Fascinating Authors

We are all writing for readers who are human beings.  My book, Six Ways to Celebrate Christmas! & Celebrate You!, shares the six realities or realms of existence  or ways of being human in the context of the most popular holiday in the world.  Awareness of these six ways, and the degree to which we successfully experience each one, brings a wholeness to our understanding of ourselves and all those we share our lives and our work with. Whether writers, teachers, entrepreneurs, healers, artists, all of us can find both warmth and wisdom in recognizing and addressing these six realms of existence.

How does your writing, fiction or nonfiction, address your reader’s experience of unfolding as:
•    A Being of Nature shaped by the complexity of forces, rhythms and harmonies in our lives mirroring the natural world?
•    A Being of Nativity shaped by a personal sense of divine origin and purpose?
•    A Being of Riches shaped by the blessings and challenges of material needs and expression?
•    A Being of Relationships shaped by or interactions with family, friends, colleagues and strangers?
•    A Being of Childhood shaped by our unique experiences and stories while growing up?
•    A Being of Selfhood seeking the consciousness of and process for evolving our own individuality?

Writers of fiction will naturally address all six areas as they build their characters and stories.

With certain nonfiction genres there may be a focus on one realm, but the others need to be present in the writer’s thoughts or the writing will not connect with the humanity of the reader.

Writers of personal blogs will often move from one realm to another in their posts.

Brilliant writers weave a consciousness of six realities into their writing.

Writers have a need and a gift for description and insight.  We use our writing to grow our own humanity and the humanity of our readers.  Working with the six ways of being human will make a difference in every writer’s work.

Do some self-discovery reflection and work with each of these realms.  Here are some of my own thoughts on each.

Nature:  Nature has such wonderful primal rhythms.  I don’t.  Or I should say I struggle with finding and choosing my conscious rhythms. I can think about rhythms, imagine with a deep calm how nourishing a rhythm would be, but I find inner obstacles to applying rhythms to my activity.   My will has a mind of its own.  Undisciplined as the wind, my will blows in all directions and with varying degrees of force. I so admire those who have a will like a plant – once they are rooted in a particular interest or task they simply sprout, grow leaves of greater and greater complexity, bud, beautifully flower and produce fruit.

Reflecting on what I just wrote I see the linear process of the growing plant.  The wind is not linear. It is chaotic and and can be wild or gentle. But wind clears the air and stills itself every now and then.  In my moments of stillness, my writing falls to the earth like a seed.  Then it roots and begins to grow like a plant!

These are metaphors of nature I must spend more time with.  Wind, seed, rootedness, flowering living in my writing.

Nativity – I move now to the birth of the divine, something pure and powerful, in my being.  After a long and fierce gestation, I am giving birth to my spirit as a deed and a contribution.  We all say “I” for the first time around the age of two and a half.  Now almost sixty years later I say “I” and it has real significance – I have stopped being a noun and become a verb! I look not for adjectives but for adverbs now.  I manifest soundly and fully.

When I was writing about myself as a being of nature I felt uncertain and overwhelmed with creative options.  As I write my experience as a being of nativity I feel focused and contained.  What does this tell me?

Riches: I spent much of my life living for the delights of material riches.  Sensory saturation and satisfaction were my goals.  I wanted to know and experience the best of everything with intensity.  The surface of everything attracted me and I was so seduced by my hunger for it all, that I often overlooked meaning and purpose, proportion and practicality.

Now I pay attention, I discriminate, and I cherish.  I want just what I need, what enriches my life, nothing more.  I have come to be not a seeker of riches, but, a being of riches.  I need to look at my writing this way.  I must attend to, discriminate and cherish the needs of my readers.  I want to enrich my readers with my writing.

Relationship: Relationships, too, now have more consciousness and, consequently, more contentment living in them.  I want relationships of mutual joy and support. I want relationships that offer the paradox of security and surprise.

In my book on the six Christmases, I write about generations.  This Christmas is the third Christmas I have not been a daughter.  This is the last Christmas where I am mother.  Next Christmas will be my first being grandmother. How will this new relationship reality, alter my experience of myself?  Here’s one question that appears in “relationship” to my writing in this moment: how has my writing gesture moved from daughter’s, to mother’s, to grandmother’s?  The grandmother’s gesture will offer more wisdom and compassion.

Childhood: The more I remember that I am a being of childhood, that my deep inner sense of self was shaped by the experiences of nature, nativity, riches and relationships that occurred before I turned 21, and most before I said “I” for the first time, the more sensitive I am to others, the more profound my thoughts and writing become and the better I manage my demons.

Selfhood: If I am not shining my “I,” I become dull and my writing becomes dull.  If I am not bending my “I,” I become rigid and my writing becomes rigid.  Evolving my selfhood is a rigorous adventure.  It demands so much, just like writing and teaching demands more of me with each word.

When I let go of the five other experiences and write from my “I,”my evolving selfhood, I feel my authority, thrilling authority, and the curious thing is my experience on the reread. I wonder who the author was!

Exploring the six experiences of being human offer endless benefits to the soul and craft of the writer and to living our daily lives.  To celebrate the six ways of being yourself at Christmas, visit www.innerchristmas.com.