Happy Writing on Halloween

Halloween decorates neighborhoods and malls. 

   
Ghosts, witches, and goblins abound at every corner. 

Skeletons shake in the breeze. 

 Pumpkin designers become more creative each season.

Write a fable or poem about a Halloween happening. 

Choose a costume to describe yourself.

Transform a carved pumpkin into a story of flight.

Write about a haunting at Halloween. Who lives here and what lurks in the shaded rooms?

Imagine what happens in the turret?  Creep around to the back where you hear growling.

What does the full moon inspire?

Create clankings and eerie sounds that arise from the basement.

Enjoy a Bootiful Day.

Go For a Do Day

We drive down the street and negative signage accosts us at every turn.   

STOP.  Do Not Enter.  

     Wrong Way.  Stay back.  Danger.  

       

Do not feed the birds. Do not.  

Do not.  It's all about NO instead of DO.

Rewrite all the signs you pass on the street.  

Turn Stop into Stop and Go for it.  

Encourage motorists to DO positive actions.

Hurrah for YES!  Just do it! 
Reword the negativity and make it a DO day!  

What would this Night Heron have to say?

Go for a DO Day.

The Energy of Epiphany

"This is the moment I call epiphany . . . when the relation of the parts is exquisite . . . its soul, its whatness leaps to use from the vestment of its appearance.  The soul of the commonest object . . . the structure of which is so adjusted, seems to us radiant.  The object achieves its epiphany."

 -  James Joyce

The typical story carries the seeds of conflict. Two men are rivals in conflict for a girl, a treasure or a corporation. They are evenly matched and only the author's deceptive clues will tell you who is the good guy and who is the bad. The action can seesaw until eventually someone wins.

James Joyce dispensed with this formula and created short stories to reach a moment of revelation or epiphany. In place of winnings and losings his stories dealt in nuances, illuminations, and sudden spiritual manifestations.

Joyce used epiphanies as both a way of seeing or hearing and a way of showing and writing. He used fragments of overhead conversations of strangers. Accounts of dreams and others included brief dialogues betweeen Joyce and individuals he knew. Some are poetic-prose statements or transcriptions of actual life. He defines epiphany as the quididtas the whatness of a thing.

Life fades into the sunset or a silence prevails. Often no one wins or loses and many characters do not reach self-knowlege in the moment. They do not even realize how hopeless they are. The stories reach their conclusions only in the minds of the reader. Or, the whatness of a character is revealed like a light bulb over his head.

After Joyce introduced the concept, the meaning has become elastic. Writers have attempted to use subtle effects of this technique to reveal character, attitude and emotion.

Epiphanies are used for short mood pieces because there's not enough action to sustain them.  The realization story may include urgency and a sense of something or the pain of discovery and self-realization.

Example:

Late in the afternoon, a married woman hurries to meet her lover. The breeze shakes flowers from the cherry trees that bloom in the garden.He is waiting for her and they make love with frightened haste. With a gesture reserved for women who know that they are beautiful, she tugs her dress over her head and tosses it behind her like unwanted memory.  -  Shulamith Wechter Caine
 
 

Try an epiphany:

1. Create an epiphany based on a quiet encounter with something that has always been out of reach.  Something always seems to have just turned its corner as you have turned your own.  This could be a moment in memory or pieces of a scene which needs dream and imagination to make whole.

2.  Build an epiphany for a character leading to an emotional realization. Begin with fragments of overhead conversations, a ringing bell, or an emotional incident.

Basho Joy

"Learn the rules well and then forget them." - Matsuo Basho

Autumn moonlight
a worm digs silently
into the chestnut.
- Basho

Basho wrote, "Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. In doing so you will let go of your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Your poetry arises by itself when you and the object become one."

Basho adored nature, children, and the moon. He found the universe in the smallest details, which he saw with the innocent eye of a child. He spent his later years on pilgrimages across Japan.

There is nothing you can

see that is not a flower.

There is nothing you can

think that is not the moon.

- Basho

Let Basho's joy hop into your day.

Old pond,

frog jumps in

plop. 

"Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of all creation - mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity - and enjoy the falling blossoms and scattering leaves." - Basho
 

A Morning Run

 

During my morning runs, thoughts unravel. Songs arrive to match the pace.

I look up where clouds fly, feeling a sense of nature's nurture. Breezes circulate with scents of eucalyptus and sea mist. The chill of morning air raises hair on my arms.

The sea coast brings a turn in the road and my tunes change. If a sadness or situation of concern populate my path, I scurry through them in search of a positive view.

Staying in the moment, I evaluate my toes as they hit the road. I check on knees, ankles, neck, shoulders for details.

Sea birds provide art in the water's reflection. Sea lions flash their smiles.

My hearing intensifies to bird song. An osprey's antics add humor.

As the pace increases, a shift in breathing occurs. Rhythm changes and a flow sets in that clears the mind.

Creativity soars with ideas that spring into focus. I pass an amazement of flowers.

The run ends only after reaching a state where I want to run forever. If I'm weary, just five more steps finish the day. That conditioning sets an eagerness to return tomorrow. 

Nurture Heightened Perception

I have not arrived at my understanding of the universe by means of the rational mind. 

- Albert Einstein

We use our rational mind to read maps, balance budgets, prepare taxes, and attend to many of life's activities. Carl Jung defined intuition as an unconscious process of perception required for creative thinking. He felt sense perception became a starting point to stimulate ideas, images and ways out of a blocked situation. 

No matter how small a drop of water, it reflects the entire moon. 
- unknown author

Our eyes, ears, noses, mouths, tongues, fingers and toes assist us to experience life. 

Questions abound:

Do we learn curiosity and creativity?  

Is intuition nurtured? Does it rattle in the background of experience, knowledge and synaptic connections?

Do you feel a heightened perception at times where sensory imagery leads you to discovery?

Will a flash in the corner of the eye flame into an idea or concept?

What unlocks mysteries and reaches for connections?

We benefit from a high level of curiosity mixed with syncronicity and its extensions. It becomes a push with all the senses to uncover flickers, fragrance and fun.

Awaken awareness to movement around you. Take in substances, textures and make correlations.  Invite synchronicity and include a collaboration with nature. Squint to see objects beyond what they appear.

Stimulate your perception. Ask questions of nature and write to discover.

 

Shine Your Whines

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”  George Bernard Shaw 

Do you worry too much and have serial complaints that take up brain space?

Stop the chatter and take up a pen or go to the keyboard. Write, don't whine.

l. Use awareness to learn about your complaining moods. Who or what sparks your whine tones? What area three ways to eliminate or minimize your exposure to these sparks that set off your flames? Add a humorous line.

2. Gratitude saves the day. Write three things, people or opportunities that make you feel grateful. Don't stop with three.

3. Take a breath before you gripe. When you feel a whine whirring about in your brain, toss a thought in its path. Write about overcoming blame. Keep thoughts handy for the next toss for gripe deflection!

4. Let creativity spark your troubles. Start with positive statements and write a few humorous lines about how to solve problems.

5. Rethink a whine and make it shine. 

Autumn's Questions for Writers

 

I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

    - Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903 in Letters to a Young Poet

Autumn brings a time of vibrance and change. Glimmers of orange, crimson, magenta, and flashes of gold permeate the days. As shades of blue search for a turn, gray flannel consumes the clouds. 

Landscapes arouse with lightning, thunder and showers. Scents of cinnamon and cider fill the air along with aromas of wood smoke from chimneys. The breeze tastes of promise. Nature's multiple personality during autumn reminds us to consider possible changes and pursue, rather than judge, our writing.

The time arrives to explore and pile questions upon questions instead of a search for answers. A pondering of  ". . . and then what” provide possibilities. 

We mine for more understanding if we permit the questions to climb upon one another. They will wrestle for opportunities we have not considered.

These ten questions will spark others as you write to them. Respond only with more questions. See what happens.

l.  How would you answer Rilke’s question:

Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write?" 

2.  How are you with your writing? 

3.   What biases affect your writing. Recognize their existence, list and write to them.

4.  What amuses you about your writing?

5.  How do you write about what feels wrong?

6.  Do you celebrate your strengths in writing?  In what ways?

7.  How do you provide constructive feedback for your writing? If not, who does?

8.  If you considered your heart’s desire about your writing, what would it involve?

9.  What do you write away from? How can you bring it closer to you?

10. What’s the greatest question writing nudges in you?

Take time to involve yourself with the questioning process as autumn displays its wonders. 

Just Be

 

What keeps you from staying in the present moment?  

Just be.

All thoughts and experiences are impermanent. No need to pay attention to the scurry of thinking that occurs in daily life. When you realize you do not need to attend to these thoughts, it feels freeing to drop them.

Think of three patterns that often circulate in your mind.  

Are they: Fears. Situations that will not happen. Relationship issues.

Find balance with laughter, song, and frolic.

Then . . . Just Be.

Turtle Tales

 

Turtle fables abound. A turtle represents creation, endurance, strength, cunning, longevity, and stability. Turtles provide happiness, protection and good fortune.


The turtle’s shell figures in many tales. Zeus invited a turtle to a party. When she declined the invitation and said, "There's no place like home," he put her house on her back. In China a turtle shell formed the vault of the heavens. Vishnu, the Hindu god, changed into a turtle's shape to carry the world on his back. For many Native Americans the world rides on the back of a giant sea turtle.

An African legend tells of the leopard who built a drum that everyone can hear. He will not permit anyone to try the drum, not even the Sky-God. Angered at this behavior, the Sky-God announces that anyone who can bring leopard's drum to him will receive a reward for teaching the leopard a lesson about his greedy, disrespectful ways. Then the Sky-God waits.

The elephant, monkey and tiger try to get the drum but the leopard scares them away. Finally, the tortoise steps up. The animals laugh and tease her because of her size and soft shell.

She proceeds anyway and tricks leopard by telling him his drum looks only middle-sized, but nice. She says that the Sky-God can climb inside his drum and not be seen at all.

The leopard brags that he can climb into his drum and not be seen, too. When he squeezes himself completely into the drum, the tortoise seals it with a cooking pot. She drags the drum to the place where the Sky-God waits. He laughs at the lesson that the little tortoise has taught a big, bragging leopard.

As a reward the Sky-God presents her with the strong, hard shell that the tortoise wears to this day.

In reality, sea turtles have poor eyesight and cannot use visual clues to find their way. Experiments have shown some turtles can detect differences in the angle and intensity of the earth’s magnetic fields. Scientists theorize they follow each region’s magnetic pull to find their way back to birth beaches. They have a built in global positioning system.

The first turtles swam more than 150 million years ago. Seven species of sea turtle survive today: loggerhead, leatherback, hawksbill, green, olive ridley, Kemp's ridley, and flatback.

Five of the six species that live in the United States appear on the endangered species list.  The sixth, the loggerhead, is listed as threatened. The last species, the flatback sea turtle of Australia, is considered "vulnerable" to extinction. 

Celebrate a turtle in words today!

Adventure Portals

 

A picture 
lives by companionship.  - Mark Rothko

"There are things known and things unknown and between them, the doors." - Jim Morrison






What happens beyond the gate?

Words in response to pictures reflect and interpret the world to form a relationship with others.  Sentences search a world of paradox and mystery. Barriers invite curiosity with portals to adventure.

What natural entrances invite a story or poem? Do you see the man of the sea hiding?

Let stories arise from one side of the entrance to the other.

Take a walk and capture a collage of portals. 

The Language of Friendship

 

The language of friendship is not words but meanings. ~Henry David Thoreau

John O’Donohue, author of Anam Cara, celebrates the soul that shines like a cloud around the body. He feels that when you become open, appreciative and trusting with another, your souls flow together.. 

O'Donohue writes, "Friendship is the sweet grace that liberates us to approach, recognize and inhabit this adventure."

In Celtic spirituality, the anam cara friendship stimulates the richness and mystery of life. The Irish believe an individual blessed with anam cara, has arrived at a sacred place.

Friendship becomes an act of recognition, response and reciprocity. It involves belonging. 

Photographs and cute sayings abound in the search for an explanation of friendship. Writers often delve into friendship's concept using abstract descriptions. What does C.S. Lewis mean by, "value to survival"? To communicate, a writer must show instances of emotion and affection.

Examine a situation of friendship to demonstrate its intensity and meaning in a scene that shows how individuals connect. Write to reveal how a friendship looks, feels, and sounds. Let taste and scent have meaning in a relationship. Reveal how humor and play energize friends.

With words, share meanings.

Typewriters to Laptops

Do you remember plunking away on a Remington, Royal or Smith-Corona? Did you take a typing class to learn the QWERTY keyboard?  Or did and do you still muddle along with fingers in hunt and peck?

Jammed keys and carbon paper once ruled the day. Writing progressed from draft to draft by rolling pages out of the platen. After a sigh, one inserted another white page and soldiered on: musing, typing, correcting, and typing again. It required hours of focused thought.  

Back then, cutting and pasting meant cutting pages into paragraphs and taping the choices in new order. This also involved pencil or pen corrections in the margins. A bottle of white fluid corrected small errors.

Then the electric typewriter arrived which had tape that corrected by removing lines of type. 

With the word processor, paragraphs could be re-arranged by a new form of cut and paste. Lines moved around right on the screen.

Now with laptop computers, one can go anywhere to patter away at the keyboard.  

Find freedom to write with possibilities.

Dream Cultivation

"Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking." - Black Elk, Oglala Lakota medicine man.

Let dreams encourage adventures. The situations during dreams could provide clues to inform waking life decisions.  

Keep track of dreams for a week. Write about their possibilities in real life translation.

Tune into resources and influences to guide brain chemistry. Find ways that enable you to see truths invisible or unavailable.

Encourage insights and fantasies to amuse and amaze with dream cultivation.

Remember a Choice

Every story, love or war, is a story about looking left when we should have looked right  

- Sarah Blake from The Postmistress

Remember a time you made a choice that sent you in a different direction than planned?

Think about a decision that eliminated a serious change in your life.

Recall a situation where you, by chance, turned right instead of left. 

      Write about a misstep.  How did you catch yourself before you fell?

Follow these memories in a freewrite.  

     Where will your choices take you today?

In the Details

 

"When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, 

all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance." - Thomas Merton

Find awakenings during the day.

Move into the details.

Squint to notice a duck flowering.

Search into evening's shine.