Lucid Living and the Cloister Walk
11 Tuesday Oct 2011
Written by Nicole Rushin in Dreams, Personal Growth, Poetry, The Creative Process, Writing
Tags
alexa toolbar, bringing your talents to the table, Experience Telling, fear of complacency, finding your voice, Gwen Bell, listening to your voice, lucid living, Nicole Rushin, online prose writing, online writing, Poetry, prayer, search for authenticity, the cloister walk, why I write
The weather moves in, cooler, softer, the wind complains.
This past week has been a cloister walk of contemplation and change, of lucid living and tying together the pieces of what I have noticed.
And yet at the end of a long week I dreamt that I was holding back. I only thought I was bringing my best to the table, but alas, my moon has been hiding in strange places.
So I am bringing something a little different this week.
More prose, more about my journey and more of life through my eyes.
*****************************
The Cloister Walk and Life Without Bread
This week I came to the profound realization that most of my angst and stress stem from a fear of complacency, causing me to micro-manage every detail of my life and my growth.
The things we most want to control we can’t
So it goes…
I joined in on a Google+ thread about the use of ‘I’ versus ‘We’ in writing. I read Gwen Bell’s posts on ‘Experience Telling‘ and signed up for her daily emails. I don’t know how, but this delicate blogging fairy somehow gave me permission to speak.
I also joined a peace circle on Google+ and then vowed to stop reading marketing blogs and how-to posts about writing and personal growth. It feels like removing bread from my diet, but I am determined.
I am removing people from my Social Media pages who banter on about politics and technical jargon. Social Media remains a place for me to find inspiration and to meet other inspiring people. I go there looking for new perspectives, for photography that captures the conversations of light, for poetry and for good writing.
My point in all this is to listen to my own voice and to stop worrying that I am doing it all wrong
To get in stride with my own feet
To feel my own breath…
Another huge hurdle for me this week was taking my Alexa toolbar down. I find that I sometimes go to my blog only to check my numbers.
Not having my toolbar there reminds me why I write. It reminds me to honor my writing as a practice and not to worry about my ranking or the ranking of others. I cannot judge my craft by statistics and by how many incoming links I have. I cannot judge others by this either.
On Naming Poetics
I also dealt with my resistance to putting myself and my writing into a finite box.
I resist titles, yet so much of internet marketing is about labels, finding the right keywords and niche definition.
I struggle with the balance of claiming a specific title as some sort of online writer and living a life that allows me to follow opportunity. The balance between learning Search Engine Optimization and honoring my writing as a soft place where the lines between who I am and how others see me disappear.
I resist calling myself a poet – but instead would like to simply live a poetic life.
Maybe all artists should cease calling themselves artists and strive to live artistically.
I resist the words finding my voice and opt instead to listen to my voice. For any artist, writer or creative seeker the voice is there, it is when we cease the seeking that it is loudest.
The Farmer’s Prayer
I also overhead a conversation between an 89 year old farmer and some other members of his church. His sage advice was that ‘we are always praying’.
We never stop – so his further advice was to remove all the negative words from our language – the language we use with ourselves as well as with others.
We are always praying
Always asking
Always in dialogue with source
However you define source
Just as our walks never really cease the dialogue never stops…
I listen and I notice things – this is what I call lucid living; being awake to the dream of life, noticing the things I notice.
Knowing the birds sing in frequencies that tether the blanket of space and time to our souls. I hear them because they are singing for me. You hear them because they are singing for you. Listen.
The 89 year old farmer was singing to me. He could just as well have been a bird – I was merely noticing.
Listening to the Lamp Light
My best writing is found in this listening
The sound hovers light over a clear lake
Where ripples are only made
By the sound of migrating geese
The glassy mirror -
Blurred only by twisting yellow leaves
I confirm that my cloister walk is a perpetual search for authenticity.
It is about seeking truth and sharing that truth through my writing.
Being authentic and living in integrity is the most valuable thing I can bring to the table.
Bringing it through the written word is my truth.
So how is it, at the end of this lucid week, my dreams were telling me I was not bringing my best to the table.
Telling me I was holding back?
So, I erase the lines
Lines drawn in an attempt to define
I erase the lines and cease trying
I cease interfering with my life
And retreat to the soft place
To the listening lake
To the quiet Monday evening lamp light
Where solitude is a dog-eared page
Folded upon the day
The wind picks up and complains again
Softer, cooler…
I resist the urge to over explain…
Leave me a comment and be sure to join the conversation on Google+.
What breakthroughs have you had this week in your creative journey? Your growth?
24 comments
October 12, 2011 at 12:44 AM
I do strive to live artistically. Everyday I create something, be it a perfect pot of greens or a clean load of laundry – the rolls of towels and their bright colors on top of the white dryer can be quite striking. It is all about noticing; the call of V o Canadian geese got my attention this afternoon. I hoped that more people than me were listening, but the geese didn’t care. They Are.
October 12, 2011 at 1:01 AM
I know you listen. Even when you are in the midst of work work work. You of all people listen and you can’t deny the call. Notice what you notice. And you are right – the geese just are.
October 12, 2011 at 9:15 AM
Beautiful post, Nicole. I hear you. To be authentic, to listen to that voice and notice what comes up. Not to process it, or change it or fix it, but just to allow it to be. Truth. Continue to walk your truth, we are listening. And your voice speaks truth that speaks to us.
October 12, 2011 at 1:21 PM
Thanks Debbie. Thanks for visiting and commenting and sharing my posts. I sometimes feel like the quieter I speak or write the more I am heard. The old ‘duck fluff landing on water’ when you hear it – it is the loudest sound you will ever hear in your life. Knee dropping. I know you have heard it.
October 12, 2011 at 4:10 PM
Nicole – is it okay to say you are a poet with a poetic life?
Oh the beauty of being the observer – simply noticing……just like the farmer says that we are always praying- so is the observers life – constantly in prayer – for to live life in the moment and in flow with your Source then you are simply praying constantly.
Sharing truth through your writing – this you do my friend – for I was once told that I was so transparent and I thought this is my greatest compliment for in being transparent you are living in your truth and then people can see your love light shine. For if you can simply touch one life while someone is reading your blog post then your job has been accomplished as a writer living in your truth.
The wind does speak to us for it represents something much bigger than us…..I am in love with your words Nicole and I can’t get enough.
In fact, I just got home from flying the red eye from California yesterday and today as I enter my space of work I have so many posts to catch up on and I went to yours first. Thank you for being the light with your words and with who you are!
In love and light,
Nancy
October 12, 2011 at 6:09 PM
That’s nice, Nancy. You make me tear up a bit. You really affected me by saying, ‘I love your poetry – I mean I love your writing, but I really love your poetry.’
Between that and Gwen Bell’s posts on Experience Telling I had a bit of a fear of going to the computer and writing this week. I felt like it was so big that I would just let myself down, but somehow I pulled it off.
So this post in many ways in gratitude to you. You somehow said in that one sentence that I don’t have to write like everybody else – I should just write like me.
And then Gwen Bell in her subtle way gave me a nudge that said ‘bring it’ and if you mean to say ‘I’ then say ‘I’.
Namaste~
October 12, 2011 at 4:57 PM
Nicole, you sing in your own voice, making it clear everybody has his/her own Mount Kilimanjaro they came alive to climb. The power in your prose – or in whatever else we do – is never given. It is taken. And received with gratitude.
With best wishes,
Beat
October 12, 2011 at 6:10 PM
Take all you want Beat. I hope to inspire the Kilimanjaro out of you. I feel that you have a big one to climb.
Peace of ‘I’ to you Beat.
October 12, 2011 at 5:12 PM
Hi Nicole!
I am new here in your blog and I like your poetic article. If you don’t mind, do you have a poetic article or quotes for a wedding vows?
Thanks in advance.
October 13, 2011 at 1:36 AM
I don’t have anything like that. I am always available for freelance or ghost writing though. Just let me know. Glad you enjoyed the post.
October 13, 2011 at 3:53 PM
How about SEO article topics?
October 13, 2011 at 3:57 PM
No, SEO is not in my area of expertise. I am not sure if I could find a way to make that poetic.
October 12, 2011 at 9:50 PM
WOW Nicole:
Your posting this week can not go without comment,,,,at least for me… LOL
Are you going ‘Monastic’ on us here, Dear Nicole!? Your article almost seems to be a Paradox to what you intend in your writing, Your tag line you usually use is ‘Writing as LOUD as I can’ & yet you speak of a cloistered walk,,,not sure exactly where you are going here? Perhaps as Jesus did in order to tap into your true Gift & Power you need to get away at times to ‘find yourself’…I understand that, we all should do more of that…ditto for me in a BIG WAY!
I think you are like me & so many of us we are too close to ourselves to see our Power & Potential. I would say to you, for you to Combat complacency Just do YOU!….Take your writing OUT LOUD & LIVE THAT OUT LOUD….don’t second guess yourself…just tell us what is in your ‘gut’ that is when you write your most inspiring, eye opening pieces that stay with me for days….
When I met you I could even see then you were not about the Numbers, the ‘Marketing’, getting this guy or gal into your deal…that is just not you! Bravo for taking Alexa down! To me you are one of the most intuitive people I know,,, that is your Gift & a Part of your beauty,,,walk in it, share it, lean on it…IT will never steer you wrong!
With Love & Admiration…Always!
Matt Geib The Great!
PS—some day I will Meet you in person, It is a joy to Watch & Be a Part of your Journey
October 13, 2011 at 1:25 AM
The tag line on my blog is the opening line to a poem I wrote years ago called Ghost Writer.
‘I am writing as loud as I can because I have been plagued with a voice like wind whispering in the sand.’
It is on my poetry page if you want to read it.
I sense some ambiguousness in your comment and am not sure where to take it. Most people know that I do write in a very quiet voice so the title of my blog is a pun in a sense and if I wasn’t saying what was in my gut with this post then I don’t know if I ever will. It is totally me – I bring it all to the table.
October 12, 2011 at 10:33 PM
methinks thou hast the cloisters walls torn down
and given up the controllers’ angstly frown
to gambol in joyous lucidity and boundlessness
painting fresh miracles in words sublime
Aloha Gary
October 13, 2011 at 1:29 AM
That is great Gary. Can you say all that in Hawaiian too?
Cloister walls are too small for my big thoughts. But really – I always think that life is my church – people are my religion.
Glad to have friends like you to teach me how to breathe. Or remind me to breathe. Ha breath…
I love the beginning of your CD ‘I am from Ha Vi ee’ How do you spell all that?
October 13, 2011 at 12:11 AM
Hi Nicole:
This is amazing. This passage:
Not having my toolbar there reminds why I write. It reminds me to honor my writing as a practice and not to worry about my ranking or the ranking of others. I cannot judge my craft by statistics and by how many incoming links I have. I cannot judge others by this either. resonated w/me.
I think we’re on the same page here. The fact that I write FIRST for me and reading the above passage leads me to believe you do the same is part and parcel of what ALL writers should do.
If what I write helps someone else then I’ve done my job. I discovered your blog this morning through mutual G+er, Debbie Lattuga. Looking forward to coming back for more!
–
Chris
October 13, 2011 at 1:33 AM
Ahhhh, Debbie is amazing. She is a seeker and speaks her truth. I would love to take one of her painting and creativity courses.
It has been strange not having my toolbar up. Even when I go to other blogs I still find myself looking for it. But I have to gauge for myself. Does this person inspire me or not?
Glad you stopped by and thanks so much reading and commenting.
October 14, 2011 at 2:46 AM
Hi Nicole~
What a beautiful collection of words that you share with us this week. Each time I read what you write it takes me on a journey beyond the current reality in which I am living in that moment to a place of peace, calm, and serenity. The last sentence that you shared had the most impact on me and awoken me from my dream like state like a huge gust of wind in my face…. “I resist the urge to over explain…” Thank you my friend for your gifts that you share.
Blessings,
October 14, 2011 at 2:17 PM
I also love that line. It was a huge lesson for me in my life – learning to not over explain or constantly defend myself and my beliefs. I am doing some creative de- cluttering and trying to simplify some things. My blog is due for a big cleaning to remove a lot of junk and unused pages. It is very hard for me to be simple – to let the tiny lines show themselves instead of writing long pieces. When I sat down to write this post I had in mind to keep it simple but it turned out to be over a 1,000 words. This is something I am working on.
When you have a confident sense about yourself, your faith, your direction or your talent there is no need to explain your position to people. You just smile and let things roll off your back. This is a place I would love to get to.
October 16, 2011 at 4:07 PM
You are on your way! Love the new look of your site.
Mine is due for an update too!
So many new and amazing things happening in my life.
I agree, when you are sure of where you are going their is not need to defend or explain anything. Just smile and stand in the confidence of your knowing and being.
Blessings,
October 14, 2011 at 5:05 AM
Nicole,
We commonly live by the standards of this world. That always stifle our creativity and true self. Even in choosing your titles for your writing becomes something SEO… What if we truly let go of all the things in this world that scream at us? What if we simply walk the unbeaten path away from the crowd? What if we give voice to ourselves in a world that has drown us out? It’s a risk, but to me, one worth taking.
This week’s growth for me??? Hmm… good reflective question that your post has teased out of me. In my rush from tasks to tasks, I have forgetten about I have accomplished this week. Ok, my growth would have been seeing the needs and cravings of the woman I love. I enjoyed accompanying her to shop for her glown and all. Not only does she want the best looking glown, but she also wanted me to be part of that process. I appreciated this process more.
October 14, 2011 at 2:22 PM
I think our internal voices are louder than the voices outside if we can let them speak.
It is sad that some can listen to the negative chatter and condemnation of others as opposed to their own urgings.
In the end, we really have no other choice but to follow our own paths.
I hope Doll’s dress is beautiful. I know it will be.
October 14, 2011 at 2:11 PM
“It reminds me the honor of my writing” I liked that part a lot::) and I am agree so much to let our outer voice speaking instead of our inner one. It would be such a wonderful place if everybody said what he thinks without putting himself restrictions!!