The World is

Hello friends,

How are you this week? My week has been a mixture of happy, interested, creative, and despairing. The weather has matched it. We’ve gone from cloudy to sunny to rainy. It’s easy to think of weather as a metaphor for our interior lives, isn’t it?

There also seems to be a lot of upheaval lately, and not just globally, though that is an omnipresent factor, isn’t it? There seems to be a lot of personal and community-level upheaval as well. I navigate all of that by helping where I can, correcting mistakes as I make them, and doing some extra rounds of meditation and prayer. Plus, my usual walks.

Another thing that helps is picking vegetables from the garden my partner tends. The other day, I was picking lettuces and peas and was struck by the light shining through the dangling pea pods. The peas were glowing. Luminous. It’s moments like these that remind me that the world may feel like a mess, but it is also a beautiful mess.

Just like us. How often do we allow ourselves to be beautiful messes? How often do we remember that both mess and order, luminosity and darkness all make up life itself? And for those of us who create or build—whether that is books, furniture, gardens, families, or communities—that reminder is all the more necessary.

I’m a fan of order more than mess. That’s a product both of my personality, my brain, and a childhood where I never knew what random word or action might cause a violent response. But as a creative person, I’ve had to teach myself to let go of order, too. Writing a novel is a messy business, especially the way I do it, with just some characters, the kernel of an idea, and no outline.

Just like life. Try as I might to plan, my outline always ends up getting changed.

We are all co-creating this world together, messy and luminous.

Don’t give up.

best wishes — Thorn

In the mood for urban fantasy where community triumphs over greed? The complete Witches of Portland ebook series is half-off on my site, including bonus short stories!

Paid subscribers: reminder that this month’s creativity sprints are Saturday June 22!