Tag Archives: Books

I is for Inspiration

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Inspiration

  • The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative; arousal of the mind, the heart and the brain, to special, unusual activity or creativity
  • The quality of having been so stimulated, or the product of creative thinking and work; a sudden brilliant, creative, or timely idea; divine influence or guidance, intuition; a person or thing that stimulates in this way, an inspiring or animating action or influence
  • The drawing in of breath, the act of breathing, bringing in air; inhalation

I see something beautiful, confusing, alive, and it causes me to pause, breathe in, and look closely. In the moment before any judgement or understanding, it touches my heart, and my heart in turn opens to it. In the stillness of this moment, something swells. My chest feels full of wind, energy and fresh air, and I want to reach out, touch, connect. This longing hurts. In the purest moment of devotion, I make an offering, a wish, a prayer.

What inspired me today:

  • Lilacs on my writing desk. Tiny flowers, big smell.

  • Spring morning bird songs. Two tiny sparrows roosting in my lilac bushes. The robin on the fence (it’s a female, I’ve learned) who insists on believing that my neighbor’s bathroom window is a viable place to roost (she’s been at this for a few weeks now)–this morning, she was throwing herself against it with a mouthful of grass for building her nest. I am inspired by her, so completely wrong and yet so utterly devoted.
  • Susan Piver, this post especially, and her reminder “that the true meaning of your practice arises when you do one thing and this one thing has way, way more power than trying your super-hardest best or willfully throwing yourself at the dharma—and that thing is this: RELAX.”
  • Music. Some of it came from my computer. Some of it came from the river, full and moving fast. Some of it came from the newly opened Aspen leaves whispering to the wind.
  • Susannah Conway. Today is the six year anniversary of her first blog post. I am inspired by everything about her, everything she does: her willingness to be vulnerable and brave, her wit and charm, her creativity, her writing, her photography, her videos and books, her ecourses and her blog.
  • One of the books I’m reading, “Steal Like an Artist” by Austin Kleon.

What is inspiring you today?

H is for Holocaust

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I had no idea this was going to be my word for the letter “h.” In fact, when I brainstormed a list of words the other day, my “h” word was “happy.” Such a bright, sunny, hopeful, feel good word. So what happened?

Last night, I watched the movie “Sarah’s Key,” (Netflix added it their streaming options, so you can watch it on demand). It made a better movie than it did a book, most likely because the amazing Kristin Scott Thomas played the lead. She has the ability to play a character haunted by longing in a way no one else can match.

Then I woke up to a gray, rainy day, still thinking about it, about them, all those people lost, all that suffering and brutality. You might not know this about me, but I am a bit obsessed with the Holocaust, and have been ever since I first read Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. 

When she made her first entry in her diary, Anne was four years older than when I first read it, but there was something about Anne’s voice that seemed to come from inside my own head. She was so much like me. She loved books and movies; had one older sibling; wanted to grow up and marry and have children and to be an actress or a writer; she was independent and stubborn, but also sensitive; she felt like no one who knew her really knew her, that no one saw her true self. She wrote in her diary because “I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart.”

I identified with Anne’s isolation and her hope for the future. I fell in love with her, mourned her death as if I’d lost a real friend. I felt the sad recognition that for every person like Anne, full of hope and possibility, there was another full of pain and anger, someone who had the potential to get in the way, to wreck and ruin that possibility.

I’ve read this book many times over the years. Every time, I brace myself for the disappointment that I am sure will come, because I can’t believe the actual book could possibly match my memory of it. I expect that it won’t be nearly as moving or meaningful—but it is, every time. And every time, my heart breaks again—that we as humans can be both so wonderful and so horrible.