the pleasure of industry

The sun is shining brightly through my patio window, revealing all the little fingerprints the height of a certain nine year old who still can’t help but press her face up against the glass and peer at the big big world outside. I have just had a private dramaturgical session with a firebrand of a woman who has a huge juicy story on the spit. It took her tremendous courage to capture it and skewer it. It will be a feast for many when she serves it. I am inspired by her inspiration. I am dumbfounded by the beauty she is finding in brutality. She is an alchemist, as I like to say. Turning shit into gold. One of our greatest spiritual abilities.

I am reminded of the privilege and power of a play. Preacher Dan in church this week (I love that guy) said something along the lines of the world being made up of atoms but held together by story. He recounted the Adam and Eve tale in Genesis, blew apart the idea of original sin and spoke of original blessing. (did I mention I love that guy?) Genesis, again, is not about science but about the spirit. Taking from the tree of knowledge was perhaps a natural progression: a maturing.

We focus so much on the awareness of nakedness, the burden of plowing fields, contending with human brutality, labour pains, death, snake bites…all the things God said Adam and Eve would have to suffer if they chose knowledge. Free will. Is this the conversation we have with God before we’re born into this world? Does he give us the reminder, “You know…it ain’t easy down there…”

No, it isn’t. But…there is also the exhilarating awareness of nakedness! Living “east of Eden” we get to plow fields and see things grow on this blue planet. What a pleasure that is: industry. We get to create! We can give birth! Amazing. We can crush the heads of snakes with our bare heels. We can die and return to the garden born again. There is great beauty and satisfaction with all of that wrestling to live. What a gift.

I look out my dirty window and know I will allow myself to clean it in an hour, after I’ve put a good solid chunk of writing in. (this is how I reward myself: I allow myself to housekeep!) I have all day and all night to write without my two most delicious distractions: Nora or Fellow. It’s just me, my pink cashmere sweater, and a cup of tea, looking out at the garden I have the privilege of tending.