i have flown to the moon on ebon wings over an ocean of night just to hold her face next to mine
A poem prompted by a randomly selected Elder Futhark rune.
Today’s rune is ehwaz, which has a core meaning of “horse”. A horse is often associated with journeys, travel and movement. By extension, it also implies symbiosis with another living creature or fylgja (guardian spirit), and the rune is associated with loyalty or trust. Any undertaken journey may be spatial, emotional or spiritual.
Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.
One of the things I have been considering is futzing about with music again. Like creative writing in my previous post, that also has a well that dries up, especially as I don’t usually have collaborators to bounce ideas off anymore. And my tooling around is more for the purposes of learning new recording, engineering and playing techniques than it is for performance. Much like publishing my writing, I am more interested in the joy of creation than I am in the idea fame or profit.
[Trigger Warning: Musician-speak ahead and I don’t explain the terms I am using. Enter at your own risk.]
That’s where I am at the moment with writing: fiction or poetry or what have you. It’s been at a bit of a drip feed for a couple of months now, so I am going to do what I always do when this occurs: continue to write with less poetry and fiction in the mix, let my creative energies either rest or try new things to “break it up”, and let that well recharge.
It’s not that I don’t have ideas. Rather, it is that they translate in a garbled manner or refuse to come out of hiding. I’ve learned that the best thing to do when that happens is to not force it. When I have forced creative writing, then comes the blocking and I don’t want to do that. It’s kind of like an insomniac trying to force themselves to sleep; the more one thinks about the lack of sleep, the less likely they are going to sleep.
So, I don’t sweat it, keep in the habit of writing (just not poetry or fiction), and consider other outlets for that kind of energy while the creative writing well fills back up.
How about you? Does your “well run dry”? If/when it does happen, how do you approach the matter? Do you power through? Or do you give yourself a break? Or does the dry spot break you?
Sound off below. Please focus your comments on your own experiences rather than commenting on my current state — I’m good, and I’m more interested in how you handle yourself than getting advice on how I should handle me.
Todd Snider, one of the very few alt-country singer-songwriters out there that I really appreciated (maybe because he was more folk than alt-country, but the powers that be declare him alt-country). has passed away overnight at 59 years of age, scant few years older than myself.
I first discovered Todd in the 90s when he debuted with one of the local radio stations playing a hidden track from the album, Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues. As I had just recently moved back from Seattle at the time and had experienced “the grunge scene” in real time — although that was NOT my reason for moving there in the first place, the song’s comedy was not lost on me. Here’s a live version of the tune and, while I prefer the original, this one captures some of the crowds’ singalong elements.
I’ve been a fan ever since that day I first hear it.
Todd was an unconventional “alt-country” musician as he did more storytelling than singing the times I saw him live. Not that he would skimp on the music part, but there was a lot of talky stuff in-between, somewhere between wisdom and absurdity in most cases. And, while most country stars will trend towards conservative politics, Todd skewed more hippie than anything. I got to believe that he thought most of the culture wars out there were just plain dumb and he would satirize it when it suited his mood.
The music scene is less than it was for his passing. No, most of you never heard the man, but we were better off for his music.
