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Responding to the Religious Impulse of a Star

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I’ve been in the throws of a creative trip for the past two weeks, one that took me away from my home, my husband, and my regular routine. I’ve been up into the wee hours of the morning, surrounded by creative people and business people, technicians and office workers, trying my best to tap into the source of my creativity — the Awen — and to discover how to give my voice a place to live in the world.

In addition to the late night work, I’ve been using NaNoWriMo to speed up the process of writing my book. Currently, I’m about 5,000 words behind.

Oh – I’m taking a correspondence class though Cherry Hill Seminary.

I’m strapped. A little crazy, perhaps, for taking on so much in one month. Do I feel worn out? Yes – it feels that way sometimes. More than once in the past week I’ve sat in front of my blank computer screen, juggling in my mind the perspectives of a blogger, an author, a lyricist and a businessman, and I’ve wondered —

Why do I do this? Why do I write?

Star Foster posted a moving essay on the Patheos Pagan Portal today which asks the same question. From her perspective, as a staff writer and editor for Patheos.com, and as a respected voice in the Pagan community, writing has become somewhat of a burden, and she’s having a hard time remembering the way it feels to write from the heart; to write without fear of judgment.

For a blogger, writing is not simply expressing your ideas and opinions; it’s engaging the entire world in a conversation. And if you’ve spent any time reading through the comments of blogs across the web, you know that people can be pretty insensitive in comment threads. They engage with the text as though there isn’t a person standing behind it, and their criticisms can hurt. Sometimes they miss the text altogether and go straight for the writer, which hurts even more.

I’ve been fortunate on my blog, and have been spared much of the vitriol that exists out there in hyperspace. The comments from my readership have been, by and large, enriching and not destructive.

But the bigger issue at hand is not the way a blogger engages with their audience; it is how the writer engages with her heart, her mind and her life.

More Than The Sum Of Her Words

“I write because I have a religious impulse to do so. Everyone has their own gift, and unfortunately this is the only one I have. Writing is all I’ve got to give. I am not a brilliant teacher, nor a gifted ritualist. I’m not an inspiring and dedicated activist. I’m not a wise elder, nor even a good student. I’m no enchanting musician, talented visual artist or helpful mentor. I’m not even a supportive lover, or raising up the next generation of Pagans. I’m someone who chews through words and ideas, who worries a concept until it makes sense to her and whose tool is the written word. In the larger picture, it’s not a very useful gift.“

To the bolded text I say — hooey.

Star’s gift is a tremendous gift. To write is no small thing. To write is to help facilitate others to think. It is to draw connections between seemingly disparate ideas, and to show the ways in which the world, with all of its tragedies and sorrows, is undeniably magical. Writing can be, as I feel it is for me at times, a form of ministry (and you read here about what that word means to me).

To write about a spiritual life is especially valuable, and this is where Star’s work is connected to something truly great. Star, and all those blogging on matters of the heart, the spirit, the powerful invisible force that connects me to you, you to me, us to the dirt and the sky and the water, we’re preparing each other for moments of transformation. We’re preparing each other for living with deep presence, deep awareness, and a willingness to be authentic. This is big work. This is meaningful.

This is what Star does. This is what I seek to do. This is why I write. I write because I am alive, and because I believe that life is a mystery, and an explosion, and a song. I understand Star’s “religious impulse,” because I share it. It is scary and overwhelming at times, but it serves a real purpose.

To All The Stars Out There

Writers write about what they know — the good ones, at least — and if you’re a writer who has discovered that her well is running dry, then you need to dig another well! You need to get out there and live some.

Cultivate the parts of yourself that are less than brilliant. Polish them. Sit with them. Then, write about that experience. Be flawed, and write about it. Be funny, and write about it. Be willing to take risk of living a full, bold, bright pink life, and write about it.

Let your religious impulse to write be transformed into a religious impulse to live.

I strongly encourage you to read Star’s post in full. Then, feel free to share it, as well as this post, with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Then, do some writing of your own.

I Got Religion During #NaNoWriMo

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For thirty days in a row I shall wake up every morning, brew a batch of French press coffee, sit down at my solid, cluttered desk (or a reasonable substitute) and write at least one thousand, six hundred and sixty-seven words until, on November 30th, I reach the final 50,000 word mark.

You see, I, along with thousands of other professional and amateur writers, am participating in the 2011 NaNoWriMo Writing Challenge. If you have any chutzpah at all you’ll join me. As of the publication of this post you’re only 1 day behind. You could totally catch up.

Is it lunacy? Yes. Undoubtably. But is it pointless? Absolutely not.

Yesterday evening, in response to my first online proclamation of my writing progress (a proud 1712 words), a friend of mine responded by saying,

It’s a trivial matter to write 50,000 words in thirty days. The challenge is to make them worth reading.

This statement is only partly true, and I told him as much. It is a challenge to write words that are worth reading, no matter how many you’re putting down on the page. I won’t deny that. Blogging at Patheos for the past few months has given me a great many opportunity to reflect on the economy and efficacy of my writing, and to seek to do good work in every post. These posts average between 800 and 1000 words, a manageable amount for both writer and reader, but not so many that I lose sight of myself.

But, in longer form work — say, in the writing of a book — the Inner Editor has many more opportunities to barge in and halt the process. The Inner Editor becomes the Inner Critic, picking apart the lines, finding reasons why none of it makes sense. The Inner Critic, left unchecked, can easily become the Inner Hater. Once that happens, you might as well close your laptop and go do the dishes.

There is nothing trivial about writing 50,000 words in 30 days. In thirty days there are dozens upon dozens of moments where one must resist the inclination to doubt one’s self, where one must move forward in spite of her uncertainty, and trust that there will be a time and place to make sense of all the details, and that that time isn’t in between every single line.

I’d liked to suggest that NaNoWriMo is more than just a writing exercise. As a Druid, I will be bold and say that writing 50,000 words in 30 days can and should be understood as a sacred, spiritual rite; a holy ritual deserving much respect and great honor.

(And I ain’t just saying that to get the kudos.)

Respect the Awen. Tame the Hater.

Modern Druids, particularly those of us who trace some part of our spiritual lineage back to the Revivalist moment of the 17th and 18th centuries, place a great value on creativity and the inner creative spirit. We have a word for it, in fact: Awen.

The Awen, which can be translated from Welsh to mean, “inspiration,” is a mysterious force. Any creative person — a writer, a musician, a poet — understands that the true nature of their own creativity is always somewhat illusive to them. One is never solely responsible for their own creations, and we are all subject to “getting in the way of the flow,” if you will.

Awen is the flow. Awen is also the source of the flow. Awen is the experience of being in perfect harmony with your own creative voice. And, Awen is located in between the words and breaths of that creative voice.

Awen is not the correct usage of words. Awen is the expressive, creative, perhaps even chaotic use of words. Change out “words” for “sounds,” “images,” “movements” — it all fits. It all makes sense. Any of those statements will ring true.

Freestyle rappers connect to the Awen. Beat poets, and improvisational comedians connect to the Awen. Every time you’ve ever been caught up in a melody, and it took you to a place that you hadn’t expected, and you find yourself singing a song that no one has ever sung before — that’s you being embraced, enriched, enlivened by the Awen.

Every one of us is given a voice at birth, and every one of us – at some point – forgets how to use it. We are all given messages that we are not worthy to share our opinion, our perspective, our view on the world. We are told that we are stupid, or that we aren’t as good as our siblings, our parents, the celebrities on the television. There are entire factions of culture which exist for the sole purpose of subjugating your voice in order to replace it with the voice of someone else. There is always a wall being built somewhere to damn up the Awen, to block the creative flow from our heart to our head to our mouth to the world.

But for the next 29 days I’ll be breaking down that wall. There will be no room in my body for it. There will be no room on my desk, or on my computer screen, or even in the column of this blog.

No Walls in November.

This month, while I open myself to the creative flow of the Awen, writing will become, for me, a religious act. I will seek the source of my creativity, and through opening myself to it I will redefine worship to mean writing without ceasing. Writing without ceasing, in some ways, is not unlike praying without ceasing. It’s accessible to anyone with the time, commitment and patience, and the rewards are many.

So, join me if you will. Write without ceasing. Connect to the source of your own creativity and challenge yourself in new and unexpected ways. Let the connecting to your own creativity become an extension of your spiritual practice.

Write reverently. Write irreverently.

Write!!!

[And, if you want to spread the word about NaNoWriMo, my writing challenge, or this exploration of how creativity is a sacred aspect of any spiritual tradition, please share this post with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or your social network of choice!]