What if we let ourselves ask all the questions?
Like Richard Rohr, in his Daily Meditation from the Center for Action and Contemplation, who reflects upon life as Quest, the process of seeking the right questions instead of answers, and the questions of the soul: what am I doing this for? Why am I feeling what I am feeling? (He says that we will not know deeper answers without the questions that invite us to descend into grief and the unconscious.)
Like Yumi Sakugawa, who asks the creative in all of us: what if you focus less on the fear of failure and more on the excitement of experiencing a new challenge?
Like Mario from the story Ang mga Alon sa Amin (The Waves Nearby), who does not quite ask a question, but carries thoughts of an unknown, thoughts that hold unasked questions with fear: I was scared they might fight with the wind again. I was worried they would turn into monsters in the rain.
Like Hannah Emerson, in her poem Keep Yourself at the Beginning of the Beginning, who with her persuasive yet kind pleadings implicitly dares you to wonder at and wander into the depths of the beautiful nothing that you are:
please
try to dive
down to the
beautiful muck
that helps you get
that the world was made
from the garbage at the bottom
of the universe that was boiling over
with joy that wanted to become you you
you yes yes yes —
Like Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letters to A Young Poet, who exhorts us to approach questions as lived experiences: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.”
Like Mac Eparwa, through his painting series “Unwanted Guests,” who ventures to portray the perhaps often repressed or suppressed presence of the undesirable within our consciousness, thereby inviting the viewer to question what their own unwanted guests might look like. To balance the approach, Rumi’s poem, The Guest House might offer a good companion for offering hospitality to our own unwanted visitors.
Like Arli Pagaduan, who answers a question with a question: What do I have? As she wrestles between encouragement and worry when she is prompted by her mother: “You're always focused on what you don't have. Why don't you see what you already have?”
A question is the door to explore a room we haven’t yet walked through, a narrative that we haven’t yet lived. What questions might have a quest for you to accept today?
Commonplace books — sometimes simply called ‘commonplaces’ — are books that compile information from different sources. Usually handwritten throughout but also not a journal, some of you with restless hands may find a commonplace book as a good way to begin a journalling or simply mindful rhythm of going through information.
These books usually contain quotes, poems, excerpts from texts; even prayers, word meanings, copied descriptions of things or places — anything that might inspire, or that you want to remember.