Inward Bound
Journaling and Wisdom Stories
People keep journals for many different purposes:
Drawing or sketching,
Recording dreams,
Recording fragments of thoughts, ideas, and conversations to weave into a story, book or poem,
To take note of (and try to make sense about) personal dilemmas, relationships, and experiences,
For posterity, to pass a sense of history and time to future generations,
As a form of meditation or spiritual practice,
To record the events of daily life,
To write the grocery list or a list of books you want to read but probably never will, or the Badger Women's Basketball schedule, or where Brett Favre is now, or an A-Z list of 26 things (from Ants to Zucchini) that are easier to get rid of than Brett Favre, or . . . well, you get the idea.
And many journals include all of the above, and more.
All of these decisions provide great opportunities for procrastinating. But you finally land on the right combination of materials and sit there, poised, waiting for the ideas, the words, the images, the feelings, to flow.
Once you've decided to keep a journal, you're ready for the next step: Equipment.
Are you the random-scraps-of-paper journaller?
Do you prefer a loose-leaf binder so that you can stick pages in as you do them, or do you like a bound book?
Are you a word person, or a doodler?
Do you have different journals for different purposes?
Do you have a favorite writing instrument, or are you equally at home with a crayon as you are with a fountain pen?
All of these decisions provide great opportunities for procrastinating. But you finally land on the right combination of materials and sit there, poised, waiting for the ideas, the words, the images, the feelings, to flow.
And you wait...
And you wait...
And you wait.
Whether you struggle with writing or just hit a dry spell every now and then, it's useful to have a few techniques to get you started.
JOURNALING STRATEGY: MORNING PAGES
Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way, was developed as a 12-week program for "recovering your creativity." The New Age spiritualism of the book sometimes gets in my way, but the book has a some interesting and useful techniques. My favorite was what Cameron calls "morning pages." Here are the basic steps:
- Set aside a period of time, 15-20 minutes at most, every morning when you first wake up. Set a timer so that you don't have to think about time, or be tempted to stop early.
- For this period of time, simply write whatever comes to your head, without stopping. If nothing comes, you write about that. There's no editing, no examining, no planning.
- When the timer goes off, stop, close your book, and get on with your day.
Neither quality nor quantity are the goal, and Cameron suggests that you not even look back at your morning pages. The exercise serves the same purpose as warm-ups: getting the ideas.
FINDING YOUR WAY TO YOUR WISDOM STORIES
©Lorna Aaronson March 2011
Waiting. I pause, clearing my mind, and wait. Seconds pass, and minutes. Sometimes the stories come rushing, sometimes not at all. The middle of the night, or in the early dawn, or while' I'm doing the laundry. Sometimes wise, sometimes mundane, or at least not yet wise.
Some of our stories are readily accessible. They may be stories that we've heard or re-told countless times. Others live within us, in our thoughts and memories, in our bodies and body sensations, often in fragments, often unformed. Here are a few strategies may help you move through the “layers” created by our life experience to that inner place that holds meaning.
Brew a pot of tea or light a candle. Make a delicious, fragrant soup, or bake a loaf of bread. Think about the first time you smelled that smell. Where does it take you? Does this smell bring to mind a color, or a time in your life? A place, or a person, or a situation?
Now drink the tea, or have a bowl of the soup, or a slice of the warm, fresh bread. Focus on the texture, on the balance of ingredients, on how it feels in your mouth and as you swallow. Does this change your recollection? What new thoughts are feelings are evoked?
With the house really quiet, listen for sounds. When you hear an unfamiliar sound, make up a story around the sound. What is it? Who is making it? Where is it happening? Have you heard it before? What are the experiences of your life that bring this story to you?
Listen for a familiar sound - a car honking, a distant conversation, the radio in the background. Write a story about that sound that could possibly be true but maybe isn't.
Write a list of firsts: I remember the first time I had a McDonald's, long before the "over a million sold" sign went up, and my date got change back from his dollar. First dates, first child, first crush, first "real" job (minimum wage, 80 cents an hour).
Choose a color. Take a 15 minute walk outside and take note of everything you see that is that color.
Write with your alternate hand. Perhaps writing with your alternate hand will give you more ready access to those areas of your brain, mind, memory that may bring fresh memory or insight.
Write with a crayon, or a magic marker. How does that affect what you write?
If you were writing in invisible ink, what would you say? How does that affect what you write?
Write or sketch out your wisdom story in different places, and under different conditions. If you usually require complete silence, or only jazz, or only classical music, put yourself in a different setting and see how it affects what you notice and what you write.
Find a place where you can sit outside, undisturbed. For 15 minutes, take note of everything you notice about everything that is within a 5' circle around you. Try to write continuously, without stopping.
Put your story away for a while. When you come to it again, do you think of this as a wisdom story? What makes that so or not so.
The Multiple Questions Technique: This technique encourages to go beyond the surface, asking questions in a way that helps you go into the layers of a question you're working on. Pause after each question to see what answers come to you, and then move on to the next questions.
Question 1: What is a question that is central to your life right now?
Question 2: What is the question beneath that question?
Question 3: And what is the question beneath that question?
Question 4: And now, what is the question beneath that question?
Question 5: Now, what is the question beneath that question?
A different version of this multiple question technique is called “Multiple Whys”. The strategy is similar: Ask yourself a question, and sit with it. And then ask, “Why is that important?” Sit with that for a bit, and then ask “And why is that important? And so on, through the layers of revealing and understand the deeper questions that may lead you to an insight that is often very far from what you expected.
Wisdom Stories in 25 Words (or Fewer)?
©Lorna Aaronson March 2011
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
. . . . .Attributed to Ernest Hemingway
The character limits on social networking sites have stimulated a new (or re-invented) genre of writing. Flash novels, hint fiction, twitter novels and other variations. These “novels” strive, with varying success, to create very short stories based on a few simple words: The 140 characters of twitter, 420 characters for Facebook, the six-word novel attributed to Hemingway. The characteristics of the form vary, but have some variation on the following:
When I confessed to not understanding John Cage's music, I remember being told that the most significant element of the music was what happened between the notes. Like that music, these very short stories sometimes take on some of the elements of wisdom stories in inviting you to bring yourself and your own stories into the unspoken space. In the words of the Expresso Stories website, (http://espressostories.com/)
“The most basic rule is that they're just a sentence or two, totaling 25 words or less. Less hard-and-fast - but equally vital - are a theme, plot, characters, and narrative development. Everything you'd see in any good story - but short enough to fit into the time it takes to reach the bottom of that bitter little cup, as you ponder on how even the briefest experiences can make life more meaningful.”
Format varies. In some, the title is an essential part of the story. Take these, from Espresso Stories, written under the “25 words or less rule.”
Cancer patience, Lilly Silverheart
Sighing, I resignedly typed my explanation for not returning to the job in LA. "Unfortunately, though my leave has expired, my beloved mother has not."
Naytheist, Lily Silverheart
Her concerted effort to live a good life resulted in the ultimate reward of reincarnation... as a housecat.
The Dinosaur, by Augusto Monterroso
When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there.
Borrowing from Hemingway, Wired Magazine's on-line collection features six-word novels, with contributions by From Wired Magazine's online collection, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html
Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood
Easy. Just touch the match to
- Ursula K. Le Guin
It cost too much, staying human.
- Bruce Sterling
For a little more taste of Hint Fiction:
Robert Swartwood (ed., ) Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, W. W. Norton, 2010
'Hint Fiction' Celebrates the (Extremely) Short Story, http://www.npr.org/2010/11/12/131276783/-hint-fiction-celebrates-the-extremely-short-story
Ian Crouch, "What Can You Do in Twenty-Five Words?" New Yorker, October 27, 2010. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2010/10/what-can-you-do-in-twenty-five-words.html
Book Suggestions: Telling Your Wisdom Stories
Compiled by participants of a Wisdom Stories retreat
First Unitarian Society of Madison, March 2011
Arrien, Angeles, Second Half of Life
Baldwin, Christina, Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story
Bausch, William J., Storytelling: Imagination and Faith
Davis, Donald, Telling Your Own Stories
DeSalvo, Louise, and Elizabeth Werts, Writing as a Way of Healing: How telling our Stories Transforms Our Lives
Flaherty, Alice, The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain
Fulghum, Robert, All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things
Fulghum, Robert, What On Earth Have I Done: Stories, Observations and Affirmations
Goldberg, Natalie, Writing Down the Bones
Keen, Sam, and Anne Valley-Fox, Your Mythic Journey: Finding Meaning in Your Life Through Writing and Storytelling
Leider, William, Claiming Your Place by the Fire
Maguire, Jack, The Power of Personal Storytelling: Spinning Tales to Connect With Others
Moody, Harry, and David Carroll, The Five Stages of the Soul"
Poole, Ed, Lessons from the Porch: A Gathering Place for Telling Our Stories
Remen, Rachel Naomi, My Grandfather's Blessings
Roberts, Elizabeth, and Elias Amidon (eds.), Prayers for a Thousand Years
Rosenthal, Amy Krouse, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
Ryan, M. J., ed., A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles
Rzepka, Jane Ranney, A Small Heaven: A Meditation Manual
Silk, Margaret, One Hundred Wisdom Stories from Around the World
Sumrail, Amber Coverdale, and Patricia Vecchione, Catholic Girls: Stories, Poems, and Memoirs
Wallis, Velma, Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival
Wheatley, Margaret, Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future