“We shall not cease from exploration – and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started – and know the place for the first time.”
~ T.S.Eliot. (1888-1965) Nobel Prize – Literature 1948.
I’ve finished unpacking the 28th big box of books I have had in storage or carted around for the past 6 years, move to move, household to household. Yippee, yahoo, and whew! These are the ‘last vestiges’ of tomes I was not ready to part with, for whatever-my-reason, all those years ago.
Wonderful books: stories of lives truth or fiction; stories of journeyworks from individuals (teachers, mentors, guides) who taught me to follow my own journey of healing and beyond; books on Mind and Matter and antimatter. Metaphysics, poetry, history or humor, suspense and derring-do, and those books that dared me not to Do, but to Be. Books, books, and more books. Utterly delightful!
Each time I opened a box ~ saw the dust-jackets and covers ~ those familiar stories and words rose into my memory like a ululation. I could ‘hear’ the authors, the characters, the energy celebrating a lid-being-lifted and the light and air reaching deep inside: Uncovering and releasing each from cardboard captivity. I had such a sensory overload at times. I loved it!
As is the case with most treasures packed aside, the memories become enough, and the passing of some of the treasures on becomes good enough. I’m sated. I hope others are pleased.
As is also the case, some of those treasures were seen with different eyes. Rereading a favorite passage or looking anew at a compilation of stories resonated differently, now. Such is the case with a 40-50 page collection of ideas (or ‘recipes for life’ as the author called it). Within this book, each ‘recipe’ page also has a line-drawing to accompany the whimsical, sometimes pointed, message.
This is what caught my attention upon the re-re-reading of the book. This time ~ the artistry.
The illustrator is Joanna Abbott Moss. She creates these (and other) line drawings without ever once lifting her pen. Not once. A continuous, sinuous movement that becomes a story in its own right. The creation of a life, be it a human form, a scene of nature, different animals, folks at a party, and even an astronaut tethered to a cloud ….all one line. (I actually sat still and traced several just “to be sure.” By gum, I’m sure! And amazed. And….awed at the artistry.)
Then I got to thinking. (Of course she did!!) Thinking about how each life…..human, plant, animal, fisheys-in-the-sea, are, each and every one, a life-line. Just like those drawings. One continuous expression that weaves, loops, curls back on itself, darts suddenly to the side, and still…..maintains that thread. From birth to earth. And everywhere in between.
Everywhere in between. No ‘mistakes’ or sudden lifting of the pen to begin again. No erasures. Nope ~ not even a dab of white-out. One continuous stroke that has brought me here. You there, to your ‘here’. Lines fluid, jagged, faint, bold. Stories told. A book to-date written.
A life story. Your’s.
A lifeline. Hold tenderly yet tight.
Namaste’