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I. Love. This. Book. I do. And I don't love just any old book. I mean, I love many books in the way you say on social media or in an email "Love that!" But my use of the word "love" here means something more. {I feel like I'm preparing to write a love letter to this book.}
I found Writing Begins with the Breath by Laraine Herring in a recommended reading list for the e-course "Blogging from the Heart." {Check it out as it's a wonderful course, Susannah is delightful and profound in all the right ways and you'll gain an instant e-tribe.}
I saw it in the list, you know - a little thumbnail of the cover hanging out there with other thumbnails. I thought - I don't need to read another book on writing. I just need to write.
The voice that said that to me was the voice of my inner critic/teacher/ego telling me to work harder, expect more and perhaps, by some miracle, writing more and more would turn me into the genuis my ego seems to want to give birth to. It is a familar voice. One that tells me to not be curious and receptive and to not admit when I'm wanting some help with something, or feeling a little less than as a writer.
I didn't listen to that voice. I read the book, and fell in love.
Herring draws the connections between the body and language in a seamless, sensible way. She speaks to how writing is an embodiment practice - it does live at the level of the body. To write, and write well, you need to listen to your body. In the body, in every inch of the arm, wrist, back of the knee or bottom of the foot, lies a storehouse of story. You need to breathe deep and walk with, not against, your body in this world to be a better writer - to come to a place of authenticity in your writing, which, in turn, becomes longevity for your writing and your life as an artist.
Such validation. Such sense for me as someone who is a dancer, choreographer, yogi, writer and editor.
Some of my choice quotes from the book include:
"You're not born the next Toni Morrison. You cultivate your voice over the course of your life, just like you cultivate the other aspects of a balanced life. You learn what you most need to say as you engage in a deeper relationship with yourself, which is the source of all of your creativity."
"It's been said that we write to make meaning out of chaos. Through our stories we come to find the patterns in a random universe and from those patterns we find comfort. All writing poses questions. Novels carry many questions. A poem may only carry one, but it could carry many more.... Often, a writer organizes his work based on the exploration of these questions. And this part is key: the writer cannot approach his work with the answers to the questions firmly in his mind. There is no humility there, no openness, no softness."
"It's healthy to not write from time to time as well. Take breaks from each other. Kahil Gibran says, "Let there be spaces in your togetherness."
"When I truly began to listen to my own skin, I could hardly contain the din. It was like a mother coming home from work to a dozen kids all talking at once. It panicked me, being this close to my skin. No wonder we distract ourselves from it in every conceivable way. This skin, this body, held everything I'd ever done. Through showing up on the mat, I'd learned to show up for my body. My ability, not just to listen, but to hear, surfaced. And as I learned how to hear, I learned how to write in a new way."
If you feel stuck, blocked, desiring more, wanting inspiration, not sure if you're a writer but want to write, I want you to read this book at some point in your life. Not because I love it and want you to love it, too. But because I think we all need a nudge now and then back into ourselves as artists. And I think one of the ways back in is by listening to others who want to share what they have learned.
We get low. We move our mind to the edges of what we call our body. And we walk, accepting less answer and more of someone else's experience as a way into our own body of experience and our own unique desire to create.
