A Sacred Place

Since my last post bordered on the profane (and by that I mean, of course, failure to use the Oxford comma), I offer as an antidote something that reaches for the sacred, from Joseph Campbell.

You Must Have A Sacred Place

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.  

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

 

How I love that Campbell offers the option of "or a certain hour or so a day" for those of us who live in tiny Japanese homes and do not have a room of our own, and have no hope of getting a room of our own. I love that in this quote, time is space; he doesn't say you need a room and an hour, but that you need one or the other. Clearly having both is optimal, but a writer can make a private hour into a private space and carry on, and eventually something will happen.