five, Sense of Self, is devoted to this. It is designed to help you reach within so you can reach out. You’ll explore through writing who you are beyond the image you project and how to deal with the changing identifications of self in your lifetime. You’ll do exercises on self-esteem and developing appropriate boundaries to enable you to better connect with others.
Week six is devoted to Creativity. We all are innately creative, but through our writing this week we’ll begin to explore how to better access our individual creativity. Creativity asks us to embrace ourselves. It is a voice in all of us that says we are one of a kind, and that even with the sun and daffodils of the world in full glorious bloom, there is room for more light and more yellow. What any one of us offers will be just a shade different from anyone else, but ail is needed and wanted.
Vincent Van Gogh wore lit candles in his cap to see better when he painted at night. He took singing lessons to help his yellows “sing” on the page. We will learn to express that hunger to be ourselves. We will explore how to find pleasure in uniqueness, too. In this section I suggest that we open ourselves to the world we have within us, to our daydreams and night dreams. Daydreams draw us into the imaginative realm; night dreams give us symbolic knowledge. We will begin to decode the messages our dreams give us.
In week seven, Integration, we get to write about qualities of our life’s longing: love, friendship, work, and creativity—issues of the physical body and how spirituality fits into integration. We will also look at how to make solitude a precious time.
The qualities of spiritual development are both cumulative and not. Sometimes, as we develop faith, we love our home more. We love the view out back and this sense of place allows us to develop patience. Our patience, in turn, invites grace to come, and we find we sit long nights on our patio writing and dreaming.
As we near the end of this process we come to Peace of Mind. In week eight we’ll look at ways to remember that there is a divine reason for everything that happens. We are only given what we can handle. We will write about how we can foster and use forgiveness, humor, gratitude, and simplicity as part of our spiritual practice.
And finally we come to Cycles of Life. Chance is always with us, but so often we live in fear of what comes next. By letting go into the knowledge of cycles we can begin to act less out of fear and anxiety and more out of hope and courage. I remember a student I once had. She was in such despair about losing her job, but when she remembered the happy days of the years before, and saw that unhappiness will pass through to better times, she was able to move on. This chapter helps us connect with our spirit and trust that we can deal with what life brings. In writing about cycles, we will explore our attitudes to our past, our life’s wanderings, and the present. We’ll be led to consider our own aging process, death, and rebirth. Our writing will help us see the ways we are protected by our soul knowledge and our energetic spirit.
Throughout this book I’ll be teaching different writing methods: streaming to explore your inner self and all that you might feel, gazing into the waters to relax and go deeper into your truth, and dialoguing for times of internal conflict or ambivalence. You’ll use clustering when you want to open yourself to new possibilities and listmake to help organize your thoughts. I include a Buddhist Peace Meditation, which helps us approach writing with an open mind, and the techniques of Dream Sourcing and Coming Together, which help you make sense of your dream materials and explore what the subconscious may be trying to tell you.
Now, just a few words about developing a writing practice. We’ll be using writing as spiritual practice just as some might meditate, do martial arts, or yoga—not to create works of art but to create an aware and happy self, to develop character, self-discipline, and integrity. From my experience working as a counselor and teacher, I’ve found that this sort of self-exploratory writing is best done if you schedule your writing time into your day.
Put aside fifteen minutes a day to start. This will be long enough for you to leave the logical world behind and allow surprises to script themselves under your hand. This time needs to be sacred. It’s for your well-being and will affect everyone you come into contact with. Some of us want a room of our own to write and insist on it. Others find that a corner without a window is less distracting. The important thing is to make a quiet time and ask not to be disturbed. In time you will be able to access your wise voices easily, and that dreams and everyday happenings in life will give you answers.
When you feel ready, expand your writing time to twenty minutes, then twenty-five, and then thirty. You’ll soon find a length that seems long enough to delve into the soul, a length that the spirit responds to.
On each day of this nine-week process, you’ll find a few exercises to help you explore yourself in writing. If you only have fifteen minutes, choose one. If you have thirty minutes, do two. It’s up to you how many you’ll do. You might make a light pencil mark in your book to note any exercise to which you want to return.
Perhaps you feel that you can only write when you feel inspired. I often feel this way, too. If that’s the case, then your job here is to find whatever it is that inspires you and to do it regularly, whether it’s listening to the opera, walking in the rain, or reading some favorite poetry. Do whatever helps you get to the place of curiosity. This book also includes quotations and exercises designed to inspire you.
I suggest you keep a folder of ideas or images from your own life sources that are inspirational for you: walks, a church visit, an art catalog, news clippings. I have a postcard collection of images to which I am drawn. Magazines are a great source of images in ads and articles that can be clipped and used as grist for the mill.
I have a friend who comes over several times a year with her ideas and images and we share and write together. It brings us closer and gives us a better sense of community as we write during the year.
Of course, any idea a visual artist explores is thought for your journal. Claire Wolf Krantz, an artist in Chicago, explores memory and where memory goes through painting. Sculptor Bonnie Marzlak explores the sense of home. In her installation pieces, Rhoda London of San Francisco explores sayings we heard as children, such as “Who do you think you are?” and “Too big for your britches?” Katherine Westerhout uses photography to explore the mysterious world of spirit and light. All of these are wonderful themes to explore through writing.
I moved recently to a place with a pool and a large lawn. Being here, I remind myself that much of my life is filled with energy and grace. I have so many feelings and conflicts and yet I walk lightly on the earth glad to be alive. Each year gets better because I’ve been able to use my years to find some quiet in myself. Years and writing have brought me to this place of happiness. In my life, writing is as important as food. It is nourishment, sustenance. It can be that for you, too.
I remember the first time I fed my son cereal and how his eyes grew round as he held the solid food in his mouth and looked at me for a clue as to what to do. I swallowed and swallowed again, this time making noise in the hopes that he would follow my lead. With his eyes now closed, he took a leap of faith. Take a leap of faith with me now.
Because writing can bring us to deep and sometimes painful truths, I suggest you have support as you write, especially if you’re writing about traumatic events. It’s also good to have support just to keep you writing regularly. Ask a friend to join you, or start a small writing group.
Bear in mind, of course, that mine is just one way of approaching the spirit. Yours may be different. Let this structure help you get started. From here on, the sky’s the limit.
Remember, we are each everything at the same time: the healing and the healed, the doubter and the believer, the person of grace and the person who stumbles through the storm.
My hope is that you will find more singing in your heart just by starting
