Creating the Webbd Wheel: Living in the Pause
Creating the Webbd Wheel: Living in the Pause
In which we rest awhile ...
The Hanged Man is about life in suspension, which is the meaning of the Tarot card the book was named after. The card has always intrigued me, and I liked the idea of writing a book about the awkward pauses and uncomfortable waiting periods we all experience in life, when not much seems to be happening. Nothing flows. We’re indecisive or confused. We’re waiting for someone or something. We can’t see a clear way forward. We’re drifting, coasting, marking time.
Stories are supposed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and “successful” writers follow that blueprint, cutting away all the periods of nonaction which occur in real life. As a writer, it’s essential to keep the reader’s attention, and our cultural attention span is shorter and more jaded every day.
Except I question our belief that nothing is happening. Something is always happening. We may not be paying attention to it, or maybe we refuse to engage with what’s happening, but that doesn’t mean we’re truly in suspended animation. Even if we can’t feel what’s happening, something is. One moment flows into the next and change is always with us, though it may be occurring so subtly we don’t recognize it until later.
In post #23 Morfran, having made his way to the birch wood in pursuit of the Firebird, wonders what comes next. What should he do? Where should he go? He asks himself if he’s in the right place. He doesn’t have a clear path in front of him.
I frequently ask myself what the hell I’m doing. During those times, I choose to believe wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, even if I’m hating whatever is going on, or doubting my fitness or ability to be engaging in the tasks at hand.
If I’m right here, right now, doing this, then I’m the only one who can inhabit this place, activity, and moment, or someone else would be here.
When we feel lost, confused, and stalled in our lives, we can always fall back on the basics. Morfran is in a northern climate during winter. Without a clear direction to go in, he turns to the fundamental necessities of eating, drinking, sleeping, bathing, and keeping warm. Timor cuts wood and cures wolf skins to earn his living and protect himself against the winter cold, so Morfran follows his lead. While we are doing the basic work of living, such as chopping wood and carrying water, things are happening. Our dreams speak to us. We learn new skills. We think and feel and wonder. Our interactions with others shape us gently, inspire us, make us think. Our creativity has a chance to rest, stretch, and breathe.
Life is not a video game. It’s not nonstop action, bright colors, car chases, loud noise, instant shiny gratification, or constant applause and validation.
We must not lose our ability to engage with the subtleties of our experience, the silences, the long nights, the stormy days, the quiet dawns, the phases of the moon, the turn of the seasonal wheel, and the life in our bodies. If we don’t know what to do or where to go next, maybe we could welcome the pause and enjoy the inactivity, re-engage with ourselves, have faith that when it’s time to be decisive and active again we’ll know it.
This essay was published with post #23 of The Hanged Man.)