Lost in Sox

Do you even wonder about single shoes? Some sit alone on the sidewalk. Others arrive in the gutter on a busy street.  How did they escape their mates? Who left them lonely on the highway?

What about socks lost in the laundry?  Some hide scrunched in towels.
Others wrap around underwear for comfort. Should we wear mismatched socks to attract the soles errant?

We develop comfort zones in our writing. Once in a while, we need to delve and take risks to push boundaries. Writing grows when everyone experiments.

Take a look at characters in mythology. How would they interact in today's world?

Experiment with sounds of words on the page. Sing your writing. Try for color sounds and sights that taste a certain way.

Write in two languages at once - one word at a time. Does one language add to the other?

Make up words and see how far you can take them.

Find humor in mysterious places.

When you do a freewrite, your mind will carry you into a variety of experiences. Start by writing an emotion across the top of the page. Then let your mind go. After 15 minutes, begin with the ending and write a story.

Play. Play. Play. If you find your internal editor invading your playground, write yourself out of the judgment.

Nurture your freedom to risk and choose one of the above for a fun write.You can always write about those escaped shoes and socks.

Get lost in socks.

When Mountains Call

Writer, Ursula K. Le Guin was asked, "Who is the most important person you ever met?"  She replied, "A mountain. I discovered that Tamalpais was at the very center of my being." 

Etel Adnan fell in love with Mount Tamalpais, the first vertebrae of the backbone that stretches all the way to Tierra del Fuego. She found herself,  “left with the sort of wonder that the sense of eternity always carries with it,” with a “feeling of latent prophesy.” The mountain became her muse, which she celebrated and serenaded in a flood of paintings and poetry. 

With Adnan’s insights, the mountain became both object of reverent curiosity and sovereign; both metaphor and not-metaphor.

Etel Adnan: Mount Tamalpais, 1985. (Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebano

Skinner Butte in Eugene, Oregon inspires with its views of the city and beyond to Spencer Butte's silhouette. 

Eagles nest in high branches. Along the snaking trail, squirrels, hawks, osprey, bluejays, flickers and sparrows share the journey to the top. 

Mind mountains attract daily as a struggle or an insight. Enlightenment arrives from reflection on sensual delights and challenges of nature's experiences. We learn lessons of solitude and climb beyond the fear of falling. In the step-by-step process, we defeat self-doubts. 

A mountain's simplicity and tranquility calm and soothe us into views where blues of sky meet the azure sea.

Take time when mountains call to listen to the messages.

Mind Flights

Yes! Yes! Yes, and. . .

Do you feel that NO! has become the most overused word in the English language? It deters us from creative thought and action.

In a moment of decision, try to consider what YES would bring to the situation.

Dutch author, Berthold Gunster, inndicates we need more, ‘Yes, and…’ He explains that ‘Yes, buts’ get in the way of creativity and innovation. We think: Yes, but it didn’t work before. Yes, but what if it fails. As a result the’ Yes, but’ creates limitations, hazards and obstacles.‘Yes, and ‘ looks at possibilities and process. 

Notice ways to think and Yes your way to success in your li

Gunster says, “ Start by looking at reality in a different way and deconstruct a problem into a fact so you can move from ‘yes but’ to ‘yes and.’ Look at the bare facts and examine what you can do with them.”He also indicates ‘Yes, but’ has a positive side for balance. 

He leaves us with the notion, “Yes, and people invented the airplane; Yes, but people invented the parachute."

What will - ‘Yes, and’ - do for you today?

Join the Circus

"I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. When my characters join the circus, I'm joining the circus."  
                   - Anne Tyler

What does it mean to join the circus?






Choose a circus member, take on the persona as your own and fly with it. Are you an elephant trainer? Or the lady who rides the white horse with a feather in his bridle? 

Would you like to become a fortune teller for a day? 

Could you tame the lions? How about swinging from the trapeze?

Delve into your imagination, let your writing flow and see where it leads. 

Promote Possibility

The problems of our time are political, ecological, economic—but the solutions are cultural. How do people speak their truth? How do we listen eloquently? If communication is the fundamental alternative to violence and injustice, what is the work of each voice among us?  - Kim Stafford

MOVE BEYOND current events and negativity. Probe possibility and cultivate creativity.

If you had access to resources of power and possibility, what solutions would you pose to solve issues that face our country?

Choose one concern to investigate. Rather than take sides or shred current views, let your creativity and writing skills launch an alternative.

Write to present creative solutions and uncover ideas when you speak your truth. 




Pursue what Kim Stafford asks, "What is the work of each voice among us?"

Promote Possibility.

Writing from the Unconscious Mind

Writing ideas and solutions lie waiting, hidden in what Sigmund Freud called the "unconscious mind." He felt memories, feelings and mental content - outside conscious awareness - affected all individuals. The key element of his theory focused on the causes of mental disorders and how to deal with treatment.

While Freud promoted the "talking cure" writers moving into the unconscious mind can discover the "writing cure."  Freeflow writing explores and brings forgotten tendrils of thought and connections to the surface. Possibilities and solutions journey through the fingers to the page or screen.

When writing to unearth these unconscious notions, a mine of hidden treasures exists. Writers can uncover and use "repressed" notions to develop characters or to generate other forms of writing.

Neuroscientists focus on how much mental life happens without knowing much about it. Let writing become the process to use all concerns in productive ways.

Appreciate your underground stream. Write into the caverns that contain gems and gold bits in hiding. Take advantage of shapes and shadows. Experience colors, sounds and scents. Spiral unconscious thoughts and feelings to the surface.

Friendship's Inspiration

The poet, Rumi, sought to find truth in competing beliefs. He said, "A life without love is of no account. Don't ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, eastern or western…divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water."

When Mongol armies got close to his home in Konya, Rumi walked out alone to speak with the general, Bughra Kahn. Surprisingly, the Kahn felt such authority in Rumi's presence, he did not sack Konya. Legend has it that the general said, "There may be others like him."

Coleman Banks, who has translated the words of Rumi, speaks of friendship, "However it might be in this violent world, I would rather see us walking along inside the mystery of friendship, with its soul fury and its kindness, to sit down together finally at the table that Rumi, and many others, have set."

Of all the things that wisdom provides...the greatest...is the possession of friendship.” –Epicurus

Reach out to a friend today.  

Reconnect with someone you may have forgotten over the years.  

Write to a friend you need to talk to in words to resolve issues.  

Send a note to someone who has inspired you because of Friendship.


Make a connection to celebrate Friendship.

Everyone has a deep friend

and something that they love to do,

A beloved and a craft. - Rumi 

Action for Characters

Alan Alda, the actor, discussed dramatic action with an auditorium filled with writing students at Southampton College in New York.  He walked on stage and immediately asked for a volunteer.

When a young man came up, Alda poured him a glass of water from a pitcher. He asked him to walk to the other side of the stage with the glass. Then Alda crossed over to him and filled his glass to the brim. No millimeter of space remained between the water and the rim of the glass. He instructed the man to walk to the table on the other side of the stage and put the glass down but not to spill a drop.

Then Alda upped the imaginary ante: “If you spill anything your entire village will die.” The man and the audience chuckled at the melodrama but he moved forward to accomplish his task. The auditorium sat silent as everyone focused on the rim. A small bead of water started down the side of the glass met by gasps from the audience. The tension increased in the house. Finally the volunteer made it to the table and put down the glass of water. Thunderous applause erupted.

Alda asked the audience to decide which trip across the stage had involved them the most. He explained if a play does not root itself in dramatic action, no one will watch it. One also must do this on the page.

Then he ended, “Before you bring your characters into a scene, ask what you will do with them. How will you have them strive for what they want?”

Consider what David Mamet says about plays. He feels they should start late and finish early. Get in after the exposition and leave before the neat wrapping up. Alan Alda suggested letting the opening scene in “Othello” guide you. Roderigo and Iago fight about money. Roderigo has tired of paying him to plead his case with Othello. In the course of their fight to prove his point and keep the money, Iago reveals the difficulties working on and manipulating Othello. We know all we need to know about Othello and Iago revealed in action.

Get into the action with your characters.

Happy Moments

A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden’s beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.
                                                 - Rumi

Immersion in a natural setting provides moments of tranquility. Sharing smiles and laughs brightens the spirit and engages the human connection.

Watching a cormorant nesting gentles the mind.







When laughter conquers the day's mishaps and exercises the stomach muscles, contentment circulates.

Love is the bridge 
between you and everything. - Rumi

The Journey

Most of us live in this paradox: we are trailing glimpses of insight, knowing why we are here, and not knowing. We both remember and forget. We are imbued with wonder, and sometimes consumed with loss, from childhood on; we pursue our purpose in a thousand ways.

        - Christina Baldwin, The Seven Whispers: A Spiritual Practice for Times Like These

The Seven Whispers

  Maintain peace of mind

  Move at the pace of guidance

  Practice certainty of purpose

  Surrender to surprise

  Ask for what you need and offer what you can

  Love the folks in front of you

  Return to the world
                 - Christina Baldwin

        

Opening into imagination enables a suspension of judgment. A move into a state of the true self occurs where reverie takes over. 

Fantasies fling us along paths to observe obstacles. We marvel at aspects of self forgotten or not considered.  

The journey enlightens and enriches.

If lost, we acquire new ways of trail-finding while listening to our inner voice of dreams and passions. 

A step off the path merges into possibilities without fears.

Smell the colors, taste the breeze.

Attitude and Awareness provide the guidance.

Rocks along the road lead to wonder and design.

Fiction for Family and Friends

“Ideas are everywhere. Lift up a big rock and look under it, stare into a window of a house you drive past and dream about what’s going on inside. Read the newspaper, ask your father about his sister, think of something that happened to you or someone you know and then think about it turning out an entirely different way.” ~ Ann Patchett

Family members and friends provide fodder for fiction. Choose a family member with colorful adventures or an ancestor you're heard stories about. Begin with a character description of a friend and let your creativity soar with details. 

Switch from the ordinary to extraordinary and extend all possibilities.

If you had a great aunt who ran a restaurant in a small town, turn it into a rowdy bar.  Spice up the drama with a secret shared. If you had a relative with pioneer history, write a fifteen minute character sketch about travel across Indian country. Do your friends have any mail order brides in their history? Expand their stories.

Bring an ancestor to the present day. How would Wild Uncle Will from the old west deal with tweeting in the modern world?  Did your friend, Annette's grandmother really design shoes for the Rockettes? What if she worked for Nike today?

Stretch your imagination when delving into family and friends. Combine characteristics of one or two individuals into a character with a story to tell.

Nature's Nurture

Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. - John Muir

Birds ride in their sky; delighting us with colors
in plumage and the flurry of flight.

When a bee lands on a flower, think of a wish that arrives in fulfillment.


Stay in the moment.

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

The Buddha

Worry Less

Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.

- Benjamin Franklin

Concern and worry muddle our minds. Concern has a function. Worry lacks the logicality of concern. It focuses on an obsession of what might happen.

Turn worries into walks in nature and feel the wonder. Find a focus if a worry wanders into thoughts.

When a frustration creeps in, exchange it for a scent from the breeze. 

Notice flying cloud formations to distract from anxiety.

Let the sunlight in to warm your day.