Shay's Depth Writing the Alphabet

One of my online writing buddies, Shay, who lives in Northern California, is a gifted writer and a community activist. But, because her area has a lot of rain in the winter and the weather tends to be dark and bleak, she dreads what she calls her “annual trip to the dark side.”

This year she has found a productive way to face into it which will hopefully head those blahs off at the past. Instead of joining Nanowrimo (The National Novel Writing Month) this year, she and some other folks banded together online for what they are calling min-Nanowrimo.

She has created daily Alphabet Writes. I call it depth free writing on every letter of the alphabet—A through Z. She chooses a word spontaneously to correspond with the letter for the day. She says, “I set an intention for what I hoped the writing would unveil namely what is behind my annual trip to the dark side. So far the word for the day has popped into my mind. I write until I'm through for the time being. I'm certain that later when I reread and digest the month's work, (and it is work) I will feel free to edit, add, etc until the topic feels full.”

She goes on to say, “I feel that I have revealed a great deal more than I anticipated. At first I was going to describe my daily life and find ways to enhance the hours. I did not know that I was going back to birth!!”

Shay posts her daily writing to our writing group and I’ll admit that I’m very taken with her idea. I have not seen such deep, spontaneous writing in a very long time. She has given me permission to share one of her writings with you. Here is E for Embrace.

E is for embrace. I was looking for a word that meant acceptance, surrender, inclusion, and embrace filled the bill. I see the word as a huge open armed hug that accepts all in front of it, surrenders to the sense of belonging, and includes all. The next step in self-healing is saying, “This is what IS at this time,” and giving up the whining about what I wish I could be, do, or have. My daughter gave me an ultimatum yesterday. Go to the doctor and find out what’s going on with your sore eye. After many days of not doing anything, hoping the irritation would go away by itself, I embraced her strong suggestion and did so. It is contact dermatitis and the doc says it would not have healed by itself. I have steroid anti-biotic goo that had already made a difference after three applications. Then I say Why did it take me so long to accept that it wasn’t getting better with time? It my eye a metaphor for my I? Is it obvious that I need to take care of my needs as they arise rather than wait until the camel is loaded and I can’t move?

At dream group last evening I said I had an image of blowing up a huge black balloon. The black cloud that I’ve been carrying inside could fill the balloon and then I could take it outside and let the wind blow it away. I’m going to act on that today. I will embrace being active and making the image into reality. There is a party store and I’m sure they carry black balloons. They are popular for 30^th birthday parties. My breath is not strong so it may take time to stretch the balloon big enough to hold the cloud that has been sitting in my chest. By doing something I am embracing the truth that I can help myself to find the exit from spinning in the eddy. There is no knight on a white horse on my front porch. The savior has to be closer to home, like myself. Then I can get away from the negative self-talk. I can refute the accusations and reminders of past errors. I can stop asking what do I want and remember Tolle saying ask what life wants from me.