plea to a muse (Yoga for Writers workshop report)
The thing I always wonder, on all those websites and in all those books and in all those workshops and speeches, the ones tell you to stop right now, to make your life the life you want and how to make your dreams come true one step at a time, that it’s hard but you can do it, is this:
What if you don’t know what your dream is?
DING DING DING DING DING
follow your bliss. do what you love, love what you do. etc etc etc.
sure, if you’ve been dancing ballet since you were 4 or always dreamed of writing a novel or reeeeally love woodworking, i can see how this kind of advice is useful for people who have passions. real passions. things they dedicate themselves to. things they lose sleep over, get up at dawn for, give up everything else for, cash out their 401ks to fund.
i am now 35 years old and after attempts at various endeavors in business and the arts, i still have no idea what my “bliss” is, which makes it difficult to follow.
last sunday morning, i attended a 3-hour Yoga for Writers (Y4W) workshop with one of my longtime favorite irreverent SF columnists, Mark Morford (so much so that i’ve had a blog category devoted to him since 2004. god i’m such a fangirl.) Mark is also a yoga instructor, and after many years of regarding them separately in his life, he recently learned that combining them is double the pleasure, double the fun. so when i saw the workshop announcement i thought hey! i’ve been doing lots of yoga and writing for over a decade too! so i should go - this is for me! maybe this will unlock some of my confusion around what AM i doing with my life??
prior to, my mind had totally been occupied with all the Occupy stuff all week. endless reading about economics and tax models and discussions about consensus and active democracy and rights and all kinds of dense things. so i hadn’t really thought much beforehand about the workshop or what i was going to work on, writing wise. so i was a little mentally exhausted and a little unprepared.
in the opening minutes of the workshop, Mark talked about reasons why we might all be there, as writers, and how the physical and mental practice of yoga can be used as a tool to unblock our creative energy and really let go of our egos in order to write freely, fluidly. and i immediately recoiled, because, as far as i can tell, i don’t have that problem. i’ve never really had ‘writers block’. in fact, i have the opposite problem: SO MUCH TO SAY SO LITTLE TIME. i wasn’t quite sure how to reframe what he was talking about to fit that problem, and so i was like “oh, shit. this workshop is not for me.”
and then he talked about how so many writers live too much in their heads and neglect their bodies, these pale weaklings who never leave their basements and spend days in their sweatpants. um, also not me. see: the 2+ hours of exercise i get most days, and all the dancing i do. i am WELL AWARE of how much body movement affects my mind: my best blog posts are written while biking/dancing/yoga-ing.
so what was i doing there?? i started to fret.
the thing is, i am trying to figure out WHY i write. and whether i should be trying to channel it into something more productive than blog posts and facebook screeds. the idea of “monetizing” my blog has always caused me to wince, and writing under deadlines for someone else’s umbrella also seems painful. to date, my writing has been purely CATHARTIC. and i have always been happy with that. it gets things out of my head. and occasionally, someone else tells me that they appreciate it too, that something i wrote really resonated, or they were glad i wrote about something they were too scared to say. and that has always been enough.
but right now i am going through what some might consider a “transition” phase in my life, and one of the ideas embedded in that is i am considering *gasp* graduate school. and one of the programs i have been looking at is Writing focused. so, this means i really do need to consider the question: do i want to be a Writer, and how?
and so it was that i found myself in a writing workshop, not so much trying to be a better writer as trying to figure out What The Hell I Was Doing There.
one of the pieces that Mark handed out was this, from Teachings of Rumi:
There is one thing in this world that you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there’s nothing to worry about; but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.
It’s as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human beings come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don’t do it, it’s as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It’s a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It’s a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.
You say, “But look, I’m using the dagger. It’s not lying idle.” Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny, an iron nail could be bought to serve the purpose. You say, “But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and all the rest.” But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself.
Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give your life to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don’t, you will be exactly like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You’ll be wasting valuable keenness and foolishly ignoring your dignity and your purpose.
and my God if that didn’t make me immediately anxious and depressed. IT’S TRUE. I AM DOING A THOUSAND THINGS BUT NOT THE ONE THING. FUCK. WHAT IS IT???
in the end, i still don’t really know. when i walked out, i felt like the balance was definitely tipped more in favor of Yoga than Writing in terms of things i am really into doing right now. would the workshop have been different for me if it were framed as Writing for Yogis instead of Yoga for Writers? maybe.
anyway, i have no conclusions, but in the spirit of the workshop, letting go of your ego and not caring what anyone thinks about what you write and letting it just come out, here are the (mostly unedited) things i wrote in the workshop for the 3 writing sessions we did in between bouts of yoga. i’m not too personally impressed with them, but here you go:
I. writing prompt: a letter or prayer to your muse (at the time i determined that my living real-life muse is my dear friend Anastazia, who lives her dreams and welcomes and encourages you to live yours, but this is written toward a more ethereal idea of a muse.)
muse of movement and energy
of forces like wind and water and air
not attached
only light
soft and energetic
tell me where to move
where my energy should flow
in the best direction
the widest path
of creation
where should my eyes focus
what should my mind consider
and not
heaven sent madness
you twirl with open arms
feet like lightning
moving quickly
smoothly
with grace and power
shifting from this to that
energy dark to light
laughter and extreme joy
to deep, wrathful sorrow
lost
without this movement
stuck
mired in thought
please tell me which way to feel
where does my heart lead
.::.
i woke up a few days ago at 3am
and was immediately, upon awakening,
relieved by the silence of the dark night
which was sort of startling
because the noise in my sleeping head
had been so very loud
and nearly every day, it is so loud in my head
and there are all these things i want to say
for my own understanding
for my own voice to leave my head and find a reflection outside
but then when i go to say them
they seem futile
why am i moved to speak
when i don’t even know what i’m saying
perhaps i should consider more silence
in my head
in my heart
in my fingers
in my eyes
it seems wrong that when all i want to do is scream
i should compel myself to silence
could this be the opening of the path?
the break in wall of the dense jungle of my mind?
.::.
here to let my creative juices flow, he says
but first i need to know why i’m here, i think
i am here to figure out why i’m here
it makes no sense
.::.
II. writing prompt: triggering the senses: sensuously feel a cotton ball. and then slowly eat a piece of dark chocolate, letting it melt down your throat.
the strength of cotton and chocolate
the cotton ball
hundreds, thousands of soft wispy and whispering strands
together like silk form strong fortresses
a crunch, a woven message
fabrics against the universe
the cotton boll
on a dead stalk, swaying in the hot summer sun
butterflies hover, weevils invade
brown hands pick future textiles
such softness and such strength
a combination for an empire
.::.
a recollection of laundry dyed pink
from one red sock
of wrinkled tshirts in smelly piles
yellowed arm holes
your favorite jeans
worn threadbare
so strong that something so cheap can last forever
.::.
similarly, chocolate
beans growing high on hillsides
terraced rows
farmers in woven hats picking slowly
baskets full of gold
sorted, peeled, roasted, ground, powdered
shipped into everything from liquids to gelatin to the finest cakes
this bitter leaf, this bitter pill
full of richness, earth, minerals, labor, love
sticks to your tongue
and brings a world to your senses
.::.
white and dark
spun and burned
pulled and milled
worn and eaten
the offerings of the earth
pulled up by hands
and distorted
used
ingested
worn
thousands of years,
on your body
down your throat
you cannot be disconnected
the threads of this material world
are too strong
.::.
III. what do you really love?
no matter how we try
our animal spirits are inopppressable
relentless
upstream
the dance of nature
of human nature
of animal nature
of computer nature
attempts to control these things are both disasterous and beautiful
the strict regime of ballet
the models of economics
houses and fashion and cars and paintings and newspapers and radios and democracies and whorehouses and churches and boats and gardens and bath tubs and watches and shoes and ovens and books and megaphones and graphs and scriptures and plays and children and whiskey and puppets and penthouses and slums and markets and monasteries and hospitals and movie theatres and strip clubs and libraries and lectures and opium dens
all of them are dances
attempting to define, refine, speak
understand
our spirits
the unspoken knowledge of our true selves
assuming there is Truth anywhere
presents itself in all forms.
everything is an art.
.::.
i love to see the spirit move
i don’t care if it is evangelical
or demonic
sacred or profane
a kitten or a politician
an innocent or a terrorist
every expression exposes the nature of things
the universe: in its entirety
can you believe that everything is beautiful?
.::.
Filed in autobiographical, blogging, morford worship, not poems | Tagged with mark morford, rumi, yoga for writers | Comment (0)Leave a Reply
