Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg, images provided by Simon & Schuster, photo of Goldberg © 2008 by Mary Feidt. All rights reserved.
On Thursday, April 10, QuoinMonkey and ybonesy interviewed Natalie Goldberg, author of the recently released Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir. The interview was especially meaningful in that red Ravine originated from a friendship, and vision, developed while QM and ybonesy were in a year-long writing Intensive with Goldberg, in Taos, New Mexico.
Goldberg had just completed a book tour across several Western states when QM and ybonesy spoke with her from her Santa Fe home. They talked about the new book and about Goldberg’s life as a writer and painter, friendships that sustain her, the loneliness of writing, and the most important thing she’s learned from her students.
Interview with Natalie Goldberg, April 10, 2008, red Ravine
red Ravine: There’s a moving passage in Old Friend From Far Away on page 69, which I’m going to read:
In 1977 on Morada Lane in a small adobe behind a coyote fence I taught the first writing practice group to eight Taos Women. For the last twenty years I have taught these same workshops at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House a few hundred yards farther up on Morada Lane. I joke: I have not gone a very far distance in my life.
Students come and go. Eventually we all will die. I fear I will have forgotten to die. I’ll be standing in front of the class after everyone I know has long passed.
“Class, get out your pens.”
Please help me. If all of you write right now, maybe I can let go and die too. My job will be complete.
Talk about what that passage means, Natalie.
Natalie: Basically, I had this feeling one day that everybody was going to die and I was still going to have to keep teaching Writing Practice; that it was so important and so essential and people weren’t going to let me die. They were just going to keep coming and studying with me and that my books wouldn’t have given enough.
What I didn’t say actually in that chapter is that I hoped to make a book that would be like studying with me. I wanted to make this book — the structure and the rhythm — so that it was the closest to what it’s like to be in the classroom with me. So that someday I, too, can die. I think when we die, finally, we really completely let go. I don’t think I’d be able to completely let go unless I felt there was some record students could follow to learn this wonderful Practice.
red Ravine: Years ago, at the beginning of your adult life when you were in the midst of studying with Katagiri Roshi, you were on a path toward assuming that lineage. What caused you to move away from that path and go with writing instead?
Natalie: That’s a good question. We complain about our lives, but the truth is we usually get what we want. A lot of people say, “I wanted to write and I wanted to do this.” If they really wanted it and it really burned in them, they would do it and they would figure it out. And not everybody has that.
Some people are happy taking classes, milling around with writing, and the truth is they like their lives and they like their jobs. I found that I put in time with writing. When it came down to the wire, my ass was on the line for writing. Even though I showed up all the time for Zen, when you asked me, my drive was for writing.
So it actually happened very naturally. We worry so much, What should we do, what should we do? but life also unfolds. For you (addressing QuoinMonkey), for example, you keep talking about wanting to teach Writing Practice, but we don’t know. And you’ve had some offers, but, finally, you’ll see if it unfolds and if it feels right for you.
You know that’s true with everybody. What we want unfolds. So I think I saw that writing was where I really put my life, my whole life. And even though I deeply, deeply loved Zen, it wasn’t in the same way, deep in the musculature of my body. I didn’t put my life on the line in the same way.
Now that I’m older I realize that I didn’t have to pick. That the two actually came together. But when you’re young you think you have to pick. When you’re young you can drive yourself crazy and think you have to pick. But look, Zen and writing, I can’t separate them. I didn’t choose one over the other. I chose both.
red Ravine: You also chose to be a writer and an artist. How do you balance those passions, and do you ever feel that you are more one than the other?
Natalie: I’m a writer. I know that. And when I’m painting a lot, I’m so in love with it. I think, Oh, I should have been a painter. But I wouldn’t be willing to do (for painting) what I’m willing to do for writing. I’ll go anywhere, face anything for writing.
Painting is my darling pleasure. And because it’s a pleasure, I don’t push myself a lot with it. Like what I said about writing and Zen, if I really look at it (painting), it’s important to me and it feeds my life and I relax with it. I relax and don’t worry about when I do it, if I do it.
For instance, I was in Point Reyes, California for a month in May, and I painted a lot then. Since I came home, I haven’t painted in over 6 months. So part of me thinks, Oh, painting is done. Then about three weeks ago, I realized, No painting’s not done. You’re writing these essays, and these essays use the same energy that painting does.
In a way, an essay is like a square canvas where I try to fit in as much detail as I can. That’s what I do with painting. I realized that I hadn’t been painting because I was painting with my writing. As soon as I realized that, of course, I’ve just done three paintings (laughs). I just went back into the studio.
People want a clear delineation: I write for four hours a day, then I paint for two hours. Life isn’t like that. It unfolds.
For instance, I was burning to learn abstract painting, which I talked about in Living Color. So, 15 years ago, I started to do it; I’d go out on a picnic table in Taos, in Kit Carson Park, and I’d just do abstracts, or what I thought were abstracts. I didn’t think they were that good. Literally, last night, I pulled out those notebooks and they’re some of the best abstracts I’ve ever done. They’re wonderful.
Do you see what I mean? We have the idea that, No, they should be better now because I’ve been doing it for 15 years. But maybe when I was really burning for them was when they really came to me. There’s no linear thing. Basically, you have to have a soft heart and a willingness just to make that first step and step in. And you get wet.
Just like you (addressing ybonesy). You have an important straight job, and then you go to half time for a while so you can do more art. Then you go back to full time. Our life is a spiral. And you also realize, I like this work I do. And I like painting. It doesn’t have to be either/or.
red Ravine: One of the things we want to talk about is loneliness — because writing is lonely. There’s a chapter in Writing Down the Bones called “Engendering Compassion” where you talk about the Black Dog, Loneliness. You say, “When I don’t feel loneliness, I know I’m not in connection with the edge of my life. I look around for that Black Dog, Loneliness, and make sure it’s near me.” After 35 years of writing and teaching, has your relationship with the Black Dog changed? And when you feel lonely or empty, where do you go to refill the well?
Natalie: That’s a really good question. I want to say, “Oh yes, I have a much better relationship with it,” but right now, I’m dealing with (the fact that) my mother died three months ago. So the loneliness is so deep. Whatever engendered it when I was a child is just burning in me now.
Everything I think I know about loneliness has been swept under and I just feel this gnawing emptiness. And it’s painful. The only thing I know is to try to have a little bit of softness toward it and allow it to be, and at the same time not allow it to take over my entire life.
It’s a very tricky thing. But I do want to say that, yes, a writer’s life can be very lonely. That’s why it’s so important to have writing friends. Don’t expect the agent or the editor or the publishing world to be your friend and to be your support. You need writing friends who understand what you’re doing and support you and that you can share this hard and wonderful process with.
red Ravine: Natalie, speaking of friends, do you have a writing friend who has stuck with you through everything?
Natalie: Yeah, Rob Wilder and Eddie Lewis, I’ve been friends with for over 20 years. I’d say also, John Thorndike, though he lives in Ohio now. He used to live in New Mexico and he was a deep writing friend and still is.
But the people who live near are Rob and Eddie and Henry Shukman, too, but he’s English so often he’s in England for long periods. But Eddie and Rob have been consistently there, people I can always rely on. That’s been very important to me.
I know when I have something, I can share with them, I can talk about it. Knowing that I have them, I don’t even call that much. But I know that they’re there. Sometimes just knowing that person’s there is very important.
red Ravine: Can you talk a little bit about what happens to the friendship when you are working on a book?
Natalie: Yeah, sometimes there are periods when I’m working a lot, that Eddie is home a lot, he’s sort of like a housewife, so I’ll call him. Mostly we joke, or I’ll complain about writing. When I’m working on something I don’t talk a lot about it. I’ll just call and complain or ask how to spell something. Or, “Eddie what was that word? I need that word,” or we just joke. But I know he knows I’m writing. And he knows what that is.
And there’s Rob. I asked him and his wife (Lala Carroll) to help me when I read at Collected Works. I said, “Could you be my date?” Rob had a party for me afterwards. Eddie hung out with me and stayed with me at the bookstore. It’s almost mechanical sometimes — “Can you come to the reading with me?” or “Would you read what I wrote and tell me it’s wonderful?” (laughs)
red Ravine: At this moment who are your favorite painters and writers, and what books are you reading right now?
Natalie: I am reading a killer book. I’m almost done with it. I’m going to assign it to my students in the August retreat. It’s called Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. I have 20 pages left, and it’s a magnificent book.
I’m reading that and right before that, Patricia Hampl, who wrote Romantic Education. She has a new memoir called The Florist’s Daughter that just knocked me out. It was a sensational book. No one writes memoir like Patricia Hampl.
I’m teaching at IAIA one night a week with Rob Wilder this Spring semester. (Institute of American Indian Arts is a federally-funded college for Native Americans, who attend from all over the country.) I have to say, my students in that class are some of my most favorite writers who I admire.
These kids have not been incorporated, in some ways, with all the politeness and all the neuroses of white American comfortable society. A lot of these kids come from very broken lives and they don’t have a lot of protection between them and wild mind. So when they write, it brings me back to the original way I learned how to understand Writing Practice. Because I really developed it with Chippewa kids and African American kids in Minneapolis and in Detroit.
They’re some of my favorite writers, these kids that I’m working with now. They’re not kids, they’re adults…They’re college kids, but their writing — they have no explanation. They just put things as they are. And they’re not aware that they’re not supposed to write about these things so they just lay it down on the page. I’m being incredibly inspired by them, remembering the origins of writing. That’s been very, very exciting for me.
In painting, well, I just love painting. Painting is my darling pleasure. When I went on the book tour, people would think I’d go to bookstores a lot. No, that’s my job! When I went into town, I’d go to the art museums and to galleries. That would relax me and give me a whole other outlet.
I love Wolf Kahn, Joan Mitchell. I love to look at local paintings. There’s a painter in Albuquerque who shows in Santa Fe, Tim Craighead. I’m just crazy about him. He shows at the Gerald Peters Gallery.
For the O’Keeffe Museum next week, I’m taking a group (on something) called Walks in the West, and I’m taking them to all the spots where Marsden Hartley painted. He spent a year in Taos. So we’re going to drive up and I’m going to take them for that slow walk to the cross. We’re going to have lunch at Mabel Dodge. It’ll be wonderful.
One more painter I just thought of I want to mention: David Park. I just wrote an essay about him. Helen Bigelow is a friend of mine and an old student who came to study with me at Mabel Dodge. Her father was David Park, and he was a contemporary of Richard Diebenkorn. He’s part of the California Figurative School. I saw an incredible painting of his hanging at the Whitney last year. He made it really big. He died when he was young, at 46.
red Ravine: In Old Friend From Far Away, and also from studying with you, we’ve heard you say that memoir isn’t necessarily about a person’s entire life; it can be about a portion of one’s life. You’ve written Long Quiet Highway about the portion of your life where you studied with Katagiri Roshi, and The Great Failure clarifying the truth you knew about that time in your life. What part of your life, Natalie, do you still want to write about?
Natalie: I’d kind of like to write about my mother. But it’s so complicated for me right now that I don’t see my way clear. Maybe at some point, I’d like to write about my mother.
Except for Banana Rose, I really haven’t written very much about my love life. And I’d kind of like to write about that, but I’m afraid that people who were my lovers will kill me (laughs). So I haven’t done that.
And I think I’d like to write something about what I know about Zen. Though I might have written that already in Old Friend From Far Away. Even though I didn’t mention Zen.
red Ravine: You’ve seen students drop everything in their lives and attempt to become writers. Why doesn’t it always work to get rid of the obstacles and just become a writer?
Natalie: Yeah, it doesn’t work, because suddenly you have all the time in the world and you freeze. It puts too much pressure on writing. Also, we’re social animals and writing is a lonely thing.
In a way, my mistake was to do writing full time. I missed having a job where I could just show up and have to work and have to forget about me and my writing and my life. I don’t think it’s a good idea.
In Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique — which came out, I think, in the 70’s — there was a study where housewives who had all day to clean the house by the end of the day didn’t get any of it cleaned. Those same women, when they got a full-time job, managed in the half hour before they went to work to get all their housework done.
It’s almost that you have more time to feel guilty that you’re not writing. I think that having a bit of a structure and knowing at 1 o’clock I have to go do my other job, it sort of kicks ass. You don’t have so much time to wander around. You have to write — sit down and actually do it.
red Ravine: Describe a typical day in your life. When you’re not promoting a book, what are you doing?
Natalie: I’m running a lot of errands, which I don’t seem to have done in Taos. But in Santa Fe I don’t know why I have so many errands to run (laughs).
I go to yoga classes 3 days a week, from 9:30 to 11. And the yoga class is right near my studio. So if I’m a good girl, I go to yoga and then immediately go to my studio. But then I have my computer at my studio, so I end up doing a lot of business first. And then settling down, either sometimes to write or paint.
But if you really look at my life — at this point, I’ve been writing for 35 years — every book takes a different need, requires different things. For instance, I wrote a lot of Old Friend going on hikes, and at the same time I had broken up an 11-year relationship. My heart was broken. I would go to my studio and I just didn’t want to stay there. I’d go on these long hikes, and I’d bring my backpack, and luckily I brought a little notebook, not planning to write. But as I walked the world would open up for me. I’d sit down on the side of the trail and write whole chapters.
I can’t give you any prescription of my life. If you ask me, my life is kind of chaotic. Like today, after we’re done, I’ll go to this wonderful café near IAIA, which is way south of town, like 25 minutes. But I’ll go there and I’ll do some work for a few hours and then I’m going to go to a lecture at IAIA. I use things in the outside world to structure my inner life of writing.
I’m not a bulldog like I used to be where I pushed everything aside for writing. Writing fits in now and weaves in with the rest of my life. The human life just goes forward. But this is after 35 years where I have enough confidence. Also, I’m tired of making writing the first thing. I don’t need to anymore because I have enough confidence.
red Ravine: How are your creative processes around writing and painting different?
Natalie: When I’m writing it takes all of me. I mean every single cell. When I’m really writing it takes every cell in my body, total concentration, and my whole life is in it. My whole life is on the line.
When I’m painting, I’m whistling, I’m playing music, I’m just happy. The predominant emotion is happiness. With writing there isn’t any predominant emotion. My whole life is distilled into that task. And I give my life over into the tip of that task. I want to say my whole life is distilled into god — if god is everything.
red Ravine: In many respects, because of what you teach and how you teach it, you’ve become a symbol of the notion that anyone can write. Is it true — can anyone write?
Natalie: Absolutely. Yes. They might not become Faulkner. A lot of people don’t want to become Faulkner. But anyone can pick up that pen and express their human life. And if they want to they can get better and better at it. Everyone can write. Everyone should have access to writing. It’s a very human activity. Human beings want to have a place where they can express themselves in language.
red Ravine: What is the most important thing you’ve learned from your students.
Natalie: That I love them. I know this sounds odd but when I’m actually teaching, I have to keep a lot of boundaries. You took an Intensive with me, and I had to hold you when you kind of all hated me or didn’t want to come back. I had to hold your resistance and be a still point. That’s hard.
I have a tremendous amount of equilibrium when I teach and not a lot of opinion. But when I went on this book tour where I wasn’t the teacher, and my students showed up, I cannot tell you the overwhelming love I felt for all of you. I just couldn’t believe it.
Because, really, why am I willing to hold that all for you? It’s because I love you. I didn’t ever quite know that before. I would say things like, “because it’s practice, because this, because of that”…but I realize now, it’s because the love –- ‘cause I love you — that I’m willing to do it for all of you.
ybonesy: Wow, that’s really moving. (pause)
red Ravine: Do you ever get tired of teaching?
Natalie: Right now, I’m quite in love with it. There was a period, remember after The Great Failure came out, I took a year off. When I came back I hated teaching. I had never hated teaching. My teaching was really good, I could see everyone loved it, I knew it was good, the students were great — and I hated it. And I didn’t know what to do.
Every time I taught for several months, it was like that. It was actually taking everybody that week, when I took you all to Ghost Ranch, that something happened and it broke. After that I kind of loved it again. Not only kind of loved it; I loved it more than ever. Ever since then I just enjoy every time I teach. I’m so excited to share Writing Practice with everyone. And to share this wonderful thing that I know. I’ll be teaching for the rest of my life.
red Ravine: Natalie, what do you consider your greatest accomplishment in life so far.
Natalie: I guess, developing and recognizing Writing Practice, staying with it, continually giving it to the world.
red Ravine: In your next life, what would you like to be?
Natalie: An opera singer (laughs). Did you ever read The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather about a poor young girl in a small town in Colorado who becomes a great opera singer? I want to be an opera singer.
red Ravine: If it were your last day on earth, how would you spend it?
Natalie: Oh. I think I would be really sad. Because I would be grieving not seeing it anymore. Not seeing the trees, I’m looking out my window..the piñon tree, not seeing the sky, not having hands and feet. I think I would really be very deeply sad. And very still. Full of gratitude and grief.
red Ravine: Natalie, why do you write?
Natalie: Ummmm…because I’m a dope? (everyone laughs). Because…Of everything I do in my life, it feels the most real, the most to the point, and the most honest.
red Ravine: What are you working on next?
Natalie: I’m working on these essays. Some of them I’ve published in Shambhala Sun. I’m hoping to put together a collection of essays. I’m also working on something else which is a secret. None of my writing has ever been a secret before. But this is so different than anything I’ve written, I haven’t told anybody. And I don’t know when — maybe in 8 months or so — I’ll be able to say something.
red Ravine: As a writer and an artist, how do you define success?
Natalie: On one level it’s that I feel good about it and I enjoy it. That’s the real success. But because I’m a human being in the world, I like that I’m able to make a living at it, that I have it as my job, that I have a career with it. I don’t know if that’s success though. It’s pleasurable and I’m proud of it. But I think the real success is that I continue. And that I continually take pleasure in it. And that it’s alive for me.
red Ravine: Natalie, it’s really been a privilege to spend this time with you. We want to thank you. We thought we’d end by having you read us a passage from Old Friend from Far Away.
Natalie: I might read one I know I like. Okay, you ready? It’s called “Vast”:
Vast
We write memoir not to remember, not to cling, but to honor and let go. Wave after wave splashes on the shore and is gone. Your mother once wore an embroidered Mexican peasant shirt, had gleaming teeth and a full head of black hair. She pushed the hammock you lay in, a million oak leaves above your head. You didn’t know yet your first word. You were slow to learn to talk and your first step was as enormous as an elephant’s. Her waist was below her blouse and you could hide in a voluminous maroon skirt. Sharp was the blue sky, the white porch steps.
Here’s your mother now, frail at one hundred pounds, hearing aids plopped above her lobes, eyes a pale glaze seeing only form and shadow, in her own crooked way heading for another country.
Let her be as she is. You can’t save her. You can only remember as she dissolves. With one arm you reach all the way back and with your other arm you steady the walker that she grasps before her.
But don’t fool yourself. However old your mother is, you are always walking into vast rooms full of beginnings and endings, abundant with possibility. Try the empty cubicle of your page. What can you scratch in it before your turn comes to step up to the vast ocean all by yourself? Go. Ten minutes.
Natalie: It was wonderful to do an interview with the two of you. I love you both and take good care. And I feel honored and thank you for doing this for red Ravine.
QuoinMonkey: I feel so much gratitude for studying with you. I really appreciate you. Thank you so much.
red Ravine posts about Natalie Goldberg:
- To Everyone With Love
- Natalie Goldberg — Old Friend From Far Away (Two Good Reasons To Buy Independent)
- Natalie Goldberg — Old Friend From Far Away
- Natalie Goldberg — 2000 Years Of Watching The Mind
- More About The Monkey — Natalie Goldberg On Monkey Mind
ybonesy and QuionMonkey, what a fantastic interview! You two never cease to amaze me. The interview captured a side of Natalie that I don’t think many people see. It took me a long time to realize that the impersonal teacher at the writing workshops was doing her job…holding the space. She taught. She anchored the space so we could let go. I have since had the opportunity to meet with her outside her role as teacher and seen the “other” side of her. Thanks so much for this interview and what you spoke with her about. Great work!
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Wow. I just finished reading this interview, and I will likely read it several more times. I could feel myself completely slowing down, layers of busy thought falling away. This interview reminds me (again) to go toward the things that matter to me. Let go of the things that take up time and energy that are of no consequence.
And, I love that you asked Natalie not only the profound writing questions, but basic things we all want to know: What are you reading? How do you spend your days? What has been your greatest accomplishment?
Thank-you, Natalie. Thank-you QM and ybonesy. A fabulous way to begin my day.
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Great interview, quoinmonkey, ybonesy and Natalie. it is obvious from the content of this interview that Natalie is a great teacher – she has used the interview also as a teaching occasion – something that the best teachers do, to use every occasion as a teaching occasion. That is sharing some hard-won wisdom, freely and without expectation of compensation. I like the little detail Natalie has included – to go to a cafe for a couple of hours to write, because, in spite of writing being an alone activity she finds usefulness in the potential inherent in such situations. That kind of detail is what makes this such a good interview, adds a bit to ruminate upon.
Thanks so much for doing this and sharing here! G
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Yes, those details are special, G. I agree. I always want to know about how people who manage to do so much, and especially to publish books or produce and make a living off of painting, spend their time. My curiousity is driven, in part, by a desire to be a voyeur into a person’s life, and in part because I kind of believe, naively, that if do what they do, day by day, step by step, I’ll have similar success. Silly, huh?
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Bob, it is amazing, isn’t it, how much energy it must take to hold the space for all those students. That was eye-opening. Remember how much resistance we all had to being there the second, third, and fourth time going to the Intensive?
Well, at least I did. Each time it was time to go back to Taos, I’d feel this huge resistance. I have so much respect for the work that teachers do.
Teri, letting go of what we need to, holding close what is important. I found comfort in those words, too, when she said them again. There they were reminding me to take time in the middle of a busy day for what’s important to me. It was also really fun for us to hear about Natalie’s ordinary days and her everyday life.
What did you think of what she said about writing friends and community? I thought of all the crazy voicemails we sometimes leave for each other about our crazy writing lives. I also thought of ybonesy, how we bounce things off each other every day with red Ravine, the day to day support. Some days it’s enough to just know people are there.
G., I loved the line she used in the part about going to the cafe to write, then the lecture, where she says — I use things in the outside world to structure my inner life of writing. That seems so key to living a busy life and still being able to carve time out for writing and art. Sometimes I forget to do that and have to relearn it.
It’s also true for me that I sometimes get more done the busier I am. Isn’t that strange? You would think that if we had all the time in the world, we’d get more done.
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It’s also true for me that I sometimes get more done the busier I am.
Definitely the case for me, QM, which is why I work so well under deadline.
Hey, QM, something interesting happened to me during the intensives. For the first and second workshops, I gave up on writing and starting doing art. I mean, I still wrote, but in all the off-time, where normally I would have been sitting in a gallery or cafe writing, I did art instead.
I don’t know if that was a caving in to the resistance (the kind that you mentioned feeling prior to the workshops) or if it was some kind of shift, but it was noticeable. Not worrisome, though, being as how I was having so much fun with art.
I guess that’s why I was intrigued by Natalie’s views on writing and art and how one is a darling pleasure, the other an imperative. I wish it were that clear-cut for me.
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ybonesy, I’ve been thinking about that, too. About writing and art and the differences for me. I wonder if Monkey Mind would let you do your art but was too afraid to let you do your writing during those two Intensives? Or if it was just another way into your writing?
Something that really struck me about this interview, was the part where about 15 years ago, she went to Kit Carson park in Taos and started working on abstracts because she really wanted to learn abstract painting. Then she recently pulled out that notebook and they are some of her best abstract paintings. And it was because she was really burning to learn to paint like that back then. (Time doesn’t always make us better.)
That actually happened to me a few weeks ago. I just moved into a new studio and was going through some old photographic work from about 15 years ago. Some of it did not ring true for me anymore. But there was this one body of work that just knocked me out. And I started beating myself up and saying, “Why didn’t you keep going with this kind of fine art photography? Why don’t you do that now?”
And really, I did it then because it was burning inside me so strongly then. I lived and breathed darkroom fine art photography during those years. And now my photography is different. And my writing is front and center. But that doesn’t mean my photography won’t once again knock me out one day. The processes of art and writing are so amazing. And I love the way she speaks to both of them.
ybonesy, I remember you pulling out your old doodles when we started red Ravine and you started posting them and also doing some new ones. The old work inspired your new work. Didn’t that old work feel alive for you, too, when you started posting it in an electronic medium? It was so exciting to see it find a home on red Ravine.
When I get more settled, I hope to post some of that old fine art photography work. I often combined text with photography. I like to work that way.
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Thank you. I feel like I just touched base.
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Great way to put it, Franny. : )
Your last comment squeaked by me, QM, what with computer problems I’m having, and work. But wow, cool, I can’t wait to see the fine art photography. And the idea of combining the imagery and text — intriguing.
And yes, the old work did come to life when I pulled it back out. This electronic medium has turned out to be an unexpected muse.
And the dedicated time in the Intensive…I can’t stress how much that served to kick me in the pants and get me going. It didn’t seem that significant at the time, but having those solid weeks to be silent, literally, with no distractions inside or out, gave me the time I needed to just do it.
BTW, another Intensive takes place in ’09.
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Wow! I haven’t been to red Ravine in a few days, and look what you have for us! What a treat. Your questions led Natalie to some terrific responses. I really need to go out and find her book. It was so interesting hearing her talk about her writing life, wild mind, letting writing flow and weave itself into your life, all of it!
For me, writing is my darling pleasure, especially writing poetry. It has to be, since I’m not writing for anyone but myself, I guess.
That would be a good writing topic, What is your darling pleasure?
Great interview. Loved it.
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I just read this interview and I’m still weeping. I don’t know why. Maybe its hearing Nat’s voice again. Maybe its about the wonderful space you guys have created here. But I feel sad and happy and open and landed and I don’t know what else. Thank you so much for this interview. Thank you for the excellent wonderful thoughtful questions. Maybe I’m crying because I was so miserable during the intensive but I also miss it so desperately now. The deep connections and the life shifts were different than anything I’ve ever experienced.
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I was so miserable during the intensive but I also miss it so desperately now
This seems profound to me, Neola. It makes me wonder if it just must be, like one of those maxims, that we feel resistance to something so important. Like the saying, No pain, no gain.
We had a huge thunderstorm here last night — well, it was almost all lightening and thunder, very little actual rain. It was amazing, the noises. And now that I’m in this post, I’m remembering that one storm where the rain came dripping in, in a stream on my head and others who were sitting in the dark, backs to Taos Mountain. My gosh, how I remember that moment so clearly.
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Christine, that *would* be an excellent writing topic. It’s such a great way to describe something you love. The word “darling” is old-fashioned. My darling pleasure. I like saying it, too.
I’m amazed by how prolific you are with your poetry. And I can vouch that reading it, I’m left with a sense that you enjoy what you do. It’s not forced, doesn’t have any feeling of being contrived, like, Oh, gotta write another poem today. Yes, it feels like a darling pleasure.
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I remember that thunderstorm, clear as a bell. Before we started sitting, Natalie mentioned how wonderful the rain was and that it was auspicious. Then the lightning, the thunder, the strong smell of sage and piñon, the way the light shifted from dusk to dark, the candles wavering against the zendo floor, the drip of rain on the cedar outside the slitted rectangular window I sat under, and the drip, drip, drip of the rain from the roof on to the floor over by ybonesy. Everyone scooted clear, and grabbed a towel (then was it a bucket from the back room?), and we just kept sitting in the deep silence with the dripping rain.
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Christine, I wonder if your poetry is your darling pleasure and your practice. It seems like both to me. You show up for poetry every day on your blog. You have passion for it. You take risks with your poetry. It seems to sustain you. I wonder if something can be both.
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Neola, thank you. I have to say, the life shifts for me over the Intensive, and then over the whole next year as a result of the Intensive, have been profound. One of the results of that is this blog with ybonesy.
I also have a writing friend who I’ve been writing with for years and she took the very first 4-season Intensive with Natalie. I remember following her Writing Practices during that time and watching her slowly change. She told me that she was still making shifts for a whole year after the Intensive. That she really didn’t know how deeply she had changed until it was over. The same has been true for me.
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Neola,
I was nodding and nodding as I read your comment. The Intensive was *so*hard. After the first one (and I realized what I was in for) I felt both equal thrill/anticipation for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ones, and deep panic and dread. Now, a year later, I know it changed my life forever. I’m deeply grateful for what I learned and the people I know.
Regularly, things now dawn on me that Natalie said. I was in some form of a blurr much of the time in the zendo, unaware of what was penetrating my thoughts. Like I said, very grateful. Very.
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What a marvelous interview? I love Natalie’s description of writing while hiking. The season has actually turned to Spring in Wisconsin and I laughingly tell me coach I am going to go do “plein air poetry writing.”
And her discussion of writing being a lonely field. Yes, isn’t it! So much living in your head, playing with the words and concepts and teasing life into them. I’ve always wanted to have a writing partner – a special friend that I could bring out into the woods in my ‘retreat camping trailer’ and just write together for a couple of days.
ybonesy and Quoinnmonkey, you have the internet equivalent, and that seems to do you well. But do you ever get away ( or want to) with another writer and just be together, writing your own things?
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Bo, thank you. And, yes, I definitely crave going and hanging with other writers, just sitting and being and writing. Synchronicity I guess, but I’m actually going on a short mini-retreat in Wisconsin this long weekend with 3 other writers (who also comment on these pages). It’s my first one this year. We plan to schedule in sitting, Writing Practice, walking, silence, being in nature, staring off into space, and working on our own projects.
I hope to try to plan another one, closer to the end of the year, in New Mexico with ybonesy. We might try to combine a red Ravine meeting with a short writing retreat. I hope it works out.
I never would have committed the time or money to do something like that before — something different than a class or a workshop. Going to the Taos workshops and studying with Natalie taught me the value of structuring that kind of time into my life. I try to create structure in terms of the whole year now.
The trick is finding other writers who are willing to go with us — to commit, and then stick to it. It’s a big commitment to our writing and it can be scary for some. And if we have significant others or families, we have to be willing to stand up for our need for that time. It can be hard. Are there any other writers you know who might be willing to rendezvous with you to write, walk, be in nature for a long weekend?
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Ybonesy and Quoinmonkey — Fantastic! This is a great read — I enjoyed Natalie’s description of the differences in process that she feels while writing vs. painting or teaching. Like her, I find that writing is the everything of me while I am doing it (especially with fiction and poetry). I don’t listen to music or do anything else, nothing distracts me or touches me. I just write and that is all there is. I don’t listen to other people well when I am writing in group, which has bothered me about myself at times, but writing is basically a solitary practice, so I guess that’s a somewhat natural response.
Working out of Writing Down the Bones was my first experience with writing practice, and has continued to guide me even all these many years later. I still find it a helpful resource for the new writers who wander in and out of my writing life.
The interview itself is thoughtful, thorough and well written. You have both done a fine job at conveying the power of your experience in studying with Natalie Goldberg, your respect for Writing Practice, and how much it has influenced your personal, professional and creative growth. Thank you, keep going!
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bosquechica, thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. I’m like you — I can’t do anything else while I am writing. No music can be on, I can’t talk or be distracted. And I get totally lost in it. At home, if Liz walks into the room, or says something in passing, it takes me a while to jog my brain and focus on what she’s saying. I also get exhausted by writing. It’s amazing how much it takes out of me when I’m working hard on something.
With my photography, I can have music on, or be chatting, or have a movie in the background, while I’m working on my photos. But not writing. I write best when it’s quiet and still around me. But I do like going to coffee shops and writing. I find I block everything out. Somehow, the noise and bustle around drops away.
I often wish I had more time for the Flickr community and exchanging comments about my photographs there, because it’s fun for me to work with images that way. The only time when my photography is like writing is when I’m working on a specific body of work – getting it framed, printed, hanging it. Then I become pretty one-pointed with the photos.
It’s fun to talk about the differences between the creative processes around writing and art. And to get different points of view. Thanks for sharing yours.
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But do you ever get away ( or want to) with another writer and just be together, writing your own things?
Bo, I do often wish to get away on a retreat with one or two or so writers and work together-but-alone with them. I am seriously planning on hosting a retreat here with QM and another writer, hopefully in Fall. I’ve talked to my husband about him taking the girls up to the cabin, although maybe we’ll be the ones to go to the cabin. We’ll have to see.
My friend Bosquechica also hosts retreats at her place once or twice a year — half-day-long events dedicated just to writing. She has geese and an iguana and beautiful trees and plants, so that’s a bit like getting away somewhere lovely, too.
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Ditto, QM and bosquechica, I’m one of those who has to write in a quiet spot. No music or TV in the background.
By contrast, last night while watching the Semi-Finals of “Dancing with the Stars” (I wanted Christian to be eliminated!) I doodled an illustration for an upcoming post.
As I was working on it, I thought, This is like knitting. That’s what it reminded me of, how some people seem to knit as a way to keep their hands moving.
I wonder if I tried to make a living from my art, would it ruin it for me? What happens when you take a darling pleasure and push it to become an imperative? Just thinking out loud.
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Regarding the walk to the cross that Natalie mentions in the interview, I received a Program Announcement from the O’Keeffe Museum by email last week.
Here’s the information for anyone who is interested. It was rescheduled and is coming right up:
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Walks in the American West: Walking Under the Great Mountain with Natalie Goldberg
Friday, May 16 (Rescheduled from April 17)
9:00 AM-4:00 PM
Explore the Scenery that Inspired O’Keeffe and Hartley with a Renowned Local Artist!
Take a walk with longtime Taos resident Natalie Goldberg. Visit the old morada site in the middle of Indian land as you walk to the penitente cross; the first cross Georgia O’Keeffe painted in New Mexico. Learn a slow, meditative walking technique so that you are better able to receive the beautiful landscape. Visit Mabel Dodge Luhan’s property, and pass by places where Marsden Hartley worked on his Taos pastels.
The walk has a full vision of Taos Mountain across pueblo land, the cottonwood trail to sacred Blue Lake , the Rio Grande Gorge to the west and in the distance the Pedernal. We will also be able to see the town of Taos and pass by the spot where Nell in Natalie’s novel, Banana Rose has an epiphany. The walk is easy and all levels of walkers can come. The power of this walk is in the landscape and the historic value.
Space is limited. To ensure a place, call 505.946.1039.
Lunch and transportation provided.
$135. Members $120.
Meet at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Education Annex
123 Grant Avenue
Santa Fe, New Mexico
____________________________
Christina Dallorso Bush
Education Coordinator
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
217 Johnson Street
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
Tele: 505.946.1007
Fax: 505.946.1092
christina@okeeffemuseum.org
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Wonderful interview. Thank you.
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Thank you for the interview with Natalie. I, too, find it odd that before I retired in February, I wrote in the mornings, at work, waiting in line, almost any place. Since I retired I have filled maybe 10 pages in my spiral notebook, yet I continue to be interested in writing while not writing. I do spend more time thinking while not writing: as I work on my backyard that has been neglected for 10 years, as I plant flowers in the front yard, as I finally clean the carpet and restore its original color. And especially as I lie in bed in the mornings, marveling at how I so easily arise and go to exercise class at 7 am when I could barely get to work before 9:30 just a few months ago. Now that I have the time to write, I have frozen with the pen poised in my hand. This interview with Natalie says to me that it’s Ok and it will be alright. I need to be kind to myself. Thank you.
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Stevo, thank you so much.
Jackie, thank you for your wonderful and honest comment.
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Oh, thank you! This little interview is such a jewel. I have been so busy lately and I didn’t want to just blast through it. I wanted enough time to savor it … and today was finally the day. Both the interview and the comments that follow are tender and loving, teacher to students and students back to teacher. It is a deep relationship. That is one of the huge gifts of the intensive, the deep relationship we forged with our teacher and with each other.
Regarding Natalie’s love for her students, I can attest to it. At the reading and book signing in Boulder, Colorado, she was actively looking for students whom she’d expected to see there. There were over 200 people, but she was quite concerned, because one student, she thought she would see, wasn’t there. She said, “I hope that nothing’s wrong.” She was worried like a mother … I recognized this kind of worry. It was very dear.
This interview reminded me of the web of support we wove for each other during the intensive. Somehow, with red Ravine, you’ve streched and extended that web to cross the continent (and dare I say, the globe?) And it is only stronger for all the new threads and voices that have been added. How lucky we are that you have a practice that creates a web to sustain us all. I dearly hope that you are feeling as blessed by your efforts as I have been.
Deepest thanks.
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Great writer’s work you guys are doing, thank you.
How WONDERFUL to read your Natalie interview.
Anne Lamott is another major hero of mine…. redravine is vibrating with life and riches. Brava!
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Thank you, Barbara, and you too, breathepeace. Your comments and others here have been so generous and inspiring. That’s what keeps us going.
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I throughly enjoyed this! Maybe I should try writing as my darling pleasure. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this with us!
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I’ve been away for a bit, but I had to thank you for this insightful interview. Natalie is amazing, and her words spoke volumes.
Thank you. You guys continue to inspire me . . .
Brian
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This interview touched me deeply, beyond what my words could possibly convey. Thank you for all the richness and inspiration.
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[…] RED RAVINE – NATALIE GOLDBERG INTERVIEW […]
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I am so thrilled to have found this interview. It was wonderful to read. My love, as always, to Ms. Goldberg… who helped me and my writing path immeasurably from a great distance. Thank you for sharing the interview.
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Absolutely our pleasure, KC. Glad to meet a fellow writer who appreciates someone like Natalie, who has devoted so much to aspiring writers and humans in general. It was cool, too, to see that you had posted not long ago a Youtube video of Natalie teaching.
julia, Brian, suz — thank you all for stopping in and leaving a comment.
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I missed this. I’ll save it and come back. Wow.
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[…] trip to Abiquiu, New Mexico to visit Ghost Ranch? A brief recounting of the experience appears in Natalie Goldberg’s latest book about writing memoir, Old Friend From Far Away, but I didn’t recognize her account […]
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[…] Goldberg, in her book Old Friend from Far Away, offers these suggestions, among many, for writing […]
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[…] I need to go — the deep-seated roots of three things Natalie learned from Katagiri Roshi. She passed them on us. I thought her words might be helpful during these uncertain, anxious, and […]
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[…] year 2001 — the first year I traveled to Taos, New Mexico to take a weeklong workshop with Natalie Goldberg. I had a corporate job back then, and big dreams. After 9 years, I was working hard emotionally to […]
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[…] learned about The Synonym Finder from Natalie at one of her workshops. We are the proud owners of two. It was compiled by Jerome Irving […]
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QM, thought you’d be interested to see that Carolee from I am Maureen attended a Natalie Goldberg workshop recently. She blogged about it on this post, “Natalie Goldberg Memoir Workshop” [LINK].
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Sounds great, ybonesy. I’ll check it out. The magic of practice. And Writing Practice. Go, Natalie!
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[…] a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey during a year-long Writing Intensive with Natalie Goldberg in Taos, New Mexico. Last year we had a great response from our readers to the practice of writing […]
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[…] new year-long Writing Intensive with Natalie Goldberg begins tomorrow in Taos, New Mexico. Some of our writing friends will be there for the first week of […]
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[…] Interview With Author and Artist Natalie Goldberg […]
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[…] writer and gardener. She is a long-time practitioner of Writing Practice, which she learned from Natalie Goldberg, and she recently finished her first novel by using Writing Practice as her […]
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[…] Ravine: I (QuoinMonkey) met you a few years ago in a writing workshop with author Natalie Goldberg. It was one of Natalie’s weeklong silent retreats where we sat and meditated and slow walked and […]
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[…] as I think he deserves. When I stop writing and try to do the dishes instead, I consider what Natalie Goldberg would tell me to do. She’d say, Just tell the story. The story is […]
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[…] His perseverance, what Natalie teaches as Continue Under All Circumstances, has always stuck with me. Do you have books you turn […]
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[…] is the same joy I feel from the privilege of having studied with Natalie Goldberg. The things she has taught me about the practice of writing are immeasurable. There is much to be […]
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[…] honor of our friends sitting in Taos with Natalie this week and last; photo by ybonesy and haiku by […]
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[…] our schedule. It works pretty much the same way each time we meet. We follow what we learned from Natalie Goldberg about silence and structure and Writing Practice. Sit, walk, write. We do it because we don’t […]
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[…] at night. I also associate pools with John Cheever’s short story, The Swimmer. Ever since Natalie Goldberg had us read it for one of her Taos workshops, I’ve never forgotten it. Neither has writer […]
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[…] seemed right that what took me until my late 30s/early 40s to figure out, thanks to the help of Natalie Goldberg and Writing Down the Bones, should become an early and natural skill for my girls. Like riding a […]
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[…] – Accept loss forever. Learned this from Kerouac, then from Natalie Goldberg. Easy to say, hard to do. Makes the world a much better place to […]
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[…] writing for red Ravine, fruit from a seed planted in Taos, New Mexico at a writing workshop with Natalie Goldberg. In April 2008, red Ravine celebrated her 1st birthday with the post A Year Of Living Dangerously. […]
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[…] like to join us, here are the first 14 Writing Topics. During Day 1 of Sit, Walk, Write (Natalie Goldberg style) we wrote 14 practices at 10 minutes […]
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[…] on our time spent in Taos. To learn more about Sit, Walk, Write or our experience of studying with Natalie Goldberg at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House, check out the links in this post. Or click on any of the posts […]
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[…] was strange to find myself sitting in the zendo at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, our teacher Natalie Goldberg urging us to Let Go. I had just a few weeks before made the decision to leave red Ravine, although […]
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[…] a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey during a year-long Writing Intensive with Natalie Goldberg in Taos, New Mexico. The response from our readers was so great, that we continued the practice […]
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[…] we end up leaving people behind. Or they leave us. During one session of a year-long Intensive with Natalie Goldberg, one of the participants was killed in a car crash. The group was stunned. These were people we […]
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I just reread this interview with Natalie Goldberg after not having read it in quite a while. I felt instantly calm and inspired. Grounded. Grateful. She has taught me so much about life, about writing and living as a writer.
This morning I read an interview with Sapphire on Rain Taxi Review online: Racism, Sexism, and Women Writers: A Conversation with Sapphire (LINK). Sapphire is another writer that inspires me. She has a new novel this Summer, The Kid, a sequel to Push.
I learned in the Sapphire interview that she had studied with Natalie Goldberg and wanted to mention it here. Here is the quote from the interview, on Sapphire’s philosophy of teaching:
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DG: Tell me a little bit about your philosophy of teaching. It seems mixed with an idea of healing, of getting at what is blocked, or hurting.
Sapphire: I have an MFA in poetry. And I don’t have a PhD in literature. I’m a reader, but I couldn’t call myself an academic scholar by a long shot. I am very much interested in the process of writing. In addition to reading literature, I’ve also studied with people like Allen Ginsberg. I’ve studied with writers who combined Zen and writing, meditation and writing. I’ve studied with Natalie Goldberg. I was a student of hers, in workshops, for over a year. All of that is involved in how I teach. I don’t know about publishing, and I don’t know about the process of writing a novel or short story, but the actual act of writing, I think, has a great deal to do with feeling, with emotional release.
___________________________
I learned a lot from Sapphire in the interview. Natalie’s teachings live on inside me. Thanks to all the great teachers in the world. Those who honor the process, teach with passion, and learn from their students. Deep bow.
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