Inviting the Muse, and keeping the door open: how to conjure a space for creativity's voice
I remember Jack Thomas’ early morning college poetry classes. We sat on the floor in his study and Jack read poetry. And it wasn’t always out of a book. One day, we were graced with the mellifluous voice of Joan Baez reciting poetry to the music of Peter Schickele. The album was “Baptism: A Journey through our Time.” At the end of the semester, Jack placed the album in my hands; I still have it, and still listen to it.
THE 1st WRITING CIRCLE
In 2006, I was hired to catch up a year behind schedule project at the Portland Oregon VA Medical Center. Having worked previously with ER MD’s in research for 16 years, I understood how to triage, and how to be efficient with time, energy, and resources. I not only caught up the project – I had time to respond to an RFP [Request for Proposal]. I had decided, since I had experience and understanding of acupuncture, to write an acupuncture proposal for veterans with PTSD. Midway through the writing, I had a dream. The dream had a clear voice: I was not to continue writing the RFP; instead, I was to propose a Creative Arts Writing Circle for veterans with PTSD. [The dream had worked out the title!] And, it continued, I was to ask Kim Stafford to help me teach a class.
The VA had a program called Pathways where you could propose the teaching of a class on anything that might be beneficial to veterans. I wrote a proposal based on the dream, it was accepted, I recruited vets, I taught the Circle, and Kim Stafford agreed to help me teach a Circle.
Why call it a Circle and not a Class? Memory of Jack’s early morning tutelage where we sat on the floor in nothing that resembled any other class. Memory and experience in Native American ceremonies and Circles, and Dream Circles at the Ojai Foundation. I loved the parity of these spaces. I resonated to the idea that everyone had an equal voice. I also liked that I could see everyone’s faces.
FOLLOWING THE BREADCRUMBS
As a creative, and a writer, I have learned to follow the breadcrumbs.
Now where does this image originate? When I was a child and television was the babysitter, there were children’s programs that had accompanying music. There was that glorious white bouncing ball over the words that helped you know where you were in the song.
As a creative, and a writer, I may not always understand where I am being led, but I have learned, through nightmares, and sleepless nights, or enough night tossing to be an exercise program unto itself – I have learned to listen.
A story tells itself to me in words, phrases, impressions, insistences, images, and sometimes song lyrics. The story that wants to be told will not leave until I have paid attention to it, strung together the disparate parts and connected the dots, even though I may be trying to make sense of it in the dark, and in unfamiliar territory.
This was the way with this first Circle. I took out my literature and poetry books. I listened to my Baptism album. I created an outline of what I would talk about, what poems I would use as navigational tools, what inspired me, and what came into my mindspace at the time I was preparing for the Circle. And, I was always prepared for the agenda to change. My dear friend Vern Smith, the consummate artist and teacher, once told me that he could prepare the Greatest Lesson Plan in the History of the World, but as soon as he placed his hand on the doorknob of the classroom – he knew whether or not he would be using what he planned.
I had a similar experience. I don’t know what you would call it. I believe we exist in a sea of emotions and currents, and while we may not always be able to acknowledge their source, the slipstream – those emotions and currents affect us. It’s important to understand this and be ready to shift gears AND trust that you will have the tools to accommodate the shift.
THE 2nd WRITING CIRCLE
I taught another Circle for veterans and their families through the Del Norte Association of Cultural Awareness in Crescent City, California. I did what I knew to do: prepare Lesson Plans, create a binder with poems, and have a rough idea of what plan would precede another. I needed something to steer by even though I instinctively knew things would change. In the middle of the Circle gatherings, there was Parkland. I walked into the Circle that day not quite knowing what to do. Do I stick to the plan because the Circle needs structure? But something wouldn’t let me. I was bereft and saturated with the pictures and interviews that followed the massacre. I remembered the look of the lawyer defending the shooter, and her words about him being a broken child. At the beginning of the Circle, after I had read a poem – I always started with a poem because I wanted them to experience the telling of a story in a small space – I asked the Circle to write a Blessing for a Broken Child.
Something I like to do in writing circles is teach, and encourage, non-dominant hand writing. I noticed that a few writers were using their non-dominant hand to write this Blessing.
When I started to plan for this Circle, I had an image of the Himalayas, and followed through on what the image was trying to tell me, and how it was directing me. This is what I wrote as the Introduction to a Small Booklet I created when I saw the richness of the work and creativity emerging from this Circle:
INTRODUCTION TO A SMALL BOOKLET
As I prepared for this Writing Circle, a persistent image of the Himalayas presented itself; specifically, climbing Mt. Everest.
When I followed the breadcrumbs, I realized that teaching a Creative Writing Circle would be like climbing this great mountain. It dawned on me that when “teaching” writing, which one doesn’t, in truth, do – instead, one constructs a path, provides guard rails for the steep mountain passes, employs Sherpas for the heavy weight carrying, and makes sure that sufficient time is allowed for acclimating to the soon to be encountered higher altitudes. That was how I approached and planned this Writing Circle. And why, since we’re mincing words, a Circle and not a Class.
A Circle, by definition, holds equal places. It is defined by its perfect shape, and each inhabitant of the Circle is equal. There are no boundaries, as there are, in my mind, in the traditional classroom setup. That, and I have participated in Native American and shamanic rituals and teachings, and the Circle was the geometry in which we experienced the mystery, and sometimes the breath, of sacred space.
The Circle gave birth to Circle Poems which were a challenge, and a delight. A delicious synchronicity and listening engages the Circle when writing “in the round” so to speak.
Back to acclimating: how better to attune to the higher regions and realms of the imagination than to ask the Circle to take some risks – non-dominant hand writing, nonsense writing – writing adventures and exercises sound too much like what I associate with the physical, so these then became “mental” adventures – Come, take a dive into the deep end of the creative pool of possibilities:
e.g., Adventure: You’ve been leant a Time Machine for the weekend. You’ve been given instructions on how to use it. You’ve been told that there are no penalties if you return it later than it’s expected back. What time period do you choose? Who are you? What character do you choose to be? Why? Describe how you’re dressed? What is your daily schedule? And what is on tap for today? You can go back before the beginning of time and be a dinosaur. (from BJ Genovese’s imagination)
e.g., Adventure: “There is a sudden knock at your door. A trusted friend enters to warn you that the Dream Police will arrive in 20 minutes. Everything – everything in your life that you have not written down will evaporate upon their arrival. You have only 20 minutes to preserve what’s most precious in your life, what has formed you, what sustains you, what is essential, what you cannot live without. Whatever you forget will disappear. Everything, to be saved, must be named, in its particularity. Not trees, but oak. Not animals, but wolf. Not people. As in reality, what has no name, no specificity, vanishes.” (from Deena Metzger’s Writing for Your Life)
Or anything that I read in writing books or that my mind conjured in order to begin to flex creative muscles, engage the imagination, turn down the volume of the analytical mind, and find, once more, the frequency of the creative.
It all served – in base camp – for the Writing Circle. All the writers dove into the deep end of the creative pool with me. And they all produced works of wonder*, of whimsy*, of terror*, of thoughtfulness*, of humor*.
I know that I learn best when a safe space is created so that all of the above* are welcome to come sit for a chaw and share what we know we know, but have been, perhaps, reluctant to know in a public way.
Write on.
THE OTHER IDEAS FOR THIS 2nd CIRCLE
Once I had the image of the Himalayas, ideas began to pour through as if someone had unleashed a floodgate:
write at least 10 minutes per week with your non-dominant hand [as the Circle progressed, I challenged them to write an assignment with their non-dominant hand]
write three lines [I was preparing them for haikus] based on an image; I cut out images and handed them around, and, I also asked the Circle to bring in images that spoke to them – I called this Poetry in a Hat
write about “setting the darkness echoing” – a line from a Seamus Heaney poem
have a conversation with a dream – in fact, make a cup of tea, and then have a conversation with a dream
A to Z [or Z to A] nonsense writing: this is great fun – you start with A and craft a nonsense story by making your way through the alphabet; if you have trouble with XYZ words, then substitute “xerox your zebra” – e.g., aardvarks bumbled cautiously down exterior fugues, going headlong…[the point is to not think about the words but let whatever comes into your head be there, and to keep writing]
from the A to Z [or Z to A] nonsense writing, elaborate on something that speaks to you – a phrase or string of words – and begin to shape it into a more coherent paragraph
I printed out excerpts from the speeches of Nobel Prize winners, then folded the papers and tied either a blue [male] or pink [female] piece of yarn around each – the assignment was to choose one of each, read it, and then ask that writer questions
create a new font – this was delicious fun because a) it didn’t have to make sense, and b) it gave wings to the creativity itching to get out of the starting gate of their imaginations
write about the internal exile – this was a suggestion from one of the Circle Writers after she read Tagore’s Nobel Speech
write a song
write about a road you did not take that made all the difference
make a list of what you love, then construct a portrait of a person from these details – who is this person?
make a list of what you dislike, a list of what you fear
imagine you’re at the end of your life – without hesitating, without thinking, record the life you have lived in five sentences
what three things can you not talk about?
what three things can you not forgive?
Circle Poems – one person in the Circle writes three lines, then hands the paper to another person
what is the story that holds your history?
choose any artist in history – you are in their studio at the moment of one of their creations – what is the conversation or experience that follows?
write about who you become in order to save your life
from a list of the top 200 books in the U.K., read a book you’ve not read, and write one paragraph about why you chose the book’s title, one paragraph on what you liked about the book, and one on what you didn’t like
during the eight weeks, one of the Circle Writers became a great grandmother, so I asked if writers would attempt a birth blessing
write a recipe for recklessness
from a list of famous first lines from novels, use that first line and write a story
HANDOUTS EACH WEEK
I always had something to pass out to the Circle: Suggested Reading Books, Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers, excerpts from Ray Bradbury’s “Zen in the Art of Writing” et al.
Seated around the table were hungry creative spirits. The blessing of being a creative writing teacher is to know what to set before the Circle, and to trust that your choices, though not always provable to you, are coming from a wise place. I learned to trust that.
THE DEBRIEF AFTER THE CIRCLE
After each Circle, my mind was ablaze with ideas, and, some second guessing: How could I have better answered that question? Better directed that conversation? These soon abated because, I realized, we all have a Learning Curve, especially teachers. Instead, I focused on the blazing ideas.
A good feeling comes over me every time I look at that Small Booklet. Eight weeks of traversing unknown territory, testing the waters, and the snows of the mountain we were climbing. Trusting the presence and guidance of the Muse. I will refer to a story that has buoyed me up more times than I can remember: Field of Dreams, and the incomparable line: “If you build it, he will come.”
That’s the heart of it. Place your intention out there. What is it that you want to do? It may not take the shape you selfishly imagined. It may be infinitely better. It may be glorious. It may defy your imagination.
And something else I have learned is to get out of my own way.
One day, a phrase came to me: my wider wisdom. Ah, that’s what I would call the Muse, my intuition, the part of me that is smarter than I am. I like the sound it makes in my mouth and in the spaces between my teeth.