Post by Chintana Ahlund

Photo by Mark_Coates on Flickr

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self. ~ Benjamin Franklin

‘…I meditated on love and reasoned it out. I realized what is wrong with us. Men fall in love for the first time. And what do they fall in love with?’

The boy’s soft mouth was partly open and he did not answer.

‘A woman,’ the old man said. ‘Without science, with nothing to go by, they undertake the most dangerous and sacred experience in God’s earth. They fall in love with a woman…They start at the wrong end of love. They begin at the climax. Can you wonder it is so miserable? Do you know how men should love?’

The old man reached over and grasped the boy by the collar of his leather jacket. He gave him a gentle little shake and his green eyes gazed down unblinking and grave.

‘Son, do you know how love should be begun?’

The boy sat small and listening and still. Slowly he shook his head. The old man leaned closer and whispered:

‘A tree. A rock. A cloud.’

(excerpt from Carson McCullers’ short story, A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud)

3 Things

• Sit quietly and comfortably. Close your eyes.
• Take three deep breaths.
• Slowly open your eyes.
• Open your notebooks.
• Jot down 3 things.
• Go. Write for ten minutes on what comes to mind.
• Then go outside and stand quietly.
• Take three deep breaths with eyes open.
• Take note of 3 things.
• Then go for a walk.
• Walk slowly.
• Take note of 3 things.

In writing practice, you are connecting the flow of three things: head, heart and hand. You are using pen, paper and the mind. There’s a significance to the number three: the trinity, the phases of our existence – birth, life, death. Past, present and future.

Try this exercise of detailing in quantities of three. Do you notice the shift that occurs when the mind composes in three? Somehow, it creates a balanced view of the moment.

The old man in Carson McCullers’ short story healed himself of a broken heart by learning to love again…slowly and simply…starting with a tree, a rock, a cloud.

Sometimes, this practice of sit, write, stretch can be uneventful. But remember, a tree, a rock, a cloud, can heal us of a broken heart. It takes practice to know ourselves and to slow down. We practice to look at life, let it go and to love it all.

Read my writing practice on 3 things

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