Writing Tidbits Part 5: Inspiration

The Sanctum

Curiosity is often my doorway to inspiration, inspiration with a small “i.” The other one, Inspiration with the big “I” dwells in a high and lofty place, next to immortality. I can hardly claim privilege in that arena, although, at times, curiosity has brought me close. The word “curio” means something rare or novel. I’m drawn to novelty and even seek it out.

Once while working on a project, I came across the mention of a “magic lantern.” Just the name of it seemed so mythic that I immediately burrowed down into one of my research rabbit holes and ended up taking a three hour trip down to Austin, Texas to see “The House that Jack Built,” a castle like structure complete with mote and turrets. Inside was what Jack described as the most complete collection of magic lanterns and memorabilia in the world. Jack did not disappoint, neither with his collection, nor with his stories surrounding how he came to be the curator of such an eclectic collection of all things magic lantern. He was a beautiful man who had ventured out on a beautiful quest.

That’s the other thing about curiosity. Its threshold often leads to beauty, not in the conventional sense, as in what we would think of when someone is attempting to describe a beautiful woman. The beauty I’m talking about is more fundamental, more primal than that. It’s a little like falling in love with the essence of something that catches your attention, like noticing a hawk family that has moved into the stand of trees by your walking path and then becoming familiar with the hatchlings’ hunger cries, then being delighted to discover that the offspring of hawks stay in the nest longer than most birds, six weeks, (some kinds of little hatchlings are flung out of the nest mere hours after their entrance into the world) and then learning that hawks grow to almost the size of their adult parents before they leave the nest. What a great big beautiful story that is, those big ol’ babies sitting up there in the nest waiting for their next meal from mommy and daddy. That’s the kind of beauty into which it’s possible to fall, its vortex pulling you into another way of being, like Dorothy, suddenly in Oz.

Imagination is it’s own portal to inspiration. It provides the oxygen we need for our writing and more importantly for our everyday lives. Sometimes an idea can lay dormant, a lifeless form that’s taking up space in our storage bin of potentials, and then a rogue wind blows in bringing a mythical image or the spark of a fairy’s tale, “evoking worlds,” a thought attributed to Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli in Wikipedia’s article on imagination.

Curiosity, beauty and imagination form a triad that becomes a nurturing womb or a sanctuary of sorts where inspiration germinates. At times we stumble upon it, an unexpected gift breaking in to our ordinary routine. At other times it may take intention to journey there, to that sanctum of inspiration. And to set up residency there takes determination, like the practice an athlete might devote to a sporting competition that’s captured his soul.

What would it look like to practice setting up residency and dwelling in curiosity, beauty and imagination, to subject our big ol’ selves to waiting for our next meal, our next “communion” with inspiration, to recognize with humility that we seem, for all practical purposes to be full grown and yet there is still something essential missing, something we need to digest and assimilate into our being before we can “fly.”

What are you falling in love with?

Writing Prompt For The Week: Sanctum