Am I a Writer?

Words repeat inside my head:
If you want to be a writer, you have to write.
And:
Waiting until you feel inspired, may keep you waiting forever to write.

The questions arise again. Those internal insecurities about being good enough... creative... about having something to say... about someone wanting to read what I write.

What do I need to write? Not very much. Stories float around inside my head. Questions, curiosities, challenges all start my thoughts forming characters, places, quests. An image of a rope tumbled on the beach begins here:
He grabbed hold of the rope and tugged, checking the tension, feeling the strength. It held fast. He put his hands, one ahead of the other, on the rope, set his left foot against the rock face at knee level and pulled himself up. His right foot found purchase on the rock face, and he was off. Hand over hand, feet moving up the rocks.....

This is one of the adventures floating through from that image. Where will it go from here? The stories crowd inside me, looking for passage from one world to the next. The only require a pinhole to find their way out.

I need time, a computer or tablet, paper and pen or pencil. The first often is the most fragile, the slipperiest to reach. Now on to use mine differently.

What do you desire to create? How strong is your desire? How do you define yourself? How do you want to define yourself? What will you do to make your best definition come true?

Altar of Not Knowing

Wow! It's been more than a fortnight since I posted a blog. The time has been eventful, as well as uneventful, in fits and starts. What it was, more than anything else, was full of life.

In the midst of this amazing fullness, this quote and image appeared. The image reminds me of places I've traveled. The concept of an 'altar of not knowing' resonates deeply. It sweeps me away....

The most remarkable element is that I intend to keep, or perhaps allow, things to remain undefined. In the midst of shift. Among the changes. Flowing outward. Definition would stop the movement and create a stopping place instead of granting the movement the space to create and define itself.

Daily bowing, kneeling, visiting the altar of not knowing keeps my focus on the flow, the moment, the possibility. It keeps me awake. It brings me to the limit of love with mystery.

Where are you? What would your altar be named? How are you with keeping things undefined?

Easy Cures

Every now and again, I come across an image and a saying that strike me as almost too simple. My reaction is the mental version of smacking my forehead with the heel of my hand.

This one caused that reaction in me. Wow. It should be so easy, right? Yet I find myself awake in the middle of the night, thinking about .... well. nothing in particular and everything in general. Those weird questions run through my brain: What should I wear tomorrow? Is it going to rain/snow? What did X mean by saying Y? Did I pay the water bill? Do I have clean undies? I think you know the ones.

Then there are the bigger-than-life questions: What do I want to be when I grow up? and when will that be? Will I ever write the great American novel? Do I even want to? Do I have enough money to take a trip to Macchu Picchu? Will anyone ever truly know who I am? or love me for who I am? Is there a God? I think you know these queries too.

While these questions might keep me awake at night, I've gotten better at laughing at them, recognizing their potential for diversion, their non-real presence. The laughter breaks the mood, shatters the stress before it's fully formed, leaves me more relaxed. Then I can fall asleep.

I've also learned to laugh at these same type of questions that arise in the light of day as well. You know these too: Is my boss watching? Is this within my pay grade? Were my coworkers talking about me? Does my breath stink? Most of these questions pop into my mind because I feel insecure or "less than." Not because any of this is true or really matters. I make it important. I define my reality around some pretty silly parameters. That, in and of itself, gives me reason to laugh.

Do you sleep soundly through the night? Are there times you awaken anxiously? What is important in defining your reality? Can you find a way to laugh more? What would that be?

Original and Unconventional

I don't really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits.

~  Anais Nin

Much of the beauty in this world slips past because my mind is set to a pace that has become the norm for our culture. I miss smelling the roses, noticing a waterfall between the tree branches. dancing to music only my soul can hear.

I've always been an original. In the terms of Clarissa Pinkola Estes' stories, I felt as though I was a 'misplaced zygote' ~ as though I didn't belong in my family. Nothing big or bad. I simply felt 'different.' I felt that way everywhere I went. In school, at church, in gatherings of friends. Even when I participated in the same events as everyone else, I felt like an oddity, an outsider.

What Nin describes is not only allowing, but encouraging that originality. Perhaps even basking in the difference, the unconventionality. Her focus is on strength and courage, two traits I've been consciously cultivating recently. For me that means letting go of how I've defined myself for the past 20 years or so.... well, how I've allowed myself to be defined. How I've hidden behind some of the definitions. I believe it's time to move beyond them, to redefine myself. Or more precisely, to let who and what I am, and am growing into, shine. I don't need definition!

What defines you? How do you draw on your personal strength? your personal courage? Do you believe in your own originality? How does that manifest for you?

Self-Image

Yesterday, I worked on a very specific and significant piece of my self-image. I shuffled Colette Baron-Reid's Wisdom of the Hidden Realms deck, focussed and asked: What is it that I need to get past this particular issue? Chose a card from the deck and, viola! The Wise Woman of Wonderlad appeared. "She lets you know that as long as you're in the flow of honesty and being true to your word, she keeps you under her protection and care. ... you can never lose what is truly yours." Perfect!

Self-image issues can be about doubting oneself or thinking one is not important. My issue was a long-past one: others treated and saw me as something I was not. Yet I understood why they saw me that way. Something I meant one way was perceived differently. I reflected: Was I that other person, the one I was perceived to be? Drawing this card as I focussed and asked that question reminded me that I followed my path in an open and honest manner. Others' perception of me had more to do with them than it did with me. What a gift!

Are there perceptions or projections others have of you that affect your self-image? How do you stay true to yourself? How do you stay in the flow of honesty and integrity?

Stargirl 2

"We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past 'weird' and 'strange' and 'goofy'. Her ways knocked us off balance. A single word seemed to hover in the cloudless sky over the school:

HUH?"

~~ Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

Here she is again, that difficult-to-define Stargirl. As time progresses, being difficult to define means that the definition can become something like: "odd" or "crazy". Others have difficult capturing a clear image. She's ethereal. She is not like everyone else. Jealousy dictates at least some of the words. How do you work around the fact that she keeps you off balance? That she is both as attractive and as repulsive as a magnet? Our minds cannot deal with it.

What throws you off balance? Who do you know with characteristics that you find attractive yet are afraid of?

Stargirl

"She was elusive, She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew."                                               ~~ Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

Words used to describe Stargirl strike chords deep within our own psyche: "She was today. She was tomorrow." Who wouldn't want to have those words used to describe them? Someone who wields so much power of diversity, influence and change? Even so, she is observed, noted, labeled. Stargirl is a dream.... a different sort of person.... one who defies definition.

How would someone define you? Would that be different from how you would define yourself?