And when you do break through, what does it feel like? Do you suddenly realize that hours have gone by and you’ve forgotten everything but the words pouring through your fingers? Do you feel joy? Do you feel as though you’ve just broken the surface of deep water? I often watch the faces of the students in my writing circles as we finish a free-write. Some of them look dazed. Others grin. A few look almost frightened.
Linda Schierse Leonard writes in Witness to the Fire that many people – especially women – fear the loss of self that occurs when we are in a breakthrough. We fear that we will abandon everything else. We will lose all that we have worked so hard to “have”: relationships, jobs, time to maintain what we think we need. We will lose control.
We have forgotten that each of us contains a Spirit Line, a thread that will always lead us out of the writing immersion – and back in. Traditional Dine weavers always weave a “mistake” in their work – a gray line that leads from the design to the edge of the rug. They do this so that their creativity can leave a finished piece to go on to the next weaving.
Write your Spirit Line. Is it yarn, a song, a shimmer of light? Follow it out to the edge of your writing. You are safe to lose control.
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