Behind the words

May 26, 2010 at 8:28 pm (The Writing Life)
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“I actually meant to talk about [a different topic] but when I started writing it took a completely different direction. I think I love when that happens.”  – Rachael L. King

Maybe writing isn’t really about the words.  Maybe it’s more about giving the Universe (some call it God) a means of expression, a way to connect with us and through us.

Like Rachael’s experience of starting to write about something and then having a completely different set of words come out.   I think I too love when that happens!

My fountain pen tat (click to enlarge)

What if all it took to hear Wisdom’s voice was to open your heart, soul, and intellect and just start writing?  

I’m not talking about a refined essay or brilliant poem or carefully crafted set of ideas.  I’m talking about free-flow writing, messy writing, give-or-take the punctuation writing.  

It’s in that kind of writing — the kind of writing that’s accessible to ALL of us —  that inspiration can touch us and answers can find us.

As one of my favorite authors, Julia Cameron, writes in her book, The Right to Write (italics and color emphasis added by me):

Although we seldom talk about it in these terms, writing is a means of prayer…

Moving alone onto the page, we often find ourselves companioned by higher forces, by a stream of insights and inspirations that seem somehow ‘other’ than routine thinking.

Artists throughout the centuries have noticed this higher dimension and called it ‘God.’  It doesn’t matter what you call it.  The point is that writing allows you to contact it.  Whether you think of it as ‘God’ or ‘higher forces,’ as ‘inspiration’ or as contact with your own ‘higher self’ doesn’t really matter.  What does matter is that you can access a source of information and guidance, both creative and mundane, that will serve you.”

So really… why not write??

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What’s in Your Well?

May 12, 2010 at 8:16 am (Mental Health, The Writing Life)
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I suspect my internal well looks something like the oil spill off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

We so often hear talk about our “well” going dry, but what about our well getting clogged up with emotional oil spills and daily life garbage of all sorts?

My well has gotten to the point that I’m afraid to raise the bucket and look at the sludge in there.  But if I don’t take steps to empty the gunk in there, it’s gonna overflow and create an even bigger mess. 

Ok, so how to dredge up the detritus to clear it out? 

Writing.  Julia Cameron swears by (or for my Mennonite peeps, “affirms”) “morning pages” — 3 handwritten free-flow pages of anything and everything that’s on your mind.  No internal censor.  No right or wrong.  No good or bad.  Just writing, getting it all out, a word purge if you will. 

Meditation.  Don’t panic — you don’t need to change your religion or spiritual beliefs.  Meditation can be as simple as 10 minutes of quiet time alone just listening to and feeling your breathing.  When you really pay attention, each breath can empty a bucket of gunk out of your soul.  Skeptical?  Then try it. 

Exercise.  Ok, I admit — as a landscaper, exercise sometimes becomes part of the yuck in my well since I’m physcially active most days a week for more hours than I care to think of.  So for me, this one becomes REST.  Time to let my muscles heal, my physical energy rebuild.

Visualization.  Mind pictures.  Seeing myself hauling up that heavy bucket of bleah and emptying it.  Over and over until it comes up empty. Then feeling soul sunshine as I picture rinsing out the bucket and the well… spotless…shiny…enticing!

So now there’s a well to fill.  Now it’s all about the good stuff, the life-giving stuff.  Like 

Word snacks:

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
(from Word Poetry by Mark Strand).

Tweets (or *any*thing!) from Martha Beck (@MarthaBeck):

“My email inbox is the Aegean Stables of interpersonal data. Hmm…what rivers can I divert to clean it out?”

“I’ve really got to learn French now. Be right back…okay, French is hard. This may take a while.”

Rumi.  ’nuff said.

And if there’s any room left after a buffet of word snacks, add in some flowers, plants, greenery.  And conversations with friends.  And sessions with your life coach (look out, Nancy!).  And whatever else it is that makes you sing — literally or figuratively.

We each have the power to contain our own emotional oil spills… what will *your* tactic be??

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Write on

October 12, 2009 at 10:01 am (Books, The Writing Life)
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Writers write.  That’s what we do. 

writeExcept when we don’t.

I’ve let my writing slip into the background as I’ve been digging my way out of overscheduling my landscaping work (ach, when will I learn!??!?). 

I’ve written about this — the not writing — before, in my Getting it Just Write post.  But this time it’s different.  

By now I’ve made writing such a habit that when it’s missing I immediately feel the loss.  I almost tangibly feel words reaching for me, begging me to stop and write myself down. 

When my life coach (Nancy Duncan, through the Big Fish Nation program) asked me last week how my writing was going, tears burst from heart as I said “I haven’t been writing… and oh, I miss it!!!”

A few of Nancy’s discovery questions later, and I have committed to her (and me!) that I will post a new Starla’s Word Stew blog entry at least once per week.  By every Tuesday, in fact.  And now, by telling you this, I have also committed to you. 

right-to-writeI share all this with you because I fully believe in the power of writing — for each and every one of us, not just for those of us who get paid to write. 

As Julia Cameron writes in her book, ”The Right to Write” :

“Writing is medicine.  It is an appropriate antidote to injury.  It is an appropriate companion for any difficult change.

Because writing is a practice of observation as much as invention, we can become curious as much as frightened in the face of change.  Writing about the change, we can help it along, lean into it, cooperate.

Writing allows us to rewrite our lives.”

Wait, read that again:  writing allows us to rewrite our lives…  rewrite-our-livesrewrite our lives.   

Do you realize how powerful that is???

What’s that?  You’re not a writer?  Ah, I beg to differ.  We are all “writers”… the act of picking up a pen and putting words on paper automatically turns us into writers, ones who write.

We all write lists.

We all write notes.

We all are writers.

So next time you’re feeling or thinking something you don’t know what to do with, try writing.  Anything.  Everything. Whatever’s on your mind.  Whatever comes out when you put your pen to paper.   Imperfect grammar, dangling participles (I still don’t really know what those are… I just I love that phrase), broken thoughts, incoherent ramblings.  Just write it all out.

And when you stop, you will likely have written yourself a golden word-thread of relief, perspective, even insight.  You will have rewritten your life.

write-on

"Life is Good" t-shirt - thank you Patti! :)

So today I cheer the writer in each of us and ask you to join me as we all write on!!    

In fact, you can start write now :) by writing a comment below about your own writing experiences or lack thereof. 
I’m listening….

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