only casually knew. We have never gone out to lunch, called one another, texted, or went for walk. I have never known where she lives, or her phone number. Because of our Facebook “friendship” we felt like we knew each other far better than we actually do.
I feel like there is something really important here for each of us to recognise and explore in our own way. With the advent of Facebook, the word “friend” has lost something and perhaps has become something else entirely. Last time I looked I had over a thousand “Friends,” 97% of whom I have never called on the phone, spent time with even once, nor would I make contact with if I really needed a shoulder to cry on. They are acquaintances, colleagues, distant family, but not friends. And it is this illusion of being friends with so many, I think, that has given us access to too much information and perhaps even feeling like we need to know about and care for everyone we have ever met or connected with online. The danger is that, ultimately, this could dilute our energy and time for the relationships that matter most to us.
We have probably all been in a situation when we are in the company of someone that seems more interested in checking their notifications on Facebook than the person right across the table. It tends to make you feel like the rest of the world is far more interesting, more important than you, right? And I don’t know about you, but when this has happened it made me pick up my phone so I could zone out instead of feeling a million miles away from the person right next to me. I’m sure I have been the guilty party as well. It’s a real thing these days. You cannot go to a restaurant without seeing table after table of people glued to their screens. We can see too much, and we can know so little about what is right by our side.
It’s a tricky thing, for sure, as social media also allows us to easily be in touch with those we really do want to keep up with, but may not always have time to call or visit as much as we would like. It can also lead us to some real friendships across the world with a few people that we may have never encountered otherwise, true kindred spirits. There are always two ends of every thread—it’s just our ability to find the balance someplace in the middle, isn’t it?
I think that the words on my tongue at 2:13 AM were letting me know that longing for “deeper, not wider” is something that needs more of my attention. It’s not really about choosing one thing over another—as I am a seeker and explorer by nature—but it is about starting with my own attention and where I allow it to linger. Maybe I can begin with more presence wherever I am, whatever I am doing, not to block out the world, but to attend more fully to the moment I am in. I want my world to be a little smaller and more intimate. I want to go deeper, not wider. To see a little less and to know a little more. To attend the blossoming, right here. Attention as vast as the sky.
Thanks for sticking with me, if you made it this far. I edited this down from a far more rambling piece, and it’s still a little weedy. Would love to know your thoughts about any of the threads here that might have tugged on you, because I don’t have any answers and I am still exploring them. Thank you so much for being here.
Does painting/drawing dilute your writing or does it enrich your writing? Seeing drawing = drawing seeing, right? Does your muse fall asleep the moment you wet your paintbrush? I think not. I think you are communicating as much in your paintings as you are in your writing. I look at your tiny landscapes and wonder why not one person walks along that thin shoreline. Did I just miss her? Will she ever come? Does a fox crouch at the edge of the thicket? Sometimes I imagine a slight breeze or feel a change in the humidity. And the light. Oh that light. Will the haze ever let the sun cast a sharp shadow?
-- Kateri, just as life itself, the river embodies constant transformation, reminding us of the beauty found in embracing the ephemerality of each passing instant. To witness a river is to witness the embodiment of impermanence, a living testament to the ever-changing nature of the world around us. Thank you. Xo.