writing our way whole: 7 at home with the write resources on May Day

In this week’s offering I want to introduce an evolving, expandable treasure trove of some of the resources that delight, inspire and encourage me. In over 25 years of being Keeper of the ThoughtBooks, at the Busyness now known as ‘writing our way whole’.

Minding my own busyness and potential speeling misteaks (as I am off to Yorkshire (virtually) on a Beltane Retreat with Way of the Buzzard) in a few minutes.

Yet also sharing a passion in supporting and encouraging, stimulating, and setting free individual modes of writing-for-wellbeing, by collaborating with you and witnessing the songs that emerge.

And today I’d like you too to consider what are your resources for living with curiosity, spaciousness, and a measure of ease, aided by paper and pen.

Let’s kick off by getting out our pencil, coloured pens and ThoughtBooks (also known as notebook, diary, journal) – themselves vital resources, themselves subject to availability (e.g. here in a Sale at The School of Life) & subject to our own preferences –

and let’s unwind our Listlessness, and complete these List pointers, which are also acting as a sort of Brain Dump (see later):

Techniques as resources

I want to share now a few of the techniqes that, looking back, I’ve found most useful to jet-propel me into writing-for-the-rest-of-my-life. (I’ll hope to add more as we encounter further practices.)

I can’t claim to have invented all these from scratch – some emerged from similar ideas introduced in books. These three have particularly energised me and opened me up to this journalling practice:

You have met some of these techniques in earlier sessions, if you’ve been following ‘writing your way whole: at home’ in order, or if you’ve worked with me in the skin-and-skeleton. I don’t use every one of them every week.

Brain dump

Often guided by themed prompts such as this one (from session #5) about freedom and aspiration – with the intent to: complete the following phrases (remembering that the outcome is for your eyes only, so you can be as honest as you want, as weepy, as un-edited):

and today on May Day, a few extra Braindumpings on resourcefulness:

Sometimes the Braindump encourages us to explore our direct experience-in-the-moment, such as: what we are feeling, sensing, noticing, thinking – enquiring of ourselves kindly and with curiosity. We can then include a meditative element into the exercise.

This process I have adapted from aspects of mindfulness training at Cambridge Buddhist Centre and elsewhere, and from training in embodied consciousness, through experiential workshops given by Joanna Watters.

Golden thread

Here’s an example from session #3, where I suggested:

We then had the opportunity to “run” with the chosen phrase and/or ideas, travelling with them in a piece of free-flow writing, as unpolished, unexpurgated and unkempt as we want it to be, like my hair under solo lockdown.

Shapes, colours, symbols and meanings

and we will continue to work with a variety of similar approaches.

Today you could use the shape of a leaf to flow into. Or on the ribbons on a Maypole!

Love letters from our self

We haven’t used this approach yet in this course. It’s easier to manage in a face-to-face course. It involves using writing paper and envelopes to compose the sort of uplifting letter that you would love to receive – and you write it to yourself.

After addressing, stamping, & sealing the envelope, you swap the letter with a friend – or with the friendly teacher – who agrees to post it off to you at a random time within an agreed interval – about 3-5 weeks can work well.

Let’s delay doing this, out of respect for our post-people, although you can perhaps set up something with a member of your household, or leave “do not open until” instructions on a sealed envelope addressed to yourself…

“Extra resources this week”

Sometimes the exercises involve word puzzles and anagrams, something that I enjoy doing and that comes easily. I don’t expect all of you to enjoy this nor to find it easy, so I sometimes provide sample word lists at the end of the blog, to make things easier.

Today I am leaving you to play that game unassisted, using the letters of the word “resourceful” –

c e e f l o r r s u u

At other times I like to provide a poem (by one of you, by me, or by somebody else) as a prompt to our writing. (I’ve linked today to an online essay about dragonflies… see below.)

Or a link to a website that has delighted me – like this one, full of ebullience from 2008, with dancing and international togetherness.

Or this one: a TED talk (under 4 minutes; worth every second in my opinion) given recently by Neil Gaiman, master storyteller: https://www.facebook.com/TED/videos/254590742350209/

As ever, I am eager to hear your feedback on your experience of using these – and other – resources, especially in these months of limited face-to-face contact.

“The gratefuls”

I like to round off my writing sessions with an appreciation practice. First encouraged to do this by Bodhipaksa, the teacher and moderator of an online meditation community (at www.wildmind.org ), I introduced it to members of my writing group in Cambridge. Some love it so much that they ask that we start our class with “the gratefuls”, to set a positive mood. Why not try that sometime?

Other online appreciation groups include A Network for Grateful Living. The website includes inspirational poetry, resources of many sorts, the opportunity to light a candle, and e-cards to send.

Finally, let’s reflect over the resources that we can share, and record those that we appreciate: