Words, Writing, Wisdom Not My Own...

I have a dear friend who’s a blogger.  She sent me an email yesterday, and through her words I was brought directly to her side, going through the same things she was going through... though I realized eventually that her descriptors really were vague enough that I have no specific idea what the particulars are to her situation... her phrases were watercolors of human emotion, evocative of experience but devoid of details... and yet so poignant that I had a very in-the-skin snapshot of what her emotional world was like at the moment she’d been writing.

What happened next, I could not have anticipated.  I replied with words of deep knowing, compassion, and kind-hearted understanding.  I conveyed my support of her, my fondness for her, my belief in her stalwart inner strength.  I even dusted off my sanskrit/eastern-religion-major mantle, and pontificated on 5,000 year-old philosophy that describes how the state of one’s mind and the quality of the reality they generate are inextricably linked, that there are words in sanskrit (but in no other language) that describe the method by which the experient (the person going through the stuff) actually manufactures the experience.  Then I sent her a cyber-hug and a wish that I could bring her cocoa.

It made me want to write back and forth with her all day.  I can distill that down even further: It made me want to write. 

Words, words, words... always my favorite things.  Skillfully used, they make it possible to translate the most subtle of experiences from one being to another, so that we can share and teach and learn from one-another’s insights and perceptions.
My mother told me recently that I began writing before I could read.  All my youth I anticipated that I’d become a writer.  Then, and then and then...

Began the pursuit of making a living, I suppose.  And through that pursuit I garnered experience and expertise in so many varied fields that I now find myself flustered if I think about writing as a career - about which bag of tricks would I write?!  

The bits in my repertoire include the connection of body/mind/spirit from several years as a massage therapist and teacher of massage therapists; the power of words to create reality, based on direct observation, an unexpectedly clear understanding of ancient texts that spell it all out, the blessing of an enlightened master and the statement of one Sally Kempton (then Durgananda) that “this information wants to be known”; the connection between the human cerebrospinal fluid system and certain passages in other ancient texts; essential oils as medicine; replacing household toxins with natural healthy solutions; urban farmsteading; vermiculture; growing wheatgrass; self-reliance and permaculture... oh and of course, of course - what readers have responded to most, is when I write about nothing more than my internal processes.
My insecurities, demons, and the whole cast of characters that make up my inner dialogue, make pretty entertaining material as they wrangle their way into one tangled web after another, always intent on Breakthrough at any cost...
And so, with or without a chosen direction or area of focus, writing season is upon me.
We are at a time in human history where people who know things that may be helpful to the situation are beholden to share them.  Like the unexpected flow of words in response to my blogger friend’s email, there are times when we just need to speak what we know in case there are ears to hear it.

The past few weeks have been full of circumstances that were trying, frightening, and confusing for several people close to me.  While we were separated by thousands of miles, I have somehow been able in each situation to call up words that brought solace and also to offer guidance about how to harness the power in the “negative” feelings and turn it around to be of benefit. For no reason that I know, I have been endowed with the capacity to “reframe” just about any situation. My friends and family know they can always count on me for this kind of service; they’ve come to rely on it.  They call it my “wisdom”, as if I inherently possess this cache of tidbits that are real and powerful and useful and heartfelt.

What I know to be true is that I no more possess this wisdom than I possess the air I breathe.  I do let it flow through me, and in trying times I do know how to expand so I may access a deeper flow... so when it is expressed it may appear to come from me; It has lodged in me perhaps as a result of study and practice I’ve undertaken over the years (it certainly was not inherent in my younger days!), and while I feel humbled and honored to have access to it, I still recognize that it is consciousness flowing through me from a still place I’ve somehow learned to access, and it is not mine at all.

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