Page 189 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015
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Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - December, 2015 Issue #3 - EXTINCTION / DEVOTION
***
These days, there is not a lot of stillness in my life. My two young boys are whirlwinds circling around
our small house, their needs and heartbreaks and joys constantly calling my attention.
Even when my children are out of the house, I am subject to the same forces as everyone in the
plugged-in world. We live in an age of distraction, subject to the dominating influence of the screens we
turn to for entertainment, information and connection. They are useful—perhaps essential for modern
life—but they are attention-stealing machines, and we all know it. I go to my computer to write and can
easily end up down a rabbit hole of classroom notices, work requests, and news of the latest tragedy
somewhere on this big, beautiful earth.
Despite the logistical and psychological hurdles, I push myself to step out of the fast flow of my life in
order to tend the story. I make the offering. This is the devotion of a thousand tiny steps. It is about
showing up at the page as close to daily as I can muster, stringing writing sessions together like tiny
beads on a strand. And in that preciously won time, I often struggle at the page, like every writer does. I
get tangled up in the threads of the story. Sometimes I have to unweave line after line. This is the
humbling work of daily practice, based on patience and persistence more often than grand leaps of
inspiration.
***
On a writing retreat in Southern California, no snow-covered Apu in sight, Eagle Rock was the highest
place nearby. I hiked to the top. On my offering cloth, I spread chocolate, coca, chamomile flowers,
sage I picked along the trail, and the big-kernelled corn from Peru called choclo. I sprinkled water, the
most precious gift in these drought-stricken hills. Afterwards, I bounded down the hill, exhilarated. At
the bottom, I discovered a sliver of orange mullu—the sacred spondylus shell—had come out of my
ring, bought a decade ago in Peru. Eagle Rock wanted more than the pago I left. Sometimes the gods
take more than what is willingly offered to them.
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