HINTS, GLINTS AND GLIMPSES

The reason I like to arise when it’s still dark, whether in the middle of the night or somewhat before dawn, then go to my study and sit in silence, is to see what appears to my inner lights.

As I sit curled in my easy chair with a writing board and a yellow pad on my lap, still in the dark, sipping from a mug of chai tea, I wait quietly for images and ideas to spark in my mind like fireflies. Sometimes the pen in my right hand starts tapping rhythmically on the wooden chair arm, which seems to induce a semi-trance that amps up my inner light flow and urges me closer to writing.

By this time I’m relaxed and serene in my body, while something in my mind revs up to speak as “I” stand by to take down what words emerge from wherever it is that words arise.

When that urge at last arrives, I turn on a low-watt bulb beside me, making a dim pool of illumination, light enough to write by without distracting me with sights on the periphery.

This process doesn’t seem to me as mystical or spooky as channeling or automatic writing. Rather, it’s just a mood of fluency and lucidity, of readiness to receive into my consciousness language that turns nebulous thought solid, distills words from the ether of amorphous mentality, and fixes them in ink on a page.

Something vague grows sharp. Something insubstantial takes shape. Something dim shines clear.

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