Archaeology of the Interior Life

"Gaining access to that interior life is a kind of . . . archaeology: on the basis of some information and a little bit of guesswork, you journey to a site to see what remains and what's left behind and you reconstruct the world." - Toni Morrison 

What matters the most in your life?

Answers to that question alter as you grow and mature with experiences and in thinking about choices. During a lifetime, we return to aspects of life that matter the most.

Think of an incident that shaped the way you view your life?  Was a hidden gift there, or a lesson you've carried forward?  

Did you make a choice in the moment that benefitted your future?  Could you have gone a different direction and altered where you reside in life today?

Recall an incident where you felt a real or perceived disadvantage of life.  In reflection, would you change the results?

Consider a choice you did not make or one that was made for you because of procrastination or indecision. How would you rewrite it from a third person perspective?

Do you have unfinished business in an area of life?

How would you define the mosaics of your life?

Freewrite to one or all of the above concerns. Notice what writing uncovers in the archaeology of your interior life. Then, as Morrison suggests, "reconstruct the world."

Imaginate and Make Mistakes

“I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”  

Thomas Edison

Use of the imagination stimulates travel into a wilderness of mind and movement where connections and cross-overs exist.  Mistakes happen as one careens in search of mysteries.

Often a stumble on the path leads to a butterfly hidden in a tree's root system. Foraging into the density of undergrowth uncovers beetles and ladybugs.

Dragonflies chased with a camera might defeat a photographer. When a song sparrow's call excites, its wings move faster than the shutter on a cell phone.

Missed photographs do not discourage. Determination energizes the stalking mind and eye. 

A step forward. A head's turn. A sit and wait. All lead to success.

Photos that blur still provide clues and insights. Patience and perseverance outlast creatures' antics.

Forged with determination and patience, a photographer occasionally turns away in despair.  Then captures an osprey as it arrives with dinner and takes time to munch. 

A true believer in failure as motivation, Thomas Edison welcomed mistakes and challenged rules. As a result he probed the unknown and experimented with the unseen. He recast the idea of failure as a learning opportunity. 

Edison claimed, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” 

With a diary that had over 5 million pages, Edison felt writing ideas expanded his creativity. This helped him discover an awareness of patterns in thinking and actions. He claimed he liked, "to find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it.”

Edison bragged, “I make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and sooner or later, I patent most of them.”  

If writers and photographers risk with mistakes, challenge rules and move beyond them, they can make discoveries about themselves and their art. What a way to applaud the fearless persistence, positivity and perspective that Thomas Edison maintained.

Edison's thoughts spark creativity, “There are no rules here — we’re trying to accomplish something.”  

Simple in Spring

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. 
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life. - Wu Wen








Spring encourages thoughts about renewal in life as well as writing. Writers need an opportunity to consider how to prepare for writing rejuvenation.

Keep it SIMPLE:

S:   Savor the growth around you in daisies, daffodils, crocuses, and tulips. Take time to watch nature’s daily progress. See the birds and insects prepare for spring.

I:    Invest in your imagination. Forget the world’s concerns. Imaginate each moment. Make discoveries, connections. 

M:   Meditate in your own way. Observing your breath creates awareness and relaxation. Focus on it for one or two intervals during the day. 

Sit comfortably, breathe in six times and out six times. Gradually extend your exhalations. 

Try for a fifteen minute period where you erase the jumble from your mind. 

Let thoughts flow by like clouds.

P:    PLAY. Distract yourself with fun and frolic. 

L:    Let go. Capture humor and spread it around.

E:    Eat nourishing foods and exercise.


Celebrate YOU!   Believe in yourself. Add your own spring fervor.

Find a word (sycamore, pelican, dandelion, salmon) and create your spring renewal with suggestions for each letter. Have FUN!

Focus on What Works

Design your daily journey with curiosity for each moment's potential. Focus on what works, not what's broken. When your dreams and ideals intersect with life's real journey, let your discontent energize your positive energy. 

We turn on the news and feel blasts of words detailing what does not work. How can we avoid the daily intimidation into negativity when inundated with the media's interpretation of a broken world?

My father told me, "Don't say can't. It doesn't exist in the dictionary." Defiantly, I ran to my dictionary to show him the word. I found cant but not the contraction can't that meant cannot, so I believed him. This reminds me of one of the best lines in from a movie, "Can't walks on won't street." When we say we can't, we really mean: we don't want to and won't. 

Success comes in cans but it takes our will.

Creative thinking results from an innovative choice in the moment. This attitude adjustment pushes beyond the onslaught of impossibles. Negativity becomes a bad habit. 

Everyone has the power to make changes!

Begin a list of what works in your life as a reminder. What gives you satisfaction? Go deep into the details and sensory imagery concerning your potential.

Consider one action you can do as soon as your eyes spring open each morning that pushes you beyond inertia.

What can you do for the environment or a loved one to express your responsibility?

Each day expand your list with creative solutions whenever you confront or learn of a difficulty or problem.

Attract and invent ideas for possible ways to balance the negativity around you. 

Become O Positive in your donation of energy to others around you.

Revise the headlines and words of negativity to reflect what works or write in new ideas.

Life Practice

Between saying and doing many a pair of shoes is worn out.~Italian Proverb

A Tibetan teacher describes practice as the wearing out of a old pair of shoes. We need to wear the soles thin. By that time we have worn through ego and delusion. The more time we spend in practice, the more we gain insights we would not otherwise discover.

If we stop our progress when frustrated, we will continue that practice. If we stop too soon because we feel eager to complete a project, we lose the opportunities to delve into connections. Insights wait for us with the next flow of ideas or sentences.

In the process of activity during life's joys or frustrations, stop only when you do not want to. Outlast yourself and stay in the action as long as you can. Just one more step, one more word, one more determination.

We need to seek revelations.  Like a comfortable pair of shoes with mileage, positivity will begin to energize us to keep moving.

Which shoes will you wear today?

Imaginate

“Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, 

for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine” 

- Ludwig van Beethoven

Author, Mark Z. Danielewski feels, "Passion has little do with euphoria and everything to do with patience."

When we create art, endurance propels us past frustrations and failures. We enter into the unknown with awareness. Puzzlements and dark emotions circulate during our path to a project. Even though we do not always feel good, we eventually create good feelings through the art we share.

As the artist Henri Matisse said, "if you want to paint a rose, first forget about all the other roses ever painted." Work from your inside out, explore your true nature, its freshness and originality.

Surge into your secrets and explode them into creations of all kinds.

Wander into the forest of dreams.

Lizardo imaginates under the O.

He grants marvels to the unsuspecting.

Octavio hugs the weary and forgetful.

















Discover a turtle that beckons dreams in waterfalls of wonder.

Whoever paints the illusive sky receives a ride on a heron's back.

Watch the majesty of miraculous arrive.

Unhook

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." 

- Alan Watts

Pema Chödrön promotes shenpa, which is Tibetan for  “biting the hook” with our habitual reactions. Shenpa thrives on the insecurity of living in a world of constant change. 

Tibetans call shenpa, "that sticky feeling." We feel a tightening, a tensing, a sense of closing down. Then we experience a withdrawing. The tight feeling has the power to hook us into self-denigration, blame, anger, and jealousy. Emotions lead to words and actions that do not serve us well.


Chödrön writes, "When someone criticizes us, our work, or leaves us, we may bite the hook of grasping. When something unfair happens, we may bite the hook of rage. When we are disappointed, we may bite the hook of numbness." 


What would it look like not to bite the hook in an action of non-shenpa?




Chödrön's philosophy involves how to grow and learn from experiences. She advises not to waste time berating oneself for supposed sins. Learn and move on. 

If we cultivate clear sight, which Tibetan Buddhists call prajna, we view our life without deceiving ourselves. Once we observe the self clearly, we grow and gain strength for the next encounters. 

Consider how you talk to yourself concerning unhappiness. Do you malign and denigrate yourself to induce a wave of guilt that proves you are unworthy? 

"At moments like that, what is it you feel? It has a familiar taste in your mouth, it has a familiar smell. Once you begin to notice it, you feel like this experience has been happening forever," Chödrön says. She continues, "All we're trying to do is not to feel our uneasiness. But when we do this we never get to the root of practice. The root is experiencing the itch as well as the urge to scratch, and then not acting it out."

Learn to recognize when you get hooked in your experiences. Realize you have the wisdom to see your frustrations for what they are. 

The more you practice that realization the less control outside forces have on you. 

When negative feelings intrude, focus on the breath. Stay in the moment. Relinquish the need to react.

You'll benefit by not biting the hook. 


Feelings of freedom will take over. 

A Lunatic, a Lover, and a Poet

"The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact." 

 - William Shakespeare

We view these characters in Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream,"  from where the line is taken.  

What is the world of the imagination for you?  

Where does it nurture and take you?

In a lunatic's mind a dance occurs among demons, daring, and dread. The lover's heart and soul fill with sensory wonder.  Sounds, sights, scents and tastes become heightened.

The poet imagines beyond his or her reality and uses it to write about the world.

Writers require this multiple personality to achieve a jounce of words into sentences that propel into paragraphs and pages.

Pulls from extremes, spells of things, passion, courage and persistence define a writer's life.  To live life on one's own terms requires intensity and perseverance. 

Once patience settles in, we write on and on.

Consider stories that have shaped your life.  

Explore your experiences from the perspective of a lunatic, lover, and poet.

Ignite Intuition

Intuition involves developing an acuity of perception. It engages creative thinking with hunches and possibilities. A special sense activates to grasp the invisible and provide insight. Flashes of thrill and understanding result without barriers of perceived notions.

David G. Myers,  a psychologist, defines intuition as, "The capacity for direct knowledge and immediate insight, without any observation or reason."  Malcolm Gladwell, another expert, describes intuition as the "power of thinking without thinking."

Myers also warns of the perils of intuition. If it's untempered by logic and analysis, it can lead us down rabbit holes where we lose track of the difference between our fantasies and the real world. It can cause us to mistake our fears for  ESP or get lost in a maze of self-fulfilling prophecies.

What do you take from the abstract comments above? Would examples skew your thoughts?  

Write about your experience with intuition. How does it affect your creativity and life?

Take a Tour

Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

- Margaret Lee Runbeck

Take a break from your real world to travel on a writing detour. You're given a Gypsy wagon and a credit card for a month.

Describe your vehicle.What will you pack?

Where will you drive? Which territories speak to you that need exploring? Delve into the wild, grand, and meaningful. Set out on an adventure with words.

Let yourself create beyond all possibilities. Will you add wings?

Write yourself into fun and fantasy. Start your writing engine.

Wag More

While enjoying breakfast at an outdoor cafe, I observed two couples with three dogs. Each time the dogs jumped up and barked, the owners said, "NO!" and gave them a treat.  How amusing that the owners did not realize they rewarded the negative behavior they wished to stop. 

If they had waited until the dogs became still and quiet, then said, "Good dog," patted a head and gave the treat, they might notice positive results in the future. The dogs might wag more and bark less.

NO! rates as the most overused word in the English language. It resounds everywhere especially when parents catch children in negative activities. Yes! appeals with optimism and elicits stronger connections to positive action. In our fast paced world, it takes patience to wait for the right time to reward behavior.  Consistency to catch good action works.

We can modify our writing behavior with the same techniques. If discouraged and we keep writing even if not on the topic, we move beyond frustration. Our mood changes and we feel more internal rewards than feeling upset that we stopped. 

Watch for opportunities to use Yes! instead No today. Enjoy what it feels like to wait and reward positive behavior rather than reinforce negative actions.

The Illusive Chase

For years, Eudora Welty nurtured a photographic career. She said, “Life doesn’t hold still. A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.” Later she translated her creativity into writing. She decided words conveyed more of life than photography. Her legacy encompasses all aspects of the imagination in stories, novels, essays and reviews.


During morning runs, I relish moments of sights, sounds, and scents even though they interrupt my forward progress. Thanks to my cell phone’s photo capability, I chase the illusive.

Nature won't hold still or pose for my whim.  I moved the ladybug from a lower leaf to assist with the photograph above.

A Great Blue Heron is patient for only one or two clicks.

. 

I wonder
how squirrel
translates by tail
the metronome of trees.

Peonies will always pose.

As spring blooms with opportunities, take a walk with a digital camera.

Let the illusive aspects of nature inspire words.