charleston, meditation, natalie goldberg, running
In ramblings on February 4, 2009 at 12:25 am
here’s what i posted near the end of my notes on the natalie goldberg workshop: “i had assumed my reasons for traveling to charleston were natalie goldberg, writing and rest. it turns out it was for something more. it’s never about what we think it’s about.”
i also posted the other day that i had had a spiritual experience while running while i was in charleston and promised to say more.
here’s my best attempt at describing those experiences, although they are the kinds of things that tend to disappear or evaporate when you try to pin them down.
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when i read natalie goldberg’s old friend from far away, these passages resonated most with me:
this is the funny thing about writing memoir: we go back to retrieve our lives, to make sense of them. often it is painful: to realize our mistakes, the wrong turns we made. but something else also happens. Read the rest of this entry »
bob dylan, charleston, meditation, memoir, natalie goldberg, phoebe pember house, sophia institute
In ramblings on January 28, 2009 at 1:46 pm
she pronounces it “meh-mwa,” addresses us affectionately as “class,” tells a doubting thomas to “shut up and write,” and spies on us during free writing to see who’s breaking the rules and crossing things out.
for homework friday night, we complete a 60-minute free write on “tell me your story of love.” i manage to write the entire time but fail to get to the good parts. i realize the next day, listening to her speak, that it’s because i neglected details and avoided “go[ing] for the jugular.”
we spend most of our time together writing. we also meditate, slow walk and read to each other. and natalie reads to us, not her stuff, but selections from other writers whose writing she finds rich in detail. she’s also interested in writing that wanders/moves like the mind wanders/moves.
we practice the art of “recall” as a feedback mechanism. it’s not critique (what’s good, what’s bad, what i liked); it’s remembering. it’s saying out loud phrases and images you heard in the piece being read. it’s brilliant. she encourages us to Read the rest of this entry »
