there’s right and there’s wrong and somewhere in between there’s life
Filed in not poems, QOTD | Tagged with rumi | Comment (0)Out beyond ideas of wrong and right,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense..::.rumi
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:
Filed in autobiographical, blogging, morford worship, not poems | Tagged with mark morford, rumi, yoga for writers | Comment (0)burning man 2011: all or nothing (you get what you need)
i’ve come again
like a new year
to crash the gate
of this old prison
i’ve come again
to break the teeth and claws
of this man-eating
monster we call life
i’ve come again
to puncture the
glory of the cosmos
who mercilessly
destroys humans
i am the falcon
hunting down the birds
of black omen
before their flights
i gave my word
at the outset to
give my life
with no qualms
i pray to the Lord
to break my back
before i break my word
…
you have set up
a colorful table
calling it life and
asked me to your feast
but punish me if
i enjoy myself
what tyranny is this
-Rumi, from Fountain of Fire
.::.
Black Rock City, 2011.
unlike previous years, i did not write anything in my journal while on the playa this year. not a single word. never even removed it from my backpack. it wasn’t that i made a conscious decision not to – i just didn’t. last year i spent a lot of time reading and writing while there. this year i did almost none. i was so busy doing….what?
so i don’t know where to start with this right now, as when i try to recreate history without a record i always end up so confused. what is appropriate to say and what isn’t, out of respect for boundaries, respect for relationships, respect for art, respect for humanity? what did i really feel then, versus what i feel about it now? after this 7th year, am i just repeating myself?
perhaps.
Filed in autobiographical, burning man | Tagged with rumi | Comments (5)last thoughts before burning man 2011
Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.
— Rumi
this many years and i still can’t narrow it down.
once i get there it all seems so immediately and abundantly clear, but beforehand it is like a phantom in the mist. how can that be? like a far away lover you haven’t touched in months – you only remember the smell, the touch, the feel, the other information filed deep, resurfacing only exactly when needed.
.::.
i bring things like books and cocktail dresses. someday i should set up The Most Elegant Library Ever on the playa, with deep couches and chandeliers and velvet ropes and lace curtains and walnut bookshelves filled with hardcovers of everything from Sartre to Seuss, where you can sit and drink champagne while reading silently, or have quiet discussions about literary subjects.
.::.
however, all moments of periodic dusted and sunbleached elegance aside, in the thick of it, i like to get feral and not give a fuck.
i like to go to burning man and get lost in its dream, subconscious wandering interspersed with bouts of extreme physical hyperawareness and athletic mania. i like to be dirty and unwashed and sunkissed and running on empty and compulsive and punch-drunk and completely alive.
most of this is a personal experience, but at the same time i fall deeply in love with humanity and the people who commune with me and i want to feel all of them.
.::.
the rest of the world seems so fragmented, anxious, fluxuated, and holding its breath right now – my own life, and globally – that burning man seems like the safest place to be – the place where we can breathe, the place where we can all be perfect* for a little while, and not worry about failing.
*adj. exactly fitting the need in a certain situation or for a certain purpose
.::.
whether here or there: love.
Filed in autobiographical, burning man | Tagged with rumi | Comment (0)(keeping the door open)
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of it’s furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
–Rumi
Filed in not poems, QOTD | Tagged with rumi | Comment (1)in the wake
Those who don’t feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don’t drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don’t want to change,
let them sleep.
This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
If you want to improve your mind that way,
sleep on.
I’ve given up on my brain.
I’ve torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.
If you’re not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,
and sleep.
–rumi
Filed in not poems | Tagged with rumi | Comment (0)invest
These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, ‘How much is that?’ Oh, I’m just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.
What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.
Where did you go? “Nowhere.”
What did you have to eat? “Nothing much.”
Even if you don’t know what you want,
buy _something,_ to be part of the exchanging flow.
Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.
–Rumi
Filed in not poems | Tagged with rumi | Comment (0)
