The Tea House Writing Sessions

// June 1st, 2011 // 3 Comments » // metaphor, writing

I used to sit regularly at a Buddhist center back in Australia. One of the members there was a student of the Japanese tea ceremony and she used to hold a tea ceremony for us once a month.

The center was in the inner suburbs of Sydney, and we sat on our meditation cushions in this large but austere room as the sounds of traffic, children playing in their yards, and banging pots and pans from families making dinner swirled around us.

In the middle of all this we created our own enclosed world, where we re-enacted this ancient Japanese ceremony. We sat together in silence as our host taught us to whisk the tea in just the right way, and we would take turns to serve each other as we drank green tea and munched sticky rice cakes filled with sweetened red bean paste.

I was struck by all the elements of the ceremony, the beauty of it, and the contemplative and appreciative state of mind it helped to build.

These are the qualities that I’ve been drawing on as I’ve been developing the new writing sessions I’ll be offering here.

I’ve been hoping to lead some sort of writing project with my blog for a while now, and wanted to come up with a way of working with people that included approaches that have been helpful for me, in a format that is also great fun to work with.

What I’ve come up with is called the Tea House Writing Sessions, and they’re going to be available very soon.

The Tea House Writing Sessions will be offered in the form of either one-on-one sessions or group calls. They will take place over phone (or Skype).

Writing can be fraught with anxiety and isolation, and it’s easy to put off. A Tea House session is a place where you can get some respite from writing anxiety, tap into your own courage and writing smarts, and get a little success on the spot.

I’m using the metaphor of a Japanese Tea Ceremony as a guiding principle for the writing sessions. We create a refuge, a retreat from the world, charged with spaciousness and presence and ease. And we write together from there.

I say “we” because during the session I’ll be writing too. We also have the opportunity to read our work out to each other. (Reading aloud is optional.)

A Tea House Writing Session is not a coaching session or a writing class. It floats somewhere in between (beside, around) those things.

My role is to build a supportive environment for people who would like to write, and to offer myself as a fellow traveller. And there’s a process to help guide you beyond anxiety, procrastination, deadlines, worry–to the joy of actually writing.

The process includes guided visualization, a writing/meditation technique, lots of writing time, and a chance to read back your work and get some appreciative feedback.

In the sessions I’ve held so far, everyone has brought their own gifts and style and life experience with them, and from there they spill out all kinds of alive and surprising material. The emphasis is on feeling safe to write, and when that happens people lean into the edges of their writing and take it to new places.

I’ll be opening up the Tea House sessions for bookings next Monday. Sign up for my newsletter and you’ll get an advanced discount code when they open.

The Tea House Writing Sessions are now available–you can read about them and sign up here.

Cicada Time

// May 20th, 2011 // 4 Comments » // metaphor, poetry, work in progress

A cicada shell;

it sang itself

utterly away.

Basho (trans.R.H.Blyth)

Late Spring in Australia is when the air swells with the piercing cry of countless cicadas. It feels like the ground, the gum trees, and the sky are all vibrating with them.

The sound is incessant, to the point where it almost distorts your sense of time. It’s a harsh sound, and it resonates perfectly with the searing blue skies.

Cicadas are huge insects and have a jewel-like intensity to them. Part of that intensity comes from the fact that, prior to moving into the trees, they spend up to seven years living underground.

They come up from the ground when it’s time, attach themselves to a tree and then shed their skins, emerging from the husk into the outside world.

Once they’re out they only live for a few weeks, and so they really let loose and make a noise in the time they have.

As a kid I always enjoyed finding the abandoned shells left on the trees in our backyard, and liked even more to find a live cicada and hold it in my hand for a while.

The last few months have felt like a cicada time for me, the underground part. I’ve been developing a format for the one on one and group writing sessions that I’m going to be offering soon on the blog.

Very exciting!

The thing is, that as I’ve been developing the writing exercises, using them myself and then trialing them with a few people, all my creative activity has gone into my notebooks and journals.

I’ve traded keyboard for pen, and social media for writing in solitude. It’s been a sudden turn into a different way of writing, and a good reminder that creativity is an ever-shifting thing. Though I haven’t been putting much of myself out into the world, a lot of work has been going on underground.

I’ve written hardly any blog posts over the last few months but have nearly two dozen poems written that are currently being polished for submission. I’m excited about that because I haven’t written or submitted much poetry at all for the last three years, and it shows me that the writing sessions generate a whole lot of writing.

Next week is the song part of the cicada time, when I climb above ground and introduce my new thing to the world. I’m also revamping my slumbering newsletter from next week with advance discounts on the writing sessions and monthly art giveaways.

You can sign up for the newsletter in the sidebar right now if you’re interested.

Hope to see you here on Monday, spread the word!

Love Poem For A Moon

// January 20th, 2011 // 8 Comments » // metaphor, poetry

***

One night the tide refused to turn

and the moon, distraught, abandoned

her orbit and wheeled away. Nights

fell darker and the tideline teemed

with confusion as the soldier crabs

waved their claws and wobbled off.

Rock pools, having lost their Cyclops-eye,

became invisible against the sea

and sulked as shallow-creatures

rolled blindly inside them. The trees

un-silvered then turned into shadowy

spears, the light at the end of the tunnel

left, and everywhere, lovers leaned

out of windows, yawning. Meanwhile,

the moon had warmed to another planet

and threw herself into orbit along

with eleven other moons, completing

a moon harem. Evenings were lighter

here, and the new planet responded

to each moon’s offering: laundry buckets

reflected a dozen orbs from their water,

tides flipped over hourly, and lovers danced

in the streets where cobblestones

shone like twelve-pointed diamonds.

***

The Intention Rock

// January 11th, 2011 // 3 Comments » // creativity, labyrinth picture, Labyrinths, metaphor

Lately, I’ve been consciously working on setting intentions, both in my art-making and labyrinth walking practices.

I’m finding I don’t have time to not do this.

If I set an intention with a project, or chunk of work then everything naturally becomes more focused for me and usually something worthwhile happens.

If I don’t set an intention, the activity just rambles on and when I’m finished the results are often less … (what’s another word for awesome?) less … good-ish.

When I walk the labyrinth I’ve developed a habit of standing on the small section of pavers we have just in front of the entrance to the labyrinth. It’s where I set my intention for the walk.

Sometimes my intention will be to get insight on a particular issue, sometimes it’s simply to shake off some nervous energy and get a bit more centred.

The other day as I was standing on the paving stones and setting my intention, there was something about the way I was standing, and the state that I was in, that felt really familiar.

As I stood there my vision had gotten soft, and wide, and took in the whole of the labyrinth’s form. I felt alert and at ease at the same time, and really grounded.

I set my intention and walked. And the walk was great. It usually it takes a few circuits in before I’m really present and focused, this time I was present and focused from the first step in.

At some point in the walk, the reason for the familiar feeling came to me. The way I was standing at the start was a throwback to my surfing days. It was exactly the same state I used to get into before paddling out, whenever I was surfing at a reef break.

Before surfing at a reef break, especially one I didn’t know, I’d stand on a rock in front of the surf and take a significant chunk of time to survey the rocks, above and below the water, leading out to the break–finding the best spot with a nice channel that I could paddle through without getting smashed by oncoming waves.

Once the path out was set, I’d stand there for a while and get the feel of the ocean that day. What were the set patterns? where were the trouble spots on the way out? were there any rips that might help me along? or screw me over?

I remember that I would stand there and let my gaze soften so that I had a peripheral view of what was going on.

This wasn’t a conscious thing, it was before I ever thought about meditation or anything like that. It’s just what you instinctively learn to do as a surfer.

I would wait till I felt I had a path to follow safely out into the line up beyond where the waves were breaking, and I was in a centred frame of mind, then dive off the rock.

I never thought that much about it at the time. The primary purpose was to not get smashed on the rocks (and yes I did get smashed more than once). But looking back, I can remember the sense of calmness, and presence, and aliveness I felt before diving in.

What great qualities to bring to a labyrinth walk, or any creative project.

Some things remembering this has taught me about setting intentions:

• Get grounded before I set my intention. One of the really strong sensations I noticed, and remember clearly from my surfing days, was the sense of groundness, of being rooted on the stone section in front of the labyrinth, and always on the rock, or rock shelf as I checked out the waves. Even if I’m setting an intention to work on the computer, or make some art, I can imagine the feeling of the rock beneath my feet, reminding me to drop into that grounded, aware state before I embark on my work. That memory of being connected to the rock is carried in my body, in the soles of my feet, like a built in ‘Intention Rock’ that’s always with me, waiting to be called up.

• I also noticed that I just naturally let my vision go soft, so that I got the whole of the labyrinth in my peripheral vision. Again, this was crucial before diving into the water. It was a way of getting a visceral sense of what was happening in the water, of what I was going to have to move through in order to get to my goal. In the same way, I can try to get a fuller sense of whatever I’m working on as a way to help my intentions be more realistic, and in line with whatever circumstances I’m working with.

• Imagining my way through. Whenever I stood on the rocks I always, without fail, imagined myself paddling an exact route to where I wanted to go. Likewise, with my intentions, I can imagine a path that will get me to my intended goals, or at least imagine myself at the end, fulfilling my intention.

• At the same time as my vision softened and switched to the peripheral there was a tautness of focus. A really strong sense of alert presence. This was vital as a surfer because: rocks + huge waves! but it’s also important if I want my intentions to be in line with what I actually want, and to ensure that I’m alert enough to get the results I intend to create.

It’s been 6 years since I  last had a surf, but I can still recall the strength of that alert, focused state. It’s a great thing to bring up at the beginning of any activity. I notice, too, how the winding path of the labyrinth corresponds to the circuitous way I would negotiate through the rocks and rips to get to my spot in the line-up. I’m starting to think of my years of surfing as training for labyrinth walking, after all, surfing a wave is a lot like riding around on a liquid labyrinth.

*****

I’m trying to use Facebook more, and just installed a big Facebook ‘Like Machine’ in the side bar  –>

If you like this post, or this blog, I’d love for you to click the like button!

Cheers.

Eclipse Walk

// December 23rd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Labyrinths, metaphor, Uncategorized

I got to do a labyrinth walk beneath the total lunar eclipse the other night (this is one of the great things about having a labyrinth in the back yard).

At the start of the walk I set the intention to focus on the theme of moving between  shadow and light, and what that might mean in my life at the moment.

It was great to hold that in my mind while watching the moon move into shadow, the cusp of light at the edge getting brighter in contrast,and the movement of the clouds obscuring, then revealing the eclipse.

I put two candles at the centre, one standard candle in a jar and one three-wick scented candle. I also put two incense sticks in there, so there was a heap of light and fragrance as I walked around.

The candles were placed before a small Buddha who lives at the centre of the labyrinth. Each time I walked around the back-end the light was blocked by the Buddha, then would return as I walked around the front edge of the labyrinth. So there was a succession of mini eclipses going on around my feet to mirror the one in the sky.

One thing I’ve noticed about labyrinth walks is the little coincidences that reflect back things going on in my life, I always leave a walk with a heap of metaphors and clues to journal about. One nice little gem from the eclipse walk occurred at one of the dark points, where the clouds had moved over; a moth flew into my face.

We were really lucky, as the sky was pretty overcast but the clouds kept breaking up enough that we got to see most of the action. I started my walk a little after half the moon had gone into shadow, and stretched the walk out by stopping at each turn and looking up at the eclipse. When I reached the centre the moon was mostly in shadow, and glowed a muddy orange colour,with a fingernail of brilliant light peeking from the edge.

Beautiful.

Labyrinth Dreams

// November 24th, 2010 // 8 Comments » // Labyrinths, metaphor

One of the great side effects of immersing myself in studying, painting and walking labyrinths all this month is that they’ve begun to seep into my dreams.

I’m reading an amazing book called ‘Dancing at the Edge of Death’ by Jodi Lorimer, which traces the origins of the labyrinth back to the Paleolithic era. It’s an engrossing book and has me viewing labyrinths in an entirely different light.

Part of the reason I’m drawn to them is that sense of power the symbol holds, and walking along that symbol can be a charged experience. But to hear about the depth of the labyrinth’s history and it’s connection to the birth of metaphoric thinking in humans is breathtaking.

In my dream the labyrinths weren’t on the ground, they were small phosporescent forms floating around the heads of the people I was with. That’s the image I played with for today’s Art Every Day Month offering.