LETTING GO OF THE WHEEL

What is it about the principle of letting go that is so difficult for most of us to engage?  You would think that laying back and riding out the waves of life in compliant, complacent abandon would be just about as easy an approach as anyone could take.  It would be the existential equivalent of a salted, tanned and healthy surfer dude only with less skin damage and more natural introspection.

Today I am very unfocused and adrift without an agenda; but the urge to write is pressing leading me to understand that should I choose to yield to the latter activity, I had better have full confidence in my ability to successfully operate under the conditions of the former.

I don't always, of course, which again gets back to that whole principle of letting go.

Before I ever began this creative writing experiment in the blogosphere (still to this present moment having NO idea of either what a blog actually is, where it goes or who gives a damn), I held as one of the main tenants and esoteric substructures within my eclectic belief system, the idea that beneath our obvious dialogue with ego and id lies the much more powerful and profound connection with The Divine; and that if given half a chance it would lead us all back to our angelic roots and celestial family of origin as well as to the concise and perfect fulfillment of our ultimate purpose for being.

I have been fortunate enough to witness many times in my life verifiable evidence of this radical truth, and I am sure almost anyone else who has worked to become a vigilant observer of self can also attest to similar revelations.

However, it has been an unexpected but pleasantly obvious fact that this same principle of gently subduing the ego and yielding to The Divine has practical and profound implications even in something as ostensibly meaningless, random and patently narcissistic as writing a blog.

At it's earliest inception, this particular blog was supposed to have had one aim:  To attract readers who would eventually navigate their way to the Website that I was in the process of building with Johnny Asia, my webgod.  It was to be a minor adjunct to a major enterprise, that being my artwork.  And so in those first couple of entries I struggled to conceive and subsequently develop a theme for each.

I mean, I really sat down and thought about available subject matter and whether I knew enough to craft a sort of shallow and somewhat entertaining thesis about whatever final topic was selected.  The whole thing terrified me especially when I was forced to come eye-level with the reality that I don't really know a lot about too much that is either educationally enlightening, esoterically uplifting or philosophically provocative.

But even in the face of that apprehension I knew one thing without question:  I wanted to keep on writing.  I HAD to keep on writing.

That is when I realized that the only way this passion would find expression would be if I just LET GO.
I'm not talking about the kind of letting go I have referred to before where you are letting go of a response to something taxing or otherwise unpleasant.  I'm talking about the whole enchilada version of letting go.  The version that plants you firmly in the hands of God, the universe, the Holy Spirit,  angelic choirs, spirit guides, creative forces or all of the above without reservation, pretension or any overriding agenda or intent.


Wanna talk about scary?

Yet I was willing to give it a shot because, as I stated, I am simply not smart enough to contain my thoughts to only those few brilliant themes, principles and philosophies I've read about in books, and my blogging enterprise would hasten to a short and pathetic end long before I'd succeeded in my initial goal for recognition and to lead an eventual clientele to my website.

If nothing else, operating under the liberal reigns of unlimited restraint has bought me some more time.

Some might suggest that is ALL it has bought me.

But at the very least I've been able to watch the magic of serendipity and improvisation collide in nearly every post as it spontaneously erupts from my soul.  From the first sentence to closing I have little idea where I am going or why, yet by the time I finish, there before me is a coherent, cohesive and (usually) beautifully laid-out essay that almost looks as though it sprang from a detailed outline crafted the night before.  Given my limited abilities, I find this nothing short of a literary miracle and a profound grace.
My gratitude is immense.

What is more, in all but a few entries I have been able to illustrate each post with just the right drawing or painting or, as in the case of my son's story, the perfect photograph to enliven the text with visuals and color.   Many of these drawings were done years earlier and without the remotest idea that they would one day be utilized in this way, and I don't know until the post is complete what visual example I even have available to use.  But I always find one.

Of course, this can't continue indefinitely because I don't have an unlimited supply of artwork to accommodate what I hope will be a long compositional affair.  But for now it has been an encouraging and unexpected convergence of word and image so perfectly appropriate that it could have come only from a source much greater than the one between my ears.

I may never know why I am so drawn to language and communication and the development of each as they can be shared in this vast, vague and abstract venue of cyberspace, but that is alright.  If I'm going to let go, I am going to LET GO.  The whole object of faith is to be committed to the process without any assurances as to the purpose or the plan.  We all know we have one.  Usually multiples of them.

But there is something kind of exciting about navigating the linguistic hairpin turns and curves at break-neck speeds, half blinded by the glare from the rising sun of consciousness above the dashboard of mundane consideration.  You know that at some point if you are true enough to the moment and allow the acceleration of thought to drive you faster into and around the next bend, you just might find yourself  involved in a spectacular crash with no survivors.

In the past such collisions have been given names:  Don Quioxte, Catcher In The Rye, Grapes Of Wrath, A Farewell To Arms, Moby Dick, One Hundred Years Of Solitude and War And Peace, to name a scant portion.

Obviously, I don't presume to have anywhere near the sacred and creative genius of those mentioned and I can only aspire to such a colossal death in my dreams.   Yet no matter how illogical my compulsion and in spite of the brutal odds against it, I simply cannot ignore my crazed drive to keep on the road, lay off the brakes and just LET GO.


And if I run out of gas, I'll walk.