For many years, I have spent part of each day deeply immersed in what I used to call my “recapitulation project,” but shortened a few years ago to my “archival project,” which includes approximately 500 essays, both published and unpublished.
I first decided on this massive project after I found myself going through some old essays, and was astonished to realize that they were both well written, and usually, still relevant! Why relevant? Likely because I always lead with my own center, writing from the soul’s point of view expanding out.
The goal is to eventually get the essays, some of them collected by topic into e-books, all published on tendrepress.com, which has been dormant for several years now, waiting to be reconfigured.
Why do I want to do this? Why do I want to preserve this legacy? Am I simply a narcissist? Is that what this seemingly obsessive resolve implies?
Believe me, I continue to ask that question, especially since I already have a “legacy,” namely as founder of Crone Chronicles magazine (1989-2001), which still lives on, both via the internet, and showing its staying power, demonstrating its evolving mission, via CAW: Crone Awakening Wisdom. Check it out!
Plus, I am founder of Green Acres Permaculture Village, which traces its origins to 2009, when I bought the house next door to me. Our little three-home village is presently undergoing a renaissance, due to the garden management of Elisha Hardy, who had been coming to our regular Community Dinners for years, and, when I offered to sell her the third house, jumped on the opportunity, moving in last August. The gardens themselves, this year, thanks to Elisha, are extraordinarily beautiful and fruitful, their very presence drawing new people to us from near and far.
So, those two legacies; isn’t that enough? Why do I need any legacy? Why do I want to be remembered? Why should any of us be remembered after our short, sweet time on this good Earth?
I have no idea. All I know is I am, once again, driven.
Actually, I feel extremely fortunate to have been a person who began to consciously process my experiences from a very early age; and my chief instrument in this processing, has been writing. Writing down my actual lived experiences, so that I might not just remember them, but learn from them.
I thank Anais Nin for this, her journals having inspired an entire generation of women back in the 60s and early 70s to write, not “objectively,” but from a deeply personal point of view.
Now, during the closing years of a long lifetime, these essays offer me a treasure trove of memories to go through, and to review, noticing anew when I repeated patterns; just which subjects tended to follow me around; when I chose a certain way of proceeding and then abruptly stopped; which patterns are like drops in an ocean of widening circles of meaning; on and on.
Plus, so many experiences that I totally forgot about! All documented, on the written page. All subject to the same recursive review.
I’ve long viewed time/space as creating each other, time spiraling through expanding space. And my life, I would say, “proves” it. Or at least illustrates it.
I feel so very fortunate to have this treasure trove to savor as I begin to let go.
Here’s what I’ve been working on during the past several weeks. You may find at least some parts of it of interest.
