Feels true
Discover more from The Means Whereby—Inspiration + Expansion for Creatives
Eclipses can be epiphanic. Recently, and just in time, I had a realization: I know when I know something. I remembered a long string of the good decisions I’ve made historically—even and especially the ones that were unsupported or contested—and how I’d felt the rightness in my bones. The yes. The no. I’m good at this, I came to see. I’m good at knowing when I know something. Maybe we all are deep down.
This moment of absolutely knowing that I know when I know preceded two very difficult decisions that needed to be made over the last weeks, the kind that kick up dust and drama. Each time I dipped back to this well of past experience and remembered what it was like—what it actually felt like—to know solidly what to do.
For me knowing is akin to intuition, but while intuition is like a mist, an atmosphere that I can step into, knowing is more decisive. One of my mentors Lorie Eve Dechar calls that kind of knowing a “click.” It’s percussive, an endpoint, but without sharp edges. As the French say, et voilà. It doesn’t carry the bluster or bravado of “being right.” It has the feeling of something sliding quietly into place, a cloud passing, a knot tightening til it’s just right. It’s the moment you take in an optical illusion from the other perspective—nothing’s changed, but nothing’s the same.
Working with my one-to-one clients, the wish to know comes up all the time—how will it all end? Will someone pay me for my work? Is this the right angle/method/approach? Should I do x or y? There’s value in trial and error, the kind of fuck-around-and-find-out strategy that creates provisional best-guess solutions which, in turn, lead to generative failure and also revelation. Today, however, I’m appreciating that sometimes it’s worth it to hold out until you find an answer that magnetizes your sense of true knowing.
In its extreme, heightened form this is called an epiphany, a crystalizing moment when the ordinary becomes extraordinary—something clicks, and perception shifts, accompanied by a gasp or tears, chills or the raising of the hairs on your neck. It’s a moment when vastness and intimacy meet. You’re on the mountain top or under the stars or standing at the edge of the sea and something much smaller than eternity, but related to it, coalesces inside.
An epiphany is both a psychological concept and an aesthetic one, though they’re intertwined. From an artistic point-of-view knowing has a freeze-frame effect that our best poets and photographers (and artists of every kind) capture in their work. “To catch and enclose certain moments which break off from the mass, in which without bidding things come together in a combination of inexplicable significance, to arrest those thoughts which suddenly, to the thinker at least, are almost menacing without meaning,” is the artist’s task, according to Virginia Woolf, as she explained once when reviewing another writer’s work. Joseph Conrad called these occurrences “moments of awakening,” and for William Wordsworth they were “a spot of time.”
“To catch and enclose certain moments which break off from the mass, in which without bidding things come together in a combination of inexplicable significance, to arrest those thoughts which suddenly, to the thinker at least, are almost menacing without meaning,” is the artist’s task, according to Virginia Woolf…
While Woolf says that these moments happen “without bidding,” and I don’t dare disagree, I see that artists invite knowingness all the time by clearing space in the consciousness for the unconscious to arrive. Pearls of illumination come sooner or later, but they do tend to come. I think of Balthus arriving at his rustic painting studio in the high in the Swiss alps, sitting in an armchair before his current canvas, just staring and smoking for hours. His morning routine.
Waiting for the click takes patience, and a trust that the unconscious will show up to collaborate. And in the meantime we can practice while we wait, remembering what knowing has felt like in the past. A rise in the sternum. A widening of the eyes. A tingle across the scalp. How would you describe it? I like imagining the big moments, but also the smallest iterations, too, for example the yes of deciding what to order in a restaurant. Ah. Psychological research says that the feeling of an epiphany is infectious—that you can catch the feeling of that thrill just by reading about it. I agree, but take it one step further, proposing that by increasing our awareness of when knowing comes, relating to knowingness in all its textures, and maybe bidding it just a little, we might amplify its effects. The more we practice noticing knowing, the more often we’ll know that we know when we know. And then the good decisions, but also the daring, unexpected and uncanny decisions, flow.
I love Woolf’s recognition of the preciousness of each of these small clicks. “The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come,” she wrote. “Instead there are little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.”
Here’s to the daily miracle of knowing when you know.
The Slipstream of Epiphany
British pop-art pioneer Richard Hamilton—the artist who created The Beatles’ iconic monochrome cover for The White Album (remember the embossed logo?)— reflected the “audacity and wit” of American art by replicating a lapel pin he found in a “seedy joke shop” in Venice, California, on his first trip to the US in 1963. But the work, titled “Epiphany,” also paid homage to James Joyce’s celebration of the phenomenon of epiphanic encounters. “It was a revelation of the whatness of a thing: the moment in which the ‘soul of the commonest object seems to us radiant.’…” Hamilton explained.
Hamilton counted on such chance discoveries. When teaching art at Newcastle Polytechnic, he created a series of artworks based on a still frame from the film “Shockproof,” which he found on the floor. Then there’s the lush wedding portrait of a Japanese couple that Hamilton had found in Hamburg nearly 30 years before printing it. “It is an epiphany,” he said of the image, “a crystallization of thought that gives us an instant awareness of life’s meaning.”
Stress Support
For anyone seeking a little extra something to lean on during a time of moderate-to-acute stress, I can recommend bringing ashwagandha into your routine. The adaptogenic herb is one of the most studied in the natural pharmacopia and has been important in Ayurvedic medicine for many centuries. How I use it: Late afternoon supplementation with 300mg for 30 days consistently (it takes time to build) and then 2-3 weeks off. There are studies to demonstrate its effectiveness in buffering cortisol, improving sleep—very dramatically—and supporting muscle gain and the immune system.
Sun Time Soon
As the sunlight fades, it’s Vitamin D season. I just ordered mine and take 5000iu of D3 (derived from cholecalciferol) October through March. I like formulas that are highly concentrated and include K2 (which supports effectiveness).
Try Tenderness
Here’s a rave for Hetty Lui Mckinnon’s latest cookbook, “Tenderheart.” Digging into these receipes reminded me of when Ottolenghi’s “Plenty” first came out. It’s full of novel flavor combinations and clever revamps—incredible kimchi falafel or butter beans in a tomato-y broth with little kale and cheddar dumplings (as below!). These dishes have big kid buy-in and can be made vegetarian, as written, or easily turned into non-veg feasts. It’s our taste of fall go-to as we knock out the hits one by one.