A Tree Full of Birds PART 11

 

In my previous post I excerpted a section from the last chapter of my book Writing the Bright Moment – inspiration & guidance for writers.

The chapter is called 'A Tree Full of Birds', and is intended to keep us keeping on: not just with writing, but with active hope, as Buddhist scholar and activist Joanna Macy would say, for the future, remembering that we co-create it, in our own small but individual ways through our own unique gifts.

Keeping a sense of wonder alive seems particularly important at a time of great darkness. This is not naïve, not sentimental – it's a way of not giving up.


So here is Part 11 of A Tree Full of Birds.

Where do you start? Find a moment of glory. I’m thinking of Seamus Heaney’s ‘Postscript’ poem, of R S Thomas’ ‘Bright Field’, of Brendan Kennelly’s Glimpses. Early in her narrative non-fiction book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard mentions a tree, an Osage orange, which, ostensibly empty, suddenly flames with an eruption of blackbirds, previously unseen; then another, then another – hundreds of blackbirds from what looked like an empty tree. This was a moment of glory for her, to which she returns in the course of the book.
    Reading her passage, many years ago now, that tree became a moment of glory for me, too; one which I have not forgotten, to which I return, a metaphor against which I measure, or by which I name, other moments – including, of course, my own personal remembered gloriousnesses. The tree, in the book and in my imagination, is both itself and a metaphor for something else. It has become mythic in size, and that way contains magic.

It happens that many bright moments occur outside, when alone in nature; and many occur in the little ‘lost’ moments between people.
    These events, I realise as I get older, are not the huge dramatic moments of intense revelation or passion, epiphanies, as they seemed to be when I was younger. Instead, they’re often tiny and easily missed; clichéd in their everydayness: a smile from a stranger, a hug from a loved one, a touch on the arm, shared words or silence, extraordinary light on the water, the glimpse of a kingfisher, an unexpected gift through the post, a card with kind words, pony’s breath or dog’s wet nose barely touching your hand, catching the dawn, an instant of total and spontaneous openheartedness. Sometimes you are prepared, maybe in a heightened state of some sort. Usually, though, these moments occur in mundane circumstances – and, let’s face it, much of our life is mundane; yet this, this quotidiennité, is the terrain of miracles. It’s the present moment that we inhabit – the now that is the only time we have.
    The writer’s job is to pay attention, pay attention, pay attention. Cultivate that kind of looking, and write with intention. Write to add to the positive stories that might help us keep hope, the tiny flame of hope, alive.

Slow down. Stay open, stay alive. Stay awake.
    Writing is a process that never stops. There is no destination; there is only the journeying. Sometimes it works; sometimes you’re off track. You’re always searching for the next step. ‘…It can take a lifetime to convey what you mean, to find the opening,’ says Barry Lopez. ‘You watch, you set it down. Then you try again.’

So you find something that inspires you and you let the pen catch fire. Find that moment of glory. Stay alert for it. Catch it out of the corner of your eye as it streams past, and slide it onto the page. Write what you’re passionate about. Really passionate about, deep inside. Let it have soul. Let your words matter. Make them count. Don’t waste them, and don’t underestimate them. Don’t worry whether anyone else cares about your writing. That way, you can’t fail. ‘People are hungry,’ says poet David Whyte; ‘and one good word is bread for a thousand.’


© Roselle Angwin 2004