A Creative Pact - Honouring The Muse

 Australian Aborigines say that the big stories—the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life—are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush.

Robert Moss, Dreamgates

Ideas come and go, flitting in and out of our minds. In order to realise these ideas they must be grounded. As Julie Cameron explains, ‘art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite - getting something down.’  For me, it is usually enough to keep a journal in which to note a dream, a connection, a description, a quote. . .  anything to provide an anchor for my fleeting inspirations. But I have been guilty of neglecting my journal, believing that I would remember the ideas that came through the dreams that permeated my restless nights, or while walking on the promenade here in Aberystwyth, listening to the crash of the waves and the cries of the gulls. For a time the ideas came as they always have but I didn’t ground them and after a while they stopped coming because I had stopped listening. I forced myself to keep writing, not my novel, but other projects that demanded my attention. However, the flow had stopped, so that I was giving without receiving and in so doing, depleting myself. At first I just felt drained of enthusiasm which should have been a clear warning signal because enthusiasm, a term that originally meant an inspired connection to God, is a vital part of creativity. After a while I became fatigued and emptied of vitality. Instead of joy and vigour I found myself caught up in a deadening and monotonous day-to-day routine. And finally I began questioning my calling as a writer.

There have been a number of times in my life when I’ve questioned my reasons for writing but until recently I have never doubted that writing is my path in life, the form of expression best suited to me. This doubt proved to be a wake-up call, alerting me to the process that had been subtly eroding my creativity over many months. Since then, I have followed the advice I gave myself in my previous post and found a way to re-engage with my novel-in-progress. It is a tentative return though, a fragile agreement between me and my muse, and one that could be broken again at any time if I don’t keep my end of the bargain. And a bargain it is. For in turning my back on this novel I have, in a sense, betrayed the responsibility I carry as a creator of stories, a responsibility that entails being present for the creative process. . . listening. . . trusting. . . making notes. . . following the clues. . . asking questions. . . and looking at the world through seeing eyes. As Julie Cameron explains, ‘in dance, in composition, in sculpture, the experience is the same: we are more the conduit than the creator of what we express.’ To a certain extent then, our creative expressions are gifts but in order to receive them we must remain open (see Giving and Receiving). If we turn away we lose our connection and break our agreement.

At certain stages of the creative process, solitude and silence are vital. We descend into a quiet place within ourselves where we take stock and gather our energy, all the time listening and watching, waiting for our inspiration. I am reading a good deal now, both fiction and non-fiction, nourishing myself with the creations and ideas of others. I am walking too, more slowly, relishing the quiet and taking time to notice everything around me, to wonder at the mysteries of life, pausing joyfully in front of a bed of flowers, and watching intrigued as a bird gathers twigs for its nest. It will take time to refuel but I am on the way. Once again I am carrying my journal with me and already I can feel the excitement of unexpected links and the rewarding back and forth movement between my journal and the novel, as one inspiration inspires another.  As the process continues, a sense of playfulness grows, a tuning in to the imagination and a willingness to let go of expectations and allow surprises. Creativity demands this playfulness, allowing us to make the necessary leap into the unknown and retrieve our story (see Coming Unstuck). Ben Okri speaks of the ‘marriage between play and discipline, purpose and mastery,’ a marriage that produces ‘the wonders of literature’. For me this 'marriage' represents a perpetual movement between the heart and the head and the intuitive and the rational as I seek to maintain a harmonious balance between the art and the craft of writing.

Storytelling is a sacred skill and sometimes it is hard to meet its demands. The process is one of alchemy, taking the raw material and transmuting it into gold, finding the essence of meaning, exploring truth through metaphor and building bridges with words that will paradoxically enable us to escape the very limitations of words.  As in alchemy, the process is not purely technical. There is something else, a tremendous change that must be brought about within the alchemist or the story teller. In The Philosopher’s Stone, Peter Marshall writes that ‘at all times an inextricable link was recognised between the personal growth of the alchemist and the development of his experiments. Ultimately the alchemist is the subject and object of his own experiment.’ As with alchemy, a story always leaves its mark on the teller. Both writers and readers emerge changed but for writers that change is usually fundamental and the process sometimes frightening. For as novelist, Maria Szepes writes in The Red Lion, ‘by the laws of alchemy something has to die and decay before it can rise.’ If we deny the creative process, then we deny change and in so doing we deaden ourselves to life. But if we accept change we step into the unknown and while ultimately rewarding, it is not a safe journey and it is rarely easy.

In his essay, The Joys of Storytelling, Ben Okri describes ‘two essential joys. . . the joy of the telling, which is to say of the artistic discovery. And the joy of listening, which is to say of the imaginative identification . . . The first involves exploration and suffering and love. The second involves silence and openness and thought.’ As I make small forays into my novel, reacquainting myself with the characters, building scenes and developing themes, I find myself immersed once again in ‘the joy of the telling’. I can only hope that I am have been stalked by a ‘big story’, one that is ‘worth telling and retelling’.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

The Alchemy of Story: Initiation, Transformation, Revelation

'The journey into the Underworld is nothing less than a voyage into the heart of Being.’

Peter Marshall, The Philosopher’s Stone

 When I finished my PhD last year, along with the expected sense of completion, came a building excitement because already I could feel the tug of future journeys; new directions in my research were piling up, luring me to explore ever more widely and deeply.  I felt as if I had only just begun my research journey and this is a feeling I still carry with me; constant and tantalizing it speaks of knowledge just out of my reach, of further personal journeys I must take in my writing and my life, revelations that will transform my perceptions and my self. For the knowledge gained through reading isn’t enough. It must also be ‘realised’ in some way, taken in and understood in our hearts and through experience. Research is a fusion of reading and experience, it is something we must live. As Paolo Coehlo wrote in The Alchemist, ‘There is only one way to learn. . . It’s through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.’ Each of us is on a personal journey that links to but doesn’t follow exactly, the paths of those who have come before.  And each journey is an initiation of sorts, the plunging into darkness that is necessary in order to find the light.

 I have been reading Lindsay Clarke’s The Water Theatre, a beautiful and profound novel that explores this initiatory process. In it, Clarke refers to the Way of the Fool, a way that is sometimes hard and dangerous because it is a spiritual quest undertaken ‘without the protection and discipline that comes from membership of an order’. ‘On such a way one can get lost very easily. One can come to harm,’ warns a priest in the novel. Despite the difficulties and dangers of this path, for many of us this is the only way. With this choice comes an understanding that there is never just one journey, that each initiation leads us to another place from which we must plunge again into the depths as we seek the light. As Clarke writes, ‘though the journey is always inward, the outer journey – down and through and out again – is indispensable, for it is down there, in the darkness of the underworld that the sun at midnight shines.’

 Although I’ve already mentioned this in some of my earlier posts, I want to explore a little further the way in which mystical initiation can be mirrored in the structure of story and the inner journey of character. Initially it was my interest in the therapeutic nature of story that led me to explore the roots of and nature of shamanism. Unexpectedly, threads of my research began to appear in my novel in the form of references to shamanism and to the process of initiation that candidates are forced to undertake in order to become shamans. However, it wasn't until much later that I began to understand the shamanic journey as a metaphor for something that was reflected in the very shape of Flight, as well as in my own personal journey during the writing of it.

 According to Jungian analyst, Donald F Sandner in Sacred Heritage: The Influence of Shamanism on Analytical Psychology, 'the basic shamanic pattern is not a manifestation of a certain culture but rather an archetype, a constant and universal part of the human psyche'. Anthropologist, Joan Halifax refers to shamanic initiation as a metaphysical voyage, while Jung saw the patterns in shamanism as a metaphor for the process of individuation. These patterns are implicit in the structure of most stories: the symbolism of death and mystical resurrection, descent to the underworld, followed by magical flight. It is a turning away from what is known and a stepping into the unknown. It is a call to change and to adventure. To deny the opportunity for adventure is to deny life and in so doing to restrict the growth of the soul. 

 Religious historian Mercea Eliade, studied shamanism and myth and drew strong parallels across many cultures, parallels which are useful for exploring the relationship between shamanism and story. Of particular interest is his map of the structure of the shaman's world and the way in which shamanic journeying mirrors the structure of narrative. In shamanism there is usually an upper, middle and lower world, which mirrors the selves or the layers of the psyche. The middle world is the world we recognise, the world of ordinary events. The lower world or underworld is associated with death and shadow, as well as dangerous spirits and in Christianity is generally considered hell. The upper world is associated with light and ascension, it is 'the realm of transcendent consciousness' a realm that Christianity refers to as heaven. Crucially, however, one can only access the higher world through the lower world. We cannot ignore or bury what lurks in our depths without becoming weighed down, too heavy for the required ascent.  It is possible then, to extend this idea of an upper, middle and lower world to the structure of narrative, with the protagonist beginning in the middle world, journeying into the underworld, then, if the necessary lessons are learned, ascending to the upper world, before returning once again to the middle world to share his or her rewards.

 In Flight, Fern's journey is an initiation. I used the term shamanism and indeed, Fern's initiation pattern is very similar: a sickening, followed by a loss of self, then a journey into the underworld to face one's demons, followed by a regaining of power and flight. However, this is the journey of the soul and does not need to be labelled as a shamanic journey. When Fern expresses a discomfort about shamanism, Cassie tells her that it is just one of many paths, all of which bring you to the same place, your self. 'A shaman,' she says, 'is just someone who has healed themselves and because of this, they can heal others.'

 Following my instincts and the needs of the novel I am currently writing, my research has led me to begin exploring mystical initiation through the ages, in particular alchemy which can be interpreted on both a literal (physical) level and a metaphorical (spiritual) level. In The Philosopher’s Stone, Peter Marshall explains that ‘first and foremost alchemy is the art of transformation’ and goes on to describe the alchemical process as mirroring ‘the stages of the integration and realisation of the self’, something which Jung identified in his own studies of the art of alchemy. The parallels between shamanism and alchemy were immediately clear, as were the parallels between alchemy and story. In story, the external plot mirrors the inward transformation of character; in alchemy ‘the transmutation of external matter mirrors the inward transformation of the soul.’

 Initiation, Transformation, Revelation is a fundamental part of the alchemical process and something that is repeated again and again in our lives and our stories. The writing of a novel can also be an initiation of sorts, changing us fundamentally, as has happened to me with each of my books. In the preface to his novel, The Chymical Wedding, Lindsay Clarke describes the writing process as a discovery that a book about alchemy also needed to be a ‘work of alchemy’.  He writes, ‘I soon found myself getting lost again and again, like the alchemists before me, inside a bewildering labyrinth of images, as both the book and the author underwent a sometimes gruelling process of transformation.’ There are many ways to self, just as there are many paths to writing a novel. For each there are a multitude of guides, mentors and techniques acting as the threads to help us find our way blindly through the labyrinth, following the Way of the Fool in order to become ourselves.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Digging Deep: Writing Character

'Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.'

C. G. Jung

Secrets are fertile ground for writers because they lie at the very heart of character. Conjuring images of dark musty cupboards rattling with bones, and of snakes slithering through wood piles, secrets are framed in silences. Adept at creating conflict, secrets are embedded within personal and family stories; the unspoken, the prohibited, the places we fear to tread. When these secrets are released they strike us at our core, but then most likely we will end up asking: So what? Was that all? You see, the danger of secrets so often lies not in their content but in their very existence. Secrets have a way of passing down from one generation to the next, growing, deepening, poisoning; the silences around them creating gaping chasms between people and between generations. Sometimes we accidentally stumble over a secret but generally it takes courage to chase one down and look it in the face. It takes a profound need to break free of a pattern and to take a close look at who we really are.

My first novel, Gathering Storm is about secrets, the corrosive sort that are passed down from one generation to the next, while my new novel, Flight is about the secrets we carry within ourselves, just out of reach of our memories, secrets that manifest in the forms of patterns of behaviour, unconsciously repeated over and over until we are forced to stop and face what we are evading. Mythologist, Joseph Campbell believed that the slaying of a dragon in a story is a metaphor for inner change, for facing those things within us that we are most afraid of. The plot then is a metaphor for character development. The outer passage of a story incidental, the inner passage fundamental. The outer passage the costume, the inner passage the essence. There is a tension there, because whilst the outer journey often follows a linear sense of time by moving into the future, the inner journey is often a series of movements into the past, not a straight line but a thematically choreographed dipping into memory. This inner journey uncovers the fragments that motivate a character's actions and creates an opportunity for the character to eventually heal a wound.

There are many metaphors for the journey of a character in a story. Alchemy is one; that fiery process of turning lead into gold. Or there's the symbolism of death and mystical resurrection, the shamanic descent to the underworld, followed by magical flight, the journey into the labyrinth to face the monstrous within us and the thread with which we find our way back out once again, forever changed. All of these are metaphors of transformation, something which begins to occur to varying degrees in a story when a character turns to face the unknown or the unremembered. But transformation is a process, not a product, it is perpetual and vital. As with life, in story there are turning points, moments of catharsis, of understanding, followed by periods of integration of that new knowledge.

In Flight, Fern's must retrieve and release lost memories in order to become whole again. Paralleling the quest of the hero in ancient mythology, Fern's journey through the wilderness is symbolic of the journey into the labyrinth, or the underworld. A place where fear is faced and inner change happens. Flight is a metaphysical novel in which the classic narrative patterns of the adventure story and the spiritual journey are intermingled. Since the time of humanity's first storytellers, the unnamed shamans, we have told stories that document the journeys of the soul, sending our characters deep into a literal or metaphoric underworld in search of purpose and meaning in their lives. In Flight, Fern takes her first reluctant steps in an odyssey, embarking on a dangerous journey that will eventually bring her face to face with her deepest fears. As Fern herself soon discovers, in order to fly, one must first be willing to fall. That is, after all, the nature of story, an invitation to journey, to adventure, to remember who we really are, something that is summarised so beautifully by TS Eliot in Four Quartets,

'We shall not cease from explorations

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.'

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/