The Enchantment of WritingThe Enchantment of WritingWhy write:
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Table of Contents |
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Turning Point
2. Feline Angel
3. Legacy of Neighborhood
4. Legacy of Mystery
5. Legacy of Drawing
6. Legacy of Writing
7. Legacy of Fear
8. Death of a Beloved President
9. The Air Raid Box
10. My Places Apart
11. Jan of Green Gables
12. Altars
13. Letter Writing and Tapes
14. The Joy of Letter Writing, Rochester and Angels
15. Delightful Accessories for Letter Writing
16. Irregular People
17. Rochester - Ministering Angel
18. Poetry
19. Journal Writing
20. The Daddy in the Dell
21. Stars
22. Your Path of Lovely Smooth Rocks and Stones
Afterword
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Excerpt |
What I have written in this book are ordinary things about ordinary people including myself. They were written to mirror into your lives to show that your lives are important, that it is worthy to spend time capturing in writing circumstances that you lived through and experienced. To warn me to be careful when I left home my Mother often said to me in childhood and in adulthood, "Just remember - there's only one you." I say that now to you. Because that is a truth, it is up to each one of us to give our lives importance through remembering and writing. And the more we write the more we will remember. If we do not write about our lives it is doubtful anyone else will unless we are someone famous, and then perhaps another will write our biography. But since most of us are living in quiet ways, then it is up to each one of us to write about our own life. What a privilege it is to be alive, and though we may all go through trials and turmoils and in this may feel our lives are of little use, it is not true. "There is only one you" - and you are more precious than anything imaginable for you were created by God, and without you the world would not be the same. You matter! That is often hard to grasp when we hit low points in our lives. I know for I have gone into despair just as you have and felt worthless. But I learned as a little child because of the circumstances in my life then, that writing is magic and enchanting and can lift the spirit so amazingly. As I grew older I realized writing can help bring healing, and I did not know that when I wrote and wrote as a young child that I was being helped and healed as well, far more than if I had never written or only written when I had to write in school. And I have continued to write all through my life because it is what I do, and how I help myself, and I could not live without writing. It is also how I express every emotion and capture all the joys and enchantments in my life to forever have to refer back to and relive. Someone has written; "To write is to live twice" and this is so. Actually it is to live many times!
This book is a group of eclectic writings to show the importance and the enchantment and delight in writing. The things included span my lifetime and follow an order, and because I pray before I write, I was led to include the things that I did. Often I was amazed myself at what I did include that I never intended to include and had not even thought of in years. Once you put a pen to paper it is often as if things write themselves and another force takes over if you are willing to put that pen on the paper. The book I planned to write has turned into something far different, including memories that I simply did not think I even had in my memory bank. And now I am sharing them with you! If we are willing this can happen again and again! But we must sit down and make time for it to happen with pen and paper. In the past I have written an entire book by sitting quietly with pen and paper and allowing it to be written through me. You will learn about that in these pages. A pen is like a magic carpet if we are open to be taken to enchanting places by placing it on paper.
Think of the sharings and chapters in this book as a path of lovely smooth rocks and stones leading you to a safe place of healing and delight. In childhood fashion, as many of the chapters in this book are written because it is as if my "inner child" wrote them, I have gone along this path as a small innocent one would. Some of the rocks I walked over slowly in order to write rather deeply. Some I have hopped on with one foot and those sharings are lightly covered. Many of the rocks on this path were jumped on and landed on squarely with both feet, and I truly went into the center and core of these subjects discussed. And then there are some topics and memories I have skipped over more buoyantly. But all have brought me to this place in my life now. The earthen places between the rocks are the places I did not write about, for already the book became longer than I planned because things appeared for me to share that I never intended. That is what happens when we write! Memories and happenings surface and are freed to live again to be reviewed anew and enjoyed or to bring healing, even if at first they come in the form of sadness or pain.
Perhaps you will look at a pen and paper in a new way after reading this book. Everyone can write. It is not for a chosen flew. We were all meant to write our stories and expand our lives through our written words. It is the same as breathing! Never think only some people are meant to write for if you are not writing daily in some way, you are not allowing yourself to live fully. You are not breathing fully! You are denying parts of yourself to exist! Since I do not always breathe freely I know I must keep writing! some areas of your life can only be reached through writing, and it is up to you to find them or let them find you by spending time each day putting pen to paper. And they will find you! So many found me in the writing of this book.
Begin by purchasing a journal or inexpensive note book that is pleasing to you to look at, for this is important. Or buy a plain spiral composition book and decorate the cover. All that matters is that it is attractive to you so that it will draw you to write in it. Journals are discussed in a later chapter. It is significant to have one that is pleasing to you or you will not use it. So take time in selecting one. Make it a special event and treat it as a sacred object. Then keep a pen with it that is to your liking and that works and will always be ready on demand. If you are just discovering writing or rediscovering it, it is best to have one notebook journal at first. It is like going home, a place to return to again and again and a place to contain all that will come forth from you and our of your pen and onto your paper. As you continue to write you may want more than one notebook for different reasons and interests in your life. You will be shown! by the Angels what to do. But keep it simple in the beginning.
Perhaps to get your pen moving before reaching into Chapter 1, you may want to write down what you believe in. You may have never examined your beliefs in writing. I believe in God, in Jesus, that there are Angels with me always. I believe in love, and in the love shared with my husband and all my children, (and with my sons-in-law, and dauther-in-law for they too are like my own) and the love shared with special friends. I believe that God can speak to us in any way He so chooses and I anticipate it, and too, the expectation of angels daily making themselves known. I believe in the precious love of my little cat Rochester and that we communicate this love and all else to each other. When you believe - it happens! I believe in the sanctity of life for all God's creatures as well as for humans. I believe in all of nature as other ways God speaks to us and is present to us for I have experienced Him in these ways. These are only some of the things I believe in. Oh yes, I believe in the sacred, in fun and laughter, in magic, and the more I write and pray I realize how precious life is and I experience it more fully here in nature by our lake in the woods.
Blue Dolphin Publishing, 2001