Matt Cardin's Blog, page 2

Surrender to Stillness: What if You Just Stopped?

Dear Living Dark reader,

Here is Chapter Nine of Writing at the Wellspring. It deals with a state of mind and soul that comes to us all from time to time in our writing lives, and maybe even our wider lives as a whole. Or at least it has come to me repeatedly in my own creative journey.

I’m talking about the state where you just want to stop, where you feel a deep urge to drop everything, give up all effort, and rest in total silence. Is this an unhealthy state? Would your creative work wither if...

Through the Magic Eye: Writing, Nonduality, and the Lurking Presence Beyond Form

Dear Living Dark reader,

Today I give you a special version of the transcript from an interview that I recently gave for the Leafbox podcast. The podcast’s creator and host, Robert, was a student in the online course that I taught last fall on writing, creativity, and spiritual purpose, as based on my new book Writing at the Wellspring. He enjoyed both the course and the book, which I provided to students in manuscript form. After the course ended, he invited me onto his podcast to extend the exp...

Embrace the Unknown: On Trusting Your Daemon

Dear Living Dark reader,

Here is Chapter Eight of Writing at the Wellspring. Its subject is the heady and sometimes harrowing journey of writing and creating as a journey into the darkness of the unknown, where all you can see ahead is your next step on a dimly lit path. As it turns out, that single step is all you ever need to see. In fact, it’s all that you ever can see. Any belief to the contrary is self-delusion. Better get comfortable with writing and living into the dark.

The previous chapte...

The Imaginal Doorway: When Creativity Meets the Shadow Realm

Dear Living Dark reader,

Yesterday, I shared a striking passage on Substack Notes from an equally striking interview by in her Substack newsletter How to Go Home:

I am someone who has ended up spending my whole life, to my mind at least, in service to the imaginal. I feel strongly that when I’m writing and creating, I am reaching into some place just as “real” as consensus reality, and trying to “bring down” or translate something from there…

I think that one “upshot” of understanding things in th...

Reclaim Your Reading: On Curating a Personal Digital Digest

Dear friends,

In a recent post, I briefly described my practice of creating my own PDF “magazines” of culture and ideas by assembling various items of interest that I come across in my online explorations. I explained that this method of curating and capturing good things has helped me to manage the challenge of maintaining an ever-growing backlog of things that I want to read but never seem to get to.

Here’s what I said:

I have started electronically printing/saving items of interest as PDFs. This...

A Winter's Benediction: 'Joy to the World' on Piano

Dear Living Dark reader,

One year ago today, I recorded myself playing David Lanz’s wonderful New Age piano arrangement of “Joy to the World,” which, with its combination of delicate and rippling musical energy, is a joy to play. I shared the recording on Facebook, where I basically never go anymore, but otherwise I didn’t do much with it. I may have shared it on Substack Notes, too, but I don’t really remember. In any case, today I remembered it and decided to share it with you, here, as a newsl...

A Year in Words: What I Read, What I Wrote, and What Moved Me in 2024

Dear Living Dark reader,

With the New Year bearing down on us, the time has rolled around again when we tend to reflect on the year that has passed and how we spent it. For me, this often takes the form of reviewing what I read and wrote during those twelve months. Today I share the results of that review and reflection with you.

I frequently enjoy perusing other people’s year’s-end reading lists, and I invite you to use the comment section to share some of the books and things that you read yours...

Invite the Lightning: Courting the Muse Beyond the Ego's Boundaries

Dear Living Dark reader,

Every writer knows the longing for inspiration—that fleeting, electrifying moment when something larger than ourselves speaks through us. But how do we prepare for those moments of grace? In Chapter Seven of Writing at the Wellspring, I explore the paradox of creativity: the impossibility of controlling inspiration combined with the necessity of showing up, day after day, to invite it.

This chapter dives into the mysterious intersection of discipline and surrender, effort ...

A Buddhist Scrooge

My copy of the booklet accompanying 1995’s touring theatrical version of A Christmas Carol, produced by the Minneapolis-based company Christmas Carol, Inc.

Dear Living Dark readers,

Today, I share with you a Christmas memory from my personal past that has remained alive within me for thirty years. It involves my time at The Glen Campbell Goodtime Theater in Branson, Missouri, where I directed the live video portion of Glen’s music shows for two years in the 1990s. It further involves the actor Joh...

The Writer's Paradox: Personal Is Universal

Dear Living Dark reader,

Here is Chapter 6 of Writing at the Wellspring, constituting a revision of an essay by the same title that I originally published here a year and a half ago.

As I write these words, I’m one day away from the final class meeting of the online “Writing at the Wellspring” course that I’ve been teaching on Weirdosphere since October. More than eighty people ended up enrolling, including many Living Dark subscribers. It has been one of the most enriching experiences of my caree...