Essence of beech was dripping on to the forest floor.

January 11, 2014 9:18 PM

A cave with a view: the imaginative benefits of living in the dark
posted by paleyellowwithorange (3 comments total)

Nice writing. Also, beech are my favourite trees.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:46 PM on January 11, 2014

I was kind of expecting it would be about an actual cave house. I mean it's very well written and insightful...but still, I was hoping for a cave.
posted by happyroach at 1:57 AM on January 12, 2014

I particularly love this insight:

“…I’ve had a thing…about caves being the archetypal creative arena; places where the membrane between inside and outside is most permeable. The great American nature writer Annie Dillard once described her own cavernous writing needs for an attic with blacked-out windows. “One needs a room with no view,” she wrote, “so imagination can meet memory in the dark.”

I can relate. That feeling of deep subterranean enclosure inspires me; the seeds of all my creative pursuits are incubated in darkness. My best and most lucid writing flows forth when I am able to hole myself up for days on end in my dark, cavelike sanctuary, with the black curtains drawn shut.
posted by velvet winter at 11:50 AM on January 12, 2014 [1 favorite]