Presence Writing
plus future writing dates
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Friends,
Recently in an online workshop, I shared about Presence Writing, when you sort of empty out everything inside your head, body, being, and just write what is there waiting for you in the moment.
This is meant to take away the pressure—the pressure to perform, to meet the deadline, a way to drain the noise of the world from us, even if only for ten minutes of the day.
The other day I was feeling really stressed, really overstimulated, so I practiced presence writing. I wanted to share with you what I wrote, unedited, just what poured out of me. Sending you all lots of love and support in these times.
I write as an invitation to belonging; I always have. I write from the valley of my own being, from the stage of my own grief, a play of sorts, stories acting themselves out again and again in my mind and heart. From there, I go to the stories of others, seeking out their existence, their longing, their quiet search for healing.
If I truly believe in the power of medicine, of alchemy, then I must believe in the power of my own words, and how they shapeshift in the world around me. One sentence in one book can shift the foundations of another human being who reads it.
How could words hold such gorgeous power?
I write here, in this way, to escape the noise—all the voices, all the devices, all the words of others that, while they are a balm, keep me from my own inner stream. If I am a writer but only put pen to page when I have a deadline, what kind of writer am I? That is simply a fulfillment of consumerism, a means to an end instead of the sacred act of writing in its deepest, purest form: to fulfill the desires of the soul, to be healed by story, to alchemize grief and embody deep care.
