Ever since starting my Morning Walks, I stopped writing my Morning Pages. Every time I stop writing my Morning Pages, I lose contact with my Soul. And now is not the time to lose contact with my Soul — I’m on a quest for change!
The practice of writing Morning Pages — just like the practice of Morning Walks — is a form of meditation. Here’s what Julia Cameron has to say about this in The Artist’s Way:
We meditate to discover our own identity, our right place in the scheme of the universe. Through meditation, we acquire and eventually acknowledge our connection to an inner power source that has the ability to transform our outer world. In other words, meditation gives us not only the light of insight but also the power for expansive change.
Insight in and of itself is an intellectual comfort. Power in and of itself is a blind force that can destroy as easily as build. It is only when we consciously learn to link power and light that we begin to feel our rightful identities as creative beings. The morning pages allow us to forge this link. They provide us with a spiritual ham-radio set to contact the Creator Within. For this reason, the morning pages are a spiritual practice.
It is impossible to write morning pages for any extended period of time without coming into contact with an unexpected inner power. Although I used them for many years before I realized this, the pages are a pathway to a strong and clear sense of self. They are a trail that we follow into our own interior, where we meet both our own creativity and our creator.
Morning pages map our own interior. Without them, our dreams may remain terra incognita.Using them, the light of insight is coupled with the power for expansive change. It is very difficult to complain about a situation morning after morning, month after month, without being moved to constructive action. The pages lead us out of despair and into undreamed-of solutions.
So from now on, I will wake up at 6:00 in the morning instead of 7:00. I will write my Morning Pages, then take my Morning Walk, and do my Morning Stretches.
My morning walk by the river
has become a habit.
I’m hooked.
I’m glad!
Here’s what the trail looked like yesterday, around 8 a.m. — I was blown away by the different shades of blue.
Now that I’m in the habit of strolling along the river every morning, I get to notice the changes. For instance, this big crack wasn’t there the day before. You’ll be happy to know that even though I’m not comfortable with stepping onto the ice, I mustered up enough cojones to capture this picture… just for you.
Another fun thing about my new habit is that each morning I choose a different place to stop and sit and BE. This was yesterday’s *magical* spot — cool, huh?
Of course, I was already a big walker prior to engaging in this daily routine (a New Year’s resolution). Since I don’t have a car, I walk all the time, I walk all over the place. I also pride myself in walking super fast (beep! beep!) and for long distances — I get all pumped up and sweaty… it’s what keeps me fit.
What’s particular in this case is that my morning walks have turned into really nice dates with myself. YESSS! I’m starting to understand what Julia Cameron calls the artist date. I know, my dates aren’t exactly “artist dates” because I don’t go to different places to participate in different activities, but the end result is the same: I’m pulling myself out of the mothballs. I’m rediscovering who I truly am and asking myself what it is I want to live for the rest of my life. This makes me relax, and play; I’m being more creative, more happy.
Come to think of it, each morning walk is like a little road trip where I feel free and ALIVE. I’d love to just go on walking non-stop. I bet I could walk all around the world.
Only downside: When I miss my morning walk — like I did today, on account of the rain — I crave the river’s energy. The day just ain’t the same without it.
Last night’s New Year’s eve ritual
ended with the picking of a Rune.
With candles and sage burning…
With Totem‘s music drumming & shaking my soul…
I prayed. I thanked. I asked for guidance.
Ansuz answered my call.
Excerpt from The Book of Runes, by Ralph Blum:
(mine is an old edition from 1982 — looks ancient!)
ANSUZ
Signals
Messenger Rune
The God Loki
The keynote here is receiving: messages, signals, gifts. Even a timely warning may be seen as a gift. When the Messenger Rune brings sacred knowledge, one is truly blessed, for the message may be that of a new life unfolding. New lives begin with new connections, surprising linkages that direct us onto new pathways. Take pains now to be especially aware during meetings, visits, chance encounters, particularly with persons wiser than yourself.
Loki is the ancient trickster from the pantheon of the Norse gods. He is the heyeohkah of the North American Indian, “a mocking shadow of the creator god,” the bringer of benefits to humankind. Even scoundrels and arch-thieves can be bearers of wisdom. When you draw this Rune, expect the unexpected: The message is always a call, a call to new life.
Ansuz is the first of the thirteen Runes that make up the Cycle of Initiation — Runes that focus directly upon the mechanism of self-change — and as such, addresses your need to integrate unconscious motive with conscious intent. Drawing it tells you that connection with the Divine is at hand. For Ansuz is a signal to explore the depths, the foundations of life, and to experience the inexhaustible wellspring of the Divine in your nature.
At the same time, you are reminded that you must first draw from the well to nourish and give to yourself. Then there will be more than enough to nourish others. A new sense of family solidarity invests Ansuz.
What strikes me in this message is the reference to Loki the ancient trickster, the heyeohkah of the North American Indian.
This is Abuelita Margarita — I carry her picture in my Rune book. I met her for the first time in 2005 when she came to Montréal from Mexico to hold spiritual healing circles. When she saw me and heard me laugh, she affectionately called me a trickster. I’m starting to believe that maybe she was right.
And when I read that once I draw from the well to nourish and give to myself, there will be more than enough to nourish others, I feel this has to do with writing my memoirs. I’ve come to realize that by revisiting the past and making peace with everything and everyone, I’m reclaiming the energy I left behind because of the confusion and depression I was living at the time. By writing my memoirs, I’m drawing from the well. By getting my Road Trip Show on the internet, I’ll be giving back and hopefully nourishing others with the love and laughter I’m so eager to share.
So Ladies and Gentlemen, the magic has just begun.
Hold on to your hats!
P.S.: For those of you who think I was a tad tipsy when I recorded my New Year’s message, let me assure you that the Magic Potion was pure peppermint tea — I was actually drunk with joy.
The book jacket describes it as being “part biography, part memoir, part critical study, part exploration of sexual politics in our times.” But for me it’s the story of a beautiful friendship, one that began in 1974 when Erica Jong, then the author of a relatively obscure first novel called Fear of Flying, received an enthusiastic fan letter from Henry Miller, then an old man of eighty-three. The friendship would last until Miller’s death in 1980.
I first read Devil at Large in May 1995 (jotted the date inside the book). Back then, having previously struggled through Miller’s infamous Tropic of Cancer and, of course, knowing full well his reputation as a misogynist and writer of smut, I was surprised to learn that he was actually a spiritual man. His “aha! moment” came in 1939 when he left Paris and settled in Greece, hoping to wait out the war there. Aged forty-seven, Henry was about to be transformed.
And so it is that Miller found in Greece the inspiration for his book The Colossus of Maroussi which brought about many discussions. Here’s what Jong has to say about Miller’s transition from lewdness to light:
Mary Dearborn acknowledges the beauty of Maroussi‘s prose, but she dismisses the book in a few lines: “His recounting of one spiritual experience after another tends to bore readers who are not taken up with mysticism.”
Of course, “mysticism” — the very word has become pejorative — is always boring to those who believe only in materialism. “Boring” is in itself a codeword for fear — as any psychoanalyst can tell you. There is a whole school of journalists and critics who will dismiss as “New Age claptrap” everything from Maroussi to Walden to the Tao Te Ching to Shirley MacLaine’s bestsellers as if there were no difference in quality or in kind.
Probably the fear of enlightenment is greater in some people than the attraction toward it, but some of us are drawn to it, while others stubbornly turn their backs, claiming the light does not exist. One cannot argue about the possibility of enlightenment any more than one can argue about the existence of god and goddess. It requires a leap of faith, an act of amazing grace. Miller made that leap of faith in Greece. Many of his chroniclers cannot follow him.
Even Robert Ferguson, who is a somewhat less grudging and bitter critic of Henry than Mary Dearborn, says of Maroussi that “a second rebirth, coming so soon after the first one in Paris with Tropic of Cancer, might seem like one rebirth too many.” But spiritual experiences are cumulative. They gather like waves and result in breakthroughs. Creative life does not proceed by accumulating anthills of “facts.” Rather there is a slow accretion of experience, of learning one’s craft, of growing spiritually, until suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, one soars to a new level. If you’ve experienced it, you believe it. If you haven’t, you disbelieve.
Of all Henry’s biographers, Jay Martin best comprehends Miller’s mission to free his readers. He records the sense of liberation and ease Miller felt in Greece. After the frenzy of the Paris years, where he wrote and wrote to empty himself of the bitterness of his past, he was finally able to draw a long breath of life and light. He returned to America a new person. In a sense, his soul had been shriven.
Perhaps Maroussi is played down by Miller’s biographers because it is “a book without sex,” as one of his Greek friends predicted. It doesn’t fit the Miller stereotype, so it is safer to ignore it than to acknowledge that Miller was multifaceted, both as a human being and as a writer. In this age of electronic sound bites and media stereotyping, few public figures are allowed complexity, compli- cation, or chiaroscuro (1). Miller is seen as the antic goat, nothing more. How can we notice that his central book is full of sea and sun, not slime and sperm? It would make our precious point of view seem wrong! The truth is that Miller was on a spiritual journey his whole life — and Greece was at the heart of it.
…
Henry turned serene, almost seraphic in Greece, and all his friends noticed the change. He began his lifelong romance with the wisdom of the ages — yoga, Zen, the I Ching. His friend Ghika (whom he called Giks), the painter from Hydra, predicted that Greece would change Henry: “If you came to Greece as a Parisian bohemian, you have become a pilgrim,” he said. “Henceforth your writing must be different.” Maroussi was to prove Ghika right.
(1)Chiaroscuro: here’s the meaning… just in case you don’t know.
I sure didn’t!
Now off to the library I go…
to fetch The Colossus of Maroussi.
Sheesh… you should have seen me sitting there on the carpet, my Treasure Chest excitement slowly deflating. Hardy har har!
But then I figured this was probably a sign: the Universe didn’t want me to get too excited and worked up about the new year. You see, I have a tendency to get a bit too high, at times; to go full speed ahead and then suddenly crash. Not a good idea.
So I guess I’ll be watching out for the rerouting opportunities if ever my plans don’t work out. And yeah, I’ll be relying on my good humour — it’s what has kept me going all through my life.
Laugh on!!
P.S.: Here’s the rest of the info on Raido — they say it’s good to read the right-side-up version for more enlightenment.
