Yellow Leaves Are Dying

There is a tree outside my window, reaching and twisting outward like a sentinel of the sky.  It's branches bow humbly in the autumn wind as melancholy clouds fight a battle of mourning with the sun.  The air is impregnated with winter, heavy with chill like a bough laden with snow, casting grey shadows amongst grey light.  The world is blanketed in the cold, drizzling consequences of this spinning, hurtling world.
And yet this tree outside my window is exploding, the torch of nature has set alight its leaves and they burn an ecstatic yellow.  The wind, in sweeping torrents of impish playfulness, scatters the flame.  The leaves cover the ground, collecting in forgotten concrete corners and transforming the mundane sidewalk into a dance of exquisite ferocity, a duet of gust and color.  The leaves stick to the shoes of passersby in drab raincoats and black umbrellas, for brief moments letting them walk in the midst of swirling yellow and rain.
It is a beautiful gift, this tree, as leaves detach like scattered pigeons and ascend and descend upon the fancies of the icy breeze, filling the atmosphere and carpeting the earth with a kingly array.  And yet, of course, comes of the great fact of autumn, the great metaphor as it were.
Everything is dying.
And even as the wind and the tree laugh, the wind snatches away those ecstatic yellow leaves and once they depart they do not return, and the tree is naked for a season.  A shade of yellow like this will never be seen again, once it is blown it is blown.  Soon there will be no more joyful, trumpet-like color to dance around the faded world.
I feel a resonance with this tree.  It gives such a fleeting beauty to the world, shedding its skin to cover and tend a brief area of this enormously brutal world, as I attempt to shed my soul to try and sway the apathetic darkness that closes in around me.  I am synonymous with this tree, as perhaps we all are.  Whether through words, or actions, small gestures or large shouts, we are all trying to spread ourselves throughout the world.  And most, like this tree, are shedding their fantastical souls of yellow and gold to simply try and set the world ablaze again with dance.
But are we, like this tree, dying?
Yes, we are.
And we will never get our old sense of beauty back.  Like this tree, once the leaves are gone they are gone forever, scattered and shriveled.  The winter comes and blankets the tree's gentle nakedness in snow, but the beauty the tree itself produced has been quelled.
But then comes the buds of spring, the sun-streaked summer, and again scattering of beauty.  It is the cycle of nature that we've all know since childhood.
If you are clutching at parts yourself that are fading, that are dying and scattering themselves, if you feel like you're pouring yourself into the world and soon you will be empty, let it all go.  It was always meant to go.  It is the seasons of the soul.  Empty yourself and you may be barren for a time, with only cold bleak pessimism to cover yourself with, but it will not last.  Just as there are parts of you that are not meant to last, so bleakness will not last, but just as things will always grow anew, so the winter will always come again.  But there is beauty in the winter, too.
The yellow leaves are dying, but the tree is not.  Not yet.  And it still has so much more ecstasy to give, with golden leaves to come.
It's okay to let parts of you die, to give irreplaceable to beauty the world, to a friend, to a stranger.  The world is a cycle.  The soul is a cycle.  It's all an intricate, swirling, incomprehensible and gorgeous cycle.
The leaves fall, they give, they die, and new leaves will burst forth with a remembrance of what has fallen to give them life.
Because nature's first green is gold.                          

The Writer and the Phoenix

I'm one of those writers that has long periods where I write nothing at all, staring at a blank screen, biting my lip and wondering why I bother trying to tell stories at all.  I sink into deep bouts of discouragement where I can't escape apathy, dragged into a mood where I simply don't care about the words I create, I can't get a grip on my ideas, my characters, my prose, and I feel them slipping out of my mind into that black space at the back of your existence where all dead thoughts go.
At these points, I begin to question myself, I ask, "What if I'm not really meant to write at all?"  Because can you stink so low there is a point of no return?  I always ask myself -- though, for a 15-year-old to ask such questions of himself is indeed quite silly -- the terrifying question, "What if I have nothing left to say?  What if I have told all I have to tell?  What if no one ever did care or ever will care?"
But then, deep in my heart, something unfolds.  A match is lit, a spark ignites, a light erupts.  And suddenly bursting, bubbling up like volcanic lava, are my words.  And I realize they were always there, just out of reach, but still present in my being, like always.  My fingers fly over the keyboard as I write, desperate to get everything out of me.  I am filled with a wonderful, irresistible love for writing, and I must write every second I can.
During these times I can never understand how, just a few days ago, or in some cases mere hours ago I thought I could never write again.  During these times I feel like a writer, I feel some paragon emotion .  I desire an eternal circle of nothing but this feeling.
Yet, as I rise higher into that glorious writer's emotion, I fall again.  I am back to staring at a blank screen, biting my lip and wondering why I bother trying to tell stories at all... and worse, I think that if I only get such brief bursts of true love for writing, I'm clearly not a true writer.
But, again, a match, a spark, a light.  I'm up again into the world of my words, loving every second my mind is spilling them out onto paper.
Call me genius, I think I've discovered a pattern.

While I do believe every writer is different concerning the creative process, I think a lot of people go through the same vicious, glorious cycle I go through.  Writing doldrums to writing ecstasy, writing doldrums to writing ecstasy, writing doldrums to writing ecstasy.  And I think that's just the way it goes.
I think a writer is like the Phoenix of mythology.  The Phoenix is a bird of fire, and it obtains life by rising from the ashes of it's predecessor.  First it rises in a spectacular burst of flame and vitality and heat, and then it dies, sinking into ash and death.  And yet, it rises again, just as spectacular, and then sinks to ash again.  And it rises again.  And it sinks again.  It's a beautiful rebirth cycle, and I have found it to be an accurate metaphor for the way I process my creativity.
I think the thing to remember is the Phoenix always rises again.  It's a cycle, a process, and you can't have both  at once.  Fire cannot exist without ash, nor can ash exist without fire.  Out of our writing doldrums will erupt a great cascade of words, and that too dies, but to be replaced with a new waterfall of stories.  Sometimes the period of ash will stretch on for months, a bleak, ravaged landscapes that come with much pain and discouragement, and sometimes the period of flames and words only lasts an hour -- but it will always come again.
So, if you haven't written anything for months.  If you feel like I have, doubting yourself and your writing, just remember one thing.  One very important fact you must never forget. 
You will rise again.

            


Post Script - An Infinite Creative Journey
I mentioned this concept briefly in Discouragement and Creativity but I thought I'd expand upon it here.  
I imagine creativity like a road, an infinite journey.  A circle, if you will.  I'm one of those writers with the unfortunate tendency to compare myself with other authors -- "They write prose so much better than me," "Their plot is so much more development than mine," "Their characters are more likable," "How do they produce such beautiful words?"  However, not only is this unhealthy, it is unnecessary.  If you think of creativity as an infinite line of good ideas, bad ideas, words, pictures, underdeveloped concepts, developed concepts, over-developed concepts, a soup of brilliance and enlightenment, failures and shortcomings, then no matter where you are on that line it doesn't really matter.  As long as your engaged in active, raw creativity you are behind, ahead, and right beside your fellow artists.  This doesn't mean you don't have to learn the tools and tricks of your craft, but so do we all.  You mustn't judge yourself on where someone else is placed on an infinite line.   
I think that's a really beautiful concept, and one I find encouraging.  As writers, we're on a never-ending journey, so don't bother glancing over your shoulder at what other people are doing.
You're doing just fine where you are.  

         

An Orchestral Metaphor

I walked, and by my side a man, shining in white robes, guided me with a gentle hand.  We came upon a great cliff, overlooking an endless expanse below, a space that stretched out beyond eye's capacity.  Below, an orchestra covered the ground, blanketing it like heavy snow.  It sprawled, so sheer in size it made tears well up in my eyes and my whole form huddle with wonder.  Instruments, all that are known to man, were being played, from the harps to flutes, violins to bass drums.  I watched the musicians, anonymous faces furrowed in concentration.
My gaze wandered in fascination over the scene, but indeed, most wonderful of the picture was the Conductor, set on a platform high above the orchestra.  He shined, and I realized that no sun shone here, and everything I saw was by Him and His radiance.  The orchestra below performed solely by His light.  He held His baton, poised with natural precision, and conducted in inconceivable, spectacular movements which never wavered and held such a position of logic and divinity as to be paradoxical.
The Conductor smiled, indescribable, as if every one of the players He conducted was His child, one who He delighted in above all.  It filled my heart, my very soul with ecstatic, fantastical joy.
"My Father," said the man beside me, gesturing to the Conductor.  "The Great Conductor."
It was at this moment I realized a curious fact.  Surprised, I gazed down again at the uncountable number of instruments, all in use, fingers on strings, pressing stops, mouths blowing through reeds.
"Why!" I exclaimed.  "There is no music.  None at all."
"There is music," said the Conductor's son.  "You cannot hear it, for it would destroy."
"But the sound," I protested.  "The sound must be incredible."  I looked with longing at the orchestra, and at the Conductor, for anything under the guidance of Him must surely be perfection.
My guide looked on me with love and compassion.  "I will let you hear a small portion, so that you will understand," he said.  He placed his hands to my ears.
I listened, holding my breath.  First, silence, but then a note swept into existence, long and clear, bowed from a violin.  All at once, the music crashed in around me.  Whatever I had expected, it was not what I heard.  The music weighed on me, an unbearable yoke of sound.  The flow of the melodies moved like liquid over me, saturated with such sorrow, despair, and loss that my entire body began to tremble.  The great pitch of sound swelled, louder and louder, deafening and defeating.  Through it all, from melancholy harmonies to tragic rhythms, I could hear instruments harsh and out of tune.  The screech of a wayward violin, the wobble of a dissonant oboe, the shrill squeak of a cracked flute.  Notes rushed in, their voices quick and fleeting, and notes were held far beyond the time they were meant, drawn out to long disarray.  My very existence could not cope with the vast, woeful sounds.  But for all its ugliness, it captivated something inside me, deep within me something surged up.   
It was horrible, but it was beautiful.
My soul sang with it, and I wept into my guide's shoulder.  He took his hands away from my ears, and the music faded away.
"How does He bear it?" I cried, staring at the Conductor, standing in the midst of all that terrible, wonderful sound.  "How does He bear it?"          
"Because He loves.  My Father loves each one of those players, unconditionally and forever.  He has written out a Part for each and every one, He has delicately structured their instruments and He wrote the Great Score for them.  But they try to rewrite it, or change it, or play their own melody entirely.  Most of them do not even look up to see that they have a Conductor, and they perpetually play the Broken Song.  If they would only look up...
"But my Father knows the plans He has.  He will create a New Score, soon.  For the melody heard is nothing compared to what is coming - the melody both heard and unheard, where Perfection shall play in the Heavens, and even the unbound stars shall sing."
I looked again on the endless sea of faces down below.  Everywhere, heads turned down and away from the Conductor, and I realized, with an ache in my heart, that many of them wept at the ground with dark eyes turned away from the light.
And above it all, the baton swung in divine motion. 
As I watched, the Conductor turned and looked at me, directly into my eyes, and I found my surroundings melting away.  I was in the orchestra, a violin in my hands, among the grand and sorrowful melody, contributing my own soul to the Great Score.  But I kept my eyes on the Conductor, and I let His hands guide me, and I played for Him.  I magnified His melody and it brought me joy surpassing all understanding.  This was but a practice, a preparation for the New Score, for a much greater melody, written by the Conductor for all who sought to play in the Orchestras of Heaven. 
Behold, this is true love.