Loving The Questions

I've decided to focus on the questions this year. The "answers" (which often get shaped into New Year's Resolutions) – as useful as they sometimes can be- are often too general to be helpful in daily decision-making or too specific for application to continually changing conditions within and around us.

Moving toward questions comes in part from reading my journals from this time last year. I see there what I feel now: the desire and resolve to write, to complete both a novel and a non-fiction book I've partially written. Oh, it’s not that no progress has been made, but they are both far from finished and, despite my genuine desire to write daily, I often find myself doing other things.

So, the first questions I sit with are: Do I really want to write? Is it something I feel called to do? Am I prompted by a deep inner impetus, or is it something I think I “should” do?

What pops up most of the time when I sit with these questions is a soul-resounding desire to write.

And that leads me to new questions: How can I structure my days to provide the best possible opportunity to do this writing? What supports this desire and what undermines and distracts from acting in alignment with this desire? How can I know if I am being distracted from writing or simply taking care of other things that truly need my attention?

The way I answer those questions today will probably change in a few weeks or months, given the things that can unpredictably change- my health, family needs, economic responsibilities etc.

None of the questions I've chosen are "Why?" questions. It’s not that I never reflect on "Why?"- as in "Why am I not writing as much as I want to?" or "Why did I agree to this event even though I know it will leave me too tired to write?" Contemplating "Why?" has lead to some insights into old patterns and beliefs that undermine acting on my soul desire to write. But, questions that begin with "How. . ." are generally more useful for determining real present-moment choices.

So, in my daily practice this year, one of the questions I will ask is: How can I do some of the writing that calls to me, today? As other things arise that need tending, my question becomes: How can I take care of this in a way that still allows time and energy for the writing I need to do? When options I value are available- for recreation, socializing, participation in my community culturally or politically- the question becomes: Does this serve the writing I desire to do? (Because some forms of "play" and participation definitely deepen and inspire creative work, but others. . . . not so much!)

German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” 

May we each come to know and love our own indivdual and collective questions for this year, letting them lead us gently into a deeper level of being and creating, alone and together.

Oriah (c) 2013