I start every day with two empty hands

“But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do—determined to save the only life you could save.”

— Dream Work by Mary Oliver

French poet Francis Ponge described snails’ shells as “part of their essence” but at the same time “a work of art, a monument,” which “lasts longer than they do”. Snails and artists don’t simply produce masterpieces, but make masterpieces out of their very lives. And this is why we study their slime.

Snails are slow. Their only method of movement is flexing and releasing tension in their powerful stomach muscles, which happens to be a very slow process. We admire the snail’s slowness. We like to think this slowness helps it better navigate on its self-proclaimed journey. If a snail told you it wanted to be the “Wikipedia for the creative process,” would you believe it to follow through?

“In the center of any spiral is the calm core through which man passes to eternity.”

– Jill Purce

“But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do—determined to save the only life you could save.”

— Dream Work by Mary Oliver

“Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out."

To find a new world, maybe you have to have lost one. Maybe you have to be lost. The dance of renewal, the dance that made world, was always danced here at the edge of things, on the brink, on the foggy coast.