Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew's Blog, page 3

Flourishing in Creativity’s Gift Economy

A few years ago I submitted an essay to an anthology of queer Minnesotan writing. I called it “Wearing Bi-Focals” because it explored bisexuality as a lens much as my progressive lenses help my eyes integrate what’s near with what’s far. I sent the essay out and promptly forgot about it. Six months later the …

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An invitation to writers

I’m bubbling with excitement—today I get to offer you a gift! After decades of dreaming, years of planning, and months of hard work, I’d like to present you with not one but TWO offerings:

The Gifts of Writing Micro-Course

I’ve had a complete overhaul in my thinking about creativity, and this free online class describes it in a nutshell. When we write, we open ourselves to a flow of gifts that come as inspiration, longing, drive, curiosity, insight, and infinite other forms. As writers we give back—with dedication, effort, a willingness to revise and be revised, and at times consideration of and generosity toward our readers. Creativity thrives when we understand the writing process as a vast gift exchange:

When we return to our original delight in writing, we tap into a wellspring of creative energy.
We can learn to read the inflow of gifts as providing direction and guidance for our writing.
We can free ourselves from the burdens of seeking validation and measuring worth, instead forming the habits of mind, heart, and body that support creative flourishing.
By framing writing within a gift economy, we extract ourselves from the product-oriented, market-driven orientation most of us unconsciously assume. It’s a simple internal shift with enormous ramifications!

The free online course takes about 1½ hours. I hope you enjoy it! And please spread the word. Enter Here

and...

An Online Writing Community!

After taking the microcourse, you’re invited to participate in a free community space dedicated to nurturing the gift. “To name the world as gift,” Robin Wall Kimmerer writes, “is to feel one’s membership in the web of reciprocity. It makes you happy, and it makes you accountable.” Here’s a space where together we can name the world as gift. We can support one another as we participate in creativity’s flow of giving and receiving. We can be companions on the writing journey. We can hold one another accountable.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been on a quest to find like-minded writers for whom creativity and spirituality are intertwined, who understand writing as central to their growth as human beings, and who seek meaningful, collegial relationships. I’ve been seeking my people. Now I know you are my people! I’m thrilled beyond belief to welcome you into a virtual space where we can have real conversations, exchange stories, ask probing questions, share resources, and support one another as we deepen our writing—and our very selves.

The Gifts of Writing microcourse is a prerequisite for the writing community; it will get us all on the same page, so to speak. Both are free offerings of the Eye of the Heart Center, the new collective of artists and teachers I'm part of. You can Enter Here

I’d like to acknowledge two authors who introduced me to the theory behind these offerings: Robin Wall Kimmerer, essayist, environmental biologist, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, for her book Braiding Sweetgrass and her essay, “The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance,” and Lewis Hyde for his seminal text, The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World. Both are my teachers. I’m immensely grateful for their gifts.

As I am to YOU! Thank you for reading my newsletters and cheering me on. You’re a source of vitality in my writing life. Hope to see you in the community!

Warmly,
Elizabeth

“Let it go! Let it go!”

Years ago I coached a Buddhist priest in the development of his memoir.  Unlike most beginners, Sensei V (as I’ll Christen him) cranked out a crummy but exceedingly workable rough draft in no time flat.  Plagued by none of the usual hang-ups (self doubt, insecurity about “not being a real writer,” despair at how terrible his writing …

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Writing in the Cloud of Privacy & Unknowing

Perhaps because my first big writing project gave me room to articulate my sexual longings, come out bisexual, and figure out the implications for my Christian faith; perhaps because I’m drawn to spiritual and therefore intimate subjects, my first drafts (and often second and third) I tend to write for no one but me.  Of course …

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In Praise of Writing Community—And Fancy Cheese

Twenty-five years ago, I met a woman in the Loft mentor series whose feedback was superb and whose prose I adored.  When she mentioned her writing group, I was so overcome with envy I blurted, “Any chance you’re taking new members?”  Sure enough, someone was leaving and I was most welcome.  Two and a half decades later, …

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Cherishing the Measureless

As I write, Gwyn’s at the piano practicing a Beethoven Sonata, repeating trills, stumbling on scales, figuring out fingering.  Distracting as her mistakes are, I find myself amazed that, after ten years of parental supervision, Gwyn is finally capable of cultivating for herself the joy of puzzling out a piece.  Gwyn’s not naturally talented, but …

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All Gift

My family occasionally prays down by the Mississippi River with the Nibi walkers, a group of Indigenous women and other water-tenders.  Water is life, so we plant our feet in the sand and offer thanks.  One morning, the Anishinaabe elder Sharon Day translated her prayer for us:  “Great Spirit, Gitchi Manitou, have pity on us.” …

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Practice makes… pleasure?

As a serious practitioner and teacher of one art form—writing—I don’t often share that I also play piano.  Actually, I keep it secret.  Why say anything when there’s no way in hell I’ll ever perform for you? I started taking lessons at age seven, two years before I began writing, and studied it relatively seriously, …

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Plunge Into Fall

This July, my fourteen-year-old daughter, who’s bug- and sun-adverse, who is obsessed with fancy hotels and delights in a mug that proclaims “I love not camping,” spent ten days hauling fifty pounds on her back through the Big Horn Mountains. Gwyn endured nose bleeds, boulder fields, and rehydrated textured vegetable protein. On good days she …

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All Gift

These glorious summer mornings, I grab my cereal bowl and head out first thing for garden strawberries, blueberries, and, dripping from the brambles, raspberries like red wine. The sun heats my neck, the chilly breeze raises my hairs, the exuberant sparrows greet me, and I snack right there, bursts of pungent sweet obliterating all else. …

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