It’s all process

I had a moment last week whilst on my thrice-weekly jog/fast walk. I usually manage to get through one podcast episode every 10 days. I only listen to them outside of the house as there’s not much chance of actively listening and managing to engage with any prolonged communication (5+ mins) amongst family life. So I listen to a podcast for 20 minutes at a time and often want to repeat the episode before moving on. I have a particular penchant for Catholics and mystics. Or Monty Don.

During this weeks episode one of Anthony DeMello’s stories was told and it’s transcript is here;

….he tells the story about this adventurer who lives in this kind of secluded town and leaves town and goes and explores places that no one has ever been. And he’s gone for years; people think that he’s dead, and he comes back, and he’s so alive! And the townspeople are smitten by his stories of adventure, and the things that he’s experienced, and kind of the depth and quality of his character and his energy. And they start saying, they start asking, you know, “Can you draw us a map to all the places that you went?” And he says, “No, no, no, go, go explore, go out there,” and, “You’ve got to experience it for yourself because that’s the true way to really experience this wildness and this terrain.”

And they keep pestering him. And eventually he concedes and says “okay, okay, I’ll draw you a map.” And he draws the map to all the places he’s been, and they immediately frame it and put it on the wall and start to worship the map instead of explore where the map actually will take them, to the terrain of the soul.

This story tripped me up - metaphorically. It’s truth dropped to the pit of my stomach and I could see clearly the struggle I’ve had recently of knowing there’s more out there, more than I understand, will ever experience or can be told about by anyone else, but too afraid that perhaps the reality won’t match up with the map I’ve grown very comfortable with. There was more. Another 10 minutes in and the discussion turns to an approach to life as an artist would;

…be those who are willing to make the middle, the process, the end goal, rather than the beginning and end because sometimes we’re trying to get from here to there; we’re trying to arrive. And if instead, we raise an altar to beauty, to mystery, to the present moment that’s unfolding, I think that might help us…

And, whilst I don’t easily think of myself as an artist, I have begun to realise how important it is to consider myself in that way as it frees me up to work and create in a way that suits me best. And as I had worked on the tulip design at Bert’s house just the week before listening to this podcast, I had been keenly aware as I made that design just how led I am by the process. When I have a bucket of flowers at my feet and an empty vessel on the stand in front of me, I can’t tell you what the final design is going to look like. I can’t tell you even what shape it will be or how wide. What I can do is look at the flowers, pick over them, and select the one that will be placed first. Sometimes I change my mind. Choosing the first flower seems to have extra responsibility, as if it determines the final result. Even if there’s no image of the final result in mind. Once the first flower is in place I choose another one, each time selecting the next flower, one after the other. One step in front of the other. I don’t know the map, I can’t draw it for you or for me. And that is sheer joy and privilege. To hold a flower, to see the petals - their texture, timbre, tone, veins, patterns - and notice the stem, the leaves, and focus on that single flower, the single step ahead, is my process. In floristry I seem to have found joy in the process in a way that I haven’t quite managed in my actual life.

Can I learn to fold up the life map and tuck it away, out of sight for a while? To go out and explore, accepting that there is nothing really that can preserve or protect me, not a map, not someone else’s successful journey. There’s no key to this, to life. There’s just a step. And the next one. And all the time an alertness to what’s around you. To have the presence of mind to watch, listen, absorb and value. That’s the gift of the process.

There’s a depth to process that there doesn’t seem to be in progress. Getting somewhere. Perhaps process feels static. Perhaps the growth with process isn’t forward motion, but downward depth?

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

I know how to get you to where you want to be with your wedding flowers…