In the Deep Heart's Core

I read a lot of blogs. They range in subject matter from cooking to home design to gardening to creativity -- and lots in between.

One of the blogs that I've been following for a while is written by Margaret Roach and is called: A Way to Garden, horicultural how to and woo woo.  (Other than what I read, I know almost nothing about gardening -- but I'm hoping to learn much once we move to the farm.) Anyway, in a recent post, the author writes about the source of her creativity. She notes that often her creativity must compete with louder voices. And she writes about how she is learning to live with quiet as she cultivates a new life within her rural garden, far away from her former life as Editorial Director for Martha Stewart. She claims she has "traded in the fast lane for my own dirt road." She has been writing a book about the experience and it is to be released early next year. She has titled the book: and I shall have some peace there.

The title comes from a poem by William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. It goes like this:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.  

William Butler Yates

For me, creativity requires space. And usually demands quiet time. Building a house is proving to be one of the most creative projects that I've ever undertaken. I'm making a conscious effort to pare down my work assignments so that I can create the space and time for the creative process to happen. For like Yates' peace, I am coming to understand that I experience creativity in my deep heart's core.