Unlocked

I read a myth once, I think it was of Odin, but I couldn't find it in a quick google search, so I'm not sure. Anyway, the person involved was obsessed with gaining wisdom, so obsessed that we was willing to try unusual tactics to find more and more of it. If it was Odin, he gave up an eye for it. Anyway, this person hung themselves from the boughs of a dead tree, by the ankles, and as he swung he could see how the shadows of the branches made different patterns and how those patterns could convey meaning. It was the birth of runes. Those marks the gave power, warded off evil, gave warnings or just allowed people to record history. They unlocked this hidden power, made a plain service useful, able to convey something, to speak when no speaker was present. It was a kind of magic.

Even though I don't have all the details of this myth, it stuck with me because I love the idea of what is going on here. Runes which can be read to give the reader something new, or written extend what and how you could communicate. The story had fictional magic elements, but the truth is there is a very real magic which goes on in construction of words and letters. Every time I write I flirt with this ancient magic.

In its most simple form, writing is illusion. I can distract you from you day. I can cause you to see things you never imagined before. Lincoln and Hitler having a West Side Story Dance Off, where their stylized knife fight is observed, and sung about, by Eva Braun and Mary Todd Lincoln. Not new? How about the discovery that everything you know is a thin illusion, props to hide the observers who are waiting to see what you will do when one by one everyone near you vanishes until you are alone, cradling a phone which rings and rings, but no one picks up. This though, these though illusions I have unlocked for you, I think, are the weakest kind of writing magic.

The more powerful use of this magic is the power to unlock myself. Untangle the nest of threads, conflicting thoughts and rival ideas that debate each other in my mind, producing a kind of mental gridlock which has caused me to just step away from time to time. When you take the time to write these ideas out, the pull from each other, separate and align. It is as if the thread has to pull though the narrow hole of you pen and it needs to be clean, unknotted to make it. Then, once you have poured you blood and ink onto the parchment, the truth bobs to the surface. A wisdom from the shadows.

Sometime, though, the lock is not mental, it is emotional. How do you work through the anger and betrayal you feel when people turn on you, lie to you, act in a way which lacks any grace, when you desperately need grace. My wife, and most women I know, would fall into their friends, find the support, express their sadness. Bond and grow and move on. This is not my way. In fact, thinking about doing that kind of activity makes me uncomfortable. These moments lock me, I hold back, I dive into my own head. The better answer, though, the one I need when I'm really stuck, comes in the form of letters and verse, an exercise where I can pour myself onto the page, then dive into the thoughts there and while I refine them, I refine me. Healing. Find the way to express what I feel, who I am, untangled, unlocked.

There is wisdom in holding up the mirror of your words. There is also wisdom in sharing it. Not the illusion runes, which are fun as well, but the revelation where someone can feel what you feel, walk where you are, be you for just a moment, even while they are not you.

When my friends have talked about deep issues I almost always suggest they write. It might not work for everyone, but it is the tool I know. A key that opens many locks.