Was Shakespeare a Self-Help Master?

When I first moved onto the small piece of land in the Hawaiian rainforest I call home, my focus was on my own survival. For the first several years, I was completely preoccupied with clearing brush, planting a garden, and getting some kind of roof over my head. When friends came to visit, they had to sleep in the same big tent where I stored my garden tools; once, a friend of mine tried to chase an enormous cane spider out of her bed, only to have it drop its egg sack, releasing hundreds of baby spiders scurrying across the sheets. Another friend of mine was distressed to realize I had no electricity and therefore no refrigerator in which to store the fancy cheese and yogurt she’d brought down, and that taking a shower meant heating up a kettle of rainwater on the propane stove, then standing in the muddy yard and pouring it over your head. 

I’m proud of my friends for continuing to visit me during those rugged but memorable initial years. I remember the way they stepped up to the plate, gamely washing dishes in a five-gallon bucket, hauling drinking water from the spring, and helping me carry the lumber I would someday use to build the first real structures on the land. But while I knew that they loved swimming in the waterfall, hiking to the beach, and playing card games with my neighbors, they were always a tiny bit relieved to go home—after all, you can only put up with spiders in your bed for so many nights. 

Even though I enjoyed showing my friends around the valley, I was also a little relieved when they left: it was stressful to worry about their mosquito bites and muddy shoes, and to try to make them comfortable in a space and a life that had only really been designed to accommodate one person. The truth is, I wasn’t a great host. Carving out my homestead had toughened me, and I could feel impatient with people who wrung their hands over the discomforts I’d learned to take in stride. 

I realized that in my scramble to gain a toehold in a challenging new life, I had built a hermit’s hideout, not a community space. My kitchen was only big enough for one person to cook in; two people could squeeze onto the tiny wicker couch on the lanai if they were skinny, but a third person would have to stand awkwardly on the grass nearby. It was hard for guests to do anything for themselves, because everything was so rickety and patched together; I was the only person who knew where to find the scissors or hang a wet towel.  

It was clear that if I wanted other people to be truly comfortable at my place, I would have to make some changes—build a bigger kitchen, maybe, and replace the rotting pallets that always threatened to send a rusty nail through someone’s foot. It was also clear that I would have to make some changes on the inside, opening my heart to guests instead of feeling overwhelmed by their needs. But how could I do those things while preserving the simplicity I cherished? I didn’t want to turn my land into a five-star hotel; even getting solar power meant giving up candle-lit evenings and a deep silence I adored. How could I let others in to the life I had built without losing myself?  

 

 

Hierophant author Kim Bradley, whose book Shakespeare’s Guide to Living the Good Life: Life Lessons for Comedy, Tragedy, and Everything in Between arrives in bookstores soon, lives in a hand-built tiny house in northeastern Florida. When she and her partner moved in during a cold snap in January, they had no furniture, blankets, dishes, or cutlery, and the only source of heat was a wood-burning stove for which they had to beg wood from a neighbor. Still, their closest family members insisted on coming to see the new place. Bradley recounts that they showed up with sleeping bags, pizza, and a bottle of wine which they drank out of mugs, reminding her of Balthasar’s line from A Comedy of Errors: “Small cheer and great welcome make a merry feast.” 

In Shakespeare’s Guide to Living the Good Life, Bradley draws out ten timeless lessons from the Bard, on subjects ranging from persistence to friendship to thinking for yourself. Just like us, the people in Shakespeare’s time dealt with plagues and pandemics, political upheavals and family dramas, wealth inequality and conflicts over identity. Shakespeare’s take on all these subjects remains prescient today, and Bradley shows how we can use the playwright’s wisdom to find more happiness and meaning in our day-to-day lives. 

When I first read Bradley’s chapter on hospitality, in which she discusses Shakespeare’s beloved play The Comedy of Errors, I found myself feeling some wistfulness about my hermit lifestyle. In Balthasar’s quote, the word “cheer” refers to the material elements of a feast—the food, the candles, the decorations—while “welcome” refers to the warmth and generosity of the hosts. I realized that although I’d done my best to give my guests both cheer and welcome, my ability to be hospitable had long been hampered by excessively rough living conditions, as well as by my own curmudgeonliness as a host.  

It felt hopeless to make anything but the most intrepid guest feel comfortable in my space, so I’d discouraged all but my closest friends from visiting at all. Now, it occurred to me that maybe I ought to follow Bradley’s example and let more of my friends and family visit even though nothing was, or ever would be, completely clean and comfortable. Maybe I could meet friends halfway, sharing the joys of off-grid living without so many of the perils, and we’d all be richer for it. 

 

 

A few months after I read the first draft of Bradley’s book, my neighbor helped me build an eight-by-twelve shed for storing solar equipment and carpentry tools. However, as soon as the shed was built and painted, I realized the protected indoor space was much too valuable to waste on storage. Instead, I bought the smallest futon I could find and turned the shed into a guest room. I put out the call to friends far and wide, announcing that I could now host them in the luxury to which they were accustomed—by that point, I even had satellite internet and a hot shower. 

This winter, for the first time since I moved onto the land, I found myself hosting a steady stream of visitors. They came in groups of two and three, meaning that some people still had to sleep in tents. However, this time I made sure that even the people sleeping outdoors had lanterns, clean towels, and all the dark chocolate they could eat. When my usual water system ran dry, I guided nightly excursions to the waterfall to swim by starlight and rinse off the day’s sweat, turning a minor calamity into a beautiful adventure. I felt that I was getting the hang of this “welcome” thing, even if the “cheer” was improvised, ramshackle, and covered in muddy paw prints from the neighborhood cats. 

Intrigued by all the visitors, my neighbors often came over to join in the socializing. When it became apparent that we needed a central place for all these people to hang out, I dragged an old, defunct solar panel out of the bushes and propped it up on a pair of sawhorses to make a table. A friend of mine helped me gather flowers which we stuck in Mason jars, cut up papayas and other fruit to serve everyone, and brew big pots of tea from the herbs in my garden. In the evenings, we lit candles and sat around the table talking and gazing at the blanket of stars peeking out from between the branches of the monkeypod trees. 

Over the course of a few weeks, my hermitage was transformed into a gathering place. After the last of the off-island guests flew home, I kept the solar panel table in the middle of my yard. Almost every day now, one or more neighbors will drop by to sit at the table chat, and to check their e-mail and make phone calls on my internet connection. Often, I’ll come home to find a rack of bananas or a container of steamed kalo sitting on the table, a sign that one of several people I know and love has dropped by. 

Even though my homestead still consists of little more than a tiny outdoor kitchen, a guest shack, and the hut where I sleep, it is nevertheless starting to become a community resource—a place whose existence benefits people other than me. The self-centeredness that characterized my early days on the land is slowly transforming; more and more, my thoughts have turned towards how I can best shelter others, providing comfort to both neighbors and guests. I have to confess I feel richer for it; my heart filled with welcome, and my table laden with cheer. 

This spring, I hope you all find the wisdom you need to navigate your own comedies and tragedies—and that your table is always filled with friends. 

 

Sincerely, 

Hilary T. Smith 

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing 

 

 

 

 

“Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.” 

So says Shakespeare, whose plays and poems remain as beloved in the twenty-first century as they were in the sixteenth. For all the years between us, the world he inhabited was much like our own—afflicted by political turmoil, divisiveness, extreme weather, the fouling of natural resources upon which everyone relied, and discrimination against people who were different. The bard’s remedy for these troubles was to offer respite and inspiration to his audience through his writing.  

In this book, author Kim Bradley reveals the inspirational messages in Shakespeare’s works. Every chapter is a journey through one of his most notable plays, each with actionable life lessons to be learned from his writing.   

“Yes, there is sickness, death, conflict, and division in today’s world,” Bradley writes. “But there are also sunrises, starry skies, families, friendships, laughter, and love. Shakespeare invites us to enjoy the latter while acknowledging the former, and shows how balancing an appreciation for both is key to living the good life.” 

Click here to read two free chapters from the book!

My Rainforest Monastery

This December marks the six-year anniversary of my moving to the small piece of land in the Hawaiian rainforest I call home. As I am drafting this newsletter, it is sunny and warm, and I’m sitting in a simple eight-by-twelve structure with pink walls, mosquito screens, and a sturdy metal roof; a painting by one of the Hierophant authors I’m working with sits on a shelf made out of a rough, old board, and a motley assortment of new and salvaged solar equipment hums in one corner. A few minutes ago, one of my neighbors stopped by with some ‘awa to share, a traditional Polynesian beverage brewed from the roots of a knobby-limbed plant with heart-shaped leaves, and we drank it together on my front porch. Living here has brought me a sense of peace, contentment, and belonging unlike any I have known in my life. 

Today, I would describe the simple homestead I’ve built as a kind of monastery: a place characterized by natural beauty, solitude, quiet, and humble manual labor. The challenges of living in such a remote location have profoundly altered my body and mind, such that no aspect of who I am has remained untouched by this wild and willful place. I’ve learned to value the simple things: shelter, water to drink, fruit to eat, the presence of kindly neighbors, the opportunity to be of service, and accepting help from others in return. Perhaps most astonishing have been the lessons this place has taught me about surrender. On stormy days, it isn’t possible to leave this land bounded by rivers and streams and a crashing ocean; you quickly learn that your own will comes second to that of nature, and that existing happily here means embracing that reality. 

With all this being said, you may be surprised to learn that when I first moved to this land, I experienced it not as a temple, but as a prison. Six Decembers ago, my then-partner was in the throes of a manic episode; he had decided that uprooting our lives in California and going to live in the jungle was the only cure for what ailed him. At his insistence, and in great haste, we bought the land sight unseen. The first time I laid eyes on the muddy, lightless thicket that was to be our new “home,” I cried. 

My objections to this move were numerous. I didn’t want to live in a tent, with mosquitoes, geckos, and spiders, when I was used to living indoors; I hated the way the thick mud and relentless rain saturated my clothing, which were then impossible to dry; I was conscious of being an intruder in a place and culture to which I had no ties. With no cell service, internet, or electricity, I couldn’t even phone my friends on the mainland. Meanwhile, I was so desperate to go “home” that I resisted making new friends, as that would only make this nightmarish situation seem more permanent. 

While my partner reveled in our new and exciting surroundings, I boiled with anger and sadness, refusing to take joy in anything. I hated the valley, with its dangerous roads and rivers; I hated the roosters which woke me up at 4 AM, and the tiny frogs whose chorus screamed into the night; I hated the tent, whose walls flapped in the wind, and which offered no protection from falling branches and no privacy from the strangers strolling past on the trail nearby.  

Deep in depression, I decided my life was over. I had always wanted to be a writer, and had even published four books in happier years. Now, on a trip back to California to collect the last of our belongings, I took every journal I had ever written, starting from age eight, and dumped them all into a trash can, along with the half-filled bags of expired rice and car repair records I’d cleaned out of our old place that morning. As I pushed the thirty-odd journals and notebooks to the bottom of the can, I told myself that I would never write again. 

 

 

Several months ago, I had the pleasure of editing My Good Friend the Rattlesnake: Lessons of Loss, Truth, and Transformation by don Jose Ruiz. Part memoir, part collection of teaching stories, My Good Friend the Rattlesnake is organized around a central question: how can we learn to control our own poison—the negativity, anger, and false beliefs which can be so damaging to ourselves and others? 

In Chapter One, Ruiz writes: One of the most important things you learn when you live in rattlesnake country is that baby rattlesnakes are far more dangerous than adult ones. This is because when a rattlesnake is young, it hasn’t yet developed the ability to control its poison. If a baby rattlesnake were to bite you, it would inject all its poison in one go, and you would be far more likely to die. Once a rattlesnake grows and becomes an adult, however, it learns to control its poison. If an adult were to bite you, it may only release a small amount. This makes your chances of survival much greater. 

He goes on to recount his long and twisting journey from a baby rattlesnake to an adult one, including some never-before-told stories of the years he was addicted to crystal meth, and during which the stakes for learning to control his poison were literally life and death. Like many of us, he clung to his own pain, holding tightly to the identity of “victim” and “junkie,” while keeping the friends and relatives who were desperate to help him at arms’ length. During one of the most emotional moments in the book, Ruiz’s best friend Emilio confronts him at his home in Tijuana after a particularly destructive binge, saying, “You know, gallo, if you stay here, you’re gonna die.” Lucky for all of us, Ruiz listened and left. 

Looking back on my early days in Hawaii, I can see that like Ruiz, I had a lot in common with a baby rattlesnake. When faced with a set of circumstances I didn’t like and hadn’t chosen, I made a pact with despair. When I put a lifetime’s worth of journals into the trash can, I told myself that I was reclaiming some small bit of agency: by destroying something I cherished, at least I was taking back a little control. Sure, the poison I’d unleashed was hurting me, but that felt better than facing a complete unknown. 

Luckily for me, I, too, had a friend like Emilio. Later that morning, my old music teacher stopped by. When I told him what I had done with my notebooks, he insisted I take them out of the garbage and bring them back to Hawaii with me. “Why bother?” I said. “They’re just going to get ruined in the tent.” At that moment, I couldn’t imagine a future in which I was living happily on the land, any more than don Jose could imagine the life he presently leads, complete with puppies, hard rock music, vegan treats, and a role as a beloved author, teacher, and speaker. 

 

 

Today, the journals I once attempted to destroy live on a shelf in the small cabin I built with the help of a neighbor. Over six years of living here, this place has taught me much about controlling my poison. When the river is high, when the mosquitoes are biting, when the hurricane winds blow, and when one more thing needs repair just when I finished fixing something else, I know there is no sense in giving into despair, frustration, or self-pity. Instead, I do what I can to make myself comfortable, whether that’s brewing a cup of tea, listening to music, or just sitting still. 

Although I’m not sure I qualify as an adult rattlesnake quite yet, I think that after living on my homestead for so long I might finally be growing into a teenage one. I’ve learned that the darkest of times can give way to the brightest of days, and that first impressions of a place or situation can be deceptive. I’ve also learned that when a negative or despairing voice feels like “myself,” I should treat it with a whole lot of skepticism, and refrain from giving it control over my supply of poison. As don Jose writes: No matter what kind of self-destructive path you have been on, there is always a part of you that wants to live—a tiny seed that wants to grow and thrive. And no matter how many negative thoughts you have in your mind, this tiny seed knows its own worth.  

This December, as we pass through the darkest time of the year, I hope you all feel the presence of this tiny seed in your own hearts. A rattlesnake can be a fearsome foe, or it can be a good friend—and the difference is the skillfulness with which we approach it, the respect with which we treat it, and the reverence with which we hold it every day. 

 

Sincerely,

Hilary T. Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

 

 

 

Few understand the difficult work of overcoming trauma, abuse, and addiction better than don Jose Ruiz. 

In My Good Friend the Rattlesnake, Ruiz, now a bestselling author and spiritual teacher, reveals the dramatic twists and turns he experienced on his own path to personal freedom and inner transformation. 

Through this series of deeply intimate stories, Ruiz explains how he overcame his addiction to suffering and embraced a life of love, clarity, and self-awareness. In one example, he recounts his unexpected journey with temporary blindness, which paradoxically allowed him to see what truly mattered. In another, he celebrates individuality in spiritual practice, challenging the idea that it must look or sound a particular way to be authentic. 

Throughout, Ruiz incorporates the teachings of his father, don Miguel Ruiz (author of The Four Agreements). The lessons he shares are practical, profound, and accessible, making this book an essential companion for anyone seeking spiritual growth and emotional healing. 

Honest, vulnerable, and rich with exercises and meditations, My Good Friend the Rattlesnake redefines what it means to heal, grow, and live authentically. 

Just who do you think you are?

One of my favorite fall activities is mushroom hunting. I first got into this pursuit when I was living on the coast of Washington, many years ago. When the dark, rainy winter descended, I knew I needed an activity to get me out of the house, keep me connected with nature, and ward off seasonal depression. Mushroom hunting provided exactly that. 

My first foray was thrilling. I’ll never forget the smell of the cold, damp forest floor with its thick blanket of leaf litter, and the amazement I felt when my eyes began to pick out shapes and colors and textures I’d never noticed before. What was that slimy, orange thing that looked like jelly, or those round white spheres that let out a cloud of dark green spores when you poked them? Why did the purple, gilled mushrooms grow under deciduous trees, while the spongey, red-capped mushrooms grew under evergreens? 

I began to realize that there were mushrooms everywhere. They were all around me, their variety astounding. How had I ignored them for so long? Filled with a beginner’s exuberance, I picked one of each, then hauled home the heavy, soggy bags of fungi and arranged them on the kitchen table. Tired and wet, I took out the mushroom identification book I’d bought—and quickly realized I didn’t have the energy to carefully key out forty different mushrooms from six different families.  

Over the next few days, I managed to identify perhaps nine or ten of the mushrooms I had gathered. Although one or two were edible, there seemed to be little point in cooking a single mushroom—and they were decomposing quickly. Sheepishly, I carried the whole lot of them to the backyard and flung them under the trees. 

 

 

On my next foray, I was determined to do better. I didn’t want to pick any random mushroom that caught my eye, only to toss it out when I got home. Instead, I followed the advice in my mushroom-hunting book to focus on a single, easily recognizable family, foraging with purpose and intention instead of merely hoping that whatever I picked turned out to be edible. This time, the forest spoke to me in a new way. Instead of an indecipherable cacophony of shapes and colors, my eye began to pick out the patterns I’d read about in my field guide. I looked for white, shelf-like fungi growing on the sides of trees and fallen logs—and was ecstatic when I spotted my very first harvest of oyster mushrooms. 

That evening, instead of dumping out a slimy mishmash of edible, inedible, and unknown mushrooms onto my kitchen table, I cleaned a few oyster mushrooms, dry-sauteed them in a pan, and tested a bite to see if it would make me ill. When it didn’t, I joyfully cooked the rest—and my career as a mushroom hunter had begun. 

When I moved to Hawaii, it meant saying goodbye to many of the mushrooms I’d come to know on the mainland and getting acquainted with a whole new set of fungal friends. However, by then I was familiar with the process of identifying new mushrooms, slowly building out my repertoire from a few safe and easy mushrooms to more “advanced” ones. Before long, I was finding monkey ears, witches’ butter, and jelly fungus on my daily walks, and I learned to recognize the marzipan scent of the almond agarics that grace the forest floor a couple of times each year. I also made friends with experienced foragers who taught me things about the tropical ecosystem that would have taken me years to learn on my own. 

 

 

Every now and then, a skeptical friend or relative will ask me if I’m really “qualified” to forage for mushrooms. How can you be sure you don’t pick something poisonous? they say. This question always makes me laugh. Sometimes, I’ll ask them a cheeky question in return: How can you be sure you don’t accidentally pick an orange instead of an apple when you go to the grocery store? Most people have no problem distinguishing between an orange and an apple, even though they are both round, medium-sized fruits; to an experienced mushroom hunter, distinguishing between an agaricus and a bolete is just as simple and obvious. We learn the necessary discernment through focused effort and practice; and although it’s certainly possible to get advanced degrees in mycology, this isn’t a prerequisite to safely foraging and cooking a great meal, any more than getting a degree in food science is necessary to safely shop for fruit at the store. 

At the same time, I’ve come to understand that often when people ask what makes me qualified to hunt for mushrooms, they’re not really worried about me confusing a Destroying Angel for a chanterelle; instead, they’re expressing their own anxieties and yearnings about their relationship with nature. What gives you the right to tromp around in the forest, filled with joy on a rainy day? Who gave you permission to be part of it, instead of looking in from the outside? And I can only answer: I did. And so can you. 

 

 

Last month, I had the pleasure of teaching a workshop about self-help and spirituality writing—my second time teaching this class. For four Tuesdays in a row, I met on Zoom with a group of writers who all came bearing the bright and precious seed of an idea for a book. In many cases, they’d been carrying this seed for many years, tending it and keeping it safe until conditions were right for it to sprout. They had gathered stories, done research, and thought deeply about what they wanted to share, and why. In many cases, they also had professional and educational credentials—they were therapists, nurses, teachers, and healers with years of experience to draw on. 

Towards the end of the last class, one participant asked a very good question: “How will I know when I’m qualified to write my book?” 

There was a noticeable shift in energy in the classroom. I realized that, although only one person had voiced the question, everyone had been thinking about it—and in some cases, worrying about it. 

I hesitated, as a number of competing answers piled up in my mind. On the one hand, there is a baseline of knowledge, experience, and technical skill that needs to be reached before one is well-positioned to write a successful book, go on a successful foraging mission, knit a sweater, or undertake just about any other complex task. On that very practical level, the more training and experience you have, the more qualified you will be.  

But I also sensed that the student’s question extended beyond practical considerations. What she was really asking—and what made the other students listen with such alertness when she asked it—was how to quiet the voices in her head that whispered, Who do you think you are?  Who do you think you are to try to help people with their problems or guide them towards a better life? Who do you think you are to talk about God or Source or the Divine? Who do you think you are to share the life stories that were supposed to stay hidden, in the hopes that they will ease another person’s pain? Who do you think you are to call yourself a writer, a teacher, a healer—or for that matter, an artist, a musician, a dancer, or a creative? 

We struggle with these questions no matter how many advanced degrees we've obtained, classes we’ve taught, or years of experience we’ve had with our subject matter. Any time we embark on a creative project, whether it’s writing a self-help book or planning a party, these questions and doubts are bound to show up, whether they are voiced by other people or come from deep within ourselves. 

 

 

Now that I’ve had a few days to mull it over, I’ve realized that to me, the answers to these questions are felt, rather than thought. When I go into the forest to forage, I feel a sense of pleasure, ease, and competence. My body and mind relax; I trust that my years of experience, and the knowledge I’ve gained through research and training, will guide me in the right direction. I instinctively move towards certain trees, knowing that certain mushrooms are likely to be there; I kneel and smell the ground, and a telltale red color catches my eye. The joy I feel springs from my competence, and I love sharing that joy with friends when I bring them foraging with me. 

 Is joy a qualification? I believe it is. To be sure, we need the appropriate skills and knowledge to do the task at hand, especially if there are risks involved. But once that baseline has been established, I’ve often found that joy is a sign of increasing mastery. Do you relish your creative task, or do you feel stuck, stymied, and uninspired? Does your mind feel fertile and alive when you contemplate the possibilities, or do you struggle to come up with ideas for where to go next? Although I couldn’t quite articulate it on a moment’s notice, what I wanted to tell the students in my class is this: Beyond possessing the necessary knowledge, you’re qualified to write your book, record your podcast, or embark on any other creative pursuit when you enjoy it.  

This autumn, I hope you all have the chance to go out in the woods and delight in the abundance of fungi, whether you have any interest in cooking them or not. And if you find yourself lost in a thicket of Who do you think you are? questions, let your joy be the answer. 

 

Sincerely,

Hilary T. Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

The Importance of First Drafts

Dear readers, 

 

This December marked my five-year anniversary of living off-grid on three acres of tropical rainforest in rural Hawaii.  It’s the longest relationship I’ve had with a place since leaving my parents' house at seventeen, and the first time I’ve been solely responsible not only for maintaining a home, but for building one from the ground up—painting every board, laying every stone, and slowly coaxing the magic of running water and electricity out of previously-inscrutable piles of wire, fuses, and PVC pipes. 

A few months ago, I decided to build a solid roof over my bed to replace the tent I had been sleeping in ever since I moved onto the land. I hauled in the lumber and hardware, and my next-door neighbor framed in a simple shoebox of a structure with a sturdy metal roof and half-walls on two sides to let in light and air. Over the holidays, I caulked and painted, stapled mosquito screens across the openings in the half-walls, and finally retrieved my grandmother’s painting from a friend’s house and hung it on the wall. 

For most of the five years I’ve lived on my land, the infrastructure has been provisional and haphazard—temporary placeholders propping up yet more temporary placeholders. The kitchen sink is held up by two sawhorses, its faucet hooked up to a garden hose. A handful of nails banged into a two-by-four passes for a tool rack; a length of PVC pipe suspended between two hooks serves as a closet; a couple of old wooden boxes stacked one on top of the other functions as a staircase, provided you have good balance.  

At the time that I put these things in place, they felt like amazing improvements: no more washing dishes in a five-gallon bucket, or storing clothes in garbage bags. Now, I am slowly replacing these resourceful but flimsy solutions with sturdier successors—overwriting my exuberant but sloppy first draft with something a little more elegant, sure-footed, and pleasant to behold. 

 

 

Creativity takes many forms, but I’ve found it to be an essential practice to a happy and fulfilling life. And whether you’re building a homestead, choreographing a dance piece, establishing a spiritual practice, or writing a book, chances are you’re going to go through one or several first drafts before arriving at the final expression of your vision. Our early attempts are sometimes exuberant and bursting with beginner’s luck; other times, they’re halting and uncertain, bits and pieces coming together as we feel our way through the dark. We know there’s something juicy in there, and we have a feeling if we just try a little bit of this and a little bit of that, we can slowly summon it into existence. As a writer and editor, I am well-acquainted with first drafts with their endless placeholders and notes-to-self. Need better anecdote to illustrate this point, I’ll write. Or, End-of-chapter exercise will go here. 

A first draft often looks like one long to-do list: Fix this! Replace that! See if this works better over there! You call your creative vision into being by sketching out what will be there someday, erecting a crude version of it as you go, while promising to eventually replace those preliminary gestures with the real thing. You dream, ruminate, and gather inspiration from others who have trodden a similar path—and you make endless lists of what you’ll do to make your creation even better. 

Every now and then, a little piece of the final version will make itself known to you: a few paragraphs that just happened to come out right the first time, a chord progression you feel confident about, an aspect of your project that just makes sense. These moments of clarity offer a sneak preview of the polished gem to come, and often give us just enough encouragement to keep going through the more difficult aspects of the work. Starting at one of those solid points, you can slowly claim more and more territory, coaxing the rest of your creation into being. 

Although the decisions involved in undertaking a creative project seem endless, an infinite fractal of possibilities that can easily overwhelm even a seasoned artist or creative, each new point of clarity helps to narrow those options down. Huge structural decisions give way to modest organizational ones, which in turn yield to subtler aesthetic ones. What was once an unwieldly and impossible jumble of ideas mysteriously transforms into a generous, coherent, and meaningful work of art; a contribution that might help, inspire, or even shelter someone, someday. 

 

 

The platform on which my tent used to sit, and on which my shoebox now stands, was the first point of clarity in the process of drafting my homestead. When I first arrived on my land, I had no idea how long I would stay here, or what kind of shelter I’d need. All I knew was that I had to get above the thick brown mud that swallowed my boots to the ankle every time I took a step.  

My need to be dry was so urgent that I couldn’t afford to spend weeks carefully evaluating where the platform should go. Instead, I picked a spot, cleared a few spindly guava trees that were standing in the way, and banged the thing together. As it so happens, I was lucky: the spot I chose has worked well over the years, the surrounding trees providing both privacy and shade.  

Having just one permanent element of my homestead in place gave me an anchor point from which to build the rest. The overwhelming fractal of possibilities resolved itself into a somewhat smaller subset of options; I set about plotting other chapters, and sketching out where other elements of my homestead would go. Any visitor to the land could see that my vision was far from realized, the tarps and sawhorses dragged to more promising locations every month or so; yet every now and then, a new point of clarity would emerge, and like a constellation revealing itself amid the stars, the final shape of my home began to come through. 

Now that the tent is gone, I am slowly replacing many of the other original features of my home: that ridiculous sink, those dangerous stairs. As I erase the exuberant, ramshackle, sometimes-bewildering traces of my first draft, I feel grateful for the way these things held space for the better versions to come. These structures didn’t come out perfectly the first time, and they didn’t need to—like the placeholders in a manuscript, their job was to say, Do this thing, but better; and by their mere existence, to give me the confidence that I could. 

 

 

Few artists know exactly what they’re going to say when they pick up a paintbrush, tune their guitars, or sit down to write a book, but the process of creation teaches them. Following our creative passions challenges us to go beyond what we already know and become more capable than we already are. In our first drafts, we throw our intelligence into a kind of sandbox, saying, Go play, go try things! I trust that you’ll figure it out. Eventually, a handful of words becomes a song; a hazy vision becomes a clearly defined path, and a determined amateur becomes a knowledgeable practitioner. 

When I decided to build the shoebox, I wondered if I would feel nostalgic for the tent which so defined my first five years on the land. But now that I’m sleeping under a solid roof, I’ve discovered that I feel no more nostalgic for the tent than for one of the many haphazard and provisional first drafts which have passed across my desk as a writer and editor. The books that emerged out of those drafts were far superior to the drafts themselves; and the shoebox is indisputably superior to the tent. 

First drafts aren’t meant to be clung to. Like seedpods, they are meant to break down and fade away when the true flower emerges. We might look back fondly on planting those seeds, but we would never trade the flower to get the seed back again. Once they’ve served their purpose, first drafts disappear; it’s our job to let them go, even as we honor their role in bringing the final version to life. 

In this new year, I look forward to keeping authors company as they transform their own first drafts into sturdy, beautiful, and worthy books. May your own seeds of inspiration receive the water they need to bloom—in whatever form your creativity takes—and may you perceive the potential in those first, uncertain gestures towards your vision, no matter how approximate they are. 

 

Sincerely, 

Hilary Smith 

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing 

The Power of Story

Dear Readers,

 

As long as I can remember, I’ve collected people’s stories. Whether it’s a close friend or a stranger I’ll never see again, there are few experiences I treasure more than sitting up late in a darkened kitchen, or riding a bus through an endless sunrise, listening to someone tell me about their life. I’ll gobble up as many stories as they’ll give me, and ask as many questions as they’ll let me: What did you do next? How did you decide? What did the other person say? How did you find your way back again?

I think my love for stories arose in part due to my very orderly and predictable childhood. My parents were cautious and well-organized, with backup plans for their backup plans. Everything went according to the script; it was extremely rare for anything unexpected, dangerous, or exciting to happen. As an adult, I can appreciate the benefits of so much safety and orderliness, which allowed me to thrive at school and in my extracurricular pursuits. But as a child and teenager, I sometimes felt suffocated by the routine. It seemed to me that all the good stories belonged to other people—people who’d lived more dangerously and contended with higher stakes. I’ve spent most of my life seeking those people out and warming my hands on their stories, like a campfire whose flames I can admire but never quite possess.

Lucky for me, the remote off-grid community in rural Hawaii that I call home is teeming with stories. Anyone who’s visited this place even once has a story about it, and the people who live here never seem to run out. No matter how many times I hear about the afternoon a pair of neighbors blocked the water head so they could gather prawns from the streambed, only to have another neighbor stumble across the makeshift dam and “helpfully” unblock it, I never get bored. Told one after another, the stories form their own hypnotic music, casting a spell of belonging, remembering, and appreciation. I love nothing more than to be surrounded by this music, soaking it in, letting it saturate my consciousness. I hope someday to be part of it, woven into it, my own thread joining all the others and tying me to this place.

 

 

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with an acquaintance—a friend of my neighbor’s—when he told me one of the best stories I’ve heard in months. One day, my acquaintance and his friend hiked out to visit my neighbor, since they lacked the truck required to make it down the steep four-wheel drive road to his house. But when they got there, after walking through the forest for a little over an hour, my neighbor wasn’t home. They sat down in his living room and played a board game to pass the time while they waited for him to appear.

Night fell, and my neighbor still hadn’t arrived. Unsure if he was coming at all, his friends decided to hike back to their car—but the only flashlights they could find were almost out of batteries, their light faint and weak. It was a new moon, and the forest was completely dark. “I know,” said one of them, “Let’s turn the flashlights on for a second, then run to the edge of where we saw the light fall.” They set out, turning their flashlights on for just long enough to see the next fifty feet of road, then running through the darkness to the edge of where the flashlight beam had fallen. The whole time, it seemed to my acquaintance that they were being followed through the dark woods by some otherworldly presence—the Night Marchers of Hawaiian legend.

This jog through the darkness seemed to last forever. The thong on somebody’s sandal tore out; a set of keys was dropped and groped for and found again. Had they taken a wrong turn? It hadn’t felt this long when they did it in the daylight. And why did it feel like they were being watched, followed, tracked?

Just when they were about to reach their car, sweaty and unnerved, a pair of headlights appeared. It was my neighbor, coming home in his truck after a long day in town.

Although this isn’t a sad story, I tear up when I think of it. There’s something about those weak and fading flashlight beams, illuminating the road for a split second, that I find deeply moving. I love the image of two friends running through the darkness together, pursued by Night Marchers, lending each other the courage and boldness neither of them would have possessed on their own. There’s an innocence and exuberance to the adventure that reminds me of my favorite children’s books. I imagine some plucky frog or talking mouse turning to his companion and saying, I know! Let’s turn on the flashlights for one second at a time! And of course, there’s the happy ending, when the travelers are safely reunited with their friend.

 

 

Many years ago, I took a trip to a remote beach with my partner at the time. Our truck flipped over when he attempted to drive up an extremely steep and tilted off-road track. After crawling out the shattered windows, we sat on the grass in a daze, not speaking. Night was falling, and there was no one around. Wanting to enjoy a day of freedom from the screen, I hadn’t brought my phone, and his had flown out of the truck and been crushed under the side view mirror. We were well and truly stranded.

It took a while for us to recover from the shock, much less formulate a plan. Should we sleep right there, beside the ruined truck, and figure out what to do in the morning? Should we hike out to the main road and flag someone down? The road was so far away, and there was no guarantee that anyone would come along at this hour, much less stop to help us.

I felt distressed by the sight of the wreck, and spooked by the thought of spending a sure-to-be-sleepless night in the grassy dunes above the beach. There was a full moon, and I thought it might feel good to walk—grounding, even. Perhaps we’d get lucky and hitch a ride home, where we could gather the tools and supplies we needed to deal with the mess. My partner didn’t have a better idea so, salvaging what we could from the truck, we set out for the road.

As we limped along the dirt trail, the tall grasses whispering all around us and the ocean below pale with moonlight, I realized this was the most present my partner and I had been in months—with each other, and with life itself. We’d both been moving at a hundred miles an hour, caught up in the stress and chaos of moving to a new place. But the accident forced us to slow down. Walking above the moonlit beach, I felt more at peace than I’d been in months. I felt grateful to be alive—not just in the sense of having survived the accident, but in the awakening of my senses to the warm air, the fragrant grass, and the soft dirt beneath my feet.

Suddenly, I felt deep appreciation for every little thing: the sweater and snacks I’d packed that morning before setting out, the fact that it wasn’t raining. I felt grateful to sit in the back of the white Prius that stopped to pick us up when we finally got to the main road, even though it was going in the opposite direction from where we wanted to go; grateful for the cheap motel where we spent the night, for the shower and little bar of soap, and the paper bag of papayas at the front desk. The “disaster” had shocked me out of my mental preoccupations and returned me to my body. The truck was broken, but my soul had been restored.

 

 

As an editor at Hierophant, I work primarily with self-help and spirituality books, where the author’s own story often supports and illustrates their message. I feel grateful to be entrusted with these stories, which are often deeply personal. We’re all running through the dark with only the occasional, precious flash of light to keep us going; we’re all doing our best to make the most of that light, and to do right by the friends with whom we share it. Reading and listening to people’s stories, I’m reminded over and over of the basic truths of life: the importance of humility, generosity, patience, and courage; the value of friendship; the kindness of strangers; the grace of the unexpected. It is a blessing to be reminded of these things.

This summer, may you all hear stories which move and inspire you—and may you all have just enough light to make it to the end of the road.

 

Sincerely,

Hilary Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

Pruning Trees, Words, & Life

Dear readers,

 

My land here in Hawaii is bordered by a guava thicket. The first year I lived here, I gathered entire buckets of the round, fleshy fruit, and spent many happy afternoons making juice and jelly. The following year, I eagerly awaited the return of guava season, only to discover that the harvest was rather smaller. The third year, I hardly gathered any guavas at all—the ones I found had all fallen from a great height, smashed open on the ground, and rotted. 

I was puzzled by this change in my guava fortunes. The trees were healthy and fast-growing. Why wasn’t I getting the abundant fruit which had so delighted me in Year One? 

After consulting the internet, I found my answer: Guavas only grow on new branches, not on old wood. With every passing year, the trees were growing taller, and the new branches were appearing higher and higher off the ground, until the fruit was so far out of reach it was as if the trees weren’t fruiting at all. 

 

 

I researched how to prune them. I felt some trepidation about cutting off so many apparently healthy branches. But the sources I consulted were clear: when it came to getting healthy, accessible fruit, the old wood had to go. I added some bar oil to my smallest, handiest chain saw, sharpened my loppers, and went to work on my guava thicket. Before I knew it, I was standing next to a pile of branches nearly as tall as I was. Where the thicket had been dense and impenetrable, it was now airy and open. I could see the sky where the over-tall trees had blocked it before. Returning my tools to the shed, I felt a flicker of nervous excitement. What had I done? Had I gone too far? Would this really work? 

I thought it would take months to see new growth on the guava trees. But a flush of new branches appeared almost overnight, skinny and smooth and shining with clean new leaves. I picked some of the young leaves, which are highly medicinal, and brewed them as tea. Meanwhile, I waited for the next crop of fruit to appear. When summer came, the new branches had thickened, and round yellow guavas appeared within easy reach of where I stood on the ground. Far from damaging the trees, the heavy pruning had stimulated them to grow. 

Sometimes, the fruit we long for is waiting to appear—as soon as we cut off the old wood. This is true in life as well as in horticulture. I think often of the times in my own life when I’ve pruned old wood, whether by moving away from a beloved town, leaving a relationship in which I’d invested heavily, or setting aside a project which had consumed my energy for years. I remember the trepidation I felt at the prospect of each pruning: How can I take down that branch? What if I kill the whole tree?  

It took me a long time to understand that, just like the guava trees, my life would not only grow back, but flourish in the wake of every shock. We tend to think of loss as a negative thing, but skillful deletion is a highly creative act. Empty spaces hum with potential. Although the forms of life can be altered or destroyed, the force of life remains undiminished. Life wants to grow back. All we have to do is let it.  

 

 

As an editor, I’m keenly aware of the ways that courageous pruning can allow a book’s true message to emerge. Sometimes, we have to bravely wield the saw, cutting off entire sections of a manuscript which may have been necessary in the first draft stage but are no longer serving a purpose in the final version. No matter how interesting or well-researched a given section may be, it needs to go if it’s not giving readers something nourishing, memorable, and necessary—in other words, the branch gets pruned if it’s not producing fruit. 

Just this week, I took a two-hundred-and-eighty-page manuscript and trimmed it down to a hundred-and-seventy-five pages. Even though I am confident that this pruning will result in a beautiful, focused, productive book, I must admit I felt a few moments of vertigo as I watched the word count dropping precipitously with every cut. Would the author be shocked when she saw the enormous pile of branches I’d removed from her tree? Or would she trust me when I told her that the tree was now stronger, healthier, and soon to be overflowing with fruit? 

As a project moves along, the prunings become more subtle: a sentence here, a word there. It always amazes me how even these subtle deletions can dramatically alter the feeling of a book, lifting unnecessary weight, injecting lightness, and allowing the beauty of the language to shine through. It’s tempting to think that an extra word or sentence won’t make any difference, but as the extraneous material falls away, I swear I can hear a book breathing. 

 

⁂

 

This Thanksgiving, I was invited to stay on a remote piece of land in a part of Hawaii that few people get to see. Accessible only by helicopter, it is the site of an ancient Hawaiian village, and has many beautiful waterfalls and archeological features, which a small team of stewards are restoring. One of the stewards took me for a walk around the land, showing me the rock walls he’d rebuilt, the agricultural terraces he’d restored, and the ancient stone walking path he’d uncovered from under layers of brush. 

This person had lived and breathed this restoration project for several decades. His knowledge of plants, aquaculture techniques, and archeological features was exhaustive. I commented on the fact that he seemed intimately bound to the land, to the point that I could scarcely imagine the project going on without him. I was stunned when he shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Nah. One of these days, I’m going to walk away, and they’ll carry on without me just fine.” 

It was humbling to listen as this master stonemason explained to me that when he rebuilt a wall or restored a terrace, that was it—he was done. Why hang around and gaze at his creations, impressive as they were? Those branches had fruited, and were now spent. It made no sense to linger for the sake of lingering, to hang on to what was finished when life is constantly urging us to begin again. His love for the land was deep and genuine, but he had no fear of leaving it, knowing there were an infinite number of places he could love. 

 

 

 

I realized that the artists and spiritual teachers from whom I’ve learned the most all share this quality of detachment. It’s novice writers who cling to the words they already have on the page, not trusting themselves to generate equally good or better material to replace what has been deleted—master writers can cut with confidence, knowing there’s more where that came from. The spiritual masters on whose books I’ve been lucky enough to work at Hierophant emphasize the importance of embracing change. They remind us that our lives come with us wherever we go, and whatever we do.  

This quality of detachment requires a deep trust in life. At the same time, practicing detachment is the best way I’ve found to gain trust in life, if you don’t already have it. Cut a paragraph or chapter from your book, and you’ll find that you do, in fact, possess the skill to write something even better. Accept a change without resisting it, and you’ll discover that life rushes in to fill the empty space. When a thing is complete, bow and move on. By learning to let go of specific things, we embrace the infinite, discovering more and more to love. 

 I look forward to pruning my guava thicket in another month or two, and I look forward to puttering around in the garden of words here at Hierophant, tending the many excellent books we’ll be releasing in the upcoming year. May you all be happy and safe, and may your buckets always overflow with fruit. 

 

Sincerely,

Hilary Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

 

Click here to read Hilary's previous essay, "The Magic of Nature."

 

Cover image for Think Like a Publisher by Randy Davila

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking for guidance for pruning your own thicket of words? Check out Think Like a Publisher by Hierophant President Randy Davila. This detailed guide for authors explains the basics of the publishing industry in clear and concise language, including what publishers (and readers!) look for in a manuscript, the importance of a good editor and how to find one, author platform building, marketing strategies, and even how to find the right self-publisher for your manuscript.

Flora Bowley

Flora Bowley is an artist, author, and guide whose soulful approach to the creative process has touched thousands of lives.

Blending over twenty years of professional painting experience with her background as a yoga instructor, healer, and permission giver, Flora’s intimate workshops and online courses have empowered a global network of brave painters and truth seekers.

Visit her at www.florabowley.com

Books by Flora Bowley

Jacob Nordby

Books by Jacob Nordby

The Art of Aliveness

The Creative Cure