The impeded stream

There are, it seems two muses: the muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, “It is more difficult than you thought.”

This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course.

It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey.  

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

- Wendell Berry (Collected Poems)