Healing Images

Every Craftsman by Rumi

Posted by Diane Morrow on June 12, 2007 in Healing Images, Healing Poetry, Writing Ideas

For the past week or so I’ve been looking for a poem that would speak somehow to revision—and I couldn’t quite find what I was looking for. And then I found this poem by Rumi. It’s not what I thought I was looking for—it does something slightly different. But at the same time it feels like the right next image for revision. For looking again. For looking at the big picture. And what was it again that I wanted to write? What did I hope would come of this? What can I do with the pages I’ve written? What do I hope will come of this? Not infrequently, I find that when people come up against a serious illness or a serious loss–or any kind of significant transition—they may find themselves, eventually, asking certain kinds of questions: And what is it that I’m here for? What is my piece? What is my gift? What do I want to leave behind? Rumi’s poem, Every Craftsman, speaks to these questions. Here are the first 17 lines: I’ve said before that every craftsman searches for what’s not there to practice his craft. A builder looks for the rotten hole where the roof caved in. A water-carrier picks the empty pot. A carpenter stops at the house with no door. Workers rush toward some hint of emptiness, which they then start to fill. Their hope, though, is for emptiness, so don’t think you must avoid it. It contains what you need! Dear soul, if you were not friends with the vast nothing inside, why would you always be casting your net into it, and waiting so patiently? Rumi’s poem is another way of asking: What is the one piece of writing that you, and only you, can write? What emptiness is waiting to be filled? Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish writer, said (among other things) in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “I write because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey.” What sort of life is it that you—and only you—can write about? What gap is waiting?...

Nine Images for Writing as Healing

Posted by Diane Morrow on June 1, 2007 in Healing Images

Writing as a clean well-lighted place. A cafe that is always open. Writing as a pumpkin–that sense of possibility. Writing as a broom–sweeping out the guest house that is the self. Writing as a map to a healing quest. Writing as a pensieve–a container in which to spot patterns and links. Writing as a small beautiful boat–a vehicle for a healing quest. Writing as a way to remember the sky. Writing as a Refuge. Writing as an unwinding ball of string....

Fishing: An Image for Writing and Healing

Posted by Diane Morrow on May 31, 2007 in Healing Conversation, Healing Images

The following passage, from Peter Elbow’s Writing Without Teachers, resonates nicely with the image that Michelle Huneven uses for conversation in her novel, Jamesland. There she writes about conversation as an unwinding ball of string. Here, the string is cast out onto the water: Elbow writes [p. 77]: Writing is a string you send out to connect yourself with other consciousnesses, but usually you never have the opportunity to feel anything at the other end. How can you tell whether you’ve got a fish if the line is always slack? The teacherless writing class tries to remedy this situation. It tries to take you out of darkness and silence. It is a class of seven to twelve people. It meets at least once a week. Everyone reads everyone else’s writing. Everyone tries to give each writer a sense of how his words were experienced. The goal is for the writer to come as close as possible to being able to see and experience his own words through seven or more people. That’s all. To improve your writing you don’t need advice about what changes to make; you don’t need theories of what is good and bad writing. You need movies of people’s minds while they read your words. This is, I think, a terribly interesting notion—that what we may really want—at least some of the time—when we put words out there—is not evaluation—or approval—or even agreement—but this something else—this other thing–—this kind of movie of someone else’s mind—a movie of another consciousness receiving the words. Would this be the fish then? The fish caught? And this as one way out of darkness and silence? And, at the same time, a way to make writing clearer and stronger and more meaningful? Well, I’m all for...

An Unwinding Ball of String: An Image for Writing and Healing

Posted by Diane Morrow on May 20, 2007 in Healing Conversation, Healing Images, Recommended Books

Consider this conversation, one which takes place on a porch in Los Feliz, California inside the novel, Jamesland, by Michelle Huneven. The conversation takes place between a young woman, Alice, and a Unitarian minister, Helen, who is in the neighborhood passing out fliers for a lecture series. Alice offers Helen a glass of Red Zinger tea and the two of them sit on Alice’s porch. They talk, one thing and another. At one point, Alice finds herself beginning to tell Helen, the minister, about a deer that wandered into her house in the middle of the night. Helen, the minister, interrupts. ‘Hold on.’ Helen held up her hand like a traffic cop. ‘A deer came into your house? I’m sorry, but you’re going too fast. And please move your hand away from your mouth so I can hear you. Please, start at the beginning, and take your time.’ . . . Now that she had a willing ear, Alice’s story of the deer unwound like a ball of string rolling down a street. This was the first time she’d been able to tell it all the way through, without interruption, and nothing she said seemed to invite dismay or contradiction. Helen nodded and sometimes narrowed her eyes as if listening to a familiar piano sonata or poem. . . Encouraged, Alice gave all but the most lunatic details—she left out the fight with her married boyfriend, her raising-the-fawn fantasy, that the deer had seemed to desire pursuit. Hypnosis, she’d heard, was like this: perfect recall with no self-incrimination. Take your time, the minister says. How often these days does any one of us get to hear those words when we’re on the brink of telling a story? Once a week? Once a month? Once in a lifetime? No rush. No impatience. No contradiction. No self-incrimination. None of the ordinary obstacles. A full suspension of disbelief on the part of the listener. And, in this place of suspension—a ball of string unwinding. And what (again) might writing have to do with it? Writing, I think, can augment the unwinding. Writing and then—perhaps—putting a piece of writing out into the world, and then getting news back that the writing is heard—received—can be a powerful way to encourage the ball of string to unwind, down through one layer, and the next, ever closer to the center. Writing can take us deep. Putting writing out into the world—and receiving a response—can take us yet deeper. This can happen anywhere. It can happen on a porch. For a year or two after I first moved to North Carolina, I helped form and then met with a writing group. The group eventually fell apart, but before it fell apart, for that year or two, one evening every other week, it provided a structure that allowed something to happen—the sharing of stories and a response to those stories. We always met at the same house. Her name was Alice actually, like in the book. We met at Alice’s house. And I remember a particular evening on her screened porch, this in the summer, at twilight, that certain quality of evening summer light, a dog barking somewhere down the street, a child being called inside for supper. This was in Greensboro, North Carolina. I was sitting on...

The Guest House by Rumi: A Quiet Revolution?

Posted by Diane Morrow on May 8, 2007 in Guest House, Healing Images, Healing Language and Healing Images, Healing Poetry

I came across this poem, The Guest House, by Rumi, for the first time, week before last, when I was looking for a clean link for Mary Oliver’s poem, The Journey. Here are the first twelve lines: This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, Some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, Who violently sweep your house Empty of its furniture, Still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out For some new delight. How wonderful is that? The image of sorrow and all the other emotions—joy yes—but also the difficult ones—anger—shame—fear—all as visitors—some pleasant visitors and some more difficult ones—and all of them guests. And guests with a broom no less. Sweeping through the rooms—clearing it. Rumi’s lines here resonate for me with those lines by Paul Simon from his song, “Sound of Silence”: Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again. But now I’m picturing Darkness with a broom. Full text of Rumi’s poem Photo by Vladimir Shioshvili at Wikimedia Commons: Brooms for Sale in a Tbilisi...

« Older Entries