In my most recent piece for Good Letters, I reflect on my method for choosing the titles of my four books of poetry. My reflections left me wondering if the titles themselves identify stages of a spiritual journey.
Here's an excerpt from the post:
Seeing it this way now has me wondering if the titles of all four books might suggest something about a spiritual (if not artistic) journey I’ve been on for at least four decades now:
Tekiah: the blast from the shofar is a wakeup call, a call to wakeup to the higher purpose of one’s life, morally, spiritually.
Chair in the Desert: it’s time to take one’s seat in the wilderness, the emptiness, to sit with whatever arises there.
Third Temple: with the first and second temples in Jerusalem destroyed, this is the temple without walls, without priests. The third temple is made of words. It arises whenever and wherever we speak with one another truthfully and lovingly.
Love Nailed to the Doorpost: love—romantic, ecstatic—isn’t limited, sought and found only with some people and places rather than others, rather it’s to be cultivated, intentionally, actively, until it becomes boundless, open to receive and include all of life. We must remember to practice love when we cross every threshold, literal and figurative.
You can read the piece in its entirety on Good Letters.