As a writer, I feel the essays, stories and poems growing inside of me before I ever put them on the page. This essay, for example, has been building in me through meditation, imagery and sensations in my body, before the words even formed. During this time of gathering and distilling, there has been a magic circulating about me. Tiny particles of what wishes to come into being circulate around my aura, waiting for me to grab onto them and draw them closer.

The other day I burned my dinner. I was thinking about something else. I was deep in the recesses of my mind, replaying an incident from...