Mindfulness & Writing from "Deliberate Inattentiveness"

My kismetic discoveries in the blogosphere continue.

I have been on a personal quest to reconnect with what Buddhists call a state of mindfulness. The short definition might be: Living in the here and now. However, there is much more to it. I am sure I'll soon be visited by words to explain my life-long relationship with mindfulness and they will serve as a post here--more ramblings on my own state of being. For now, I will just say that mindfulness is the human state into which I was born. But, by adulthood, the mindfulness had been ridiculed and punished out of me. Western, at least American, social institutions (schools, families, employers) tend to reject the placidity of mindful people. The mindful ones just don't take things seriously enough; they are not worried enough about the future; they don't show enough fear.

Anyway, today I came across the Guardian Unlimited Poetry Workshop. This site sponsors a monthly opportunity to have one's poetry critiqued by a published author; it is described this way:

Want to have your work reviewed by a published poet?

Every month, our poetry workshop is hosted by a different poet who sets an exercise, chooses the most interesting responses and offers an appraisal of them. That's the hard part taken care of - all you need to do is start writing ...

January 2008 offers a workshop challenge from author Jean Sprackland, rooted in action/motion and mindful observation. This is what Sprackland suggests:

[Sprackland] A few years ago I spent some time at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig in Ireland, with a diverse group of artists, writers, musicians and dancers. I struck up a friendship with an artist called Joanna Kidney, who was making a series of exquisitely beautiful prints based on her observations of the natural world. Joanna described how she would start work every day by walking with a small sketchbook in her hand. She felt that the very act of carrying the sketchbook made her more observant. Whenever she noticed something, she would stop and sketch roughly for a minute or two without even looking at the page, keeping her gaze fixed on the sky, leaf, water or whatever it was. Then she would turn the page and move on.

I decided to try deliberate inattentiveness as a way of starting poems. Almost all the writing we do in our lives is so careful - and nothing demands greater carefulness than the drafting and crafting of a poem. But that comes later: at the beginning what's required is the chaotic, subversive, irrational yet often brilliantly lucid potential of the subconscious, and to get to that you have first to trick the conscious brain into relaxing its control-freak tendencies.

There's a practical side to this, too. If I'm not writing, and can't write, no amount of time spent sitting at my desk will help, but walking can often break the deadlock. When the poem won't come to me, I must go to the poem.

So after the excesses of Christmas, here's a simple way to cleanse the palate and get writing again:

Take a walk. It doesn't matter where: somewhere new or familiar, urban or rural. Go out for at least half an hour, to give yourself time to relax into it and stop thinking of it as a writing exercise. Have a small sketchbook in your hand, and a pencil.

Whenever you notice something, pause. Look, listen, experience it. Then open the sketchbook and write, carelessly and quickly, for a minute or so. You probably won't be able to write without looking at the page, but do not read back as you write, and neither think nor reflect. Keep focused on the thing itself, and try to let the writing be something that happens, rather than something you're doing.

As soon as the writing stops, flip the page and walk on. Find the next place to stop and write again. Aim to write something on five or six pages before you go home.

Leave the scraps of writing - your sketches - shut firmly in the book for at least 24 hours. Then you can read them (if they're legible!) and start to work with them. They are the raw material for some poetry experiments. You are not obliged to use all of it, and you are allowed to add, change and take any liberties you wish. The important thing at this stage is to move away from the original experience - the walk - and begin to transform the material in some way, however small or subtle.

The challenge continues on, providing instructions for submissions, etc.
Read the complete details for the Guardian Unlimited January 2008 Workshop here: http://books.guardian.co.uk/poetryworkshop/story/0,,2240640,00.html

I am not sure that I will be submitting anything. But, I am sure that what Sprackland suggests is worthy, wise. We could all use to step outside of our incessant minds and travel a path of "deliberate inattentiveness", giving our subconscious wisdom a chance to be our guide.

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Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Trees-sky.jpg