A lot of the shadow self is the home of poetry, story, prayer. My deepest understandings are often released from the part of me of which I am least aware most of the time.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that our unconscious thoughts nurture creativity and profound understanding.
Madeleine L'Engle's quote highlights the idea that our 'shadow self,' or the parts of ourselves that we are not fully conscious of, play a crucial role in our creative expressions such as poetry and storytelling. It implies that by diving into these lesser-known aspects of our identity, we can achieve deeper insights and revelations that inform our art and spirituality.
In practice
During a poetry slam, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of personal experience in creativity.
Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.
The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.
When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.
For a long time, I bought into the idea that if you are a woman who is a storyteller and a lover of movies, then the best way to express that is as an actress. Obviously, there are women my age who are directors who didn't buy into that idea, but I did - and now I've broken that down inside myself.
My sole recreations consist in dancing English hornpipes and cutting capers. Italy is a land of sleep; I am always drowsy here.
I had a dream, in 1985, I believe, when a friend I'd gone to school with was sick - one of the first people I knew who'd gotten the AIDS virus. I had a dream of him in his bedroom with an angel crashing through the ceiling. I wrote a poem called 'Angels in America.' I've never looked at the poem since the day I wrote it.
Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.
I think it's our responsibility as artists to not only fight for our art but fight for the communities that are the reason we're able to continue making art, especially since, in Brooklyn's case, we as artists somehow made it 'cool' enough for the bigger money-making industries to start taking over.
I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in anything in between.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.