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The journey to write here—my wholehearted story

August 30, 2018

This guest post from Penelope Love explores how following our deepest calling as writers can shape the journey of our wholehearted stories.

Write at home, Asheville, 2018

This is the twelfth guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors!

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, with each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I am honoured to have my friend Penelope Love as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Penelope explores writing as a deep calling shaping her journey over time. She describes how her writing life has intersected with love and spirituality as key themes in her life. My sincere thanks to Penelope for sharing her personal story and photographs as well as the books and vital practices that have influenced her journey. With her new book – a memoir, ‘Wake Up in Love: From Sex and Romance to the Ultimate Understanding’ – imminent, read Penelope’s reflections on knowing your calling, writing and love to guide your story!

Beginning my journey to write here

To write or not to write was never the question.

My love for writing was born of sheer enchantment with the dance of my elfin fingers and a No. 2 pencil pressed against the bumpy margins of a newspaper left strewn across the kitchen table. Whilst my mother washed dishes, I perfected my letters… slowly, slowly carving out my name. I tingled as the life force pierced my body and brain. Waving a pink-tipped golden wand, I witnessed the alphabet come to life before me… oh, t’was magical!

A rainbow of writing accolades soon spanned my horizon. As early as my elementary years, the parents and relatives branded me “the writer in the family,” their New York accents spinning legends of a little girl who would traject this gift across the world.

As I approached high school graduation, my father often spoke of his friend’s daughter who made a living as a writer. In fact, she earned six figures and was even flown around the globe with her happy pen in hand. Imagine that! I did indeed—first-class flights to Rome, Paris, Strasbourg, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Perth, and Calgary, not to mention being lavished with more money than one could ever need, just because a girl could write?!

Write about what?

Write in the clouds, 2017

Write about what? I didn’t know, but the question of her subject matter never crossed my thirsty teenage mind. I just wanted her life in the azure sky, miles above the clouds and close to the shimmering sun. In no time, I’d be like her—rich, self-sufficient, and far away from people who expected miracles from me.

It was the mid-1990s when I entered the university with a typewriter in hand and later departed with a laptop bag draped over my shoulder. In four short years, the new-fangled digital tools of the trade had literally changed our world and most importantly for me, the way this English major now wrote. Possessing a “delete” key, I lost countless writings to self-doubt, and even more to lack of remembering to hit Control + S. The fluorescent palette of Windows 95 proved a more addictive drug for a perfectionist than any erasable pen. It was too easy to tweak e-scribblings that never seemed quite good enough. The brave new world was now here and I was not sure I wanted to be a writer anymore.

Despite my uncertainty, I could not shake my writer crush on Alice Walker—her novels, poetry, essays, activism and how she effortlessly transformed rage into beauty that inspired social change through her poignant words. With this level of mastery as my barometer, I pursued a master’s degree in English, though to expand my career opportunities I eventually phased over to the college of journalism. Focused first and foremost on getting “published,” writing seemed far from the mystical endeavor I’d fallen in love with as a child.

Then it happened. As I formulated my thesis, I discovered that I no longer enjoyed writing. Yet I sure was in love with the professors who taught it. To my chagrin, my finest writings never extended into the realms of passion I fantasized about. Writing? Huh. Why expose my soul before teachers who just left my heart bleeding overnight while they went home to their lives, of which I had none? Why torture myself when I was deft enough at this craft to instruct others on how to do it? Why write if I could swap my black pen for a red one and wear silky scarves and blouses, sexy skirts, stilettos, and tortoise-shell glasses? I mean, why write if I could be an editor!

Writer in hiding

Writer in reflection, 2018

By the late ‘90s, the U.S. economy had exploded during the .com craze—so much in fact that some corporations were even paying the lowly interns—yes, me! Here my lucky star landed me an editorial apprenticeship in the personal finance and lifestyle department of the prestigious Bankrate.com. I had recently married a business student and I was acquiring a taste for the freedom that came with earning my own paycheck. I was not flying high yet, but I’d circumnavigated my existence as a puppet dangled by parents who had kept me mostly in the dark about all things financial. As fate and good fortune would have it, my Bankrate internship enriched me with both income and invaluable knowledge.

Following graduation, my then-husband and I moved north to pursue our dreams of working in the Big Apple—Manhattan! I dressed the part and perhaps imagined that even the pigeons stared as I sauntered down Fifth Avenue as an editorial assistant. Within three weeks the Twin Towers came crashing down, along with my fantasies about commuting to the city and wielding my editorial prowess in New York. Since I was actually residing in safer haven of nearby Princeton, New Jersey, I stayed put and soared up the corporate ladder, so high that I didn’t even bother keeping a diary over the next five years. Too busy had I become for my own words when so many people were counting on me to perfect theirs.

Falling back in love with writing

When life led me back to Florida in 2003, it was the stress of destructive family dynamics and an impending divorce that led me to an Al-Anon meeting, where the facilitator urged me to crack open my journal again. She was right—I needed to know if I could still hear my own voice beneath the deafening volume of all the mental noise I’d let in over the years. The higher up the corporate ladder I scaled, the more it felt tilted 180 degrees away from the happiness, inner peace and deep healing I desired more than anything in the world.

Dear Emptiness, 2003

This may sound fantastical but when I re-opened my diary, her empty lines smiled as if happy to see me, their old friend. She embraced my every tear, question, and hopeful new conception of reality bubbling up from my long-silenced heart. I confess, my journal entries reflected the soul of a woman consumed by primal desires for true love and red hot sex. Yet as I returned to the joys of pressing my pen to paper, I experienced an inkling of falling back in love with writing.

The proper care and feeding of writers

Loving a man and loving writing were ultimately not two separate things, although I’d fallen into a discordant thought-pattern of either-or:

Either I could pursue my writing career or I could care for a man, but not both.

Such a black-and-white attitude sounds imprudently restrictive now, but this worldview was branded into the layers of my soul since birth. My mother lived as if it were her sole responsibility to care for my father and for us children. The notion that I could gallivant about the globe as a writer—although it had been dangled before me like candy—conflicted with other familial attitudes I was forced to swallow regarding about “the proper care and feeding of husbands.” Could I ever balance true love, a nourishing sex life, and a successful writing career? This clash of seemingly incompatible desires and my utter lack of control to manifest them catapulted me onto the spiritual path with full surrender.

It was 2004 and the spiritual teacher to whom I was led was a jnani in the lineage of Ramana Maharshi. Nick Gancitano disseminated Self-Inquiry as the spiritual director of an ashram in Florida, where I attended Satsang for the first time. My earnest desire for inner peace was met with a revelation of karmic destiny, as Nick became my lover and we were married within two weeks of our first meeting. Our sex life unfolded as an intuitive exploration of the ancient ways of Tantra. Here I found that with an authentic state of surrender, true love was not only possible—it was inevitable, transforming sex into a meditation that trumped my most exquisite erotic fantasies.

To top it all off, during the course of this adventure, I discovered something truly worth writing about. Scribble down insights I did, vowing that one day, once the tender fragments in my journals had been laced into a manuscript reflecting my heart’s knowing, I would publish it. And I would come out as a writer.

Write from the Heart, India 2004

Morning Pages and the journey to write

As quickly as I moved into the ashram, my spiritual practice deepened and creativity flowed now with greater frequency. I’d hopped off the corporate ladder and went freelance, consciously reducing my workload toward a deep dive into the inner life. Yet despite my newfound time freedom, I only wrote in spurts. As much as I respected my daytime profession, my heart knew that an editor is actually just a writer in denial. In 2007, I expressed my frustration to a Satsang friend, a prolific fashion designer whose overstuffed sketch book I admired. She recommended Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, wherein I discovered the Morning Pages that would leave ink stains on my hands and a mark on my life.

Between 2007 and 2010, I folded my freelance business when the ashram relocated to Costa Rica. There amidst the cloud forest I exercised the Morning Pages with the intention of writing my book. I invited Nick to write these Morning Pages with me, and within six weeks a full-fledged, 280-page manuscript busted the seams of his notebook. And once again, I found an excuse to avoid writing as I turned creative attention toward the development and publishing of the book that had come through him and not me.

Write into nature, our Morning Pages view in Costa Rica, 2008-10

Patterns emerging in the journey to write here

This provided me an opportunity to observe a pattern as destructive as avoidance—blame: It was now my husband’s fault that I’m not a writer. When we returned to the States in 2010, it seemed that years of energy were required to re-establish myself as a freelance editor and eventually form my own successful publishing company. In the intermittent creases of successive projects, I finally returned to the Morning Pages in 2013 and the past patterns of avoidance and blame resurfaced only to unwind before my very eyes.

Soul mates in the sun, Hillsboro Beach, 2011

Initially, past learned behavior of putting what I perceived as my husband’s needs before my own re-emerged fiercely. I hadn’t chosen the worldly path of self-sufficiency; I’d chosen love, the inward path of Self-Inquiry, and reliance on God to care for all my needs. For weeks, months and years at a time, I foolishly convinced myself that the Morning Pages were incompatible with the teachings of Self-Inquiry—for if the world is an illusion, then why write? And I couldn’t have the mornings free anyway, because if I didn’t snuggle and meditate with Nick first thing, would I be sinfully putting my personal desires before love?

But that was all in my head. Nick became the biggest advocate of my relationship with the Morning Pages and with time and flexibility, I discovered it was possible to experience the holy trinity of writing, snuggling and meditation in my morning routine. In a way, I owe my forthcoming memoir to Love in the shape of Morning Pages. Here is an excerpt from them as testimony to the brilliance of this tool that intimately reacquainted my soul with its calling—the mysticism and magic of writing.

Love looks me in the ‘I’, 2018

Write here in my Morning Pages

It’s happening again. I hear my husband’s voice in the other room and my senses latch on to his every word and I blame him that I can’t find a quiet space to write—which is ridiculous because I might as well blame the iPod speaker on the bookshelf. Yet it does not have the same magnetic pull as Nick in his sentience, his unpredictability, his wisdom, his love. Aha! Look. Curiosity about what he is up to has once again (almost) drawn me away from this sacred whitespace where all complaints dissolve and contradictions resolve before my eyes.

Now I’m perfectly capable of closing the door and inserting the earplugs in an effort to be “more” present, but isn’t the point of Morning Pages shedding that thick skin called “effort” by writing through any and all distractions? Why am I here in the first place? Writing is just the excuse. I am here to remember what matters, to let go of what does not, and to write like no one else is reading it. In Reality, I am not even here to write. I am here to Be, to be naked of all sense of other… and paradoxically, that makes me a better writer and a more gracious lover.

The writing is flowing now (The Savegre River in our backyard, 2008-10)

When Steven Pressfield, talking with Oprah on SuperSoul Sunday, affirmed that everyone knows their “calling,” even if only carried as a secret in their heart, I could not deny my intuitive first response: writing!

What exactly pulled my attention so far from it all these years? I actually don’t like or dislike the act of writing. It is after all—just like when I practiced my letters at the kitchen table—just a happening. What I don’t enjoy is “the resistance,” the feeling that arises from expecting myself to express profundity. The one with these great expectations is the same imposter saying “I don’t enjoy it”! Yet it can’t stop the ink flow onto paper, the fingers dancing on a keyboard, and the characters appearing on the screen, revealing the contours of God.

It is wonderfully fulfilling to write the Morning Pages. Thank heavens for them. They are therapy. Like the perfect friend, they listen without criticism. If a judgment arises, they gently remind me it is my own. And now that it no longer hides, it cannot rule my life from underground. It can be seen for what it is: just another thought. Just another stone on the trail. One I can now pick up and skip across the still ocean, or prance across to reach the other side of the raging river. Either way, it no longer blocks the path and the beauty of my mind.

I am a writer — yes, I am!

My hand my Heart doth steer

universes beyond these words

my journey to write here.

Key books along my journey to write here

Be Still and Know I AM God by Anonymous

The Wisdom of Balsekar by Ramesh Balsekar

The Impersonal Life by Joseph Benner

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi (Foreword by C.J. Jung)

The Book of Secrets by OSHO

OSHO Zen Tarot: The Transcended Game of Zen

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Hsin-Hsin Ming: Verses on the Faith-Mind by Seng-t’san

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

The Supreme Yoga: Yoga Vasishta by Swami Venkatesananda

Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer’s Activism by Alice Walker

My Life as My Self: An Intimate Conversation with Alice Walker (by Sounds True)

and…

“Four Questions to Help You Find Your Calling,” Steven Pressfield’s interview with Oprah Winfrey on SuperSoul Sunday, September 29, 2013

About Penelope Love

Penelope Love, MA, is the author of the spiritual memoir Wake Up in Love and the founder of Citrine Publishing. She also co-facilitates conscious relationship workshops and hosts meditation programs in the United States and internationally. An advocate for true love, she enjoys connecting with readers from around the world. Come say hello at www.PenelopeLove.com or connect via Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter.

Photographs by Penelope Love and Arlington Smith used with permission and thanks.

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family history love, loss & longing poetry transcending

Remembrance and unconditional love: thoughts on ANZAC Day

April 28, 2017

Anzac Day

25 April is ANZAC Day here in Australia. It’s a day of remembrance for those of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps who served and died in war and related activities including peacekeeping. And a day to remember those who serve now. Celebrated on the day of the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915, the spirit of Anzac and its qualities of sacrifice, courage and mateship have immense meaning for Australians and New Zealanders around national identity, bravery and freedom.

For me, it’s always a very emotional day. As a Queen of Swords, INTJ, Virgo, (some might say ice maiden) type, it’s surprising how this day seems to touch me so deeply and I am in tears for much of it.

I don’t know exactly why but it’s the stories that touch me, the young men and what they went through in World War I and II and other conflicts. Stories we really can’t fathom or ever truly know. And our own personal connections with that through our family history or people that we know directly involved now.

It’s the families and loved ones left behind and impacted when they came back. It’s those who serve now and what they face and experience. The solitary courage of it, the fear, the silence of those who cannot or could not tell their stories. The inner strength they need to search for and the support of each other. It’s the sadness of it all, that it just should not happen, the unnecessary waste of life; that people should not have to go through all this and the aftermath of physical, mental and spiritual pain and suffering.

It’s also that we can be thankful that we have people who can be strong when it’s needed to do this work for the freedom, support and safety of others. Mostly men, mostly young, mostly strong but also vulnerable.

Postcards from the war

In the last few years, I received a box of memorabilia and photos that belonged to my great aunt, Vivie, who died in 1992. A strong woman who never married, she was a connector and recorder within the family, capturing daily life in photographs and keeping in touch with many in the extended family.

In this box was a beautifully embroidered postcard sent from the Western Front in France in 1916 by my great uncle Walter to Vivie, his sister back in Australia.

The stitching, perfect and precise, must have caught Walter’s eye and he has written on the back of the postcard. It’s a message saying he is well and not really saying much more except that he will be in touch with other family members too. What could you say about those horrors of war except that I am here, standing now? And I am thinking of you and love you.

I knew a little about Walter’s war service but I looked into his war records on Anzac Day this year. Joining up with the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) on 1 February 1916 and leaving the country on 13 May that same year, he was on the Western Front in France in the 55th Battalion and saw active service amidst some of the most difficult conflicts of the war.

He served in the Anzac Light Rail as part of this, building and running light railways on the Western Front to provide transport through the difficult terrain. I cannot imagine how hard all of this work was and the terrible conditions in which it was carried out. He was discharged from the AIF on 16 July 1919.

Walter received a Military Medal in 1919 for:

“conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during an attack on St Denis Wood Perone on 2/9/18. During the initial stages of the attack heavy machine gun fire was encountered. This man, noticing this with great courage and deliberation worked his way forward into a position from where, by sniping he was able to place an enemy machine gun out of action, not withstanding that he was under enemy observation and continually fired at the whole time. This soldier’s action in silencing the enemy machine gun enabled a Lewis Gun to be brought forward thereby greatly assisting the attack. The man’s courage and disregard for personal safety during the operation was most noticeable and his action through-out were a great incentive to his comrades.”[1]

This is not to condone violence or war in any way. Personally, I find violence in any form hard to contemplate or witness. But it happened and for Walter it was real. The postcard is a poignant reminder of the fragile and powerful connections with home in all of this – beauty amidst chaos and war; love of his sister and family sent from afar; such vulnerability and risk.

I cannot imagine how precious that card was once received in Newcastle in Australia on the other side of the word, in so few lines saying so much. Or hard it was for Walter to find words to say along the lines of “I am okay” when the reality was most likely far from that.

Closer to home

The other overlay of emotion for me on Anzac Day is about my brother. Martin served as an Australian Federal Police Officer in East Timor in 1999 as part of the United Nations peacekeeping effort and was awarded the Overseas Service Medal in 2003. Martin is no longer with us now, having passed away tragically in 2007.

The memory of Martin as an unarmed police officer who went to East Timor, now Timor Leste, to provide support, peace and justice to people in the most challenging of circumstances, fills me with pride and love. It symbolises the strong sense of justice and fairness that drove his passions and focus in his career and life.

Here he is in action in East Timor, featured at that time, in Time Magazine on 27 September 1999 and in Aussie Post Magazine in October 1999:

I don’t know what he saw there. I don’t know what he experienced there. Like many first responders and police officers, they cannot always talk about what they saw, experienced and felt. And whilst I am proud, I sense that the experiences in East Timor somehow had a deep impact on the sensitive soul that was and is my brother. How could they not.

A poem of remembrance and peace

So in the early hours of Anzac Day this year, these words come to me:

On Anzac Day

I lay a flower in the remembrance
of my heart,
wreathed there,
amidst the days, red poppy lights
flare occasionally,
lighting up your smile,
buried beneath granite, grass,
days of pain, cascading
hours of grief.

I lay a flower in the remembrance
of my heart,
at nearly dawn here,
for you, my own service,
my own dawn,
my own not forgetting
that war somehow
touched you
and led you down a path
I wish you had not gone.

I lay a flower in the remembrance
of my heart,
amidst tarot, words, books,
the morning’s nearly dawn,
the marching of feet,
to come,
the early days towards
ten years of remembering you,
to come.

I lay a flower in the remembrance of your heart.
I shift that stone of trauma laying there.
I hold the hands of our hearts in peace.

Rose, rosemary and remembrance

Shortly after on Anzac Day, in an Activate sessions with Amber Adrian, working with healing energies and guides, both rose and rosemary comes up as energies to work with, with remembrance as a strong message.

We are reminded to activate our inner love, work with remembrance and our true divine self, and to connect with that unconditional love that is our essence. We are reminded to work with protection techniques every day especially around protection of judgement of others and ourselves.

It’s an emotional day. You can see why the tears come.

Tears of memory, gratitude, appreciating sacrifice and remembrance. And the lessons I’m still learning of unconditional love.

Let us all keep focused on these immense qualities in moving forward:

focusing on the beauty in life
maintaining a passionate sense of fairness and justice in everything we do
and finding a love that can transcend every difficult moment.

And may we all be peacekeepers.

Sources

[1] Source: Ancestry.com. Australia, WWI Service Records, 1914-1920 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: National Archives of Australia: B2455, First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920. Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.

The Rose of Unconditional Love in the featured photograph is from the beautiful Plant Ally Healing Cards deck by Lisa McLoughlin.

Thought pieces

Ask for help, talk to others

This was not an easy piece to write especially with regard to my dear brother. However, I felt it needed to be written as there is too much silence. I also want to highlight the power of remembrance and unconditional love in healing and moving towards peace.

I am aware it may not have been easy to read for some people. If anything I have written in this post triggers anything for you, I encourage you to reach out to others for support. Talk to a trusted family member or friend. Or contact organisations set up especially to provide support. In Australia our key organisations for support are Beyond Blue and Lifeline. International support organisations can all be found here.

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Welcome to Quiet Writing

September 13, 2016

Hello and welcome to Quiet Writing

I’m so excited to be launching my new look blog. I’ve been preparing, quietly writing and crafting in the background for the longest time and it’s time to dust off this blog, formerly called Transcending, and transition it to reflect my focus for writing and new ventures going forward. It’s the heart of a new life and business and and I hope that you will join me here as I move through this time.

I’ve kept Transcending intact within Quiet Writing with its history over more than six years, as that journey has led to this one, coming out of pain and grief as its core. The spirit of Celebrating the extraordinary power of the ordinary self: strategies for rising above, cutting through and connecting will continue in Quiet Writing as its secret power. So if you have signed up to Transcending previously, I believe you will have transitioned over here to Quiet Writing and I hope you will stay for the next part of the journey.

So what is Quiet Writing about?

It is the summary of my passions and Core Desired Feelings of:

creative, intuitive, flowing, poetic and connected

To explain, I love the words of Monicka Clio Sakki, creator of the Sakki Sakki tarot deck:

“The Artist is still an Artist even behind the closed curtains. Being an Artist is a process, not a state.”

Quiet Writing is about the strength that comes from working steadily and without fanfare in writing and other spheres to create, coalesce, influence and connect. It’s an opportunity to muse and reflect on my core values and the interplay between them. In this, I draw on and connect my various experiences and interests as well as connecting with others who share them.

Many of us have been on what Elizabeth Gilbert calls, in one of her wonderful Magic Lessons, ‘the long runway’ and it’s valuable preparation we need to acknowledge. I want to honour the process as much as the product here; the being, becoming and journey as much as the arrival; the artistry behind the closed curtains and doors.

The Artist card in the Sakki Sakki Tarot deck beautifully symbolises this potential and opportunity:

This is not to say that publication, product and stage are not important and a desirable outcome; but we can focus too much on that external validation and not value our work and its process as it evolves in the present. The act of quiet writing and the solitude to capture ideas and craft them, especially for introverts who so need this, is the space from which so much can flow, connect and be created. The conditions, environment, relationships and influences which enable our creative endeavours to flourish are also crucial shaping factors.

I’m interested especially in the gift of writing and finding our unique voice to articulate our place in the world and express the artistry of everyday life.

This is something I’ve been interested in and committed to in my working and creative life for a long time. One of my earliest blog posts from 2010, ‘The value of howling into the wind” captures this:

So ‘howling into the wind’ is about running with the wolves and the ‘longing for the wild’ as (Clarissa Pinkola) Estes calls it. It’s about stoking the creative fire with winds that might feel a bit uncomfortable and cold at first. It’s about the strength that might come from tuning into such intuitive sources, making connections and finding that to which we belong.

And through whatever means – writing, photography, a business idea, a new perspective, the shape of a poem – forming something unique that is your voice that others may also tune into, relate to and take something away from. So let’s keep howling.

It’s funny how we resonate more deeply with our own themes over time; though sometimes we need to learn to listen to ourselves a little more and honour our enduring passions as they play out.

You can learn more about me here but in short, I gain great heart from reading about the journeys of those who seek and enjoy things like creativity, the gifts of introversion, authenticity and celebrating a reading and writing life, and especially hope to celebrate the lyricism of this in my own journey and in connecting with others on similar journeys.

So what can you expect here at Quiet Writing?

Reflections on my experiences of quiet writing as I negotiate it as a central value
Ideas on the writing process and how to grow, express and value your unique voice
A focus on the strengths of quietness and introversion to cultivate depth and connection
A lot about the art and value of living quietly – creative spaces, our environment, relationships
Conversations about books, reading, influences and podcasts that celebrate this kind of life
Thought pieces on creative connections: tarot, astrology, symbols, Jungian psychology
An exploration of contexts such as leadership, innovation, productivity, planning, strategy and managing introversion in public roles.

And into the future, I am planning much more, with Quiet Writing being the core of a heart centred gathering of like minded people with sharing of influences and connections to bring us all alive.

Key influences:

In starting anew here, I’d like to express gratitude and acknowledge the key influences, connections and reading, writing and personal development projects that have brought me here. They include:

Susannah Conway’s e-courses such as Blogging from the Heart, Journal your Life and The Inside Story and her inspiring journeys on building a heart filled creative life and business that have supported and nurtured my own;
Danielle LaPorte’s everything and especially The Desire Map Core Desired Feelings and Style Statement work, her energy, passion and constant encouragement in creativity;
Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn and her generous and informative blog, resources and podcasts and for the powerful and inspiring role model of her business and writing life;
Susan Cain’s book, Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking and The Quiet Revolution which have helped me make sense of so much and which I hope to build on in my own unique way here as a voice empowered by this strength;
Sage Cohen, writing mentor and author, whose books including ‘Writing the Life Poetic‘ and ‘Fierce on the Page‘ are always close at hand and who has helped me get back to writing and to navigate some very difficult times with courage and grace;
And finally, my creative buddy, Victoria Smith, who inspires me always with her mojo, wise words and practical magic and who has been such a valuable support in recent times as my life coach as I navigate new horizons.

I’ve written about my influences previously in this post and you can see that Susannah, Danielle, Joanna and Sage have been strong influences since 2010 so I owe them enduring gratitude for their inspiration and support.

Acknowledgements:

I also want to acknowledge my family and friends at this time of making a new start, for without them and their sacred place in my life, I would not be writing quietly here now:

To my partner Keith, for supporting, enabling me and loving me for who I am. Strong, independent women can make it on their own but it can be lonely; having the support of a strong and independent man who lets me shine is a rare and valued thing. I am lucky enough to have had two such men in my life: my Dad and Keith: Thank you, Keith, for your support and for our ability to negotiate tough times with humour and grace. Our love is deepening as we enter this new time.
To my daughter Caitlin, who embodies the spirit of quiet writing in her beautiful being with her love of language, reading and solitude: It’s the greatest of treasures being your mother and watching you grow into the independent and strong woman that you are. You teach and inspire me constantly in so many quiet ways as you always have and I love you so much.
To my father and mother: My father taught me so much about the strength of quietness without me even realising. No longer with us, I realise now that he was probably an INTJ just like me and my quiet strength, love of books and reading and so much more comes from him. And my beautiful mother who is the bravest person I know, who has loved me and my brother so fiercely and managed the most challenging times with such quiet resilience I can only wonder at. To both: the fiercest of love and gratitude back to you.
To my little brother Martin, who left us so tragically and suddenly by his own hand in 2007. The impetus of much of this blog and its creative work stems from the time of his death. I wish it had come to me another way than through the grief and learning from such terrible loss: The hole in my heart is so large and I try each day to fill it with light. I know you visit in the butterfly spirits that come by so gently and we need to learn to speak of you more. I will keep your spirit alive here, transcending into quiet writing and as I said at your funeral, in the words of ‘Crowded House’:

And if you choose to take that path
I will play you like a shark
And I’ll clutch at your heart
I’ll come flying like a spark to inflame you.

To my family, friends and especially my creative friends in real life and on Instagram and in other special places like the Mojo Lab Inner Circle: linking with you gives me such great heart for the journey and I love our connections each and every day.
And to my ancestry, my lineage, especially the women in my family who scribbled poems that I have found, tucked into recipe books and who signed their names as an X: I am sure you wrote quietly in your heads, hearing your own voice, and who knows what might have been in different circumstances. I thank all those who have gone before me to enable this room of my own to be able to have the voice that I have and the ability to use it. May I use it wisely and with passion and influence to likewise blaze a trail for others.

Thank you for staying to read to this point. I know it’s long but for reasons I don’t fully understand yet, these things need to be said here as a threshold piece in moving forward. The card I drew today, the Six of Swords (shown here from the Sakki Sakki deck) is a clue I think – there is a passage, a crossing over, a heading into and a leaving behind at this time.

So let us begin here.

I look forward to connecting with and learning from you and I encourage you to connect with me.

You can sign up at the top so you receive ‘Quiet Writing‘ posts and information via email. I promise I won’t bombard you and I’ll respect your space. I’ll be aiming for about 1-2 posts a week that I hope will inspire you and this way, you can also keep in touch with new developments here as they unfold.

In the spirit of connecting and commencing here, I’ve opened up about ‘Quiet Writing‘, its background and how it expresses my unique voice. I’d love for you to say hello and tell me in your special two words (or more, given I’ve taken so many!) how you express your creativity and uniqueness in the world.

Let me know your thoughts as I start out anew. I’d love to hear from you so I’m not just howling into the wind, as valuable as it is.

Terri x

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introversion love, loss & longing poetry

People hide their love

July 28, 2013

When I was in high school, I used to travel to stay with a friend and her family at a little cottage high on a hill overlooking beaches on the south coast of New South Wales. It was a wild place, wind-swept and exposed; you could sit on the bed at the back of the house and see hang-gliders cruising past like coloured seagulls surfing the wind’s current.

The house smelt of kerosene lamps, wooden floor boards and that not disagreeable but musty smell of holiday houses. Above all it was homely. There were books, blankets, beds and beaches. You could lie on the bed and read and sleep. There was nothing you absolutely had to do.

In that house, in those holiday breaks, I discovered something of the essence of poetry. I found an old edition of ‘170 Chinese Poems‘, one of Arthur Waley’s books of translation of Chinese poems, originally published in 1918. In there, I found what has since been one of my favourite poems, ‘People Hide Their Love’:

People Hide Their Love
By Wu-Ti, Emperor of the Liang Dynasty (AD 464-549)

Who says that it’s by my desire,
This separation, this living so far from you?
My dress still smells of the perfume that you wore;
My hand still holds the letter that you sent.
Round my waist I wear a double sash;
I dream that it binds us both with a same-heart knot.
Did you know that people hide their love,
Like a flower that seems too precious to be picked?

This poem, these words, have stayed with me over the years like an underlying theme. I owe to them, to Arthur Waley’s book of translations I found in that musty holiday house, my love of poetry. It was about this time that I started to write. I was not aware at the time but these words and the spare and simple beauty of Chinese poetry stitched their way into my heart.

I don’t even know what it all means that people hide their love. I do know that there are reasons why we might hide our love: circumstance, loss, not knowing if our love will be reciprocated, just not finding the time until it is too late, not knowing if it is the right thing to do or say, not knowing if it is the right person, not knowing if we are good enough, or so we say to ourselves. And through all this, there is a sense of intense longing that this poem so delicately captures.

Perhaps my love of poetry also is something I hide. I don’t talk about it, like it’s some rarefied jewel or hidden piece of me, sometimes held a little too preciously. I let it languish and there is a distance I feel from it despite it being the essence of me. The poems I have written over many years are the heart of me and yet feel so far away.

Perhaps there is something there also of not knowing if it is the right thing to do, if I am good enough (or so I say to myself), if there is really any point, of who will read these pieces of my heart anyway and what does it really mean to be a poet. And for these reasons, the distance can grow across the years with some time before anything else is written or said.

Perhaps we hide our love of valued things like poetry as well as people because it is too much for us, too precious, or we feel a sense of not being up to them. Sometimes this might be out of our control due to circumstance; sometimes we might impose this on ourselves, this hiding of our love becoming potentially a loss of ourselves and to ourselves and what we might otherwise be or create.

Why are we not saying what we think, what we feel, to people? Why are we not writing the poems that are in our hearts?

You can see why this quiet poem can be the voice of a lifetime.

2 Comments

love, loss & longing

I am not resigned

July 21, 2013

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

This week, two funerals within five days. They are both people very much loved and close to people I love and am close to.

And I feel the pain. Having been so close to this space, I feel it keenly. It’s a place I have inhabited: I know the sharpness, the shock, the unreality, the sweetness of feeling, so full of love and loss concurrently.

This poem by Edna St Vincent Millay captures for me that rawness of death, the shock, the denial, the rejection of the idea that I still feel. In that, it celebrates love. It’s the poem I placed on my brother’s grave the first time I went back after the funeral, with flowers in my hand and that overwhelming sense of helplessness in my heart.

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the
love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Sometimes poetry is almost the only solace.

love, loss & longing poetry

Poetry: Optical Illusions

July 1, 2012

Personal poems recount lived experience so it is re-felt, but with resolution, rising above the tragic.

‘Writing Personal Poetry,’ Sheila Bender, p4

Sometimes, eyes can play tricks. What seems solid and tangible is only a shadow, possibly your own. You try to get hold of what you love, but it fleets downstream. You choose a setting, you hold a camera, you level a fixed lens, you get just the right aperture and the shutter clicks firmly. You have a perfect image, but not the original you desired. At least you have that image to hold onto for a long time afterwards. Even then, it can still play tricks, watching you, reflecting the light this way and that, catching a smile, wandering and jagging like a fishing line pulling at something, possibly your heart.

Optics

Every night that river chased dreams
like sleek fish
running from the echo
of sleep.

Rivers seem so simple now:
just filling themselves
endlessly,
no emotion to speak of.

You stood in a doorway,
I took a photo,
and there was a river
dancing behind.

You, the one clear eye
I craved and strived to
capture neatly in a
single frame.

That horizontal string
of sparkling promise
you always offered,
that river I can still taste.

3 Comments

love

Beginning my journey to write here

Write about what?

Writer in hiding

Falling back in love with writing

The proper care and feeding of writers

Morning Pages and the journey to write

Patterns emerging in the journey to write here

Write here in my Morning Pages

Key books along my journey to write here

About Penelope Love

Read more Wholehearted Stories

Keep in touch + free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

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Anzac Day

Postcards from the war

Closer to home

A poem of remembrance and peace

Rose, rosemary and remembrance

Sources

Thought pieces

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Hello and welcome to Quiet Writing

So what is Quiet Writing about?

creative, intuitive, flowing, poetic and connected

So what can you expect here at Quiet Writing?

Key influences:

Acknowledgements:

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Dirge Without Music

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