Hello beautiful human,
Every small made thing is a letter to you, reader. This one comes with particular intention. I know some of you are quite new to An Inviting Space; there’s been an influx of new readers recently. I’m so grateful you’re here. The place is a bit of a mess but the welcome is genuine.
And being a bit of a mess is about par for the course with me. I’m afraid my welcome emails are still half boiler plate. My about pages haven’t been tended to in a while. Even my home page, landing page, whatever it’s called, is not yet very curated.
I wrote a few days ago: “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I’m doing here, as a writer, in this space. I’ve been poet, editor, essayist, entrepreneur, community builder… for a few years I wrote very little at all. What, now, am I doing coming back to these words, these humble 26 letters of the alphabet?”
That remains an open-ended question for me.
The design is slow to emerge but what I do have is fierce intention. Intention to be present, and to be at peace with being “in the middle of the muddle.” At the very outset of this project back in February I gave myself the wild permission to just show up each morning, as I am, where I am. Very much not put together. And through that wild permission, I began to create An Inviting Space, where we can be in our muddles and messes together. Or maybe it’s wiser and more true to say the Space began to emerge on its own, word by word and day by day. Reading back over my first few small made things, I see my sentence structures have grown more complex again with time and practice. My themes have stretched. My focus has shifted to embrace (after a long time away) the act of writing itself, the value of the craft, of channeling so much energy and will into the movement of the cursor across the screen.
Another note from a few days ago: “I [used to lead] circles and workshops, worked 1:1 with clients I loved dearly, hosted communities. It was a work I was passionate about and I loved it and … then life. The loss of communities both personal and professional, divorce, moving, graduations and new house, new place, new relationships, new patterns and new needs and demands on myself, my energy, my resources.
Disaster blasts us apart. We crawl through the detritus until we can walk. We hardly know ourselves.
Now I’m starting again. And I start where a writer always starts, with the words. Like an elephant sending messages down through her feet into the earth to reach others, I send my words out at frequencies some will hear and others maybe not. I recover and discover a sense of what I want to say and recover and discover in the process who I am now.”
In the middle of the muddle things form, emerge, grow and flourish. Here’s what you can expect: I send out words every morning. This is a practice, with the emphasis on practice. I don’t love every small made thing. Some of them I have to just shrug and hit the publish button knowing that I could have done differently with more time…but it is what it is. Trust there’ll be another chance tomorrow. This Space for me is in no small part an exercise in letting go of ego.
And you have permission not to read everything. I trust in serendipity, that we connect when it is right to connect. If you need to hit delete or send something to the trash to protect your peace and your inbox on a given day, I completely understand and support you! Tra la! Farewell until next time! Delete delete delete!
On Mondays and Fridays, everyone gets the “good goodies” that usually are reserved for my paid readership: quotes and/or links to widen the scope of the conversation, a peek or two behind the scenes into my life in the immediate moment, and an invitation to you, to bring the themes of the day into your life in some very real, very small, doable way. To engage, and see where such a tiny action might lead. We grow curiosity around here. We grow courage. We grow connection…to ourselves, each other, and the more-than-human wide green world. I’m glad you’re here.
xoS
“That is the “real” reader, the Dear Reader for whom every writer writes. And many Dear Readers will become writers in their turn. That is how we writers all started: by reading. We hear the voice of a book speaking to us.” - Margaret Atwood
“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin
The days are somehow just as full even when the house is not. There is a certain luxury of time, an open-ended quality of atention, that I long for and steer by. It’s very rare these days but it does come round. I keep my senses attuned for when it approaches and I pounce like a cat whenever I sense that particular texture, that invitation, rustling in the long grass. The invitation to attention, to flow, to enter the very marrow of things, out beyond definitions and certainties. Maybe I’ll meet you there.
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Today’s invitation: write a letter. You don’t have to send it. Write to someone, or something, in this world or another. Pour your heart. Don’t be afraid to break open a little wider if you need to.
Looking to grow the connection and the energy? Here are some possibilities:
Your attention and time are the true gifts. Thank you. xoS