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Writing Our Hearts
Out
Winter 2010
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by Nessa McCasey, CPT |
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Writing Your
Way to Conscious Breathing
For many years, working in corporate communications
while also raising my young son, I used a mantra at the
bottom of each side of my two-page planner layout to
remind myself to slow down. The mantra was very simple:
Remember to breathe.
There was little time for poetry (or breathing) at that
point in my life. And surprisingly, there is still
little time for poetry in my life now, unless I
consciously choose for it to be there, just like that
reminder to breathe was necessary for me to slow down
and consciously take care of myself.
Is it in our consciousness, then, where we really create
our lives? Ahhh, breathe now, I tell myself again…
Li-Young Lee, a prominent poet in America who has talked
much about the breath, said this:
[My father taught me] every time you breathe in, say
thank you. Every time you breathe out, say goodbye.
Lee says that most human sounds are made with the
out-going breath. Try this for yourself. In fact, there
are voiced and non-voiced sounds, as determined by
speech pathologists and linguists, but those are still
sounds.
The vocalization of poetic lines, especially those with
iambic meter (one unstressed beat and one stressed
beat), feels to me like the practice of conscious
breathing. It’s worth experimenting with any written
material, especially if you are already conscious of
your breath as you vocalize, and I think that you’ll
find poetic rhythms in many places. Singing, chanting,
storytelling, and poetry reading are all manner of
practicing conscious breathing, as is playing a wind
instrument. Much like the way we practice physical
activity to benefit our health, we can also learn and
practice conscious breathing to benefit our well-being –
spiritually, emotionally, and physically. And of course,
practice is everything, whether you are learning how to
write, learning a new language, learning yoga, or
learning to consciously breathe your own life’s energy,
fully, deeply, with care.
Here’s William Butler Yeats’ “The Lamentation of the Old
Pensioner.” Try reading it aloud to yourself, pausing
for a deep breath at the end of each line. Use it as a
meditation, to really slow yourself down:
The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
Although I shelter from the rain
Under a broken tree
My chair was nearest to the fire
In every company
That talked of love or politics,
Ere Time transfigured me.
Though lads are making pikes again
For some conspiracy,
And crazy rascals rage their fill
At human tyranny,
My contemplations are of Time
That has transfigured me.
There’s not a woman turns her face
Upon a broken tree,
And yet the beauties that I loved
Are in my memory;
I spit into the face of Time
That has transfigured me.
(revised text of 1925)
I think we need to read poems aloud in order to practice
conscious breath. A creative exercise for you to try
would be to try writing your own poem and read that
aloud. See if you can consciously breathe while you are
writing. Does that affect the rhythm of your poetic
line?
You might want to try writing your own lamentation for
the end of the year, 2009. Try this topic (or another of
your choosing) for writing out a line that matches your
breathing. You might end up with 5 beats in a line
(iambic pentameter) or 3 or 4 beats in a line and you
might even want to embed long pauses in between lines
for more of a pause (and time to breathe). Poets use the
line break similarly to how we use stop signs on our
streets or commas in our sentences. You can even take
something that you have written in your journal and try
putting different line endings so that it looks like a
poem instead of a journal entry. Once it is in that
format, you can read it aloud again and see if there are
other words that need to be added or any that should be
removed. Perhaps starting with a lamentation will
finally work itself into a poetic prayer for 2010.
If you are interested in learning more about the rhyme
and rhythm of poetry, just google “meter” “rhythm” “and
poetry” or other terms that are of interest to you.
There are also good books available for learning about
poetic rhythms and forms. There will be an upcoming
online course in poetic forms offered if you are
interested in that, too. You can email me at poetnessa@comcast.net
or Lila Weisberger at bridgeXngs@aol.com for more
information.
Have a happy new year and may your 2010 be filled with
lovely full breaths and poetic lines to match.
poetically yours,
Nessa
"Ink runs from the corners of my mouth
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry."
– Mark Strand, “Eating Poetry”
Nessa McCasey, CPT
www.WritersOfWrongs.com
© Copyright 2010 Nessa McCasey. All Rights
Reserved.
Read Nessa McCasey's Past Columns:
Fall 2009-
Mindfulness Practice as Writing/Drawing
Summer 2009 -
Conscious Life Change
Spring 2009 - Oneness is for Everyone
Winter 2007 - The Meaning of Life
Winter 2006 - Being Still and Still Moving the Pencil July-Sept 2005 -
Balance -- Creating a Map to Take You There
Oct - Dec 2004
- Letting Go and Moving Forward: Writing as a Map of
Progress
Aug
- Sept 2004 - Writer’s Block and Then… Moving Forward Again
April
- May 2004 - Identifying Our Crossroads
January
- February 2004 - Daring to Dream Out Loud
December
2003 - Joining Together with Our Words of Grace
November
2003 - Midlife Questioning: One Writer's Path to
Learning
October
2003 - Can We Write (or Read) Our Way to Serenity?
Nessa McCasey, CPT has been a former technical
editor for NASA, street/performance poet in Denver,
corporate writer, single mom, marketing communications
specialist, and church music director. She has charted a
new path for work and life in the profession of Poetry
Therapy serving as Vice President of Membership for the
National Association for Poetry Therapy (NAPT). She
facilitates group and individual expressive writing
sessions and presents poetry and creative writing
workshops to jump-start others in their own powers of
creative expression.
You can reach Nessa at: poetnessa@comcast.net or
visit her website
at www.writersofwrongs.com.
Nessa's blog,
http://web.me.com/wildridge/PoetryTherapy/Blog/Blog.html
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