Reclamation

This post is mostly about Natalie Goldberg and the cycle of creativity, but first an update on 6 Changes. This week went well with my daily intention to declutter. I took something to the dumpster every morning on the way to work. It's going to get harder as I run out of obvious junk, but so far so good. The weekend plans changed: Danny had too much work to do so I came to Toronto instead of him coming to Guelph, which means I couldn't address the bigger cleaning projects. That will be next weekend.

After working hard for a couple weeks to set up the new blog (speedriverjourn), I predictably hit a slough of despond and exhaustion. I do much better in the process of working toward something than in the state of accomplishment, which I haven't learned to trust. The gloom didn't last long. I've worked out too many good habits over the past 14 months, and they quickly directed me into creative mode again. It reminds me of something Mary Jaksch wrote at Write To Done:

When we begin to observe our experience, creativity is triggered. For example, the moment I started to be interested in my lack of creativity—instead of bemoaning it—inspiration started to happen.

Maybe I am learning how to ride the cycle of creativity after all. It's good when I can feel a little down, understand why, and not get depressed about being depressed.

My theme word for the year was simplicity, but lately I've been thinking more about balance. Maybe they are the same thing somehow. Part of the reason depression didn't set in, I'm sure, is because my sleeping habits have recently become better than I can remember. Ever. So even when I felt exhausted it was a purely emotional outcome from days of focusing on that goal; physically I had prevented any sleep deficit.

This morning I had a delicious free hour to listen to something bookmarked a month ago: Tami Simon at Sounds True interviews Natalie Goldberg about Goldberg's 35-year commitment to writing practice and recent progress into teaching it as part of a Zen practice. (Thanks to The Art Of Mind for providing the original link). Goldberg's books Writing Down The Bones and Wild Mind played a vital role in my development as a writer during the unsettled and often traumatic late '90s, after I came out. My life would have been much different without them, probably more unhappy. Somehow during the past two years, despite a renewed devotion to creative writing, I have neglected to restore a Goldberg-style writing practice. 100 Words has taken its place, for better or worse. My old habit entails 20 minutes each morning with a notebook and fountain pen—keep the hand moving—writing for no purpose but a kind of meditation. It is not intended to produce poems, novels, blog posts or essays. It allows a writer to live life twice, as Goldberg would say.

To keep the mind shapely is to accept all dynamics of your human mind and your human life. I'm going to write a book now about one topic but it will get leaky and kind of smelly if I don't take care of the rest of my writing left with the writing practice.

That reminds me of how my own feelings and baggage keep threatening to seep through the pen whenever I sit down to write a poem or blog post.

Such confusion calls for discipline, balance, simplicity. Today I broke the rules of the 6 Changes Method (from another Zen teacher) by resuming my writing practice without forethought, concurrently with a different new habit. Maybe the muses will forgive me for backsliding from a previous devotion that lasted some years, and allow this.

This is one atheist's similitude to spirituality. I need it back now, while so many other things seem to be coming together.