Book of the Labyrinth: Taking the Path

(We’re looking at excerpts from my Book of the Labyrinth, a blank book into which I have written inspirational stuff, divided into the sections of RITUAL in Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy.)

Listen: there’s a hell
of a good universe next door;
Let’s go.
— e.e. cummings

TAKING THE PATH

Here’s the crux of RITUAL: You can deploy your Invocation — you can Draw the Circle with efficiency — but if your next step is to sit down by the fire pit, you’re lost. You have to get up and take the path if you’re going to get anywhere.

(For those just joining us, that is my fire pit by my labyrinth in my back yard. It is a haven unto me, especially in Captivity. It is even more meaningful to me because I did every bit of the landscaping myself, by myself. Ask me sometime about it.)

As we Lichtenbergians say:

Take the pathway
to explore
uncover
confront.
Return to the fire
to confirm
affirm
retreat.

The metaphor of the labyrinth is not perfect: you can’t get lost in a labyrinth, and the end is predetermined. That’s not at all what MAKING THE THING THAT IS NOT is like, is it?

But the Book of the Labyrinth has words of wisdom as you begin to write that novel, or draft a season of your idea for a sitcom, or start on the illustrations for Lichtenbergianism for Kids, or find a use for that gross corn whiskey you bought that one time.

Oh brother, thou has come
to a place of great danger,
and of much work and terror.
— Aztec confession

Do you tremble
part in fear,
part in longing?
Entering a mystery
is an act of courage —
I salute you.
— Joyce Gibb

Taking that first step — making that first mark on the paper — writing the season finale — thinking that corn whiskey and prickly pear liqueur might work (it doesn’t, not even with smoked chili bitters) — is scary. Time and materials can be scarce; no one likes to waste them. But that’s the risk we take when we start with our ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS.

In order to arrive at
what you are not,
you must go through
the way in which you are not.
— T. S. Eliot

Put your best foot forward
and carry no map.
— Nancy Willard

As you start to walk out
on the way,
the way appears.
— Rumi

Is the way visible all the way to the finish? Never. That’s why we have to continue Taking the Path through GESTALT and SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION and back to ABORTIVE ATTEMPT, hoping eventually to get out of the cycle through ABANDONMENT.

To plunge into the abyss of the divine mysteries is a perilous thing, and it is no easy task to seek to discover the unclouded glory that lies behind the veil.
— Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Keep going,
going on,
call that going,
call that on?
But wait…
— Samuel Beckett

Taking the Path is tough. Unlike walking the labyrinth, it’s easy to get lost, to reach dead ends, to retrace your steps, to start over. But:

On this path no effort is wasted,
no gain is ever reversed;
even a little of this practice
will shelter you from great sorrow.
— Bhagavad Gita

Now call out commands to yourself.
You are the king. Phrase your question,
and expect the grace of an answer.
— Rumi

As the Book so wisely says,

I made the journey
not knowing why,
only that I must.
— Tom F. Driver