When looking for inspiration, I like to read books that I love. The Little Prince is a book that inspires me.

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” 
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

What an amazing story. I pulled it off of the shelf while thinking about my French teacher from long, long ago. I read it with her a long time ago. It is about an airplane pilot who crashes in the Sahara desert. While he is trying to figure out what to do, he is approached by the little prince, a little blond boy who is from a small planet called Asteroid B-612. The pilot learns that the little prince has left behind three volcanoes and a rose that he loves.


“In those days, I didn't understand anything. I should have judged her according to her actions, not her words. She perfumed my planet and lit up my life. I should never have run away! I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her... But I was too young to know how to love her.” 
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Before reaching Earth, he visited other planets and met some very strange people (adults whom he finds baffling): a king, a conceited man, a drunkard, a lamplighter, a geographer…  On Earth, he speaks to a fox who teaches him that:


"What is essential is invisible to the eye, says the fox."

He wants to return to his planet and his rose, so The Little Prince allows himself to be bitten by a poisonous snake. He feels that his planet is too far away, so he cannot take his "shell". The aviator repairs his plane,  and also leaves the desert. Every time he looks into the sky, he thinks of his dear friend. The Little Prince teaches him about love and human relationships. 

“If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers...” 
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince


I love The Little Prince because there is nothing extra in it. It is simple and beautiful. I also love it because it is a children's story and an adult story. The illustrations are fascinating. It plays with the idea of life as an illusion and pushes the parameters of imagination. It is both dreamlike and true. Most importantly, it is a lesson about love, which I think all great books should be. Books likes this are some of my favorite teachers. I keep coming back to them again and again.  

Bereft. It has been a hard and long week. Too soon to write about it though, so I will focus on something more familiar.

I haven't had a moment to write this week, but I have had a lot of time to think. One question I am always thinking about is the question of creativity, specifically how to cultivate it and nurture it. I know running, yoga and meditation are all a part of that process for me, but it has been an on-going conversation as to how. I feel like I am getting more clear on the answer.

According to neuroscientists, it's all about quieting the prefrontal cortex- getting your mind out of the way. Creativity, it turns out, is different than intellect and intellect can often interfere with the creative process. It is why free-writing is so helpful, it defies the organized mind. With yoga, I think it is about getting out of your mind and into your body and quieting the analytical mind, letting go. Though I haven't tested this theory, I think reversing habitual motions might be helpful too, in attempt to flip things in such a way that a new perspective surfaces- switching dominant feet and hands for example. Mostly though, like with most things, it is about getting really quiet and noticing and recording what bubbles up. Yoga, running and meditation facilitate that process in a beautiful way. 

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...” 
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

According to his psychodynamic theory, Freud believed, the "real functioning of thought" was presumed to be driven by the unconscious desires, by letting go, we could reveal the true nature of things through the world of dreams and free associations. 

Neurologists have observed that patients with extensive damage to the prefrontal cortex cannot inhibit their stray thoughts and feelings. Neurologists believe that the prefrontal cortex is involved in filtering, or executive control, as in the conductor of an orchestra. Without such control, thoughts and feelings are moved by whatever random waves of brain activity are occurring. 

It is suggested that creative moments may require the prefrontal cortex to be shut down. They have scanned jazz musicians while playing and it has been demonstrated that during those performances that large regions of the prefrontal cortex were deactivated while improvising compared to when they were playing from memory. The part of the brain that was lit up during creative moments (the frontal polar cortex) was the region that is associated with the implementation of higher-order goals or high-order feelings (to use the orchestra metaphor- the sheet music that the orchestra plays from). During creative acts, it may be useful to suppress prefrontal control to some extent and simply be guided by the frontal polar cortex instead and let the stray thoughts and feelings from the rest of the brain rise up and be filtered there instead. The deactivation of prefrontal cortex may allow thoughts to bubble up that otherwise would have been suppressed as irrelevant or inappropriate. 

I have to do some more research about the frontal polar cortex to figure out how to stimulate that while suppressing the prefrontal cortex. That would be the ideal scenario it seems. Also, the prefrontal cortex is the voice of doubt and negative self-thoughts. Less of that would be nice for sure. And maybe I should keep a dream journal. Dreams tell a story. Dreams allow a deeper layer of yourself have a voice for a while.

Asleep or awake, my goal is to get really quiet and close my eyes and try to feel my way around.

“The thing that is important is the thing that is not seen.” 
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

not flaws. adornments. The word finally came to me. What I was trying to say yesterday. To me the imperfections are, in fact, adornments. 
My skin is so sensitive that I can't really wear much jewelry and even make-up makes my face itch, so I have never been much interested in that stuff. I look for the adornments such as wrinkles or messy hair morning hair or scars and my eyes indulge in them. 
There is a Keith Richards documentary that details his softer, more poetic side. His face is so intense and wrinkled, like the way water digs out a canyon. His face tells an amazing story. And when he smiles, you can see clearly that a lot of the wrinkles are from a place of child-like wonderment. It's a full-faced smile. 
To me one of the privileges of love is the deep study and appreciation of the adornments that make us rare, not pretty but rare. What's pretty about the Earth are it's canyons, valley, craters, mountains, etc... It's dramatic features and unique spots. To me, people are the same. 

I read it in my book of meditations last night before bed and it stuck with me all night. On a run this morning my friend asked me for a blow by blow of the eclipse since it was cloudy here and she couldn't see it. I have to say that one of the things that stuck out for me was how bumpy and imperfect the shadowed edged of the Earth was. To my eyes, it was uneven. Unlike a crisp crescent moon it was a little splotchy and seemed to waiver at the edges too, sometimes receding a little and sometimes surging forward. So much so that I wasn't sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me. That was what I was trying to get at in my post yesterday. It was sort of humbling and so beautiful in its imperfection, to watch this bumpy edge creep across the moon's surface. 
I often find that imperfections make things more rare and real. I actually love the imperfections of the people I love, the crinkles along the eyes, the wrinkles, the birth marks, the scars. It's what makes them rare and real.
I have a pretty elaborate birth mark on my ankle. I've had it my whole life. When I was little I used to try to wash it off because it looks sort of like a smudge of dirt except that it has 20 or so freckles in it. My dermatologist told me it was called the constellation because, I guess, in a way, it sort of looks like one. My very sweet mother forgets about it though and tells me to wash it off when she notices it. For me that has always been a little hard because I keep inventory on the details/imperfections of the people I love and it's a detail she always forgets. It's okay though, sweetness is her strength, not details. 
I look for rarities not perfections. I think the array of characters in my book reflects that aspect of me really well. And I hope other people love them as much as I do.

I've watched all of my children become intrigued by the shadows they cast down upon the Earth. It comes early. They realize this thing is following them around and that it moves when they move. Then there comes that moment of realization that it is indeed a reflection of their own person and they start to play with it. I actually consider that moment and looking in the mirror for the first time a really big deal. It's the beginning of our spiritual journey, in a way. It's an awareness. The first instance when you realize you are separate and distinct. It is the beginning of a whole chain of other thoughts that come in different stages of your life and build upon one another.
Watching the shadow of the Earth creep so slowly across the moon was one of those moments too. The exact curvature of the Earth mirrored back. Then, once covered entirely, the moon hung there, obscured and smooth and dark red like a Christmas ornament. Watching the edge of the Earth creep so slowly was a reminder of that feeling of separate, a viewpoint that we almost never get to see in this way. 
My father likes to say every time we are on the little beach on the lake in Maine, "In our universe alone, there are more stars than all of the individual granules of sand on this beach, more than you could even count. Isn't that amazing." He is full of wonder. Even at 75, he is always full of curiosity and wonder.
It took 12 hours to get home. It is so remote and separate there, but quiet and peaceful, a good chance to notice things like shadows and see how they play across the water and the moon. Love can do that too, reflect back the soft edges of ourselves.

'Moon and Water'
by Mary Oliver

I wake and spend
The last hours
Of darkness
With no one

But the moon.
She listens
To my complaints
Like the good

Companion she is
And comforts me surely
With her light.
But she, like everyone,

Has her own life.
So finally I understand
That she has turned away,
Is no longer listening.

She wants me
To refold myself
And, bending close,

As we all dream of doing, she rows with her white arms
Through the dark water
Which she adores.

Again

revival, reassurance... all re-words. There are so many. resplendent- one of my favorite words means characterized by a glowing splendor- splendid and sumptuous x 2. re. The resplendent sky, the resplendent bird, his/her resplendent eyes. How beautiful. 

Re- is potent. It is one of the unique aspects of being human. Again. Every day is again. The sun comes up. The sun goes down. Our mind toils with the day.

Re-tell. People love to re-tell their stories, and, I have already said, I love to listen. There is a certain magic in the re-telling, what details are remembered and which are left behind. I really didn't know what I was going to say to my son the other night, but I think I told him some version of the lullaby that I wanted to hear, that in all his sweetness he received so beautifully and gracefully, that everything was going to be okay. 

Re-wind. I print something most days and a picture of my grandparents rests on the printer. It is one of my favorite pictures. To be able to rewind and be with them again. What a gift that would be to go back in time.

One of the things I love about the ritual of yoga is that you visit the same poses on the same mat over and over again. Yet there is such internal and external release over time, day to day, such knowing and movement in 'the again'. The key to writing is the ritual of it. Sun up, sun down, again. The key to meditation and running is the ritual, the re- or again of it. 

To bring up water again... water is the ultimate 'again'- set in its constant movement and cycle of flow, evaporation, condensation. The miracle of the New Testament of the Bible is Re-surrection. In Hinduism- re-incarnation. Re- again. The thing with prime numbers is that they re-cur over and over, again and again. 

I think wanting Revival in the title of my book has to do a lot with the prefix re- too.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

re·as·sur·ance
ˌrēəˈSHo͝orəns/
noun

1. the action of removing someone's doubts or fears.
   "children need reassurance and praise"
   
• a statement or comment that removes someone's doubts or fears.
  plural noun: reassurances
  "we have been given reassurances that the water is safe to drink

A relative is dying, and my son was in tears. I lay down with him and held him as he cried. His spirit is most like mine and so I know too well what he was feeling. I desperately wanted to reassure him about her passage, about life in general. I started talking, not even sure what was going to come out.
I said something like, this is one of the hardest parts of life and there is no way around it. I told him it's all going to be okay. I told him that her body is sick but her spirit will remain and be omnipresent. I said something to the effect of, our spirits are so much bigger than the bodies that contain them, that in many ways our bodies both enable and confine our sentience. She will be free, I said, to love us all more freely. 

My words seemed to reassure him. Because of my own existential struggles with loneliness, I have always wanted desperately for my children to feel that I am always right there, if not in person, in love. I compare it to a hug, whether I am alive or not, I will always surround them. Love in general will always surround them. They cannot fall. I want them to have an existential reassurance that I have never felt fully myself, a feeling/confidence that I have craved deeply and have seen in others but never felt. That there was a place to cave into in the times I needed it. 

“Stories are masks of God.

That's a story, too, of course. I made it up, in collaborations with Joseph Campbell and Scheherazade, Jesus and the Buddha and the Brother's Grimm.

Stories show us how to bear the unbearable, approach the unapproachable, conceive the inconceiveable. Stories provide meaning, texture, layers and layers of truth.

Stories can also trivialize. Offered indelicately, taken too literally, stories become reductionist tools, rendering things neat and therefore false. Even as we must revere and cherish the masks we variously create, Campbell reminds us, we must not mistake the masks of God for God.

So it seemes to me that one of the most vital things we can teach our children is how to be storytellers. How to tell stories that are rigorously, insistently, beautifully true. And how to believe them.” 
― Melanie Tem, The Man on the Ceiling

"I found my first novel difficult. I don't want to make it sound like it's any more difficult than driving a cab or going to any other job, but there are so many opportunities for self-doubt, that you just kind of need to soldier on."

Anthony Doerr

Not only am I riddled with self-doubt, I am super cold. The thermostat reads 72. I am wearing a light jacket with the hood up. I am inside and I am still cold. This has been the way for me these days. When I was running the other day, I saw four or five people taking a nap in the grass in the sunshine. It looked warm and amazing, something I haven't made time for since college maybe. It sounds nice right now, curling into a soft puddle of light. It sounds warm and soothing and nice. 

In the book one of my characters is talking to another and says, "You have to be careful not to wrap yourself so tightly in your own story that you hang yourself... or God-forbid let someone else do it for you."

I am a collector of people's stories. I love to discover them, to talk to people, to read about them, to watch documentaries about them. Two books and one documentary about Steve Jobs and I still want to know more. It's not just geniuses and humanitarians I want to know about though. In many ways I care the most about the stories of people I meet randomly on the street, at the library, on planes, the more outcast, the better. When I am out I am always listening to catch little pieces of other people's stories. I have always been that way. In a large part I was so quiet and shy when I was young because I was so attuned to listening and watching, it didn't occur to me to participate in a way. And, luckily for me, people love to tell their stories. Ironically, I really don't like to talk about my own story. That's why this blog has been such a challenge for me. 

I really believe very deeply the lesson that my character is trying to convey. When I was young, my mother became sick in a very devastating and public way. It happened over and over again. It took a long time to resolve. While I was too young to understand what was happening fully, I could always tell who judged my family and who did not. Gossip and judgement surrounded me. I could feel it in the air. I think it made me even more quiet than I already was. If I had followed the stories I heard instead of what I knew in my heart, they would have hung me, not out of spite or ill intent, but out of judgement and careless, idle gossip. Anxiety is just stories we tell ourselves about the future. Depression is stories we tell ourselves about the past. Don't get me wrong, stories are so, so important. They just have to be discerning. And I believe you have to be fluid enough that you don't get so hung up in them that people can't get in and you can't get out.
Like water, a story just is. The best ones flow freely.

My roommate in Nepal was named Mandira, which means temple in Nepalese. I went with her to visit a temple where her sister lived in the Terai region, which is the flat area adjacent to India. The colors there were vivid, bright, beaming yellow mustard fields, more colorful saris, foods, tall grasses with rhino, tigers and elephants. The temple was beautiful and there the monks were creating a sand mandala. I had never seen one before, and I remember the trance of watching the mandala take shape. It was difficult for me to leave.

I had the most beautiful dream last night that involved mandalas, and I don't want to forget it so I am writing here. It was one of those mysterious dreams that I really didn't want to end, the ones that are vivid and that you think about over and over again. 

It was really simple. I had a jar of dark black/blue sand with flecks of gold or micah in it. There was a circle drawn on the floor. I slowly methodically poured the sand into my hands and then through my fingers into the circle for a long time, walking round and round the circle. I even remember how the sand felt sliding through my fingers. It was so vivid. When I finally stepped back to look at it, the mandala lay there like the night sky, the dark universe with fleck of gold peeking out. It was breathtaking.