The Work Starts Breathing Beyond My Intention

I loosen my grip, because I have learned how quickly a promising beginning can become distorted when I insist on knowing exactly where it should lead,
I loosen my grip, not because I care less about the work but because I care enough to let it reveal something I could not have planned alone,
I loosen my grip, allowing the first shape of an idea to change without treating every departure from my expectation as evidence that I have lost my way,
I loosen my grip, can I stay devoted to something without demanding that it obey the picture I carried into it,
I loosen my grip, and the work starts breathing beyond my intention, until I understand that the work does not need me to control what it becomes thus it needs me to stay present enough to let it surprise me…

I follow the signal, even when it arrives quietly enough that another part of me wants louder evidence before taking it seriously,
I follow the signal, because the most interesting direction may not be the one that first made sense to me, or maybe requires too much effort int he beginning,
I follow the signal, resisting the familiar urge to choose what feels safest simply because I already understand how to finish and the pain it needs to undergo,
I follow the signal, what am I ignoring because it asks me to leave something familiar behind unable to let go of the prime attachment made,
I follow the signal, and unfamiliar territory begins opening beneath me, reminding me that the unknown is not always a warning; sometimes it is simply the next place waiting to be explored…

I allow the work, to disagree with me sometimes, because forcing every decision back toward my original intention can make the final thing smaller than the possibility that first appeared,
I allow the work, to become inconvenient, surprising, awkward, or strangely different from what I thought I was making when I first began,
I allow the work, because there are moments when my responsibility is not to control the result but to notice what the present process is revealing,
I allow the work, can I listen when the thing I am making starts asking for something I did not expect to give, to give and sacrifice,
I allow the work, and my certainty becomes less important than what is emerging, until I understand that my task is not always to know what the work will become, but to remain open enough to recognize what it is becoming…

I release the need, to make every beginning prove itself immediately, because some things become meaningful only after they have survived enough time to change me,
I release the need, to turn every idea into an identity, every possibility into a promise, and every unfinished thought into something I must defend,
I release the need, to know whether this particular beginning will become important before I have given it enough room to show me what it carries,
I release the need, can I let this remain unfinished without deciding that unfinished means unsuccessful, broken or insufficient,
I release the need, and possibility grows wider than my judgment, and I discover that when I stop naming what something must become, I finally give it enough silence to become something I could never have imagined…

Watchwords:
The work starts breathing beyond my intention
Unfamiliar territory begins opening beneath me
My certainty becomes less important
Some things become meaningful with time
The possibility becomes wider than my judgment