It is always a delicate balance, like breathing. You can’t always be breathing out, you can’t always be breathing in. If the two halves of the rhythm don’t alternate smoothly, you’ve got problems. Similarly, you’ve got to keep a balance between absorbing new material (whether by reading or other experience) and expressing what you know. At least, that’s my experience.
When I began this blog in another format in March 2007, the result of a kind and perceptive suggestion from a friend who pointed out that I was already blogging, in essence, in the amount of material I was sending out to my friends via e-mail, at first the material poured out. Already I have hundreds of pieces blogged, and potential hundreds more, because I read a lot, think a lot, talk to myself pretty continuously, and keep a journal as I have done since I was 20. That makes for a lot of material.
Then, last year, I started working on another novel. Babe in the Woods came pretty quickly and smoothly, but of course energy spent on it was unavailable for other things such as blogging. And now I am working on a sequel to Babe, which I tentatively call Inner Voice, and of course the same thing is happening. If I were better at budgeting my time, it wouldn’t. But, as they say, if my aunt had wheels she would be a tea cart.
Babe in the Woods was a novel about the process of discovering that there is more to the world then appears. It showed a group of people in a group situation systematically learning to expand their perceptions and abilities. The group energy of such an effort makes a considerable difference, which no doubt is one reason why mystery schools exist. It is a huge help and comfort to know that others have had similar experiences, have encountered similar difficulties, can speak a common language, and encompass similar values.
But — once you have moved into uncharted territory, you are faced with the problem of relating it to what was your everyday life. Or, to change the analogy, once you have been to the mountain, you are changed, but the test is how you live your life back in the valley. To change the analogy again, you may need to go out into the desert on your vision quest, but the results of your quest will benefit mankind only by your returning to your community. You return changed. That’s a given, and it is part of what your contribution will be — but to make that contribution, you must return.
That’s what Inner Voice is going to depict. Angelo Chiari and his new friends were changed in the course of the events described in Babe in the Woods. Then they returned to their world. And what happened? More to the point? What will happen going forward? Stay tuned.
But while I am in the process of finding out, I will try to see that this blog doesn’t suffer quite so much from neglect.