Why do I write, if I know too well the path of such a vocation.

What is life for a poet? What is a poet?

Certainly I do not feel I live to such a calling everyday—not only because I have lost my practice of writing daily, but also because, though it may come to a surprise, not every time I write a poem do I experience the words as a poet.

Thousands of men may, through education, find the words to put together into frames of beauty. Millions have, through time, learned to master words—to use common words and watch them bloom into fervent emotions.

For some, composing is poetry.

But not for me, and certainly not inside of my heart. I write because it is a calling—not for the world of wealth in the monetary and professional sense, nor do I feel I am talented at it, but rather words have become a calling from my spirit.

I write, and when I really write—it feels as if my spirit—

The Spirit—was scratching away at the walls inside of everything I have allowed to come in the way of our communion, and for brief moments I live with it—I am it and I feel an immense sense of fulfillment.  

How may one explain such a feeling without seeming mad or delusional—for writing is so common these days and so rarely lived in the blood?

If not for those few writers who have come before me, I would certainly assume that indeed I was mad. If not for the few friends I’ve been blessed with, who experience life through such mediums, I would assume writing were simply a hobby I can let go of.

But Oh how comforting are the words of Herman Hesse, who single handedly lived my often binary experience of life through the interplay between Narcissus and Goldmund as characters. And where would I find consolation if I had never heard my dear friend Nietzsche’s cries. How congruent have Emerson’s experience of nature, become my own and how boldly did Everson speak for what I tried so hard to understand about the question I ask myself once more today. The writings of Buddhist texts gave me foundation—for though so often fiction finds my soul, my mind denies it as truth and lends the pages of words to the realm of imagination instead.

And now the writings of the Bible—back up, with the use of different words, the values I had found within those eastern texts.

But in reading such personal journey’s to God I have not yet to feel 1/3 of what I feel when I sit in courage and openness to Spirit, to write. In the few successful sessions of creation when I surrender to something entirely outside of myself, and allow my body to be the vessel of that divine expression—I have found within such moments, the entire foundation of my faith.

Certainly it is doubtful to some, to believe in what is not clearly defined. The mind will naturally want to debate and question, for such thoughts will seem absurd and fictional, delusional at times. But Man inside knows better, that questions of God are not answered through reason—but rather through heart.

God speaks the language of Love and Love is not always rational.

For a religious man, and I mean for a Man with a dogma and a church, it would be absurd to accept the claims of one individual who has created a canvas, a blank page as her foundation, and her spirituality. It is easy to ride off such acts as passion, or worse, as a hobby/a diversion.

No, a poet does not pass time with writing; if anything it is the only moment when he is aware of the real eternal concept of time. He often becomes a prisoner of a such.  

Not every practiced writer will become a poet. And let us remember that we live in times where the eye for a true poet is skewed by entertainment. Today a poet is one who entertains, and certainly that is not what poets were born to do.

Not everyone who writes poetry is a poet. Not every poem was written by a poet.

I have only experienced minuscule hints of the richness of the heart of a poet.

A poet, as I see it, is devoted not to words, but to God. He is a Man who has been given the gift a tongues, and he becomes a poet when he uses it for the budding of divine consciousness. Words become powerful enough to penetrate the surface of actions, words become roots for the truth to bloom.

What makes one dedicated? Well, I can only speak for what made me aware that without choosing, creation, became my greatest joy and peace.

I agree with religion, who know that we are here to be One with God. There are numerous names and stories to express such opinions of becoming Christlike, achieving Enlightment…ect…

But what ever happened to the idea of finding God outside of churches that had been established by Poets in essence. What ever happened to the idea that poets still existed in today’s world? Scriptures called them prophets, who had the divine speak through them. What was spoken was in words and what will someday be spoken will also always be in words.

So words, is where I sometimes find that calling. It is the realm in which I have most profoundly, consistently, and effortlessly felt that divine connection that shakes your bones to the core, that brands a smile and eternal glow back in your tired heart. It is through creation, that I most feel at home. I do not mean at home externally, as in through indulging in the comfort of an activity or the pleasures that are brought through certain actions. Actually so often when I paint I am miserable, the body begins to ache from the postures of the body bending over canvas, the heart begins to fill itself heavy with the acceptance of failure—of another day going by where I am not silent enough to hear the voice of God, another day I am intended to question. Likewise when I write my hands become stiff, and my thoughts begin to jumble themselves over as if all the words in the vocabulary stored within my mind, are fighting to be first—to be noticed and integrated.

No, certainly I cannot say I take such pleasure in an activity that is so torturous to the soul. Soul clenching and twisting.

Writing, painting brings me home; and I mean it brings me home, through the path of my heart. And though it is not everyday when I paint that I find that voice to fill me, and not every poem do I feel the words were spoken through me—One poem was enough, one painting suffice, one creation became the last necessary to give me faith in our Creator.

So how can I burden myself to explain to man, so convinced that only within the Church’s lessons and scriptures can one find Truth. How can I say that I found it, not complacent with the stories of my Catholic past, but in discovering through experiencing the writings of the story themselves?

I have felt twice, more than enough, the feeling of creation. I have been reminded twice—that I am already at home within my heart, for I am in communion with God—and that faith is my strength.

I may be stripped of everything in my life, but my faith in Him. And yes, because I am yet human—I cling to where I found him, as I would hope you to cling to yours. The true home of spirit is in the heart, but for Man it is in the world as well. In my world, it is in art that I feel most at home. It is in writing, and in throwing on canvas the colors of my soul.

Art is finding beauty too often in the world and to be an artist is to allow myself to dedicate my being into what comes of no apparent purpose and use—to be willing to be never understood by the man of reason, the man of common sense. And to decide that there will be no rest, until God is found and God is kept alive.