I’ve been writing for a short while now; not long compared to most people who call themselves writers.
It’s such a skill to craft our feelings, thoughts, imaginings and stories into words of a particular language. I imagine at some point, most writers feel that words are inadequate, clumsy and clunky to articulate the magnificence they are trying to bring to creation.
This isn’t limited to writers through. We experience this with how we communicate, especially with those we love more than words.
Like when you want to convey something so intimate and vulnerable, and you use the worst possible combination of words and end up deeply wounding yourself and the one you love.
For a long time, I didn’t write because I was afraid I’d be misunderstood or judged. A fear I had likely because at times that’s all I could offer others.
Truthfully, how much do we really truly listen to another person, or read with immersed abandon anymore?
A song bird sings. That is its nature.
Animals effort no energy fighting their nature. Their nature is their service to the world.
Human nature in this regard is different. It is as much in our nature to be violent as it is to be artistic and opposition, I believe, lies our true nature - that of choice.
The Wolf You Feed
The choice is illustrated beautifully by this Cherokee story.
The wolf you feed - that choice becomes our nature manifest and activated in the world.
Perhaps that is why writing is such a medicine - whether you have authored many books, or you are someone who is starting a journal to chronicle your thoughts, feelings and experiences.
Like any other craft, the more we wield and practice our writing, the more we align to the vibration of our intention, of the phonetics and we choose our words with great care as they represent parts of us not always seen. We also start unfurling more of ourselves as we surrender to the craft. We build on our wins and press into our edges. We quest to find the right words to convey the right sentiment, and learn new words or bring back long lost ones.
We get to reformat our vocabulary, and so this has to change how we communicate to our loved ones, our family, friends, coworkers, business collaborators and acquaintances. If we are very lucky, we also evolve how we talk to ourselves.
This opens up all sorts of amazing, because when we upgrade how we communicate to ourselves, our world and those around us, we begin to change our perceptions from passive receivers of life, to Masters and Creators of our life experiences.
We become invokers, using our knowing, intuition, intellect, faith, perceptions, emotions and words to see past what we understand as reality( what has already been manifested) and start calling forth the truth of what is being birthed within and without.
Ghost Writing
I recently met a woman who worked as a ghost-writer at an agency.
She and her team would take on wealthy clients who ‘had a story to tell’ but no ability or patience to write it. Her job was to transcribe the interviews and write chapters and publications as the person.
Some of my closest friends are authors. I witnessed the entire birthing process from conception to publication and all the emotions, doubts, editing, creating, writing and deleting that goes into that process. To a much smaller degree, I’ve felt it too with my writings.
I noticed some judgement come up around ghost-writing as a profession. Not the writers themselves, but towards the shallowness of one who wishes to ‘write a book’, but decided that they can’t (or can’t be bothered), so they pay someone else money to do so, applying their name on work that isn’t theirs. Creation is a process after all.
But doing weird things for money, fame and status isn’t new.
I wondered if ghost-writing is a bit like stage-acting. It’s the stage actors’ job to take a script off the paper and enact it in a way that invokes the senses and emotions of an audience. Their job is to convince you that they are someone else and take you on a ride. I’m unclear why, but this helped my judgements fade.
Maybe because judging is so easy. We are all so practiced in what we like and do like and creating a negative arc around what is less preferable to us.
I’ve noticed that judgement is one of more powerful foes of any creative pursuits - either self judgement, that of others, or the fear of it.
It’s so cool to meet perfectly lovely strangers who help you face something within yourself, so you can later sit and re-pattern or transform it. I am so grateful!
Keep on Writing
Some people have the soul of a writer.
It is to them, as breath.
If you take away their laptops, they will write on notebooks, and if you take those away, you’ll see their scribbled notes and ideas on napkins and on the walls.
I do not possess the soul of a writer. It isn’t like breath to me.
I am in awe of writers, engineerings, mystics, artists, chefs alike who live and breathe their craft. I believe they are needed in the world to restore essential love and connection that has long been suppressed.
This is a lovely sentiment, but I was unsure why I kept writing.
Was it for attention and the desire to be seen and heard?
The hope that someday, I’d open up the stats page and I’d have 1000s of followers?
The desire to chronicle my experiences in the off-chance that it helps another?
What is my why behind writing?
The truth is, I have little idea.
I know that when I’ve quietly decided that a particular post will be my last one, I get nudges to keep on writing.
I know that while I do not possess a cosmic desire to write, expression, in all its forms verbal, written, intended, non-verbal, body language, style and posture is important to me. Maybe right now that is enough for me to know, to propel piece after piece out of me.
As someone who works with energy and resonance, I am very clear that I do not want to waste my or anyone's time. While a great number of followers and subscribers will make some part of me very happy; the other part is interested in something else. My writing is intended for those who find it.
When I write something, I’m processing and releasing as well. Once I click ‘publish’, a big part of my story with that subject is done and out in the world. After that, it isn’t about me. It is about you and what may open or close in your universe.
While that is true, I know my journey is incomplete without you.
And so to you, the Reader, I give you thanks.
Gratitude for the clicks that brought you here; for the time you spend on a publication like Substack; for your contributions as writer and reader and a citizen ready for new types of engagement in our changing world; for your opening heart and mind and your journey thus far. It is truly a thing of greatness - you.Whoever you are, wherever you live and whenever you read this, we are now complete.
All my love and gratitude.