NOTE: To watch the livestream of #5for5BrainDump, it is included beneath my writing. You may write along with me, almost live. Let me know what surfaces in your "in between space"
When I think about the “in between space” – just yesterday I learned another term for it – I think of Rumi’s field. Do you know Rumi? If you don’t, hearing about his field means nothing. He is an incredible poet and below my brain dump I’ll list a couple of my favorite quotes from him, but this is the one that has perpetually holds space in my heart: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing And right doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. when the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” Note to You (and me) My writing got interrupted by a strange assortment of people walking up to my neighbor’s house. This is typical when we are trying to write or take action on our goals or think more deeply than we are accustomed to – our focus is lifted from our heart’s task to something else that will keep us comfortably ensconced in the status quo. I am going to get up from my seat, stretch, refill my water and come back, refreshed, and start again. My in between space looks like a sunflower ringed field in Northern Arizona. The soil is exposed, red and rich, and the altitude is high. I feel absolutely infinite and absolutely insignificant. It occurs to me this is where freedom is conceived, birthed and lived. I wonder if I am strong enough to create this field within me, everywhere I go because I feel like this is the answer. I feel like I have been seeking too long and hard to know that this field lives in the center of my chest. When I lie down in this field and open up to the nothingness of a without words space, tears come to my eyes. I don’t expect them to come and barely notice until they are falling down my the sides of my face, into my ears. The grass is soft and slightly wet but it doesn’t bother me. I am unbotherable and the salt on my face doesn’t get wiped away, the water keeps flowing and me, lying in the grass, a halo of sunflowers all around like a divine circle, knows ultimate contentment. Instead of writing a poem I am within the poem. Instead of explaining how to do something, just lie here with me. Maybe the soles of our feet will touch, maybe our fingertips will touch, maybe we’ll be separated by miles and miles and miles and the thing is, our souls will touch. They know each other and can find each other in our supposedly separate fields. We’re here. Together. Separately. Divinely Earthly. So be it.
Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!
To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735. Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.
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After I wrote for today’s brain dump I read a bit of Louise Bogan’s memoir. She and I have far too much in common.
Then I retyped the brain dump and added a few salient notes. I encourage you to do the same. When you type up handwritten notes, add nuggets in small slices. Keep the voice of stream of consciousness, free flow writing strong – and if clarity isn’t there, a few phrases will make it easier for your future readers. So – my “re-start” is in the form of a Louise Bogan quote. “I hope that one or two immortal lyrics will come out of all this tumbling around.” Louise Bogan Right here, right now I wsee Alice, Strunk and White flowers and my aware alert writing or my attempt at aware and alert writing. I think about connecting the three, tuning into the word flow of intuition, intentionally. The infinite messages underneath the words and I smell the cedarwood oils I have flowing throughout the room to further spur my writing. I see vapors, but that would make four and I try so valiantly to stick to the instructions even when they are my own. Alice is my companion. Technically she is Emma’s cat AND she is my pal. She reminds me life happens. Things get knocked off tables. Sometimes I throw up and make messes, metaphorically and actually. Sometimes (more often than I would admit to people I am trying to impress) I leave the messes where they are, I don’t clear them out right away. I just shrug and turn. It isn’t a good practice like this writing is, like confession is and I turn to the Strunk and White Flowers which remind me, revision and red-marks are good. The teacher who writes in red all over your paper is meaning to help, not harm. We make it harm when our ego is larger than the possibilities we present, when we are so unpracticed at breaking and glueing ourselves back together because of an unwillingness to step into scary crevices, cracks and grab onto the teeth of a forklift without safety goggles or gloves or even…. Any of it. We grab on and let it lift us and sometimes we fall into an ugly glob on the ground and police come along and do that outline of our splat and a blood splatter expert comes along and says her smart stuff about how our splat erupted and what it says. That’s Alice throwing up and Strunk and White blood splattering and my once final draft, now in revision and repurposing paradise notes. Makes me wonder how much stuff I can create from this once-finished work. I turn to Strunk-and-White who remind me editing is sweet, not scary, as is revision and repurposing. “The possibilities are infinite” I am reminded. Is that Alice purring in her sleep? |
Julie Jordan Scottis the founder and creator of 5For5BrainDump. She has been inspiring artistic rebirth since 1999. Archives
December 2021
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