Spooniness in Full Force

I first wrote this post in April of 2009. I never posted it, but I think today might be a good time, especially considering today's other post. Please bear with me.

I was reading an interview with my high school theater teacher the other day, and I have a few fall-out thoughts from the interview and my theater teacher's beliefs I would like to share. Not only is my former teacher a Shakespearean actor, he is also a poet and very interested in Keats. He comes from the similar Judeo-Christian background that I do, but he has adapted some of our common beliefs to suit his own purposes. In doing so, he has only expanded the scope and realm of those beliefs. If you want to know more about what I’m talking about, check the interview out for yourself here.

He talks about inspiration. Other authors have discussed how inspiration, how genius, is something more along the demons, a thing that comes and goes. I agree more with Mr. Tanner; it is not a demon that visits us, but inspiration is rather a conduit that can be opened directly to God.

"Pillars of Creation" - Hubble images

Naturally, I desire to open this conduit. It seems like with many things, however, that it is not to be, try as might. As Mr. Tanner indicates, most people never reach this state. Only after much skill has been acquired, only after much suffering for the sake of craft, only after utter mastery can the craftsmen and craftswomen let go of their training, become vulnerable, open themselves up to God, and become artists. They walk into the dark. This darkness is the light of illumination, of inspiration. We have to lose ourselves in order to find what is bigger than ourselves.

I do not think I have a lack of desire. As I am right now, I lack skill, mastery, and patience, but I know that if I desire this thing to be and put in all my effort, my God will take care of my inadequacies. The following is a poem where I try and overcome my inadequacies, where I try and practice resisting those deficiencies.

“The Violet Hulled Ship”
Elizabeth Lain

My body lies curled around a

rock like a pillow,

naked and waiting.

A straight vine-line cracks my head,

fractures with images of matchmakers

Oozing onto the cement, playing

their game in amber tones.

The line is heavy, the air is old.

Where I am, it shall not be there also

on this empty shore bereft of all

but the vine-line.

My vision fades, into nothing but

the gray on this abysmal handmade shore.

My heart lacks the pulsing fire, it

has not yet been on the pyre. The refiner,

the purifier’s tinctures will remain unscathing. The heart

made of hardened, hand-packed ash cannot rest

in tomes of flesh or flames of respiration.

I lie curled on this shore, waiting for

the ship with the violet hull

which will never come

to bring to life the small violet buds

of the vine-line.

For the violet-hulled ship has already passed,

lingering no longer amidst

a forlorn and forgotten body that cannot

capture the capability.

Nails grate against the cement,

scraping, perfect points of tendon’s tension,

of bone striving against muscle, of dust against rock.

The ship does not return.

Somewhere, beyond the line and empty shore, two

violet orchids wrap around a fractured ivory skull,
kissing it in the darkness.

"Krakatau and Driftwood" - Unknown