And Now, You Write

Our Final Session of "And Now You Write" - Offer Your Writing as a Gift of Grace

Welcome to And Now You Write. This is our final day together and you are invited to experience this unique writing session today.

You may listen (and write along with the audio) here.

Before you read the lesson, allow the prompt of the day to seep into your mind. Don't actively seek the words yet, instead allow it to just be there, settling into your mind, as you go through the lesson itself.

 

Today's writing prompt: When I offer my writing as a gift of grace to the world, I... (see, hear, feel, smell, touch, know)

When I read this quote from Erma Bombeck this morning, I knew we needed to use it in our final "And Now You Write" lesson.

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." Erma Bombeck

We come now to completion - to the final day of writing together in this particular format. Yes, we undoubtedly will write together again in different ways and I know there is something important about putting our pencils to the page this final time. To celebrate the devotion, love and longing that arrives when we allow ourselves the luxury of falling in love with words and writing in-the-precise-moment in front of us.

Consider today two concepts: longing and completion.

The long to write and be heard and completion - of this time and whatever is continuing to call you to not only write, but to be complete with the writing you do.

Last Summer I wrote in my journal, "Longing wears a purple gown with a gold cord belt and sandals, fitted, protected and almost barefoot (but not quite.) Her drink of choice is ginger-lemonade and she issues me an invitation – with a time, place, a date and a request for me to RSVP."

It is like the railroad built over the Alps before the engine could be built to traverse the tracks. The railroad visionaries knew there WOULD be a train soon so they laid the ties, they heard the sounds of the trains crossing the alps, they could see the people moving over the mountain on the rails so they built it and the train – which longed to move across the alps, moved.

Again, from my journal: "My longing has my voice my voice, my same voice. So familiar. Longing, familiar, looking into my eyes in the mirror and seeing others eyes of longing reflected.

"My longing offers a way, a means, a support.

"My longing reaches out to me, I reach back, smiling."

My morning pages notebooks are scrawled collections of words, dancing, chugging, cavorting down the lined pages of my notebook. Sometimes I will leave quotes on the still blank pages as inspiration for those days
when I can't come up with anything intriguing to write from my stream of consciousness.

One day I found these words from Naomi Shihab Nye laced around the top of the page, unfurling rich text which said,

"Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could
tumble at any second. Then decide what to
do with your time."

So I wrote:

"If I tumbled, fell, went into the soil today,
Would I be satisfied?

Or would there be
Too much destiny left undone - -
Too many unfinished
Bits and pieces and
Clusters of paper left
Outside the trash can
And also outside the
Framed or bound or
Some other gracefully offered
Form of completion…..

My time…. My time…..
Would my children feel right
With what I have offered?

It is divine time…..
And I will continue
Working towards satisfaction so that
When I tumble, fell, go into the soil

My life will have been
A graceful offering."

Each day, I aim to create a graceful offering of a life, moment-by-moment.

I know when I do this - work toward satisfaction -  I write into both the longing and  completion. The grace of satisfaction sits in the threshold where the two meet.

This is the "place" where we will write today.

Let's take a moment to hold our writing, our longing, and our desire for completion in our heartspaces.

Breathe in Gratitude for what you have discovered throughout these seven weeks.

What will you do and who will you be as you create a graceful-offering-of-your writing and your life?

Today's writing prompt: When I offer my writing as a gift of grace to the world, I... (see, hear, feel, smell, touch, know)

 Add a link to any blog entries you write which relate back to our writing prompts. We would love to read your words.

Writing Camp Open House: 1/31/2011. Join us to Write Around the Virtual Campfire

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to attend a Virtual Writing Campfire? You don't need to wonder any more: you may attend one of our Open Houses to experience it yourself! When? Monday, January 31- all compliments of Writing Camp with Julie Jordan Scott.

We are the writing workshop that is a personal development workshop and an "all around creative expression" workshop, too. It is a celebration of our highest self ~ and expressing that highest self to the world via our creative and writing projects. We gather around a Virtual Campfire to write ~ we use the combination of passion, intention and creative community and discover our words to be more authentic and courageous.

We offer our writers the opportunity to write in a supportive creative community that focuses on growth both as a writer and as a human being. We use writing prompts to get "our pencils moving."

During this Hour Long Campfire Open House, we we will take time to write ~ not just talk about writing. We will, in fact, begin with a prompted writing warm up followed by a writing lesson (a campfire talk) more writing, an exercise or game and for the bravest among the writers, some "fresh from the pencil" sharing.

You may also expect encouragement and a warm welcome and inspiration will continue after our Open House Campfire has ended.

Writing Camp was created specifically so that your writing will grow and flourish through joining this unique writing experience.

Attending the Open House is simple: We will open our doors on Monday, January 31 at 1 PM Pacific time and 4 PM Pacific time (that is 4 PM Eastern time and 7 PM Eastern time.) All you have to do is dial this number: (712) 432 3100 and when the number connects you, enter Conference Code 440137.

There will be two special announcements during the camp fire, including a special bonus for people who attend either campfire. If you bring a friend along, you will receive a second gift.... as well as having a great time just for being amongst an incredible community of writers.

And Now You Write Prompt on our next-to-last day: "I remember how much I didn't used to like……."

Today's prompt is simply, "I remember how much I didn't used to like……."

Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. If this is your first visit: hooray! This is the just right time for you to start. We only have two more lessons, so consider this your personal, short term intensive writing program.

 

Today and Wednesday at 8:30 Pacific time  simply dial (712) 432 3100 conference code 440137.  I look forward to connecting with you!

Today really notice what stirs your appetite.  Is it smell? Is it sight? Is it thought?

Capture those observations on the page throughout your day. Choose to be inspired by them.  Allow them to teach you.

In our next to last day here at "And Now You Write," we focus on inspiration, using the sense of taste as both a metaphor and a means to engage our muse. One of my favorite composers, Igor Stravinsky, said "Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning."

What do these words mean to you?

Listen again:

"Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning."

In other words, you will find inspiration by starting to work even when you are not inspired.  You will create inspiration by taking action.  For a writer,  that means coming to the page and writing something, anything – one word – one sentence – one paragraph – one page – and it is the very act of writing itself which will bring about the shift of energy into a space of pure inspiration.

Mr. Stravinsky knew this concept intimately. He was not only successful as an artist, he was also a financial success. He received well-paying commissions for his work and was an astute businessman.  He also understood how to use discipline as a supportive tool.  He practiced composing as he said 'everyday, regularly, like a man with banking hours.'

His use of practice to inspire his work created a thriving career which continued well into his seventies and eighties when he was still touring conducting his rich and intense late works.

This is not unique to Igor Stravinsky, it applies to you as well.

Your momentum will become your inspiration.

We are seeing this manifest: live-and-in-the-flesh right in our midst. You might have noticed a shift in your writing appetite or in your writing productivity.

Just this morning I received an email from a young neighbor of mine. He actually lives in the house where my "Coaching Tree" lives: an old, stately tree that I have gazed at while teaching and coaching for many, many years. This young neighbor asked me, "How do I motivate myself for NaNoWriMo? I just can't seem to get the words down? What do you do?"

Learn and embrace this principle of hitting the page and adding words to the page as a writing practice will allow you to become a far more productive writer. Just write, even gobbledy gook.

You may even give yourself some prompts about gobbledy gook. Here are a couple:

When I write a page of gobbledy gook, it looks like...

When I devote myself to writing - even gobbledy gook - I remember....

When I was a kid and got a paper back with red marks all over it, I got sick to my stomach. What would have happened if I took those red marks and made the supposed "bad writing" into "really bad writing?" Just for fun, I am going to WRITE BADLY about my summer vacation....(or trip to the fair, or afternoon apple picking....)

You may even make art from writing badly. It is possible!

In my own life I found when I first started a writing practice I was more creative in other areas. I found I had a developing an appetite for painting and decorating.

You might be thinking, "Now matter how good this sounds in theory, it just doesn't sound like `the thing' for me. I can't imagine having an intense practice. I don't want to have to do anything else in my life, I am already stretched beyond belief!"

First, wipe out that "hafta" belief energy. Remember, we don't even consider "haftas" here.  Everything is simply, "Hey – I guess I will experiment with this..." or "Y'know, that item really doesn't inspire me. Sorry – I choose not to right now."

Second, remember for a moment back to when you were a child and a new food was introduced to you and you just didn't want to eat it.  It didn't appeal to you in any way.

It didn't smell good, it didn't look good, it didn't feel good on your tongue or against the roof of your mouth.

What do you remember from that experience?

If it was anything like my experiences, you were pretty much told "eat it or else" or "just a tiny bit – you need to eat at least a tiny bit."  Or "take three bites and then you can leave the table."

I thought it was sheer torture. Electing to bring a forkful of detestable swiss chard into my mouth, for example, felt like I was inviting an invading force to lop my ear off. So dramatic for a child. Somehow we remember these moments with acute and ever growing accuracy.

Here is scientific reality for you: Taste drives appetite and also keeps us safe from poison.  It is in our nature to enjoy the taste of sugar because we have an absolute requirement for carbohydrates (sugars etc.). We get cravings for salt because we must have sodium chloride (common salt) in our diet.

Bitter and sour cause aversive, avoidance reactions because most poisons are bitter (most bitter substances are bad for you - certainly in excess) and off food goes sour (acidic).

You didn't know about taste receptor cells when you were forced to eat that horrible pile of broccoli each night. You didn't know or even care to know that each taste bud has a pore that opens out to the surface of the tongue enabling molecules and ions taken into the mouth to reach the receptor cells.

None of that mattered.

You  just knew you didn't like it.

When I was a child, the thought of drinking coffee repulsed me. I had no idea how adults could like coffee so much. How on Earth could my mother and Mrs. Elder even think of bringing coffee in a thermos to our outings to Terrace Lake in the summer?

I enjoyed the scent of coffee, and coffee ice cream was tolerable if there was no chocolate available, but the steaming hot stuff in mugs they savored as they met in one another's kitchens in the afternoon?

No thank you.

Once a friend's mother insisted I drink some and she doused it with milk and sugar – I literally gagged into the cup.

This was a definite, strong aversion.

Fast forward several years to sophomore year in college. I was very aware of my appearance at this point and was constantly watching my weight.  I wanted to be able to have something warm to drink besides
hot chocolate.

I started practicing drinking coffee and found that I actually liked it. Plain, no sugar, no cream just coffee: preferably bold – I still do not like weak coffee at all. It gets poured right into the sink if it is too weak.

I love flavorful, rich coffee. I have even written poetry about coffee.

Yes, I have developed an appetite for coffee.

And I love broccoli.  I have been known to sit and eat a plate of just broccoli. No butter, no cheese just a pinch of salt.

When I was a child, the very thought of that was repugnant.

My tastes shifted with maturity.

Which of your tastes have changed?

What do you have an appetite for now which you didn't like at all in the past?

Prepare to write:

Remember a time in your life when you didn't like the taste of something which you now find quite appealing. You may use a food or a drink or you may choose an activity.

Before we write, jot several difference possible writing topics.

For me, I might have included broccolli and coffee and getting up early.

If you use a food choice, fill your writing with taste and sensory imagery.

What did that food feel like in your mouth – what was its texture?

Where were you when you attempted to eat it?  What did people say to you when you let it be known you didn't like this food?

If time allows, begin to write the later experience – of developing an appetite for the food or the experience. Think of how many times I write poetry about sunrise. If you had told me when I was fifteen I would love being awake for the sunrise, I would have thought you were crazy. Now, I just settle into loving (and writing) the sunrise.

Your prompt is simply, "I remember how much I didn't used to like……."

Add a link to any blog entries you write which relate back to our writing prompts. We would love to read your words.

If this is your first visit, you may "officially" JOIN OUR ADVENTURE IN WRITING -

Sign up here to receive daily lessons.

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I am so grateful to be writing together with you.

If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."

 

Celebrating New Beginnings and the Last Three Days of "And Now You Write" - Join us!

Today's Writing prompt:  This November, I will write....

Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. If this is your first visit: hooray! This is the just right time for you to start. We only have three more lessons, so consider this your personal, short term intensive writing program.

Tomorrow and Wednesday at 8:30 Pacific time  simply dial (712) 432 3100 conference code 440137.  I look forward to connecting with you!

Today's audio is ready for you to write-along with now!

 

 

 

 

 

The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gives more fruit.
Saint Teresa of Avila

Welcome, one and all, to November - and to the beginning of the end of And Now You Write.

It is a sacred time, this beginning-ending. This conclusion and this invitation to a fresh start.

It brings to mind other beginning-endings that taught me how to be powerfully present wherever I was an whatever was happening.

There is something sacred in the discovery and recognition that the end is a beginning all its own: that we stop grieving for what we lost and become curious about what is.

Here, listen to what I mean:

When Marlena died, I became mother of a stillborn baby. I became an expert in infant loss and grief. I stopped being expectant and became a griever. I wasn't always happy about it, but that is what was and what is.

The beginning of motherhood for me was not of full arms, a car carrier with a pacifier holding baby – the beginning of motherhood for me was tears and ache and emptiness, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a  week.

When Samuel was diagnosed with autism, I became the mother of a special needs child. I stopped holding onto the myth of "perfect family" and instead, became an advocate, an activist and a committed volunteer in the educational system. I wasn't always happy about it, but that is what was and what is. My only son is not going to be that "all-everything-whoa, check me out" kind of boy. He will be himself, which is just right. I look at him and we laugh together. In my melancholy moments, I whisper, "so close to normal" and in my happier moments I shout, "What's so great about normal?"

When Katherine said "Yes!" to Smith College, I became the mother of a soon-to-leave-home high school senior. I had to grasp the fact that her day-to-day life is outside my knowing. Her recent surgery made me face this head on and yes, so far we have survived. In fact, it made our ties stronger as we reached toward each other in different ways. That ending is still becoming this new beginning. Last night we used Skye for the first time. It was beyond words great to "see" her, especially when Samuel walked onto the video screen wearing his Halloween costume and Katherine's room mate giggled with Emma about how having her on the video "was like having two Katherine's in the room" because they look quite similar.

It is perfect that we bring "And Now You Write" to a gentle end as November appears with all its creative possibility within in.

A couple days ago I sat down and wrote the beginnings of a festive-agreement with myself about who I will be and what I will do in November. I thought it would be fun to share this with you and also invite you into creating your November even more powerfully.

We will take a moment to visualize your November and then write it into powerful creation together.

This November, I will...

This November I will lay a foundation for a world shatteringly wonderful 2011.

This November I will write at least 2000 words daily.

This November I will stretch myself physically and creatively.

This November I will remember love, first.

This November I will put myself out there more than I am used to doing.

This November I will be living my dreams more completely and bringing several to light that I wondered... "Would this ever happen?!"

This November I will be praised and perhaps I will have fingers shaken in my nose.

This November I will playfully experiment and accept doing things badly on the way to doing them well.

This November I will remember love, first.

This November I will laugh hard.

This November I will do some new stuff.

This November I will catalog and hang words on shelves, I will put ducks and baskets and buckets in shiny, muddy, tear-stained rows.

This November I will fart, I will may puke, I will most likely wring my hands and do some wretching.

This November I will create and publish chap books.

This November I will perform poetry, twice.

This November I will perform on the largest venue ever.

This November I will remember love, first.

This November I will sit in the sun, I will more than likely be rained upon, I will yawn and be tired, I will howl at the moon and more than likely I will sob at least once.

This November I will say thank you.

This November I will hang out with my favorite nun.

This November I will vote.

This November I will hug my babies.

This November I will pray.

This November I will stretch.

This November I will NaNo, I will AEDM, I will do the PAD Chapbook Challenge.

This November I will.....answer the call, this November.

Today's Writing prompt:  This November, I will write....

 

 

 

 

Add a link to any blog entries you write which relate back to our writing prompts. We would love to read your words.

If this is your first visit, you may "officially" JOIN OUR ADVENTURE IN WRITING -

Sign up here to receive daily lessons.

(Required fields are bold)

 

Email Address *
First Name
Last Name

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am so grateful to be writing together with you.

If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."

 

Write along with our Audio Writing Prompt:Today I choose joy, I choose to be open, I choose to write. Today I choose...."

Today's prompt: "Today I choose joy, I choose to be open, I choose to write. Today I choose ___________"

 Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. If this is your first visit: hooray! This is the just right time for you to start. We only have four more lessons, so consider this your personal, short term intensive writing program.

Our final three days are here! Tomorrow at 8:30 Pacific time  simply dial (712) 432 3100 conference code 440137.  I look forward to connecting with you!

Listen and write along with today's audio here:

Before you read the lesson, allow the prompt of the day to seep into your mind. Don't actively seek the words yet, instead allow it to just be there, settling into your mind, as you go through the lesson itself.

 

Last night I decided to chase the sunset. It is one of my favorite dusk activities: when I see the light start its descent, I gather up my camera, my notebook and I head outside to one of the places close to my house yet have a wilderness feel to them. Last night I chose a spot called San Miguel Commemorative Grove, a wild urban spot I have used many times on sunset photo taking expeditions.

There is a definite underbelly feeling to this place, like you may find yourself in a scenario out of the opening of a "Law and Order" episode or maybe in a horror flick.  I have had some unusual conversations there with vagrants and men who are more than likely cruising. I have had conversations with drug addicts before and after getting high.

I mostly interact with nature there, though. I interact with the space itself and with Divinity.

Last night I had a strong compulsion to head to the river. I wanted to sit by the water and write and shoot and shoot and write.

When I got to my favorite spot I hardly recognized it.

Wild urban spaces change in three years, just like people change in three years.

As soon as I got out of my car in the parking lot, a part of me felt like I had tumbled into the familiar-yet-always-changing. Its scent combines hay: wet hay with soggy, decomposing leaves. Katherine has said it smells like a gerbil cage that needs cleaning. I have said it smells like life returning to life. Last night it was especially pungent because we had just had rain. My favorite smell is when the sun is drying all the "stuff" that has fallen onto the ground after a rain. It is indescribably delectable in its visceral memory in those moments. Life returning to life, warmth speeding the process.

Three years ago I would come here with Samuel and he would play in his "island" room, which was like a sunken peninsula reaching into the river. I would sit on a higher level with large boulders, encouraging his safe exploration. He would throw rocks, the ultimate boyhood experience, and I would throw words into my notebook or images into my camera. Sometimes we would shoot video. One of my favorite photos of all time was taken there with Sam on his island.

Now the river is overgrown with plants I don't recognize. The water has been carved into paths. The island has disappeared. The majestic trees have had branches fall. The soft, ethereal playground has turned into sour brush. The river is choked. Under the bridge where I used to shoot cloud reflections so beautiful you couldn't tell where the water ended and the sky began is now dense with green and nothing has space to reflect.

I stopped for a minute to just look, to just listen, to just be present in this space as it is rather than concern myself with what was once, when I first came to play and create here.

Unfortunately there are times when we buy into concepts like "being blocked" or "stuck".  This runs the risk of seeing an occasional "slow-down" time within our creative processes as being something wrong.

This is simply not so. Having quiet times – days when substantive words elude us, days when we can't seem to string a subject and verb together to make any sense at all – is a normal, natural part of the process.

The best way to remain focused even within those moments is to choose to see and experience joy even within what we used to label as strife.

In those moments of sitting completely still, a bunny came out of hiding to nibble a grassy dinner. Another bunny joined her, and then still another. I watched them, smiling. My notebook and my camera stayed in place, stayed silent. If I were to move, it might frighten them. They would leave. I chose not to disturb their meal.

As the sun dropped below the horizon. the birds started to connect with each other through their bird song. I closed my eyes to listen and wished I knew more of them by name, these music makers. I heard the staccato clicking of rodents chatting with other rodents. A man with a walking stick came off one path, a path where I once communed with an egret. "Are you drawing?" he asks me. "No, I am writing." He turns and I ask him, "Do you draw?" He doesn't.

I find myself not wanting to leave the bunnies and the birds. I want to stay.

I look back at what is left of the water. I could see this as an invasion, these water sucking plants. I could look at them as interlopers in my sacred space.

I could complain that they have taken away the movement, taken away the current, blocked the flow and the ripples.

I was reminded of visiting old pieces of writing, like my long ago words of "Maintain an open heart and mind, continue your path, love your life.  Love those around you. Be open, be caring, be radiant."

I have no recollection of writing those words. One day I did, though, as I was exercising both my mind and my pen. Over the past few years, my writing has become more than an occasional activity. It has become like breath is to my life.On those days when coherent articles don't flow, I sit down and write whatever flows out of my fingers. That day, those words blossomed.

Revisiting my words reminds me of the feeling of falling in love, just as I found myself falling in love with the moment last night.

I took the time to become intimate with the new version of this space I loved.

It was different than it once was. It was less visually appealing. It still bears touches of what my soul needs. Wildness, life, visceral scents that grab me in my belly and move my pencil.

The simple fact that I sat down and wrote brings me happiness, brings me joy.

The simple fact I wrote those words long ago and saved them manages to bring me incredible happiness now, years later. In the moment that I wrote them it was a tiny action. It seemed to be  insignificant at the time.

Once again, the tiniest actions have monumental impact.

In Junior High Math class the question is posed: what is the difference between a penny being doubled every other day for sixty days or a penny doubled twice a week for sixty days?

In this example, doubling every other day, at the end of sixty days you would have $10,737,418.24 On the other hand, if you doubled every two weeks you would have .16. Thats right. 16 cents.

The difference of consistent compounding nets a difference of nearly eleven million dollars.

Do you see what is being said here?

It is the initial small building blocks which birth the abundance. One penny at a time, one muscle at a time, one conversation at a time, one step at a time, one smile at a time, one word at a time.

The amount of increase is not very noticeable until rather deep into the process. Many people have given up by then - or stop right before they cross over to their own success.

If one chooses to cast widely towards a negative effect, the same exponential experience occurs.

In making our daily decision to write,  we can pave the pathway not only for our own growth, we can also pave the pathway for positive futures for others. As Marian Wright Edelman said, "We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee."

Apparent "obstacles" are simply evidence of something that we are to learn from and then continue our journey.

Your writing output always grows exponentially when you continue consistently and take action deliberately. This is what you have been doing through this program.

The river may look like it is being choked by the plants. I am guessing there is something that needed to happen in this particular plot of land, perhaps to feed the bunnies or provide an ecosystem I don't know or understand. My job is to write and appreciate and enjoy what is present.

Dag Hammerskjold is  said "We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours." Our attitude, our willingness, our movement is truly up to us."

Long ago I wrote: "Life is richer when we choose joy, when we maintain an open heart and mind and simply continue our path consistently. These simple actions keep our lives and our writing open,
radiant, compassionate and increasingly filled with gratitude."

Today's prompt: "Today I choose joy, I choose to be open, I choose to write. Today I choose ___________"

 

Add a link to any blog entries you write which relate back to our writing prompts. We would love to read your words.

If this is your first visit, you may "officially" JOIN OUR ADVENTURE IN WRITING -

Sign up here to receive daily lessons.

(Required fields are bold)

 

Email Address *
First Name
Last Name

 

 

 

 

 

I am so grateful to be writing together with you.

If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."

Saturday's "And Now You Write" Prompt: When life gets confusing, I will continue to write, anyway because....

Today's Writing Prompt: When life gets confusing, I will continue to write, anyway because....

 Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. If this is your first visit: hooray! This is the just right time for you to start. We only have five more lessons, so consider this your personal, short term intensive writing program.

Before you read the lesson, allow the prompt of the day to seep into your mind. Don't actively seek the words yet, instead allow it to just be there, settling into your mind, as you go through the lesson itself.

 

Today's audio includes a tiny error: I mention Natalie Goldberg and instead of saying Writing Down the Bones I said "And Now You Write" - intriguing slip of the mind and tongue or divine call? Anyway - today's audio may be experienced by clicking the player below:

 

Feel free to call in on our live calls this weekend before we leap into our final three days of And Now You Write 2010.

 Simple dial (712) 432 3100 conference code 440137.  I look forward to connecting with each and all of you

 

Beloved Weekend Writers:

This session of And Now You Write has been significant on several levels.

I used to run what I call "big, bad ass programs" on a regular basis. I created three different 42 day programs in rapid fire order and had hundreds of participants across the planet every time.

Then life got dicey - some of you may remember the private hell I went through in 2006/7 starting with when my brother got critically ill and eventually passed away. My Mom got cancer right after that. Samuel had been struggling behaviorally in school while my brother was dying and in the fall of that year, he was diagnosed with autism and I pulled him out of school until the school system could devise an appropriate program for him. Amidst all my emotional upheaval, I was now homeschooling my special needs child.

Business took a back seat to everything else.

When people ask me how I got through those days, I can't give them a firm, crisp, concise answer.

I have to go back and read what I was writing then to begin stoking the fires of memory.

What I do remember is I continued to write. It may be what saved me in the midst of so much loss.

I would write into what I didn't understand to hope to receive some form of understanding and be comfortable with whatever did (or didn't) show up.

"Dare to not understand, to lose your grip on making sense of the words." Kim Rosen

It was during the earliest stages of this "I don't understand" I wrote this poem:

The Words Wait - Today's Poem
© 2006
Julie Jordan Scott

There is a place
Beyond the words
Where beauty is stored
Deep in the soul

Beyond language
There is a knowing
That transcends our minds
We may only feel it

With our hands
With our hearts
With our tears

Nestled in the ambiguity
The turbid smokiness
Of desire yet not wanting
The question too risky
The Invitation unasked

The words wait for
The understanding
To Catch up

Paradox has always been a powerful place for
me to hang out, to breathe, to connect to wholeness.

Paradox tells me "It is perfectly ok to not know, to
be uncomfortable, to be a beginner."

Paradox welcomes me when I feel wholly unwelcomed
by the status quo.

In "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci" by Michael Gelb
there is a chapter on Ambiguity – I relate that to the
"turbid smokiness" of Paradox.

And I realized this morning that writing couplets as I
have been doing as a writing practice is akin to
inviting paradox into the forefront of my consciousness
and then "letting `er rip". Giddily most of the time,
cautiously other times.

And paradox says it is ok, all the time.

I like that, a lot.

So - for you, today, a step into my most private, sacred
chambers - writing practice. And perhaps, the opportunity
to try this on for yourself, as well.

My offering today - I hear, I don't hear....

I hear windchimes when I sit on my porch, writing, and
the wind blows. I feel connected to divinity in that moment,
in those moments I know the truth that all is well, that
goodness and beauty and wholeness coarse through my veins.

I don't hear what I don't want to hear. That makes me
laugh, a nervous laugh? I am not sure. Selective hearing,
"I don't wanna!" hearing that puts a big slanted X over the
words that don't feel good, the voices that slice through
my heart with baggage and bruises and sometimes profund
truths if I would only hear without attachment.

I hear unseen bird calls.

I don't hear babies cry here, on this block, nor do I
hear slow moving barely mobile feet. We are youthful
middling in this neighborhood.

I hear a vacuum and I think or is it I see green/blue
shag that was "all that" in the 70's. Why we chose to
cover hard wood with that stuff I will never
quite comprehend.

I don't hear water or cows or chickens or horses
or sheep here.

I hear a gentle airplane whirrr. I hear a car in the
distance. I hear my breath in and out and when I get
really quiet I can hear my pen making a slight sound
dancing across the page, the whirr of my pulse as my
heart reaches out and into the Universe.

I hear.

Sometimes during those days my "hearing" was via my notebooks, which I called "Blue Lined Conversations." There were times those were my only conversations outside of my children.

From that same era, when I had an a-ha which came from this space of ambiguity:

I was writing in my blue-lined conversations
today about being needy.

I wrote:

"I am going to put in a load of laundry and clear
some space. I need (or rather, would like) a hug
from you, and some deep breathing. Just breathing,
together, with someone who knows how to breathe.

It isn't that rare. Why do I think it is? Why do
I make it so?

I don't want to appear needy - for you, of you, any
of that. My conflicting thought, immediately after
allowing those words onto the page is this....

'Why do I make it wrong to be needy?'

OK. Laundry. Now. And counter clearing."

In this present moment I am tired and drained. I am
tired of hearing myself say I am tired and drained.
I feel, somehow, responsible to inspire other people
into not being tired and drained so why the heck am
I tired and drained myself?

It could be so much worse.

It could be so much better.

I just made myself chortle. That is good.

Today I am going to see Mom who is walking around
with cancer inside of her. I need to drop all this
house stuff and Sam stuff and be with her, 100%.
Breathe with her. Give her jobs to do because she
loves to have jobs to do.

Let her take care of me. Ironic, when she is the
one who has cancer but her taking care of me
is one way I take care of her.

I remember when I was about to have Sam. I was so
uncomfortable and I was alone with my girls. Mom's
usual pattern was to come after the baby was born,
but she got that Mom call to be there for me, so she
drove from Flagstaff even without talking to me.

She left a message on my voice mail, which I was
avoiding. Like my pattern today, if I am feeling
low I don't want to talk to people so I don't
answer my phone, I let voice mail answer.
She came anyway.

She walked in the door and asked me what I wanted.
I took to the couch and said, "Rice with butter and
an egg salad sandwich."

For me, the ultimate comfort food.

I let her take care of me because that is what Mom's do.
That is what love personified does. When one of the people
we love is in a tough spot, we don't leap into finger
pointing or tsk tsk tsking... at least the heartful
ones among us don't.

We appear and take care of their needs, whatever they may be.

Egg salad sandwiches, breathing, sewing on a button, combing
out tangles, tying shoes, it doesn't matter.

Love personified appears.

Just shows up.

That's what takes the "could be worse" and makes it
into "could be better."

Sometimes we are the love personified that appears
and sometimes we are the love personified that calls
out for a snuggle, some steamed rice or a bargain
matinee, some baby sitting, some time in the
riverbed laughing and relating.

I just made a discovery.

The "need" I have is the need to surrender. To stop
putting my arms up, in front of my face and my body
and open them up so that other people, those people
who are love personified, can touch my hands, slide
into my arms and lift me up.

I do that a lot for others when they allow me to
be love personified.

It always makes me feel so good.

That's what I am choosing to remember today.

Surrender to love personified. Surrender to the call to write no matter how confusing life may seem.

Today's Writing Prompt: When life gets confusing, I will continue to write, anyway because....

 

 

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"And Now You Write": Contour Drawing + Free Writing Play

Beloved writers - we are in the final days of And Now You Write 2010. It is our final Friday!

Update on Saturday: I reviewed the recording we made yesterday. The earliest part of the sharing is several of us talking about my daughter's health. This is what happens in writing community - when life shows up we support one another. Bear with those moments before we get into writing itself (or fast forward through it!)

 

Listen to today's audio:

 

 Our quote today will be from Rainer Rilke, one of the men I have a deep love affair with who has been long gone from this planet. Here is what he wrote:

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves ... Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point it, to live everything. Live the questions now."

Today we are each going to become more intimate with a question,perhaps that has been perplexing us or bothering us or just tugging at our psyche over time.

We are going to be using paper and pencil, not keyboard, so please gather paper and pencil or pen before we begin.

Our lesson begins today with musing with Rainer Rilke:

I am not a trained visual artist, but my skills have improved because I let myself play and discover every week at the Art and Spirituality Center. I have learned to leap into my creative process without attachment. Because I am not a trained painter, I think it helps me when I decide to have, for example, a conversation with God about a question I am struggling with I don't get concerned with composition or any technical skills or anything like that - I am just painting.

Wednesday I did my usual thing:

I headed off to the Art and Spirituality Center at Mercy Hospital. My only intention when I left my house was to paint.

God and I had been having a conversation that morning about where I am living. My heart is being tugged East yet I find myself continuing to walk around in that vast desert marked "How."

I wondered if painting the question might help me to figure it out, to get clarity, to find the "just right path to whatever the heck I was supposed to do."

I was in this space head-looking-at-my-feet curiosity when I arrived at the door to the Art and Spirituality Center. "What to do, what to do, the how's never seem to make sense or even appear." I heard "Love the questions like locked doors or words in foreign languages..." I grumbled in my silent mind until I came toe-to-toe with the door, which was closed.

Initially I grunted. "What?! It is Wednesday. This is where I am supposed to be, each Wednesday, and I made a point to get here early and I..." lifted my head high enough to read the sign there which read, "Come on in, the door is open."

I laughed and looked up toward heaven. "Very funny, oh... you are so funny."

I had been fumbling around in the how rather than getting intimate with the question. I chose to become intimate with the question.

Listen to the audio to hear what ensued.

"Am I willing to be afraid, to be vulnerable, to say yes to the unknown?"

Feel free to call in on our live calls Saturday and Sunday as well before we leap into our final three days of And Now You Write 2010.

"What is safe about inviting more loss into my life?"

 

 

Today we will contour draw before we write:

Look at something in front of you.

Pick up your pencil or pen and begin to draw it without taking your pen or pencil off the page.

Do not look at the drawing.

As you draw, hold the question you want to become more intimate with in your heart.

This is what I drew:





 

Add a link to any blog entries you write which relate back to our writing prompts. We would love to read your words.

And Now You Write: Choosing Writing Bliss over "Not Writing" Procrastination: Join Our Group today -

 

Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. If this is your first visit: hooray! This is the just right time for you to start. 

 

Today's writing prompt: “When I think of a moment of bliss, I remember….

 Before you read the lesson, allow the prompt of the day to seep into your mind. Don't actively seek the words yet, instead allow it to just be there, settling into your mind, as you go through the lesson itself.

 

Perhaps you might call it one of my trademarks:

the ability to experience bliss almost anywhere.

I wrote about it earlier this week, how coming

close to an agave plant left its mark on my spirit.

 

I wasn't expecting to experience bliss while waiting

at a bus stop at the intersection of Speedway and

Stone in Tucson, last Friday morning.

 

Certainly the words "riding the bus" and "bliss"

are usually thought of as mutually exclusive, right?

 

Once again, I couldn't help myself. I love connecting

with fellow humans – and there is nothing quite so

human as climbing onto a public transit bus and

moving from one spot to another surrounded by strangers.

 

Yes, it can be cumbersome and slow and yet, it

always fascinates me. You may be shaking your head

as you read: "Really, Julie? You experience passion and

even bliss while you are on a public bus?"

 

So many people who are "forced into riding the bus"

are angry about it.

 

I see it completely differently.

 

Riding the bus is an adventure. There are few people as

friendly as bus drivers and even fewer people who want

to help you out as much as your fellow bus riders.

 

That Friday morning at the intersection of Stone and

Speedway in Tucson, I had already had a soulful moment

with an agave cactus. I had experienced a thirty-second

friendship with an unusual fellow traveler and I was

working my way toward University of Arizona and eventually

to see my daughter, Katherine, who was singing in Tucson

and was the entire point of my visit.

 

I didn't know when I stood at the corner of Speedway and

Stone I wouldn't make it to U of A. I didn't realize I was

actually one block too far north to be where I wanted to be,

but I did manage to discover a local smoothie spot called

Xoom and drink the best smoothie of my life.

 

In those moments at Stone and Speedway, I met a man

from Burundi.

 

Suddenly I wished with all my heart I had studied French.

"English is difficult," he said, in sunrise clear, melodious

English. His voice sounded like a tenor recorder or the

deepest notes on a flute.

 

I wondered what he would sound like speaking French or

whatever language his people speak in Burundi.

 

Until today, I had never met anyone from Burundi.

 

I took photos, I smiled, I waited, I felt joy. I spotted an

art gallery in that very unexpected place. Art lives anywhere

and everywhere, just like its sister experiences of

passion and bliss.

 

In the past twelve months I have ridden buses in Seattle,

Sioux Falls, San Francisco, Tucson and Bakersfield. You come

face-to-face with reality when you ride the bus. You can't

hide from what is so and yet you may shift your perspective,

as I do. I smile at the rambling woman next to me, sporting

a smile with more teeth missing than present.

 

I wonder about her story.

 

I smile at the child riding the hip of the surly faced Mom,

who is probably in need of listening and understanding. The

surly face is, I am betting, because she hasn't ever been

heard. She hasn't been witnessed. She doesn't know what it

means to feel love purely and simply because she is

who she is.

 

I pray for the child as I smile into her face. I pray for

her Mom and figure it isn't an accident that we are on this

bus together. Perhaps the Mom's surly face comes from no

one ever praying for her. I exhale and watch Mom's face

soften just slightly.

 

This year I've ridden the Metro in Los Angeles and the BART

in the Bay Area. I have ridden Amtrak several times.

 

I love looking at the faces of people riding along together

due to whatever set of circumstances urged them to take Bus

#5 at 9:29 or into the subway at precisely the same

moment I did.

 

You can't have these experiences tucked away underneath

your seatbelt of your Toyota Corolla or Ford Explorer. You

can believe yourself to be safe in there, all alone,

windows rolled up, mindlessly listening to the radio or

helping yourself to grow by listening to a book on tape.

 

I would rather be standing under an aging tree, gazing up

at the blue sky, conversing slowly with someone who wishes

I had taken up the study of French at some point in my life.

 

These moments of bliss happen because I make a choice, just like I make a choice to write. Sometimes I have to choose to write gobbledy gook, write anything – even exceptionally badly – to keep from procrastinating or doing anything EXCEPT writing.

 

Here is what happens when I procrastinate even knowing all I know:

 

On those days – and I am not sure why, I just don’t manage to get focused

enough or present enough to write what I was meant to

write here. Maybe it is because I got sucked

into the mire of stuckness.

 

Stuckness is something I normally proclaim (boastfully),

"I don't believe in it!"

 

Sometimes I find myself moving over to facebook

or twitter or blog hopping in attempt to get someone to

engage me in something – a comment, a segue, something – rather

than what I knew was my most important thing to do

right here, right now.

 

I have discovered the best thing I can do when I am stuck in a procrastination mode is to follow much of the same pattern when I am blissful: make a precise choice and then let the choice work its magic.

 

It might be as simple as the day when I was getting nothing done and I chose to take a shower, randomly out of the blue.

On that day, my shower was close to perfect.

 

What surprised me was as soon as I crossed the threshold

into the shower, the `a-ha's' started appearing. It was

almost like I was at an Idea Dog-and-Pony show, each

idea stronger, faster and more fitting than the last.

 

This spectacle inside my mind reminded me there is

never a reason for procrastination except for my will.

I need to remember when I write statements like the

one from my morning pages yesterday. I wrote, "I'm

a profound world changer and I wish to experience

freedom through plenty in every aspect of my life.

I want to have enough financial flow and money freedom

in and around me so that there are no worries about

paying for anything or having enough cash flow for

whatever my heart desires, whatever "stuff" is

necessary for this role as a world changer, there

are more ways than my way-too-small-will-

as-of-late has shown me."

 

Remembering this way of thinking that is so inherent

to who I am is what gets me off my butt and into action.

 

It is so simple.

 

All it took was stopping the sludgy trip into

not-even-very-enjoyable-indulgence of facebooking and twittering and checking to see if I have any blog comments to return and getting

my mind, body and spirit all cleaned up.

 

For now, I will continue to be open to making

empowered choices – even the small and simple

like taking a shower - and follow that opening

with simple, intentional passionate action which

will have a cumulative effect so much more

profound than "just taking a shower."

 

What will you to choose something other than procrastination the next time you find yourself wasting time and NOT writing?

 

What choice will you make to experience bliss wherever you find yourself?

We’re going to make a list of moments of bliss:

 

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

 

And then, we are going to write that moment of bliss, starting with “I remember”

 

Today’s writing prompt: “When I think of this moment of bliss, I remember….”

 

When you write of bliss in this way, you may even begin to forget to procrastinate. Make it a habit to remember bliss and to choose to write, no matter what.

 

Add a link to any blog entries you write which relate back to our writing prompts. We would love to read your words.

If this is your first visit, you may "officially" JOIN OUR ADVENTURE IN WRITING -

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I am so grateful to be writing together with you.

If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."

 

 

Today at "And Now You Write": Let's Write with Purpose & Audio #WritingPrompt

Today's Writing Prompt: When I consider my writing as purposeful, I will write....

Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. If this is your first visit: hooray! This is the just right time for you to start. We only have seven more lessons, so consider this your personal, week long writing program.

Before you read the lesson, allow the prompt of the day to seep into your mind. Don't actively seek the words yet, instead allow it to just be there, settling into your mind, as you go through the lesson itself.

 

Audio of Today's Session:

Tomorrow's  Tele-Writing Session will be held, as usual, at 8:30 AM Pacific time and will go until right about 9 AM Pacific time.

You may access the call by dialing (712) 432 3100 conference code 440137.  I look forward to connecting with each and all of you!

I noticed something today, something I must have driven past thousands of times, literally thousands or possibly into the hundreds of thousands of times since I moved to Bakersfield twenty years ago this month.

It all started when I was sitting at the intersection of Alta
Vista Drive and Niles Street. My home is on Alta Vista, about
a mile or so from this very spot, and when I drive east toward
home from downtown or the west side of town. I must drive
through this intersection and somehow interact with this
particular set of traffic lights at least eight times weekly.

This morning as I sat there, waiting, I gazed at the lights
and thought, "Wow. These lights are weathered..." and as I
drove through and then drove North on Alta Vista drive I noticed
the beautiful, recently risen sun light as my thoughts
meandered down the, "Someday I want to take photos of those
weathered street lights. They intrigue me in their weathered
state and in the fact I never noticed their weathered state
until today."

That thought hovered all the way to Quincy Drive about five blocks further when I got
one of those undeniable thumps on the head that caused me to
turn my car around to take the photo today that I might miss
if I waited until tomorrow. This light would never be exactly
like this again.

I turned my car and looped around until I found myself moving
through the same intersection yet again.

I parked my car just north of the lights and pulled out my
camera. I clicked on this side and that side. I crossed the
street by foot and noted weathering on the other side, too.

Probably the oddest thing, though, was that on the Northeast
Corner there are a set of traffic lights that seem to watch
the tail lights of the cars as they drive west. No traffic
ever faces those lights on this one way street. All traffic
faces west, just like these particular lights face west.

They were created to be conductors of traffic and instead,
they passively sit day after day after month after month
after year after year after decade after decade.

The metaphor kicked me in the gut, just like a one word
prompt, oubliette, hit me in the gut in the days immediately before that particular day. The word "oubliette" had been brand new to me and it haunted me. Not only did I love saying it, "OUBLIETTE" (pronounced \ˌü-blē-ˈet\) I loved thinking about it. Like the traffic light,

unnoticed, forgotten, was exactly like an oubliette: a place
people were banished to in order to be forgotten. Who
ever looks in a hole for people, in a space that is
virtually inescapable?

I have been driving past this intersection daily - some
times several times daily - and never noticed this poor,
underutilized set of traffic lights. I felt sad for these
inanimate objects. "What is their point?" I said aloud,
wishing the transportation officials would tell me why,
why, why were these lights created only to be facing
no oncoming traffic?

Which brings me to the metaphor.

How many of us are born with a specific purpose within us
that never gets realized because someone else points us
away from it, on a pole, up and apart from our
true purpose?

And then, within that purpose, we are called to write. To create. To bring forth something. For those of us gathered here - we are meant to use our purpose to create something with words: a book, a blog, a poem, a script, a novel - or perhaps just an important letter to someone. 

You may be well aware of your purposeful writing assignment.

You may only have the hint of an idea.

I am sure you are here, right now, being a part of this because you know you are supposed to be writing. You are here because perhaps you have felt like the useless traffic light. Perhaps you have felt like your words have fallen into an oubliette and up until now, you didn't see a way out.

Why, why, why, why were we created to write only to be facing away
from our purpose and not heeding the call?

Which way are you facing right now? Are you writing toward your writing purpose or are you still sitting in your oubliette?

I remember now my time working for the County. I was miserable.
It looked like I was facing my purpose. It looked like I was doing what I was supposed to do, but it wasn't. It was close - like
the traffic light was so close to doing what it was meant to do,
it was simply tilted wrong, for a lifetime.

My heart aches to think there are many people in a similar fix,
doomed to years and years and years in workplaces that don't fit,
in volunteer work that doesn't fit, in friendships that don't
fit and they stay because they don't know any differently.

I wonder what sort of conversations that street light would have
with itself if it could have conversations with itself.
"Can't I move?"

"Why don't cars ever face MY direction?"

"Does anybody hear me?"

"Red. Yellow. Green. Red. Yellow. Green. I do it like everyone else,
but no one, not a soul responds."

How did the traffic light feel today, when I pointed my lense her
way and clicked. How did the traffic light feel today, when I
looked at her and said, "How interesting." and "oh mi gawsh,
it is a living, breathing, color changing oubliette!"

How did the traffic light feel to have someone publicly notice
and then have that someone write her into an essay, a lesson,
a conversation piece?

Perhaps that attention spoke to a renewed purpose, perhaps
different from what it originally thought its purpose was,
but a purpose nonetheless.

No matter where you are in your writing life, it time for you to look at your writing purpose with a sense 
of renewal. 

We have a week to go here at And Now You Write.

A week to re-devote ourselves to improving our craft within the context of our writing purpose.

Today's Writing Prompt: When I consider my writing as purposeful, I will write....

Add a link to any blog entries you write which relate back to our writing prompts. We would love to read your words.

If this is your first visit, you may "officially" JOIN OUR ADVENTURE IN WRITING -

Sign up here to receive daily lessons.

(Required fields are bold)

 

Email Address *
First Name
Last Name

 

 

 

 

 

I am so grateful to be writing together with you.

If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."

 

 

Today's "And Now You Write" Prompt is an Invitation to Enjoy Change & Celebrate Being Perplexed. Yippee!

Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. If this is your first visit: hooray! This is the just right time for you to start.

Today's Writing Prompt: I will ride the rapids of change and enjoy when change makes me feel ______ because instead of becoming afraid, I will ________ 

 Before you read the lesson, allow the prompt of the day to seep into your mind. Don't actively seek the words yet, instead allow it to just be there, settling into your mind, as you go through the lesson itself.

 

Daily Writing Teleconference Sessions will be held through November 3 as usual including weekends at 8:30 AM Pacific time and will go until right about 9 AM Pacific time.

Calls may be accessed by dialing (712) 432 3100 conference code 440137.  I look forward to connecting with each and all of you!

How does change make you feel? Nervous, bewildered, perhaps perplexed?

What about when someone suggests you change something about the way you write or how you write or the tools you use to write? 

Last Summer, Kahlil Gibran reminded me "Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge."

What is your opinion of "being perplexed?"

There are seasons I feel as if I am in the path of a constant, relentless flood of knowledge and insights bursting to rock my world at any moment. Being blissfully perplexed has, in these moments, become a way of life for me.

This morning I  read about those first days of practicing yoga last Summer. I was trying to crack myself back open and into a regular practice. I was doing well until recently when I cried for what felt like hours during one session.

Since then I haven't been willing to bring myself back to class. I keep finding excuses to not go.

Last Summer everything was more beautiful it seemed. It was that season of bursting through, blissfully. 

One night I got out of the car and said to Katherine, "The air smells so sweet tonight!"

She put her nose in the air and simply said, "Hmmmm" which is the eighteen-year-old equivalent of "I don't smell a thing, but Mom seems happy so I'm not going to say a word!"

We had just gone to Yoga class, or what was labeled Yoga class but was actually what my friend Kama, who just happened to be teaching last night, a "Tai-Chi, Pilates, Yoga class mix" so I was leery at first. I trusted I was where I was supposed to be so I just went with it, especially because Kama, who I barely know, was so pleased to see me and did exactly what I had hoped a teacher would do - guided me into the poses I wasn't doing just right and helped me achieve them more accurately and more... balancedly - if that is a word.

Katherine loved the class and it felt so grand to do it with her.

I  remember I fell back into the "new found awareness zone" the next morning, because I am very tuned into feeling the strength today in my torso. This has continued and improved since then. It is as if I am sitting up straighter, feeling more connected in my backbone. I am intrigued.

I could also feel where my stretch has been worked and where my body is most out of whack. Even that felt good because I felt the sense of awareness wash over me in quite
lovely sensations. It was like taking an awareness bath.

Yes, blissful - an awareness bath, even a perplexing awareness bath - is blissful when experienced in a space of increased openness.

In fact, as much as I whine about my body not looking exactly as I would like it to look, when I am honest about it, she and I get along fairly well. We know who we are and after
last night, it is as if she is saying to me, "See, you can work me more. I can take it and in fact, I think we would both enjoy it...a lot."

I started to write a poem with the theme "change" with these words and it quickly turned into a rant:
I create my life to be
a relentlessly changing
landscape … and then, may the rant begin:

(what a trite
word to use and one I
don't mean except I have
heard, somewhere in my
recollection, somewhere,
changing and landscape
together... what else can
changing be? I'm just going
to play with that here…)

Changing face - aging, wrinkles or sunburn and weathered compared to winter grey no outdoors face. Smiling face, frowning face, puzzled face.

Changing seasons - leaves green and lush or red and orange or missing completely. Buds, bushy, skeletons, perhaps the rape of the trees. Sounds: empty void of sounds, baby birds
singing, protective squealing Mama birds, pad of cat's feet, children saying their goodbyes to Mama in the morning when school is about to start... September through June sounds...
early morning door slams and running feet, late feet.

Changing in the scope of life passing? Sounds of baby strollers wheels or walkers or bouncing basketballs on the way to the park sounds. Sounds of swishing short skirts and cat calls, sounds of polyester pull on pants because fingers can't bother with buttons or snaps anymore.

Changing in romance: in the beginning the hunger for the lips, the skin, the new love making technique racing to show the new idea for the bedroom, the new way of eeking out
another moment of pleasure, the not wanting to let go giving way to "just get this over with, please, I am so tired" feeling.

Changing in the community. The quiet of some cars followed by the increase or decrease of cars. The sound of motorcycles. The sounds of push lawn mowers being replaced by gasoline lawn mowers and the exchange of rakes for leaf blowers. The change of the neighborhood from newlyweds to newlymoms and dads to elementary kids to empty nest to all of a sudden, everyone is grandma and grandpa.

What evocative, sensory stories can fill in these changing landscapes so much more than "changing landscape"? Trite, overused, humdrum.

Not for you, not for me. Bland, done, ridiculously void of your unique voice.

So here I offer to you a perplexing combination of words and a diverse set of paths I followed during my adventures last Summer. It makes me wonder and then smile and I think
I head the tiniest guffaw leave my belly – what cartwheels and stretches and slightly off balance turns does your writing take?

Often times it is those slightly off balance sessions that net the most alive writing and the most awakened, "awareness bath" experiences.

As for the knowledge rocking our world? Let's sit with Kahlil and be on the look out for how to balance the "slightly off" with moments of heightened awareness.

Think back to a moment of heightened awareness. Think back to a moment of being perplexed. Imagine enjoying being perplexed, enjoying being off center, enjoying being confused instead of trying to fix the confusion or "make the off center upright."

Stay with me today: let's write our way through this.

What if we said: "I will open myself to experiencing change in a new way today by being purposefully confused by this prompt." Let's try that on for size as we write today.

Today's Writing Prompt: I will ride the rapids of change and enjoy when change makes me feel ______ because instead of becoming afraid, I will ________ 

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If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."

 

 

Today at "And Now You Write": Staying the Course (even when you wonder why you bother to write. Ever.)

Welcome to And Now You Write. We are grateful you are here today to write alongside us. If this is your first visit: hooray! This is the just right time for you to start. Today's audio prompt (and the prompt in the written form) is below.

We will have a live writing teleconference tomorrow at 8:30.this morning. The phone number to call is listed below. Join us!

 

You may accessed our daily telephone writing sessions by dialing (712) 432 3100 conference code 440137. 

We will continue to have daily calls through November 3, including weekends.

I look forward to connecting with each and all of you!

This morning after Sam got on the school bus I randomly picked The Right to Write by Julia Cameron off the shelf. The first sentence I read stated, " 'I'm afraid' is always what stands between us and the page." 

Synchronicity. Cut out fear now. Let's each and all collectively choose to stay the course, even if that familiar friend fear pops up and tries to grab our pencils out of our hand or push our fingers from the keyboard.

Today at "And Now You Write" our topic  for writing is Staying the Course; maybe because after another wild and wooly weekend, getting back to the page feels like a monumental task. The thought of lifting my pencil, even lifting my fingers now to the keyboard feels so heavy.

One of my poet friends commented on my blog while I was away yesterday:

"I miss your poetry. Please join us today, our topic is love and romance." I scowled and quickly jotted a first draft:

She asked me to write of love and romance
and all I can think of is other poet's lines:

Gibran said, "Work is love made visible."
and Browning croons, "“Grow old with me,
the best is yet to be.” and I growl,
I pace, I grumble and pout and stammer
Mary Oliver taps on my shoulder, looks
me in the eye and soulfully states:
"“I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord."

I quote Pat Benatar lyrics,
"Love is a battlefield" and shout
J. Geils, "Love stinks" and my own,
"Love doesn't read my poetry
anyway so why bother, really?"

My socks are wet
I'm still wearing my jammies
and I am expected to
be inspiring to many in
just 30 minutes

What does love have to say about that?

I feel a sense of smiling between
my shoulder blades
I take a gulp of now cold coffee

I choose to stop grousing and
start writing
because more than once
my love has been found
first there, between and
among the words
even becoming
the love, itself

I may not know love like
Robert and Elizabeth
or Rumi and Shams or
Mary and Molly or
those tricky kids
Romeo and Juliet AND

I do have word love
I'll write to that...

Our Writing Prompt today: I think of it as smorgasbord - at least now, when the prompt and the lesson are still germinating in my mind and heart.

For now, read these prompts and write from what resonates for you. Choose one prompt and begin to write and then, perhaps scoop another and write until you have "written it all out" and then, later today, come back and write again.

You will deepen both your awareness and your devotion. I am convinced of it.

Today I will choose to stay the course because...

If I told the truth about staying the course so that I could fulfill my writing dreams, I would say...

One way I will stay the course today is...

I will speak what is rumbling under my skin: I am scared when I think of staying the course and even though I don't want to say it, I will say...

I will tenaciously, stubbornly, passionately stay the course by doing....

I devote myself to staying the course with my writing and one way I will show that devotion to the world looks like.....

Add a link to any blog entries you write which relate back to our writing prompts. We would love to read your words.

If this is your first visit, you may "officially" JOIN OUR ADVENTURE IN WRITING -

Sign up here to receive daily lessons.

(Required fields are bold)

 

Email Address *
First Name
Last Name

 

 

 

 

 

I am so grateful to be writing together with you.

If you are interested in firing up your writing even more, please visit the Page for "And Now You Write: Premium Program."