Something different is happening since I started reading poetry again. I think poetry, even if you don’t understand it, changes you when you read it. It changes the way your brain works. Last week I took a Yoga Nidra Class. It was mostly a guided meditation that allows you to be aware of all parts of your consciousness at the same time. It awakens you to that creative place between waking and sleeping that I’ve been interested in. So you’re totally relaxed, but at the same time, completely aware. This is both a spiritual and creative space. For me they amount to the same.
I think poetry is often created in this space. And when we read poetry, it can put us there too. I experience this with poetry that I grasp and poetry that I don’t. Often when I read poetry I let it wash over me without fully understanding its meaning. The words seem to work on another level and I get feelings from them or images or an idea that I wasn’t conscious of reading.
Since I started reading poetry again on our vacation, I feel like I entered this space more easily. I’ve been writing my own poetry, words just seeming to come to me from nowhere. And I even feel like my visual work has changed. I’m trusting it more and allowing it to flow like the words which seem to come from a place other than myself.
So it feels like something different is happening. And I believe part of it has to do with changes I’ve been consciously wanting to make in my work. And part of it has to do with poetry. For me, poetry opens a door to a hidden part of my consciousness. It allows my brain and heart to wander into a territory devoid of reason. Where my ideas about what I think is real break down and deeper truths reveal themselves.
My poem Sleeping Seed came to me yesterday while I was doing yoga, my legs in lotus my forehead touching the ground in front of me. At that moment, I was that sleeping seed ready to take my place in the world, without apology. So I stitched the words onto a potholders. What better way than that for me to put them out there.
Your description of your reaction to poetry is inspiring. It makes me want to go out and get a book of poetry and read it, and write some of my own.
I highly recommend it Diane!