A few short thoughts on finding the right spaces for the right weight of activity

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On finding the place from which we write:

Writing is a denser weightier space than most, and requires some entry and exit time, strategy and space around it. It’s a deep dive into the self and back again. To fairy land we go when we write, and the way there and back each have their own unique challenges.
So one must make room around both ends—the ascension which is often slow, and the descent which is often more rapid both require their own types of wisdom.
If one ascends too quickly, dizziness may occur.
If one descends to fast, as in scuba diving, pressure occurs as you re-enter the daily normal taking out the trash world.
Over the years, my ascents have typically been better than my descents into that “other” space which is always with us, but which we still must intentionally visit.
At night, in dream we enter and exit more weightlessly. But during the day, we must hike with intention. Sing those old ascension songs as they were going up to Jerusalem.
You notice there aren’t many descencion songs in the book. Wonder why they weren’t singing as they left?
Well it’s hard to leave once you’re there. And I’m not sure we ever do leave Jerusalem really, nor that place from which we write.

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Thoughts on making room to pray or write.
Writing like prayer requires enough space to step slightly outside of time. And both require room to enter the imagination, so we can see what we are praying or writing about. If you are just writing down thoughts or ideas, you can do so in a grocery store parking lot.
But if you are really praying or writing, it’s a bit dangerous to pray or write and drive.
In my father’s church, they used to actually have prayer rooms. And in life, these are also needed. Writing is similar.
You need uninterrupted spaces to find what you are really thinking in that deeper strata of self.
The inner life takes room to cultivate. And some of the things I see when praying or writing, I wouldn’t want to see in a parking lot. Some of those wild dragons might cause an accident.

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I try to arrange my activities based on their weight. Counseling a friend weighs more than, watching tv. Calling my mom, weighs more than writing a text to my landlord. Etcetera.
Each activity in life has a certain density. Wisdom gives each the space each needs.

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Rooms where our metaphors grow:

I never quite trust the permanence of my art studios, as I have had so many throughout the years all over the place.
They are more like portable tabernacles to me, with important metaphors in them. Rooms made of symbol! Old watches, half finished paintings, antique lamps, poster art from the 40’s, speakers which glow, old parts of pianos, and way too many cameras, old type writers, radios, and every type of recording device ever made (which I’ve collected since childhood)….
But, every season of my life, I always had to have an art room! A place to just let things be in process. A place to collect my metaphors and let them just be.
Perhaps there is an intrinsic ellipses in all art studios. A, to be continued, implied in them.
Regardless, it’s nice to have a studio to dream out loud in, and to allow room for them to inform your next metaphors in life.
I seem to need rooms which float like a Chagall painting, or may suddenly disappear and reappear elsewhere. It’s one of my own metaphors I suppose.
We create, therefore we are…but we need rooms where things are just sitting and waiting to see what they are….
I have all shapes and sizes over the years. Huge warehouse spaces, and small ones like now. Ones in old abandoned schools, and ones in church balconies. I wish I could collage them all together, but many have sense disappeared. Or moved on…..still the metaphor of art studio or gallery house has been permanent in my life. A space for things to just be, wait, be formed and become….like me.