Look out your window and find the shape of faith. Write about it; explore the various shapes of meaning. For example, I see the Mexican sage plant’s purple blossoms, long and thin, seeming as if they are reaching for heaven. Or, in the round pot, I feel a whole, shaping completeness in the world.
2. Try gazing into the waters and determine what your strongest sense seems to be: smelling, seeing, hearing, touching, kinesthetic (body sense)? Use streaming and write about how your strongest sense helps you with faith. The simple smell of clean sheets may trigger the feeling of life’s continuity, the faith in everyday tasks. Touching a pussy willow may remind you of your little brother’s soft hair and bring you back to faith in innocence.
3. Write the phrase, “Faith enriches my life” thirty times. In Buddhism, a repeated phrase like this is called a mantra. Think of this mantra as a bookmark holding your developing faith while you read this book. Use streaming to explore how faith can enhance your life.
Day 4: Sense of Place
I know a poet who talks about the “gold-light fall feeling” he had as a child as the light fell slowly in the back room of the house where the family relaxed together. He’d tell his mother he had a “gold-light” feeling and his mother would give him pencil and paper. When you read his descriptions of light, moss-covered trees and the dangers of the swamps you can tell he loves the South. You can feel his connection to the heat and the southern ways. He has a strong sense of place in his poetry and his life that seem to bring him closer to his spirit.
A sense of place roots us, makes us aware of connection.
When I was a child in Ohio, I loved its rivers and gorges and roamed the land freely with my imagination. Living near the Cuyahoga River, I was sure I could hear the Iroquois Indians in my dreams. Later, when I learned the river caught fire, I pretended it was the Iroquois reclaiming the river. I often think the woods of Ohio helped me to breathe deeper, that their wildness allowed my imagination to flourish. I remember watching the trees and writing about the spirit rustling the leaves. I would look around me and ask myself where the spirit lived that day: in the acorn, the crook of the tree, the nest? Then I’d write stories where the little girl was saved by the spirit who lived in the acorn and how the oaks protect her.
“I was convinced you can’t go home again. Now I know better. Nothing is more untrue. I know you can go back over and over again, seeking the self you left behind.”
—Helen Bevington
Some of us have little connection to where we grew up but still find a sense of place in nature. Perhaps you have a field near where you live that you could enjoy tramping through. A vacation may bring memories of the rain forest of Hawaii or the splendor of Yellowstone National Park. A client of mine, a man from a large urban family, often talks about the solace he found on the roof of his house. It doesn’t matter where you find it; a sense of place often brings you closest to that feeling of “something more.”
Today, our writing explores place.
“I am the earth, I am the root.”
—Judith Wright
Exercises
1. Draw a picture of the house you grew up in and of your room. Don’t worry about technique. Just get the basic shapes on paper. Was there a secret place where you hid your treasures or a place you liked to play on rainy days? What about these memories makes you feel connected to your young, innocent self? Where did you sit and read? Dream? Find at least one good place if you can. Does a sense of place help you remember that you are connected to the spirit? Use gazing into the waters and streaming to explore this.
2. Use the technique of gazing into the waters as a warm-up, then write about a local place that you like to go to when you need to feel calm. If you don’t have a place, imagine how you would like it to be. How does your body feel when you are in this place? Use streaming to remember all of your special places and what these places did for your spirit.
Day 5: Patience
Henry Ward Beecher once said, “Anyone can bring down the fruit in season, but to labor in and out of season, under every discouragement, that requires a heroism which is transcendent.”
Often, we look for quick answers, a quick fix. We don’t want to do what it takes to make something happen either in the material world or in our spiritual life. Patience is what most of us have in short supply. We really do want what we want when we want it. I had one client who became terribly frustrated and impatient when he wrote about his growing awareness of spiritual connection and then about how little he lived that in his everyday life. “Never mind,” I’d tell him. “The disparity is what brings us to a spiritual search.” Impatience is just a symptom of our unexamined lives.
The wonderful thing is that patience is something we can learn. We can learn that the deep breath and stillness are an important part of the spiritual process, just as the spaces between jazz notes are central to music. I know of no better way of developing patience than through writing.
“Patience, and the mulberry leaf, becomes a silk gown.”
—Chinese Proverb
In my own writing, I’ve had to learn to slow down and be patient. There are days when I don’t have the energy. I write anyway. Write even when you have no new ideas. Ask questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Why am I tired? What can the stars tell me? How can birth and craving be quieted for a while? Our spiritual awareness often comes in baby steps. Be patient and the answers will come. Be patient with your growing sense of connection to a higher power. The serenity you’ll find from your efforts will be worthwhile. Some clients say they have to pace or go for a walk or cry when they want to charge forward. They work to develop the patience to trust that a connection to a god force will come and guidance will be given.
When we are barging forward, we leave no room to hear the spirit. There is too much noise to hear the still, quiet voice. Let the quiet of patience allow you to feel your awareness of the goddess. Let hesitation show you that there is connection for you in the quiet rooms of your daydreaming.
“All fruits do not ripen in one season.”
—Laure Junot
A technique called dialoguing will help you explore questions about your life and your spirit.
Dialoguing
1. Write down the names of ten teachers in your life. These may be actual classroom teachers, neighbors, parents, or influential adults from whom you have learned valuable lessons. A teacher may also be a quality such as time or patience. Be sure to have one of your ten teachers be your own wise speaking voice, the self you are developing spiritually through your writing.
2. Now, write down a concern about your own patience. Maybe you’re wondering if you should stay in a relationship even though you have greatly changed through the years and would not have chosen this person today. It could be a concern about not liking to be alone and wondering how you could learn not to feel so empty.
3. Look over your list of teachers and see which one could help you with this particular concern. Imagine a conversation with this teacher. The dialogue might go something like this:
Me: Why am I impatient?
Wise Person: You may be afraid.
Me:
