It is often said that when a writer writes, they write from a place far deeper than the limits of the conscious mind.

Somewhere between the realms of the heart and the dwelling of the soul, a magical land nestles on the horizon between valleys and mountains, rivers and fields. It exists in our imaginations, but its promise is sweet like the apple of temptation held to our wet lips, crisp and juicy. Dangerous. Real.

When we write, we sit and let our hearts reach the page the way rivers reach the ocean.

They rush and run, a steady flow, determined, always knowing where they’re headed but not the route they must take. Nothing can stop its course. Nothing can stop the words from spilling from inside of us and out into the world.

We draw our words like swords from a place of dreams, desires, nightmares and fears. Truths so raw they threaten to break us open as they burst through the barriers of our physical form. Our souls may bleed a thousand deaths as we dictate its longings onto the page. It settles and sets into a little piece of its own history.

Our mind will leave us, and in its place is an empty space, void of rationality and sense. There is an urgency, a passion that reaches the very depths of our heart and begs to be etched onto the souls of those who read it.

Words are manifestations of ourselves. They are symbolic representations of the many truths and desires which lurk inside each and every one of us.

Words force their way out through hurried pens and scrambled fingers on keys. They pour like liquid gold out from under places where we’ve kept them buried like hidden treasure—the unanswered questions of our own existence kept like hostages of our souls.

They bleed from our wounds, our hearts, our ink-filled veins.

Stirred from the bottom of our engorged hearts we scrape letters, smudged with tears and sweat and heartache. Signed with blood we write with poisoned ink, our pained revenges and our bittersweet goodbyes to old lovers and friends.

We lie naked and exposed, wrapped in the silken robes of stories told and secrets yet to be revealed. We let our hands gently reach out in the dark for others who understand that our words are our most precious gift. They are to be hidden in hand-carved ivory boxes, wrapped with satin and ribbons and delivered in the dead of the night, to be opened by those whose hearts beat with the same gentle rhythm as our own.

We savour words as if each succulent morsel was crafted from the finest sugar-spun delicacy, melting on our lips and our minds, their sweetness lingering and dripping from our souls like drizzled honey.

We caress old books, their spines weak and frayed. We touch them like old lovers, whose every curve we know like our own. Yet each time we trace our fingers along their worn edges, it feels like the first time, tense with excitement and eager to unfold the promises within.

We swim amongst sentences like drowning men, off long-lost ships, swirling and sinking within the rough seas of our minds. We cast nets for feelings and scramble for their meaning , ripping open maps containing long lost lands. And when we can no longer find our way, we rely on the quiet wisdom within and let it guide us, shaking pen in hand, to steer us home.

We find heaven on earth as we sit and breathe life onto blank pages. Our art is our words, our instruments our pens and the medium our hearts.

Love elephant and want to go steady?

Sign up for our (curated) daily and weekly newsletters!

Apprentice Editor: Guenevere Neufeld / Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Flickr / John Steven Fernandez