A Quote From a Friend

 This quote came to me from a friend who read my latest blog. Isn't it terrific?

" In many shamanic societies if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, the would ask one of four questions.

When did you stop dancing?

When did you stop singing?

When did you stop being enchanted by stories?

When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?

Where we have stopped dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, or finding comfort in silence is where we have experienced the loss of soul.

Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves.”

Rituals

    About eight years ago, I was rewriting my novel, working on a scene thats deals with the losses my heroine suffered in her early twenties. The more I wrote, the more my character’s feelings swamped me. When I finished work for the day, I couldn’t seem to separate from her misery.  It was as though I had shape shifted and didn’t know how to come back. I asked my writer friend Vici, who is in her own right a shape shifter and shaman, to talk to me about rituals sfor getting in and getting out of writing, unscathed.

    I had thought I had invented the shape shifting metaphor for writing, but Vici assured me that I had tapped into a mythic concept, which is common to all ancient tribal cultures and all creative people. Shape shifting, it turns out, is something we writers do all the time.  We dwell, as Vici said, “in the realms of the betwixt and between, becoming other people genders, animals, even species; we travel through time and space; we speak in tongues not our own.”  Doesn’t this sound familiar? And we can use rituals to open and close the doors between our worlds. Just as other shape shifters do.

    Vici cautioned that to be successful, we writers must use rituals that allow the gates to open and shut, safely.  We do not want to allow unwanted or uninvited energies to “cross the threshold” with us.  If you practice a religion, you might want to use a set of rituals from this belief system. If you are not bound to any tribe or set of beliefs, you are, of course, free to choose rituals that work for you. But, Vici continues, “The only requirement is that the ritual speaks to our own imagination, powerfully enough to clarify our intentions and strengthen our will.” Further, quoting Starhawk, she reminded me, ritual “is a patterned movement of energy designed to accomplish a purpose.” Our purpose might be, as mine was, to keep my characters on the page and out of my life, or, as my intention is every day, to keep my butt in the chair and to prevent myself from running, screaming, from the room. Whatever it is, rituals can become our greatest ally as we shape shift.

    Remember the scene, I think it was in Shakespeare in Love, when Will tossed salt over his shoulder before he sat down to write? Steven Pressfield in The War of Art, talks about his elaborate and very effective ritual.  He argues that if we consciously invoke what he calls “the muse,” through ritual, and respectfully obey her maxim to write, we will be successful. His success proves the wisdom of this advice.

Exercise: Write in your journal, describing the rituals that have informed your life, whether they are based on your religion, your love of Greek myths, hip-hop. video games or sports. You will discover that you have had many in your life. Now look at your present day life. Which rituals remain? Write about those. Now imagine all of these stirring in a pot; reduce the heat and take the essence of all of them to create your own writing ritual. Reread Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art and check out his ritual. It is in the first chapter titled “What I Do.” It will inspire you!