Everyone, Right Now, Is Writing Their Own Life . . .

What does it mean to “Write Your Own Life”?

Image courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu/profile/hvaldez1

Is it only an affluent person following the steps of a self-help book and dreaming about a more perfect affluence?

Could it also be a political prisoner who uses their mind to stay above the oppression, claiming a true freedom?

What about someone in Iraq, smack in the middle of the ISIS atrocities………?

So, what do I really mean by “Writing Your Own Life”?

Are we always doing it?

Perhaps remembering the analogy that every Reader is Rewriting the book in their hands—“Sam looks at Susan” becomes intimate in a way the author never intended—that hill the boy is climbing feels steeper than the words alone allow…

Then, allow yourself to believe our lives are books we’re writing…

Is it stirring and invigorating?

Depressing and cheerless?

Slipshod and bumbling?

Let me introduce you to Ashen—writer, therapist, and photographer …

I want to share excerpts from two of her posts.

First, … journey into mystery … :

“Close your eyes … switch on a light in the area around your heart and see the image of a rose bud emerge … at first a luminous tip of colour … the bud stirs … the sepals gradually turn outwards. See the petals unfold in a slow and fluid movement … until the rose has opened and exudes its delicate fragrance.”

Those words begin a story you can tell yourself—a story that can heal…

That post also holds a link to a short movie that can take you out of your present world and return you refreshed and expanded…

The other post—… the child in us …—begins with another visualization, deeply rewarding, and includes these words after the insights:

“Suffering brought to consciousness lifts the spell of self blame. Despite appearances of confidence and adult bravado, the child in us is often anxious. Deep down may linger legitimate anger, and, deeper still, sadness and the longing for a precious moment of total acceptance. We call it love. It takes time to soften hearts.”

And, these words:

“Imagination serves multiple roles. It can draw us into habitual loops of negativity and self harm, or stimulate insights and enhance creativity. Artists know this. Imagination can also heal psychic wounds frequently handed down through generations. The healing aspect is especially powerful when employed consciously.  Jung called it ‘Active Imagination‘.”

This Active Imagining, this writing our own script, this envisioning ourselves into new aspects of living is something that working writers do for their characters.

I suggest we all can do it for ourselves—Write Our Own Lives, whenever we want…

There’s much more to experience with Ashen‘s site—the exploration in Books, the delightful video linked to in Inspiration, the enchantment of Poems…

I feel moved to end this post with a quote from another of Ashen‘s posts:

A day, whether six or seven years ago or whether six thousand years ago, is just as near to the present as yesterday. Why?  Because all time is contained in now.

– Meister Eckhart

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Where Do Writers Find Their Ideas? ~ Revisited…

For anyone who happened on this post by mistake, I put a cool music video at the end.
Please don’t tell the folks who actually read the post that it’s for them, too :-)

Back in February I wrote a post called Where Do Writers Find Their Ideas?. The post may or may not be valuable but the conversation in the comments really got interesting.

I hope some of you will read that post and its comments so you can become the scouts for the territory this post is revisiting.

I want to add a few notions to my ponderings about where writers find ideas and, if the gods of blogging allow, perhaps the comments on this post can recall and carry forward what folks began exploring back then–especially if we get a few scouts to help us in our wanderings…

A few of the comments back in February touched on writers finding their ideas in the lives they lead–essentially, right in front of their noses. While it can certainly seem that way at times, I’m going to step out on that limb I keep weighing down with my own ideas and suggest that even what seems to come from in front of us is actually coming from deep inside–somewhere about six inches behind the nose and seemingly buried in the black hole that leads to another dimension some call the soul.

For the truly brave readers, I’ll link to a page about some of Plato’s ideas and another about some of Jung’s concepts.

O.K., now I’ll wait for the scouts and brave ones to carry out their missions………

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Alright, let’s carry on.

Look! There’s a writer right there, sitting at the computer desk writing on a piece of paper. Let’s peek over their shoulder.

I walked to the store. Strange lady there. Seemed kindly and normal till I looked in her eyes… Weird. She seemed to be damning me, calling me out on what I haven’t done for the kids, making me wonder–ok, she’s a witch but only uses her power to uncover what people are hiding from themselves. It feels like a judgement when she trains those violet eyes on you but she only wants you to realize your hidden strength, only wants the best even if if means a time of suffering through–

No, she wants no suffering and what looks like damnation of you is her own suffering, not being able to stop the manifestation of her power, her gift…………………….

O.K., I cheated.

I made the example adhere to my theory that even what seems like an idea from outside actually lives and breaths with what we add to it from inside.

But then, plenty of sane psychologists would say that everyone does this to some degree. Writers just can’t seem to help focusing on the process–taking what happens around them and infusing it with what-ifs and I betchas and spinning tales and knitting plots.

Then there are the writers who research various topics and use the fabrics of history as their launch pad. [mixing metaphors like that is one tactic some writers use to make their everyday minds jump the track and spin out yarns that glow in the dark]

Then we find the writers who go deep into the cave behind their nose and pull out whole worlds glimmering with unrealities that illuminate our lives with hope and courage, making our own dreams blossom and flourish.

Like almost all my posts, I don’t intend to lay down any rules or make up any musts. I want to incite. I want to prod. I want to tease out your own ideas; and, I pray you’ll play along and tell me the effect my words had on your own remarkable mind :-)

And, one last kind of writer, sitting alone with just their thoughts–full of characters they wish were real, that they’re working hard to make real. To that writer who can’t seem to let themselves crawl out of their cave and find a kindred soul, here’s a video with musicians from around the world, singing a song just for you:

Comments anyone?
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