A few years ago, some friends and I drove down one Friday night to Seattle's Elliott Bay Book Company to hear Thomas Moore speak about his new book Original Self.

Moore said that he had been under contract with his publisher to write an entirely different book, when one night he woke up with a quote in his head. Unable to get back to sleep, he got up, rummaged through the books on his shelves until he found the quote, jotted down a few thoughts that had occurred to him, then went back to bed.

He got up the next day, thinking he could now focus on the book he was under contract to write, but he found himself distracted by yet another quote, which he looked up, scribbled a few notes about, and then, again, tried to return to the task at hand.

But he found that this process--looking up quotes and then writing down his own thoughts about them--had taken over, and soon he had written, one meandering distraction at a time, an entirely different book than the one he was "supposed" to be writing.

He showed up at his publisher's office, handed over the manuscript, and watched as his publisher glanced at it and, with raised eyebrows, said to Moore "This isn't the book you agreed to write..."

But it was a very good book, and it was published, and all because Moore was willing to veer off the path, to break the contract, to keep moving and to keep trusting even though he didn't know where he was going.

Among the friends that accompanied me to hear Moore that night was Larry Murante, one of Seattle's most gifted singers, songwriters, and guitarists. Larry, who at the time was unfamiliar with Moore or his books, nearly declined my invitation to tag along that night because he'd just released a new CD and needed to rehearse for a series of CD release concerts coming up in the next week. But at the last minute he decided to join us.

He wound up buying a copy of Original Self, and came across the passage where Moore writes: "The door ajar is yet another image for the unheroic work of caring for the soul. It is not a project, as is the job of personal growth or self-improvement. It is not so much something we do as something done to us. Our role is to stand out of the way or allow a point of entry."

Inspired by these ideas, Larry wrote a song titled "Point of Entry," which became the title cut for his next CD, and which I've used in numerous workshops, including one I gave last year at the Oregon Dental Conference in Portland.

Think about it: a group of dental professionals in Portland, Oregon were touched by a song...because a songwriter in Seattle was willing to change his plans at the last minute...and follow a friend's invitation...go to hear a writer from New England...speak about a book...that came about...because that writer followed his restlessness, and saw insomnia blossom into creativity.

In a world that would have us believe the only way to accomplish anything is to set a goal, make a plan, and then stick with that plan, this story suggests there is another way: the way of...wandering.

Wandering invites us to put faith in our natural curiosity, to offer the uninvited a point of entry, to trust our tangents. Wandering allows us to realize that "dead ends" are actually filled with life if we learn to value the journey as well as the destination. Wandering reminds us that, more often than not, the most creative distance between two points is not a straight line.

 
Click on the titles below to read the poems online; you can also access them by going to the "Writings" page of my web site, finding the link for my "e-newsletters," and then clicking on link for the Spring 2012 edition:

1. "Garbage Truck" (Michael Ryan)   
2. "14" (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)     
3. "After" (Octavio Paz) 

To schedule an appointment,
or if you have questions,
call me at (206) 523-1340.

Dan Keusal, M.S., LMFT
Jungian Psychotherapy for Individuals and Couples
Find Your Purpose, Heal Your Pain, Live With Passion