I Don’t Want to Create Anything.
Insights from 46 days of writing. +Esoteric Daoist teachings.
I knew my 70-day writing challenge was going to stretch me and for the most part I’ve enjoyed it.
It was stressful here and there, trying to post while out in the mountains of Bali or adrift on the tiny island of Gili Air with no power.
Each time I got access to the internet at exactly the right moment and prayed a sigh of relief.
What’s more is that the challenge has given more meaning to the ups and downs of life.
I’ve had some small manic episodes, some depression, grief over a friend’s overdose and each time the practice of daily writing has caused me to sit with these experiences, analyze them, find their lesson, and share it.
I would have done that without the challenge but it would have been slower. The need to find inspiration for a story has increased my mindfulness of my experience. The need to find words for my experience has quickened the pace of my processing.
For the last few days though I just don’t want to write.
I said in the beginning of this that challenges are unnatural and I’ve written several articles on the way the body and mind work with cycles and don’t do well with expectations of consistency.
But I wanted to stretch myself. To prove that I can do this.
So I will do this.
And I’ll do it while being mindful that perhaps it's not the best time to be stretching myself.
Winter and Water in Daoism.
In the tradition passed on to me by my mentor, the Daoist cycle starts with water. As do most mythologies.
This is the energy of winter. It’s darker, colder, wetter.
Technically it’s summer here in Bali but it’s the rainy season and my body hasn’t had its winter this year.
It’s been running on an extended summer started in Portland and it's wanting to withdraw, to soak in the rain, to collect itself and rest.
In the Daoist tradition, winter is linked to the motion of water.
Water is the energy of collection. Just like all rivers lead to an ocean or a lake, or condensation on a window begins to collect into beads and streams, water gathers itself together.
In chemistry, this is due to its covalent bonds, in the Daoist tradition this is the furthest extent of Yin. The energy is gathering now in its most condensed state and about to transform into Yang in the spring.
Water rules the late night when we get our rest. It rules the realm of dreams and the worlds of the mind.
People with a lot of water energy tend to be daydreamers, their minds have one foot in this world and one foot in another realm. Whether that be a realm of fantasy or abstract mathematical equations doesn’t matter as long as it is somewhere else, a reflection of this world.
Because of water’s ability to create worlds of fantasy it is linked to the emotions and experiences of wonder and fear.
This is the energy of winter. The time when our ancestors collected together, bound by their covalent bonds, their social ties and needs to survive.
The cold and dark kept them inside, kept them linked to one another.
Resources were conserved. Chinese texts say to go to bed early and wake up late in the winter.
This was the time for meditating, for dreaming, for letting the mind process the year. For letting the body rest and gather its energy for a new cycle.
My body, my mind wants its water energy.
I know that when this challenge is over I’m going to continue writing but I will be making time and space for watery days. For moments of self-collection.
What about you?
Do you make space to collect yourself?
Love and share.
I’m starting something new. Writing every day as I put my random thoughts down on binary paper.
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