Category Archives: Author

What you might learn on a silent walk

I spent the past weekend at the Centre de Vie in Ripon, QC at a yoga retreat led by Andrea from Body and Balance. While there, we went for a walk on the large farm property. Andrea encouraged us to walk in silence, and then to journal about what we noticed. Here’s what I pondered as I walked on a November day in Canada.

Don’t ever believe that your life is aimless. Look for signs to point you on your way. You will find them. When you see them you will worry, because you don’t know where the sign is pointing to or what lies ahead. All you might see are obstacles and uphill climbs. Keep walking anyway.

Three birch branches laid on the ground in the shape of an arrow. The arrow points ahead to a bridge made of logs and a small hill.
A red arrow painted on a sign that is attached to a post erected in a farm field.

The mosses and and puffballs that aid with decomposition, and the brown composting leaves might lead you think of death and dying, but they are preparation for rebirth. The time of “wintering” is a necessary dormancy that will recharge you, and evolve you, and take you to the next stage of your life.

Stumps of dead trees covered with green moss.
A cluster of puffballs on a forest floor.

After you have skirted or surmounted obstacles, and after you have climbed the hills, you will descend. You think this is going to be the easy part. But going down is just as challenging as climbing up. You must take care on sharp drops and slippery slopes.

A leaf-covered forest path sloping downwards.

Soon you may realize that you have circled back to the crossroads where you started, but you aren’t the same person you were the last time you were there. You are stronger for having climbed, you are more experienced for having learned, you are more confident and prepared to take on other challenges. You climbed, you navigated, you descended, and it was good.

The same birch arrow and bridge, from a different angle.

Then you wander past an old piece of farm machinery, and it sparks memories of a childhood on a farm, a time and place that was both carefree and fraught with uncertainty. You’ll recall your hands in dirt and romps in fields of crops grown to feed the family. You’ll reminisce about the times that crops grew for months, tall and healthy in the sunshine, only to be struck down minutes by a violent storm. Income lost in an afternoon. You’ll remember pet calves, cherished and bottle-fed that became ill and died from disease. It was more than the tragic loss of loved animals. It was an economic blow. But your family grew other food, so you didn’t go hungry, you lived in an old farmhouse, so you were never out in the cold, and you had family.

Old farm machinery in the middle of a field of shorn hay.

As you walk silently back to a different farmhouse in a different time, you’ll recall that money isn’t what’s most important. Food, shelter and community are all that really matters.

The moving finger writes: Letting go

The moving finger writes,
and having writ
Moves on. Nor all your piety
    or wit
Can lure it back to cancel
    half a line,
Nor all your tears wash
    out a word of it.
—Omar Khayyam

I kept a copy of this poem on my university dorm room wall. The words helped me to let go of things that needed letting go—bad grades, big mistakes, over-indulgences.

Now I’m an older, and my moving finger has written a lot of lines.

Most I wouldn’t choose to cancel. I want to cling to memories of the fresh way my children smelled when they came in from playing in the rain, the sound of my son’s toddler laugh, and the way the sun lit up my daughter’s blond hair when she ran across the park behind our house. I want to stop time and cling to all those joyful things. But I have to let go. The moving finger insists upon it.

Everyone who knows me well knows that I idolize Roger Federer, a retired professional tennis player. He owes his success to his outstanding skill AND his ability to let go. We could never count Federer out of a match. If he missed a shot, he didn’t dwell on the mistake. He learned from it, let it go and moved on to success.

We like to cling to things, don’t we?

We cling to cherished possessions. That’s fine, unless our house begins to look like an episode of Hoarders. We cling to our children. That’s fine, unless we smother them and prevent them from learning to manage their own lives. We cling to our mistakes. That’s fine, unless we get mired in believing that a mistake defines us.

Letting go is an acquired, and necessary, skill.

I foster it every time I receive a rejection to something I’ve written. If I let go of enough resentments, doubts or regrets, I open up room for other, better opportunities.

Moving on . . .

The cycle of writing, she exclaimed!

said-bookism (plural said-bookisms) – Noun
1. The studious avoidance, in writing dialogue, of the word “said”.
Synonym: bookism
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/said-bookism

    Experts said: Don’t drown your dialogue in attributions like exclaimed, whispered, demanded, asserted, murmured, shouted, whimpered, inquired, queried or, heaven forbid, spat. [The experts pleaded, prompted, advised, demanded, urged . . .]

    I agreed with that advice.

    But then, I began a clutter clean-up in my basement, and I happened upon a notebook from my Grade 8 English class. On the last page, I found this: a list of words to use instead of said. Way back in the 1970s my teacher advised me to liven up the story. Avoid using said, they said (proposed, urged argued . . ..

    Old notebook with list of Subtitutes for Said: added, admitted, announced, answered, argued, begged, bellowed, cried, declared, exclaimed, inquired, mumbled, muttered, etc.

    The pendulum swung toward repeated, roared, whined, yelled, remarked, declared, bellowed, argued, announced . . .

    Good heavens, but that became tiresome, if not outright ridiculous. So the pendulum swung back to said.

    And now, the pendulum swings again. As readers we find we don’t mind an occasional declaration. If a character roars now and then, it’s okay!

    What do you think? Do you enjoy writing enlivened by interesting attributions, or do you prefer our good old standby said?

    Different kinds of writing

    Someone could get to thinking that I have fallen out of the writing habit, given that it’s been a while between posts.

    Not the case. Every day I do some kind of writing: content for websites at work, documents for organizations I volunteer with, or simple journaling for myself. Those words end up in the world, but not in this place.

    One of my favourite daily writing practices involves . Every day (or most days anyway) I craft a very short story through the hashtag #vss365. That is, a Twitter-length story based on a prompt word, 365 days a year. Here a few of my favourites.

    What kind of writing have you been doing lately?

    Beltane: Turn and return

    A bright fire to you all. We turn and return.

    Where I live the pouring rain of dreary spring lingers still. I hope that where you are the sun of coming summer is shining.

    When you start to think, stop.

    “My gauge each day, in all things, is simply this: Is what I’m choosing (to think, do or say) moving me closer to my Creator or farther away? For this question, I am immensely thankful. It saves me an awful lot of backtracking, worry lines, frustration, angst and apologizing. Today and every day, I give thanks for my ability to exercise power of choice—even when I’ve chosen wrong.”

    —Richard Wagamese in EMBERS: ONE OJIBWAY’S MEDITATIONS

    Years ago I attended a writing workshop led by Richard Wagamese. His process, he told us, was to go for long walks in the hills and tell himself a story out loud as he climbed. When he returned home, he’d write it all down, letting the words pour unto the page. He’d write, he said, until he “started to think.”

    When thoughts began to run through his head—”Is that the right word?” or “Should I take that part out?” or “This is the worst thing ever”—it was time to stop.

    The words weren’t coming from Source anymore.

    At the workshop he invited participants to give him a topic—any topic—so that he could tell us a story. Several times he received his subject, reflected only for a second or two, and then began to speak.

    In a miraculous way, he opened himself up to become a channel for story. He surrendered to it. Story unfolded through him, complete and beautiful from beginning to end.

    I think of this often, when my hands hover over laptop keys, uncertain. Or when those questions or comments start to circulate. “Does this word belong?” or “Is that part too long?” or “Am I wasting my time with this?”

    I’m no Richard Wagamese, but I try to recreate what he showed to me that day, not only in writing, but in day-to-day life. For stories or for difficult decisions, I try to open, to surrender, and to allow the unfolding.

    When I manage it, even a little, I’m surprised by how complete and beautiful it all turns out, from beginning to end.

    And when I start to think, I stop.

    Cover of Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations by Richard Wagamese