Thoughts on writing, creativity, and meditation
Writing and meditation have so much in common.
After my husband, Peter, and I attended a writing retreat in Florence, this became as clear to me as the reflection of the Tuscan sky in the Arno River (See photo above).
Our workshop was set in the Italian countryside. This was our view. This is where we scribbled stream-of-consciousness responses to writing prompts. We shared our work. We learned to think beyond plot and to hold our stories loosely. We began to let go, to surrender, just as our characters did.
Delicious food and fabulous wine helped a lot.
Sometimes our teacher, Alan Watt, would get so excited while teaching us that he’d jump up and shout to make a point. “I’m yelling for you, not at you,” he’d exclaim. He really was.
He’d remind us: “We’re marrying the wildness of our imagination with the rigor of story structure. We’re not the author. We’re the channel.”
This sounded a lot like Vedic meditation to me, minus the wine and pasta. When Trudi and I teach this practice, we offer each student a mantra, or sound, to repeat silently inside. We take time to explain precisely how, when, and why to use that mantra. One of the things we say is that the mantra is a tool to transcend the mind. And when we do that, our “small s” self, sometimes called the ego, is no longer in charge. We settle down, like waves on the sea, finally able to feel at one with the whole ocean—what we call our “Big S” self. (Sometimes students mistakenly think we’re saying Big-Ass Self.) Either works.
This is where we can access the source of all thought. All creativity. All love. It’s what music producer Rick Rubin calls “a world of immense possibilities.”In his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rubin writes:
The act of creation is an attempt to enter a mysterious realm. A longing to transcend. What we create allows us to share glimpses of an inner landscape, one that is beyond our understanding. Art is our portal to the unseen world.
So, this is how I realized that meditation can be a creative act, like writing a story or singing a song. We set an intention to repeat the mantra effortlessly. We surrender and transcend our busy, thinking minds. And we trust that whatever happens along the way, happens for good.
As we like to say: Enjoy your Self.
Thanks for sharing your experience Diana!
Creativity flourishes when we learn to quiet the noise, trust the unexpected, and make space for inspiration to emerge. To explore that process alongside fellow writers in the heart of the Italian countryside, join my next Tuscany Writing Retreat.
