mguhlin

For the Sake of Creation

Image Source: Russian Dragon – http://goo.gl/HXWnm1

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. – George Orwell

We tell the truth, not because we want to be revolutionary, but because we are ourselves compelled to speak. The act of speaking is its own reward, more powerful than anything else. 

Once, I was puzzled by Ursula Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea, by a statement in the text (a fantastic story I recommend even now), that said, “as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower; until, at last, he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do….” 

How true to read these words again. It is a statement I understand anew each day. 

Yet, we must find new ways to speak the truth, even if to uncover the trappings we have placed upon it.

Robert Quinn reminded me of it with these words:

We must create for the sake of creating. We cannot fall in love with our ideas if we live in constant fear of judgement. When we create, we experience deeper meaning. We begin to do the thing because we must…because we are doing something we love, we can let go of the concerns that drive our egos.
Source: Quinn, Changing the World

The act of creation embodied in this blog, in everything I write, are powerful antidotes to the poison we encounter in the wilderness of despair, of fear, and hypocrisy. The act of creation does not negate my own acts of despair, fear, and hypocrisy. Rather, it allows me to transform them, like the dragon in my favorite story of St. George and The Quest for the Holy Grail. I share it below because it doesn’t hurt to share a good story twice.

Beginning a modern day quest for the Holy Grail, George encounters a dragon named Igor. The dragon and George have a long talk and eventually, George gets a ride back home on Igor’s back. George shares his obversations that…

From my position high on the dragon’s back, I noticed that the dragon’s body was covered with old wounds. Whenever the dragon breathed forth fire to light the path in front of us, I noticed that the wounds glowed golden-red in the dark. When I asked about them, the dragon replied, “Oh, my friend, I have been slain a thousand times, but I have always arisen again. These old woulds are the source of my power and my insight. 

Our greatest and worst enemies are not the monsters who roam the forest or even wicked witches or evil wizards. No, it is our scars, our wounds, and old injuries that we must fear. As we journey through life we have all been injured–hurt by parents, brothers or sister, schoolmates, strangers, lovers, teachers. Each wound has the power to talk to us, you know. They speak, however, with crooked voices because of the scars.

All of us have wounds–old ones and new ones–and whenever the monster appears, when hell breaks loose, we know that our old wounds are talking guiding us. It is these wounds that must be confronted (Hays, 1986).

Like the dragon later told George, we must find a way to transform the power of the wounds, and not give weight to the voice of the times when we did our best and were rejected. The power to lead lies in the transformation of the crooked voices, in the confrontation of the wounds.

I was reminded of this story when reading Be the Difference and writing my own.

Check out Miguel’s Workshop Materials online at http://mglearns.wikispaces.com

Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

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