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Writing Our Hearts
Out
Fall 2010
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by Nessa McCasey, CPT |
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We are very pleased
to welcome Nessa McCasey back to SoulfulLiving.com! With each new issue, Nessa will offer
a poem or short writing based on our magazine's
theme and will provide techniques for creative
expression that you can use to explore the topic
yourself.
Mindfulness Practice as Writing/Drawing
What
can take you to a place of peace when you need it? I
will offer you a couple of possible options for this
below. But first, can you recognize when you are in need
of a peaceful mind, for even just a moment or two? Our
world is so fast-paced these days that it takes a
mindful practice for me to even recognize myself
anymore. Sometimes I feel that I can’t remember what has
happened; I can’t remember what I just speeded through.
Writing and other expressive arts can capture events, I
am happy to report.
Recently, I have been playing with an art form called
Zentangle (you can find out more about this at http://www.zentangle.com/index.php
where the originators believe that “anything is
possible... one stroke at a time.“ Since I’ve never been
much more than a stick-person kind of an artist, I have
appreciated this one-stroke approach to drawing. It is
helping me to learn to draw, which is also really
inspiring me to try more and more!
The
photo above is an example of my combining zentangle with
writing. I created this on the airplane returning home
in July from a week of poetry therapy workshops.
Whenever I am coming home from this annual week of
writing “retreat” as I tend to think of it, I need a
summarizing writing exercise, creating a ritual to
transition myself back into my home life. And then of
course, I kept on creating more and more of these until
now I have something of a summer of 2009 journal of just
these sorts of zentangle writings.
The
little bubbles in the drawing were calling out to me for
names, so one after the other, I started filling in the
names of those who were part of the week of workshops.
Places and events were also fodder. It was calming for
me to do this on the airplane, it made the flight time
pass quickly, and now I am also left with a piece of art
that has special meaning for me, too.
It’s
probably my training as a poetry therapist that has led
me to approach art in this manner. My art just doesn’t
have to be perfect. My writing, especially when I am in
the first draft part of writing new poem or article, is
not up for editing yet. Of course, the essence of people
should never be edited (especially in a red-pen,
critical manner). As human beings, we are perfectly
ourselves, and that’s what
is necessary. Trying to be more kind to ourselves could
be a great regular practice, something approaching
mindfulness, in my way of thinking. Shutting down the
chatter in my mind is usually about stopping the inner
critic.
So, if
you are having trouble slowing down enough for a
meditation practice or if you have the desire to combine
your meditation with writing, you might try the
zentangle process.
Another
idea for you to try, to help you slow down, is with this
exercise below. You can make this into a meditation with
peaceful imagery of your choice, such as an appropriate
quiet place. And of course, modify the exercise to meet
your own particular needs or interests.
Still Water
"We can make our minds so like
still water that beings gather about us, that they may
see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a
moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life
because of our quiet".
--- W.B. Yeat
Prompt:
What might your own mindfulness bring to you?
Would you envision small birds or deer coming near? Try
bringing up into your mind’s eye some place you remember
as peaceful and then after you “rest” there for a while,
write a description about it. You can write this out as
a poem if you like or as a descriptive paragraph. What
might result for you --- for
Yeats, it is a fiercer life. Wow, what power we can take
in for ourselves. Write out your own mindfulness
“prescription” in this manner. And you can write it many
times, many ways. This can become a mindfulness journey
for you if you choose.
I’m going to post this column on my own blog,
too, where you can add your responses/writings as
comments. Reading what others write might inspire you,
as well.
http://web.me.com/wildridge/PoetryTherapy/Blog/Blog.html
I
believe in the value of writing, whether it is shared
with others or not. Take good care of yourself, and be
kind, as you write. We live in a harsh world and deserve
to treat ourselves as kindly as possible. And hey, maybe
we can even start to be kind to others, as well!! Who
knows, we might just change the world!!
with poetic care,
Nessa
Nessa McCasey, CPT
www.WritersOfWrongs.com
© Copyright 2009 Nessa McCasey. All Rights
Reserved.
Read Nessa McCasey's Past Columns:
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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