365 Inspirations—317: Teaching Intuitive Writing at Kalani

Teaching Intuitive Writing at Kalani on The Big Island

"The intellect has little to do with the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to you, and you don't know how or why."—Albert Einstein

I'm the Artist-in-Residence for the Hawaii Yoga Festival at Kalani on the Big Island. Yesterday I taught my first class called First Thoughts: Intuitive Writing for Greater Clarity and Purpose.

There was a pretty good turn out to my class. I started out by telling my story of how I met Yoon, how I started sharing my writing through blogging and how I published my book Lessons from the Monk I Married.

I am a firm believer in not only writing intuitively, but living intuitively.

The best things in my life came on their own. I didn't have to force anything. When I let go, I'm often led to what I need in my life, but that is still scary for me.

The funny thing is, I'm not sure why it is scary. Experience has taught me that it works. That all good things—my husband, my book, being here at Kalani—all flowed into my life at just the right time.

Of course, I did do the ground work. I was seeking something. I was curious and searching, but I found that I had to let go of the hows. I had to truly trust and believe in myself completely.

There are still areas of my life that don't feel quite right. I am still holding on to that little bit of my past and the false sense of security that it brings, which keeps me from living fully how I'd like to. I'll get there. Too many amazing things have happened to me and now I'm beyond doubt. I know I will follow my heart completely.

In my writing class, I gave the students a one-word prompt. I told them to keep moving their hands across the page. I told them not to stop and not to think. Once the thinking mind comes in there is a tendency to edit. The inner critic comes in and starts giving reasons why we should stop writing, why we are no good, why we should just stop before we even begin.

Keeping the hand moving across the page keeps the intuition engaged and leaves the left-brain thinking on the side. Often times, people have no idea what they have written until they read back over  their journals days later. This is usually when people find answers, nuggets of wisdom, words they were looking for, direction, ideas, purpose and light.

Intuitive writing is playful. You can write with your left hand or your right. You can write in symbols, doodle, repeat words, write fragments, run-on sentences, forget about punctuation. Intuitive writing is very FREE and in it contains a power that comes from oneself, but is also beyond the small selves that we are.

I shared with the students a book that really helped me with my writing and life called The Intuitive Way by Penny Peirce. Penny has appeared on my blog before and wrote a lesson as part of my 31 Writers, 31 Lessons series. I shared writing prompts from her book and asked the attendees to pick a prompt and write intuitively for five minutes each day. We will have a follow-up class on Saturday.

Here's what Penney Peirce has to say about first thoughts and intuitive writing:

"Natalie Goldberg, who teaches writing as a spiritual practice, advocates writing from 'first thoughts' as opposed to second and third thoughts, which the inner censor has rehashed many times. She says, "First thoughts have tremendous energy. It is the way the mind first flashes on something....First thoughts are also unencumbered by ego...(and) if you express something egoless, it is also full of energy because it is expressing the truth of the way things are."

I was excited to see how engaged everyone was with the first one-word prompt which was 'nature'. The second prompt I gave was 'love'. There are many other prompts one can use.

Signing books at Kalani!

I plan to teach this class again at a yoga/writing/collaging retreat along with my husband at The Yoga Lodge on Whidbey Island January 23-26. The class is called Setting Intentions and we will be setting powerful intentions for the new year.

Have you ever written intuitively? Do you feel you live your life intuitively?

365 Inspirations—172: Summer Solstice, Full Moon and Collaging

"You are a volume in the divine book
A mirror to the power that created the universe
Whatever you want, ask it of yourself
Whatever you're looking for can only be found
Inside of you."— Rumi

I'm still here and I seemed to have had a turn around. Yesterday I felt like I wanted to go back to the city and now I'm fully immersing myself in this solo experience.

I walked around the lake, meditated, almost finished my second book proposal, stared at the sunset out on the end of the dock and gazed at the moon. I heard frogs and crickets and people actually swimming in the distance. I guess that's one way to celebrate the first day of summer—go for a night swim! The water was like glass and I loved sticking my hand in the water to create perfect rings that got bigger and bigger as they moved away from me. I wandered up the driveway and sat for several minutes staring out at the full moon. All is so calm here.

I felt moved to collage. It's something I love to do. It's a great way to access the right side of the brain and just play! Many of the images of the collages I've made in the past have become real images in my life.

I haven't spoken to many people out here and suddenly while I was in deep concentration and focused on my art work, my cell phone buzzed. It hasn't buzzed much since I've been here. Hardly anyone calls and I guess that's good. It means I get more work done.

Just as I was pasting the Eiffel Tower onto my collage, my friend from my writing group texted me from France at 11:00pm. I found that very interesting!

Here's her text:

Hi Kathy, I've had limited internet, so haven't posted on FB. Here's a pic of the entry to a 12th Century village in the South of France that I explored yesterday.....


And here's the photo:

I feel like I'm there with her. I will be there in the not-so-distant future. I feel lots of traveling happening soon!

In my collage I also included the Big Island of Hawaii. I got an e-mail today from someone there. I'll let you know what that's all about later. Lots of manifesting happening out here at this lake house. I feel good things on all fronts.

Happy first day of summer everyone, hope you enjoyed the solstice and are enjoying the full moon. I'm headed outside again for some star and moon gazing before bed.....good night!


Did you do anything special for summer solstice or the first day of summer?

365 Inspirations—82: Walking on Pele, an Active Volcano

 

"Pele is the goddess of fire, lightning, wind and volcanoes. She is a popular figure in many stories of ancient Hawaii."—Wikepedia

Last night at around 10pm, a group of us decided to head out into the night with flashlights and not much more than a map and the clothes on our backs. We wanted to walk on a lava field formed by Kīlauea Volcano, an active volcano on The Big Island of Hawaii, in order to see hot lava flow into the sea.

The goddess who is said to live in the Volcano is called Pele.

She was calling us. I was hesitant.

How would we find her? It's not easy to access her burning, molten rock at night without a guide, but the group was determined.

As we were driving down a dark red, dirt road, I could smell the gases of the volcano. We drove down a forbidden access road with signs everywhere that said No Public Access or Road Closed, but we kept going, ignoring all these signs.

Pele was calling and no sign was going to stop us.

Houses started appearing along the desolate road. They had been built right over the lava. We paid one of the owners of a house to park and off we went in to the darkness.

In the distance we saw the huge flames of the fire. We walked over uneven, crunchy lava rock in the direction of this fire. Here's what it looked like below our feet:

It was tough terrain and very hard to see. It was how I imagined walking on the moon would be like.

Nothing but us for miles and no clear path in the dark!

Were we crazy? What if met with active lava? What if we fell in a crevasse? I didn't even bring a flashlight. Fortunately, someone in our group gave me one, but the batteries were dying fast.

 I was wearing very thin sneakers and socks, my yoga pants and my pajama top (since I decided at the last minute to go), we were hardly outfitted for an expedition over smoking lava rock to the fire falling off the volcano into the sea.

It was a clear night and the almost-full moon was bright. The contrast of the light of the moon over the blackness of the lava rock was striking. Even more striking was the fire in the distance.

I suggested we walk towards the ocean and watch the fire falling into the sea. It just seemed too dangerous to walk right up the fire and I felt the rocks were getting hot under my feet. Here's what Pele's fire looked like through my iPhone:

One adventurous member of our group, James, walked ahead to see how close we could get. He came back to tell us it was too hot.

We opted to watch the fire from the lava rock sea cliff.

We all sat in a circle the uneven lava at the edge of a sea cliff. The waves were so huge, at times they splashed up and over this cliff. In our sitting circle, we meditated on the lava spewing out along the waters edge in the distance. We sat like that for quite some time.

The road home was just as rough. We also realized that while it was pretty easy to find where we were going (just walk towards the fire), it wasn't so easy to find our way back.

There were no clear trails out there and we hadn't taken a clear path.

We walked along the waters edge and eventually came to a house and decided to take a red-dirt path between the lava back towards what we hoped was our car.

But looks were deceiving in the dark and we got genuinely lost and by now it was almost 1:30AM. We were getting delirious and we were tired. We ended up walking an extra mile out of our way and finally, realizing that we weren't going to make it with our heads, I did something that surprised me.

I prayed to Pele, the volcano goddess we were walking on. I asked her to show us the way.

I let everything go and let the moon fill me up. I let the smells and the sights engulf me. I walked in silence. I looked up at the sky and saw a huge cloud aura around the moon. I felt I was in another world.

I let go.

I felt my breath. I didn't try anymore.

And we arrived.

Driving home, we ended up on a coastal road. Wild boar stopped us, their beady eyes peering out from Tarzan trees. The trees seemed alive. We were in the wild.

I'm not sure how we made it home really, but all I can say is I will never forget that night.

Have you gone on a crazy adventure that you'll never forget?

365 Inspirations—80: The Big Island

"Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace."—Paul Theroux

This evening we all walked down the street, through a tree tunnel and out onto pumice rocks and geo thermal pools with the roaring ocean in the distance. We sat down on the hot rocks and meditated in the moonlight. Suddenly I felt the entire moon fill me up. There was a circle around the moon, like a big aura and the stars were so clear.

We are out here in the middle of the ocean on The Big Island of Hawaii. Everything is lava rock in Kona, but Hilo is bursting with life—a rebirth if you will. Everything is humming and buzzing and growing. I feel like we are nestled in a great big jungle. Our house is like a tree house and life is pulsating here. The sights and sounds are overwhelming and heavenly all at the same time.

We've forgotten what day it is, what time it is, what month it is...we've forgotten about plans. We follow the flow. This place does something to you. Makes you stop and breathe and rest and tune in.

The Big Island is calling me. It's telling me to stay for a while. It's telling me it has some stories to share. And I want to listen...........

Is there a place that calls to you?