I’ve recently undertaken the task of organizing over 30 years of poems, posts, blogs, published pieces, even segments of my capstone and prematurely crafted dissertation. I can’t help wonder how many pieces were tossed, buried, burned.
This project has proved to be an interesting compilation of my perspectives- what a long, winding road it’s been. Exploration of the internal whereabouts of myself in a broad spectrum of circumstances over my evolution and clumsy navigation of a wonderfully wild, sometimes arduous, and always meaningful life.
I’ve reread things I wrote when I studied in the Netherlands (a great social commentary on my time interviewing sex workers in the Red Light district), during my pregnancies (both the fear and amazement to be able to carry life), stories of relationship and motherhood, cancer tribulations, precarious practices of contemplative inquiry, damn near existential exhaustion, absolute academic exhaustion, and the overall rawness and fragility of showing up honesty for perhaps my biggest spiritual practice; writing.
it’s a creative alchemy of my observation of the inner world and the outer world, the words bridging the gap between them…. And I’m pretty sure that the words don’t actually come from me, but rather through me…much like when I teach or speak. This is what makes it a practice of trusting in something bigger.
Sometimes reading your own writing is almost as vulnerable as looking at yourself in the mirror. I mean really looking at yourself; your eyes-their curious, almost stranger like gaze in return, your skin etched with well-lived lines, the silent language of the face aged with story, survival, sweetness…soul shining out and wanting to be seen, while somehow also wanting to sneak back behind the portrait into the secluded and secret world of safe invisibility.
Looking back on the pages of my life through the eyes of today has proven to be a little cringy at moments but mostly a great practice of self compassion and gratitude for the process of growth and the privilege of living a spiritually rich life.
One of my favorite poets and teachers, David White, encourages writing to be a daily practice and I am committed more than ever- not to the product- but rather the process.
Much like art….more on that later.
If you want to close some mental tabs and empty some emotional chaos from the mind or body, stream of consciousness writing continues to be backed by practitioners and science.
Pick up a pen! And maybe every now and then, look back to see the self that got you to this day.
With love, Robin