A literal or symbolic journey across this bridge takes me back to a place where stories, storytelling, and writing my stories began for me Where is this place for you? When you discover the bridge to your neglected garden of self you will find the place of your instinctual, creative being.
A tip over this bridge in my mind takes me to this place inside me. I am visual so looking at the picture above can lead me inward to my creative self. Because I visualize easily I can make this trip without needing to physically go there. It is a place within my psyche. Having a visual in my imagination speeds this journey to self. Writing allows me to know where I am in each moment and opens the door to where I am going.
The neglected garden of self is the place that has kept and sheltered that soft, vulnerable place within that requires gentle nurturing to bloom into life. You might think back to your childhood; was there someone or some place that you went to for comfort, love, and support? For me it was the river that was just a few blocks from my home. Writing is an act that opens me to my deep vulnerability. It allows me to reach inward as I also reach outward and in doing both I experience the most exquisite relationships of my life.
I become my most vulnerable in this practice, even more vulnerable than in relationship with those I love and care about. In this practice as I enter this garden of self I begin to experience the beauty of me.
A stillness arises that permeates every fiber of me. I am in the presence of mystery, and because I name it mystery it is something that I do not know or understand. I let go of assumptions and stand in this neglected garden with only my honest questions. My honest questions and lack of assumptions allow me admission to this place. In the stillness within I plumb my depth for the gleanings of my writings.
In this place I must stay still and do not struggle with producing these gleanings. I allow them to gently float to the surface of my conscious mind and then put words on the page before me. Sometimes they come in a logical fashion, sometimes they don't. I am responsible for recording these gleanings when they pop up. Later I will make sense of them, but oft times how they arrive is in perfect order.
This writing emerged as I sat in my garden of self:
Ravens give wings to your stories; listen to the voices of your ancestors telling you that the world is changing and your fears are but dry leaves beneath a tree awaiting the winds of change to rearrange them into a new day.
My thoughts were of birds in the sky and how my writings need wings to soar free. As I sat still the above words fleshed out and took form, first in my imagination as I visualized birds in flight, then in my thoughts as I put words to my vision, and then to my body as I sought an image to fit the vision and the words.
Discovering this place of quietude within me is how I begin to write. Being open to the images, words, and phrases that surface allows me to construct my abstract ideas into forms that I can then share with others. For me it is a sacred journey.
Take the time to discover your creative place, become still of thoughts and actions, and allow images to come up and then write them down; this is how you begin to write. Find this place, realize where you can enter it, and let it grow into a place of retreat and safety where you generate your creative ideas and reclaim the Garden Of Self....
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