Matt Cardin's Blog, page 9

Beyond the Veil

Dear Living Dark readers,

I was recently interviewed for Mycelium Signal, the podcast of the Finnish visionary artist collective Tuonnen Portti. Today I’m sharing a few transcripts from different portions of the episode. I also, of course, encourage you to listen to the episode itself.

First, here is the official episode description, which does a nice job of summarizing my conversation with host Konstantin Tuonihovi:

We’re excited to welcome our esteemed guest today, the accomplished author Matt C...

The Hidden River of Your Writing

Dear Living Dark reader,

With autumn now well underway, I find myself taking stock of my writing this year. And I find that, in a development that I never would have predicted before it actually unfolded, my interaction with social media has been a source of significant authorial energy and productivity. I have written a lot in 2023, and much of it has been specifically produced for sharing through a medium that I, like many people, have tended to criticize and use with a dash of irony.

Beginning ...

Notes & Gleanings: Dark Delights, Literary Horrors, and Halloween Surprises

Welcome to The Living Dark. I’m Matt Cardin, and this is my newsletter on religion, horror, and creativity at the nexus of nonduality and the daemon muse. A writer’s guide to the inner genius.

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Dear Living Dark readers,

For this special Halloween edition, I have brought together a collection of my Substack Notes and recent readings on matters related to horror. It’s quite a rich and varied assortment of topics and themes, dealing with books, authors, films, themes, and philosophical an...

Casting Words in the Void

Dear Living Dark readers,

Today’s post is divided into two brief sections. The first lays out a moving and potentially clarifying metaphor for the discipline of collaborating with your creativity. The second, which comes from my still developing proposal for a book on the writer’s daemon, lays out a vision of the value of writing and creativity in an age of apocalyptic breakdown. I hope one or the other may give you something to deepen your practice and increase your enjoyment of it this week. I ...

You Are an Axis of Creation

Dear Living Dark readers,

To lead with the lede:

If you want to awaken your innate creativity, learn to recognize your very existence as a story: a narrative created by the universe. A tale being told within Being itself.

And now to back up slightly: At first I was inclined to open this post by calling it a “Monday morning meditation,” since I wrote it yesterday, on a Monday, and since the alliteration sounds nice. But it’s actually Tuesday when I’m publishing it, so that won’t do. And “Tuesday mo...

Invite your friends to read The Living Dark

Dear Living Dark friend,

Thank you for reading this publication. Your support enables me to keep doing this work and enriching it with additional features like the ones I recently announced.

If you enjoy TLD, it would mean the world to me if you invited friends to subscribe and read with us. If you refer friends, you’ll receive benefits that give you special access.

How to participate

1. Share The Living Dark. When you use the referral link below or the “Share” button on any post, you'll get credit...

Notes & Gleanings: The Tao of Jesus, Ray Bradbury's Career Advice, and the Wisdom of Meaninglessness

Welcome to The Living Dark. I’m Matt Cardin, and this is my blog/newsletter on creativity for writers, situated at the intersection of religion, horror, nonduality, apocalypse, dystopia, consciousness, and the numinous unknown.

Subscribe now

Dear Living Dark readers,

You may have noticed that it has been something like forever—nearly four months!—since my last “Notes and Gleanings” post. In this and the next couple of editions, I’ll collect the best of my notes and reading reflections going back to...

Notes and Gleanings: The Tao of Jesus, Ray Bradbury's Career Advice, and the Wisdom of Meaninglessness

Welcome to The Living Dark. I’m Matt Cardin, and this is my blog/newsletter on creativity for writers, situated at the intersection of religion, horror, nonduality, apocalypse, dystopia, consciousness, and the numinous unknown.

Subscribe now

Dear Living Dark readers,

You may have noticed that it has been something like forever—nearly four months!—since my last “Notes and Gleanings” post. Moving forward, these free posts will be a bi-weekly feature, published every other Friday.

In this and the next ...

Words Always Fail: On Writing, Language, and Reality

Dear Living Dark reader,

It’s an early Sunday morning as I type these words, so maybe the fact that this is “the Lord’s Day” in the Christian tradition—and was devoutly practiced as such in the Protestant evangelical branch of that tradition in which I grew up—is what prompted the following thoughts (see further below) shortly after I arose.

Or maybe it’s the fact that for several weeks now, I have been slowly making my way through the collected pointers (aphoristic writings that gesture toward tr...

New ebook: "Transmitting Vision: Essays on the Writer's Path"

Welcome to The Living Dark. I’m Matt Cardin, and this is my blog/newsletter on creativity for writers, situated at the intersection of religion, horror, nonduality, apocalypse, dystopia, consciousness, and the numinous unknown.

Dear Living Dark reader,

As previously promised, here is my new ebook, which I created as a gift to all subscribers to this publication. Scroll to the bottom of this post for the download link.

This short book brings together seven of my previously uncollected essays, spanni...