Almost Through the Wilderness

The first forty days of these one hundred day writing projects often feel like working my way through the wilderness. Day One feels fresh. Or perhaps it has me asking myself what I was thinking, publicly committing to one hundred days of putting writing out into the world no matter what else I'm doing or how I'm feeling. Every. Single. Day. Some days feel empowered and empowering. Other days feel like I'm walking through mud -- or soft sand.  Each day represents a percent of the process. There are milestones. Ten days - ten percent through. Twenty days - twenty percent through. Twenty-five days - an entire quarter gone, accomplished. Energy builds. 

An interesting thing happens at Day 39. I notice I'm almost at Day 40. Forty days is one of those archetypal realities for me. A wonder process where I come face-to-face with myself and all my light, all my shadow, all my darkness, my cracked and broken places, the things about me that are a wonder or are magnificent. It's all there. I see it all. There's nowhere to hide in the wilderness. 

Day 39 this year falls on the first quarter moon. Energetically, the first quarter is a crisis of action. Something new has been sparked and has been growing and it finally gains enough energy that it breaks the surface and can be seen, breaks ground. It heralds a time for nourishing what is growing. So, you do something. You meet the energy offered with action.

It also coincides with my receiving the print proof for my poetry book. I've been working on this book for a very long time. It's the first book I am publishing. In addition to doing something new that requires a great deal of courage and energy, I am also learning new skills and learning to apply them. So there's a lot going on around this. For the first time in the process, I feel like I am breaking ground. It's moving beyond the dark soil of its seed-growth and into the open air and the light. And so am I.

Putting this work out into the world has been an intense wilderness journey for me. Talk about coming face-to-face with my light, shadow, and darkness, my cracked and broken places, the things about me that are a wonder or are magnificent -- it's all been there. I've seen it all. There's been nowhere to hide.  

So I'm stopping to mark the occasion just as I see the edge ahead of me, the boundary that takes me out. Tomorrow will be the 40th day, and the day after that the 41st and a new breaking through to something different. I'm celebrating the beautiful book I hold in my hand as it is tipped at the edge of breaking through the boundary of its conception and creation. As it begins its own journey through the birth canal of the publishing process, the time between my approval to publish and its emergence in the marketplace. 

The Great Summer Writing Retreat of 2109 continues. One hundred days of writing unedited ideas and following a prompt to its sometimes illogical conclusion.