Make Positive Effort For The Good, Sand Graffiti on Lake Michigan, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, May 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
I bumped into a coworker in the file room this morning. She said she finally looked at her 401K; she lost $7000. The Presidential candidates debated in a town hall forum tonight. Millions of people tuned in. Win, lose, or tie, how do we keep our center?
I’m not always that good at it. I need a little help. Practice can be anything you come back to that grounds you, moves you back to center. red Ravine was built on the premise that writing is a spiritual practice. Writing Practice can be a sane thread through the constant unraveling.
I pulled Bones and Wild Mind off the shelf after work this afternoon. The dog-eared corners lead me where I need to go — the deep-seated roots of three things Natalie learned from Katagiri Roshi. She passed them on to all of us. I thought her words might be helpful during these uncertain, anxious, and fearful times.
Three friends and I went on a weekend writing and meditation retreat last May. On one of our silent afternoon breaks, I sat by Lake Michigan writing haiku in a red notebook, and slow walked barefoot along the sand, carrying a big stick (no Presidential pun intended). Sand graffiti emerged from the fingertip of a white pine. I like to think the angels were cheering for us.
Continue, continue, continue.
Make Positive Effort For The Good
During all the thick days of my divorce eight years ago, only one thing helped. I remember Roshi saying, “Make positive effort for the good.” For me it meant, “Get up and get dressed. Just get up.” He meant to make human effort under all circumstances. If you make effort, beings seen and unseen will help. There are angels cheering for us when we lift up our pens, because they know we want to do it. In this torrential moment we have decided to change the energy of the world. We are going to write down what we think. Right or wrong doesn’t matter. We are standing up and saying who we are.
-Natalie Goldberg, from Wild Mind – Living The Writer’s Life, Chapter 37: Positive Effort, Bantam Books, 1990
Don’t Be Tossed Away, Sand Graffiti on Lake
Michigan, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin,
May 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey.
All rights reserved.
Don’t Be Tossed Away
Don’t be tossed away by your monkey mind. You say you want to do something — “I really want to be a writer” — then that little voice comes along, “but I might not make enough money as a writer.” “Oh, okay, then I won’t write.” That’s being tossed away. These little voices are constantly going to be nagging us. If you make a decision to do something, you do it. Don’t be tossed away. But part of not being tossed away is understanding your mind, not believing it so much when it comes up with all these objections and then loads you with all these insecurities and reasons not to do something.
-Natalie Goldberg, from Writing Down The Bones — Freeing The Writer Within, Afterward, Shambala Publications, 1986
Continue Under All Circumstances, Fading
Sand Graffiti on Lake Michigan, Sheboygan
County, Wisconsin, May 2008, photo © 2008 by
QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Continue Under All Circumstances
Our senses by themselves are dumb. They take in experience, but they need the richness of sifting for a while through our consciousness and through our whole bodies. I call this “composting.” Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds, and old steak bones of our minds come nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at once. It takes time. Continue to turn over and over the organic details of your life until some of them fall through the garbage of discursive thoughts to the solid ground of black soil.
…Katagiri Roshi said: “Your little will can’t do anything. It takes Great Determination. Great Determination doesn’t mean just you making great effort. It means the whole universe is behind you and with you — the birds, trees, sky, moon, and ten directions.” Suddenly, after much composting, you are in alignment with the stars or the moment or the dining-room chandelier above your head, and your body opens and speaks.
Understanding this process cultivates patience and produces less anxiety. We aren’t running everything, not even the writing we do. At the same time, we must keep practicing. It is not an excuse to not write and sit on the couch eating bonbons. We must continue to work the compost pile, enriching it and making it fertile so that something beautiful may bloom and so that our writing muscles are in good shape to ride the universe when it moves through us.
This understanding also helps us to accept someone else’s success and not to be too greedy. It is simply that person’s time. Ours will come in this lifetime or the next. No matter. Continue to practice.
-Natalie Goldberg, from Writing Down The Bones — Freeing The Writer Within, Composting, Shambala Publications, 1986
-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, October 7th, 2008, with gratitude to Natalie
Thank you for the reminder. Sometimes her message gets lost amidst the noise and clutter of life.
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Thanks, QM, for bringing these three principles back to us and us back to them. This post couldn’t have come out at a better time. Reading Natalie’s words, and the calm way that she describes heaven and earth moving for us when we write—it’s inspiring. I loved reading these words:
There are angels cheering for us when we lift up our pens, because they know we want to do it. In this torrential moment we have decided to change the energy of the world. We are going to write down what we think. Right or wrong doesn’t matter. We are standing up and saying who we are.
Also, the photos add so much to this piece. I love that first one, how the lake appears as a sort of sliver on a round earth. Very grounding.
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Jackie, thank you. And thanks for stopping by.
ybonesy, I like the part about the angels, too. It reminds me of what other writers describe as Providence. When we set an intention, show up, everything gets behind us. It will be the same with the elections, or the economy, or any area that we are striving in right now. Setting intention – things will line up for whoever’s moment it is in time.
I often call on Providence. I didn’t know much about the history of it until I did some research on W.H. Murray.
Here’s what he said:
– from W. H. Murray – Providence Moves Too (LINK)
He goes on to quote Goethe. I feel less stressed when I keep believing in something bigger than me (it could even be the chandelier above my head). Something that moves mountains – one hill at a time.
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Oh, ybonesy, I did a Writing Practice this morning and was surprised at something at the end of it. Liz and I were watching a film about Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick before the debates last night. And it crept into my Practice this morning. Here’s the last paragraph:
We also watched a film about Andy Warhol before the debate last night. And Edie Sedgwick. He was such a strange little man. Yet he had his time in the spotlight. The 60’s were crazy. The rich and spoiled rotten ended up in the Factory. They felt like they could do anything they wanted. They lived their lives like a raw writing practice. And that’s the way they will be remembered. Raw with structure and order bouncing around inside Brillo boxes and Campbell’s soup cans.
What struck me were the last few lines — They lived their lives like a raw writing practice. And that’s the way they will be remembered. Raw with structure and order bouncing around inside Brillo boxes and Campbell’s soup cans.
I started to wonder — what does that mean? What would it be like to live our lives like a raw Writing Practice? And how does it help to have structure to help guide the rawness.
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Wow, that makes sense to me, that Warhol and Sedgwick “lived their lives like a raw writing practice”—to me what it brings up is how they were out there, cutting edge, Edie pretty into drugs and sex (being the “it” girl) and Andy into all his stuff. And how their lives were art, really. How there were or seemed to be few or no inhibitions. They must have had structure, maybe it was the time in the studio, but they seemed pretty out of control. And maybe that’s the edge, not over controlling.
It reminds me of something I’ve long thought but almost hate to mention because I don’t want to glorify it, but I’ve often felt that people who become addicts (think of Lucy Grealy), that the letting go of whatever holds the rest of us back from that particular route, there’s something wild there. And maybe in that wildness, there is also a creative edge that otherwise is hard to tap into. (Think of Cheever, Hemmingway, all the many alcoholic writers.)
OK, having said that, I do believe something eventually is crossed, a line where the addict loses that edge and spirals into darkness. And, I do think there is a way to tap the wildness (Wild Mind) without the abuse and addiction.
Didn’t quite answer your question, but it led me on that train of thought.
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You kind of did answer it and that was the road I was heading down, too. It’s related to that old question – do artists have to suffer to be cutting edge or to really tap into their creative centers?
I don’t believe that anymore. But I think I used to. I used to believe there was something kind of edgy about all that looseness and rawness. And also something kind of noble about the way many artists and writers give up a decent income, live on the edge of poverty, to do their art or to write. I don’t believe you have to do that anymore either. (At least, not on the outside. Part of me may still buy into it on the inside. I have to work to change those beliefs, too.)
Warhol was in the right place at the right time. Kind of like Natalie’s always said about Bones. The timing was right for people to read what she had to say; they were ready to receive it. And how maybe that wasn’t as true for The Great Failure where many people weren’t ready to hear what she had to say in that book.
It just shows how we have to keep writing or doing our art and forget what anyone else says. Or what our internal demons tell us is true. We have no idea what’s going to happen. Our books and art may not sell or be well received. They may be well-received but not sell. But really, it doesn’t matter. We are compelled to write them. To continue.
The great thing about Writing Practice is that it gives us a structure, a place, a home to lay down all that raw angst if we have it, without having to turn to more destructive outlets like alcohol or drugs. I don’t think I want to live out the raw thoughts and feelings in my practices. But I need to have a place where the juice can flow out if I need it to. Or to be completely boring if I need to. Either way, no one is judging. And I’m not hurting myself or others.
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I always thought that artists who suffered did so because their artistic nature made them feel so connected to everyone and everything that they couldn’t stand the suffering those connections can cause. They drank too much, partied too much, and did drugs too much to dull that connection all beings living and dead, sentient and non-sentient.
I think some artists must exist who experience the connection to all beings and don’t use something to dull that connection. I want to be one of them.
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“we collect experience”
I think it very curious to see this post—and pondering similar themes… I am glad you shared this.
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QM: The photos of your sand graffiti are wonderful. It was such a perfect impermanent way to record these Buddhist teachings!
I loved the reminder today that to “make positive effort for the good,” means making a HUMAN effort, which Natalie described as meaning to her, “Get up and get dressed.” Sometimes that is all I can do, but it doesn’t usually feel like doing “enough.” I hope to cultivate the understanding that on some days “just getting-up” IS making positive effort for the good and that it is enough.
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Very inspirational QM. I haven’t written in the sand in years. I’d probably get hit by a skin boarder. 🙂
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QM, back to your thoughts about not wanting to live out your raw Writing Practice…yeah, me neither. You know each Writing Practice is its own little world; it reminds me of weather. I don’t know that I’d ever want to be that volatile in my lived life. I don’t mind my mind being raw but I like being pretty dependable in person.
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Bob, that’s a good point. I do think creative types start out realizing they look at the world in a little different way, tending to open up more to all the suffering and pain that’s out there, as well as the joy. Maybe it’s a willingness to go to those dark places that many people don’t want to think about. And translating those details into art or into language.
I want to be one of those people, too, who doesn’t numb out to all that. But I do notice that I have to stay focused and choose my battles carefully or I get burned out from that kind of intensity. I have to escape at times into movies or books, places that don’t hurt me as much as some other things might. I do think as humans we tend to want to escape. But as artists, we still have to be willing to go there!
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Sibyllae, hmmm, I wonder why curious?
heather, as usual, you make me smile. I had not heard it called skin boarder before. I take it that’s body surfing? I kind of like “skin boarder.”
breathepeace, that “Get up and get dressed” really struck me, too. How making positive effort can be the simplest thing. I remember the first time Natalie said that in a class I was in, I breathed a sigh of relief. It meant I got to choose what making positive effort was for me. And it didn’t have to be Herculean to mean something. It’s really freeing to look at it that way.
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ybonesy, yeah, I wouldn’t want to be out there living the fodder in my practices either. Some of them are tamer than others. I like how you say they are like weather. Mine tend to fall into two camps — kind of scared and uncertain and insecure, which for some reason tend to be more abstract. Or detailed and grounding and noticing the things that ground me out in the world.
Lately, I haven’t been doing as many ranting practices. But in the past I have when I’ve needed to work things out. You’re right — they are a lot like internal weather. Have you noticed any changes in your Writing Practices over the years? Or do they stay pretty much the same?
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QM, I am howling at my desk. I meant “Skim Boarders”. I’m being treated for some skin cancer (Minor) and must have the word “skin” on my brain. HA! Skim boarders (and you probably already know this) are those crazy guys running up and down the sand with the flat wooden boards, skimming the wet sand. The boards go flying out from under them when they hit dry land. It’s quite comical. 😉
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Heather, oh my gosh, “Skim Boarders!” Yes, I know what they are, those crazy people skimming the wet sand. But, hey, I love “Skin Boarders,” too. Isn’t a Skin Boarder a perfect word for Body Surfing (a word I never thought was all that creative). I think you’ve created a new phrase. 8)
Ah, will send good healing energy for the other (glad it is minor). I know not everyone believes in that, but I’ll send it anyway. I figure the more positive energy zooming out through the Universe right now, the better!
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I do believe and I thank you! Wear a hat or SP 70 my good woman!
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bring the body and the mind will follow
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My pleasure, Heather. Rick, so true. Body, mind and Spirit. 8)
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Back to your question in comment #14, QM, about whether I’ve you noticed changes in my Writing Practices over the years or whether they’ve stayed pretty much the same… Well, I haven’t noticed big changes since 2004, when I starting doing WP as I know it today. Before that I did a lot of Fiction WP and a lot of deep diary writing.
But I’ve lost so many of my former WP, through two laptop blow-ups, that I can’t really go back and re-read.
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In the best possible connotation, my thought reading these were, these are fighting words.
Fighting words.
They are familiar to me, cus I have these books, but I’m glad you put them down. It’s nice sometimes to see other people reading and gleaning meaning from the things I do. It feels less like experiencing the words in a vaccuum.
Right now, I kinda need fighting words. The good kind. Great post, and I love the … stickmanship of your sand graffitti.
🙂
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[…] kind of like those few lines from Natalie about the angels cheering her on. Or the way W. H. Murray and Goethe write of Providence. Or these lines in scratchy block print […]
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amuirin, I think you are right. They are fighting words. A certain kind of fight – the internal struggle within. They are kind of like mantras to me. I usually have them posted somewhere nearby. I take comfort in the simplicity of those 3 lines.
Sharing what I’ve learned with others is important. I know not everyone will take to Writing Practice. But it’s one way of approaching writing that has really helped me along the way. Whatever gets us to the writing table.
For me, when I’m struggling, I try to come back to the basics. To the simplest concepts I can boil things down to. I think part of why I wrote this post was to remind myself of what’s important to me. And it sure helps to know that others sometimes struggle, too.
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[…] alive through another year. It’s one of my practices. I draw on what Natalie taught me: Continue under all circumstances. Don’t be tossed away. Make positive effort for the good (adding under my breath, Cross your fingers for Good […]
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[…] NOTE: I’ve been checking on Mother Mallard every day since I first saw her little nest of eggs (see Nesting & Resting) in a high traffic area near an industrial complex. She sits patiently through human insensitivity, volatile storms, rushing wind and rain, days when the Sun warms her nest. She never wavers. I learn from her, as I often learn from Mother Nature — don’t be tossed away. […]
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[…] gratitude list and begin work on another mandala. I have not been tossed away. The work continues. Positive effort for the good is the best practical response to a hungry world. I am grateful to be back on the page, thankful […]
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[…] these small silent retreats see: Sit, Walk, Write On Lake Michigan, I Write Because…, and Make Positive Effort For The Good. Rate this: Share this:TwitterFacebookStumbleUponDiggRedditLike this:LikeOne blogger likes this […]
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[…] We were required to keep a log that year of our practices, a daily reminder of the commitment to ourselves and our writing. I’ll leave that practice from the old notebook in the comments below, a reminder from the ghosts of December past: Continue under all circumstances. Don’t be tossed away. Make positive effort for the good. […]
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