On having a crisis of faith

I’m currently having a creative crisis of faith – not any religious faith you understand, although I suppose that would be rather useful for me right now – faith in my writing and its (my?) abilities. It’s the nature of writing to be rejected at every turn until at last it finds some receptacle – be that a journal, magazine, publisher, or wastepaper bin. I know that writers have to be thick skinned, believe in their work, keep refining their writing, keep reading, keep networking and all those other worthy pursuits. I realise that the readership for new poetry is tiny and by my reading more and publicising more other new writers I’ll increase my own slice of the literary pie – or at the very least there’ll be a few more crumbs to go around.

It’s hard work keeping the faith and getting out there, it just is. I feel like a petulant child – I want to be taken notice of but equally if someone did make a big deal about my work I’d be suspicious mainly because I’m not sure I’ve paid my dues or have enough knowledge yet. I think that’s the biggest obstacle for any new writer – looking at what’s gone before and realising that you probably can’t match up to most of it and you probably never will. It’s the Socratic idea of knowing that you know nothing – how bloody depressing.

Been here before?

Firstly apologies for the length of time it’s taken me to post something new here….life has been busy.

I found this Rabindranath Tagore poem today...

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.


It’s beautiful but it also made me think about the notion of reincarnation and our souls going on…Despite being brought up in a very strict religious community (that makes it sound quite terrifying…but then nuns can be…) I no longer consider myself of be someone of Faith, as such. I love the idea of reincarnation, Heaven, the Afterlife all of that, but I can’t really get it to square with science…and to my mind that’s the real nature of Faith – a willingness to set aside all that is known and simply believe in the unknown…I guess I’m too much of a coward to just give in and believe…I need hard evidence. Anyway, this poem added to that – I can’t say that I have experienced just what Tagore is talking about here – I would truly love to meet someone and believe that we had been together before, and were destined to always in each life, meet again and remain friends and lovers. But I can’t believe that. Each person I meet is so new to me, and those who I might have thought I had a deep connection to at some point, always manage to surprise me and therefore convince me that we, or maybe just I, don’t ever really know anyone….
One of my favourite pastimes (aside from people watching) is talking about what has happened – I love to chew over conversations I’ve had with people and will spend hours talking to my closest friends about what this or that remark really meant…as everyone of course has a sub-text….No one ever just says what they mean (apart from me, of course). So many happy hours are passed deciphering just what He really meant when He said that….Now surely if I’d known them in a previous life all of that would be unnecessary, as I would already know exactly what they meant, wouldn’t I?
But then again, just because I’ve not experienced what Tagore is talking about, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist…For example, I’ve never been to see the Pyramids, but I know they exist….So maybe if there is such a thing as the Afterlife or Reincarnation, maybe some of us are just very young souls and haven’t clocked up the necessary man-hours to know our soul mates when we see them…or maybe we just haven’t met them yet.