"We can never close our eyes to the world in the name of spirituality. This is the third eye through which you see, even while your two eyes are open." ~Mata Amritanandamayi
Visceral Self | Writing Through the Body: Week Eight Third Eye | Clearing the Sill of the World
Visceral Self: Writing Through the Body & other events below (manage/upgrade here to join!). All Zoom links emailed day of.
📝TOMORROW, May 23, Noon-1 PM Silent Write-In on Zoom (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
I can’t believe it, but I got to answer Sari Botton’s Oldster Questionnaire!
Aging Has Allowed Me To See And Claim The Power of My Own Survival.
Thank you, ! Now, for today’s Week Eight Visceral Self: Intensive for Embodied Writing post.
Many people meditate in order that a third eye may open. For that they feel they should close their two physical eyes. They thereby become blind to the world. But the fact is that the third eye will never open. We can never close our eyes to the world in the name of spirituality. Self-realization is the ability to see ourselves in all beings. This is the third eye through which you see, even while your two eyes are open. We should be able to love and serve others, seeing ourselves in them. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi
An interesting quote, I think—and new to me. I am grateful to have found this clear articulation of an idea I care about greatly, that we think of the third eye as a way of seeing that’s separate from our two eyes, when in fact it’s the opposite: it requires that we look through our two eyes—that we use all our senses, in fact.
This is why the study of creative writing, when taken up with some earnestness and a bit of real grit, can be so transformative. For in order to study creative writing in earnest, we really must learn to see the world outside of ourselves. No matter what it is we might wish to write about, we will never convey anything that adequately captures the strange truth of human experience—our own or anyone else’s—unless we can open our eyes and look at what is there, on the outside.
It’s the perennial paradox, an inescapable conundrum, especially for writers eager to share their inner truths, their thoughts and their feelings—or even just their lived experience. For when these inner truths, thoughts, feelings, or even lived experiences are shared without a firm grounding into the outside world from which emerged or the seeable, touchable setting in which they occurred, they can feel thin and flimsy, disconnected from what is real, and here, and now.
It can become, in a very real sense, disembodied.
So, while the third eye chakra may sound farther from the body than the other chakras we’ve explored, it isn’t—not really, I don’t think. Let’s see how it feels to you, and what comes out in the writing (last week’s throat chakra writing absolutely took my breath away—maybe the most beautiful week so far, but it’s impossible to say, it’s all been incredible).
Now, quick quick before we begin, two really fast updates—two writing, one personal:
On June 27, I’m teaching my first live workshop (on Zoom) since last fall—”The Feeling of What Happens,” on advanced techniques for writing to make readers feel something. All levels, all genres. Founding/paid WITDers receive discounted tuition! Codes will be emailed when registration opens on Friday (upgrade here now if you want to). This generative workshop will be hard work and great fun. Also, perfect chance to see if you like studying with me live and synchronous … because the live, synchronous version of WITD is finally be returning this September, in six-session segments!!
For anyone who is new, thank you! You can absolutely can jump into this embodied writing intensive right now, it is never too late, you can read the posts in any order and do the writing exercises in any order or not at all. You are warmly welcomed.
Billie has confirmed a date for Z’s adoption hearing, on June 7. We are joyful. If you don’t know Billie and Z, here’s the story they recorded together for me on Mother’s Day, in a post that gives the briefest background.
Week Eight Writing Exercise | Clearing the Sill of the World
Our reading this week is one of my favorite poems, one by Richard Wilbur.
This poem might be in my top ten favorite poems of all time, though I don’t even make those kinds of lists. But this one has so much of what I love in good writing:
concrete sensory detail that matters to the poem’s core meaning
a clear aboutness (not required of poetry, but this one is narrative, and the aboutness is there)
restraint (I plan to write a post on that this summer, when Visceral Self ends)
an ending that lifts off the page
emotional resonance
willingness to look at something ugly/painful without turning away and also without exploiting
deeply embodied language
Also, it’s simply beautiful.
And before we jump in—and especially if you’re new here (welcome! and feel free to skip ahead if you already know all this), each Wednesday Visceral Self post includes a close reading of a literary work, a restorative or yin yoga pose, a written meditation, and a writing exercises.
Additionally, 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 1-8).
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 is also curating playlists to accompany each week’s writing activities, for those who like that kind of thing. I can’t write to music—but I wish I could!
Now, for the third eye chakra.
I can’t wait to read your work this week.