Writing and birthing a book into the world is orgasmic. And there is a morning after. Actually, there are many morning-after experiences for writers, just as there are in love, sex, and childbirth. These are the sobering days when the writing is done, the editing is finalized, and you are there with yourself, alone, your eyes tired from too much staring at word after word, picking out errors and reconstructing sentences. This is a hymn to the morning after, post-orgasmic writing that meets you in the moments after expression is over.
Crone Wisdom is honest. Crone Wisdom is not deceptive. To portray the joy of voicing one’s truth as if there was no morning after is not possible for me. How we are with ourselves when the gorgeous creative time is over is what spells our longevity as artists and as wisdom carriers.
The willingness to be self-congratulatory, self-hugging, self-welcoming and spacious in the aftermath of completion is what I evoke right now, for you and for myself. I have spent the last two nights pouring over the galleys of my new book, The Secret of Resilience— so I know whereof I speak.
These final proofs are crucial. I have read and re-read this book dozens of times. Each time I question it and myself. To do that yet again, not for the purpose of creating something new, but in order to assure that what I already created is fit for the world to view, tapped into my resistance and struggle. I wanted someone else to do it, but there was no one else. I had to do it, and I was ashamed of every necessary correction. I had to constantly resist the temptation to rewrite the book. I had to battle with my doubt, yet again.
It is easy for me to feel sexy, alive, empowered and guided while writing and even throughout the initial crafting and editing. It is the final proofing phases, the editing process after it has happened over and over again, the cleaning up of the manuscript, and the repeated questioning of its worth, that makes me feel like a drudge. I write to you now, in the morning after, to bring vibrancy to every stage of the creative experience by sharing it and not hiding it.
How we hold ourselves on the morning after, when we are alone, builds a bridge so that we can move from one ecstatic experience of creativity to another— gracefully, exquisitely, seamlessly. Crone Wisdom says that the flame of creativity needs to be tended as the eternal flame. It is not a fire that sparks and is then extinguished. It remains lit and takes a variety of forms, including the form of silent listening, the form of rest, and the form of holding one’s self.
The embrace that is welcoming does not stir the flame but assures that it will burn forever.
I meet myself on this morning after, having done the due diligence of cleaning up my writing, that unromantic, far from glamorous tedium, with my eyes tired and my doubts scattered throughout my body. That I have met the doubts that were reissued on the umpteenth rereading is my triumph. I welcome myself to this day, and reward my fortitude.
I seek between the cracks of creativity for that supportive gesture: the one that mentors us forward, the hand at our back, the perceptive eye that recognizes purpose and giftedness even when it is not evident, even when it is tired. That is my hand, my welcome, my gesture, my perception.
Who is the world I speak to and with, and who is the Crone Speak being that interacts with that world? The world is my universal family and I am the eternal flame that mirrors the eternal flame in every member of my family, every being to whom I speak. Imperfect as I am, I remember my future and move toward her with welcoming anticipation, even as I rest and wait, gently, easily, in the morning after ease of nothing more to say. Just love. Just be in love and rest.
As a Crone with the accumulated wisdom of decades of perseverance, I am in for the duration. I want to share what I have assembled. Beginning with a childhood in which internalized writing and the power of imagination was the only key available to me for thriving, to this monumental juncture in history when all of humanity is threatened with extinction, I never waver in my grounded assurance that the art of communication, connection, honesty, and word-craft is unifying.
Crone Speak makes a path in the mystery for others to follow easily and naturally. Crone Speak is stalwartly by your side, whether you are flush with the heat of creative passion, or on the morning after, when you are alone with yourself.
This is wonderful! Much needed as I struggle to write myself more regularly.