Want to develop a closer relationship with your mind?
post-impressionism dada by Dax Norman
Welcome!
…to the first edition of the thought echoes blog; seemed appropriate to start on International Optimist Day 2022. My hope is that despite the craziness in the world with so much we cannot control, our thoughts and their echoes are something we can control.
Well, maybe not control exactly, but at least engage with and develop a closer relationship while learning to appreciate the entanglements they have with our past (including generational). And into our future and the lives of those we interact with most.
In this blog, I’ll explore various ideas around thoughts, consciousness, and entanglements with a backdrop of writing.
Reading Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir while enjoying a vanilla latte
Coava Espresso Bar on Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, OR
During COVID, there was lots of time to write, not in coffee shops (only did that once between Delta and Omicron at Coava around the corner from where I live. At the time I was finishing Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir. Great read. One of my favorite quotes: “I always liken the state I'm in before I write to waking too early to rise and looking for a wormhole to corkscrew down into that more honest place.” For me, I write in the morning before I wake up too much and when I read this quote all I could do was shake my head and say, “Yes! Yes!”
Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones Deck
Earlier in the year, I took an 8-week Intensive from Natalie Goldberg of Writing Down the Bones fame. Sometime after my strokes, when I started writing again, I came across her book and through serendipitous events found my way into her Zoom class with over a thousand people from around the world. She reintroduced me to long handwriting (tougher since the strokes and my Type A personality wanted to get things down fast so I used my iPhone).
Since January last year, I’ve done all my a priori writing (practice writing) in the morning before I wake up too much and long-hand. Natalie’s prompts are for anyone. I wanted to create some that focused on people who have experienced a stroke or other medical “event” where you question if you are still you since on the outside you may not appear the same and on the inside, you may not be able to get the right words out to explain what you mean.
Natalie is adamant they are writing topics, which are broader and can be used over and over again. I’m using both prompt/topic because prompt is so universal. If you’re so inclined send me a favorite sentence or phrase you discover in your writing and I’ll include in next month’s newsletter … although it’s intended just for you — “No good. No bad. Just write. Ten minutes. Go.”
If you want to give it a try — “describe the negative space around you …”
Please leave a comment below and if you enjoyed this post, I invite you to subscribe to my thought echoes newsletter.