Voice

I have been re-reading Linda Hogan’s book, The Woman Who Watches the World.  Her writing is beautiful, her insight penetrating, her courage simple and immense. 

Courageous writers like Linda take us further than we can go by ourselves.  They tell us what we hadn’t the courage to think, what our emotions suggest but for which there is no place in our world-view.  Sometimes writers like this bring into the light the underlying matrix of culture, of shared values and habits.  Recently I read a friend’s manuscript that allowed access to a stream-of-consciousness I hadn’t been aware of before, but there it was in me just as presented by her written word.  This experience is like being show the variation of color at the top of winter trees – once identified the subtle differences are obvious.  Or like not dismissing the visitation of spirits at the corner of the eye. 

If you spend time and effort on your dreams, they can do this too.  They teach us about the reverberating depths behind nature as most of us know it.  Perhaps another way to say this is that dreams take us beyond matter, beyond nature’s surface or form.  Beyond what we already know.  The deep knowledge of plant medicine does this too. 

In her book, Linda does some of this work for us.  She asks what humans are; tells us about conditions for which love is not enough.  She explores her own illness, reminds us of what is possible, the bones of belief we have abandoned or lost. 

Linda Hogan, like Leslie Marmon Silko, teaches the value of being true to one’s voice, saying what we’ve been given to say, and not editing away essence as it streams across.  We can’t know how long our words might reverberate, who might be fed by them, what audience spirit has in mine.  Stories retold, old books rediscovered.  

This morning I thank these two women for reminding me of what is important, of why so long ago during a night spend sitting between desert cliffs a voice said, “just keep writing.”  Just keep saying what is true.