Holding the Questions

Questions & Sweet Inspiration

A new character emerged in a journey I was taking this week. At the beginning of our Way of the Heart ™ Feng Shui I follow up class my teacher takes up on a magical journey inward. My intention for the class is the same as my intention for the blog.

To write the stories that will come together to create a book.

To allow those stories to be written from my imagination, from a place where the book has 

already been written, and by the characters within the stories themselves.

On this journey I was taken to one of the worlds in my book. A world who’s hero’s are struggling with what they are able and willing to do as well as not knowing what they can do. The scene I saw and felt in my mind and heart was so alive and real. I could feel this character’s deep longing for the leader of this world to step into his power, follow his heart and do what he knows to do. It was visceral for me. When I emerged I knew I had a new character and his personality and attributes started to fall into place. He is ancient and is part of the balance of this world. He has known this world since the beginning of time also known the leader since his birth.

There is something unique about this character, he sees into the depths of one’s skills and abilities and sees the outcomes of choices. The leader he watches stands at a crossroads. One choice moving him closer to what his heart knows will save this world, yet does not know how this will happen. The other choice motivated by fear, overwhelm and grief will result in a very different outcome.

The questions that came up for this writer are:

How do I convey in story the inward journey each character is taking?

The struggle from each character’s point of view?

Do I do it in small bits, allowing the inner anguish to be revealed in its own time?

I remember we never really knew the depth of the anguish Severus Snapes felt in Harry Potter until the very end of the last book.

I carried these questions around this week and was surprised and delighted when my Way of the Heart™ Feng Shui I manual offered me a piece of wisdom that added a new dimension to the world I am creating.

You who have the knowledge, what are you doing with it?

My focus had been on the leader and looking at the leader’s choices from the eyes of the ancient creature emerging from the dark underground.

You who have the knowledge, what are you doing with it?

Questions: What knowledge does he have?
What is his responsibility around having this knowledge?
Is it his to do something with?

This new and compelling creature has emerged at this time in my process and the world of my books process – what has he brought to us?

Do we not all have knowledge about something – what are we going to do with it?

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle,

requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

Albert Einstein

What a journey I am walking. Reading the book of life through this “Way” and with the my amazing manuals is such a joy and alchemical mystery. Sometimes I end up with more questions than answers. I am truly beginning to understand when I ask questions, sleep on the question, and carry them in my Writer’s Heart; it will not take long before the being of my story & my book will have me bounding into my office for my journal to write some sweet inspiration down.

So….. I end this week’s blog with Gratitude and a question for you.

What questions are you carrying around in your heart?

See you all next week.
Thanks for walking the journey with me.

It is not that I am so smart, But that I stay with the question much longer.

Albert Einstein

 

 

Resonance

When you read different books do you hear different voices? Is the voice you hear in your head different for each book you read?

What kind of voice do I want to have in my book?

Do the words we writers use carry a resonance of what we are wanting them to convey?

Resonance & Momentum & Magnetism – the energy behind, in, through and imbuing our stories.

The Mind is the writer’s landscape.

As a mountain scene might be an artist’s landscape.

A visual artist studies light, perspective, colour and space.

A writer studies memory, imagination, words, thoughts and feelings.

Natalie Goldberg – Wild Mind Living the Writer’s Life

This has been a week of reading other people’s stories to see what others are creating. In all the studies I have done on writing I keep hearing  – read – read – read.
I began to notice each book or story had a different voice. I could feel the energy in the words and the story had a flowing energy that seemed to be taking me somewhere.
I like to spend time with a book, to savour the images and feel what the character by way of the author is offering me. As I became aware of the unique voice of each storyteller and each story I wondered about resonance and the energy in each story.

Is there hope?

What keeps me walking the journey with this book I am reading and each page I turn?

As an author I wish to offer my readers a hope, a heart connection that will come out in my writing – that is my intention.

I took all my ponderings and questions to my Life Mission III™  Way of the Heart manual this week and was offered a piece of wisdom from John Fox a certified poetry therapist.

“It is not words about roses that makes sacred poetry.

Sacred poetry is made when the roseness that lives within a particular

rose speaks to us and we listen and we write.”

I am listening and writing. I listen to the guidance and creative wisdom offered each time I sit down to write. Each character, landscape and moment is speaking its own unique “roseness” to me.

Will you feel that in my writing? Can I be open enough to let you see me?
Is writing about a world different than mine also writing about my world?
How much of each character is actually an aspect of me?

The art of asking questions is a one of the most fascinating journey’s The Way of the Heart™  is helping me take and use more deeply in my life. As I ask these questions about writing and myself I feel excited to read. My reading becomes more of an exploration of the world between the lines of what I am reading. I take my questions to what I am reading and it becomes richer.

This has been a fun blog to write because it leaves me with more questions rising within me.
Thanks so much for journeying with me and allowing me to ponder, ask and hold the highest possibility that the answers will come in the most unique creative way.

I would like to leave you with something from a different author.
Maybe you could ask yourself at the end:

What am I feeling having just read this?
What is my heart saying?

“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. 

The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. 

For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and 

passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

J.R.R.Tolkein

The Return of the King

 

Dancing With My Shadow

What makes a hero?

What holds your characters life together?

It is time to dance with your shadow, reclaim your denied selves and surrender to the journey.

Life Mission III ™ offered me a question today. What holds your characters life together? At first I wanted to say Love, Family, God, doing what she loves. I wonder if it is simpler than that. Could it be our choices that hold a characters life together, our life together? Our moment to moment choices.

This has been a challenging week for me. Some physical challenges and I have been watching how that affects my choices. I realized at one point my thoughts and what I was focusing on was not helping me. I watched how my thoughts and focus were me choosing to believe a story that was taking my power away. I also realized I could not make the feelings resulting from my choices  go away as much as I wanted them to.

So, what to do?

I brought out my Way of the Heart™ Shadow work and went inward to meet my Shadow. Found a part of myself  I would name my bully. A part that is quite used to bringing out the old rubber mallet when it suits her.  Working with her in a more conscious way helped me to bring that part of me out of the shadows and create a bit more space within. I also used some beautiful processes from The Way of the Heart™ Alchemical Healing class I just finished and noticed a bit more space. I was starting to find me in all the stuff running around in my head. I was actually finding my heart and beginning to realize there actually was an option to make a different choice and I could take it.

I share this because it is real and this week part of my work as a writer has been research and reading. One of my favourite Authors is Anne McCaffrey who writes some books that literally saved my life 20 years ago – the Dragonriders of Pern series. As I read some of her later works this week, books I have not read before I kept my experiences in my mind as well as my questions.

If I was reading my book of life why am I reading this book now?
What was Anne McCaffrey doing as a writer that is touching my feelings and keeping me reading?
What makes me like a character?
What frustrates me about a character?
What is she doing in her writing that keeps me reading?

The Characters Choices.

When I like, respect or am fascinated by a character what is it I like?  Respect? or am Fascinated with? Is the character like me or who I would like to be? If I don’t like a character does she remind me of someone or something in my life, or me?

Choices

Hero’s are characters who are willing to ask the deeper questions. Hero’s are characters who know they are following the right path even when someone questions them. 50 people would have a different definition of hero, so hero’s are who WE like in the moment. Who we resonate with.

I wonder if we are all hero’s.

Is a bully a hero? Better question – what makes a bully a hero?
I needed a hero this week.
The moment she makes a different choice.
Chooses to do something differently.
Maybe we’re not really hero’s until we understand there is a different choice to make and make it.

This strange and weird journey I am walking right now as I write and you read is really me following the threads to more deeply understand human nature – character development and of course myself.

If I look for the hero in my characters will that add a depth to them because I am trusting there really is a hero in the most confused, dark character and will eventually emerge?

I was being a bully this week and found a way to create some space for a different choice. All the characters within my personal story had to wait until I found a Way and the right moment to choose differently.                 

Fascinating !!!Did I choose differently because a part of me knew I eventually would?

Faith & Trust

Well I know one thing having amazing tools through The Way of the Heart™ gave me a place to go, to explore, go deeper within and be with the bully that was ruling for a while.

Thank you!

A few weeks ago I wrote about following the threads, this journey this week is certainly that.

As I write and tell you about my week, a part of me is sitting with the characters in my book seeing them fill out with depth and richness. Wondering what kind of tools they will have.

Thanks so much for following the threads this week with me. I am really learning that writing is about not knowing the answers all the time. Just create the characters Diane and we will see where that takes you.

 

Picture used with Permission from Amy Sophia Marashinsky
From “The Goddess Oracle – A Way to Wholeness Through The Goddess and Ritual
Illustrated by Hrana Janto

The Journey

Where do stories come from?
A question to write a story about!
Have you ever noticed stories sometimes start with Once upon a time?

Once upon a time in a land far far away and on another timeline a writer was walking towards… Walking and searching to find the place where stories come from.

Slowly making her way towards a distant structure gave her time to ponder what she was really searching for. “Stories come out of the imagination don’t they? Stories come out of the tip of my pen.” Her sense of humour  kicked in. “Lovely thought, sure looks it when I write.” She giggled as the structure began to fill the horizon.
“How do I know where I am going? What brought me in this direction?”

“You are a storyteller.” A voice spoke. “You are just following the threads.”

“Following the threads?”

Like a tapestry, each thread will become a part of the whole to create the pattern.

“Patterns emerging on the canvas of the book as each story is written.”

The conversation stopped as she stood in front of the vast structure.

“Remember!

Remember this journey started with a question!

Where do the stories come from?”

She took a deep breath. “It is my intention to find the answer.” She looked up to see the door slowly opening. “Stepping over the threshold is answering my hearts call.”

Yes, and you will be required to visit three rooms to find the answer you seek.
Her inner guidance led her to the room of support, guidance, Love and Friendship. An immediate feeling of being accompanied told her she would no longer be alone. Travelling with her friends to the room of wisdom and inner knowledge she entered the second room. Here she learned to sit in stillness and of the many wonderful wisdoms she really did know although she did not know how she knew them. She also knew she could wait for the answer to her question and answers would come to her. Mystery and Faith.

Finally her journey took her to the room of Blessings and Wealth. Bringing the gifts and helpful friends from the other rooms she sat and felt such gratitude in her heart.

Breathing deeply in the moment she felt herself shift to a new place within. Slowly opening her eyes she realized they were all there, right in front of her.

Stories: shelves and shelves of stories. 

Stories already written.

Stories waiting to be written.

Stories in the process of forming in the heart of the storyteller.

All accessible to every writer and storyteller.

“Reach out.” A voice said. “Think with your heart what you wish to write and the story will emerge.”
Movement caught her attention, the phoenix grace and wisdom dropped This story into her heart and mind. She understood the symbolic gift of its flight, bowed and thanked the bird.

Stories come from Love and walking the Journey.

Opening her eyes she found herself back at the desk in her writing room, knowing she would journey back to that wonderful structure to find other answers to the storytellers questions.

The End/The Beginning

My Week:
This story describes my week. It has been one of research and play.
Have you ever fallen in love with a book? I have. My Way of the Heart™ Feng Shui II manual is the book I go to, to seek answers, find myself or find the direction I need to go to, to find my answers. I truly love that manual. The story I wrote above is the journey I walked tonight doing a Feng Shui II Integration™. I truly feel blessed to have found The Way of the Heart™ and the vast storehouse of wisdom for me to journey in. Makes my little heart sing.

Maybe next week I shall tell you about my journey with J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Inklings a group of writers in Oxford England who included C.S Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien.

Thanks so much for walking with me.

  

 

 

Power and Balance

I have had a great time this week writing and understanding my character more deeply. There are two worlds in my book; one world of beings doing what they love, living life, seeking harmony through the gifts they bring, you might say a world of light. The other world is a darker one, filled with beings doing what they love, living life, and seeking harmony and in a more life or death way. Much more of a shadow world.

Understanding the inner workings of my characters is very important to the stories and the whole book. Seeking more information I went into my Way of the Heart™ Feng Shui II manual asking to be shown at what level  of awareness my shadow character is living. Right now in this moment he is  living from a Feudal awareness, one of the ego, acting impulsively and power. The colour at this level is Red. Which is perfect for my understanding of this character and his world because it is his impulsive not thinking which may be the cause of his troubles and his blessings.

Feng Shui II offered me a question to ponder: 

Where do you project your courage onto someone else? 

As I breathe into this question and what it might mean for my character I realized, he will need his power to succeed and he will need to understand about courage. Courage within himself and the courage of both worlds coming together to work for balance. He will need to help inhabitants of both worlds come together in partnership, to truly understand about balance and working together. A big feat for a being who right now believes ego power is the only way to accomplish anything.  My character is teaching me about himself.

Remembering

Who I truly am.

Living into that remembrance.

Owning my Gifts.

What happens in the balance of a world when people don’t realize they bring a Gift to the world?

In a book or story there are only just so many characters and one can see the hole, the place where a character needs to fill the hole with what is needed in the moment.

What if it was like this on our Earth. Many places where a deep need is just waiting for one of us to bring our gifts to that place. For us to remember who we truly are and our reason for being here.

Personally I have been working with remembering who I really am, my gifts and what I have to offer, not a surprise that my character would be walking the same path.

Tonight I did a “Return of the King” – Way of the Heart™ Integration with an intention to help me write my stories from a deeper higher place. To write the stories that are waiting to be told. My action from the integration is to remember who I truly am. Owing my being a writer. Again I am touched by the synchronicity of my life. In J. R.R. Tolkien’s book –  The Lord of the Rings- The Return of the King each character is asked to remember who they are – truly are. To own their own courage and to live into their strengths.

Near the end of Return of the King –  Aragorn who ultimately become the king speaks about fear and that how that fear could take his heart away. And that there may come  a day when the courage of all men and women might fail. Then he speaks from his heart – “but not this day.”

What I am wondering about my character and myself is can we say “but not this day”.

“This day I remember who I am and what my heart is calling me to do.

This day I realize the world is waiting for me to bring myself to this moment.”

Aragorn and the free races of Middle Earth are rallying to a great battle. Some of the characters in my book will need to take the same stand, make the same decisions about the big and everyday smaller actions in their lives. Writing their stories makes me realize all the actions we take change worlds.

Thank you for letting me explore the many aspects of being a writer and the characters coming to teach me, show me and have their story told.

“Knock, And He’ll open the door

Vanish, And He’ll make you shine like the sun

Fall, And He’ll raise you to the heavens

Become nothing, And He’ll turn you into everything.”

Rumi

Aragorn: 

Hold your ground! Hold your ground!

Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers,

I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.

A day may come when the courage of men fails, 

when we forsake our friends

and break all bonds of fellowship, 

but it is not this day. 

An hour of wolves and shattered shields, 

when the age of men comes crashing down, 

but it is not this day!

This day we fight!!

By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, 

I bid you stand, Men of the West!!!

J.R.R Tolkein

  

 

Saying Yes

 

This is the wisdom I am seeking to move into more deeply. 

The universe sending opportunities my way, and me saying yes.

We are so capable of learning, evolving and changing. 

Yes, Universe bring the unknown, the mystery my way 

And I will to the best of my evolving ability 

Meet the moment with curiosity, skill and passion.

Thank you.

Exploring Tension in a Story

Today I started to read a book I was eagerly awaiting. After about 5 pages I had to go out. Driving to my appointment I could hear a dialogue going on in my head about how I wanted the story to go, the feelings arising because it did not seem to be going that way. As well as the internal motivation around that. For my friends who have read some of my blogs you might remember me discussing the challenge I have been having around creating an antagonist. Inner and outer. This dialogue has helped reveal some of underlying reasons for this challenge. Thanks JK for creating the opportunity for my exploration.

"Are you going on about that again?"

"What do you mean, going on?"

"Going on about the tension and the nasty bits in a story! You have to have tension, you have to let the characters be unpredictable, get into trouble, do stuff that ticks everyone off."

"Why do I need to do that? Why, can’t I just write about wonderful happy people living a spiritual life, who go through life without problems?"

"Fluffy bunnies and unicorns! That’s what that is. We need the adversity, we need the tension. Tension and adversity makes us dig deeper. You know that, you just want…."

"Never mind fluffy bunnies, you always call it fluffy bunnies. There was so much tension in my life I get tense just thinking I need to write about it and now she starts off the book with tension."

"Oh, so you think it is tension because it questions one’s choices. What if it was just an exploration a way of moving towards different choices'; seeing what we are made of?"

"I know that ! It is the tension I feel as though I don’t know how to write about. Don’t know how to create tension."

"Here is one for you. The fluffy bunny looked both ways, took one hop to cross the road when the alien ship beamed him up and ate him for dinner."

"Very funny. Actually that is quite funny. You see I can deal with that and can even write that. It would the Bunny telling her family she was going to …. Actually it would be the creative, most popular, kind bunny who everyone relied on, telling her family she was going to quit Carrot Cultivation School six months before graduation to hop through the underground rabbit burrows of Cornwall and she may never finish school."

"Yes, good one. If you don’t mind me saying so, seems like you have a thing about disappointing people who rely on you to be something they thought you should be and convinced you as well." 

"You may be correct. The tension for me is the struggle between the longing to do what your heart calls you to and responsibilities. I think it is also about faith and trust. Trusting my heart and the relationship with the unknown."

"Yah! You have such a weird relationship with the unknown. It really is the “both and”, you have a relationship and you also struggle with certain types of unknowns. 

It is the emotional investment!

You want to love the good characters and to be honored for trusting them by that character having a good life and doing good things.

You just don’t like not knowing how it ends!"

"Well, I am better than I used to be, I used to read the last page of a book to see what happens. Oh my did I admit that out loud?"

"Yes, you did! Sorry I will stop Laughing soon. So now what?"

"Well you are helping me see the that tension has its place. Can I stay with it long enough for the tension to create the structure the story needs? Even in this discussion I got away form the tension by listening to you."

"Yes and no. Tension does not have to be excruciating you know! It just has to be tension. In a story there can be long term tension like the tension Severus Snapes created and there can be short term tension like Ron and Hermione in the Goblet of Fire."

"I really want my hero’s to be heroes don’t I!"

"Yes and what is so strange you also want a good story, you want to grow and I know you know tension makes You dig deeper, so your heroes will also need tension for the same reason."

"Hmmm, you are wrong you know!"

"Yah who is being funny now? Quick look your fluffy bunny has a knife and is chasing the unicorn."

"Very funny… OMG she really is!"