enough for the photographer It
has chosen.
MINOR WHITEI like to think of the mind as a room. In that room, we
keep all of our usual ideas about life, God, what’s possible
and what’s not. The room has a door. That door is ever so
slightly ajar, and outside we can see a great deal of dazzling
light. Out there in the dazzling light are a lot of new ideas
that we consider too far-out for us, and so we keep them out
there. The ideas we are comfortable with are in the room
with us. The other ideas are out, and we keep them out.
In our ordinary, prerecovery life, when we would hear
something weird or threatening, we’d just grab the
doorknob and pull the door shut. Fast.
Inner work triggering outer change? Ridiculous! (Slam
the door.) God bothering to help my own creative recovery?
(Slam.) Synchronicity supporting my artist with
serendipitous coincidences? (Slam, slam, slam.)
Now that we are in creative recovery, there is another
approach we need to try. To do this, we gently set aside our
skepticism—for later use, if we need it—and when a weird
idea or coincidence whizzes by, we gently nudge the door a
little further open.
Setting skepticism aside, even briefly, can make for very
interesting explorations. In creative recovery, it is not
necessary that we change any of our beliefs. It is necessary