Sea Cloud Circle Sojourn

“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Pay attention. Attention is vitality.” – Susan Sontag

Once upon a time, a poet and a painter embarked on an eight week sojourn. They drove in the rain out a two lane road to a tiny little undeveloped sea island on the Carolina coast, the one called Edisto, arriving finally at their rented rooms. On Sea Cloud Circle. The purpose of the pilgrimage was to capture and define those practices which sustain the creative spirit. They limited their reading, and chose only three books each to study, ones they thought would nurture their vision. The poet chose to re-read the memoir by the Greek writer, Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco. The painter picked the memoir by Karen Armstong, The Spiral Staircase. Together, they re-read Poetics of Space by the amazing French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard.

Inspired by the writer, Susan Sontag, they tried to follow her advice. She taught her students this: “Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”

That was three years ago. I now live on this sacred island, which is also the land of my ancestors. I am the painter, and the poet was Chuck Sullivan. The eight week retreat was so successful that it inspired me not only to keep painting, but to write everyday, to begin this blog, and to move here. There were more magical moments during this eight weeks than I can record on this one page, but the following principles are a few of the ones that we tested then, and which I now practice and believe are lasting and genuine tickets for keeping one’s creative spirit alive.

We wrote and I painted out on borrowed docks, and we gave away the work. Chuck taught the children free classes at the school. In return, we were showered with pounds of fresh shrimp and the open arms of the community. Not only did we awaken to ourselves and our artistic vision, but we made lasting friendships that continue to this day. The small watercolor below is of the house that still stands at Middleton Plantation on St. Pierre Creek, owned now by the very dear Caroline Pope Boineau.

Middleton/ C.Hutson-Wrenn 2006

The Lessons of Sea Cloud Circle

* Keep a journal and write three pages in longhand every morning upon waking (thank you, Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way and Vein of Gold)
* Walk three miles everyday (with eyes wide open)
* Practice Gratitude
* Make friends
* Give stuff away – for generosity of spirit
* Eliminate distraction (tv, especially the news)

The Sea Cloud Sojourn was pilgrimage, which Phil Cousineau defines as “poetry in motion, a winding road to meaning”. Edisto Island is often referred to as a sacred place. The word sacred originates from sacrifice. Living here sometimes requires some of that. Highway 174 is a winding sixteen mile path of a road from the Edisto bridge to the the ocean. A winding road to meaning. The experience of this sojourn was even more. So much more.

Diaries. Journals. Morning Pages.

Diaries. Morning Pages. Journals. Ever since I read Julia Cameron’s book, Vein of Gold, I am a convert to her system of writing ‘morning pages’. She recommends writing three pages, first thing in the morning, by hand. Her theory is that we mine our subconscious, the place where our truth lies, in our early waking minutes. I have a favorite Pentel mechanical pencil and it is a ritual I value, and serves as a sort of meditative time. The thought of my descendants reading unedited journals, however, is not exactly the plan.

But I absolutely love this precious journal that belonged to my ‘aunt’ Charlotte Hay, who was born in 1807. She is the first family Charlotte. What a delight it is to have some evidence of what her life was like, which is ultimately the goal I think, for those of us who poke around in family history research. We are always looking for glimpses of who they really were. There are drawings, and verse, penned by friends, in this quite handsome volume, engraved with her name, in gold lettering and “Sold by W.B.Gilley, 92 Broadway, New York.” Charlotte was born in Haverstraw, New York, and moved South when her younger sister, Martha Louisa Hay, married Thomas Woodward Hutson Sr. in 1829. They had old ties to Charleston, Beaufort and the Lowcountry. Her great grandfather was John Gordon, a Scots highlander who arrived early at the settlement at Darien, Georgia, and stayed in South Carolina until the Revolution. He was a merchant, with ships that sailed from the Charleston and Beaufort harbors; his schooner was named “Tybee”. He amassed land from Charleston to Florida. I am intriqued by his story and think about those tall ships sailing the waters off Edisto Island, which they surely did, every time I walk that beach. I wonder exactly where his plantation was, near Charleston, named Belvedere (SCHGM, vol.3,1902, pg 177).

The first entry in Charlotte’s book, from South Carolina, was written from Mt. Pleasant in 1830. Can you imagine what Mt. Pleasant looked like then? It was penned, in the finest hand, by a gentleman friend, signed, Edward, and dated Aug 5. It is a poem to her called A Morning Walk. She never married, and was buried in Boiling Springs, near Barnwell. She still had a Scottish accent, and her sister, Martha, with whom she joined the Stony Creek Presbyterian Church in Pocotaligo, died at just twenty-six, a young mother of three. Charlotte’s friends wrote poetry about the moon, and love, in a calligraphic hand that is slow and careful.

This little book makes me think about the purpose of diaries. Recently, someone published the great writer, Susan Sontag’s, personal journal, after her death. Some of my personal penciled writing is processing stuff, just plain old angst at times. I am not sure Susan Sontag would have been happy about this diary being published. But historically, I am really grateful for the diary writers, that I can read them and get a glimpse of who they were. Maybe even the unedited versions would tell me about how they processed their own joys and sorrows. Recently I was able to find a copy of the diary of my grandmother Mary Woodward Hutson, who died in 1757, at a little bookshop in London, where it was printed, after she died, by her husband, Rev. William Hutson (yay for abebooks.com) She was amazingly devout, and surely her entries were edited. But to hear her voice is really important to me. She is more than a name and a date to me now, and I can hear what she’d say in a way. (She admonished her children, in the mid 1700’s, to “read only good books” making me wonder what bad books were then.) The South Carolina Historical Association, here, on Meeting Street, has the diary of her husband, the Reverend William Hutson, too, which was written while he was minister of the Circular Church. It’s discovery by my cousin, Mike Hutson, years ago in McPhersonville, SC is worth telling. One of the elderly aunts simply handed him a paper bag, and in it was the hand written diary. It had been ‘borrowed’ by the Rev. George Howe for his renowned History of the Presbyterian Church so some of it had been recorded. But now it has been transcribed and studied, and serves to give us insight into Charleston in the middle of the 18th century.

Diaries, Journals, Morning pages. I am still a believer. What do you think?