Sunday, September 21, 2008

Breathing In and Out


What a week-battling grief, self doubt and panic, I suppose it showed in my blog posts. It was also a full moon week, so it could simply be the natural pull of gravity that got me down. Thanks for bearing with me.
I rented a fun movie last night-Forbidden Kingdom. How can you lose with Jackie Chan and Jet Li? It was an epic tale of kung fu-funny in a sly sort of way as the "hero" was a white boy who had watched too many kung fu movies and knew nothing at all about the art. In a direct match to the "Wizard of Oz"-the boy is transported to a faraway land of beauty and danger and must reach a mystical mountain castle and return a staff to the monkey king before he can go home.
In the strange way that art imitates life, I watched the boy struggle to become what he dreamed-through deserts, forests of bamboo, and orchards of cherry blossoms, onward he trudges working on his craft. He is told that kung fu is the flow of art- the words of a poet, the craft of a carpenter. You can't think you know it, you must simply know it...like writing. After miles of travels, the heroes find themselves hunkered down in the middle of a sand storm. The boy says to the monk (Jet Li) "We're not going to make it, are we? We've come this far and still have to face the Jade army. What if I get there and can't do it? What if I freeze?"
(These are profound questions everyone has asked at one point or other in their lives.)
The monk's answer is what I will take with me into my job search-into my writing projects-into my life whenever-like this week I panic and wonder if I can do it...
The monk's advice? "Remember to breathe."
Simple, I suppose and yet so profound. Don't worry, don't practice, don't argue-just do and when you're afraid you can't? Then simply breathe.

1 comment:

Elizabeth Powell said...

Your post is brilliant! I had never thought of "Forbidden Kingdom" that way, but you're absolutely right.

And breathing is good. *grin*