My Medieval- Renaissance reptilian brain is zinging at your use of the word “ ordinary.” It referred to the fixed chants/ prayers in the Western Christian Mass that never changed while the constellation of the service spun around it. It’s the text Byrd, Bach, and Mozart grooved and riffed on, so your dead reckoning word choice powers feel extra-ordinarily spooky-perfect. To work! And happy new year, WITD.
Wow, thank you for these, Jeannine. I have never been a good daily practitioner but this year I plan to try. I did the daily incantation this morning, and Exercise One. Not sure if the idea was to end up with a piece mirroring You Begin, but I am sure that the practice was transformative. Thank you!
Remember that if you don't practice every day, you can just start wherever you left off, whenever you are able to start again. This is the central premise of WITD, always. And I love what you shared here! I could read Margaret Atwood's You Begin every single day and never tire of it, so to read work inspired by it is a pleasure!
Amazing exercises. Just finished three. Will finish the other two this week. I love what I discovered about myself and my writing. I hadn’t written poetry since I was a teen yet 1. revealed that lost side of me. 3. Told me I could indeed write a memoir.
I've been on a ten day bender of too much food, wine and people and forgot briefly who I am. Then I read these exercises and felt tears welling up. Something like coming home after being away? I'm not sure. But on Thursday, when my company is gone, I'll start here and breathe and write. Thank you once again for reeling me in to where I want to be.
Okay, I did the daily sensory incantation and that was awesome. I got a big smile when reading the "I am" statements after: "I am the man talking to cats." GAH!
So happy to hear this! I love the sensory incantation as a stand-alone exercise that continually reveals surprises. Thank you for sharing!! (the lampshade one is !!!)
I just checked out your Substack, so okay, now I get it!!! You are an artist--amazing. I was a Waldorf teacher and my husband was an art history major and gallerist. I really love the overlap between visual art and writing (all the arts, really, but I think I have the most experience with visual art as I have no musical training at all). Anyway, so glad you are here!
Thanks for taking a look at my Substack! I definitely relate to sides of both your careers. Your art interests must come through in your writing because it definitely resonates with me.
Love these, Jeannine! Thank you and HNY WITD! Cheryl Strayed’s The Love of My Life is one of my all-time favourite essays. I still remember where I was when I read it the first time, mouth agape in awe. Your exercise has planted a seed for a nature process to pair with a threshold memory scene. I’m excited to try it!
Jeannine, I love these exercises and am looking so much forward to trying them out. I have a small problem — I’m hoping you might have some ideas. I am mostly bedbound and I cannot leave the house. This means I’ve been staring at and describing the same trees and plants outside my window for many years now. I lack inspiration. Do you have any ideas as to how I can keep these exercises fresh and get new inspiration, without having to leave the house?
Oh, I do! I would go into the memory body--the catalogue of memory and/or imagination, and observe in the very exact same way as described in the exercise. You could start with the I Remember exercise that I teach and see how that feels, knowing it can also be used for imagined things as much as for lived experiences, and can produce wonderful results. You just observe the remembered or imagined environment with the same devotion, attention, and precision you would if you were physically there.
Try this one, Madelleine, play around with it and let me know how it goes. You can slowly graduate yourself from the "I remember" construct, but I recommend starting with it because it does focus your mind's eye in a precise way and lead to deep and wonderful results. https://writinginthedark.substack.com/p/the-uncommon-light-of-memory-pause
Hi Jeannine, I am continuing to work with your Ordinary Magic for the first week of this new year. Initially when I worked on exercise 3, I was uncomfortable and struggled to sit in the memory of a place that held such promise for me. But I stayed with it. Thank you for this.
A long, sloped and curved asphalt driveway
leads to a rain-stained plywood two-bedroom cabin,
with large and small single-paned glass windows.
Pink rhododendron blooms
attempt to cover rusted letters on the propane tank,
near the open carport with shelved cupboards and metal locks.
Around back, a workshop with the
smell of machinery and pegboard walls.
Below, a leech field for excrement.
On summer Saturdays,
the sounds of chain saws and cyclist chatter
and squirrel feet clawing the tree bark,
mingle with the musky smell of scrub oak,
and clean redwoods.
Inside, plywood walls with nail holes,
unfaded in spots where pictures once hung,
and thinning carpet from a decade of use.
A wood burning, red-bricked fireplace,
smudged with yesteryear black soot.
A U-shaped kitchen with wooden louver panty doors,
Just dipping my toe in the proverbial waters here. My structure is derivative of, not precisely akin to Margaret Atwood, but I rather enjoyed writing it.
My hand is a perfect cradle
For a sparkly, magical crystal
Cleaved with great effort
By heavy, powerful tools
From the shores of Lake Superior.
Centuries in the making,
A source of interest and intrigue
To my serenely calm rescue twins
Whose preferred posture is more akin to butterflied shrimp
Than active explorers of
The jagged, yet smooth, natural wonders of
Auralite 24 shimmering under
The heat of the blazing star that Made its very existence possible
So I might cradle it in my hand -
Not just a crystal, but a marvel of brooding potential
I love reading glimpses into all your other worlds. I am using these exercises as an ice breaker boat to create passage into the new year, moving slowly and purposefully as I go. So many wonderful incantations are surfacing. A favorite: “I am the shadow on a braid holding open a curtain.”
Thanks for offering so many new ways of seeing and being.
Hope your writing time is generative and fruitful, Jeannine!
Thank you so much, I started this morning with the daily incantation and the first writing exercise using the Margaret Atwood poem while listening to Bach's Mass in B minor. My brain and writing hand felt awkward, clunky to start with but that's just the muscles flexing and warming up, right? Noticed that someone else mentioned drawing/sketching in the comments - that's a new 2024 thing for me too. Even bought a book to help me learn, lots of different sketching exercises not dissimilar to your writing exercises as in developing a daily habit, focusing on observation skills and just having a go on paper. This feels like a new creative direction for me, a bit scary because it's new but exciting too. Thank you...
Oh my gosh what a beautiful reflection. All of this. And you know what they say about that intersection of what scares and excites us, right? Something about where all the magic comes from. Than k you for sharing this!
I can't wait to integrate the Sensory Incantation into my morning rituals and to sink int these five exercises, which, alongside participating in The Story Challenge, should get my muse up and dancing in no time. Thank you for the inspiration.
Amazing. Curious to see where it leads you. It's definitely cumulative. I sometimes do it during boring meetings. It can also of course stave off a panic attack. It's very versatile...!
Jeannine, what a way to start off the New Year! Thank you for your ordinary magic which is nothing less than extraordinary!!! The daily sensory incantation is a hoot as evidenced by my writing this morning I am sweat in my armpits! The simple, not so simple exercise was not so simple but I’m sure over time, as I continue, my skill level will develop. Sharing what I wrote. It might be a bit cliche but here goes:
Wow. Thank you for this, Lisa!! It's lovely. And yes, the precision of our observation (and the simplicity, I think) clarifies cumulatively. Try, when you are doing the sensory exercise, to let it be fragments, very plain but very precise. So plain you kind of bore yourself. Then put the "I am" on and see if anything pops. I am very curious to see how people do with that over time. I also like adding "I used to be" or "I am becoming" and moving them around.
Jeannine, I don't know if it's God, the universe or kismet that brought me to your substack but I am so grateful I'm here. Honestly, the couple of Wednesday weekly exercises I participated in and now with these exercises, this is more carefully curated guidance that I've ever received regarding writing that I ever received in my life. Amazingly, your everyday incantation is something I regularly do on my trail runs deep into the forest or up in the mountains. Now I just have to transform these meditative moments into writing. Thanks again Jeannine.
I love this so much. Yes, I used to do this kind of sensory observation while running, too--now I do it on walks. It is the essence of what we want to bring to the page, I believe, because it is alive, body-based, and real, and helps us to not write primarily from the intellect but to instead "see/sense" the story from a deeper place. Really glad you are here!
My Medieval- Renaissance reptilian brain is zinging at your use of the word “ ordinary.” It referred to the fixed chants/ prayers in the Western Christian Mass that never changed while the constellation of the service spun around it. It’s the text Byrd, Bach, and Mozart grooved and riffed on, so your dead reckoning word choice powers feel extra-ordinarily spooky-perfect. To work! And happy new year, WITD.
Emily, this is amazing. WOW. I’ll be digging further into this but just wow! Thank you!
Thank YOU!!
I've thought about this all day. I love etymology and history and coming across these kinds of tidbits just makes so much meaning come alive for me!
Me too! Connection creates its own meaning.
Right?!
almost spooky, Emily.
That's wonderful to be reminded of where "ordinary" comes from. Thank you.
Wow, thank you for these, Jeannine. I have never been a good daily practitioner but this year I plan to try. I did the daily incantation this morning, and Exercise One. Not sure if the idea was to end up with a piece mirroring You Begin, but I am sure that the practice was transformative. Thank you!
It is simple, really, these are gifts:
a towel warmer, a foot massager,
a gift certificate to a spa. A glass
tea kettle, a pottery mug. An
embroidered bookmark,
a necklace engraved with three roses.
Inside this house
is the love, blue
because it is winter, and beyond that
the trees are bare,
though the world still there,
alive and half dead
and the colors of every rainbow.
This is your life, which is
the sum of these gifts.
You are right to stretch their meaning,
let them smother you, let their
blue turn that of every hue: love.
Once you see these gifts
for what they really are
you will no longer have such pain.
You will know that the boys now men
you raised who gifted them, who filled
the glass kettle with your lavender
tea, who will have you choose massage
or facial at the spa, who want you to take
the time to wrap yourself in a warm towel,
you will know your work is done.
This is your life, these are your gifts.
It begins again, it has no end: love.
Remember that if you don't practice every day, you can just start wherever you left off, whenever you are able to start again. This is the central premise of WITD, always. And I love what you shared here! I could read Margaret Atwood's You Begin every single day and never tire of it, so to read work inspired by it is a pleasure!
Amazing exercises. Just finished three. Will finish the other two this week. I love what I discovered about myself and my writing. I hadn’t written poetry since I was a teen yet 1. revealed that lost side of me. 3. Told me I could indeed write a memoir.
Thx for these!
Wow. That’s so thrilling to hear!! ❤️❤️❤️
I've been on a ten day bender of too much food, wine and people and forgot briefly who I am. Then I read these exercises and felt tears welling up. Something like coming home after being away? I'm not sure. But on Thursday, when my company is gone, I'll start here and breathe and write. Thank you once again for reeling me in to where I want to be.
"Forgot briefly who I am." So resonant for so many reasons. Glad to be starting over with so many friends.
Okay, I did the daily sensory incantation and that was awesome. I got a big smile when reading the "I am" statements after: "I am the man talking to cats." GAH!
I AM THE MAN TALKING TO CATS. I actually AM THAT MAN, haha. I love this, Laura!
HAHAHA. I’m still laughing about this.
Me too. It's delightful! I love nonsensical things that act as unlikely portals to other things, too.
I see your cat talking man this morning, and “I am the yellow and white mouse with one ear and one eye!”
😆
I dipped into the Daily Sensory Incantation this morning. Loved the experience and will return tomorrow.
My fav - “I am the shadow of my pen moving on this paper.” (*kinda gave me chills!*)
Also: I am the deep breath I force myself to take.
I am the slanted lampshade needing a nudge.
So fun! - thank you 🙏🏼 Jeannine.
So happy to hear this! I love the sensory incantation as a stand-alone exercise that continually reveals surprises. Thank you for sharing!! (the lampshade one is !!!)
One of my hopes for the year is to do daily sketches. I’m now going to pair that with the daily incantation.
Shan, for your daily sketching, you might want to try this interesting technique of blind contour drawing! I think it's such a fascinating practice. https://writinginthedark.substack.com/p/i-prefer-drawing-to-talking-drawing
I’ve taught it many times. It is a great drawing exercise. It’s a good way to reduce fear of “messing up.”
I just checked out your Substack, so okay, now I get it!!! You are an artist--amazing. I was a Waldorf teacher and my husband was an art history major and gallerist. I really love the overlap between visual art and writing (all the arts, really, but I think I have the most experience with visual art as I have no musical training at all). Anyway, so glad you are here!
Thanks for taking a look at my Substack! I definitely relate to sides of both your careers. Your art interests must come through in your writing because it definitely resonates with me.
It's a perfect pairing. Both are about seeing, sensing. And articulating. Really cool!
I paired them today and it was like portal into awareness and presence.
Love these, Jeannine! Thank you and HNY WITD! Cheryl Strayed’s The Love of My Life is one of my all-time favourite essays. I still remember where I was when I read it the first time, mouth agape in awe. Your exercise has planted a seed for a nature process to pair with a threshold memory scene. I’m excited to try it!
Oh, yes, I still remember when I read it for the first time, too. It just blew me away. Can't wait to see what you come up with, Monika! xoxoxo
Jeannine, I love these exercises and am looking so much forward to trying them out. I have a small problem — I’m hoping you might have some ideas. I am mostly bedbound and I cannot leave the house. This means I’ve been staring at and describing the same trees and plants outside my window for many years now. I lack inspiration. Do you have any ideas as to how I can keep these exercises fresh and get new inspiration, without having to leave the house?
Oh, I do! I would go into the memory body--the catalogue of memory and/or imagination, and observe in the very exact same way as described in the exercise. You could start with the I Remember exercise that I teach and see how that feels, knowing it can also be used for imagined things as much as for lived experiences, and can produce wonderful results. You just observe the remembered or imagined environment with the same devotion, attention, and precision you would if you were physically there.
Try this one, Madelleine, play around with it and let me know how it goes. You can slowly graduate yourself from the "I remember" construct, but I recommend starting with it because it does focus your mind's eye in a precise way and lead to deep and wonderful results. https://writinginthedark.substack.com/p/the-uncommon-light-of-memory-pause
Thank you so much! Sounds good! I’ll check it out, thanks!
Hi Jeannine, I am continuing to work with your Ordinary Magic for the first week of this new year. Initially when I worked on exercise 3, I was uncomfortable and struggled to sit in the memory of a place that held such promise for me. But I stayed with it. Thank you for this.
A long, sloped and curved asphalt driveway
leads to a rain-stained plywood two-bedroom cabin,
with large and small single-paned glass windows.
Pink rhododendron blooms
attempt to cover rusted letters on the propane tank,
near the open carport with shelved cupboards and metal locks.
Around back, a workshop with the
smell of machinery and pegboard walls.
Below, a leech field for excrement.
On summer Saturdays,
the sounds of chain saws and cyclist chatter
and squirrel feet clawing the tree bark,
mingle with the musky smell of scrub oak,
and clean redwoods.
Inside, plywood walls with nail holes,
unfaded in spots where pictures once hung,
and thinning carpet from a decade of use.
A wood burning, red-bricked fireplace,
smudged with yesteryear black soot.
A U-shaped kitchen with wooden louver panty doors,
food-stained butcher block counters
and a brown glass front oven
with baked on grime from past Thanksgivings.
Isolated, far from the hustle and bustle
of city life. This place,
a diamond in the rough,
torn down to its studs,
a shell of what it once was.
After a three-and-half-year renovation,
rotted wooded steps remained in the clearing,
for a never built greenhouse near
the bedroom I would never sleep in.
Able to rehab only myself,
not him, not us,
this place, now sparkling,
was still a shell.
Some marriages don’t last forever.
Just dipping my toe in the proverbial waters here. My structure is derivative of, not precisely akin to Margaret Atwood, but I rather enjoyed writing it.
My hand is a perfect cradle
For a sparkly, magical crystal
Cleaved with great effort
By heavy, powerful tools
From the shores of Lake Superior.
Centuries in the making,
A source of interest and intrigue
To my serenely calm rescue twins
Whose preferred posture is more akin to butterflied shrimp
Than active explorers of
The jagged, yet smooth, natural wonders of
Auralite 24 shimmering under
The heat of the blazing star that Made its very existence possible
So I might cradle it in my hand -
Not just a crystal, but a marvel of brooding potential
Oh, I love this, Kathleen -- "Whose preferred posture is more akin to butterflied shrimp / Than active explorers" !!
I love reading glimpses into all your other worlds. I am using these exercises as an ice breaker boat to create passage into the new year, moving slowly and purposefully as I go. So many wonderful incantations are surfacing. A favorite: “I am the shadow on a braid holding open a curtain.”
Thanks for offering so many new ways of seeing and being.
Hope your writing time is generative and fruitful, Jeannine!
Thank you so much, I started this morning with the daily incantation and the first writing exercise using the Margaret Atwood poem while listening to Bach's Mass in B minor. My brain and writing hand felt awkward, clunky to start with but that's just the muscles flexing and warming up, right? Noticed that someone else mentioned drawing/sketching in the comments - that's a new 2024 thing for me too. Even bought a book to help me learn, lots of different sketching exercises not dissimilar to your writing exercises as in developing a daily habit, focusing on observation skills and just having a go on paper. This feels like a new creative direction for me, a bit scary because it's new but exciting too. Thank you...
Oh my gosh what a beautiful reflection. All of this. And you know what they say about that intersection of what scares and excites us, right? Something about where all the magic comes from. Than k you for sharing this!
I can't wait to integrate the Sensory Incantation into my morning rituals and to sink int these five exercises, which, alongside participating in The Story Challenge, should get my muse up and dancing in no time. Thank you for the inspiration.
Amazing. Curious to see where it leads you. It's definitely cumulative. I sometimes do it during boring meetings. It can also of course stave off a panic attack. It's very versatile...!
Jeannine, what a way to start off the New Year! Thank you for your ordinary magic which is nothing less than extraordinary!!! The daily sensory incantation is a hoot as evidenced by my writing this morning I am sweat in my armpits! The simple, not so simple exercise was not so simple but I’m sure over time, as I continue, my skill level will develop. Sharing what I wrote. It might be a bit cliche but here goes:
Fingerprints smear
The rectangular lenses
A rogue strand of blond hair dangles
From the left hinge screw
Yesterday’s make-up
Colors the nose pads tan
Let there be more mornings
Of yesterdays
Where my vision is
Fuzzy and frayed
Like tassels on my lap throw
Everyday I re-learn to how see
Wow. Thank you for this, Lisa!! It's lovely. And yes, the precision of our observation (and the simplicity, I think) clarifies cumulatively. Try, when you are doing the sensory exercise, to let it be fragments, very plain but very precise. So plain you kind of bore yourself. Then put the "I am" on and see if anything pops. I am very curious to see how people do with that over time. I also like adding "I used to be" or "I am becoming" and moving them around.
Jeannine, I don't know if it's God, the universe or kismet that brought me to your substack but I am so grateful I'm here. Honestly, the couple of Wednesday weekly exercises I participated in and now with these exercises, this is more carefully curated guidance that I've ever received regarding writing that I ever received in my life. Amazingly, your everyday incantation is something I regularly do on my trail runs deep into the forest or up in the mountains. Now I just have to transform these meditative moments into writing. Thanks again Jeannine.
I love this so much. Yes, I used to do this kind of sensory observation while running, too--now I do it on walks. It is the essence of what we want to bring to the page, I believe, because it is alive, body-based, and real, and helps us to not write primarily from the intellect but to instead "see/sense" the story from a deeper place. Really glad you are here!