Redtree Times

Beguiled– Now at West End Gallery

For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

–F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

I’ve been rolling this sentence from The Great Gatsby around in my mind for a while this morning. It makes me think about our capacity for wonder and whether we still have it to the same degree as those Dutch sailors that Fitzgerald was describing as they looked for the first upon the New World.

Have we become jaded? Has the constant infusion of computer-generated imagery and spectacle online dulled our sense of wonder? Are we still able to fully appreciate the truly remarkable or beautiful when it presents itself to us, unannounced?

Can we still be enchanted by the rise and presence of the moon? Can simple beauty, grace, and harmony still take our breath away? Can we still experience a sense of catharsis in the structure of poetry, in the flow of a piece of music or dance, or in the presence of a work of art?

I want to say yes for myself and for you folks reading this but in general I honestly don’t know.

Are we capable of knowing when we have lost that simple sense of wonder?

Again, I don’t know.

Funny how a simple random sentence can unlock such a large of questions.

That might be the answer to the general question posed in this post: simple.

Maybe simple is the antidote to the emotional numbness brought on by constant extravaganza and spectacle? Could be…

I’ll let you ponder that and move on to this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s a piece that comes up regularly on the channel I listen to here in the studio. It’s a composition titled Breathtaker from Seattle-based musician SYML. His name is Brian Fennell but goes by Syml which is the Welsh word (his birth parents were both second generation Welsh immigrants) for simple. True to his name this is a seemingly simple piano piece, but it never fails to make me stop and listen when it comes on, no matter what I am doing at the time.

Watchful Presence— At West End Gallery

Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away.

― Hakuin Ekaku

Wise words from Hakuin Ekaku, the 18th century Japanese Zen Buddhist master. You have probably heard of his famed kōan (a short story, statement, or question meant to test a Zen student’s progress) that basically asks: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Heady stuff. But today we’re focusing on two of his thoughts, the one at the top and this gem:

At this moment, is there anything lacking? Nirvana is right here now before our eyes. This place is the lotus land. This body now is the Buddha.

We are creatures of desire and envy. We want constantly what others have, somehow thinking it offers us some intangible that will somehow provide us with lasting happiness. We envy other places, seeing in them qualities that we believe are lacking in those places we now occupy and believing that those places will provide a higher level of happiness or contentment.

But is happiness better found in more things or in far flung places? As Hakuin points out, in this moment, is there anything lacking? What prevents you from knowing what your happiness or what your truth might be?

Those two things–truth and happiness– are interior qualities. No place or thing can provide lasting truth or happiness. The secret is in not straining for these things but in recognizing that they are at hand, available if only you open yourself to them.

You may still want to improve things in your life, acquire things or even physically move. But remember that they are not the way to contentment because it is already here, wherever that might be.

I write these words as a reminder to myself. I am as susceptible as anyone to falling to the lure of thinking that I can find happiness in external things and places. But a simple reminder helps me remember the happiness found in simple things, in recognizing the good things present in the humblest moments.

I thought about just that the other day. I was trudging through the mud outside my studio, a common thing at this wet time of the year. At first, it made me cringe and grump about it for a bit. Then I wondered why it bothered me so. It was part of the place that is a very important piece of my life and simply a product of the ever-changing seasons. Soon it would be dry and the grass would again be growing. I changed my point of view and felt a pang of happiness in that wet moment.

Contentment.

Simple things are not necessarily small things.

And vice versa.

This post first ran in 2016 and again ran about four or so years back. Just felt right this morning. A fine reminder for any time.

I had to chuckle a bit at the part about trudging through the mud. I must have changed my view since this originally ran as I no longer complain about the mud. We now actually call ourselves Mud People, as opposed to the Pavement People.

And do so happily.

Here’s a lovely piece, Spiegel im Spiegel, that has been shared here before from a favorite composer of mine, Arvo Pärt. The title translates from the German as Mirror in the Mirror. Think of an Infinity Mirror where two mirrors facing one another produce an image that is endlessly reflected back upon itself in ever smaller variations until it finally disappears. In some ways, some art serves as an infinity mirror for those who dare to look deeply into that mirror.

This version featuring cellist Alan Black and harpist Andrea Mumm Trammell was playing as I wrote this. Its peaceful tone felt in tune with what this post is trying to get across that I thought it should be shared.

A Prayer for Relief   1995

No doubt the reason is that character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

–Helen Keller, Helen Keller’s Journal:1936-1937

While I’ve been blocked as I wait and wait, I’ve been looking at some of my older work. Lately I’ve been focusing on some of the pieces from my Exiles series from 1995. Hard to believe it’s been thirty years.

The Exiles series was created in the time just before and after my mom’s death back in November of 1995 and focused on how I saw her suffering in the last several months of her life as cancer ravaged her body. It’s a personal series, one that was important to me in many ways, both personally and as an artist.

This work has taken on new meaning in recent times for me. Not that I am going through nor do I anticipate going through anywhere the same sort of experience of suffering that my mom endured. Or the even the experiences of so many others who are now enduring far more suffering than me.

But I am a little more aware of her experience now and saddened a bit by my lack of this awareness when she was in her final months. I would like to say it was youthful ignorance but I was not a child at that point, in my mid-thirties. I suppose was at that time beginning the journey from my selfish nature of childhood to one of more understanding of our connections and responsibilities during our time here. I see Mom’s suffering now as an important and formative segment of that journey. I hate to put it this way, but her suffering was great gift in a way.

It put things into a wider perspective, allowing me to see that we all suffer in some way sometime and that my suffering is no greater than that of anyone else.

The suffering of anyone should be felt by all.

That’s the hope, of course. If we fail to feel the suffering of others, our journey stalls and we fail to gain what might be the better part of ourselves.

That might be the greatest gift that Mom gave me. And that means a lot because she was a great and generous gift giver.

Here’s a video from about 20 years ago with some of the Exiles series. This film is flawed and doesn’t contain all the series images, but it captures the series perfectly, at least in how I saw it then and see it now. Still makes me emotional…

No Mail– 2010

You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place…

— Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

Looking at this painting yesterday in the studio reminded me that I need to let folks know that I will not be sending out my annual Christmas card this year. With all that is going on personally, I haven’t been able to produce a card and will be too busy or preoccupied to do the addressing/mailing part.  Plus, we are in belt-tightening mode which played a small part in this decision.

It wasn’t an easy decision. I have been sending them out for well over twenty years now and I get messages from so many people who say they enjoy and look forward to them each holiday season. So, it feels kind of weird to not be sending them this year. Maybe next year I can resume. Sure hope so.

Also, for those of you who have reciprocated in the past, please refrain as we no longer receive mail at our former PO Box 25. If you feel the desire to do so anyway, please contact me via email for an address.

Looking at this painting also brought back the memories from my childhood that always arise from looking at this piece. The painting, No Mail, is another orphan, one of those pieces that went out into the world 2010 and came back without being able to find a home. I normally try to figure out if there is an apparent flaw in these orphans and sometimes there is something that is just not right in its composition or some other technical aspect that degrades it somehow. But sometimes I notice that these pieces are often pieces that I see as being more personal, more connected with my own life’s narrative. Pieces where I see more in them than might not be apparent to others. This painting falls into this category. It evokes a certain time and feeling so vivid in my memory that it immediately emerges for me when I look at this painting.

I went back in the archives for the blog and found what I had written about this piece several years back. I’d like to share it just to show the connections that some paintings make even though they may not reach out to everyone. It’s very much about the anticipation that comes with waiting, something I am all too acquainted with these days. Waiting is often the bane of a child’s existence. It was for me back then and it remains so, stuck here as I am in the Waiting Place.

[From 2010]

This is a piece that’s been bouncing around my studio for a month or so, one that I call No Mail. It’s a smallish painting on paper, measuring about 8″ by 14″. I haven’t decided whether I will show this one or simply hold on to it. It’s a matter of whether I believe others will see anything in it rather than me wanting to keep it for myself. Maybe it’s that I see a very personal meaning in the piece that is reflected in the title and I can’t decide if it will translate to others.

For me, this painting reminds me of my childhood and the house I consider my childhood home, an old farmhouse that sat by itself with no neighbors in sight. Specifically, this painting reminds me of exact memories I have of trudging to the mailbox as an 8- or 9-year-old in the hot summer sun. There’s a certain dry dustiness from the driveway and the heat is just building in the late morning. It was a lazy time for a child in the country, especially one that didn’t live on a farm. Late July and many weeks to go before school resumes. The excitement of school ending has faded, and the child finds himself spending his days trying to find ways to not be bored into submission.

The trip to the mailbox is always a highlight of the day, filled with the possibility that there might be something in it for me. Something that is addressed only to and for me, a validation that I exist in the outside world and am not stranded on this dry summer island. Usually, the tinge of excitement fades quickly as I open the old metal mailbox and find nothing there for me. But occasionally there is something different, so much so that I recognize it without even seeing the name on the label or envelope.

It’s mine, for me, directed to me. Perhaps it’s my Boy’s Life or the Summer Weekly Reader. I would spend the day then reading them from front to back, reading the stories and checking out the ads in Boy’s Life for new Schwinn bikes.

Oh, those days were so good. The smell of the newly printed pages mingling with the heat and dust of the day to create a cocktail whose aroma I can still recall.

But most days, it was nothing. Just the normal family things– bills, advertisements and magazines. Or nothing at all. The short walk back to the house seemed duller and hotter on those days.

That’s what I see in this piece, even though it doesn’t depict everything I’ve described in any detail. There’s a mood in it that vividly recalls those feelings from an 8- or 9-year-old, one of eager anticipation and one of disappointment that came in those childhood days with no mail.

Sigh.

Souls Adrift (2019)

The Barbarian is very certain that the exact reproduction in line or colour of a thing seen is beneath him, and that a drunken blur for line, a green sky, a red tree and a purple cow for colour, are the mark of great painting.

The Barbarian hopes — and that is the very mark of him — that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilisation has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort but he will not be at the pains to replace such goods nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. Discipline seems to him irrational, on which account he is forever marvelling that civilisation should have offended him with priests and soldiers.

The Barbarian wonders what strange meaning may lurk in that ancient and solemn truth, ” Sine Auctoritate nulla vita.”

In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this that he cannot make; that he can befog or destroy, but that he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilisation exactly that has been true.

We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid.

We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us: we laugh. But as we laugh, we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these faces there is no smile.

We permit our jaded intellects to play with drugs of novelty for the fresh sensation they arouse, though we know well there is no good in them, but only wasting at the last.

Yet there is one real interest in watching the Barbarian and one that is profitable.

–Hillaire Belloc, This and That and the Other (1912)

Based on the first paragraph of this passage from his 1912 essay, The Barbarians, author Hillaire Belloc would have no doubt viewed me as being among the Barbarians as he saw them. My red trees and multicolored skies and fields, not to mention my distorted faces, would have certainly put me in that category.

In the essay, Belloc was writing about how traditional culture and Christianity, especially the Catholic Church, was being threatened to be overrun and obliterated by the changes being introduced by modern culture.

That first paragraph is a jab at the modernist art that was quickly blossoming at the time, art that veered wildly from the traditional painting that was once the sole province of Kings and Popes, a world Belloc seemed to pine for. Belloc was known to be a diehard believer in the absolute authority of the Catholic Church and monarchs. Evidence of this comes in the phrase he employs, sine auctoritate nulla vita, which translates as without authority there is no life.

In short, he felt that the world was going to hell in a handbasket as the world was quickly racing towards modernity.

Funny how the context of times changes how we perceive words such as those above from Belloc. I read this passage and all I could see was our current president and his corrupt and cruelly lethal administration.

It describes how he came to power as many just laughed at first at his clownish, childish antics like they were watching a dancing bear in the circus. Harmless and entertaining.

And when he began to exercise power many said it was refreshing to see the traditions and precedents that kept our nation afloat challenged and swept aside.

But it is that second paragraph here that damns him from my perspective. The president is a creature who wants to have his cake and eat it too. He will consume everything he sees. He has no respect for that which brought him to this point and has no concern at replacing in any way those things he consumes or throws on the trash heap.

History and tradition are nothing but a hindrance to his appetites and whims. He doesn’t give a damn about governing or reforming anything for the benefit of the citizens. The citizenry is not there to be helped or guided– they are there to be used and controlled. Any changes or actions are designed to benefit him first and foremost.

He is a barbarian in the truest sense of the word.

And as Belloc writes, there are those large and awful faces who watch him without smiling and laughter. They see in him an opportunity for profit, a way to ride his barbarism to more money and control.

Of course, that’s a fool’s gambit. A barbarian never shares his conquests for more than fleeting moment. Eventually, those who profit from him become fair game for his next conquest.

It’s been a while since I had a good rant. I’ve have been (and am) occupied with other things but I felt like I needed to write this, if only to get it out of my system. There’s no room for it in there at the moment.

One cancer is enough.

Try as I might, it is hard to block out the barbarity and lawlessness (along with an ample serving of stupidity and incompetence, thankfully) that is taking place as institutions are being damaged or destroyed while those who profit from it turn a blind eye.

I know a lot of you don’t want to be reminded, that you see this as a haven of some sort. I do, as well. But even havens are not spared from barbarians. At some point, truths as we know and perceive them, need to be spoken aloud.

I probably won’t serve up another rant for a while. It’s too taxing and I am trying to conserve energy these days. I need to focus on the haven part here. But be warned: I stand ready to speak up should the need arise.

Now, get back on your boat and get the hell off my island…

We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone and we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

–Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee: Artist of Life

Never thought I’d be writing about Bruce Lee here. I have never seen a Bruce Lee film nor any other martial arts film, for that matter. Well, there was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but that was outside of the typical kung fu flicks as I knew them. As far as Bruce Lee, I have only seen clips of him in action in his films on the Green Hornet TV show, and in some public demonstrations. They were always impressive. But that was the extent of my knowledge on Bruce Lee. 

I came across the passage above from Lee recently and was intrigued. Was this from an interview or from a film? Doing a bit of research, I discovered that Lee had quite a philosophic streak, one that was readily revealed in his published books during his lifetime (three that mixed martial arts and philosophy), his notebooks (he always carried a small notebook), interviews, and letters. It included his thoughts on subjects pertaining to martial arts, of course, but to a wide range of other subjects. And even when writing about martial arts, especially the mental and philosophical aspects, his observations often held wisdom and meaning that transcended the subject.

Life lessons for everyone. 

His daughter compiled many of his observations in a book Bruce Lee: Artist of Life. And in Lee’s view, living life was an artform in itself thus making each and every one of us an artist. It contained wisdom for life artists of all sorts, not just martial artists or people actively engaged in the creative arts.

When I came across the passage above it struck me that it held a truth that applied to both life and art. A least as far as I was concerned.

I have often felt most uncertain in my work when I feel it is at its most original form, that it can’t be compared easily with the work of others. It is the work that I often feel is my best.

Work that will an enduring legacy–if there is to be one. Work that stands alone.

And while I feel the certainty of my belief in this work, there is never the absolute certitude, as Lee puts it, that I am correct in my belief. Because it originates in me and is not derived from or imitative of the work of others, I feel the need to question its validity even as I know deep inside myself that its strength is its authenticity.

And when this work is not received with the same level of enthusiasm or belief in it that I hold for it, I am thus quick to question if I was wrong in my belief. 

It is then very much as Lee points out, that I begin to believe that what I am — in the form of my work–is what other people say I am.

I begin to trust the opinion and hearsay of others.

I fight this urge now. My avatar, that Red Tree, has stood apart for 25 plus years now and has thus endured. But that doubt still lingers in me, this uncertainty to move away from the other trees of the forest and stand out in the open. 

Lee’s observations make me believe my doubts are not uncommon to many of us in the arts. And in life, in general. While there is some comfort in knowing that others experience this same doubt, it is also is a bit sad that we often defer to the opinions and hearsay from others in how we view and know ourselves. It makes us even more imitative, more willing to simply blend in and less likely to dare to venture out into the open where we can stand alone.

We find ourselves safer and more comfortable in the density and shadows of the forest. But to grow in an unencumbered way we have to sometimes seek open air and sunlight, trusting that we are strong enough to stand alone.

Ther’s a lot more that could be said at this point, but I am going to leave it here for now. Here’s s favorite song that I play every couple of years. It’s a remake from horn player Takuya Kuroda of the 1976 song, Everybody Loves the Sunshine, from jazz artist Roy Ayers. The original is great, but I personally prefer Kuroda’s remake. It seems right for someone wanting to stand out in the sunlight this morning…

Be Careful What You Wish For — 1996

On the eighth day, the forty-year-old hobo said to Billy: “This ain’t bad. I can be comfortable anywhere.”

“You can?” said Billy.

On the ninth day the hobo died. So it goes. His last words were: “You think this is bad? This ain’t bad.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

This short passage from Slaughterhouse-Five has lived in my head for about 50 years now. I don’t know why it jumped out at me with the impact it did at the time. But it did. And it has always been at the edge of my thinking whenever things haven’t seemed to be going well for me through those many years since I first read those lines.

You think this is bad? This ain’t bad…

I guess it was that I knew that in every case it could be much worse, that there would always be somebody with much greater problems than mine. I suppose that’s why some of those moments I’ve experienced on the downside have induced laughter. Some of the biggest laughs in my life came at such times.

I always figured that at that point if this as bad as it gets, this ain’t that bad.

In fact, another thought often comes to mind at such time: I am such a lucky guy– it could have been worse.

Kind of like the line from the Cormac McCarthy novel No Country for Old Men:

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.

He’s right. I will never know what my worse luck might look like, but I do seem to understand that it was my good luck that saved me from finding out.

I guess that’s why when I recently wrote about my cancer diagnosis, I felt kind of guilty because, honestly, it could be worse. I know– everybody knows— somebody that is going through much greater challenges than mine. My bad luck might look like paradise to some of those folks who have slid from bad to worse on the luck scale, so why even talk about my piddly misfortunes?

In fact, I feel a bit guilty even writing this.

But I did it anyway.

Like I have pointed out in the recent past, the blog is sort of a diary of how the world at any moment affects my work. I want to see how my work changes in the next couple of years. Or perhaps, how it doesn’t change. Will it reveal something new or will its core be strengthened?

I hope to fund those answers and more. So, I will write about what’s going on with this situation without trying to focus on it too much. No, woe is me stuff, I promise.

I mean, come on. I’m a lucky guy in so many ways so believe me when I say: You think this is bad? This ain’t bad.

Here’s a song for this week’s Sunday Morning Music that fills the bill quite nicely. It’s a John Prine song, How Lucky performed by singer/songwriter Kurt Vile in a duet with John Prine a short time before Prine’s death in 2020. Good stuff.

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

–-John Updike, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs (1989)

It’s another Small Business Saturday, that Saturday after Thanksgiving when people are urged to go out into their communities and shop in locally owned small businesses. It’s one of the best ways to keep your local community vibrant and alive. The money spent for the most part stays local and multiplies many times as it radiates out into the community.

It can be a huge economic engine for the small businesspeople in your local area.

But it is also something more– it is the sustaining lifeblood for a multitude of dreams. Every local small business represents the fulfillment of a dream of someone in your area. It required that someone believed in an idea or ability that they possessed and then risked something– often everything– in putting themselves out there in front of their friends and neighbors.

It can be a gigantic gamble where failure can sometimes mean financial ruin, public humiliation, and lifelong dreams being forever crushed.

But you can look at that risk as the only chance you might get at following your dreams. A chance to finally be the person you once imagined yourself being. Even the humblest small business is the realization of a dream for someone.

And anyone’s dream is a big deal, in my opinion.

I am an artist and a small businessperson, as is every working artist and artisan. We don’t like to talk about it as a business, of course, but after the making of the art it is that thing that keeps our dreams alive. Our dreams and our livelihoods depend on people dealing with us or the local shops and galleries that carry our work– all small businesses.

Small but consequential.

Every gallery I work with provides income for at least 50-80 artists and artisans. That’s 50-80 dreams fulfilled in each gallery.

And, again, that’s a big deal.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to have my dream kept alive for the past 28 or so years. And I have those dream-enablers at the galleries that represent me as well as the many of you out there who have supported my work to thank for that. As much as I might like to think I achieved anything on my own, my dream has been dependent on so many people.

Like anyone with a dream of following their passion, it has meant the world to me. I would love to see many others achieve their own unique dreams in the same way.

So, help them out if you can. I am not asking you to buy locally as a charitable act. View it as more of an investment in your neighbors and your community and an act of humanity in that you are feeding someone’s dream.

Whatever you might purchase from a small local business — be it a painting, a cup of coffee, a piece of clothing or pottery, a cupcake, or any of the many things made and sold in your area–is your first dividend on that investment. Plus, the profit from that sale almost always goes back into the local economy, nourishing those neighbors who chase their own dreams. It doesn’t get whisked out of the area to some heartless and faceless multinational corporation.

You get to see it in the faces and hearts of your neighbors.

It is money well spent.

And to those of you out there with a dream who have yet to find the nerve to take the leap, I urge you to follow your dreams. Sure, it might be hard and you might fall on your face. That’s a given. But keep in mind that there is always the possibility of achieving your dream only if you take that leap.

You don’t want to be one of those people who go through life saying, “What if?” At least if you fail, you have the chance to chase another dream.

That is, of course, a perfect segue into a song from Bruce Springsteen. In the early 1980’s, Bruce often performed his take on the Elvis Presley title song from his 1962 movie, Follow That Dream. He slowed the tempo and it was barely discernible as the same song. A few years later, he altered it even more, changing the lyrics and chorus to the point that it basically a different song that he still performs occasionally. But in both, he still delivers the same message from the original in a potent way. The rendition below is from a live performance at Wembley Stadium in June of 1981.

FYI: The painting at the top is titled Chasing the Elusive. I think it goes well with today’s subject of following your dreams. It is available at one of my favorite small businesses, the West End Gallery. If you’re in Corning on this Small Business Saturday, please stop in and take a look around. Or if you’re in Old Town Alexandria, stop in at the Principle Gallery.

This dreamer is counting on you!

Skip the Light Fandango–At Principle Gallery

There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions may never come.

–C.S. Lewis, Learning in War-Time, Oxford sermon (1939)

At the outbreak of World War II in Europe, in October of 1939, C.S. Lewis delivered a sermon at St. Mary the Virgin at Oxford, England. There had been a question at that chaotic time if university education, as well as a number of other normal activities, should be suspended to focus on fighting the war.

Speaking to the Oxford students, Lewis suggested that it was important that their education and normal activities of so many others should not be set aside. He argued that maintaining their education and the everyday work of others was vital to the future of the nation, mankind, and each individual’s eternal soul.

He pointed out that our time here is limited and our meaning and purpose here is based on the limits of that time. War, despite its awful and perilous nature, is a temporary distraction from our greater goals.

Lewis said that the time devoted to our greater goals, which he described as being in the service or as an offering to God, were not only acceptable, but necessary, for our spiritual survival.

He warned the students of the three enemies that distract us from fulfilling our given tasks in our time here. Number one was the excitement of the life events of life that pull at our attention and time, occupying our every thought. Number two was the frustration that comes with the realization that we might not have enough time to finish our given tasks. Third was that old favorite fear that we will fail to achieve our given tasks, that we will let down our own expectations as well as those of our family, friends, nation, and God.

I, of course, am paraphrasing Lewis’ words and most likely distorting much of the meaning in them. And while I don’t come at this from a theological point of view, Lewis’ words speak to my current situation.

I understand the excitement, frustration, and fear of which he warns. The past few months have been occupied by all three, resulting in the creative paralysis I have described here in recent posts.

I describe it as a logjam.

My great-grandfather was a pioneer of the early Adirondack logging industry and in reading about the annual river dives in those days before trucking and railroad access were available. They floated their annual crop of logs down the swollen rivers each spring. The words excitement, frustration and fear, certainly apply to these drives. It was wild ride– excitement!— and often the logs would jam at points in the journey– frustration!— causing the log drivers to have to make risky moves or even resort to dynamite– fear!— in order to break up the logjams.

I am in one of those logjams at the moment.

It sometimes feels like the logs are shifting and might break free on their own and I’ll be floating free on that river once more. But every day finds that another log has come along to jam my path forward again.

Reading Lewis’ words reminds me of lessons that I already know, from my own experience and the experience and words of other artists; that one must set aside the distractions of the moment and focus on getting to one’s real work, that which gives your life meaning and purpose.

Work begets work. Work begets inspiration. Inspiration begets more work.

The perpetual engine of creativity.

My hope is that just being reminded of this simple truth and writing of it this morning is a small charge of dynamite, enough to break up the logjam in my mind and get me back to work. At least back to work enough to free me from those three enemies for a bit.

We will see. Hopefully sooner than later.