Zaadz: DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop

Re: Solitary Confinement

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:55:49 -0000

Sandra,

Absolutely yes to other creative outlets. I cannot imagine if I only had writing to do - I think it would be overwhelming. Other outlets create the necessary diversion from the writing to strengthen it, and give it time to breathe and grow within.

When I focused mostly on art, I used to feel that pressure, so I know what a relief it can be to do something else, and unburden yourself from the constant pressure.

Let us know how your music making goes.

xo
Andrea

Re: Silence

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:06:12 -0000

i am so glad that it spoke to you. its just one of those things that can only be articulated through images. it just seems to mean the very thing of what it is to "see"

Re: the scary thing in the mirror

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:25:27 -0000

hey,

thanks so much everybody for your comments. It was so nice to come here this evening and read from all of you. I have recently been very curious about Reike. spelling? and i will look into that tree. I want to learn how to do it. I think i could look into it around here as well. I am very interested in it and i love the stories about your pets ayla and what happened to them and I wonder if you are going to get the next level.

Thanks tom about the evil. I wondering what is the difference between bad and evil and i will have to look that up to be sure. Evil sounds worse anyway.

I am glad michaelists I mean michaelsits about your new mediation and I would like to hear about it too.

Andrea, thanks for your comments. Wow about the haunted house and the girl. that really gave me the shivers. At least she sounded like a happy spirit and your dog liked her. I was worried about him diving into the pool though. I am assuming it was after you put the water back in.

Re: Two Eyes

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:42:53 -0000

This is so beautiful in it's simplicity and wisdom, Jim. I like the play on words with"eye" versus "I" and the separation of the final words reveals the surprise.

I wonder about the "I" who beholds it all--is it the subjective "I" who is the voice of the poem or a collective consciousness? There is nothing missing--no answer is needed. I rather like not knowing.

This is lovely, and I thank you for posting it.

Sparrow

Re: Assignment- Solitary Confinemnt

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:13:51 -0000

Thanks andrea and sandra

The last paragraph just poured out, i had no idea that was going to come out like that or at all, especially the Karmic piece.

I think you are correct about the forehead, details would be better. It is funny how i see "her" clearly in my head but do not actually "know" her in the physical world. Since writing fictionally intentionally is new to me, characters having faces and smells and emotions is surprising and fun to feel while writing. i guess you al are familiar with this part of the process though.

The point about no means no. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it really is not necessary since that is what the piece eventually shows all over the place, which i did not know when starting. On the other, i sense shredding the p.c. and social programming is what i think is intended here. Maybe if it was a longer piece, there would be room for jarring out of the flow would work better. I am glad as women that it pushed a button, he pushed some of mine too. What do others think?

I felt a little shaken after completing this, like i visited a place inside me i tend to ignore, maybe not ignore, avoid feels more truthful. Both rejection being my core issue and experiencing Karmic consequences being not far behind, this made me uncomfortable on a personal level. As far as the dive, it felt like flying. i could not type fast enough to stay with the what was coming up and out. It took longer to correct my typos then the actual piece did to write itself. As fast as the words were coming out, i still felt present, not like i was on a speeding train out of control, more like a long water slide with lots of little turns and twists. And yes, sandra, this did feel different for me. I think i do OK with diving into content and describing my feelings but not as well with diving into the piece itself, this felt more like that than usual. I was very present and part of the process but at the same time it was liked driving without directions or a known destination. I have the wheel but far from in charge. It was fun! i hope i get back there again.

Peace

michael

Re: Assignment- Solitary Confinemnt

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:19:00 -0000

Thanks ayla, that is too funny!

When i was writing the beginning, i was visualising her forehead- fare, soft and smooth but totally stressed and tense in the courtroom, while also seeing her cheeks- full and even softer and rosy with t he tears trickling down. Such a beautiful yet tragic image. It is an image hollywood does very well i think.

Of course she was upside down, how else does one cry in a court room? Don't you own a TV?

Peace

michael

Re: Two Eyes

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:50:09 -0000

Sparrow,

Perhaps, with one eye, the "I" is the personal voice and, with the other eye, the "I" is the collective consciousness.

Jim

Re: Assignment- Solitary Confinemnt

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:30:38 -0000

great to read your process with this, michael. What you describe is actually an assignment I have planned for the future! but more on that when it's time.

On the other, i sense shredding the p.c. and social programming is what i think is intended here.

I agree, thing is, for me at least, it would happen more powerfully if it wasn't 'told' to us. I'm well-trained in looking at my buttons - i.e. taking responsibility and looking 'within' if I get triggered, so this kind of piece, if directed at me as a 'standard' audience, would only preach to the converted really. What about those who are hard-boiled feminists? This would only fuel their fire, imo. Be great to only 'show' his feelings, his state, in such a way that everyone who reads feels on his side, and sees for themselves that there are situations that don't fit into how we think it 'always' is.

A film like The Woodsman for instance - have you seen it ? I mentioned it before. I think it's stunning -- not an easy subect at all, child molester. But they manage to make you (me, at least) see the fuller picture ( of this particular child molester) and break down the shallow 'ideas' of such a person.

Love,
Sandra

solitary confinement

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:39:42 -0000

New Years’ Eve. What time is it`? I wait, to hear the soft click of the clock on the wall to click off another minute towards the hour. I consider turning on the light so I can see but decide no as I don’t want to see the rest of the cell where I lie trying to just sleep. In my head I have a count of the miutes. 25 more until the clock hits the hour and a new year is upon us.

I lie, fetal position on the bed. My guts ache and lurch, I feel the squeeze in my lower intetine as something tries to move out of me. I want to cry but for some reason all I can mannage is a silent wimper. I try to force the tears out. To lubricate my closed eyes, but nothing comes. I know that there are tears in there somewhere if I could just find them. Images of the past days parade in front of my closed dark eyes, The customs hall, bright glareing, straight and orderly. Waiting, waiting for the old battered leather bag, wondering why it had to be the last to make it’s way down the chute, feeling exposed and open at a time that I most want the annonymity of a crowd. The two, what I think are customs agents but dread and fully suspect are really policemen, beckoning me over and asking me to lay the dark brown case on the cold steel table, knee level in front of them and the snap of the blue rubber cloves being pulled up their hands.

Please open the case sir.

Sir. I remember them calling me sir as if they respected me. All the while I know that they are the enemy and that the last thing they feel for the smelly hippie standing, shaking in front of them, is respect.

I roll over now facing toward the opposite wall of the cell. I can barely make out the other wall and I lift my head toward the high window above the tall cupboard on the outside wall. The window, frosted glass, no bars but with a steel mesh imbedded in the glass, lets in a weak, pale, yellow light from the spotlights high on the building. I notice soft small shadows brushing the window. I can almost hear the whisper as a heavy snow fall descends and muffles the sounds of cars and trucks passing near by just outside the wall.

Other noises start to register in my ears. Soft calls, whoops, and the occasional scream. It starts slowly. I hear the tick of another minute and realize that I have forgot to count and now have lost track of my mental count down. The sounds I am hearing, the voices, are sick with desperation maybe loneliness. Each one coming, I imagine, from a bed and cell very much like my own. Each one belonging to a different man with a different story as to why here is here on New Years Eve, alone in the dark, maybe, and wondering when again he will be able to walk freely out of here. The sound seems to attack the cell, driving spikes through the walls and into my body, each one penetrating me deeply with its desperate anguish. Is it loneliness? Desperation? a simple need to be heard tonight of all the nights of the year? Along with the screams is now banging, starting to thunder and reverberate through the walls, joining us together through the vibrations that start with a tin cup on a metal frame bed and end deep inside my gut shaking me to the core and splintering like broken glass in the walls of my intestines, imbedding there and clinging like barnacles to my fear of what will happen tomorrow, what will happen then.

Re: Solitary Confinement

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:31:27 -0000

Michael wrote: i think this would be a fun series of “glimpses” into the character's journey in solitude if you felt moved to do so.

--------------

Hard night. Couldn't get comfortable. Hip hurt, other hip hurt. The pain moved around as if were trying to find a way out. No way out, just lie there. I could get up, but I don't. What is there to do? In the middle of the night? I have all day already. It's not as if I could fit in some vacuuming or something, and save time for the day-time activities. Sometimes, I get up and stretch, that helps. Sometimes I try to find that place just outside my head, the one I once found. It hovered about a foot away from my brain. A place where I wasn't, a place which always told me that sleep was coming. I can't find it anymore.

I looked in the mirror this morning and saw what I didn't want to see. I hate those puffy bits above my eyes. What does it mean? It's not just lack of sleep. My liver? Is it my liver? It is in the liver spot. Makes me look Mongolian. Well, that's not so bad. I'd like to be in Mongolia. Outer Mongolia with a Yurt and a horse and a cute Mongolian to boil water for my bath.

I did my usual, hot and cold showers, tried to do seven, but only managed four. The shower has no oomph. I should have asked for that. A shower with good pressure. The things we forget. I asked for a view, I got that, sort of. I should have asked for a view of the sea. I got a mountain. Making a mountain out of a molehill I am. But the sea would be good, the sound of it in the night. That kind of sound makes sleeplessness a good dream.

I don't want to go outside today. It's too cold. I can see my breath, a grey curl in the air to keep me company, a sign of life.

The showers still helped, I feel, well, fresher.

Breakfast is over. Too bad. Now is the time. I promised I'd do it. I'd write today, I would. But it all seems so pointless here. Why do anything? Why not do nothing? Why not explore that inner space, why not go inward, and find what you know is there?

When they told me about this, what, this retreat - this time alone, my solitary confinement, it's what I imagined I do. I imagined I'd get lost in meditation. The endless silent pitch. The place where death emerges, the place where 'alone' means nothing.

I saw shapes once, in that place. I knew it had a name, the name was death and death was not an end. The shapes were geometric, three-dimensional, in bright fluorescent colours. Glowing in the dark, turning slowly. A neon-turquoise tetrahedron, revolving in the forever dark, a fire-red hyperboloid living in my head. My skull had no limitations, no bone, no nothing, opening out like a black hole into the universe.

Why work, when there is this?

I know it's an excuse. I don't live in that place. If I did I'd not have said yes to this, what, experiment. Perhaps what I wanted was to find a way to live there, in the dark, in the no-thing. Perhaps it has nothing to do with writing. One is eternal, the other, well, a reason to be that satisfies the monkey mind.

So, here I am, my fingers on the keyboard, looking out the window at a coal black cloud.

Re: Solitary Confinement

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:34:56 -0000

Glad you decided to continue, she is a neat character. i appreciate her fullness and emptiness. This piece also has that same smallness and expansion i enjoyed about the first one. It is also fun staying right here with her, she has no past, no connections, no strings, just now and herself. What a beautiful and treacherous place to be.

This really stood out to me:

"Perhaps what I wanted was to find a way to live there, in the dark, in the no-thing. Perhaps it has nothing to do with writing."

This pierced right to the belly, no stops along the way to the intellect or emotions. Strong. Simple. Courageous. A lifetime of discovery in two sentences.

I hope your not done with her yet, and vice-versa.

Peace

michael

Re: Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:35:32 -0000

oh, very interesting Andrea!
I don't know the book, so I can't respond on that level - but of course I do like the idea of something being written by DD members via email. I think it would only work between two (maybe 3? one as a kind of watcher?) people, not that scripts aren't written by many, but I suspect to do it all virtually it would work best with a limited number of writers. ?

And, I'm wondering if a kind of synergy is needed - my hubby has co-written several screenplays - he and another actor (when hubby was still an actor). They hit it off right from the start - on a personal level, and I think this made the whole thing a lot of fun - and, they had similar ideas about how things should work, so 1+1=3, in a way. (and they never sold the screenplays, but that's another story).

I do have a couple of pieces that I sometimes think could work in film - I'm waiting to get the collection finished before I start another project. So I guess I'm saying I'm personally interested in being involved, should the right 'click' happen at the right time...

Love,
Sandra

Re: Two Eyes

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:17:04 -0000

Sweet...

So easy on the eye, literally speaking..

MAde me smile..

Thanks..

Re: Silence

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:21:15 -0000

I agree FunkyD , about the seeing part..
The poet is clairvoyant..

I liked this, allthough it was gloomy, it gave me reminder of the passive resistance that is within people, seeing the leaders of the world go bananas over lacking funds. Silence like in waiting..

Re: Sleep

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:26:05 -0000

Totally cool..I dig..

This was so crazy to read..It pulled me in and I just had to follow the words, follow the mysteries of these questions..

I like the surreal sleep-dream vibe, and your language is just enough, saying just the "it" ..

"somehow I am moving, but not my arms, not my legs, not my head"

So cool, reminds me of how it is to wake up while in a dream..

Re: Tut's #3

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:24:10 -0000

Thanks, my friends. I also hold you to my heart. One of Amma's nuns has come to Maui on what has become a yearly visit to conduct pujas. A puja is a sacred ritual involving astrology, chanting, mantra, mudra, and fire and flower ceremonies intended to restore spiritual harmony. To participate directly you must first submit the time and location of your birth, chosing a specific puja from an available list with a corresponding fee. Those who conduct the puja thus have time to tailor it to everyone's needs. You are welcome to attend even if you have not ordered a puja. Naturally it is hoped that you will. The money supports Amma's humanitarian projects. The lady organizing this event had given out all the necessary information beforehand, with her recommendation that if you did order your own puja you would be on her personal star list. For days I tried in vain to use my credit card. Finally it turned out that despite my numerous trips to the bank to correct my latest address change they still didn't have it right. By then it was too late. I considered not going at all rather than endure the shame of a freebooter. At the last minute I went. What else was I going to do? Sit in the zendo? For God's sake, this was my own religion. The altar still being set up on the floor this lady's living room was stunningly beautiful. Many shining brass puja lamps were symmetrically arranged over a sacred symbol on a mat, with masses of flower garlands and petals at their bases, the dishes on their stems filled with temple oil and burning wicks, and candles lit. I sat right down next to it. The room was full of women. Not a single man. Who cares? This has got to be your ultimate zendo. I closed my eyes and meditated, relishing the happy atmosphere. I was rudely interrupted from my idyl by one of the ladies with her face directly in mine, asking me politely and in no uncertain terms to move over a little to my right. At the exact same moment another lady joyfully bounced down on a cushion a little to my right. I was out. Okay. Whatever. It's a woman thing. Indeed it was. More men showed up but the puja was strictly in the hands of women. I have no prejudice either way, but this is new. Amma has broken the ancient restrictions against women priests. I watched with interest. The nun was a radiant flower. To say that her acolytes had fully appropriated the strength and authority of men does not do full justice to their devoted and forbidding demeanor. Reflecting on the phallic stems of the puja lamps, I could not help but wonder how an erect penis would fare among them and if even the most erect of penises might not shrivel and turn inside out. Before the puja began, the nun spoke at some length with charming simplicity and shyness about its purpose and the desperate plight of the world due to unrighteous behavior, and then for the next few hours flawlessly rattled off Sanskrit chants and mantras, concluding the ceremony with exquisitely performed mudras. Those who had ordered pujas were then invited to come forward to receive their prasad or sacred food. There was prasad for everyone else too. She encouraged us not to be shy but to come forward. Still sensing our reluctance, she joyfully bounded up the with tray and lovingly served us. What a contrast this was to the disapproval I clearly sensed in my host, who had reluctantly offered me the Arati tray, barely patient while I performed the ritual three swipes of the flame heat to my face and head, and a dab of ash for my forehead. When she handed the tray to her husband so she could partake herself, she burned her finger in the flame.

Re: Sleep

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:26:31 -0000

hey ron,

i just thougt i would venture over here and read some poetry or something and who do I run into but you. what a wonderful surprise.

I love this poem as I love all of your poems.Especially the part about standing at the sink and the light and the bird songs, the trees and the growth of flowers.

Re: Troolee bad riting

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:32:11 -0000

I love reading your stuff so so so much. I usually buy a book based on the first page- if it grabs me, if it is funny or quirky or weird or I just love it. so I would buy your book sparrow, if i found it on the shelf with a really neat cover too. it would have a neat cover.

I've poured you a glass. Join me, won't you?

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:26:04 -0000

It is about a year since I first came to Diving Deeper. At the time, there was a thread going in which there was a reference made to the comfort of this place, and that it was like hanging out on a front porch with Jenni, one of our beloved "regulars". Being part of this group was a lifesaver to me. I was just getting my "voice" back, writing again for the first time in many years. I wrote a piece that was intended as a thank you, and I think I called it something about Jenni's front porch; it's now in my blog somewhere.

Soon after settling in here, my marriage fell apart quite traumatically. As I waited through the winter for my husband of fourteen years to move out, this place--no shit--saved my life. I am now operating as a single mom who works full time, and my available time to dive deeper is now quite limited, but it still means a lot to me.

I offer you this as another open love letter to all those who write because they just have to, and all those who read because they just have to, like sleeping and eating. I thank all the wonderful people who come here, to this place that is so real, and so important.

Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the Academy, and anyone else who couldn't find anything good on tv tonight, welcome to Jenni's porch. I have outfitted you all with a fine chardonnay and I have lit candles. The Bay City Rollers are singing softly on the turntable in the background--and why not? This is my fantasy--I will play whatever music I want.

I have invited you here to say a big Thank you. Monday is the Canadian Thanksgiving, and, being Canadian, I have been counting up all the things I have to be grateful for--I ran out of fingers a long time ago. For one biggie, I am grateful for miracles. I grew up Catholic, and as I turned into a sensible, hardworking, pretty unhappy woman, I dismissed the notion that miracles existed.

Let us now raise our glasses, because I can tell you without hesitation and only a little bit of slurring that miracles do happen--yes they do--I see you there shaking your head in disbelief.

Recipe for inviting miracles into your life:

allow Mistakes, Disasters, Calamities of any kind to bring you to the point where you don't know What the Hell to Do, and so you

SURRENDER.

Isn't that a great word? It is like the sound of a wave crashing on the sand and pulling back. It is the sound of an exhale that comes from deep inside your body. It is a spiritual free-fall, where you shout out from your most primal core:

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. I DON'T KNOW WHAT COMES NEXT. IF ANYONE IS LISTENING, I AM OPEN TO COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS, DIRECTIONS OR REALLY GREAT RECIPES WITH FIVE INGREDIENTS OR LESS.

And then you just follow your nose. Or your heart, or whatever body part feels like a good guide. I don't advise you to follow your genitals--that tends to scratch the itch, but the rash is still going to be there tomorrow.

Let us be joyful for no reason.

Let us look into each other's faces and see beauty.

Let us be kind to each other.

Let us surrender to not knowing, and let the universe steer sometimes.

Let us write, because we just bloody well have to. And let us spill it all out there onto the paper and let that be enough. There it is. I wrote that.

Let us remember how to be foolish. Let us remember how to laugh. Let us remember that we are all beginners in some way, and there is no arrival point. The answer to "Are we there yet?" will always, always be:

NO, BUT WE'RE GETTING THERE...

Wrapping you in a warmly feathered embrace,

Sparrow

Re: Assignment: Solitary Confinement

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:45:32 -0000

Thank You All. :)