Writing With Water

   

Everything on the earth bristled,
the bramble pricked and the green thread
nibbled away, the petal fell, falling
until the only flower was the falling itself. Water
 is another matter,
has no direction but its own bright grace,
runs through all imaginable colors,
takes limpid lessons from stone
 and in those functionings plays out the unrealized ambitions of the foam.                                                 --Pablo Neruda, Water

 

I enter the rainforest in Costa Rica....

         When we began traveling about five years ago I knew I would write about my travels and thought I might even make a book about my adventures at wisdom's edge. I asked myself some important questions: Do you think it's true that all serious writers and artists write and paint in order to make sense of things? Life? Death? The Mysteries?  Yes. Are writers and artists born knowing that inspiration can only come slowly and quietly in its own good time?  Probably. What part of this wide and beautiful world most reveals to me the answers to the mysteries and celebrates the wonders of life on earth? Water. And so I went in search of water in a rainforest in Costa Rica, on the North shore of Oahu, Hawaii, California's Pacific coast and at Sedona's Oak Creek. I went when I knew I was ready, after a very long period in the desert, when I was able to understand and appreciate what I found.

 

  Nature Beckons

Swan Lake at Buddhist Temple, Oahu

     On every journey the contemplation of nature, its shapes, textures, sounds, colors, sizes (qualities that make a work of art what it is) nudged me into connection with that inner place where an authentic creative voice has always resided. It took some courage to listen up because I was dimly aware of how it might turn out to be both a joy and a burden to tap into energies I thought were at worst non-existent or at best long gone. I drew inspiration from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's message in  Gift From the Sea: Honor the small still voice inside that urges us on to speak our truth, be it soft and sweet or passionate and bold. Her strong, clear voice is a testament to the power of retreat and return. She wrote her book over a period of time during visits to Sanibel Island and found that the water and imagery of shells spoke to her in a mysterious language that couldn't be transmitted any other way.

 

 Lankaster Gardens, Costa Rica

  Water Whispers

  

North Shore, Oahu

Water, the essential ingredient of every life form on earth, covers a huge percentage of the earth's surface and makes up seventy percent of the human body. This  element  symbolizes the feminine or lunar side of life, the side that calls attention to inner wisdom and healing. It makes sense to me that Lindbergh found her genius as a writer and power as a woman through communing with nature, conversing with the elements and surrendering to the sea. Her deliverance was through water, the reflective and luminescent substance often used as a means of divination, superb conductor of electricity that it is.  From an island off the coast of Florida this writer opened her heart, mind and hands to a big blue basin of salt water, and received messages brought to her by shells washed ashore from the bountiful, beautiful sea. What? You say you don’t think those shells were talking to her, whispering their secrets, spilling their stories?  But of course they were! Now whether or not what she heard spilling out of those shells came from the subconscious, the spirits or some other source entirely, well I don’t know and I couldn’t say. 

 

    

Self Realization Fellowship Meditation Garden
overlooking Pacific Ocean 

   

  Listen Inside

        What I do know is that as writers and artists we search for our own genius expressed as that still small voice and eye within. But often we feel the urge to resist listening to the messages all around us just waiting to point us inward. I say don’t do it, don't resist...be strong, open your heart and open your mind! Find yourself a patch of water, even if it’s only a tiny homemade pond of salt water poured into your best crystal bowl. Create an altar: Surround the bowl with a few shells and objects from nature. Surrender to the moment as you await your muse. Soon, in time and with a quiet, attentive, respectful repose, there will come the invitation to connect with the secrets that have the power to free your soul. And only then can you write the stories you hear and paint the pictures you see in the way they deserve to be created. 

 

Images Speak

 

5 Minutes. Find an image, take a photo or paint a picture. Then create a Spoken Image. Write about your image for five minutes  in a journal or diary using this image as focus. Keep it going, don’t edit, let it flow like water. 

Koi Pond at Buddhist Temple, Oahu

   

Take 2 minutes to review what you’ve just written, then single out a particular word, phrase or sentence that has special feeling or energy about it. Just one word or sentence that grabs you. Write it out on a page by itself.  For instance, I wrote about the photo above: "Orange. That color makes me feel so alive!"

"A room with a view in Escazu"
 Costa Rica

Take 10 minutes to write a page about the above. 
Write everything you know about what you chose to focus on from your image. Use any genre you like – memoir, poem, song, short story, novel, reportage. Begin to move deep, not wide, with a singleness of eye and pure intention. Move toward your one true voice by concentrating your  attention on this limited, clearly defined area as thought and energy converges into a single point of focus. 

For instance: 
"Orange. That color makes me feel so alive! I know they call those Koi large goldfish but they look orange to me. When I was a teenager I found an orange patterned shirt and capri pants outfit that made me feel like a million bucks every time I wore it. The pattern looked a lot like those swimming Koi fish. I don't know, maybe it's the call of the

wild or the activation of my second chakra (is that the same thing?) but sometimes, just to get  my orange on, I'll go to the grocery and buy a big fat O from the citrus section. I like looking at it and the juice so sweet and good, gives me solace and inspiration. The inside radials (I must remember to count,is it always the same number?) remind me of the happy rays of the sun. I think of days fat with promise and fun when I see an orange....I think next time I get one I'll cut the rind in to Koi shapes and swirl them in water, like tea leaves. Who knows what message I'll receive?") 

               

Sedona Hilton Hotel pool

A Spoken Image

Share.  Show and tell your intended audience (this can be an entirely fabricated individual or group…or a pet or the creek, the trees, a bird or some other special and beloved element in nature you feel communion with) which image and word/phrase/sentence you chose and why and then read aloud what you’ve written. If you have an actual, active listening partner, so much the better, although they will remain silent with no critique   required. The receiver of your message is there only to bear witness to your arrival at wisdom’s edge.

Oak Creek in Sedona

    

 

  .