Time, the Moon, and Mary Oliver

As I watch the first month of the new year end, I am considering my relationship to time. Most days, it isn’t a good one. To my mind, each day begins so full of potential and then, by day’s end, that potential seems to have frittered away. So this morning, I meditated on time, the moon, and Mary Oliver.

When I lead writing workshops I always begin with an exercise called Here and Now, a present moment-focused, grounding warm up that lasts for 10 minutes and functions like a writing meditation. I turn to this practice personally as well, and this is part of what I wrote this morning:

The rising grey light of morning. Earlier, while it was still mostly dark, a sliver of moon in an indigo sky. That clear, pure, white light, symbolic of cycles, of time, but more accurately of nature. Our relationship to time rises out of nature, but on the way gets separated from it. Poetry can bring the connection back. Poets like Mary Oliver capture these moments of nature caught in time and reflect them back to us. (“This grasshopper, I mean–the one who has flung herself out of the grass…” ~ Mary Oliver). We lost this precious poet this year, but we will continue to be nourished by the words she took the TIME to create and write down. (“I’m going to die one day. I know it’s coming for me, too. I’ll be a mountain, I’ll be a stone on the beach. I’ll be nourishment.” ~ Mary Oliver)

We are all in relationship to time everyday. It is a precious resource—only 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 52 weeks in a year. These human-made measurements of time, and how we interpret them, can sometimes wreak havoc in the mind.

Yet nature gives us cycles and rhythms, bound by repetition and movement. Unless you’re at the equator, each day the sun rises and sets a little bit differently throughout the year. Time is never exactly the same on any given day, and neither is our experience of it.

Many writers struggle with finding time to write, or making the best use of their writing time, or they chase deadlines, or craft ideal yet difficult-to-stick-to schedules. Yet I think many of us are drawn to writing because of the timeless nature of it, because of the way we can lose ourselves in the process and forget about time. Writers are also arbiters of time—we compress and expand it through words designed to create experiences in the minds of readers. We help others transcend and travel through time, at least in the imagination.

What is your relationship to time? When do you feel you have too much of it? Not enough? When do you forget about time? When are you preoccupied with it?

My mind tells me there is never enough of it, and this same mind encourages me to cram too much into it. We all have access to the same 24 hours in a day, but how often are we attending to the quality of that experience, to the nature of that relationship? It is up to us whether we relate to time as friend or foe.

Creators tend to focus on the fleeting nature of time, because we understand, conceptually and physically, that creation occurs within a crucible of time, and life is only so long. So time anxiety is understandable, perhaps even warranted, but we cannot let it cripple us. We must become friendly with the limitations time imposes on us.

We can choose instead to relate with joy and wonder at this opportunity to live and create with time, to cultivate a healthy relationship with it, to be inspired by the many insightful words that poets of the present and the past have left for us, including the one-of-a-kind Mary Oliver, who said:

“I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn’t think of it as a career. I didn’t even think of it as a profession… It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life.”

Is it time to make writing the most wonderful thing in your life?

Abundance, Gratitude, and Writing

Have you ever noticed how abundance can build up momentum in your life so that good things seem to create more good things? Then all of a sudden abundance takes a step back, seems to drain away or run into hiding? In both cases gratitude is the key. When you have a lot to be grateful for, be grateful! And when it appears that you don’t have a lot to be grateful for, still choose to be grateful, whatever the size of the microscope you have to look through to find something. Because gratitude will keep abundance flowing and it will invite it back when it goes AWOL.

Contrary to many beliefs, you don’t have to have a good and easy life to find time for writing, and you don’t need to have lived a so called “bad” life to have something interesting to write about. It’s true that less stress can aid creativity, but it isn’t always the case. Likewise, a personal story full of trauma and drama can be compelling, but that’s not always the case either. We get what we get when it comes to life situations and histories. It’s what we do with it that counts. And that’s where creativity comes in.

Writing occurs within the context of the life we are living—you make time for it or you don’t. And our stories grow out of our personal histories—whether we are conscious of it or not. The gift of life plus an inventory of experiences leads some people to become writers. But that’s not the case for everyone. If it happens to be the case for you, at some point, you will have to reconcile with your life situation and your past.

You will likely struggle against some aspects of your life situation in order to make time to write. And you will likely wrestle with elements from your past on the way to finding something compelling to write about. Rarely will you approach either with gratitude.

But what if you did?

What made you who you are—all that you’ve experienced so far—also contributed to you becoming a writer and living the life you are now living. That’s worth an ounce of gratitude. It doesn’t matter if you’d like to make a few changes (most of us would), but it’s worth noticing that being in a position to want such change is worth being grateful for too. If you’re reading this newsletter you have tools and technology at your disposal that are gratitude worthy. If you have a glass of clean water within arm’s reach, or a hot cup of tea, you have something else to be grateful for.

How often are you grateful for your writing practice? How often do you love it just for the sake of loving it? Can you let yourself do that now?

Gratitude practice is subject to a particular, softly scientific phenomenon: the snowball effect. Writing practice is similarly affected. The more grateful we are the more we have to be grateful for. And the more we write the more there is to write.

I’d like to return to the first paragraph and substitute the words “abundance” and “gratitude” with the word “writing”…

Have you ever noticed how writing can build up momentum in your life so that writing seems to create more writing? Then all of a sudden writing takes a step back, seems to drain away or run into hiding? In both cases writing is the answer. When you have a lot to write about, write! And when it appears that you don’t have a lot to write about, still choose to write, whatever the size of the microscope you have to look through to find something to write about. Because writing will keep writing flowing and it will invite it back when it goes AWOL.

Write For Your Future Self

When I was coaching a client last month, I brought up the notion of “the future self” as a way to provide a different sort of motivation for writing. Our future self is the one waiting for us next month or next year or 10 years from now. It’s who we will eventually be, in time.

We know that too much thinking about the past and future can wreak havoc with our experience of the present moment, since we often regret things from the past that we can’t change or we long for something in the future that we wish would hurry up and get here. But you can have a healthy relationship with the past and future, too. The path is through gratitude.

The notion of the future self involves first thinking of some point in the future, whether six months from now, one year, or five or ten years. Then think of something you’d like to finish–a writing project you’re in the midst of, or a state of mind you’d like to experience, or maybe even a different physical place you’d like to find yourself in. Imagine the moment in the future exactly as you’d like it to be, really picture it. But rather than forming an image the ideal moment you’d like to attain, as you might do in a visioning or manifesting exercise, instead embody the moment with gratitude for yourself; thank yourself for something you did in the past to get yourself to this point. Let your future self say, “Thank you past self for doing X to allow me to be here.”

If you’re familiar with reverse goal setting, in which you picture your chosen goal and work backwards from the finished goal through all the steps required to reach that goal, this is a little like that, except it’s a bit more right-brained than left-brained. And it serves to enhance the relationship you have with your creative self.

When reverse planning for goals, you picture the goal you want to achieve and work backwards through the steps that will get you from here to there. For example, if your goal is to complete your novel manuscript, picture that moment. It’s all done, printed out, and you’re holding the manuscript in your hands. What happens right before that moment? It probably goes through a proofread. Before that, a copy edit and a developmental edit. Before that, the rough draft needs to be complete. To finish the rough draft you need to follow a writing schedule to get those words written. You might create an outline or do some research before this. You might brainstorm novel ideas to decide what to write about. Working in reverse, you have a different perspective of all that’s required to reach your goal, and with this perspective you can break down a large project into manageable chunks and create a realistic schedule to get it done (the trouble always comes with sticking to the schedule, but that’s another story…).

When thinking about your future self, you approach this reverse planning process a little differently.

Let’s say you’ve given yourself six months to write the rough draft of your novel. Picture your future self six months from now holding a completed first draft in your hands. Step into that future self and thank your past self for writing 1,000 words a day for five days a week to get you there. Really imagine yourself swelling with gratitude for your past self. You know it wasn’t easy for her every day. You know she lost her faith in the project many times along the way, but she persevered, and because of that you’re holding a completed manuscript in your hands, and that feels amazing. You can now take your next step toward your dream.

You could even do something helpful for your very near future self. My client says she sets out her dental floss by the sink in the morning so that it’s there when she brushes her teeth in the evening. She’s made this small task slightly easier for her future self, and it’s a small gesture of self-kindness.

Such small gestures of self-kindness can lead us toward our chosen goals just as well, and probably better, than the self-flagellating ones. You can practice building this relationship with your future self by being that self right now.

Think of something you appreciate about your life today. Did you get an article published in a local magazine? Thank your past self writing that article and sending out a query. If you’re part of a great writing group, thank yourself for having the courage to go to the first meeting. Now extend this beyond your writing life. If you’re happily married and starting a family, thank yourself for saying “I do” once upon a time. If you love your job in a faraway city, thank yourself for taking the risk of moving away to give the opportunity a try.

The key is to really take some time nurturing this feeling of gratitude and self-appreciation. Our minds tend to hone in on all that’s “not right” with our situations and so we tend to diminish the impressive things we’ve done. We might think, “It’s not the perfect marriage, or job, or article, so why dwell on it?” But each of those choices was a creative act that led to new manifestations—something from nothing—and that deserves to be appreciated.

So take a moment to stay to yourself, “Past me, thank you for trying X, because it got me to Y.” And when you sit down to write today, dedicate the effort to your future self. One day she’ll thank you for it.

Inviting Inspiration

As creators, we pay a lot of lip service to inspiration, but what does it really mean to be inspired? And how do we go about getting into that state? Lately, I’ve been thinking about the nature of creativity and inspiration and the connection between the two.

Creativity arises out a relationship you have with yourself—a willingness to listen to what moves you and respond to that with expressive action. What moves you, and those responses, changes daily, and inspiration is the bridge between the two.

How does inspiration appear to us in daily lives? Sometimes in very simple ways.

At the onset of Spring, with new blooms scenting the air, you may rush out to buy bedding plants to fill a planter box. Sharing a particularly delicious meal with friends may drive you to open that cookbook you got last Christmas and try a new recipe. Finishing a satisfying short story may prompt you to pick up your pen and try writing your own.

Inspiration is the bridge between a moment that moves you and a moment of taking expressive action. And because of that, inspiration can be invited in at any time.

It’s helpful if we cultivate qualities of presence, attention, and appreciation, because they are what open us to being moved on a daily basis. (When we’re not cultivating these qualities, it may take a bigger event, like a shock or a surprise, to wake us up to the moment.) These qualities improve conditions for inspiration’s arrival.

The next thing we must take responsibility for is choice. How we choose to react or respond to a moment determines whether inspiration is invited in or not. We can close up to the shock or surprise, or we can let it honestly affect us. We can simply pass by the rose in bloom calling us to its fleeting scent, or we can open to it and breathe it in. The word itself is your guide: inspiration, to breathe in and be filled.

You can stop there if you like. You can be filled up as if by a wonderful meal and walk around satiated until the energy dissipates. Or, on the metaphoric out-breath, you can create something. It could be as simple as a feeling of gratitude, or it might be a cake, or it might be the beginning of a poem that will speak to the ages.

The qualities necessary at this stage are: trust, action, and repeated process. These elements are essential to creation. But this is also the most challenging stage. It’s the hardest to follow through on, because inspiration doesn’t come with any guarantees. A moment that moves us arises from a higher, deeper, or larger place than we commonly inhabit. It calls us forward, fuels us with an urge to act, but so often the results of those actions fall short of our inspired vision. We come face to face with the smallness of our own creature selves and this is uncomfortable to say the least. I think it’s one of the reasons so many of us cut off from being moved at all.

If we get this far and don’t want to shut down, we need to claim three more qualities: resilience with a dash of tenacity, acceptance blended with forgiveness, and the resolve to start all over again. We need to keep the door of choice open, that gateway between each moment of being moved and each opportunity to respond.

Moving through the cycles regularly will bring a greater sense of rawness to those moving moments, but your odds of creation will also improve. Inspiration is the bridge, but it is we who choose to make the crossing.