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January 10, 2006
Super consciousness and other effects in writing
The other day, my friend Avital said that she had a dream about me. It has a beautiful woman and pearls in it. This is her story, a most interesting one:
Girija came to Brazil to take a test for her writing dgree. she and a friend of her came to my place, which was a tiny apartment in Tel Aviv (but in Brazil, of course...) Her friend, a beautiful, mignon woman had pearl necklaces around her neck and chest. I told her it was dangerous to use pears on the street in Brazil. Girija said, Really? It doesn't matter. The pearls transformed into small snowy crystals on the floor, and the girl into a thin old man with white hair and dressed in a toga. "Transformation is easy," Girija said.
I do some weird things for my art. Like go to sleep before 11.00 pm. Eat my greens and avoid the second helping of ice-cream, mostly. The other thing I do is examine the relationship between me, the writing, and the great out-there.
Is there anything I could ask of myself that would make a difference and allow me speak of things that lie below the surface? To this end, I meditate. I practise Tai Chi Chi Kung. I go to the gym so my brain might have some blood flowing through. I read books like Eckhart Tolle's The New Earth (Note that amazon links move)
I've been doing walking meditations (Tolle calls it-living in the now) and paying attention to my dreams. A lot of my writing... edit that to, all my writing comes from some subconscious space. I've tried to work with 'real' life material but that is not fruitful. I admire writers who can fictionalize their life. And yes, my life does creep in but with such twists and turns that it is hardly my own. For example, I can have something incredible happen or I could be a witness or be handed the anecdote complete with relevant detail. Yet, when I sit down to write, it turns to garbage. I delete and delete and delete and then I find a story about some strange characters. And when it all comes together, what I have managed to pull out of the ether, is the emotion/feeling of importance to me. I had this theory the other day that perhaps my 'perceived' reality might be so emeshed in habitual patterns of trigger/response, cultural values, or a desire to preserve my ego that it hasn't got enough oomph for me to translate to the page.
I was thinking of Avital's dream this morning when I woke up at five am and could not get back to sleep. The alarm had gone off--my husband rolled over and took off to get the supplies for the day. My eighteen year old son is the production manager of Vegie Curry Man and also the person who draws the line for all our spending (Mum, what's this $450 item, he says). Anyway, I digress.
To get myself out of my usual habit of making lists. I did a lying-down meditation. Then it came to me. I hadn't sent a non-corporeal version of myself to Brazil to deliver a message. It was her message to me... that she left in her online office at Zoetrope All-Story. I then 'saw' a new possibility for interpreting the dream.
Girija, I said to myself, it is safe to be seen. I had only weeks before had some insight into my fear of revealing myself, based on a childhood event. 'Avital' was telling me that it was safe for me to deepen my writing. I make the connection because this was the question that has been on my mind over the last few months. Not only that. in the dream movie, Girija said, "Transformation is easy!" Ha. What a cosmic prank to tell me in this fashion.
Posted by girija at January 10, 2006 07:31 PM
Comments
Girija,
Looks fabulous. Is this on LiveJournal? I did a website, and turns out all I needed was a blog. Sigh. Not sure whether to go blogger.com or livejournal. Any insight or advice?
Thanks,
Sandra
Posted by: Sandra | January 11, 2006 08:18 AM
Hi G,
I love your site, and the color's perfect! Thanks for linking to me, though the link is broken. Here's the correct URL: http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/SusanHenderson/
I'll stop by often.
xox
Posted by: Susan Henderson | January 12, 2006 03:15 PM