A saying exists: a writer gets to live twice. First we live, and then we write about how we lived. Like a cow that brings up its feed and chews it again, a writer has a second chance to digest experience. The second time is in the notebook or in front of a computer screen. Often the second is the real time for a writer. It is then we get to claim our existence. ~Natalie Goldberg, Let the Whole Thundering World Come In
There is so much depth and truth in this statement Natalie shares in her new book about her recent journey with cancer and how that unfolded for her. Not only did she have to endure her experience of cancer once, but she opened herself up again to all the feelings for others to glean from it what they will. And in large part because it’s who she is as a writer.
As I woke this morning my mind immediately drifted to where I left off yesterday working on writing my newest, and third, memoir. I was feeling very stuck. Which led me to feeling frustrated. Which then led me to trying to talk myself down from the ledge of being hard on myself. I reminded myself that this is a process. I also reminded myself that I have my own process and that I must trust it. And all of this…this is part of the process of writing a book.
For me, I’m not just actively writing when I’m at the keyboard, it’s what I want to write in upcoming chapters, or the next days writing on my mind, that drifts in and out most days when I’m in the thick of a new book. It’s not always easy for me to turn it off. I’ve come to a better place in understanding now that this is how I write and thus I’m much more comfortable with how I move through my process.
But there are times I feel stuck, as I did this morning, dreading the moment I’d come to the computer screen. As I walked out my bedroom patio door to my writing cottage, across the deck, it was the flowers in the window planter, called “Betty Blue” that caught my eye.
I reflected on how when the weather is not to their liking, they close, and I’m not able to enjoy their soft blue color I love so much. Instead they look brown and almost as if they are dying. I realized then they just go inward for a time being, conserving their energy, to appear again another day. While they may appear to being doing nothing, it’s truly not the case. They are alive and well within their own process.
So what do I need this morning, I thought, that will guide me along in my process? Normally I meditate first. Then I sit down at the table behind my writing desk, overlooking the gully full of luscious greenery this time of year, ponder a question I’d like Spirit to help me with, write it down, and then pick an oracle card or two to see what insight they have to offer, along with trusting my intuition to guide me, also.
Instead, today I felt called to ponder my question first, write it down, tuck it in my mind as I meditated, and then pull an oracle card from The Mystical Shaman Oracle deck (my new favorite that I can’t seem to get enough of!) and write my insight in my journal.
While the flowers and their reflection had encouraged me to go inward, the first place my eye landed when I picked the Wild Woman card, was her heart. My eye was then drawn to the tree coming out the top of her head.
I wrote: Stay connected to your true nature which is at the heart of who you are.
I felt that vibrate throughout my body as truth. I’d felt stuck because I had fear around what I wanted to write about next – fear of judgement and my ego trying once again to protect me.
As my eye wandered up to the wild branches blooming from Wild Woman’s head I knew I wanted more than anything to let my thoughts flow and branch out into manifestation without fear of how they will land.
Then reading what the booklet had to offer, I smiled as what resonated for me is this: “Your authentic self does not fit in a box. Our light gets dimmed by the restrictions placed upon us as a society. Wild Woman reminds us to shine brightly regardless of perceived outcomes.”
I thought back to Natalie’s quote and how true it is that not only do writers live their experience as our own, but then we subject ourselves to opening and sharing with others, which means what we write may not always be what others agree with. But what we feel called to do, not only as a big part of who we are, but as a way in which we do get this opportunity to move through the experiences of our own lives again, thus gaining even more clarity and understanding of who we truly are.
Spending this time in honoring what was calling to me and time in reflection, I found my way to where I’d left off yesterday, and ended up with words flowing effortlessly from the end of my fingers, and grateful for a keyboard to capture them as fast as they were coming.
XO,
Barbara
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