New Life Story Seeds # 9
Places of Possibility
Dear Friends,
Time for action. Enough wallowing in ambivalence after the initial enthusiasm
about a "white room" for a writing retreat. It's such a grand idea,
and the fulfillment of a long-cherished dream to convert that screened-in back
porch into a real room. But after the fantasy comes the reality of getting the
job done. Stay tuned for the ongoing (and perhaps never-ending) story of home
and soul repair in the Hearth and Soul column.
In this issue, a quotation from poet and activist Audre Lorde speaks to us of
hope, courage, and possibility, and you'll find juicy questions, resources, and
stimulating websites to explore.
Cut, cut, cut. First I cut back the author profile to one paragraph, and now I'm
cutting it back to zero. I'm running out of time, and besides, no one could do
justice to the rich and inspiring life of Audre Lorde with so few words, so I'm
waving you on to the search engines, Amazon, your local library, or your
independent, neighborhood bookstore. Have you explored your library's computer
system yet to search and reserve books from the comfort of your own den? It's a
whole new world in there!
Thanks for all the wonderful messages about your locations, writing lives,
homes, writing rooms and retreats. The dots on the world map are proliferating.
I appreciate hearing from you, and I do so adore email. Drop me a line at ellenmoore@newlifestories.com
Wishing you all the hope, courage, possibility, and new life stories your heart
desires,
Ellen Moore
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In This Issue:
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A Thoughtful Quotation
Juicy Questions
Hearth and Soul
Links/Resources/Gift Book Ideas
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A Thoughtful Quotation
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"These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are
ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness.
Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of
creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The
woman's place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is
dark, it is ancient, and it is deep."
Audre Lorde, "Black Mother Woman"
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Juicy Questions
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Do you (or do you not) believe that all of us, male and female, have both a
masculine and a feminine part of our being?
To what extent do you feel possibilities within your depths?
What is possible for you? What is not?
What within you feels ancient and primitive?
What within you feels fresh and new?
When have you felt most powerful and creative?
When have you felt most weak and uncreative?
For you, is there a relationship between power and creativity?
What have you been taught about power and its uses?
Are there unexamined and unrecorded emotions within you awaiting your
exploration?
What, for you, is deep? What is shallow?
Is there darkness within you? Do you fear it, or do you welcome it?
What within you may need darkness in order to germinate?
What within you may need sunlight in order to grow and flourish?
Have you ever had the experience of tapping into unexpected resources?
If you have within you a place of possibility and promise, how do you get in
touch with it to draw on its hope and energy?
Have there been periods of darkness in your life? Have they been productive and
energizing, or have they been demoralizing and draining?
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Hearth and Soul
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Thursday, January 20, 2000
It's time. There's that elusive state of readiness. Finally. I take a deep
breath, and at 10:00 a.m., I open the yellow pages to page 242, "Home
Improvements." With an orange marker, I highlight the double handful of
names and addresses within our immediate area. One by one, I make the calls. All
that resolve and action, and I reach only recorded voices. I leave nine cheerful
messages about "getting an estimate on some repairs." I say my name
and phone number slowly and carefully, as clearly as I can.
Then I wait.
Saturday, January 22, 2000
Still waiting.
The snow sparkles, enlivening and transforming the back yard. The birds gather
in greater-than-usual numbers at the feeders and suet containers--a veritable
convention of juncoes, chickadees, purple finches, cedar waxwings, cardinals,
woodpeckers, wrens, and nuthatches. There's a blue jay or two and some
gloriously iridescent blackbirds. By afternoon, doves perch high in the bare
trees, and when the hawk cruises, all living things scramble for cover--even a
rat and the occasional vole. I've made sure to put out extra corn and sunflower
seeds since the baffles aren't up yet: A squirrel can chew through a plastic
feeder and eat more seed in five minutes than a dozen birds; chipmunks climb to
the top of the poles like circus performers, hop to the feeders, stuff their
cheeks to golf-ball size, then scurry back to their burrows.
The day shimmers with sunshine on snow, pen on paper, and National Public Radio.
I file papers, watch the birds outside the window, and try not to keep an ear
cocked for the phone or think about "thecurrentproject."
I sautee eggplant and garlic for a pasta sauce and make a thick
barley-lentil-tomato soup. I add dried lemon and apple slices to the glass jar
of kitchen pot pourri I've been assembling: bay leaves, dried ginger slices,
cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, cloves, orange peels. I feed the birds again.
Emilio and I read the "Times" together in the living room. I think
seriously about making enough whole wheat dough for bread, sweet rolls, and
pizza crust, but dismiss the idea as too energetic. I trundle down to my nest in
the basement, turn the little heater from "Lo" to "Hi," and
snuggle into the recliner at my desk to answer email.
And I wait.
Now that I've finally made up my mind, I'm ready for the next stage: I want
answers, estimates, avuncular advice, plans, cooperation, enthusiasm, movement.
Waiting has always been difficult for me, and I've tried to "push the
river" most of my life. Trouble is, the universe usually doesn't move at my
preferred pace. Things take time, and the lessons of patience and letting go
have been problematic and ongoing. What did Anne Lamott say? Something like,
"There's your will, and there's God's will, and yours doesn't count."
5:00 p.m. The phone rings. Mike with an Irish lilt says he'll stop by on Monday
to give me an estimate on the repairs.
Sunday, January 23, 2000
Why did it take me so long to make those calls? I've undertaken bigger and more
important projects than the simple renovation of a back porch, haven't I? How
long would it have taken me to open the phone book if I hadn't exposed the
problem for all the world to see (well, 160 people) so I'd suffer embarrassment
if I let those glass shards lie forever on the patio? Why am I so ambivalent?
It's not fear. Or is it? It was enough to keep me from taking action. What could
I fear?
Having our quiet existence disrupted for weeks with stacks of wood, buzzing
saws, pounding hammers?
Choosing an inept and careless carpenter who leaves a trail of disaster behind
him like the last one? Paint slopped unevenly and dribbled on chairs and floors,
broken paneling, piles of scrap lumber secreted behind boxes of books? My
attempts to get him to clean up after himself only made him so whiney and
petulant that I finally lost patience and banished him. Manitas de Hacha, Emilio
called him. Little Hatchet Hands.
Finding termites in that rotten wood? Worse yet, when one damaged timber is
removed, a chain reaction would cause the whole house to fall in on itself, beam
by beam? Remember that children's game where you throw those polished sticks
together in a pile, then hold your breath as you take turns removing one stick
at a time until you pull out the one that makes the whole stack collapse?
Whoever pulls out that one loses the game.
Spending too much money? What if the estimates are so high I couldn't possibly
justify the expense to my Puritan superego? I would settle for the barest
minimum of repairs. I'd bite my lip and say all right, just fix the door and the
wall and we'll leave the porch for never.
I can talk back to these whisperings. I have answers for them all, can put them
in their places with logic and common sense. Simply by writing them down, I can
shrink their vague immensities into concrete, solvable challenges.
But there is a darker, more foreboding suspicion:
If I had that "white room," I'd be more organized, and my life and
papers would fit neatly into a few dozen pigeon holes, neat little slots in
sturdy wooden organizers, right? My life would be simpler, there would be far
fewer distractions, and, and, and…
Worst of all, what if everything went perfectly, and I created the
quintessential writing retreat, but nothing changed, nothing happened? What if I
settled in to write and found I had absolutely nothing to say and said it badly?
What then? Nothing and no one to blame but myself.
All right. Yes. Maybe it's a fantasy. I'd sit there tapping away on the laptop,
surrounded by trees and skies. Short stories, novels, plays, and essays would
flow effortlessly (in finished form, of course) from my fingers every few weeks.
If only I had that "white room." If only.
Of course, there is the philosophy that we need to arrange our environments to
support and sustain our holy intentions. If I want a singing bird, says the
ancient proverb, I must keep a green bough in my soul. Place is important. But
what if this desire of mine is only a sophisticated form of running away? An
elaborate system of excuses? A self- hoodwinking?
I've always had trouble with "here" and "there," and with
"being here now." "There" has always been so much more
enticing than the difficult "here." If only I were "there"
instead of "here," then this and that would happen; then I could
accomplish this, that, and thusandso. If only. If only. If only.
"In the valleys you look for the mountains," said Judy Collins.
"In the mountains you've searched for the rivers.
There is no where to go. You are where you belong." Yes, I know that
intellectually, if not in the gut. I know the obstacle doesn't really block my
path. That the perceived obstacle itself actually is the path I need to follow,
the lesson I need to learn, the gift I need to accept.
What if I'm not really longing for a "white room," but for a larger
life, for a place of possibility, for a point of light and freedom? If I built a
possibility chamber, then my life would have to change, wouldn't it? But where
is that place? Reading Audre Lorde reminds me to ask: Do possibilities lie only
in the outer world, or within my own being as well? Even within my own darkness?
Almost certainly within the darkness?
So all this angst is probably less about creating the perfect writing retreat
than about writing "seriously," whatever that means. I've written
every day (with occasional time-outs for stress or illness) for more than 20
years, but I'm ready for a new level of commitment. I seek more time and fewer
distractions, but the truth is that the distractions arise mostly from my own
mind, not from outside.
Some fundamental shift wants to take place, some internal gesture.
I've been writing text for an inspirational coffee mug:
three juicy questions about the writing life, beginning with "What if
you…"
Perhaps this gesture I seek to accept is more a matter of vision than carpentry.
Perhaps I need to shift to first person singular to ask those three questions of
myself, and let the lumber fall where it may:
What if I just kept writing those stories deep inside me, no matter what?
What if I launched words like shooting stars into the dark and welcomed
rejection as proof I'm sailing toward my dreams?
And what if I finally allowed myself to become the writer my soul has always
dreamed I could be?
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Resources/Links/Gift Book Ideas
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Audre Lorde
A good place to begin for information and web sites about Audre Lorde:
"A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde"
Lorde,
Audre. A Burst of Light. Firebrand Books, 1988.
Lorde,
Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Crossing Pr, 1984.
Lorde,
Audre. The Cancer Journals. Aunt Lute Books, 1980.
Lorde,
Audre. The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. W W Norton & Co, 1997.
Lorde,
Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Crossing Pr, 1983.
"One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers" is a
refreshing exploration of the creative process. According to Gail Sher--teacher,
psychotherapist, writer, and Zen Buddhist--the four noble truths are: (1)
writers write, (2) writing is a process, (3) you don't know what your writing
will be until the end of the process, and (4) if writing is your practice, the
only way to fail is not to write. This liberating and hopeful book may open
inner doors as it leads you to daily writing practice. Great quotations,
exercises, and insights.
Ready to be transported? Try the music of these three groups: the Klezmatics,
Dead Can Dance, and the Chieftains. One of them will surely "send"
you. I won't try to describe any of this music. No one seems to know who first
said "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture," but
you'll just have to experience these phenomena for yourself. Suitable for
ecstatic and passionate writing (when you dare). Warning: May induce extreme joy
or dancing.
Klezmatics
Dead Can Dance
Chieftains
"I am in no doubt that when we contact the Muse through daily writing we
make a link to the divine," writes Heather Blakey in "House of the
Muse." Visit and revisit her temple to extend the boundaries of your
creativity, celebrate your potential, explore the collective unconscious, and
experience the fundamental shifts that happen when you write daily. Subscribe to
her daily newsletter and check out the resources and activities for stimulating
creativity and breaking writer's block. Click on "Muses" to find a
beautiful and instructive fable called "The Princess and the Muse."
"My dear subscribers," Olga writes. "Hopefully, you have rested
very well at the weekend and are ready to begin new work week full of force and
life." Who could resist such a welcome? If you delight in culinary
adventures and reading about food or travel, you'll love Olga Timohina's
"Russian Cuisine." She'll send you an authentic Russian recipe every
two days, along with food-related cultural and historical tidbits. Recently,
there was a recipe for Pryaniki, a traditional, decorated honey and almond cake
offered to guests and relatives. For guests who overstayed their welcome, there
were also "leavingaway" Pryaniki. When they received these cakes,
guests had to leave immediately. "We are going to cook soup for dinner
meal," says Olga in today's message: "Kapoustnik Belorussky" is
Belorussian Cabbage Soup. I love these mailings and can't wait to try some of
the exotic dishes. Sign up for the recipes and explore the fascinating
historical lore in the website at: http://thunder.prohosting.com/~cuisine/
"Let's honor our mistakes by allowing them to teach us. Let's consider our
failings to be gifts, and share them humbly with others. Let the cracks in our
perfect facades let in light and air so that new life can grow through
them." When I saw this quotation from coach Molly Gordon, I knew she was a
person after my own heart. Sure enough, she offers online workshops on
creativity, prosperity, and "Playing Your Bigger Game." Sign up for
both of her newsletters and explore the articles and quotations. <http://www.coachladybug.com/coach.html>
You know how there are days when a particular thought or quotation leaps out at
you just when you need it most? That's often the case for me with "The
Motivational Message List." Daily inspiring quotations and short articles
arranged by themes. <http://www.Motivational-Messages.com/>
If you've always wanted to write children's books, then the "Hedgehopping
Newsletter" is a good place to begin. Feature articles will cover "the
basics," and will clear up some of the mysteries about writing, submitting
and publishing for the first time. You'll also find a free newsletter, helpful
links, and exercises to unstick writer's block. <http://www.homestead.com/Hedgehopping/index~ns4.html>
Looking for stimulating conversation and writing inspiration? Have you ever
joined a writing or journaling community? The biggest and most active is the
ScribeTribe. "Listen" for a while, then jump right in. You can join by
sending a blank message to:
ScribeTribe-subscribe@onelist.com
A smaller, more intimate community is Phil Rich's journaling discussion group,
in which everyone participates. Phil is a generous and genial host, and he makes
sure each person gets "heard." You can sign up at <http://www.topica.com/lists/journaling>
or at Phil's website, The Healing Journey, at <http://www.thehealingjourney.com/>
THIS LINK NO LONGER WORKS.
The Healing Journey website is built around the eight journaling and self help
books in "The Healing Journey" series. The site promotes journal
writing and self help, and provides information, articles, and journaling books
that deal with many life passages and issues, including grief, divorce,
menopause, addiction, job loss, and retirement. The first two books in the
series focus entirely on journaling writing for personal development and self
growth, both for individuals and couples who want to further explore their
relationships and share a journal together. <http://www.thehealingjourney.com/>
THIS LINK NO LONGER WORKS.
"A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure in which he
reveals to us the inner working of his soul," wrote Tolstoy. Two online
journalers are doing just that:
The first is Heather Blakey, who is making her debut in the online journal
format. We know her from her "House of the Muse" site for writers'
inspiration. Just this week, she's taken the plunge into deeper waters, with an
ongoing journal called "Living a Writer's Life," in which she reveals
her deepest hopes and fears about making the commitment to be a Writer. Heather
has many stories to tell about multi- generational light and dark adventures
with her muse, the ongoing renovation of her Victorian home, her Australian
heritage and culture, her devotion to Hestia, goddess of the hearth, her novel
practice in teaching, and her ability to "let go and slow down" to
find her own rhythms. Perhaps above all, she serves as an example of a woman who
has the courage to put herself on the line (and online) in order to reach for
her visions. I am thrilled by the promise of this new journal. If it's anything
like Heather herself, it'll be something to behold! <http://www.eisa.net.au/~oracle/dailyw/daily.htm>
The second is poet Catherine Ednie. I confess. I've been seriously addicted to
"Vestinambula" for well over a year now. Her writing is--how can I
describe it?--audacious, trenchant, avant garde, poetic, both spiritual and
unconventionally theological, searingly honest, experimental, hopeful, and
hopelessly beautiful. In the past year, she's undertaken a series of revisions
and is writing a whole new life story. I almost always feel as if I've been
punched in the solar plexus, and I hold my breath in suspense. Visit Catherine's
journal at:
<http://www.westwick.com/>
Speaking of journals about the writing life, I just discovered Jackie Wooley
Robinson, who recently downshifted to the shores of Lake Livingston in East
Texas in order to find more time to write. "Sex, Lies, and Stories: A
Writer's Journal" is her latest book. I was captivated by the first chapter
online, and knew I had to order it. "It seems crazy to go on, and it seems
crazy to stop," she writes. "Is it because of tenacity or naïveté
that we keep on writing?" It's a journey of the spirit, and along the way,
she asks herself why she writes and why it took so long to get started. All four
of her books are available only as cyberbooks, and they're quite reasonably
priced. Check out her fiction, too.
Oops, gotta go. "Sex, Lies, and Stories" has just now arrived in my
email box, and I can't wait to settle in with it. <http://www.livingston.net/books/welcome.htm>
THIS LINK NO LONGER WORKS.
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© Copyright Ellen Moore, Ph.D. 2000
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