The following poem is by Saint John of the Cross. I am very much drawn to ecstatic spiritual poetry because it seems to be a wonderful description of the creative act, which is like entering in the realm of the unknown, the unknowable. When the writing is going well, it is like a moment of transcendence.
I entered in, I know not where,
And I remained, though knowing naught,
Transcending knowledge with my thought.
Of when I entered I know naught,
But when I saw that I was there
(Though where it was I did not care)
Strange things I learned, with greatness fraught.
Yet what I heard I'll not declare.
But there I stayed, though knowing naught,
Transcending knowledge with my thought.
Of peace and piety interwound
This perfect science had been wrought,
Within the solitude profound
A straight and narrow path it taught,
Such secret wisdom there I found
That there I stammered, saying naught,
But topped all knowledge with my thought.
So borne aloft, so drunken-reeling
So rapt was I, so swept away,
Within the scope of sense or feeling
My sense or feeling could not stay.
And in my soul I felt, revealing,
A sense that, though its sense was naught,
Transcended knowledge with my thought.
The man who truly there has come
Of his own self must shed the guise:
Of all he knew before the sun
Seems far beneath that wondrous prize:
And in this lore he grows so wise
That he remains, though knowing naught,
Transcending knowledge with his thought.
The farther that I climbed the height
The less I seemed to understand
The cloud so tenebrous and grand
That there illuminates the night.
For he who understands that sight
Remains for aye, though knowing naught,
Transcending knowledge with his thought.
This wisdom without understanding
Is of so absolute a force
No wise man of whatever standing
Can ever stand against its course,
Unless they tap its wondrous source
To know so much, though knowing naught,
They pass all knowedge with their thought, ...
Why I think this poem is applicable to the creative process:
1--It is something you ENTER, not something you do.
2--If you bring too much KNOWLEDGE to the process, you can kill your creative source. Somehow, you must TRANSCEND what you know, or think you know.
3--If you transcend knowledge, you will discover STRANGE THINGS, wonderful things, that have been trapped in your unconscious. There in your unconscious, you will find SECRET WISDOM that will inform your writing.
4--To come to this place of secret wisdom, you must shed your GUISE. You can't pretend to be another person (or another writer!). You have to shed the faces you put on in your daily life and write from your center, your true self.
5--The truths that you tell will be an ABSOLUTE FORCE that others are waiting and needing to hear.
*Note--Of course writing is a recursive process. At points knowledge is useful, during the editing phase for instance when we shape our poems or narratives and correct mistakes. Most writers go back and forth between these acts of creating and shaping/correcting.
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