Dolphins gamboling in a calm sea

   

 

Dolphins gamboling in a calm sea

‘The mind at rest produces holy and mysterious thoughts, like dolphins gambolling above a calm sea.’      

Heyscius of Batos, an early monastic writer

I’ve not been lucky enough to see a school of dolphins in the wild, only in a ‘show’. The beauty of their lithe forms executing perfectly synchronised parabolic paths above the waves is so satisfying. It’s not at all surprising that the ancient Greeks thought of the dolphin as a symbol of life. (I feel I should apologise for the very stationary dolphins in the picture; pressing the camera button at precisely the right moment to catch them in the air was quite beyond me.)

The quote is from an ancient book about prayer. It describes beautifully the experience of having a new thought during a time of waiting on God, but it’s also an apt description of a moment of writerly inspiration. A fresh idea may suddenly strike us out of nowhere and it’s so compelling that we absolutely must get it onto the page before it disappears.

Where do these thoughts come from? The psychological explanation is that they arise unbidden out of our subconscious depths, from a place over which we have no control. They are most likely to materialise when we are in ‘vacant or in pensive mood’ as Wordsworth put it, when the joyful memory of the daffodils flashed upon his ‘inward eye which is the bliss of solitude’.

O that writing was always as creative as this! At present I’m working on a full edit of my non-fiction book. Writing the first version was, in the main, a joyful experience and I received some encouraging feedback from those who read it. However, editing it frequently awakens me to its many deficiencies - I’m realising that in the rush of inspiration I frequently put down the right thoughts in the wrong order.

I’m discovering that editing requires a very different mindset from ‘stream of consciousness’ writing. I need to put on my logical ‘hat’ on and control what goes on the page. I must be especially careful not to repeat something that I said ten pages back, so editing puts strain on my powers of recall. I revise, insert new material, review the chapter plan. Decide to put chapter three before chapter two. And I keep going, because I really do believe that ‘The Tome’ (as I semi-affectionately call it) needs to make its way out there into the public domain. I trust that I really am meant to write this, even though it’s hard to do, and I trust in the One who inspired me to write in the first place.

One of my reasons for keeping going is this: As the prevailing culture around us becomes increasingly secular, we need to pay more attention to the thoughts that have swum out of our depths - though only the ones that we have learnt to recognise as worth incorporating in what we write. Those ideas are messengers of goodness, truth and beauty, glimpses of the spiritual realm that waits to be found.

#dolphins #inspiration

Christine Cleave is a retired physics teacher, who is busy making the transition from science nerd to would-be author. She enjoys singing in a chamber choir, painting and giving spiritual direction.