Words of Wonder: On finding hope in the dark, sharing what helps, and healing the hurts

I write what I need to release and read, first for myself, including all the rambling that gets me to the point, and once processed, if it feels worth repeating, I share in the same spirit of offering an honest reflection that might illicit some understanding.

That includes the afflicted as much as the more rounded parts of myself. There are writers, thinkers, artists and other beloveds who model this beautifully. Their work often crops up in my own, whether explicitly or through osmosis, their wisdom having inflected my own attempts at the same.

Nick Cave is one such artist. Anyone who knows me, has worked with, practiced with, or written alongside me, will know the deep respect, admiration, love and awe I have for every way he expresses himself and relates so vulnerably, compassionately and honestly with others.

In his most recent Red Hand Files letter, he touched, as he always does really, on the importance of staying true to ourselves and not bending or bowing towards others’ expectations. Everyone, after all, has to do their own work. And people, even those we love, will appear to let us down when they express a view that challenges or displeases us.

In his words, responding to someone finding his “religious turn” difficult, Cave writes how he has felt confounded at times (but not put off completely) by those he admires, and has remained captivated by them, because:

“I know that on a fundamental level they are on their own path and they are not in the business of shaping their lives, artistic or otherwise, in order to please or make others feel better. They are fully and acutely authentic, regardless of my feelings, or the feelings of anyone else and I find this deeply reassuring in a world that so often feels devoid of genuineness. In fact, if I sense that an artist is creating, saying or doing things just to win public approval, or to yield to the demands of the market, well, that’s when I tend to turn away.”

Cave names Morrissey as one such person in his own realisation of this. I too would name Morrissey for the same reasons of disappointment. And yet I still appreciate the beauty and the lyricism of The Smiths, who played a pivotal part in my youth. Even though I may no longer to listen to Morrissey’s solo work, or at least not without the clarity of knowing what lay behind some lyrics after his slip side into questionable identity politics, I am still captivated by the excellence that The Smiths demonstrated.

One of their and my favourite songs is There is a Light That Never Goes Out, which is thematically relevant to this edition of my own gathering of Words of Wonder, mostly highlighting the sentiments and wisdom of/via Cave’s own words, specifically, from his collaboration with Sean O'Hagan in their conversational book, Faith, Hope and Carnage.

As you might know from previous posts, I recently returned from a life-changing meditation and plant medicine retreat. You may also be aware from my work thus far that I’ve been working on and off on a memoir, or 'wemoir' (the exploration of multiple intertwined lives), regarding the roots of my personal story, the origins of my ancestry, and the journeys this has involved, geographically, spiritually and emotionally.

This can be tiring work and I’ve decided to take a pause on the book, while I wonder about the direction I might take it, and if indeed, I might take it any further at all. There’s a big part of me that wonders if that part of my story is done, if the processing and reflecting to date has taken me as far as I need to go.

One of the revelations I had whilst on retreat came during a vision of being at the bottom of an enormous tree that reached way up high beyond my field of sight. These words came to me at that time; “you don’t need to dig.” As I’ve said before, some things are better left unsaid, some stories are better left in the past. That’s a realm I have no control over. My curiosity is how much I want to carry the wounds of the past into my present and into the future - how much I want to uproot and dig up in view of the benefits and repercussions.

In writing about my family and my/their past, I sometimes wonder how much of those stories risk become an automated and unhelpful regeneration of something that I am/we are more steps removed from with each repetition. Maybe there is something to leaving things as they are and moving on.

As Cave says:

"It seems to me, life is mostly spent putting ourselves back together. But hopefully in new and interesting ways. For me that is what the creative process is, for sure - it is the act of retelling the story of our lives so that it makes sense... It seems to me that much of our remembered past, especially around traumatic incidents, is based on assumptions and misunderstandings we collected at the time of the trauma and have gone unchallenged ever since."

At some point, having unpacked and challenged what needed to be examined, enough is enough. I’m beginning to feel as though I may have reached that stage. The point of exhaustion when it comes to re-narrating our stories for the sake of making sense and finding healing in the process can itself be revelatory.

Going any further can keep us stuck on an old record, in the case of traumatic histories, once processed, how much does it help to keep picking at healed scabs?

Cave again: “After a while, you get worn away by your own story."

Faith, Hope and Carnage is one of those books that I can and do turn to again and again, as well as one that I read from cover to cover in few sittings, so expansive and immersing as it is. Cave is an eclectic artist with interests and experiences that cover every hue of what it means to (struggle) to be human in a world that on occasion, feels like it makes little sense.

Creativity as well as his approach to faith is a consistent guide and anchor, both of which he cautions against the performance of, which goes back to the question of what it means to be authentic – such that it matters more that we do it (whatever it is) for ourselves, to further our own way of being in a satisfactory and meaningful manner.                                                                                                  

"Who says creativity is the be all and end all? Who says that our accomplishments are the only true measure of what is important in our lives? Perhaps there are other lives worth living, other ways of being in the world."

On the topic of remaining a free agent in service to and with responsibility for what we put out into the world, he says:

“Put brutally, the audience should never dictate the direction an artist takes. I say that with all the love in the world, but an artist does not exist to serve his or her audience. The artist exists to serve the idea. The idea is the light that leads the audience and the artist to a better place."

I especially love how Cave talks about the power of art, whatever the medium, to transform our way of thinking and feeling. Personally, I can say that of Cave’s own music, poetry, writing and art:

"I think music can have a way of influencing the heart in a righteous way that enables us to do better, be better...art must have the capacity to improve matters or what is the point? Our better selves are made up of a collection of transitory experiences that have elevated us spiritually, music being potentially the most transcendent and necessary of these shared experiences. If we are deprived of transcendent experiences, we grow smaller, harder, less tolerant."

In a similar vein he says:

"I think you have to have faith in your own intuitive process. That is really all you can do, I would say this to all people who are trying to become musicians or writers or artists of any kind: learn as much as you can about your craft, of course, but ultimately trust your own instinctive impulses. Have faith in yourself, so you can stand beside whatever it is you have done and fight for it because if you can invest it with that faith, then it has its own truth, its own honesty, its own resilient vulnerability, and hence its own value."

Bruce Lee, another of my heroes, said something similar that I always remember (and echoed the sentiment of in an earlier essay, I don't need you to tell me I'm good: On rejection and validation): “I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”

If ever there was an empowering and humbling rallying call for how to be, this, in so many ways, is it.