You can't photograph wind....

In contrast with snow-silence now comes the wind-screams. All night the wind found some aperture which sounded like a banshee, a chain-saw, a dentist’s drill, the hound of the Baskervilles. All night….

Although Ted Hughes was talking about the Yorkshire moors in his poem Wind, it could be this Colorado mountain too when he says:

This house has been far out at sea all night,

(Click here to see the rest of the poem)

I had to cancel writing group this morning because of snow – not new snow, the last snow which the wind re-deposited in new drifts, new crevasses, new ramparts. As fast as we shovelled  or plowed so the wind undid our work. A Sisyphean task?

So here’s the opening prompt we would have used in group this morning:

What has the wind been like for you this time? What has your experience of such extreme wind been been like before? What is the wind saying to you? Where will it take you?

Tracks in the snow: bobcat, turkey, rabbit

I’d like to think that bobcat, turkey & rabbit walked up the drive together one morning….

2 Upcoming workshops in the Boulder/Denver area:

The first one, in March, hosted by the Boulder Psychotherapy Institute, is for therapists and healing professionals:

Boulder Psychotherapy Institute Presents:

Therapeutic Journal Writing and Existential Psychotherapy:

An Intimate Relationship

Saturday March 24 2012 – 10 am – 5:30 pm

for more details click here

The second, in April at locations in Boulder & Denver, is for everyone (including therapists!). Mary Reynolds Thompson joins me to present:

WILD PLACES LOST AND FOUND:

WRITING THE PLACES OF OUR HEARTS, MINDS AND SOULS

2 DATES:

SATURDAY, APRIL 21, BOULDER, COLORADO

SUNDAY, APRIL 22, LAKEWOOD, COLORADO

10:00-4:00 

for more details click here

No way in or out

I woke to snow-silence on Friday. This is a different kind of silence from simple absence of sound; it has a different texture. It snowed from 7pm on Thursday to midday on Saturday – without respite.

Yes, I know London got 5 inches – I’ve seen pictures – and the city came to a halt. We had snow-cancellations here too – but that was with 22 inches in Boulder and nearly 40 here.

Snowed in, snow cancelled, snow silence. Alone in the house, this should have provided wonderful opportunity for writing & reflection – but somehow didn’t. Perhaps the meteorological phenomenon was just too immense, perhaps the awe and wonder at nature was all there was, or perhaps simply the pathetic fallacy…

This made me think about the following:

What are the ideal conditions for introspection, thinking, writing, being? When are individuals at their most creative?

Some people write more when depressed, others find writing deserts them at such times.

Journal prompt

What are the ideal conditions to foster creative or reflective writing? How do you nurture that relationship? What do you need? Is it solitude or bustle? Inside or out?

or

Write a dialogue with solitude.

and then the sun came out

The snow swirls down without substance,

As though gravity were an accident of faith

If we all stopped believing

would it never land?

As I look out of the window again – that could be snow…..

An article in The New Yorker by Aleksandar Hemon (Mapping Home: learning a new city, remembering the old, December 5th 2011 for those of you with back copies still in the hall) particularly captured my attention. Having left his native Sarajevo in 1992 to move to the US he returned recently for a visit. One of the ways he gets to know places is by walking them (he invokes the persona of the flaneur, the existentialist nomad, the self-destructive poet). I can identify with that though it may frustrate those who need a linear direction and a destination.

As he walks:

a simple lust would possess my body. The city laid itself down for me; wandering stimulated my body as well as my mind.

I gradually became aware that my interiority was inseparable from my exteriority, that the geography of my city was the geography of my soul.

We move from Baudelaire to Proust when his body involuntarily turns to look as, in his youth, at where the cinema posters used to be displayed:

From the lightless shafts of coporal (sic) memory, my body had recalled the action of turning to see what was playing.

Following that involuntary turn, my body was flooded with a Proustian, if banal, memory:

That’s such a wonderful phrase:

From the lightless shafts of corporal (sic) memory

or corporeal if you prefer.

What emerges from the lightless shafts of your corporeal memory?

Caveat: if your body is storing and holding unpleasant or painful experiences treat this prompt with caution, make sure you have your safeguards (structure, pacing and containment) in place. Have someone you trust with you, keep it brief.

What are your Proustian moments?

In one of my groups this week we had a grandmother’s suffocating lily of the valley perfume, a bed in a chicken coop and a statue of a crow. And that was just in 15 minutes.

Someone also said that the smell of cloves was the smell of childhood Christmases. Amazing how evocative scents and odours can be.

If Proust doesn’t evoke anything for you, or madeleines are not your thing, who or what is your alternative?

Rosamond Lehmann’s Dusty Answer is a book which evokes my childhood summers.

By the way, India was an almost overwhelming trip. One of the most inspiring places was Ghandi’s Ashram in Ahmedabad.

fail because they’ll eventually run out of willpower, which social scientists no longer regard as simply a metaphor.

From Boulder snow to.............

But no excuses – it’s not willpower which will prevent me for posting for the next couple of weeks – it’s technology (I think). I’m going to be away in India for 2 weeks from tomorrow and therefore experiencing life, not technology, in the raw (unplugged, I think is the current term).

What’s it like for you to be unplugged from your technology and gadgets? 

Where do you find the quiet spaces in your life?

In preparation for the trip I’ve been reading novels about India:

Top pick:

Sunetra Gupta – So Good in Black

(how does a professor of epidemiology in Oxford write such elegant & poetic prose? or am I just biased?)

Vikram Seth, of course – other suggestions of your favourite Indian writings please.

Advance notice:

Kate Thompson & Mary Reynolds Thompson will be delivering their sell-out workshop:

Writing the Wild Places of our Hearts, Minds and Souls

In Boulder & Denver on April 21st & 22nd 2012

More details to follow.

Christmas snow

So to get us started here are some writing prompts that I’ve experienced in groups over the last couple of weeks:

1. Some moments I plan to have in 2012 (This of course follows on from your Christmas write: Best moments of 2011)
2. Things I want to erase and not carry into 2012 (I give myself permission to tear out and destroy this page if I want to)

The prompts above were practiced at Kay Adams Monday Group before Christmas – it’s amazing where these prompts can take you. Please do leave a comment if you try these.

A new dawn

The first group here of the New Year brought 6 wonderfully creative women of Flagstaff mountain to write together for the first time.

(Neighbours male or female, if you are reading this – you are welcome to join us – see the events link at the top of the page).

We experimented with a  Perspectives exercise. This is where you fast forward to a date in the future and write a review journal entry of everything that has happened. We took a 3 month period (a full year felt far too daunting) and wrote as if on April 4th 2012, looking back at all we had done in the period January – March 2012.

4th April 2012

As I sit here writing and looking back over the last 3 months I think about everything I’ve done since New Year……

When you’ve finished, read it through and notice the things that you want to achieve in the period January-March 2012……………

What are your first steps? What can you do right now?

And finally……

Do you have a favourite writing prompt to start the new year/new journal?

]]> http://therapeuticjournal.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/happy-new-year/feed/ 0 journalkate DSC02137 DSC02187 http://therapeuticjournal.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/the-post-christmas-world/ http://therapeuticjournal.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/the-post-christmas-world/#comments Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:59:52 +0000 Kate Thompson http://therapeuticjournal.wordpress.com/?p=98 ]]> Now Christmas is over for another year……. We’ve cleared the drive of snow so we can get out again into the world – over 2 feet of snow requires a lot of shovelling!

The post-Christmas world is a tidying-up time and perhaps a time for reviewing:

What were the highlights of 2011 for you? Write whatever comes to mind.

On a larger scale, reviewing the narrative of our lives can be a fascinating exercise. Daniel Siegel says:

It is essential for all people in the healing arts to care for themselves – which includes creating a coherent narrative of their own lives.

Siegel, D. The Mindful Therapist. 2010 (p72)

It seems to me that restoring our own narratives can help us with our lives whether we are in the helping professions or not – and of course I believe that journal writing (or expressive writing) is a significant way of doing this.

Siegel suggests a list of questions (adapted from the Adult Attachment Interview) such as:

What was growing up in your home like?

Who was in your home with you? 

Think of 5 words that reflect your earliest recollection of your childhood relationship with your mother/father/grandparent. Then think of an example of a memory which connects to that word.

If that seems too big a task (and it does require plenty of time) give yourself 15 minutes on:

What are your memories of childhood Christmas?

Grating nutmeg suddenly seemed to evoke the smell of family Christmas here.

……and finally: did you get any good books for Christmas?

have you got a new journal ready for the New Year?

I refer you to the Oxford English Dictionary’s second definition of Orgy (noun)

This weekend the lists of holiday books/books of the year started to appear in the papers in time for Christmas shopping.
I thought I’d compile my own shortlist of November novels which inspired, engaged and consumed  me this month:

1) David Lodge – A Man of Parts
fictionalised biography of H.G.Wells

2) Paula McLain – The Paris Wife
Fictionalised autobiography of Hemingway’s first wife.

I used to think that fiction writers were cheating if they didn’t make it up (I’m still not sure about prequels and sequels of classic novels) but these two novels convince me that in the right hands it doesn’t matter where the story comes from. It raises interesting questions about the borders between fact and fiction, different genres which are being created.

I don’t actually want to return to the primary texts as a result of reading these.Does anyone over the age of 16 and under the age of 70 read HG Wells any more? Hemingway?

3) Amy Waldman – The Submission
What would happen if a Muslim won the competition to design the 9/11 memorial? Topical and challenging.

4) Julian Barnes – A sense of an ending
A worthy Booker prize winner  He considers the role of memory and the re-construction of the past in the light of the present.

5) Lily Luck – I married you for Happiness
What the mathematician’s widow thought about their life and his work on the night he died.

Not a bad haul for one month – I’ll save the non-fiction and the poetry for another time.

Any other recent must-read novel suggestions?

What’s not to like? But why is it immediately followed by something called Black Friday?
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day in the United States of America – but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be a day for giving thanks wherever we are or whatever tradition we follow……

Write an Unsent Letter to someone or something you want to thank – and that can include yourself or a part of your self.

The New York Times has discovered Gratitude Journals for this time of year .

Tell them they’re safe this year…..

For a poem about Thanksgiving, a discussion of how it developed as a holiday & what some writers are grateful for see The Writer’s Almanac

But if you prefer a little deer……

What’s the difference between writing by hand and typing?

Between E-mails and letters?

Having moved house 4 times in the last 10 years (across counties and continents) I’m amazed by what survives transition. I came across a box of letters going back decades – and what a random selection it seemed. I can’t imagine e-mails surviving for posterity in this way. There’s nothing quite like meeting yourself or an old friend on paper after all this time. Who knows, I may be moved to fill my fountain pen again (or maybe just a quick e-mail).

Seriously, there are differences between writing by hand and typing and journal writers have strong opinions about which is preferable. I have known people type their journals when the material feels too overwhelming for connecting the hand to the pen to the page.

Let me know what you prefer to use for what.

Handwriting – even if it’s illegible………..

Happy Thanksgiving wherever you are!

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My year group is moving into a new decade now the season for birthdays is beginning; Scorpios, Sagittarians and Aquarians seem to figure ………large in my circle of friends and family. Somehow this brings an inevitable period of reflection – looking back, looking forward and seeing where we all are now (we live in the continuous present after all). Great opportunities for journal writing…….

For example in writing group on Monday what came up was:

It’s a time for recognizing those people who have been important to me on the journey (make an inventory) and letting them know. You’ll be hearing from me………

Who do you want to contact? What do you want to say to them? Write someone a letter – it can be an Unsent Letter, in some cases it will have to be.

View from my Window

By the way – someone told me that there have been enough pictures of the view from my window on this blog – is this true? Let me know.

So here’s a turkey instead:

Come to think of it, View from my Window is a very nice journal entry to do regularly over time. You’ll find it changes each time even if the window is the same (it’s a question of perspective) – try for 100 words or fewer. It’s also one of those writes which can overcome writing blocks, confound the excuses of ‘not having enough time’ and the material is always there.

Captured Moments in the Moment

Every time I describe the view from my window it grounds me, it locates me where I am in time and space which can be very useful when trying to re-gain focus. And every time I describe it it’s different.

 Every time a colleague sends me an e-mail snapshot of the view from her window I am connected to her across time and climate zones.

 From: Therapeutic journal Writing: an introduction for professionals

Snow from my window........

But it’s not really winter – just the first storm, a foretaste of what’s to come between now and next spring.

Snow at dawn from another window

On Saturday I attended poet David Whyte’s workshop in Boulder. An inspiring and thought-provoking day of poetry and ideas. He read his own poetry and poems by other poets. It’s a long time since I’ve read Stephen Spender’s I think continually of those who are truly great - written when he was only 21. An unashamedly romantic poem, a young poet’s poem perhaps but wonderful.

'When icicles hang by the wall'

Spender said he was thinking of these things when he wrote it:

Beethoven late quartets,  Russian movies about heroic workers, D.H. Lawrence’s ideas about sex, Michelangelo’s sculpture.

What 3 things inspire your best work?

Just one of the thought-provoking topics on Saturday was Human Exile and the idea that it is not just being displaced but being in the wrong place or in the wrong conversation.

(Like David Whyte I am in exile from Yorkshire, living in North America, perhaps this is my attempt to find myself in the right conversation……)

It was said that if you can articulate your exile you are on your way home.

Share your favourite poems about exile.

Writing prompt:

Write about a time when you know you were in exile or in the wrong conversation.

Did you know it at the time?  Who else was there?