Morning under the comforting ceiling of low clouds. I am deciding to commit to a creative project: my book about photo inspired creative writing. I've been writing it. But this is a higher level of commitment I'm considering. Whenever I'm at a turning point, a crossing over, a rite of passage time, of moving from one role into another, one familiar place into the unfamiliar, I think about this Rumi poem I've always appreciated and this stunning challenge he poses: work in the invisible world at least as hard as you do in the visible. Jeez. Yes. That's what it takes, I think, to move into a more passionate commitment to a creative project. There is the work that must be done, made visible, the words on the page, the page, the page and the pages and pages. And then there is the "work" of the soul, the psyche, the unseen world where all the work of birthing creative ideas is really taking place. What is the most challenging thing to do: to say, YES, this idea is worth making into something concrete that can be seen and responded to. One of my two daughters is so like me in this: she is always churning in her invisible world and this I need and want to remember about her, because when I look at her surface sometimes I don't recognize the churning. And I want to. I want respond compassionately and gently to the work she's doing inside that is so intense. Birthing insights is intense work. Like dying, such focus, such working in the invisible - the people I've seen die, it is work, letting go, moving on, saying goodbye to this world, a whole life. Separating from all that one has loved and letting go of all that one has not yet experienced or felt. The people I have seen die have worked very hard in their last days and hours: my aunt Marion, my grandmother (Flora), my mother, my father. Oh, dear. How did I get here from there? I was talking about making a deeper commitment to creating? How did I get to death? I think I mean to go to spirit. I have been psychically churning on this turning sixty and having my youngest turn 21 and meeting out my 90 year old self. All of this has been in the invisible world. This book will live in two worlds: deep from within, invisible. To the surface, like the rocks, all the rocks I'm stepping over and looking upon every morning. All the rocks bringing power into my arches, muscle into my calves and thighs. 

All photos and text ©Kelly DuMar 2018 unless otherwise attributed