Dear fellow human,
I’m writing to you from the Omega Institute, a holistic center for personal growth in New York’s Hudson Valley. I’m staying in a little cabin (air-conditioned, thank god) on its sprawling, rustic campus on a bucolic rural estate. My day started with a three-shot latte and some journaling under a willow tree on the shore of a private lake, and I’m not sure life gets much better than that.
I’m here to take part in a week-long writing workshop called Narrative Healing, led by the supremely talented and big-hearted Lisa Weinert. I want to share with you a little bit of what I’ve learned and experienced here.
Yesterday Lisa led us through an exercise that has already enriched my creative writing. It’s called deep listening.
Deep listening involves more than just hearing. In conversation, it means really taking in what the other person is saying; opening to receive them with a curious mind and a true willingness to understand, rather than just waiting for our turn to speak.
We can practice deep listening with ourselves as a way to coax our story out. Too often we come to the page with a lot of preconceptions of what we are going to write. We’re too ready to jump in with what we think we know. And the words come out flat or cliched, because we’ve pushed them out from our head without first listening for what wants to come forth from the heart.
As Lisa explained, the stories inside of us are like wild animals, self-protective, shy, and stubbornly resistant to being forced out in the open. They know our interior landscape better than we do, and will only venture out of their hiding places when it is safe.
Toni Morrison said that it took her three years to write her Pulitzer prize-winning novel Beloved before she even started working on the manuscript. That is some deep-ass listening.
In our workshop, we were working with a writing prompt; an intention and focus for the piece. Ours was: What do you bow down to? (Inspired by the prose poem Reverence, by Mary Roy).
A good way to warm up is simply to listen to the senses. What are you taking in about the world around you and within you? You may notice traffic noises. The sounds of birds or animals. Distant conversation. The sound of your own breath. I noticed a soft breeze. Busy mosquitos. Sunlight splashed across my bare legs. Be curious about what is.
Now, listen deeply for what is in your heart. What do your stories, memories, feelings want to say?
I listened for what I bow down to. Here’s what came out of me.
It won’t always be this way.
The crushing blows. The fiendish streak of bad breaks. The rising flood that gulps you down whole.I see you
turning your face to yet another storm and pressing yourself into it because you must, and there’s no shelter anyway.
I bow to your strength.You won’t always feel this way.
This pitching and weaving, this sickening lurch. The void in the belly, the deathly numbness.I see you
blinking out your slow and steady semaphore: SOS.
I bow to your hope.You won’t always need these things.
The fists and razors and drugs and ragged screams. The fire escapes and snatched pennies and heavy, heavy doors.I see you
constructing sanctuary with your flesh, your scarred back a thickening shell, your eyes black boxes packed with damning evidence.
I bow to your resilience.Hear me speak this truth, and allow your knowing. (You do know that it is true, don’t you, my love?)
The day is coming when you will know in your bones that you are whole and safe.I see you
ripening and fragrant, soft and free.
I bow to your perfect, unblemished heart.
Whether you’re listening to another person, or your body, or the stories inside you, you’ll know you’ve listened deeply when your perspective feels wider, fuller, somehow changed by the encounter. You’ve learned something.
This is the safe space in which our stories can reveal themselves.
I’m at Omega for two more days and there’s so much more to share — I’ll trickle it out in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, applications are open for the Fall 2022 book planning program. If you need help with a nonfiction book proposal and publishing plan, apply to join me and my team in Palm Springs in October.
xo
Maggie