“Every atom has an effect, however miniscule, on every other atom, so that to pinch the fabric of Time and Space at any point is to shake the whole length and breadth of it." ~John Gardner
Visceral Self | Writing Through the Body: Week Ten | Crown | The Words We Use
Upcoming WITD Events
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TODAY!! June 5, 8:30 AM Write-In (paid)
🕯️Wed June 12, 8 PM CT, Candlelight Yoga Nidra (founding)
🕯️Fri June 21, 1 PM CT, Celebratory Live Solstice Salon w/open mic (founding)
📝 Thursday, June 27, 5:30-8:30 PM/ CT Live Class on Zoom: The Feeling of What Happens: Advanced Techniques for Writing That Stirs Emotion
Join the Write-In this morning at 8:30 Central! What’s a Write-In? More info HERE or grab the link here:
We would love love love to write with you. (And many thanks to all who attended our last Write-In, it was outstanding!)
How strange it feels to consider an ending of sorts to this Visceral Self intensive, an experience that has, for me, defied the logical limits of a digital platform.
I feel, in my actual skin and bones, connected to all of you—here in these Wednesday posts, yes, but also in the vase of peonies on my coffee table, which need freshening, and in the upstairs bedroom as the girl writes and the bird batters itself to escape, in the backseat on the road north of Tampico, in a field just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, in a Zoom room doing yoga nidra together by the light of candles, in the sky without roof or door, spinning and flaring to the limit on an early June evening, in the dense hedge by the house, and at the hour when you can see that the angle itself is blessed.
What an honor this has been. I am so much more transformed than I expected. I am more real and more sorrowful, more awake and elated. I am prickly and soft and hungry and tired and turning my face to the wind in search of more.
I am most definitely embodied.
I am most definitely grateful.
The crown chakra is, in essence, about the interconnectedness between us and the world.
Most of you have heard that Z’s adoption hearing and celebration is this week, after Billie’s two-year journey of fostering (for new readers,
is my youngest adult child, and Z is our youngest grandchild, officially as of Friday).
When Z spends the night with me, I sleep with him in the spare room. We run one of those little white noise machines everyone has now, and it hums mightily as Z’s breath moves smoothly in and out of him, his little mouth sealed in a relaxed pout. That I can barely hear his breath against my ear is a miracle provided by his tonsil and adenoid surgery last summer. Breath in, breath out. His eyes move beneath his smooth brown eyelids and I place my hand lightly on his chest, which rises and falls. I breathe in and and out along with him. At three, Z is still a baby, really. He came from stars. His landing was hard—as all Earth landings are, in one way or another. Right now, I am with him. He likes to look at the many family photos that line our walls and shelves—some from before he was born, let alone with us. He points them out. That’s me, he’ll say about a baby picture of our oldest granddaughter taking tentative early steps on a March sidewalk, holding hands between Billie and me. That’s Nana, B, and me! He’ll point to the photo again, harder. See Nana? That’s me. He’s securing his place in a world he senses might be larger and more complicated than he’s been told. Yes, I always say. I see you. And I do see him, just as I see him lying beside me in the bed. I see Billie, too—I see them and feel their toddler self curled alongside Z in the hollow of my center, their uncombed hair matted victoriously around their round, flushed face. Beneath this hologram of Billie is their older brother, so cozy in the same striped rugby suit he wore all day, his giant cloth diaper mounding like a turtle’s shell over his backside. Beneath him, the firstborn—so easy in her infancy, as if she knew already the limits of my youth and inexperience. Now, Z stirs, stiffens, rolls. When he softens again, I soften, too, through the layers of his life and mine, the histories we share and can never share. We drift in the white noise of wind and waves and a whole world we know is actually no larger or more complicated than this exact moment.
Before we dive more fully into this week’s work, if you are new here (as many of are still thanks to my Oldster interview!), this How To Write in the Dark post will help you find your way around. (If you’re not new and you already know everything I’m about to say about the immersive meditation guide, you can skip to the next section).
If you don’t already know, Billie Oh has created an ever-expanding catalogue of Visceral Self audio and video offerings, now collated as a stand-alone post for founding members and provided as an easy button on every Visceral Self post, like this:
Resources in the Founding Member Immersive Meditation Guide include the whole set for the intensive so far (so for now, resources for Weeks 1-9).
Usually Billie offers video instructions on pose options and they always read the week’s poem/excerpt out loud, along the abridged version of the writing exercise, so that you can listen to both while you are in yoga pose and write immediately afterward. If you’re not using Billie’s audio, you can read the writing exercise/prompt a couple of times to yourself (out loud) before settling into the pose (if you are doing the pose), then write immediately when you come out of the pose.
Finally, Billie also curates playlists to accompany each week’s writing activities.
Week Ten Writing Exercise | The Words We Use
Our reading this week is a poem I love by Ada Limon—one that captures an unsentimental truth about the crown chakra, a truth that respects our varied human experience of the world and our place in it, that captures the interconnectedness among and between things.
Some things I love about this week’s reading are:
its inventive title and the way title intersects with meaning
the graceful weaving of concrete sensory detail in ways that suggest but do not force metaphor
the use of disagreement as an axis of meaning
precise observations of the natural world
specificity of time and character
acknowledgment of connection that invites but does not insist
an ending that lifts off the page
I’m excited to talk about this poem in more detail with you all! As always, we’ll do a close reading of Limon’s poem, accompanied by a crown chakra meditation and an embodied crown chakra writing exercise.