There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself and your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware of the urges that
motivate you. Keep the channel open.
motivate you. Keep the channel open.
Martha Graham
Happy 2017, Everyone!
I hope you've had a peaceful and refreshing holiday season.
The rather old fashioned word, quickening, has been playing at the front of my mind this week as I've prepared to spend the next two months writing. Quickening has several meanings - to make more rapid, to enliven or return to life, to excite or stimulate and to reach the stage of pregnancy when a baby's movement is felt. It is the middle ones that we're interested in here.
Quickening is an experience of hope and possibility and potential. It is the restless energy that initiates growth and creativity whether we are moving into a new stage of development, painting a masterpiece, building a fence or coming up with a more comfortable way to tape a catheter to a loved one's leg. We can see examples of quickening in nature each Spring as seemingly lifeless seeds and branches respond to an inner urging that coaxes them to life.
We are all familiar with these excited stirrings that can enliven and motivate us. I can recognize quickening in my own life when I spend time in contemplative silence; when grief lightens after a loss; when the first snowdrops push through in the spring; when I return from a fibre fair with a bag of beautiful yarns for a new project and when I feel the urge to take my camera to the lake, open to receiving whatever images may appear. I also feel a spark of this vital energy when I've struggled through a dry spell in my writing and then, suddenly, disparate thoughts fall into place and I rush to the computer to capture them before they disappear.
What about you? Where might you be feeling quickening or new aliveness emerging this New Year? Is something within trying to catch your attention, to help you solve a problem, to enliven a new part of you, to take you in a new direction? It doesn't have to be anything monumental. In fact, quickening often speaks in quiet excitement about seemingly small possibilities. We just have to learn to notice and pay attention to this voice of excitement and then respond.
Here, once again, is one of Jan Richardson's poems which I think well describes the experience of quickening:
This restless hope
is what drives me
beyond the weariness
beyond the discomfort
beyond every thought
that what I carry within me
will never come to birth.
This restless hope
beyond all reason
flutters beneath my heart
and grows within my soul.
It is beyond me,
and it is of me,
and it is delivering me
home.
I hope 2017 will be a year of possibility and promise for each of you. May you find ways within whatever constraints are present to "keep the channel open", to feel the quickening and to respond in the most life-giving ways you can.
