Message from the Page: “Would you please pay attention?!”

Your primary job as an artist is to seduce other people into paying attention. You are not creating anything new; you are re-creating what already exists so that people will recognize it and deal with it. You describe activities and name states of being so that the people who witness your work will have a fuller vocabulary for their own life. You help people see what has been in front of them all along. You help them remember what has been buried so deep that they couldn’t find it on their own. You enable them to see themselves a little more clearly. –Vintia Hampton Wright, The Soul Tells a Story

During 2016 I arrived at surprising clarity about my spiritual path: I’m a contemplative, albeit one who walks her daughter to school in the morning, struggles with a perpetually cluttered house, and writes as my primary practice. To contemplate is to stand in the temple. The world with its dirty socks and hidden cruelties and winter sunrises is my temple. I stand in it when I pay attention.

My best way to listen for life’s emergence, to peel away falsehoods, to sink into experience, to reflect deeply, and name what is is to write. Diane Ackerman says that “science and art have a habit of waking us up, turning on all the lights, grabbing us by the collar and saying Would you please pay attention!” Before my work grabs anyone else it grabs me. I’m grateful for the shake-up but also at times furious, annoyed, impatient, and resistant. A big part of me doesn’t want to do the work of attending; it just wants the glory of attention for having attended.

Silly little self! That’s no way to live.

What I’m beginning to realize is that my writing will never do the job of seducing others into paying attention unless I’m vastly committed to that endeavor myself—not just when I’m sitting down to write but every other dish-washing, temper-tantrum-calming, distressed-by-newspaper-reading moment of my days. Contemplation is my central task as a writer, and as a human being.

We come alive when we pay profound and complete attention. One path into this temple is made of blank pages. Write your way in! –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

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Here’s wishing you a fruitful 2016!

Upcoming opportunities:

Are you working on a book? I’m accepting applications for my next manuscript review seminar until January 11th. Email me for more information.

Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art & Practice of Spiritual Memoir

Introductory workshop February 6, 2016, 9:00-noon. Drop-in classes Fridays, January 22, February 26, March 25, April 22, and May 27, 2016, 1:30 – 3:30 pm at Wisdom Ways Center for Spirituality.

The Reflective Voice in Creative Nonfiction

February 13, 2016, 1:30-4:30 p.m. at The Loft Literary Center.

The Inner Life of Stories: Writing as Deep Listening

February 27, 2016, 9:00-noon at Plymouth Congregational Church.

The Inner Life of Stories: Writing as Deep Listening retreat

June 19-23, 2016 at The Christine Center in central WI.

Alone Together Writing Retreat

September 12-16, 2016 at the Madeline Island School of the Arts.