Speaker 1: I've put together these anthologies of poetry, gratitude, hope, kindness, connection,
Speaker 1: joy I feel like they're all just ways of feeling
Speaker 1: more alive and feeling more connected to yourself and to
Speaker 1: the world. And that's what we're looking for. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the one you feed Throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized
Speaker 1: the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is James Cruz, the editor
Speaker 1: of the best selling anthology How to Love the World,
Speaker 1: which was featured on NPRS Morning Edition as well as
Speaker 1: in The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. James is
Speaker 1: the author of four prize winning collections of poetry, and
Speaker 1: his poems have been published in The New York Times, Plowshares,
Speaker 1: The New Republic, and The Sun magazine. James also co
Speaker 1: founded the Poetry of Resilience Seminars. Hi James, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Hi eRx, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I am excited to have you on. I was telling
Speaker 1: you before the show. First and foremost, you're a poet,
Speaker 1: but second, you have compiled three of my favorite compilations
Speaker 1: of poetry, and so the work that you do has
Speaker 1: been in my life for quite some time, even before
Speaker 1: I really figured out that it was all sort of
Speaker 1: one person. So I'm excited to talk to you. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be reading some of your poems. We're going to
Speaker 1: be talking about poetry and kindness and gratitude and whatever
Speaker 1: else comes up. But we'll start like we always do
Speaker 1: with the parable. In the Parable, there's a grandparent who's
Speaker 1: talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear, And
Speaker 1: the grandchild stops and they think about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and they look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Yeah. Well, since I'm a
Speaker 1: fan of the podcast, I've been wondering for a while
Speaker 1: now how I would answer that question when it came about.
Speaker 1: The parable has been with me for a while. I
Speaker 1: think I first came upon it a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and I think that was at a time when I
Speaker 1: was actively practicing feeding the good Wolf. I had gotten
Speaker 1: sober and was really focusing on poetry, doing something that
Speaker 1: I really loved for a long time, but had listened
Speaker 1: to fear and doubt for a long time, you know,
Speaker 1: let that keep me from practicing it feeling like I
Speaker 1: was qualified enough to teach it or make the books
Speaker 1: that I really wanted to be making, to share poetry
Speaker 1: with the wider world. So the way that it speaks
Speaker 1: to me most, I think is for me, it's been
Speaker 1: a matter of choosing to feed fear and doubt, or
Speaker 1: choosing to move more toward curiosity joy, and that means
Speaker 1: usually being much more vulnerable and much more sort of
Speaker 1: skinless in the world, because I'm someone who has had
Speaker 1: anxiety his whole life, really struggled with being kind of
Speaker 1: open to the world and feeling safe enough to share
Speaker 1: myself with the world. And so that conscious effort of
Speaker 1: feeding the good wolf has been just moving toward what
Speaker 1: actually is more painful at first, the vulnerability, the exposure,
Speaker 1: and really allowing myself to be known at first through
Speaker 1: the poetry and then through teaching of poetry, through the
Speaker 1: editing of several books of poetry. I was sort of
Speaker 1: brought up in academia, and so it's not easy for
Speaker 1: me at all to lift up poetry that's more spiritual
Speaker 1: by nature, that focuses on kindness, gratitude, connection, joy. These
Speaker 1: are not always values, you know, within academia. It's much
Speaker 1: more focus on poetry that's more difficult, that can seem
Speaker 1: to be a bit of a puzzle for people. And
Speaker 1: so even the lifting up of accessible poet tree has
Speaker 1: felt like a risk for me over the years, but
Speaker 1: it's just become a mission and it's become my joy
Speaker 1: in life to share that kind of poetry, whether it's
Speaker 1: coming from me or whether it's coming from people whose
Speaker 1: work I really love. And again, it's that's stepping out
Speaker 1: into the vulnerability that I think allows me and allows
Speaker 1: us in general to feed that good wolf. The point
Speaker 1: is that it's not it's not always pleasant at first. Yep. Well, first,
Speaker 1: I am glad that you are choosing to make accessible
Speaker 1: poetry accessible, because you know, academia is academia. It appeals
Speaker 1: to a very small number of people typically. I believe,
Speaker 1: like you do, that some of these poems have the
Speaker 1: real ability to do wonderful things. So let's get them
Speaker 1: out there. We're going to talk in a minute about
Speaker 1: the value of poetry. But first, maybe this should have
Speaker 1: been obvious to me from your poetry, and maybe I
Speaker 1: suspected it, but I didn't know. Sobriety, is that something
Speaker 1: you're open to talking about? Absolutely? Yeah, yeah. Tell me
Speaker 1: just a little bit about your journey to needing to
Speaker 1: get sober was and what getting sober has been like
Speaker 1: for you in the process. Well, it's definitely been a
Speaker 1: process and been a very circuitous route over the years.
Speaker 1: I haven't had a specific kind of full blown addiction.
Speaker 1: I think Brene Brown says that she was addicted to
Speaker 1: taking the edge off, and that really resonates for me,
Speaker 1: like just using whatever you can to take the edge
Speaker 1: off of that sharp anxiety, that discomfort, that social anxiety
Speaker 1: of being around other people and sharing my creative work
Speaker 1: with the world. It's just never been easy to do
Speaker 1: any of that. And as a shy, introverted kid, I
Speaker 1: think when I first discovered drinking and weed and things
Speaker 1: like that, it was just such a relief, you know,
Speaker 1: that there was this thing that could sort of put
Speaker 1: up a barrier between me and other people or other
Speaker 1: social situations that felt really threatening. And so the journey
Speaker 1: towards sobriety, I would say, began for me probably when
Speaker 1: I went away when I was about twenty seven years
Speaker 1: old to Bogata, Columbia, just very randomly chose this place.
Speaker 1: I did not speak Spanish, I knew no one there,
Speaker 1: and I think I just needed to be isolated and
Speaker 1: needed to be in a place that felt a little
Speaker 1: risky to me in order to just get in touch
Speaker 1: with who I was and my deepest self. And I
Speaker 1: wore out a pair of sneakers just walking around the
Speaker 1: city every day, trying my best to speak Spanish, being
Speaker 1: laughed at you left and right. And there was something
Speaker 1: about that trip that planted the seed of not wanting
Speaker 1: to escape from my experience anymore, because the whole thing
Speaker 1: was really overwhelming. I was there for over a month,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's not like I saw the light
Speaker 1: suddenly and I was just sober from that moment on.
Speaker 1: But I think it planted that seed. And so when
Speaker 1: I got back to the country, little by little, I
Speaker 1: started realizing that, you know, taking that edge off all
Speaker 1: the time not only was affecting me and my relationships,
Speaker 1: but it was affecting my relationship with my writing and
Speaker 1: my poetry. And that's been a big part of my
Speaker 1: spiritual practice for my entire life. Poetry and writing have
Speaker 1: been the center of my life for as long as
Speaker 1: I can remember. I started writing poetry in the third
Speaker 1: grade because our teacher asked us to memorize poems every week,
Speaker 1: and I just thought I would like to write my
Speaker 1: own and memorize my own and recite them. As a shy,
Speaker 1: introverted kid who struggled with that, I don't know where
Speaker 1: that bravery came from, but I think it was just
Speaker 1: this inborn desire to share myself with the world in
Speaker 1: a way that felt right to me. And so the
Speaker 1: sobriety journey for me has been maybe a journey back
Speaker 1: to the bravery of that young child standing in front
Speaker 1: of all of his classmates and reciting something that came
Speaker 1: from nothing, that came from deep inside of him. And So,
Speaker 1: from your perspective, did you need help to get sober
Speaker 1: or was it something maybe just with a clear focus
Speaker 1: on what was important to you and people in your life,
Speaker 1: you were able to sort of just decide, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing this anymore. Yeah. Luckily I was able to do
Speaker 1: most of it. You know, I can't say on my own,
Speaker 1: because I did have the supportive family, really good friends,
Speaker 1: and a very excellent therapist to kind of help me
Speaker 1: on that journey. And you know, it is still a practice,
Speaker 1: it's an ongoing thing. And I've been sober now for
Speaker 1: a few years without sort of any relapses, I guess
Speaker 1: you would say, And that's been really key to my
Speaker 1: writing and to kind of fulfilling this intention of bringing
Speaker 1: poetry onto the center stage of the world, really lifting
Speaker 1: up poetry for other people. Do you think your writing
Speaker 1: has gotten better as a result of being sober, because
Speaker 1: often people are using substances for creativity, Like I know,
Speaker 1: when I used to smoke marijuana, I could write songs easier.
Speaker 1: It just happened easier. Now they may not have been better.
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to that question, right, I
Speaker 1: wasn't enough of a craftsman, and for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: that's a fear. If I stop doing this, there goes
Speaker 1: my creativity. And it sounds like, by the way you're
Speaker 1: nodding your head, you think it's been a positive for
Speaker 1: your creativity. Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean it's hard to
Speaker 1: say better worse. You know, I do know that the
Speaker 1: work is more clear, and that the work that I
Speaker 1: produce has a sober person touches a lot more lives,
Speaker 1: you know, it seems to resonate more with people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that's because when you're sober, as uncomfortable
Speaker 1: as it can be, sometimes there's just that clear connection
Speaker 1: with life, and there's that tuning in even if you
Speaker 1: don't entirely want to, even if there's still fear, anxiety
Speaker 1: and resistance, there's just this kind of tuning in that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen if you're more out it or if you're
Speaker 1: doing something that's kind of taking you away from that edge.
Speaker 1: I don't want to insinuate that, you know, it's an
Speaker 1: ideal for everyone to be sober, that everyone needs to
Speaker 1: be sober to be an artist. That's just my journey.
Speaker 1: But I think we all know when we're doing something
Speaker 1: to escape from the things that we need to face,
Speaker 1: and that's a matter of you know, feeding that good wolf.
Speaker 1: I think it's so much easier at times to feed
Speaker 1: the bad wolf. And you'll always find plenty of company
Speaker 1: to feed the bad wolf. You know, so much support
Speaker 1: from friends, family, even our culture. So sobriety for me
Speaker 1: is about feeding the good wolf and staying clear enough
Speaker 1: to just be receptive to the intuition and the insights
Speaker 1: that want to pass through us. Yeah. I think it's
Speaker 1: so interesting. The longer I've been in recovery and the
Speaker 1: more I've talked to people of many different stripes of recovery,
Speaker 1: from you know, really hardcore added to all across the spectrum,
Speaker 1: the more I've realized it's a lot of similarities, but
Speaker 1: there's also there's differences, you know, because when you talk
Speaker 1: about using drugs and alcohol made things cloudy for you,
Speaker 1: what was weird for me. Is the reason I started
Speaker 1: them was because it did make me feel connected to life.
Speaker 1: It did bring life alive to me, which is a
Speaker 1: result of having really deadened everything about myself, you know,
Speaker 1: in a very subconscious childhood way, right that I think
Speaker 1: that the only way I could feel anything was like
Speaker 1: I was a kleptomaniac way before I was ever an addict, Right.
Speaker 1: I just stole all the time. And it's not because
Speaker 1: I wanted stuff. I mean some of it I wanted,
Speaker 1: of course, but it was the thrill of it because
Speaker 1: I think that and breaking into places and just dumb
Speaker 1: stuff that I did as a child. I look at
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I think I was just trying to
Speaker 1: feel alive, you know exactly. You know. I love that
Speaker 1: idea of addicted to taking the edge off. You know,
Speaker 1: every time I started, it was like driving off the
Speaker 1: edge of a cliff. I wasn't an edge taker offer.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, blow up the whole room.
Speaker 1: But there's so much difference, and different people get there differently,
Speaker 1: and I have a lot of admiration for people who
Speaker 1: are able to stop like you have without having burned
Speaker 1: their life to the ground completely. Yeah, like, I really
Speaker 1: do have admiration for that. In some ways, it's harder,
Speaker 1: I think, because it's not quote unquote that bad, you know,
Speaker 1: But I think you were in touch enough with an
Speaker 1: inner life, I'm guessing to know, oh, this isn't right.
Speaker 1: Like the second time I got sober, my bottom was
Speaker 1: way less, but inside I knew, Okay, I'm out of control.
Speaker 1: This thing kind of has control over me. And so
Speaker 1: it sounds like you were tuned enough into your inner
Speaker 1: life to know something's off here. Yeah. I think I
Speaker 1: was really lucky to have that connection with an inner life,
Speaker 1: and to have had that throughout my whole child, in
Speaker 1: my whole life, and really to have people in my
Speaker 1: life who, even as I tried to deaden who I
Speaker 1: was and deaden that anxiety and all that fear that
Speaker 1: got brought up so often throughout my life, that there
Speaker 1: were people who were there to remind me who I
Speaker 1: really am. Teachers who saw who I really was, who
Speaker 1: praised my writing, or who said, you know, what are
Speaker 1: you doing, like you need to do something with this,
Speaker 1: you need to really pursue this, who kept kind of
Speaker 1: bringing me back to who I was. So I was
Speaker 1: lucky in that way but I think what you get
Speaker 1: at Eric is absolutely true that we're just looking for
Speaker 1: ways to feel alive. And I've put together these anthologies
Speaker 1: of poetry, gratitude, hope, kindness, connection, joy. I feel like
Speaker 1: they're all just ways of feeling more alive and feeling
Speaker 1: more connected to yourself and to the world, and that's
Speaker 1: what we're looking for. You know, we can use all
Speaker 1: these different words like mindfulness and under and awe, but
Speaker 1: it's that feeling of a liveness. And I think for me,
Speaker 1: since becoming sober and staying sober, what's been most surprising
Speaker 1: is that, you know, the feelings of a liveness, the
Speaker 1: feelings of joy are for often very very small things
Speaker 1: or very small moments that I normally in my previous life,
Speaker 1: the cloudy life, I guess we could call it, I
Speaker 1: would just be speeding past these things, going, you know,
Speaker 1: from one emergency to the next, without pausing to really
Speaker 1: take in looking out the window on a moonlight night
Speaker 1: and seeing the sparkle of snow and just being like, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, I am so glad to be here for this,
Speaker 1: and it's just a small thing. It's just a small moment.
Speaker 1: But I think when you put all of those moments
Speaker 1: together throughout a life. And when you have a practice
Speaker 1: of writing to hold onto and capture those moments, then
Speaker 1: they get to stay alive for you for much, much longer. Boy,
Speaker 1: there's so much in what you just said there that
Speaker 1: I want to touch on the very last part of
Speaker 1: that last sentence about a practice that allows you to
Speaker 1: hang onto those moments more resonates a lot with what
Speaker 1: a lot of more modern psychology is starting to talk about,
Speaker 1: which is this practice of essentially that how do we
Speaker 1: take these moments that we have that are good? You know,
Speaker 1: every life is filled with good moments. It's filled with
Speaker 1: blob no moments, right, and it's filled with bad moments, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, and every shade in between. But the good
Speaker 1: moments need to be first recognized, which we often don't do.
Speaker 1: But then there is an art, and it's one that
Speaker 1: I'm learning, which is to hang onto them a little bit,
Speaker 1: not in a clinging, desperate way, but in a way
Speaker 1: that they go inside me, so that they become part
Speaker 1: of an inner resource that I can draw upon, even
Speaker 1: if it's not necessarily always consciously. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: a writing practice like you have does that, and it's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I love poetry accessible poetry is
Speaker 1: that it teaches me how to look, because poets, when
Speaker 1: they're doing their best work, and the poets that I love,
Speaker 1: are seeing things that are right in front of me
Speaker 1: that I'm not noticing or seeing in that way because
Speaker 1: of habitual thought patterns, because of being busy, because of rushing,
Speaker 1: because of all the various things. And so I read
Speaker 1: a poem and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's how you
Speaker 1: can look at the world, look at that, you know.
Speaker 1: And so that for me is why poetry is really important.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. I'm working on writing for an upcoming
Speaker 1: book and it's not poetry, but what I have noticed
Speaker 1: is just the act of having to sit down and
Speaker 1: really clearly think about these things, they come into Sharper
Speaker 1: and Sharper focus, and the rest of life starts to
Speaker 1: come into Sharper and Sharper focus because I'm looking in
Speaker 1: a way that I'm typically not looking. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's a matter of training yourself. That is the beauty
Speaker 1: of writing. It's the beauty for me, especially using poetry
Speaker 1: that's so well suited to capturing some of these moments
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. I love what you said about
Speaker 1: the moments allowing them to go inside yourself. You know,
Speaker 1: I have this idea that we do store these moments
Speaker 1: inside of our bodies. We do keep them with us,
Speaker 1: and writing is a way to embody them further. I think,
Speaker 1: you know. That's why I do have a writing practice. Really,
Speaker 1: I use poetry as a way of being more present
Speaker 1: to myself and my life. And what you just said
Speaker 1: too made me think of an old teacher of mine,
Speaker 1: former US poet Laureate Ted Kuser. He has always said
Speaker 1: that if you can awaken inside the familiar and find
Speaker 1: it new, you need never leave home. Like everything we
Speaker 1: need is right here, we just need to bring fresh
Speaker 1: eyes to it. And I think that the act of writing,
Speaker 1: kind of getting outside of it enough to be a
Speaker 1: little above it, can help us bring fresh eyes to
Speaker 1: what we're seeing. That's great. I would love to follow
Speaker 1: that thread for a second, because I pulled out one
Speaker 1: of your poems. I think it's the poem called Beginner's Mind.
Speaker 1: But let me wake surprised each morning by the familiar
Speaker 1: call of a phoebe, tail feathers twitching with purpose as
Speaker 1: she purchases on the porch light and sings the same
Speaker 1: song over and over. And I do think that there
Speaker 1: is this challenge of how do we keep the very
Speaker 1: familiar fresh. I mean, certainly it's at the heart of
Speaker 1: my zen training, right, I mean Zen is just again
Speaker 1: and again, look closer, pay closer attention, and yet it's
Speaker 1: really hard to do. It's the same thing with gratitude, right.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people with gratitude it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I listed the same three things the last eight days.
Speaker 1: I'm just going through the motions now, and so what
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on writing being part of it? But
Speaker 1: other ways of keeping what's in front of us sort
Speaker 1: of fresh so that we're not always having to get
Speaker 1: the next thing, which is what our modern culture tends
Speaker 1: to very much be doing. It's what we're doing with
Speaker 1: our phones to a large extent. Give me something new,
Speaker 1: give me something new, give me some because the brain
Speaker 1: loves it. But you live in rural Vermont and your
Speaker 1: life is of a different size, And I mean that
Speaker 1: not pejoratively in any way, shape or form. I just
Speaker 1: mean a different size than the sort of stimulation that
Speaker 1: many people who may live in a city get. And
Speaker 1: so how do you keep things? It was a very
Speaker 1: long question. How do you keep things fresh and continue
Speaker 1: to see with the beginner's eye. Well, it's a challenge,
Speaker 1: I can tell you. I am a meditator as well,
Speaker 1: so I'm always going back to the cushion, and there
Speaker 1: are those times when it's just like here I am again,
Speaker 1: you know, doing the same sitting practice, focusing on what
Speaker 1: feel like the same breaths over and over again. And
Speaker 1: I do have these moments of being here with my husband,
Speaker 1: taking the same walks on the same dirt roads. You know,
Speaker 1: our lives here would probably seem so charming to someone
Speaker 1: in the city, but you can get used to anything,
Speaker 1: and you can really lose that sense of wonder and
Speaker 1: awe and freshness for the world as it is, especially
Speaker 1: during the winter, at a time when things seem less alive,
Speaker 1: when things seem less vibrant. So it is that training
Speaker 1: of learning to see small I think you have to
Speaker 1: just really focus in on what has changed in the landscape,
Speaker 1: what looks different. And my husband, Brad, who's lived here
Speaker 1: for his whole life, who pays attention deeply to all
Speaker 1: those small things. He's an organic farmer, so he's just
Speaker 1: kind of tuned into the natural world. So he's been
Speaker 1: a great teacher for me to really focus in on
Speaker 1: what's different or the things that you've never seen before.
Speaker 1: Like I have a new book coming out, poetry that's
Speaker 1: all kind of organized around wonder and you know, it's
Speaker 1: very related to the gratitude and kindness theme because it's
Speaker 1: still what we're talking about, that kind of being lifted
Speaker 1: out of out of your mind and being set back
Speaker 1: down into ordinary life to know that it's amazing again.
Speaker 1: And the little essay that opens the book talks about
Speaker 1: how he and I were on a walk last year
Speaker 1: along this trail that we always walk. You know, it
Speaker 1: was fall, the leaves were kind of coming off the
Speaker 1: trees that means winter's coming. So I was feeling a
Speaker 1: little depressed about, you know, the six to seven months
Speaker 1: of winter that we're on their way, and you know,
Speaker 1: just kind of resistant to the world around me. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, he's kneeling on the ground
Speaker 1: looking at this neon orange caterpillar that I hadn't even
Speaker 1: noticed that's just inching its way across the trail. He's
Speaker 1: pulling out his phone to record this caterpillar, and I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking, I still have a lot to learn about
Speaker 1: how to approach the world with wonder and so just
Speaker 1: being a tune to moments when I've kind of lost
Speaker 1: it and when it comes back to me, I find
Speaker 1: are really helpful because it's usually something small like that,
Speaker 1: it's something seemingly slight that really brings me back. And
Speaker 1: it's really, I think what you're describing in your own
Speaker 1: writing process. I feel it's true in mind too that
Speaker 1: I sit down to write every morning, I usually read
Speaker 1: a little something to kind of get the wheels turning
Speaker 1: in the morning. Mark Neepo is a great writer. I
Speaker 1: know you've talked to him a number of times. And
Speaker 1: then I just start in writing, and sometimes it's like, well,
Speaker 1: what am I going to write about? What do I
Speaker 1: have to say? And that sort of searching allows me
Speaker 1: to hone in on some of those moments that I
Speaker 1: might just have shrugged off, like oh, well that wasn't
Speaker 1: anything special. Yeah, you talked in the beginning about feeding
Speaker 1: the good wolf is willing to be comfortable sometimes and
Speaker 1: the moment you just described, I'm going to sit down
Speaker 1: here and I don't know what I'm going to write.
Speaker 1: For different people that's going to bring up different kinds
Speaker 1: of feelings, some more than others, but it tends to
Speaker 1: bring up a fear of failure to some degree, right
Speaker 1: big or small. It's uncomfortable. I don't know what's going
Speaker 1: to happen here, but you put yourself in that uncomfortable
Speaker 1: place long enough for some of the time something good
Speaker 1: to happen, right. You know. I'm finding that with writing practices,
Speaker 1: trying to do it in a diligent way, like Okay,
Speaker 1: here are the times I'm going to do it. I
Speaker 1: may not feel like it. I have got nothing else
Speaker 1: to say, my brain is blank. But showing up and
Speaker 1: then realizing and I have been surprised by what actually comes.
Speaker 1: I mean I have been genuinely like, huh. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying what I'm writing it is great at
Speaker 1: this point. I'm just saying, like, stuff is coming that
Speaker 1: wasn't there before I put myself in that uncomfortable position.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that's the joy that writers get is, oh,
Speaker 1: look look at what came. Look at what showed up
Speaker 1: that I didn't even know was here. Absolutely yeah, And
Speaker 1: I've learned to generate joy just for word showing up
Speaker 1: on the page. You know, it feels like a success
Speaker 1: just to write a little poem or a paragraph or
Speaker 1: a journal entry or something like that. If words show up,
Speaker 1: then it's great, you know. And I do the practice
Speaker 1: of morning pages that Julia Cameron recommends in the Artist's Way,
Speaker 1: where you just write a couple handwritten pages and a
Speaker 1: plain notebook and you just be really open to whatever
Speaker 1: shows up. And I absolutely resonate with what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I sometimes laugh at myself because I'll sit down thinking
Speaker 1: like I'm tired, I'm annoyed, I'm restless, you know, I
Speaker 1: haven't had enough coffee obviously, like nothing is going to come,
Speaker 1: nothing good can possibly come of this, because I'm just
Speaker 1: in a terrible mood. And then I just sit there
Speaker 1: long enough and be patient and just write freely without
Speaker 1: any pressure, thinking like nothing's going to show up, and
Speaker 1: then something shows up, and then I write in my
Speaker 1: journal like I was really surprised by that, you know,
Speaker 1: over and over again, you think I would stop being surprised.
Speaker 1: But I think we have this mistaken notion that maybe
Speaker 1: inspiration only comes when we feel good, or that you know,
Speaker 1: it's this shining light that comes down to us. And
Speaker 1: I think it's a much plainer thing that it's just
Speaker 1: this continual showing up, just like we do for each
Speaker 1: other in the world. You know, that's what kindness is
Speaker 1: to It's just showing up for other people, whether they're strangers,
Speaker 1: family members, your partners. It is a practice, and that
Speaker 1: means that by nature, it's just going to be uncomfortable
Speaker 1: sometimes joyful other times. And I often keep in mind
Speaker 1: what Elizabeth Gilbert says that anytime you embark on a
Speaker 1: creative project, fear is going to be in the backseat. Basically,
Speaker 1: you have a choice. Do you let that fear drive
Speaker 1: the car or do you just say, I know you're
Speaker 1: going to be with me, but you're not going to
Speaker 1: decide where we go. You're not going to get to
Speaker 1: choose the music. Even that you're here, you're a silent
Speaker 1: partner in this. And that's been really helpful for me
Speaker 1: because it just treats the fear as this thing that
Speaker 1: is going to be there no matter what, like you know, okay,
Speaker 1: here you are again, no big deal. You just gave
Speaker 1: me a funny image of that movie Plane, Strains and
Speaker 1: Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy, and I was thinking,
Speaker 1: my fear is kind of like John candy in the
Speaker 1: passenger seat that where he's like screwing with the levers
Speaker 1: and you know, it's just like, could you settle it
Speaker 1: down over there? But hopefully the funer will move more
Speaker 1: into the backseat. But you said something else that brought
Speaker 1: something to mind to me. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that I talk about in behavior change often is that
Speaker 1: we believe that the order of operation is you get motivated,
Speaker 1: then you do something. And while that is certainly the
Speaker 1: way things sometimes do work, indeed, there are other times
Speaker 1: that you have to get moving and then the motivation comes.
Speaker 1: And I think you were just saying something very similar
Speaker 1: about creativity. And I think the reason that many of
Speaker 1: us and myself included in this, get confused is there
Speaker 1: are times that it's quote unquote inspiration strikes yes, so
Speaker 1: off I go, Okay, just got an idea, Off I go.
Speaker 1: So that's what I think the process is. And while
Speaker 1: that is one way the process works, in the same
Speaker 1: way that I may feel like, oh boy, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go to the gym, I'm really excited about it, right,
Speaker 1: there's plenty of times I just get to the gym
Speaker 1: and then good things happen, and I think, what artists
Speaker 1: who make art consistently know is we have to have
Speaker 1: that second piece, which is the yeah, I show up
Speaker 1: and then good things might come. It works both ways,
Speaker 1: that's right, Yeah, And I think that's so wise to
Speaker 1: point out. I was just thinking the same thing that
Speaker 1: it's like working out. You know, very seldom do I
Speaker 1: say like, oh, I'm so excited, I can't wait to
Speaker 1: do this, and yet either you know, in the middle
Speaker 1: of it or afterwards, I just feel so relieved. You know.
Speaker 1: It's that idea of getting moving, getting into it, and
Speaker 1: there's something about that that gets the gears moving for us.
Speaker 1: And it's my mission really in the workshops that I teach,
Speaker 1: all the things that I do out in the world,
Speaker 1: working with aspiring writers to make writings seem like this
Speaker 1: plain thing that yes, sometimes the inspiration does strike us,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we can actually tell like, this is really good.
Speaker 1: I'm writing something, yeah, that really belongs here. And there
Speaker 1: are so many times I can't tell you that when
Speaker 1: I've written something that lived in a notebook for years
Speaker 1: only to be rescued later. And actually a poem that
Speaker 1: you mentioned, Winter Morning is one of those poems that
Speaker 1: I thought nothing of it for a long time. I
Speaker 1: used that to help myself feel better on a winter
Speaker 1: morning when I was feeling annoyed and depressed, and then
Speaker 1: only later realized that this was a poem that actually
Speaker 1: helped people. Well, there is some serious serendipity going on here,
Speaker 1: because I was just about to say, let's get into
Speaker 1: some of your poetry, and that was the one I
Speaker 1: was going to choose. So why don't you read Winter
Speaker 1: Morning for us? Winter Morning? When I can no longer
Speaker 1: say thank you for this new day and the waking
Speaker 1: into it, for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair,
Speaker 1: and the ticking of the space heater glowing orange as
Speaker 1: it warms the floor near my feet, I know it
Speaker 1: is because I've been fooled again by the selfish, unruly
Speaker 1: man who lives in me and believes he deserves only
Speaker 1: safety and comfort. But if I pause, as I do now,
Speaker 1: and watch the street lights outside winking off one by
Speaker 1: one like old men closing their cloudy eyes, if I
Speaker 1: listen to my tired neighbors slamming car doors hard against
Speaker 1: the morning, and see the steaming coffee in their mugs,
Speaker 1: kissing their chapped lips as they sip and exhale each
Speaker 1: of their worries white into the icy air around their faces.
Speaker 1: Then I can remember this one life as a gift.
Speaker 1: Each of us was handed and told to open, untie
Speaker 1: the bow and tear off the paper, look inside, and
Speaker 1: be grateful for whatever you find, even if it is
Speaker 1: only the scent of a TANGI arene that lingers on
Speaker 1: the fingers long after you've finished peeling it beautiful, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I want to ask a question that comes out of
Speaker 1: that poem, and it is the line the selfish, unruly man.
Speaker 1: I seem to be unable to ask a simple question
Speaker 1: today without a bunch of contexts. Maybe I always do that,
Speaker 1: but the context is. You know, when I got sober
Speaker 1: in AA, one of the key lines that really turned
Speaker 1: on a light in my head was that it said selfishness,
Speaker 1: self centeredness, we think is the root of our problems. Now,
Speaker 1: I think that that statement has a lot of truth
Speaker 1: in it. But I don't think it's the only truth.
Speaker 1: But I think it has a lot of truth in it.
Speaker 1: And you've written a poem called self compassion. Maybe we
Speaker 1: get to that poem right, and so there's this way
Speaker 1: of recognizing that, yes, I am being maybe selfish, I
Speaker 1: am only thinking about myself. I am being myopic, and
Speaker 1: so I'm going to call it that without then turning
Speaker 1: around and being like, I'm such a bad person. How
Speaker 1: do you navigate that, you know, using a word like selfish,
Speaker 1: which to many people sounds terrible. It's not one that
Speaker 1: bothers me. I actually think it makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: But how do you think about that? Well, it's a
Speaker 1: great question, and I agree that it's not always the
Speaker 1: most useful word. But I think in this instance, for me,
Speaker 1: I think of selfish often as being focused on our
Speaker 1: small self, you know, so being focused on the bad
Speaker 1: wolf in the context of the parable and the selfish,
Speaker 1: unruly man in me is the bad wolf that craves
Speaker 1: just that comfortable situation, the ideal situation, the perhaps stimulation
Speaker 1: that isn't coming on the winter morning that I'm describing
Speaker 1: there in that poem. You know, there doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be much going on in my life, and yet you know,
Speaker 1: I'm finding it possible to feel pleasure in watching my neighbors,
Speaker 1: in watching some of these simple things go on around me.
Speaker 1: Whereas I think selfish in a more positive way, is
Speaker 1: focusing on the larger self or tending to the kind
Speaker 1: of tender, gentler parts of ourselves that need that attention
Speaker 1: and that need that compassion, but without that kind of
Speaker 1: filter of focusing on the comforts and the easy parts
Speaker 1: of life. Yeah, I think that's really well said. I
Speaker 1: do think it is that focus on the smaller self
Speaker 1: and the focus on comfort and ease. I mean, for me,
Speaker 1: it's just this almost ruthless internal focus on how I'm
Speaker 1: doing and how I'm feeling. And you know, there's a line,
Speaker 1: of course, because a lot of what we're talking about
Speaker 1: is introspection in general. That's a good thing, having an
Speaker 1: inner life. You know, there's all this stuff, and my
Speaker 1: inner life can be a place that I absolutely drown
Speaker 1: in if I'm not careful. You know, it's good that
Speaker 1: there is one, and it's one that I need to nurture.
Speaker 1: But it is a they used to say in AA,
Speaker 1: your mind's like a bad neighborhood. Don't go in there alone, right,
Speaker 1: And as an early person in recovery, that was absolutely
Speaker 1: true for me, like any inner life I had was
Speaker 1: purely a destructive one anytime I went inside. But I
Speaker 1: had to go inside to recover and get better. So
Speaker 1: I think it is learning and I like the way
Speaker 1: you sort of said that, you know, where selfish becomes
Speaker 1: a more positive thing is when I'm learning to take
Speaker 1: care of myself in a deep and true way. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I just think it's an interesting thing to
Speaker 1: sort of always learn. How do I have an inner
Speaker 1: life without life becoming all about my inner life? I
Speaker 1: guess would be the way. Yeah, I would say it
Speaker 1: in a way. Yeah, absolutely, And I think of it too.
Speaker 1: You know, it's been tough for me to get to
Speaker 1: that sort of larger spirited self focus. You know that
Speaker 1: isn't quite selfishness because I grew up with a mother
Speaker 1: who had a lot of needs, who was for a
Speaker 1: very long time in her life. My father was also
Speaker 1: ill and died when I was very young. I was
Speaker 1: twenty years old when he died, and he was only
Speaker 1: forty three. And so I've had these parents who required
Speaker 1: a lot of attention and a lot of attending to
Speaker 1: and I was very used to looking after other people
Speaker 1: and not focusing as much on that in herself. I
Speaker 1: think in some ways it sort of forced me to
Speaker 1: have a richer in her life because I could go
Speaker 1: inside where it was safe and sort of tend to
Speaker 1: myself there but I had to learn how to really
Speaker 1: tend to myself in a larger way as well. And
Speaker 1: I think of the other poem that you mentioned, self compassion,
Speaker 1: that practice that felt so cheesy and ridiculous to me
Speaker 1: at first, calling yourself honey, or speaking to yourself in
Speaker 1: this gentle way, even putting a hand on your own
Speaker 1: heart as a recovering cynic. That all just sounded ridiculous
Speaker 1: to me and just now useful at all. But it's
Speaker 1: been such a journey to learn that. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: some of that wouldn't work for some people out there,
Speaker 1: but whatever, the expression of gentleness is that we all deserve,
Speaker 1: that we really need that, And I think if the
Speaker 1: pandemic taught me anything it was certainly that the idea
Speaker 1: of slowing down and being more gentle with myself and
Speaker 1: maybe focusing a little bit more on some of that
Speaker 1: self talk that you mentioned that can be so destructive,
Speaker 1: was really really useful. And I think that's been a
Speaker 1: real turning point in my own artist's life, is just
Speaker 1: quieting that inner critic and actually focusing more on well,
Speaker 1: what brings me joy, you know, if it ends up
Speaker 1: being published, or if this book or this idea ends
Speaker 1: up coming to fruition. That's great, but just not focusing
Speaker 1: so much on productivity or so much on getting permission
Speaker 1: from all the gatekeepers out in the world to do
Speaker 1: what we love to do. I love that poem because
Speaker 1: I laughed through it, because I was, like, I totally
Speaker 1: relate with this, right, And so for listeners, we're going
Speaker 1: to read a different poem in a minute. But talking
Speaker 1: about you know, in the self compassion world, and many
Speaker 1: spiritual teachers talk about, you know, how do you refer
Speaker 1: to yourself internally, refer to yourself as honey or sweetheart
Speaker 1: and or put a hand on your heart right, and
Speaker 1: like you I mean when I heard that stuff, I
Speaker 1: first came across that sort of stuff a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I was a short number of years sober, five years maybe,
Speaker 1: I don't know, and my marriage broke up and I
Speaker 1: was really heartbroken. But I also realized, like, okay, there's
Speaker 1: some things I'm doing relationally, like I need to go
Speaker 1: deeper with all this stuff. And so I stumbled into
Speaker 1: a therapist who practice what they called it then was
Speaker 1: inner child work, and it made me just want to
Speaker 1: use a valley girl phrase, gag me with a spoon. Right,
Speaker 1: Like I just was like this is just awful, like
Speaker 1: inner child, and no I'm not going to get a
Speaker 1: teddy bear and like all this stuff. But it turned
Speaker 1: out to be a remarkably helpful practice and self compassion.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to see the research these days that
Speaker 1: people at Kristin Neff have done on how effective we
Speaker 1: are with self compassion. You know, how much better it
Speaker 1: actually makes us. It's the second principle I teach in
Speaker 1: my Spiritual Habits program. And the reason it's there is
Speaker 1: because so early and so important is a I don't
Speaker 1: think anything improves the quality of our inner life better
Speaker 1: than just being kinder to ourselves, like we're with ourselves
Speaker 1: all the time. But secondly, it is sort of a
Speaker 1: missing ingredient in change that we can change and sometimes
Speaker 1: do change with harshness, but usually not for very long,
Speaker 1: and usually not in the way we want to, because
Speaker 1: true change is a learning process, and when we're being
Speaker 1: too hard on ourselves, we can't learn. So for me,
Speaker 1: it's gone from being one of those things that, originally,
Speaker 1: like you're describing, was this very cringey thing to something
Speaker 1: that I found to be revolutionary in my understanding of
Speaker 1: myself and my ability to function and change and be
Speaker 1: the person I want to be in the world. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I love how you talk about it as being an
Speaker 1: element of change, because I couldn't agree more. I don't
Speaker 1: think we can hope to change ourselves for the better,
Speaker 1: change our habits if we don't practice self compassion. And really,
Speaker 1: you know, on the simplest level, I think we have
Speaker 1: to sort of hold onto and let go of whatever
Speaker 1: doesn't work for us. You know, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get a Teddy Bear either. I'm not gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: do enter child work like that one is being shipped
Speaker 1: on its way and he's holding a handful of crystals
Speaker 1: in one hand, and all right, stop making fun of
Speaker 1: people like Crystal Bear, who have the crystals been blessed by.
Speaker 1: That's what I want to know. I think that self
Speaker 1: compassion for me has been a matter of just being
Speaker 1: with and honoring whatever comes up. And so the meditation
Speaker 1: practice has been really great for that because I've taught
Speaker 1: mindfulness over the years, and a lot of folks that
Speaker 1: I've encountered, you know, they really resist meditation because they're
Speaker 1: afraid of all this stuff, all these voices and all
Speaker 1: the craziness that can come up. And it's somewhat the
Speaker 1: same with the writing practice. I meet a lot of
Speaker 1: beginning writers who get frustrated by what's coming because it
Speaker 1: doesn't match what they thought should be coming, or it
Speaker 1: doesn't match the picture they had in their head, or
Speaker 1: you know, the direction that they were going to go.
Speaker 1: But I think this gets back to the practice of
Speaker 1: just surprising ourselves and really allowing ourselves to just embrace
Speaker 1: whatever arises. And that is the effect of continually showing
Speaker 1: up to the page For me as a writer, that
Speaker 1: I've learned to cultivate some joy in being surprised. That
Speaker 1: I sit down thinking, like if I do start writing something,
Speaker 1: I know exactly where this is going to go, but
Speaker 1: I give myself that leeway to just go in a
Speaker 1: different direction. And when I allow myself to be surprised,
Speaker 1: I just I find that the freshness of the peace
Speaker 1: just really comes alive. I think a lot of what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here is I'm going to force it
Speaker 1: into a lens so we can get to a poem.
Speaker 1: Here is this idea of human beings, and you've got
Speaker 1: a great poem that I'm going to let you read.
Speaker 1: So maybe you can read that, and then I'll sort
Speaker 1: of talk about why I thought this was a place
Speaker 1: to have it. So this is human being. The human
Speaker 1: part of us wants and needs and breaks, but they're
Speaker 1: being part sees beyond the bodies, aching joints and joyful
Speaker 1: noises to the open road ahead. The gravel is covered
Speaker 1: in a fine layer of snow and ice, with the
Speaker 1: white sun shining through a tunnel of pines like the
Speaker 1: unblinking eye of the source. The human part of us
Speaker 1: knows that if we keep going, we will slip and
Speaker 1: slide and fall down endlessly. But the being part says,
Speaker 1: so what and pushes us onward toward the light, since
Speaker 1: it knows there is no way but to move forward,
Speaker 1: step by step in our heavy boots. Yeah. I love that, Pullman.
Speaker 1: What I was thinking was a little bit along the
Speaker 1: lines of when we're talking about sitting down and writing, right,
Speaker 1: there's a human element of that. Right, there's a human element,
Speaker 1: there's a practice, there's a craft, there's a place I
Speaker 1: sit down, there's a thing that I do, And then
Speaker 1: there's a being element of the entire process, which is
Speaker 1: what being is and how am I seeing the world
Speaker 1: and what do I trust in, and those two seem
Speaker 1: to come together to me in some of the processes
Speaker 1: we're talking about. Yeah, absolutely, so, I see. You know,
Speaker 1: the human part would be maybe that smaller self that
Speaker 1: we're talking about, and the being part is this other
Speaker 1: piece of us, you know, whether we call it a
Speaker 1: spirit or a soul, but it also wants to be
Speaker 1: tended to. And so for me, the writing practice does
Speaker 1: bring those together. You know, often what I'm writing about
Speaker 1: is being grounded in the actual world or an everyday
Speaker 1: life that we all live in, and yet this other
Speaker 1: being part somehow has an influence over that, and that
Speaker 1: the exercise of writing from both parts becomes well, what
Speaker 1: can these everyday experiences teach me? You know? What can
Speaker 1: they show me? And how and every moment, large or small,
Speaker 1: become a teacher for me. That's how I see it.
Speaker 1: And I think it's not always useful to see ourselves
Speaker 1: as divided in this way. But yet there are these
Speaker 1: two impulses, these two twin impulses that exist within us.
Speaker 1: You know, the human part does crave that ease and
Speaker 1: comfort that we were talking about. But what I try
Speaker 1: to teach people when I talk about writing, I think
Speaker 1: we all have access to that being part. It's just
Speaker 1: that the human part gets in the way a little bit, right.
Speaker 1: It's a lot like the fear and doubt piece, you know,
Speaker 1: that fear of failure. But there can be no failure
Speaker 1: if the goal is to let the being part of
Speaker 1: ourselves rise to the surface and not worry so much
Speaker 1: if what we're writing is quote unquote publishable, or if
Speaker 1: it will even ever see the light of day. The
Speaker 1: goal really is to let this deeper part of us speak.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I'm a big believer in journaling,
Speaker 1: you know, writing in the notes on your phone, like
Speaker 1: whatever it takes for you to kind of hold onto
Speaker 1: some of these moments that we're talking about and let's
Speaker 1: that being part rise to the surface. There's this phrase
Speaker 1: that I think it comes from Anne LaMotte and her writing,
Speaker 1: but she talks about soul time, that there's this time
Speaker 1: that we step into usually when we're having one of
Speaker 1: these moments that's a lot deeper, you know, we find
Speaker 1: things kind of slowing down, pausing. Maybe it lasts for
Speaker 1: a minute, maybe it lasts for even less than that,
Speaker 1: but we feel some other part of us awakened. And
Speaker 1: I think poetry does that for us, you know, it's
Speaker 1: broken up into lines. It kind of forces us to
Speaker 1: pause a little bit more, and I think that's the purpose.
Speaker 1: It's just that little bit of slow down that we
Speaker 1: get to kind of touch in with our soul or
Speaker 1: you know, however we think of that. Yeah, that idea
Speaker 1: of these things being divided is sometimes helpful and sometimes
Speaker 1: not helpful. I think about in Buddhism, but Zen particular,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about the relative in the absolute,
Speaker 1: you know, and the relative being the human part. It's
Speaker 1: the day to day life. It's Eric sitting here who's
Speaker 1: at a computer and he's thirsty, and he's tired because
Speaker 1: they didn't sleep well last night, and all that stuff
Speaker 1: that is absolutely real and absolutely true and absolutely needs tended.
Speaker 1: And then the absolute is this, call it what you want,
Speaker 1: something beyond that, you know, something that is not limited
Speaker 1: in the same ways. You know, and Zen we would
Speaker 1: just say it's everything, right, it's the oneness, it's the unity.
Speaker 1: And I think it's easy to get hung up on
Speaker 1: one or the other. Now most people are way, way
Speaker 1: way hung up on the relative side, the human side, right,
Speaker 1: So that's certainly where we and our culture and our
Speaker 1: inclinations lean, But I think sometimes the being side people
Speaker 1: worry means they have to accept all sorts of crazy,
Speaker 1: outlandish ideas, and I don't think that we do because
Speaker 1: in Zen the term we would use as form and
Speaker 1: emptiness form being humans, emptiness being absolute, and we say
Speaker 1: emptiness is form, form is emptiness. It's one thing at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, and it's helpful to be
Speaker 1: able to move between those positions, you know, and acceptance
Speaker 1: of commitment therapy, they'd say it's psychological flexibility, right, the
Speaker 1: ability to see the world from my very human, small
Speaker 1: self perspective and to also be able to see the
Speaker 1: world in a different, more all encompassing way well, and
Speaker 1: to understand that there are going to be times when
Speaker 1: you cannot break out of that human religious perspective, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: because we probably know a lot of folks who are
Speaker 1: maybe spiritually inclined, who beat themselves up a lot and
Speaker 1: lose all that self compassion by thinking I've got to
Speaker 1: live in the absolute. I've got to be you know,
Speaker 1: one thousand percent present all the time, and you know
Speaker 1: that's a losing game because even if you're trying to
Speaker 1: be you know, ninety nine present all the time. I
Speaker 1: don't know anybody who can do that. I sure can't
Speaker 1: do that. If we could get to ten percent, I
Speaker 1: think you'd be an exceptional human because I don't think
Speaker 1: that's even the goal. To me, No, that's not even
Speaker 1: the goal. But you're right, there is a lot of
Speaker 1: spiritual somebody's probably coined this for eight spiritual shaming, you know.
Speaker 1: But back to the self compassion in the Spiritual Habits program,
Speaker 1: that's why it's there. I'm like, I don't want this
Speaker 1: program to be another way to feel bad about yourself.
Speaker 1: None of us need more of that, that's right. And
Speaker 1: same thing with folks who are inclined toward writing, maybe
Speaker 1: who want to try writing or some other form of creativity.
Speaker 1: You know, they just get to thinking like, well, I
Speaker 1: only have this much time per day. I don't really
Speaker 1: have time for that. You know, anyone that I know
Speaker 1: who's a practicing writer, poet, whatever, you know, they are
Speaker 1: not sitting down for you know, eight to nine hours
Speaker 1: a day writing and just you know, love or you know,
Speaker 1: all the words flowing out. It's a practice. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you can sit down for an hour to a day,
Speaker 1: I think you're doing pretty well. Because that's going to
Speaker 1: add up over time. And I think it's the same
Speaker 1: thing that I was saying Earli with some of these
Speaker 1: moments where we do feel that we're more present, where
Speaker 1: the soul starts awakening a little bit and just something
Speaker 1: gets stirred in us. You know, those moments will add
Speaker 1: up over time, and maybe those divisions that we're talking about,
Speaker 1: it's just useful to have those because it's good to
Speaker 1: name when you're in that experience. Yes, right, Like, just
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, I lost my mother and
Speaker 1: got to spend this really sacred week with her in
Speaker 1: the hospital before she went, and it wasn't clear that
Speaker 1: she was dying yet, so that piece did come as
Speaker 1: a surprise, but she was not well. And there was
Speaker 1: a part of me, let's call it the being part,
Speaker 1: that was aware, like, Okay, you want to be here
Speaker 1: for all of this. You want to hold her hand,
Speaker 1: you just want to radiate love as much as you
Speaker 1: can in this hospital room, advocate for her, do all
Speaker 1: of that. And then there was this other part of me,
Speaker 1: even in the midst of these dire circumstances, that was like,
Speaker 1: it's really sunny out there right now, and it's like No,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get outside and feel that son
Speaker 1: on my skin. Yeah. My mother is begging me, please
Speaker 1: don't leave. Yeah, and I'm thinking, like, I need to
Speaker 1: leave sometimes, you know, I need to practice that self
Speaker 1: care and self compassion piece as well. Well. It's funny
Speaker 1: that you should say that, because by the time they
Speaker 1: hear this, this will long have happened. And I pray
Speaker 1: to God it's long have happened, because my dad is
Speaker 1: in the dying process right now. He's at a long
Speaker 1: battle with Alzheimer's, and you know, he's in Florida, and
Speaker 1: my stepmom thinks and the nurses think he's in his
Speaker 1: last day or so. I'd seen him and made peace
Speaker 1: with that was the last time I was going to
Speaker 1: see him, and I was going to say goodbye to him.
Speaker 1: But in the middle of this, so I've got all
Speaker 1: that going on emotionally, right, and I'm like, are we
Speaker 1: going to get any time to watch, you know, Vikings
Speaker 1: on TV tonight? Even with that deep thing going on,
Speaker 1: there's still the normal day to day human concerns that
Speaker 1: come up, and I think part of a good life
Speaker 1: is looking at those and going all right, part of
Speaker 1: you wants that the unruly selfish part of me may
Speaker 1: want that now is not the time for that part.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to feel bad that that part arises,
Speaker 1: because it just does in everyone, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: this idea of as we're saying, sort of allowing yourself
Speaker 1: to be where you are with some also gentle nudging,
Speaker 1: trying to feed your better wolf a little bit. You know,
Speaker 1: as you were talking about writing, you know, and you
Speaker 1: were saying, like a full time writer who's really in
Speaker 1: it is going to get an hour or two in
Speaker 1: a day, right And for a lot of people, they're
Speaker 1: hearing that like, there's no way that's going to happen,
Speaker 1: which means maybe your opportunity to be a full time
Speaker 1: writer is not on the docket right now. I try
Speaker 1: and play guitar for ten minutes every day. Ten minutes.
Speaker 1: That's it, right, But it's an important part of my
Speaker 1: life and it doesn't have to go anywhere, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to become anything. But there is a little
Speaker 1: discipline to it, because what I realize is ten minutes,
Speaker 1: little by little, a little becomes a lot. I know
Speaker 1: that a certain amount of playing means that this is interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm tying it back to the human and the being.
Speaker 1: There's the human part is sometimes I say, Eric, it's late.
Speaker 1: You don't feel like it's sit down and play. And
Speaker 1: the reason I'm doing that is because I know that
Speaker 1: by doing that consistently enough, there are times that indeed
Speaker 1: the being will come through. Yes, yeah, I'll pick up
Speaker 1: the guitar and I'll start to play something. And the
Speaker 1: thing that happens to me that is so magic is
Speaker 1: something new emerges and I'm beyond the point of thinking
Speaker 1: about like, oh, that's things so great, or I've got
Speaker 1: to capture it, or I'm just in love with the
Speaker 1: mystery of like, well, look at that. Something new just
Speaker 1: showed up, and that's the being. But I got there
Speaker 1: because the human part of me shows up often enough
Speaker 1: for that to happen, but shows up in a really
Speaker 1: small way. It is not a big way. You know.
Speaker 1: The other thing I think we could offer to people
Speaker 1: is a writing practice of ten minutes a day can
Speaker 1: be something that is very sustaining to you in your heart.
Speaker 1: I think of it as creating a container, you know.
Speaker 1: I think that's what you're talking about, is you know,
Speaker 1: there's this sacred container, like I'm making this deal with myself,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to show up for ten minutes, fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: whatever you have each day for something that brings you
Speaker 1: joy and a chance to just let something transcendent pass
Speaker 1: through you, you know, without trying to hold onto it
Speaker 1: or be attached to it or I'm going to be
Speaker 1: a star from this. You know, it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be like that. But I think you're so right that
Speaker 1: that builds up over time. And I think it's also
Speaker 1: really useful to know that a little goes a long way.
Speaker 1: When I first started writing, that is what I would do.
Speaker 1: You know, my attention span was such that I couldn't
Speaker 1: write for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a
Speaker 1: time at a sitting, and the same with meditating, you know,
Speaker 1: just sitting down ten or fifteen minutes of that kind
Speaker 1: of restlessness was all that I could manage. Absolutely, And
Speaker 1: I think the more you create that container, maybe it
Speaker 1: stays the same. You know, it sounds like you're guitar
Speaker 1: practice has stayed the same for quite a while for you,
Speaker 1: but maybe it starts expanding too, if that's something that
Speaker 1: feels right for you. And I think the other thing
Speaker 1: that having that container, like knowing when you're going to
Speaker 1: show up each day even when you don't feel like it.
Speaker 1: It allows the being part, the transcendent to flow through you.
Speaker 1: But it also trains you to be available throughout the
Speaker 1: rest of your day. Yes, that happens to me all
Speaker 1: the time, because you know, I'll show up for my
Speaker 1: writing practice. Great, you know, three pages of journal writing
Speaker 1: that will never see the light of day, maybe for
Speaker 1: a week or weeks at a time. And then I'll
Speaker 1: just be standing at the kitchen counter and you know,
Speaker 1: looking at an old picture of myself and my mother,
Speaker 1: and then this memory comes out of nowhere that wants
Speaker 1: to be a poem, and I just stand there and
Speaker 1: write it and that becomes something. But I had to
Speaker 1: be trained to be available for that, to really pause
Speaker 1: to do that in between everything else, you know, the meetings,
Speaker 1: the laundry, the dishes, everything else that calls to our attention.
Speaker 1: I would like to have us move to another poem
Speaker 1: before we run out of time here. I'm thinking either
Speaker 1: enough or Weaver, natural silence, or any of those calling
Speaker 1: to you more than another. Right now. You know another
Speaker 1: poem I just wrote recently, I think would maybe speak
Speaker 1: to what we're saying. Would you mind if I shared
Speaker 1: that it's just a short poem. Okay, yeah, this one
Speaker 1: is called light and Dark. I do think it relates
Speaker 1: to what we're saying here, Light and Dark. Half awake,
Speaker 1: I lose myself in a pool of late morning sun
Speaker 1: and leaf shadows flashing on the floor outside my bedroom.
Speaker 1: What the Japanese call como rebbe light and dark held
Speaker 1: in the same container of a single moment, as we
Speaker 1: hold them in us learning to love equally, a burst
Speaker 1: of joy welling up like wind and the crowns of trees,
Speaker 1: and a sorrow that still weighs us down like stones
Speaker 1: in the shoes, like swallowed clay. Today, I stand here
Speaker 1: at the edge of both, knowing that if I want
Speaker 1: to walk in the light, I'll have to dance with
Speaker 1: the shadows too. I love that swallowed clay. Wow, I
Speaker 1: know exactly what that feels like. Yeah, that's grief, you know,
Speaker 1: that's despair, and that's anything that weighs us down, and
Speaker 1: that lump in the throat that we can't quite get
Speaker 1: rid of. And yet it goes back to what you
Speaker 1: were talking about with your father earlier, that the sorrow
Speaker 1: and joy can actually arise at the same time. You know,
Speaker 1: the inclination for both certainly arises at the same time.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's another ability of poetry that
Speaker 1: maybe goes unnoticed sometimes is that it can hold the
Speaker 1: sorrow and the joy at the same time. There can
Speaker 1: be a joy in noticing the sorrow and naming the sorrow,
Speaker 1: and that actually in and of itself can be a
Speaker 1: form of self compassion, you know, a way of holding
Speaker 1: those emotions. Right. You write several things about poetry that
Speaker 1: I loved from the introductions to a couple of these books.
Speaker 1: Poems invite us into a closer relationship with ourselves, each
Speaker 1: other and with life. To me, that's the heart of
Speaker 1: what spirituality is about. For me, is a closer relationship
Speaker 1: with myself, with others, with life. Zen Maaster Dogan said,
Speaker 1: enlightenment is intimacy with all things, right, It's just that closeness,
Speaker 1: that connection. And I do think poetry, at least for me,
Speaker 1: is a vehicle there. Yes, in my case, it's largely
Speaker 1: the reading of it. Although having been a songwriter, I
Speaker 1: mean a songwriter has some poet element, right, you do
Speaker 1: have words that go with your music. So the other
Speaker 1: thing that you say about poetry is that helps us
Speaker 1: dive beneath the surface of our life and enter a
Speaker 1: place of wider, wilder, more universal knowing. Yeah again, that
Speaker 1: being part of us, that deeper self that knows more
Speaker 1: than we do. I think poetry helps us tap into
Speaker 1: just intuition and instinct. And when I'm writing, oftentimes I
Speaker 1: don't even remember, you know, consciously, some of the things
Speaker 1: that I end up writing about, Like, you know, the
Speaker 1: poem I mentioned earlier about the memory with my mother
Speaker 1: and her holding me one night and telling me about
Speaker 1: owls and the sounds that they make. And I didn't
Speaker 1: remember that until I wrote it. It existed in this
Speaker 1: other part of me. And so I think that so
Speaker 1: many more people are turning to poetry because there is
Speaker 1: a hunger for contact with that wider, wilder sense of
Speaker 1: knowing that's within each of us, and we need ways
Speaker 1: of tapping into it that don't need to be mitigated
Speaker 1: by religion or you know, some of these outer structures
Speaker 1: of spirituality that don't work for people anymore. Writing is
Speaker 1: something that you know, if you know how to read
Speaker 1: and write, you have access to it. And I don't
Speaker 1: believe that writing is this special thing that's just reserved
Speaker 1: for you know a few select folks who are visited
Speaker 1: with inspiration. I think it's available to all of us,
Speaker 1: and so is that deeper knowing well, I think that
Speaker 1: is a beautiful place for us to wrap up on
Speaker 1: that very note that this is accessible to everyone. We'll
Speaker 1: have links in the show notes to where people can
Speaker 1: get to your website find your work. You actually teach
Speaker 1: and lead programs about. Maybe you wouldn't call it this
Speaker 1: writing as a spiritual practice, but you know, it's not
Speaker 1: so much about writing to become a great writer, although
Speaker 1: I think that's part of what you're teaching. It's about
Speaker 1: writing as a way of connecting more deeply with the world.
Speaker 1: So we'll have links to where people can find all that. James,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. This has been such a really
Speaker 1: good and deep conversation. I appreciate it. It's been my
Speaker 1: joy and pleasure. Eric. Thank you. If what you just
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