Heading into the Unknown

I always equate writing a novel with feeling my way in a dark room. As 2014 begins, and it's time to get back to the novel in progress (which is about as appealing as crocheting earmuffs from dust balls), I love this thought:

When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen.

There will be something solid for us to stand on or WE WILL BE TAUGHT TO FLY.

-Patrick Overton

Off to face the dreaded blank page!

Kathy-Diane

Why do we tell stories?

 

We've had a week of sun and each morning when I'm finished work, I head out to the deck with a pot of Chiai tea and a copy of "Writing asa Sacred Path" by Jill Jepson.While the sparrows eat the aphids on the golden hops vine and cardinals dart through the willows, I turn the pages and wonder over the gift of being able to tell stories.I don't why I'm a writer, but I'm pretty sure the obsession to put words on the page was tattooed in my DNA from day one. Here are a few abridged quotes:

Storytelling may seem too commonplace--even trivial--to be the key to a writer's spiritual path. But this is because , like all seemingly simple work...we fail to see how remarkable it is. When you try to analyze the feat of telling a story, it becomes an act of immense complexity and depth.

When you tell a story, you become what F. Scott Fitzgerald called, "part of the consciousness of our human race." Stories sculpt meaning; they shape how we think about the world; they provide framework for understanding our place in the Universe. Stories determine what we cherish, despise or ignore. Stories express the inexpressible.

Stories remind us that we are not separate, isolated individuals afloat in the cosmos, but part of the universal stream of life. Stories are gifts.

E. B. White: "As a writing man, or secretary, I have always felt charged with safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly or unworldly enchantment, as though I might be personally held responsible if even a small one were to be lost."

Lofty thoughts, right? It's true that writing is excruciatingly hard work, exasperating, nerve wracking, ulcer producing and much much worse. But when the vision inside finally begins to come into focus on the page, the feeling of satisfaction warms to the core like a golden benediction and, like birthing a child, I instantly forget all that came before. I always go back for more.

May your pages be dusted with 'enchantment' today. 

Happy Writing! Kathy-Diane

 

Fling yourself!

"If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches...

 

...and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one...he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent."

 

- Honore de Balzac

Inspiration from RUMI

If your writing is calling you to a wounded place you don't have the courage to probe because it's too raw, honest and painful, contemplate these words from RUMI:

With this pain,

You are

digging a path

for yourself. 

 

Trust the process.  I find writing, like a GPS for the soul, often leads me to higher ground.  Be brave!

 

 

Kathy-Diane

ANSWERING THE CALL: Writers' Retreat

Answering the Call VIII: Releasing the Writer Within

A WORKING WRITERS’ RETREAT

WHERE: The Villa Madonna in Renforth, New Brunswick (just outside of Saint John)
WHEN: October 14, 15 and 16, 2011

FORMAT:
October 14, 2011:
5 p.m. Registration in foyer.

6 p.m. Opening Address: Answering the Call by Kathy-Diane Leveille
6 to 9 p.m. Meet and Greet Social

October 15, 2011: Full writing day.
7 to 9 p.m. Optional critique group

October 16, 2011:
11:00 a.m. Closing and wrap up.
1:00 p.m. Heading home after lunch and out by mid-afternoon.

FEE: $168.00 which includes single room and board.

All writers dream of getting a block of time for themselves to write. The Villa provides the perfect opportunity. Over the years, we've created touchstones within the weekend's framework that provide optional opportunities to connect with other writers to share work-in-progress and experience.  Rooms are single and private, so there is not excuse not to write.

E-mail shadowsfall@kathy-dianeleveille.com for more information.

"All of us can see ourselves in Leveille's characters. These are stories that speak to the complicated bonds we have with siblings and parents, who they were and who they are now and how we learn the truth of what we took for granted before."  -The Daily Gleaner

Where Creativity Meets Spirituality for you?

Where does creativity meet spirituality for you? I'll be posing that provocative question to various artists/writers/creatives I've met over the years. This week I sent it to Annie Harding, who I met this winter in an on-line group that touched base weekly to discuss Julia's Cameron's book FINDING WATER.

Annie: About me, I am a minor published poet with work in four internationally published anthologies.I am working on a collection of poems bout Nova Scotia.I also write Haiku,Sijo, Tanka and Hagia- a combination of photography and Haiku. Originally from Boston I have lived here for the last nine years on a small farm called foggytop. we raise sheep,goats and poultry. We are trying to make the farm self surviving-easier said then done. I was trained as an artist but I spent thirty plus years in corporate America. I design rare gemstone jewellery and work as a fibre artist and photographer.

 

Where does creativity meet spirituality for you?

 

I always been on a spiritual quest, creative energy must originate from the creator,  I am sojourner of sorts finding many religions offer aspects of joy and awareness that brings me peace. The Dali Llama- to take what we need and leave the rest. At the base of all religions I find a oneness-that connects us all.

 

Thomas Merton has a prayer where he confesses his uncertainty and in his uncertainty he concludes that by merely trying to please God, we do in fact please him. In this mindset I wrote the following

 

knowing

that I know nothing

I surrender

my mind centers and my breathing slows

it is in this silence

I at last find

you

waiting for me

on the other side of each breath

 

 

The 12  week journey we just completed FINDING WATER, THE ARTISTS WAY gave us many beneficial tools to help harness the Creator and our “believing mirrors” to build us up when we can not go  on. So I thank Lungta the wind horse blow blessing across the universe and leas us al to a new creative  level -

 

Namaste Annie

 

 

Hafiz poetry

There was a lovely poem in my mailbox from my friend, poet and photographer, Sarah:

WE HAVE NOT COME TO TAKE PRISONERS

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
"O please, O please,
Come out and play."

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom and
Light!

~ Hafiz ~

(The Gift ~ versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)