The Best Ideas Are Shy

Microseason No. 4, February 19-23

Invention, it must be humbly admitted,

does not consist in creating out of void,

but out of chaos.

—Mary Shelley

polypore fungi made more beautiful on winter’s sparkling canvas

Dear One,

I've been thinking about Ideas lately. Specifically, where do the best ideas come from? Is it from an internal source—a memory or a dream? Or an external source like a great conversation from years ago? And why does it seem that the best ideas, like the deer in my yard, require a certain kind of sideways attention to prevent them from vanishing when I turn to look at them directly? Maybe the best ideas don’t like to be pursued. Maybe they need some space to feel safe and free, like a deer’s private path through the forest.

I have, for many years now, studied the habits of the white-tailed deer that roam the tangle of trees in our wooded neighborhood. And this winter, there’s a particular doe whom I often see walking alone. Like a garden statue that has come to life, she moves slowly, nibbling her way through the sparse foliage, preferring the border between our property and the neighbor’s.

Every once in a while, when our day’s rhythms coincide, I’ll give in to the impulse to befriend her with the smallest greeting—just a silent wave of hello. The first time I did this, she was startled into flight and bounded off. Since then, she has grown used to me doing so, and seems to shrug off my attention with a momentary kind glance and the smallest tail-wag before she resumes her grazing.

---

Writing on her wise and compelling Breccia, psychotherapist and geologist, Ruth Allen, describes the process of trying to clarify the central theme of her next book. Ruth brings us along to observe how the idea is slowly forming, as she skis—deep in thought—along the serene blankness of the Finnish countryside in winter.

She writes:

I am content with this sort of wandering

across the open fell and the open page.

I am what is always melting.

—Ruth Allen

Have you ever experienced the way a thought-seed plants itself in the dark soil of your mind, and you have to trust its slow unfurling? I can't rush it any more than I can rush the emergence of the Trout Lilies that will (soon!) be pushing up through last autumn's leaves. I have to make way. To yield, like the humus layer of the forest floor, to offer shelter and softness for a growing idea that’s slowly taking shape.

lichen emerging from melting snow, Johnston Mill Nature Preserve, Chapel Hill, NC

I remember when I was a young nurse, how the recognition of a patient's declining condition would often come to me first as an uneasy feeling, a subtle shift in the atmosphere of the room. Only later would the clinical signs become clear—the change in breathing pattern, the trending drop in blood pressure. The knowing came first as an intuition, then gradually assembled itself into clear medical evidence. I had to learn to trust this early feeling.

---

Ideas, I'm finding, have their own ecology. They require certain conditions to thrive: plenty of unstructured time and space for wandering. Like a shy woodland creature that won't build its nest too close to well-travelled paths, our deepest human insights need their own protected habitat.

But isn’t it interesting how once an idea finally shows itself fully, it's as if it's always been there, obvious as the sun. Suddenly I’ll see it everywhere, the way I can't stop noticing the kind “eyes” of the Beech trees as I move through the forest on my hikes. The world rearranges itself around this new understanding, like iron filings aligning with a magnetic field of my mind.

Beech trees are the sweet gentle eyes of the forest. Johnston Mill Nature Preserve, Chapel Hill, NC

Last week, I found a feather on the trail. Its barbules separated and frayed. As I smoothed them back together with my fingers, I thought about how ideas work the same way—scattered fragments that need to be gently realigned before the pattern becomes clear. You can't force them. You have to let your fingers do the work while your mind wanders elsewhere. The same was true for me when learning the skills for dental nursing. I had to stop thinking so much about it, and just do it.

I remember teaching my son to drive when he was 15 years old. I reassured him when he was initially frustrated: I know it feels like you’re trying to do a dozen things at once, right now. But pretty soon, it will all merge into one thing. You’ll just be driving. I promise it’ll actually become easy for you, believe it or not.

---

If a species on our property is plentiful, I may select just one or two to preserve. Then, removing the specimens from my plant-press, I realize that this too is how ideas mature—under gentle pressure, in quiet darkness, until they can be handled without crumbling. The original plant material has changed into a more lasting form, and I’ll add it to a page in my beloved nature notebook.¹

my desk is always filled with idea seeds

I guess the secret is, there is no secret. Ideas can’t be rushed, but only welcomed and tinkered with. For my shy ideas, I’m learning that the best I can do is to follow my own human curiosity and then try to form connections patiently, attentively, with open hands.

I wonder, my friend, what shy ideas are taking shape in your own practice?

What subtle patterns are you beginning to notice in your daily mind wanderings?

I'll see you in a new microseason,

xo Ann

1. I do this judiciously and rarely. I don’t support the practice of gleaning large numbers of wildflowers and native plants strictly for the purpose of collection and photography.