How Can It Be All About You If It's All About Me? (Or, the self as lens)

I recently was honored to receive an award for my book-development and editing work. I don't know how it happened, exactly. True, I was taking my own design of flower essences for writers, including "Shining Star" which amps up the inner wattage on self-worth and making a contribution. True, I had been praying to reach people of like mind and heart. Maybe it was that.

When I was told that I had won the Thumbtack.com Elite Service Award, and would be featured in their "Spotlight," after I got through my "is it real?" skepticism I became quite thankful, and gladly answered the few questions they asked about my work. The results were beautifully put together on a very attractive page, and every time I look at it (you know I do), I see my own image looking back at me (a really nice photo, I admit, by photographer Lucie LeBlanc) ~ my own words coming back to me ~ and all sorts of nice perks and encomiums in the vicinity of my face, words, and name.

This is great. This is lovely. I'm delighted. I'm happy. It's good to be "chosen" ~ and the word "elite" already does something for a sagging ego, not to mention the "only 1% of services merit this award." So there is a wonderful external sign of my inner work and workings, up on the Internet for all to see. I'm #1. Sometimes it's great to think of yourself that way.

At the same time: If your real work is to mine the limitless treasures of what it means to be a human being  (dark and light, hidden and revealed, universal and particular), as I believe is the case with great writers,  sensitive therapists, dedicated artists, and the like ~ then putting yourself in the spotlight may need to benefit more than only you. Putting yourself in the spotlight is good for you, if it means that you get to shine in ways you want to, and let people know how trustworthy, talented, loving, etc. you are.  But how is it good for others when you are the focus of attention?

It depends, I think, on whether you are saying, in effect, "Look at me, me, me!" or saying, "Look with me into me so you can see you." That's what mystics and artists do: make the warranted assumption that if they can relate to something from within and open it up in such a way that it's there for everyone to relate to, they are giving others something precious by focusing on themselves. It's perhaps the difference between whether the "I" is opaque, not allowing any light to return out (only taking it in) or transparent (bringing back from one's inner travels something universal that can only be found within individual experience).

Lots more I could write on this, and probably will. For now, two things:

 1. Notice how I took the subject of my own "Spotlight" and turned it into something that might also be applicable to you. And,

2. Check out my Elite Thumbtack Award. The interview is interesting, and the photo, I must say, is great. I'm a little older than that now, but the spirit is still there. Thumbtack Elite award, Spotlight on Naomi Rose

"Once a soul has begun to read, every leaf of the tree becomes as a page of the sacred book of life." ~ Sa'di. 

Naomi Rose, Book Developer, creator of "Writing from the Deeper Self"

http://www.essentialwriting.com/

Publisher, Rose Press  

Books & Other Fragrant Offerings to Bring You Home to Yourself

(including Flower Essence Remedies for Writers & Readers)

http://www.rosepress.com/

Guest Blogger: Ann Luria

Intimate Details Evoked through Writing

In the spirit of writing intimate details, as I wrote about in my January-February Writing from the Deeper Self Newsletter (to be posted here later on), I am delighted to present my first guest-blogger, Ann Luria. Her beautiful poem illustrates how evocative writing can capture an idea, a feeling, an atmosphere better than abstract, explanatory writing.

Ann chose to chronicle her experience of cancer, some time back, in a haiku-like poem. The combination of the insight characteristic of her profession as a therapist with the telling details that bring a reader close in makes for a touching, illuminating, and compelling work that—though it is motivated by the desire to explore what underlies the cancer, as well as what to do about it—is not limited to that, or even just to her. Many people could relate to the feelings and images here.

I am moved by how this beautiful haiku goes deeply into the subject, how concretely it shows the workings of transformation. I love what the writer notices, and how she says it. I love “no way to be perfect now” in itself, and also juxtaposed with her cat Reuben wishing to be human.

Deep writing is not about being perfect. It’s about being so true that something universal is reached. I think that happens, here.

Haiku like

          I     

Raindrops fall on ground

Planning another surgery

I am thoughtful

           

II

Spidery green leaves

Burst Open

Like ducts of cancer

Waiting to be born

           

III

An onion grows old in the cabinet

Donning a rotten brown edge

Biting into a crisp

Blood red-apple

With a surprise-

A decayed part-

Peeling a firm yellow banana

Where did its tan crown come from?

Awaiting signs from the universe

A small re-excision

Or total breast reconstruction

My answer comes in nature’s forms.

           

IV

Addictions melt away

Shedding their old skins

The gift of disease

Breathe

There is no way to be perfect now!

            V

Worry melts away

In nature’s heat

Doesn't matter what conclusion is reached-

The moon still bathes the nighttime sky

Beckoning the world

To a new darkness

            VII

Drinking glacier water

Standing on melted ice

How lucky I am.

            VIII

Cat bathes in the moonlight

Smiling-

Chin turned up to the stars

Light pours in through closed mini blinds

How lucky we are.

            IX

Cold air frosts the plants

Writing pros and cons of surgery and which type-

Anxiety generates heat –

Will I ever make a decision?

            X

Angular cells

with jagged edges

Multiple nuclei -

Unlike their circular cousins-

My doctor draws each -

Explaining why surgery is the only option

Thank G-d for him –

Like a pearl in an oyster

A small column of ductal cancer 

In situ -

Is unexpectedly found.

            XI

Shadows come alive

Stretching out tall like giants

Others root sideways

Widening and get smaller

Some ant forward

Flickering on and off

Like well lit candles

In the sun’s rays-

Breaking free of human forms.

            XII

Paw prints in the sink…

Bathtub…

Reuben is caught again –

Drinking water from dripping facets

Nourishing himself -

Wishing to be human.

 -----------------------------

 Copyright © Ann Luria 2010. All rights reserved.

Ann Lurie is a therapist in private practice, so that the transformative healing journey is part and parcel of her work and being.  

Ursula LeGuin on How Your Book (or Story) Can Become What It Really Wants to Be

I've tended to avoid reading books on the writing craft, in recent years. Too much emphasis on technique, too little on attending to your inner experience and finding ways to articulate that.

However, I came upon a book by the astonishingly prolific writer Ursula K. LeGuin that I read from cover to cover. It has an interesting, metaphoric title: Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing fro the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew (Eighth Mountain Press, 1998).

And though LeGuin has deep and meaningful things to say, she manages to keep it light. In addition to her praise of long sentences (I loved that, because that's my heart's natural way), she offers a perspective on ego-free writing that, differently, meshes with what I have come to know: that something in us wants to be written through us, and in that process we are transformed.

She says it differently, and valuably. Here it is:

"Some people see art as a matter of control. I see it mostly as a matter of self-control. It’s like this: in me there’s a story that wants to be told. It is my end; I am its means. If I can keep myself, my ego, my opinions, my mental junk, out of the way, and find the focus of the story, and follow the movement of the story, the story tells itself.

"Everything I’ve talked about in this book has to do with being ready to let a story tell itself: having the skills, knowing the craft, so that when the magic boat comes by, you can step into it and guide it where it wants to go, where it ought to go."

I've experienced this, myself. So have the wonderful writers who become my clients. You start with one book, and it turns into what it really wants to be ~ and wants you to become, in the process.

THE ROLE OF COMPASSION FOR YOURSELF IN WRITING YOUR STORY

When you get to a point in the telling of your story where you think, "That part is boring and unnecessary. I’m going to skip over that," and there is an unfulfilled, disconnected feeling inside you, that usually means that you are so judging yourself for the unwritten part--the part you lived, or now perceive--that you would just as soon turn away from it. But the remedy is not in diminishing its importance; it is compassion, invariably it is compassion for yourself. Somewhere in the original experience and your subsequent interpretation of it, you judged yourself, you rejected yourself; in shame, you don't want anyone else to see, not even you.

And that is the paradox of this way of writing. For the story that you have cast out seeks to be taken back in, embraced by your compassionate seeing and heart. To hold yourself within to the unloved experience with as soft and kind a heart as you can. That is what allows the details that are blanked out to come into focus, the words to stream up out of your heart. And as you cradle yourself, the energies locked inside that judged experience come out in the writing and infuse your being. Now you have the missing piece of writing and a missing piece of your being back.

_________________________________________________________

To help the process of self-compassion come about, why not use the Rose Press Flower Essence Remedy for Writers, "Self-Compassion: Rewriting the Past." Sometimes what we write brings up old, unforgiven places in our pasts. Writing a book offers a wonderful opportunity to go back into the same events, feeling tones, or patterns in service of the story ~ but now with the compassion you are capable of in present time. "A writer gets to live twice," it's been said: "once when you have the experience, and again when you write about it. Self-Compassion: Rewriting the Past Flower Essence Remedy allows you to live deeply and fully by mining your past for its hidden gems and bringing them into the present, thus benefiting your actual life as much as it does your writing.

$15 for a 1/2-oz. dropper bottle, available from Rose Press: www.rosepress.com/other.html; by emailing naomirose@rosepress.com; or by calling 510/653-ROSE (510/653-7673).  

 

For a healing experience of writing ~ and living.

More on art, the artist's process, and the art that comes out of it, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Hardly had I finished posting the blog just below when I read more from that same volume by Hazrat Inayat Khan which I quoted there, and it so captured my soul and imagination that I wanted to share it, too, with you. So here are some further quotes from this great Sufi master and teacher. Although he is writing about sculpture, here, it is simple to translate the essence of his thought to include deep writing. As you read, see what is moved and uplifted in you. If you come away with a sense of recognition ~ or even longing ~ then his writing is successful in awakening, and nourishing, your soul.



When we come to the art of sculpture today, it seems as if the artist is searching; he is trying to reach something that he knows is absent. The soul of the sculptor is seeking for something that seems lost. First of all, by lack of appreciation around him, the artist is discouraged. Next, he is put in the midst of the business world; and the relief which should be given to the heart of the artist, so that he may think of art and nothing else, is not to be found today. There was not so much thought of competition in ancient times; there was not a fixed price for art. Art was invaluable. The admirers of ancient art never considered a work of art as having a fixed price. They always thought that they could never give enough for real art. In that way, art progressed; it was admired.

Besides, the direction of art today is not of the same nature as in ancient times. The direction of ancient art was towards spiritual realization. Love, harmony, and beauty were seen by the artist in their highest aspects. And when the artist loses that direction, then he comes down to earth; instead of going upward, he is going downward....

The scientist is sooner contented with what little he discovers, but the better the work of art, the more the artist feels that there is something still missing; his heart is longing all through his life to produce something more than that. Consciously or unconsciously, every artist is craving for that something which is missing. And if this goes on, no doubt the artist will find it; and on the day when the mystery is found, art will again become a language.

The meditative quality and the practice of concentration should be developed in art, and also the higher ideal; but the material world forms a barrier to all these. It stands in the way of the artist's progress. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that a real artist is always spiritually inclined; he is only hindered by the world, and therefore it is possible that tomorrow the art of sculpture will evolve. It will evolve in fineness and in beauty, and sculptors will also develop their imagery. Then art will culminate in that greatest of achievements, when the artist will really be able to produce a living statue.

The motive behind the whole of creation is to put life into everything. That is its sole objective. In other words, every rock is longing for the day when it will burst out as a volcano, and when all that is valuable in it will come out. Sulfur, diamonds, gold, and silver; everything that is in its heart must come out one day. That is its purpose.

Every tree is longing for the day when it will bear fruit. Love expresses itself through every channel, and it manifests outwardly in order that God may see Himself face to face. And so it is with a work of art. People think that it is the artist who has made it; in reality, it is God who has perfected it. As it is God's pleasure to create the world, so it is also God's pleasure to create through pen and brush and chisel, to give life to what is lifeless. If there is life, it is God. And what is God? God is love, and thus the desire of that love is to manifest in the form of beauty in the realm of art. 

[From the book, Sufi Mysticism: Art Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, by Hazrat Inayat Khan]

"When the Artist Loses Himself in His Art, Then the Art Comes to Life"

The great Sufi mystic and teacher, Hazrat Inayat Khan, was also a great musician, and he often wrote about art as a mystical path of union with the Divine. Below is a quotation from among his writings that addresses the process of what it is to become fully engaged with the process of bringing forth what is in you: the art that comes out of it, and the inner experience of wholeness.

I hope you will feel as blessed by this quotation as I do. Hazrat Inayat Khan's message and writings have certainly influenced my own experiences of deep Being, deep writing, and my writings about deep writing. 

When the artist loses himself in his art,

then the art comes to life.

One must not only be an artist; one must become art itself. Then to the one who is so absorbed in his work that he forgets himself, that capacity, that intuition, that skill will come naturally. He begins to do wonders, and his art becomes a perfect expression of what he had in mind. ...  People think that it is the artist who has made it; in reality, it is God who has perfected it. As it is God's pleasure to create the world, so it is also God's pleasure to create through pen and brush and chisel, to give life to what is lifeless.

The artist who has arrived at some perfection in his art, whatever his art may be, will come to realize that it is not he who ever achieved anything; it is someone else who came forward every time. And when the artist produces a perfect thing, he finds it difficult to imagine that it has been produced by him. He can do nothing but bow his head in humility before that unseen power and wisdom which takes his body, his heart, his brain, and his eyes as its instrument. Whenever beauty is produced in art, be it music, or poetry, or painting, or writing, or anything else, one must never think that man produced it. It is through man that God completes His creation. Thus there is nothing that is done in this world or in heaven that is not divine immanence, which is not divine creation. ...

What is art? Art is the creation of beauty in whatever form it is created. As long as an artist thinks that whatever he creates in the form of art is his own creation, and as long as he is vain about his creation, he has not learned true art. True art can only come on one condition, and that is that the artist forgets himself -- that he forgets himself in the vision of beauty. ... We are vehicles or instruments that respond. If we respond to goodness, goodness becomes our property. If we respond to evil, then evil becomes our property. If we respond to love, then love becomes our possession. 

(From the book, Sufi Mysticism: Art Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, by Hazrat Inayat Khan)

When Your Long Written Work (e.g., Book) Honors You

The days I make time to write deeply are days I feel arise from within me, rather than my reacting to them. There is something about simply stopping to listen to what is inside through writing that reminds me of how much there is inside me, all those treasures waiting to be noticed, called forth, brought into form.

It is not the same, for me, as writing down a dream or dashing off a journal entry. There is something about writing a work ~ most often, a book ~ that seeks not only deep exploration but coherence, like tracking the threads of your life in the trust (sometimes, wobbly trust) that they truly form a pattern, and a beautiful, radiant, inspiring, worth-it-all pattern. There is something about writing a work, a longer work that asks commitment and endurance and willingness to risk and find everything, that calls me back to it again and again, even when I am a forgetful devotee. It reminds me that even despite all the awkward beginnings and utterly too many pieces of paper drafts, I have given my soul to this; I have set a creation in motion, and that creation now has a life and wants to honor mine.

How will this creation honor my life/yours, your life? Perhaps by the public's adulation-to-come, and the best-seller-status and financial rewards to come. But for now, in the writing process, the honoring comes by what I get to remember in the writing, and that ~ in its more revised, developed incarnation(s) ~ it holds the great, deep love and energy of the very thing I was seeking when I set out (boldly, ignorantly, tremulously) to write it in the first place.

My current book is Living in MotherWealth, a sequel to my book, MotherWealth: The Feminine Path to Money. Living in MotherWealth began as a wish to have my daily, my moment-to-moment being in that place I called "MotherWealth," which I "fell into/was forced to my knees into" in the story recounted in the first book. I thought perhaps, God willing, there could be a way to live in that Being place, where everything is given, without having to sacrifice everything one had, was, and knew.

At first, this sequel was mostly a litany of my deficiencies ~ difficult to read back, but cathartic to put down on paper. Over the years, about 3 years now, the "deficient" script began to wear thin; and in its place has come an awareness of incredible wealth, inner wealth, that every human being has inside them. My discoveries of such wealth through the writing began to percolate in my cells, in my consciousness, in my daily life: brushing my teeth and feeling the pleasure of that cleansing instead of just getting it done. Taking a shower and feeling the caress of the hot water, hearing the plink-plonk of the droplets touching down on the bathtub floor: music. Music and being here have become a gift from the book to me, once I returned and returned again to it and said to myself, "This is what I have been looking for. This is what is in me. This is who I am."

To come back to writing my long work, although much yet remains to be done with it and much yet exists to let go of, reminds me that I exist beyond all the outer forms, beyond all the to-do's, beyond all the ways that this book, once it becomes a "product," might serve my more material needs as well as emotional and spiritual. This long work is a kind of a life, in chapters.

And are not our lives like that, as well?