The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
Joseph Campbell
I’ve watched the stars pass overhead through four different seasons now. It seems as though just last night I spied Orion’s silver bow gleaming far above me in this knowing night sky. His eye twinkling as though winking at me to tell me that his arrow will light the way ahead. Four years and still I have not found where it lays. And as night draws near the more dim the dark I descend into.
Have I wandered off the path again?
Have I lost the great light within?
Who shines down on me now?
I fear the night’s bright lights have been obscured by the convalescing clouds of my mind. Everything was so clear when arriving here. The path was straight and laid bare; well lit and full of promise. Now I’m surrounded by winding wilderness. Where this forest ends I have no clue: no guide above to see me through.
The brambles bristle across my skin; breaking through to brandish blood, as I slowly forward bore. My skin alights with fire as searing sores turn to scars. Layering on top of each other with each new daunting day. I know not what I toil towards, but fear to stop to never start again.
What was the reason why I started this journey?
I seem to have forgotten.
Who was I when I started down this path?
I seem to have forgotten.
But then I see, coming through this midnight mist, the formidable form of my partner in this craft. We dance and skip and move through a moment that withers not away. And standing there in quiescent time I see the light of that arrow shot, glinting in the eyes of my partner. Thus am I transported out of this trepidation and returned home: back to the craft I know and love.
For whenever I lose myself amidst the amorphous rabble that raucously roars through this laborious life, I have but only to look in my fellow artist’s eyes and the path I lost is once again exposed before me. I will always fail to tread this path alone; for the artist’s soul craves collaboration.