Walking Through the Flux

This past weekend, I went hiking with two friends. It was 23 miles of crunching over forest floors and getting sweaty and dirty. It was several hours of not bothering to talk because the other introverts were also lost in their thoughts.

When one artist-friend asked me what I’m working on, I stuttered a bit to respond.  When the other friend asked me what I’m reading, I hesitated.

My input and output seem to be in a state of flux. Neither is doing much just now.  So I reminded myself not to watch my feet the whole time we walked and instead to look at stuff like this:

I’ve got a deadline this Friday for a collaborative piece I’m working on.

I have been letting it simmer on the back burner since it almost scalded a few weeks ago. I had thought it was done, but someone else on the project changed the ingredients, and now I’ve got some more stirring and simmering to do.  I’ll be glad to meet that deadline and be able to turn off those burners on the creative stove.  There’s a possibility I’ll have to delve back into that project in the future, but that is less urgent after I deliver my stuff this week.

My friend Brenna wrote a wonderful post about this feeling of “fallow” – like the seed that will not be rushed to sprout.  My feeling is less one of fallow and more one of flux. Transition. Transformation.

The old rituals have failed me. Places in my spirit that used to bear fruit now only yield thorns.

So, I’m walking. Walking and climbing and scrambling. I’m walking through thunderstorms and down enchanted fairyland paths lined with mountain laurel’s sturdy lace. I don’t want to read.  I’m not particularly excited about sewing, and the words are bare trickles in their flow.

It’s okay. Sometimes I don’t have to talk. I can just climb above the canopy and breathe.