Life Exuberant

Why can't I paste anything into this blog? Well, I can't. I even turned Rod McIver's Heron Dance column into a picture so I could upload it from Pictures, but it didn't work. Anyway, Rod was writing about the extremes of emotion and the effect they do--and can--have in shaping our lives. He's quoting an Arctic explorer here:

We learn most from our suffering and the changes and the challenges.... You don't learn much if everything goes great. Or if you are not scared s---less by bears. ...We learn by our confusion. That fear of dying--trying to let go of that fear. The terror that this is such a scary place.

Rod says, "I've been wondering what I can learn about myself and my life when I experience extreme emotions. I've been wondering if or how I can take that energy and use it in my art.

"...When we experience extreme emotions, we are encountering the limitations that define us--encountering the things that scare us. We encounter the things that are asking us to grow--things we would rather avoid....

"...I've been thinking about how depressed I got on last year's fall canoe trip--alone, way back in the Canadian woods, paddling through grey, dark, icy, snowy weather--alone, alone. Cold waves crashing around me and the howling wind, day and night."

He doesn't say how he reacts now, remembering the canoe trip, or what it taught him. It seems to me that the scene he describes would be exhilarating to someone who knows from experience that he can take care of himself. But Rod is still learning. Learning himself and his art. Maybe he isn't the kind of person who gets along OK (emotionally) by himself. Even an artist can be a social animal.

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LATER: I wrote the above before I found my credit card and driver's license folder, which I thought I lost yesterday on my rounds of the service station/grocery store/Sonic's. So now life is even more exuberant.