When I sit for meditation, my mind resists for a time, bouncing from one topic to the next. On a good day, my mind eventually settles and stills. I begin to feel grounded in my body, connected to a world beyond my meandering thoughts and ‘small self,’ i.e., the self that is only concerned with details, issues and problems. In this more expansive state of mind, rebel thoughts pop in to test me, but the space around them is bigger now and I am at peace, i.e., the thoughts no longer have a grip on me and I am not as invested in them.
When I sit down to write, I am purging my thoughts and feeling (sorry, computer screen). It feels messy at first. I am not always sure where, if anywhere, the writing is headed and, in some cases, what it is even about on a universal or bigger picture level. As I continue to write and craft my piece, I begin to see something that wasn’t there before, like an etching. I am connecting the dots; the life experiences I write about begin to make more sense and take on a deeper meaning. This process of organizing my thoughts and feelings helps me to get in touch with the big emotions stirring in me; in the Astrology world, I am a Scorpio Ascendant and if you know anything about this sign you know we feel deeply but tend to keep our feelings inside, hesitant to express them. Writing feels like a safe place to express.
As I move into the polishing stage, I feel a writing “high,” like the space that opens when I meditate. The writing process creates objectivity around a situation or experience that I was enmeshed in. As I complete a piece of writing, it is a ceremony of freeing stuff I was holding onto that was, undoubtedly, creating holding patterns in my mind and body.
Like a fire ritual, with each essay I write, I throw my emotional baggage into the flames and watch it burn.