Wendy Brown-Baez's Blog: Wendy's Muse - Posts Tagged "writing-to-heal"

A few week-ends ago I led a writing workshop as part of Celebrate Yourself week-end women's retreat. The Saturday workshop was a writing circle for healing and Sunday's I call Spiritual Tune Up. The process of writing circles is simple: we read a poem, write spontaneously, then read what we have written without critiquing. All comments must consist of positive feed-back. The purpose of this is to quiet the left brain critic who tells us we can't write or that we're not good enough or what will the others think? The Judge, the Critic, or the child who was criticized for her creativity, this part of ourselves that watches us without tolerance or amusement at our efforts, not to mention never praises us for taking a risk, is calmed. Reading what we have written aloud is a risk, and we are vulnerable and sensitive and courageous. I acknowledge that.

Sunday's workshop starts with a meditation and uses poems with a spiritual slant to inspire us.

I have learned through the years of leading workshops to trust the process. Natalie Goldberg says go for what is rich with emotion, go for what you feel reluctant to say, go for the material that is hardest to write. Sometimes what we begin with: an image, a memory, a feeling, is not at all where we end up.

This week-end, someone thoughtfully brought along a box of kleenex, because as we opened our hearts, we needed it. There were losses and griefs that were heart-wrenching, there were stories of self-denial and fears of not being enough, not being held as precious and beloved. And as well, as I used prompts that focused on our blessings and our passions, there was laughter and remembrance of our innate worthiness. We honored our wholeness within our pain and brokenness.

Remembering is important for me, too. One line came into my head as I wrote: What would it be like to look up to myself?

I know the stories we are compelled to share are sometimes the ones we don't feel safe enough to share. How many of us have taken a writing workshop only to feel ripped to shreds by a critique that ignores the hard work we did to capture our deepest longings, our deepest despair, our deepest truth, the rent in the fabric of our daily lives that can lead to transformation and transcendence if we follow the frayed thread and not give up too soon?

It was a blessing for me to be in the circle, a circle that becomes sacred time and space as we articulate in our fumbling words, in our genius words, who we are and what has happened to us. The shortest bridge between two people is a story and I listen to yours and hold it close to me.

Today I am pondering once again how quickly winter is descending. As the light fades early from the late afternoon sky and the stars come on, we approach solstice, once celebrated as an ancient festival to honor the division of light and darkness, a ritual that marked the turning of the wheel of life.

There was a Thanksgiving when I was young and idealistic and stayed awake all night basting turkeys to feed the homeless. That was the same Thanksgiving I had asked local supermarkets to donate turkeys to us; we anticipated feeding at least 100 people. Three days before Thanksgiving, as I checked the freezer and consulted the list of complimentary foods available from the food bank, I was shocked to discover that someone had stolen the turkeys, presumably for beer money! But we did find three more at the last minute. The meal we served included as much whipped topping on your pie or in your coffee as you could possibly want, since the food bank had cases of it about to go bad.

There was another Thanksgiving when my partner and I flew to Italy, his ancestoral home, to celebrate his 50th birthday with his family. Because his father had once worked for the military, his mother had access to the air force base's turkey dinner with all the (American) trimmings at the PX. I was dismayed to be spending what was left of my Italian vacation eating sweet potatoes with mashmellow topping when all I wanted was pasta, pasta, pasta! (I didn't really like the self-absorption of Eat, Pray, Love, but I can identify with indulgence in Italian feasting). This Thanksgiving, on his birthday, it will be more than eight years since Michael passed away. He suffered from bipolar disorder and finally liberated himself from his depression.

There was another Thanksgiving that I spent at Christ in the Desert Monastery grieving the death of my son. I couldn't bear to spend the holiday in the company of cheerful friends. Being with the monks was perfect and their prayers had to stand in for the ones I was unable to make. I wept through the Gregorian chanting and walked a silent, solitary pilgrimage to the Rio Chama where we had scattered Sam's ashes that summer. Feeling desolate was echoed in the desolation of the canyon walls and scrubby desert fields, and yet it was filled with a poignant light and a gorgeous natural beauty. I returned somewhat relieved to ordinary life, although the pages of my journal were still blank and the only writing I managed to do was in a writing support group.

What does any of this have to do with being a writer or a poet? This year I count as one of my blessings that I have been able to record these memories, that I have continued to find inspiration and nourishment through words: yours and mine. Books have been like diving into a cleansing sea of forgetfulness or being upheld by someone else's journey into the unknown countries of illness, death, loneliness, and sorrow. Or because I could finally, after the tears had scoured me inside out, find words and raise my voice to be heard. I am grateful that I didn't lose my urge to write nor my urge to sing those words aloud, on the page or in front of an audience, that I am still searching for meaning using the tools of language and leaps of associations, intuition and play, diving down and emerging transformed.

I am grateful finally, this year, to have made it to this season, as the Jews pray, and there were times when I didn't know if I would ever feel that way. And so I offer poems as a prayer that you, too, may find gratitude, no matter the rockiness of your road, the weight of love and sorrow that crush your heart, the wonder of being human beings on the planet, the joy of finding a bridge between our hearts through words.

The door is open, dear
And it is time for you to go
Do not be afraid, do not
Be afraid for beyond is
The life you hoped for
And the love you wanted

The door is open, dear
And this heartbreak will
Be mended in the usual way:
Infants playing and friends
Passing a bottle of wine
To fill our cups, toasting

The miracle that we are
Still alive. But you, dear
Have nothing left to toast.
All is as must be, free
From the blackened ruins
Of your past and your

Guilt, laid to rest in the
Flame that scorched you
Clean, sacrificial
Offering. Unable to
give one hug or even touch

your burnt flesh, I stand whispering
By your hospital bed,
Prayers for your swift ascent,
The last words you will hear
From me: The door is open, dear.
Go home.