It is said that the present is pregnant with the future. ~Voltaire

Photo from youngwriterstrust.org

Olives and Oprah. These were the first signs of my pregnancy. One morning nine months ago, I woke up craving olives for breakfast. Overtaken by this odd and sudden urge, I found myself plopped on the couch, indulging in a jar of kalamata olives with slices of manchego cheese and watching the Oprah Winfrey Network…for hours!

Pregnancy, I realize, has everything to do with writing. It’s all part of the practice of slowing down, tuning inward and connecting to things that we crave in life…accepting all the daily changes that occur…paying attention to our personal growth and nurturing what is kind and real within us.

Consider what I jotted during my writing practice and pregnancy. A quote from Charlotte’s Web: “Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.”  Another one from Winnie the Pooh: “A grand adventure is about to begin.” And a solid piece of advice: “there’s no one way to be a perfect mother. But there’s a million ways to be a good one.”

Pregnancy and writing…it’s all a practice of being present.

Cravings & Growth

Olives. Chicken liver. Mustard. Pickle juice. Women crave the strangest things when pregnant. Writers experience the same thing when feeling creative.

Random and strange foods can serve as interesting writing prompts.

• Try listing a few weird things to eat. Then go. Write for 3 minutes without crossing out on each item.

Cravings contain energy. Use it to write.

• Try writing for ten minutes without crossing out. Begin with, “I crave…”

Modifications & Support

When you are pregnant, you have to seek support from others and modify many of your routines. I’ve had to adjust my yoga practice by using the wall, blocks, blankets and a birthing ball. My sitting and walking meditations are shorter. My diet is supplemented with vitamins and extra snacks. And sometimes my husband has to help me tie my shoes.

We all encounter a time in our writing practice where we could use some help. Sometimes writing alone can be tiring, alienating and frustrating. When this happens, seek support or begin to modify your practice.

• Ask someone to write with you. Meet at a bookstore or cafe. Write for ten minutes before engaging in a full conversation. See how it feels to be in the presence of others when writing. If you can’t arrange a writing date, call up a friend and ask them to simply listen to you read aloud some of your writing. Sharing your written thoughts, feelings and memories can be a great source of relief. Suddenly you realize that you’re not crazy after all. Someone understands.

• While routine can set you free, it can also feel tiring. So, why not change things up? If you typically write prose, try writing poetry. How about a three line haiku? Or make lists instead of sentences? Go out with a camera and take photos of things that inspire you: the blooming azaleas, teething Bald Cypresses, a bumper sticker. Use the photos as writing prompts. Maybe practice detailing and describing the photo with words. Maybe download a transcribing software and try speaking your words instead of writing them. Adding a new dimension to your practice can spark curiousity and revive your sense of creativity.

Patience & Pushing

Writer, Nora Ephron, once said that, “if pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters.” Most women patiently progress through the first two trimesters of their pregnancy. But by the time a woman reaches full-term, she’s ready to hear the magic word: push. The same is true of writing. There’s a time to push yourself and a time for patience. Remember that it takes time to manifest something sacred, true and lasting. Also remember that no effort is ever lost in this practice.

Walk & Notice

“Go for a slow mindful walk. Show them every little thing that catches your eye. Notice every little thing that catches theirs. Don’t look for lessons or seek to teach great things. Just notice. The lesson will teach itself.” ~ The Parent’s Tao Te Ching

Walking is an essential exercise in pregnancy, parenting and writing practice. The Buddha taught, “The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground.” You come to know where you stand during walking practice. So pay attention and don’t wobble. Walking slowly and mindfully stimulates your entire body: eyes, nose, ears, hips, legs and feet. It’s a way to ground yourself, to connect to your inner and outer surroundings. A breeze fingers the oak trees and a deep knowing blows through you. Let nature stimulate your being and your writing.

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photo by janine_212

Rain…
Listen closely
to this Song.

Soon…
Deep within You
something sings along.

I sat writing at Panera, stopping at times to observe the soft shadow of a wall sconce. A dense window separated me from an unrelenting afternoon rain. I heard rushed footsteps and the slow sigh of the cafe door wedging open and close…open and close.

Outside a drenched sandwich board sits, colorfully shouting Try Our Strawberry Poppyseed Chicken Salad. A blank page for sky hangs above it. I stop writing to gaze at the homogenous gray canvas. Nothing comes to mind for awhile. I simply sit, listening to rain. Staring at no sun and no clouds…just big empty sky. After awhile, the mind, a hot french loaf, steams open.

I remember my grandmother, sarong tightly knotted over the chest, bathing in the summer rain. I think of the afternoon thunderstorm that ripped open two years ago when my brother died. I recall the pueblo sky of  Taos, NM and the auspicious rainfall of last August when I was there studying with Natalie Goldberg.

I remember a story that I had read in Shambhala Sun about her traveling to Japan to visit Katagiri Roshi’s old temple. It had rained hard that day.

“I hurry over and at the very end is a new tombstone. I know it is Roshi’s. It is still pouring but I push off my hood and then throw off my slicker. I prostrate myself three times on the wet earth and then I kneel in front of his stone. Pushing the dripping hair from my face, the rain running down my cheeks, I speak to my old teacher. I’m here. It took me a while, but I made it, and I cannot say how good I feel to finally be there with him.” (from The Rain and the Temple, Natalie Goldberg, Shambhala Sun, September 1999)

Sitting in the Rain

Rain. It sources the Earth and soothes the Soul. When it rains, allow yourself to rest. Take a break and sit quietly by a window to witness how it dives, dashes and drips. You will become attuned to the qualities of fluidity. Wake up to a deep knowing that you are the continuation of many things. Rhythm and rest. This is the wisdom of rain. It gives you a deep power for recall. When the waves of memory come, pick up a pen and write.

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You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” ~ C.S. Lewis

Photo by mikebaird on flickr

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with the CEO of the last company I had worked for. It had almost been a year since I last saw him and much had changed in that timeframe. He had merged the company with another business and was no longer leading the day-to-day operations. I had left the company before the merger.

When he asked, “why did you have to leave?”

I replied with surprising confidence and honesty that “I simply had to catch up with my Self.”

It was interesting that he nodded. It was an acknowledgment that somehow he, too, was in need of doing this.

There’s a legendary story that touches on this need – to catch up with our deepest Self. It takes place in the Amazon where an explorer hunts for medicinal plants by traveling with an indigenous tribe. The first day of the journey happens quickly. They hike long hours and cover lots of ground. On the morning of the second day, the explorer eagerly hops up from sleep and prepares for another day of trekking. The tribesmen, however, are all sitting down.

“What are they doing?! Tell them to get up. We have to get going!” urges the explorer.

The translator explains that the men have pushed themselves too hard and had moved too fast. They are now waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.

Catching up with your Self

Is the pace of your life happening so fast that things are a blur? Are you tired from life’s busyness and burdens? Perhaps it’s time to sit down and simply allow your soul to catch up with you. Look at your crazy calendar and carve out some white space. Cancel a meeting. Turn off your phone and computer. Unplug and unwind. Pay attention to what arises when your senses aren’t so stimulated.

Practice being present with your deepest Self. Listen for that whisper of wisdom that comes from the center of your being. Listen to the freshness of your inner voice. What does it have to say?

Confucious once said to a student, “I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.”

We all yearn to do this… but somehow keep postponing it. Know that now is always a good time to turn inward and idly await for your soul.

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“We are the microcosm of the macrocosm.” ~ Deepak Chopra

Kindness

Imagine this: It is the winter of 2008. Outside, the world is whirling. The stock market is tanking. The air stings of uncertainty. Seeking shelter from this financial storm, you sell all of your stocks to put the money into a fund guaranteeing stability. Shortly after doing this, you recieve a voicemail. It is your best friend. She tells you that your entire life savings is gone. She, too, is financially ruined. The man responsible for this is now behind bars: Bernie Madoff.

This scenario actually occured for two best friends who are both well known writers: Geneen Roth (author of Women Food and God) and Kim Rosen (author of Saved by a Poem). In the face of life shattering shock and loss, what (besides one another) did these women turn to?

It was a poem called Kindess by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Kim shares this of the experience (from Saved by a Poem):

“I arrived at her house – toothbrush in one hand and ‘Kindness’ in the other – she said that she had picked up exactly the same poem as soon as she heard the news. Just before my arrival, she’d been reading it aloud. In the days that followed, we immersed ourselves in ‘Kindness.’ We read it to each other – sometimes several times a day. Meanings we’d never noticed before popped open in the terror of what we were living. The poem became my mainstay of sanity, reminding me that what seemed a tragedy on the outer level was indeed a gift in deeper and more essential ways.”

A CD containing poems spoken by great writers accompanied Kim’s book. It was on track 6 of the CD that I heard the soft hiss of Geneen Roth’s voice as she read Kindness.

In the commentary that followed, Geneen highlights what first stood out to her from the poem. They were the lines, “Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness/ you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho/ lies dead by the side of the road./ You must see how this could be you,/ how he too was someone/ who journeyed through the night with plans/ and the simple breath that kept him alive.”

From this, she realized that somehow she had kept herself separate when feeling compassion for others. “Oh, how sad that it happened to them,” she would say, while feeling like it would never happen to her – until it did. And suddenly, this poem made sense.

An enormous understanding swelled from a sorrowful situtation: the sense of loss in life is universal and kindness is contained in the moment when you truly understand that it can happen to you. Kindness is the compassion of seeing yourself in someone else.

Kindness is “I Am That”

In a recent video lecture, Debbie Ford, reflects on a time when she was obsessed with something that Deepak Chopra had said: we are the microcosm of the macrocosm. Eventually, she came to understand that it meant: we are not in the world…the world is within us.

Knowing this, she practiced saying to herself “I am that” after each person she encountered. Deepak’s teaching deepened when she came across a homeless man that removed his prosthetic leg in order to use it as a cup holder when begging for money.

Debbie sat across from him and continued to repeat the words “I am that.” In that moment, she perceived this: you the body was not inside me but the behavior I see in you is inside me…I am capable of that too.

Practice “I Am That”

The sanskrit word soham translates to “I am that,” “I myself,” or “It is I.”

Practice using “soham” as mantra, simply by sitting and silently saying “soooooo” as you breathe in. Next, quietly breathe out “hummmmm.” Harmonize your breath with this word during your sitting meditation. You can also substitute “I Am” for soham. Determine which version works best for you.

See what can be perceived from the practice of knowing that all that appears before you also lives within you.

You may also want to try the exercise Debbie Ford conducted. Go on a walk and mindfully observe the people you pass. As you notice someone, say to yourself, “I Am That.” Witness what thoughts or feelings arise. With enough practice, a real moment of truth might occur. This is when you can, with great clarity and compassion, see yourself in someone else.

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“Patience doesn’t exist.” ~ Judith Lasater

By Judith Lasater

A 6 inch by 5 inch book sits on my coffee table: A Year of Living Your Yoga. It’s a small book that offers big wisdom on a daily basis, written by Judith Lasater (a well known yogi, writer and teacher).

This was the message for May 21:

Patience doesn’t exist.
Living Your Yoga: We are either in the flow with the speed of what is happening or we are impatient. Being patient is an attempt to cover our own impatience. For today, try moving at life’s pace. If it is moving too fast for your comfort, consider reducing what you have planned for the day by 10 percent.

I was driving down Lakemont Avenue the afternoon of May 21 when traffic quickly pulsed to a pause. My eyes searched the road ahead and spotted a turtle who was gracefully waddling over the crosswalk. Cars in both lanes had halted and created immediate space for the slow-moving creature to safely continue its journey.

Talk about moving at life’s pace. That brief pause, caused by the turtle, inspired me to drive home at a more leisurely pace. Since then, I’ve pondered this message even more: patience doesn’t exist.

When you stop to really think about it, doesn’t it seem true that things happen when they happen? Either we’re going with the flow or we’re not. So, the next time you’re tapping your feet about something, think about the traffic-stopping force of a turtle. Just stop and resume what ever it is that you’re doing at a more comfortable pace. Be in accordance with what’s already occuring.

A Comfortable Pace

One of the basic rules for writing and yoga practice is to flow at a comfortable pace. This requires presence of mind, body and breath. Flowing is simply working with what is present while we keep moving.

Try this: sit and become mindful of your breathing. Don’t change the way that you’re breathing. Just sit and observe the natural pace of the breath. Notice what thoughts arise. And let them pass. Allow a natural flow of breath to happen. Witness how hard or easy it may be for you to do this.

Next, pick up your pen and write down this message: patience doesn’t exist. Write it at a comfortable pace. Notice the natural rhythm of your own handwriting. How the pen travels up to a point and rolls back down to form letter’s like p’s and d’s. Notice the difference in feeling between dotting an i and crossing a t. Write this line over and over again while keeping the hand moving in a way that doesn’t rush or race it across the page. Observe how it feels to follow the pen in this manner. Notice again what thoughts arise. Similar to the breathing activity, this is an exercise in tuning into and trusting the flow of the moment.

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Energy and persistence conquer all things. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Entrance of Mayan Courtyard & Chapel

The slump. It happens. Both to great athletes and world economies. And it most certainly happens to writers, meditators and yogis. The good news is that, unlike batting averages and earnings per share, our word and breath counts aren’t publicly measured and ticking along the bottom of TV screens for the world to monitor. Whew.

But our self-demands and personal pressures can be as brutal as public scrutiny. What do you do when your practice is stalling? It’s insanely simple: show back up. But do so in a kind way. Be your own best friend and coach. Think about it. Who’s wigging out about you missing yoga class twice in a row? Who’s screaming at you for allowing two weeks to pass before posting on your blog? Unless you’ve got Mike Ditka as a yoga teacher and writing coach, no one is ripping you apart but you. So, use the slump in your practice as an opportunity to express self-kindness.

Since taking on a big project (soon to be announced), I’ve recently been pressed for time and have found myself battling with all sorts of self-judgements about writing less than usual. The crazy dialogue with your inner critic – the one that says, You’re not a writer. You haven’t picked up the pen in two weeks. — is what Natalie Goldberg calls “monkey mind.”

Her advice for when this happens is to turn the “sweetheart” on — that other part of you that says, It’s totally okay. You needed the rest. Just get back into it. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You can do anything.

So, yes, give yourself a pep talk. Take a deep breath and think about how you can get back to your practice. Be kind. Then get up and get going again.

Forming friendships

Pep talks are great and so are calm spaces that speak to you. One of the best places to go when you’re in a slump is to your happy place. The botanical gardens, hiking path, dog park, library or your back porch. Form friendships with physical places that offer you peace.

To address my slump, I recently visited the Maitland Art Center and strolled through the Mayan Chapel and Courtyard. This is often where ancient oak trees hum and spanish moss display the art of letting go in an afternoon breeze. It’s a place where I can meander and make my way back home – to myself and my writing practice.

I gave myself a simple assignment: write down what you notice.

“Let your thoughts rest here awhile in beauty and in love.”

“I stood at the gate of life and said give me a light that I may go safely into the unknown and a voice replied go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That will be to you better than a light and safer than a known way.”

These were messages inscribed in stone at the entrance of the courtyard.

Finding the energy

There’s a small library that sits in the main garden of the Maitland Art Center. I stepped inside and carefully scanned walls of books while breathing in the stale, invigorating air of old books. I eventually pulled out an art instruction book from the seventies, titled Gist of Art, where the teacher says this: “Work for yourself first. You can paint best the things you like or the things you hate. You cannot paint well when indifferent…Keep the mainspring of life which gives you the creative urge. Keep your humanity.”

Remember this: you cannot write well when indifferent. This is why revisiting our favorite places of peace can reignite the urge to write. By going to the places that source us, we get reinspired and find the energy to re-emerge from a slump.

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“The mind is raw, full of energy, alive and hungry. It does not think in the way we were brought up to think – well-mannered, congenial.” ~ Natalie Goldberg

photo by dug.sirkel on flickr

Synesthesia

I recently read about an intriguing condition called synesthesia. This term comes from the combination of two Greek words (syn, meaning together + aisthesis, meaning perception) and translates to joined perception.

So, synesthesia happens when two or more senses mix to form a given moment. It is where a person assigns a sensory perception such as smell, color or flavor to objects such as letters, shapes, numbers or people’s names.

Imagine that when you see a cloud, you taste chocolate. When you hear a guitar, your right knee throbs. Perhaps Tuesdays, to you, are blue while Mondays are red. People who experience these things are known as synesthetes.

Brainpickings.org (one of my favorite websites dedicated to the sharing of revolutionary ideas related to science, creativity and culture) recently posted an interesting piece called An Eyeful of Sound: How Synesthesia Works.

Richard Feynman, famous physicist and Nobel Prize winner, reported this of synesthesia: ”When I see equations, I see the letters in colors – I don’t know why. As I’m talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel functions from Jahnke and Emde’s book, with light-tan j’s, slightly violet-bluish n’s, and dark brown x’s flying around. And I wonder what the hell it must look like to the students.”

It is estimated that one in two hundred people have synesthesia. There is also a theory that all children are synesthetes. Isn’t this interesting?

On some level, I can believe this: as children, our synapses were utterly free to fire and misfire. We entered the world with an untamed mind and being open to all possibilities. Then, we grew up and began subscribing to 1+1=2, 9am to 5pm jobs and 401k plans. What happened to our wild minds?

Wild Mind

In her book, Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg says this: ”Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce. In summer, we work hard to make a tidy garden, bordered by pansies with rows or clumps of columbine, petunias, bleeding hearts. Then we find ourselves longing for the forest, where everything has the appearance of disorder; yet, we feel peaceful there. What writing practice, like Zen practice, does is bring you back to the natural state of mind, the wilderness of your mind where there are no refined rows of gladiolas. The mind is raw, full of energy, alive and hungry. It does not think in the way we were brought up to think – well-mannered, congenial.”

Stirring the Senses

A hot scream. A sour wind. A deafening hug. In writing, these are considered synesthetic expressions. It is where you create a sensory mismatch so that your writing produces fresh energy and contains an exciting weirdness in the words.

So, give synesthesia a try. Allow your mind to re-configure words and the world around you. Re-connect to wild mind by doing the following simple exercises.

Take out your notebooks, grab a pen and go. List five emotions.
Then, for each emotion, assign a sound, smell, taste, touch and sight.
Remember, no crossing out. Trust what flashes first in the mind.

Let’s use, restlessness, as an example:

• Restlessness sounds like a caged tiger.
• Restlessness smells like wet cement.
• Restlessness tastes like Pepto-bismol.
• Restlessness feels like burlap on sunburned arms.
• Restlessness looks like a kite stuck in a tree.

Who says getting your “wires crossed” is a bad thing? In writing, mixing the senses creates juicy sentences and stimulates the reader. And in meditation, it opens you up. Try sitting outside for a few minutes with your eyes open. Gaze at your surroundings with a curious, calm mind. Then, close your eyes and actively daydream. Make it a wild session. Imagine that the sky is green and the grass is purple. See yourself as butterfly. Hear a song in the wind.

Then take a few minutes and write it down. Channel the sky, grass, moon and ants into the pen. Allow fiction and nonfiction to merge onto the page. Record your moment of wild mind.

Lose Control

Sometimes it is good, as a writer, to get wild and silly. To lose control. This is one of the cardinal rules for writing practice, as taught by Natalie Goldberg. She says it is the best way to write. To live, too.

I once read a delightful poem by Nikki Giovanni that illustrates perfectly the writer’s ability to lose control, to fall in love and to mix and match:

I Wrote a Good Omelet

I wrote a good omelet…and ate a hot poem…after loving you
Buttoned my car…and drove my coat home…in the rain…after loving you
I goed on red…and stopped on green…floating somewhere in between…being here and being there…after loving you
I rolled my bed…turned down my hair…slightly confused but…I don’t care
Laid out my teeth…and gargled my gown…then I stood…and laid me down…to sleep…
after loving you

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“Our appointment with life is in the present moment.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

mettarefuge.wordpress.com

I was flipping through the pages of a book written by famous zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh and came across this writing assignment:

“Please write these eight words and hang them somewhere you will see them: Wherever you are, you are your true person.”

~ from Nothing To Do, Nowhere to Go

Open up your notebooks and go. Write these eight words down.Then tear out the page and tape it somewhere: in the front flap of your notebook, on the fridge, bedroom door, bathroom mirror. Every time you encounter this wisdom, know that you are waking up to who you are.

Make it also a practice to take three deep breaths after reading it. Digest the meaning of these words by deeply inhaling and exhaling the meaning of this great truth and teaching.

In Our Appointment with Life, Thich Nhat Hanh presents this gatha (Pali verse):

I have arrived
I am home
In the here
In the now.
I am solid,
I am free.
In the ultimate
I dwell.

He teaches that we must not pursue the past, fear the future and be swept away by present emotions. His message is this:

Looking deeply at life as it is
in the very here and now,
the practitioner dwells
in stability and freedom.

My teacher, Natalie Goldberg, recently lectured on a Zen term where she said, “not well-being but ground of being.” Ground of being. This means we must anchor ourselves in a place of stillness, even amidst activity, in order to be a strong base for all that arises. Our practice of waking up to who we are requires that we co-exist with many things. Ground of being means that we are able to be large enough to sense the weight of our own existence without crumbling or being tossed away.

To be alive and anchored. This is what Thich Nhat Hanh means when he instructs us to examine life deeply by being present, steady and free. We must remember to practice sitting, walking, writing and yoga like a free person. Free from future dreams. Free from past nightmares. Free from current troubles. Free to be where we are and who we are. And free to love this life.

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When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. ~ JFK

Photo from poetry.org

It’s April. A time of awakening for flowers, bears, snakes and trees. A romantic period for most birds. And a month-long celebration of poetry in America. April is National Poetry Month. Springtime and sonnets effect the human heart in the same manner. Both provide fertile conditions for growth and warmth.

Robert Frost once said that “poetry begins with a lump in the throat.”

Poetry is the place we visit when either struck or stumped with amorphous things: life, love and loss. For no amount of science, history or math can solve it: the problem of self-exploration and understanding. E=mc2 cannot mirror back to us our life experiences and meaning. To understand our lives, we often turn to poetry. Poems express versus explain, making use of our hearts rather than our minds.

Below is a list of poems that have sweetened my practice of meditating and writing. In fact, I have learned many of these poems by heart simply from reading, reciting and writing them repeatedly. Each poem has served as a buoy for me – keeping me afloat, not adrift, in life.

Poetry arrived in search of me. Pablo Neruda describes it best in the introductory lines of his poem, Poetry Arrived. I think this might be true. There are times for divine intervention. Times when a poem finds us. And in these moments, albeit brief, we breath easy, befriend our true selves and sense with elation our own aliveness.

Poetry Month

Celebrate poetry this month by doing the following as part of your practice of peace:

• List situations or emotions that you are currently dealing with and search for poems that suit them
• Give someone a poem
• Create a binder of your favorite poems
• Go to the bookstore and peruse the poetry section for hours
• Commit a poem to memory by repeating it as a mantra during sitting meditation
• Read a poem every morning while having your coffee or every night before bed
• Read a poem aloud to yourself or someone that you love
• Underline lines of poetry and record them in the flaps of your notebook for writing prompts
• Learn about a poet and invest the time to read lots of his/her poems
• Write an ode to your favorite poet, person, place or thing
• Write and recite a poem of your own

For more ideas on how to participate in Poetry Month, visit poetry.org

Previous Posts on Poetry

Click on the links below to revisit my previous posts on poetry as part of meditation and writing practice:

A Hungry Heart for Mary Oliver

The poetry in pausing

Invictus: a poem and pathway to peace

Rain and The Sun

Be Here Now

Meditating with poetry

Poetry as practice: writing what Kerouac called pops

Passing of the breath: poetry as prompts

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“Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive.” ~ Fritjof Capra

Photo by glowinglights on flickr

Metaphors. The connecting of seemingly disparate dots. The comparison of one thing to another without the use of like or as. More than literary devices, metaphors are doorways to understanding.

Aristotle once suggested that “the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is…a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an eye for resemblance.”

A few months ago, in an article in Ode Magazine called The secret life of metaphor, I learned that we express about six metaphors in one minute of conversation. At first, this was a surprising fact. But after further thinking, it seemed quite logical. Consider the mind; how it observes, reflects, relates, stores and recalls the contents of our lives. The use of metaphors, it seems, is quite a natural way to study and express oneself – in conversing, writing, poetry and psychology.

Marion Woodman, a Jungian analyst, writes that “our bodies love metaphors because they join our bodies to our souls rather than abandoning them to a soulless state.”

I once read that when Jung’s patients became overwhelmed with emotions, he sometimes would have them draw a picture of their feelings. Once the feelings were expressed in the form of imagery, a deep dialogue and understanding took place.

“When the inner and the outer are wedded, revelation occurs.” Hildegard of Bingen, a great mystic, once said this.

Using metaphors to contemplate our lives and as a mindfulness practice can lead to deepening our relationships to all things: a newborn crocus, a shapeshifting cloud, a poem, an aging parent, a troubling lover, a past dream. Perspective, the act of truly seeing and accepting something, perhaps requires of us to find the right metaphor.

Meeting Your Metaphors

Metaphors are everywhere: in the languages we speak, in the books and poetry we read, in nature and in our own hearts and minds. Night owl. Early bird. Bad apple. These are common figures of speech that happen to be metphors.

Consider this poem called Tranquility by StarFields:

Time slides
a gentle ocean
waves upon waves,
washing the shore,
loving the shore.

Through its simple imagery and the comparison of time to a gentle ocean, this poem offers us a deeper understanding of tranquility. Don’t you also experience tranquility by reading it? Feeling the sense of peace from it?

Make finding and forming metaphors part of your practice of peace by doing the following:

Draw a picture of feelings. List five different feelings. Then go – write for 5 minutes on each feeling. Describe the feeling by painting a picture with words. Use color and objects that relate to the emotion. When you’re done, read what you’ve written and search for the metaphors, underlining them. I once, for example, wrote about my mother and her anger by mentioning a hibiscus, a fire and a geranium (read it by clicking here).

Read, recognize & re-use metaphors for writing prompts. Go to the book store or to your private collection of newspapers, magazines and books. Flip to a page and read carefully. Did you come across any metaphors? This is a great study of mind and our collective ability to create correlations, comparisons and connections of things. Also, underline the metaphors that you’ve found and write them in the flaps of your notebook. They may make good writing prompts for later use.

Deepen understanding with detail. Go for a walk – indoors or outdoors – and notice things. Then open up your notebook and list what you’ve noticed. Pick one item from your list and deeply decribe that one thing. Write down the details as if you were a scientist examining the object and recording your observations with very specific writing. Then ask yourself, what does this remind me of? What doesn’t it remind me of? Go. Write for 5 minutes, answering each question. Metaphors will naturally arise from this exercise. By taking deep notice of what’s in front of you and connecting it to a memory, feeling or thought that lives within you, a deep understanding or life lesson arises. You meet a metaphor, made for you by you.

Yoga metaphors. Mountain pose. Cat and cow pose. Pigeon. Cobra. You can probably think of more yoga postures that lend themselves to metaphors. Pick a posture and examine the essence of its name. Do the pose mindfully. Pay attention to the ebb and flow of breath while you bend your body. And then go and examine (in real life or through a YouTube video) the object or animal that the posture is named after. Let it inspire your practice as you appreciate the connection between your own being and that of another.

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