Getting Unstuck – Tarot for Writers

Nov 30, 2017 | Tarot for Writers, The Writing Life, Writing Advice

Sometimes I feel like my whole year has been in Mercury retrograde.  With one thing after another, there has been a lot of waiting, a lot of postponing, and a lot of loss.  I have been stuck—in situations that are not my choosing, with no path forward—and in talking with my friends and sister writers, I know I am far from the only one who would rather watch reruns of clips from The Voice (or Aquaman GIFs) than face my ever-growing list of things that just stubbornly refuse to get done.  As we enter the holiday season, which has its own joys and challenges, it can be helpful to recall that, as writers, we have complete control over our tools and our voices.  We don’t need anyone’s permission, or an infrastructure, or a legal ruling, or even an outside opportunity in order to write. So my current burning question for the Tarot is: How do we get unstuck? To find my answers, I pull a single Tarot* card.  I use it for insight, as a confirmation, to get around my blocks and habits, to take some risks and find some epiphanies. Often, it gives me an energy that I need to hold onto, so I put it on my altar. Today’s card is The Knower of Rivers. ​The Card: In the Shining Tribe Tarot deck, the Knower of Rivers is analogous to the Knight of Cups: a card of action, and also emotions and the subconscious. It follows the Place of Rivers: a place where we go to meditate, withdraw, and revitalize our emotions. The Knower comes out of this place renewed, ready for action, with the tools for success literally clutched in their hands.  The card suggests power, and also victory (in the “seven” of the four figures and three fiery trees on the ridge).  But this is a victory fueled by self-knowledge, and it comes from the courage to gaze deeply into oneself and “enter the deep and limitless waters” of our own mysteries. So what does this card mean for you, as the writer? Embrace retreat. Of course, it is great to pull a card that promises action and transformation when your life feels like you are running in place. But this card reminds us of two things: First, change comes from within. This is not an external card, where success comes from wielding a sword or forcing an issue.  The suit of Rivers is about intuition, and mystery, and dreams.  It is intensely creative.  It suggests that all the power you need lies within you. And forward motion comes, in part, from embracing the darkness you find there, accepting it, and transforming it into radiant light. This has been a really important reminder for me, since it is the darkness that makes me stuck: I don’t want to feel it or deal with it. But the darkness—our struggles as humans—is what gives our creative stories and images energy. Without it, there would be no plot, no vision that haunts your readers, no powerful connection to their own lives.  To be writers, we need to tap that darkness. Second, you are doing something. Sometimes the self needs renewal. All the “doing” that our society equates with progress can get exhausting, and hollow.  “Being” is important too, especially for writers.  We need to gather—our energy, our material—and since we do work on a subconscious level, we may not be aware we are doing it. So instead of thinking of ourselves as stuck, better to think of ourselves as resting. Retreating.  Recharging. And to be open to just being very aware of what is going on around us, and the messages we find there. How can you apply this card to your work? Relax. Open. Don’t try to escape. My exercise offering is designed to help you notice what you are experiencing and find a way to use it. In these times of unconscious gathering, you may be getting messages that you aren’t bringing into your conscious mind. You may even be actively blocking or resisting them.  So we will mimic the journey that the Knower of Rivers takes. It is helpful to find a quiet place, where you can relax and release your mind. (Have something to write with handy.) If you find that your thoughts are racing and your brain is telling you that either you don’t have time for this or it’s all useless, be aware that those are defense mechanisms. As long as you don’t have a train to catch, you can give yourself ten quiet minutes. Deep breaths help, as does closing your eyes. Your mind does not have to become a perfect vacuum.  There simply has to be enough space to allow some images or words to bubble up. Don’t chase them.  Do imagine bubbles: let them rise, with ease, then let them go.  See if something starts repeating. [For me, it’s been witches! For whatever reason, witches keep appearing in random tarot readings, in my email inbox, in conversations with friends.] Once you notice a pattern or a repetition, or even just one single image or word that has some energy behind it (even the energy of resistance or fear), you might know exactly what to do.  If not, jot down some notes.  When does this message appear?  What emotions are associated with it?  What archetypes?  What colors? What size is this thing you are feeling?  Where is it in your body? What words are associated with the image?  What images with the words?  Most likely, once you’ve made these notes you’ll have a direction to explore, but if not, the final step is this: Pick a pronoun and write: “She is… They are… It is…” (whichever pronoun you chose) and then follow that with any associated or descriptive word from your notes above.  [Such as, “She is red.”]  Then freewrite a sentence to follow that.  And another to follow that. I hope this exercise helps you get in sync with yourself and start feeling unstuck. Happy writing! *In this feature, I’m working with The Shining Tribe Tarot: Awakening the Universal Spirit, created by renowned Tarot scholar Rachel Pollack, who taught me that the Tarot “is a vehicle to remind yourself of what you already know.” If you want to know more about the deck and its images, or have your own Tarot practice, here are the links.

When You Are Overwhelmed

Jul 28, 2017 | Tarot for Writers, The Writing Life, Writing Advice

This last month has left me reeling.  My father passed away suddenly, and what spins into that (as we raced across the country to say goodbye), and out of that (in the long process of settling and celebrating his life) is a lot to do and feel.  Add to that that my novel, more than a decade in the making, needs a final edit on its way into the world (it will be published next May), and I have a 17-page editorial letter, a ton of great ideas that require some finesse and feeling, and only two weeks to get them done.  The same two weeks that I have to plan my father’s memorial.  So it may not be surprising that my burning question for the Tarot has a very personal impetus:

What to do when there is too much to do?

In this Tarot feature, I pull a single card* to find my answers. I use the card for insight, as a confirmation, to get around my blocks and habits, to take some risks and find some epiphanies. Often, it gives me an energy that I need to hold onto, so I put it on my altar. Today’s card is The Seven of Birds.

The Card: In this deck, the Birds is the suit of the Air.  It signifies the mind and the spirit, as well as prophecy and information.  It is the suit of art, and also – in its correspondence to the Swords in a traditional tarot deck – it offers us ways to transcend and transform sorrow and anger. Sevens also correspond to communication, which gives us a double dose of communicating for the writer.  This is the card of boundaries, and the importance of drawing them clearly, and with song, which makes it perfect for today’s question.

So what does this card mean for you, as the writer?

Know what you want. Get what you need.

The image of this card is of two people working, individually but beside each other, according to the clear and mutual boundaries they are creating.  Above them, birds have also claimed their territory, through song. Evoking behavioral bird studies, and Aboriginal land claims, creator Rachel Pollack introduces the idea of a song as a map. And what is a song, but a celebration, an expression, a story?

From this card, the message I am getting is that you can’t do it all, you can’t have it all, but every being in the card does have what they need and what they claim.  A reminder of the common wisdom that you can only do so much, and that you have to prioritize, makes sense here. But sometimes, when there are too many balls in the air, we move instinctively to grab the ones that are dropping first.  This card reminds me that I have a particular song to sing, and it has its own tone, and emotion, and story.  What is my song and what do I want to sing? is a much more helpful, and more grounding, way to figure out how to go forward than What do I have to do and what’s about to collapse?

So how do we apply this card to our work?

Go back to the shape of your intention.

What does that mean? Well, in my case, not only do I have a lot going on in my life, I have a lot going on on the page: three narratives, three timelines, three locations. My final edit calls for moving some of these pieces around, while trying to track all the pieces to make sure they make it back in somewhere to do the work they were originally intended to do.  I’m a big fan of the outline, and going back to the beginning to remember what I put in, where and most importantly why, is a help to me. But for today’s exercise, I want to suggest a trick that can help if you have so much going on in your story and your revision that you can’t remember or recognize what you set out to do.

Think of a shape you are familiar with. Possibly a song, a poem, a three act.  Maybe, more radically, the structure of Catholic mass, or the architecture of a high-rise building, or the five stages of grief, as my colleague at Goddard College, playwright Kyle Bass, suggested at a recent residency. How does your work fit into that shape?

What is your ground floor/processional/first act?  How does it fit the requirement of the new structure (to hold everything up, to move everything into the space)? What is being “denied” in your first stage of grief?

Or, going with the idea of song, think about how the elements of your work correspond with the elements of a song (even a symphony!) to “test” them and make sure they are there and doing the necessary work.  Find your melody, your base line. Think about your verses and your chorus.  Is there a bridge?  What does the harmony sound like?

There are so many structures you can use to get fresh eyes and ears on your work, to help you when you are so close to your material that you can no longer see all of it for what it was meant to do.  Use your “song” to help you identify, pare back, rearrange, and most importantly, remember the emotional journey you are creating for your reader.

Happy writing!

*In this feature, I’m working with The Shining Tribe Tarot: Awakening the Universal Spirit, created by renowned Tarot scholar Rachel Pollack, who taught me that the Tarot “is a vehicle to remind yourself of what you already know.” If you want to know more about the deck and its images, or have your own Tarot practice, here are the links.

Loss

Jun 29, 2017 | Tarot for Writers, The Writing Life, Writing Advice

We are living in a time of reversals, losses.  There are political shifts, yes, but also very immediate human suffering, both on the incomprehensible level of war, aggression, terror, refugees, exclusion, and brutality, and also the personal level of the individual.  As writers, we are empaths, and speaking only for this one writer, I admit that sometimes this loss, this suffering, derails me and leaves me unable to write. But this is also our material, and our calling: to render the human condition in all its complexity.

So my burning question for today is:

How do we deal with loss?

As you may know, if you have been following this blog, to find my answers, I pull a single Tarot* card.  I use it for insight, as a confirmation, to get around my blocks and habits, to take some risks and find some epiphanies. Often, it gives me an energy that I need to hold onto, so I put it on my altar. Today’s card is The World Shining Woman.

The Card: In this deck, the World Shining Woman is the final card in the Major Arcana. She is the culmination of the journey of life: wholeness, the perfect being. Inside her body, all the pieces of creation, all the stories, the dreams, everything we imagine and call into being.  This is a card of fulfillment, but it also draws on the Kaballah story that the original cosmos was broken into pieces and now all of us bear the responsibility of restoring it to wholeness.

So what does this card mean for you, as the writer?

There is no life without loss.

There are two ways to approach this card.  One is as a writer in the world who is experiencing some kind of loss that you are finding difficult to get on the page (or perhaps you are finding it difficult to get to the page period).

For this, the card reminds us that wholeness requires it all: the light hand and the dark hand, the hermaphrodite (as the World card is often rendered), the soul of the fish, the endurance of the turtle, the tomb, and the cross. As empaths, we need our wound-raw sensitivity, and our courage in the face of it, in order to do our jobs. We need to feel, and sometimes this is hard but it is the essence of the writer’s voice and the writer’s role in society, culture and community.

The second approach is to think about the content of what you are writing.  How do you connect to the losses in your story, and render them?  How do you bring truth to deep emotions without being melodramatic or too abstract? What if you are too close (as is sometimes the case in memoir)? How do you find the balance?

For this, I look, not at the figure, but at the space around her. As Rachel Pollack, who created the image writes, “She dances in the void.” Rachel draws our attention to the “second body” of white space between the World Shining Woman’s body and the lines of energy in the corners of the card. She reminds us that everything creates an echo, a halo of “inexpressible mystery.” And sometimes the best way to describe something is to describe its halo. Or, that the body is only one aspect of the perfect being, and the spirit or soul, the intangible, is greater than what we think we know.

How can you apply this card to your work?

Loss is sacred, and essential to life.  Feel the feels.

My exercise offering is the same whether you need grounding as a writer grappling with loss, or are looking for a technique to render it. Use this as you see fit.

First, find a quiet place that feels safe and is meaningful to you. Look around you. Take your time. Select an object in your space that calls you and pick it up.

Sit with it for a second, maybe with your eyes closed.  Feel the weight of it in your hand; the temperature, the texture.  Feel whether it changes as it acclimates to your skin.  Let your mind drift and see whether, just with this connection to your body, images come. Write down a few notes if you want, then keep going.

Open your eyes if you like.  Use your other senses to connect to the object.  Give yourself space to make associations.  Is there another object in the room that wants to connect to this one?  A person? Is there a place where this object belongs? Comes from? Is there a desire associated with it? An emotion?

Let yourself make notes and associations.  Keep them as close as possible with your senses. If you find that the object, and the associations and the stories that are beginning to form around it, are connected to your feelings or your loss, that will help you explore it and experience it from a safe place.  If it takes you to a different emotion, that’s good too.  Maybe that lifts you out of your block, your overwhelm.  Maybe it reminds you that everything is a cycle, is in flow. And loss is just one awful, beautiful, human part of that cycle.  All of this is helpful to enrich your material and get you writing again.

Wishing you inspiration.

*In this feature, I’m working with The Shining Tribe Tarot: Awakening the Universal Spirit, created by renowned Tarot scholar Rachel Pollack, who taught me that the Tarot “is a vehicle to remind yourself of what you already know.” If you want to know more about the deck and its images, or have your own Tarot practice, here are the links.

Going Deeper

Jun 17, 2017 | Tarot for Writers, The Writing Life, Writing Advice

Every day, I work with writers. From those who are just starting out, gathering their thoughts and looking for tools, to those who have been published. Right now, I am sending off my last letters of advice to my MFA students at Goddard College, and I am also trying to work on my own final revisions of my upcoming novel. Which reminds me that this week’s question is not one that a writer ever outgrows. Nor is it limited to any particular stage of the process, or even to writing. As you will see, this is a question for all artists and creative thinkers.

Today’s tarot question:

How do we go deeper?

To find my answers, I pull a single Tarot* card.  I use it for insight, as a confirmation, to get around my blocks and habits, to take some risks and find some epiphanies. Often, it gives me an energy that I need to hold onto, so I put it on my altar. Today’s card is 7 of Rivers.

The Card: In this deck, the suit of Rivers is for feelings, dreams and fantasies. An emotional suit, it is rooted in love and harmony, and reminds us that the easiest way (as in “ease”!) to get where we are going is to go with the flow. The 7 in every suit stands for daring and communication.  The 7 of Rivers is the card of fantasy, and wondrous journeys.

So what does this card mean for you, as the writer?

Don’t just go deeper.  Let yourself go crazy!

This card is about the imagination, about the storyteller letting images float up from the unconscious. In that way, it’s a very direct answer. But sometimes the cards work by reminding me of a message that is already in the air. So let me tell you a story.

I am surrounded by artists.  My sons are dancers and musicians; my partner is a potter; my father is a writer; and my step-mother is a painter and textile artist. So we talk about art a lot. Recently, one of my sons was in California working with a mentor on his choreography, and they were discussing freestyling, and, in particular, what to do when you find yourself following your habits and your strengths, and therefore doing the same thing over and over again. One school of thought might be to do the opposite, or to move your feet more if you are relying too much on your hands.  This dance mentor’s advice was, if you find yourself stomping on your left foot over and over, go with it. Play with it. Make it bigger, then bigger still, then bring it back. Make it weirder.

In other words, don’t pull yourself away from your inclinations. Trust that your habit has something to offer, maybe a safe place where you know you are strong, that will give you the courage to tip over the edge and find the unknown.

Besides inspiration and wild stories, the 7 of Rivers also reminds us that too many fantasies or possibilities can be paralyzing.  How do you choose? Which are the right choices? Are there any to be feared? This aspect of the card convinces me that the advice from the freestyling dancer is the right message here, because it recommends that you build off your strengths. When you are in front of a crowd, there is no room for fear and judgment, for telling yourself you are wrong to have habits and to throw yourself into the blank unknown.  This is also true for the writer at her desk.

Be playful. Embrace your fantasies.  Flow into the unknown from your strengths.  Trust yourself.

How can you apply this card to your work?

Here’s one strategy for the writer who wants to go deeper. There are so many others, and I hope that this post has already given you some ideas of your own.  For this one, take the piece of writing that you want to go deeper with and ask it: What if?

What if the end wasn’t the end?

What if the highs were higher, the lows lower, the stakes greater?  Exaggerate them.

Look for secrets that are kept, messages that are delivered and understood, images that resolve or that we have seen before and explode them.  What if one character never got the message?  What happens then?

What if you admitted something (in personal essay or memoir) that makes you uncomfortable? Or vulnerable? (You can always delete it later.)

What if the resolutions didn’t resolve?

We tend to work within the safe spaces, where we are comfortable, and that translates to our characters: we don’t ask more of them than we would ask of ourselves. What if you asked for everything, held nothing back?  Think of this as an exercise to discover what’s on the other side of safety.  You may only use a little bit of it, but your story will be deeper than it was.

Happy writing!

*In this feature, I’m working with The Shining Tribe Tarot: Awakening the Universal Spirit, created by renowned Tarot scholar Rachel Pollack, who taught me that the Tarot “is a vehicle to remind yourself of what you already know.” If you want to know more about the deck and its images, or have your own Tarot practice, here are the links.

Tarot for Writers: Awakening!

Jun 13, 2017 | Tarot for Writers, The Writing Life, Writing Advice

Do you need help grounding your writing? Want to know why you can’t focus, or what you should be focusing on?  Maybe you want to know how to go forward. What’s next?  Or, if you have come to a fork in the road, how do you choose?

When I have questions like these, I pull a Tarot card. Often it’s a single card, which answers the question: What do I need to know right now? It’s been an incredibly helpful way to get around my blocks and habits, to take some risks and find some epiphanies. So in this new, biweekly feature for She Writes that I am reposting on my website here, I’ll be pulling a card for all of us in response to a question that seems timely, and then I’ll use it to offer a message for your writing life and your work. I’m working with the Shining Tribe deck, by renowned Tarot scholar Rachel Pollack* who taught me that the Tarot “is a vehicle to remind yourself of what you already know,” which seems perfect for writers.  So here goes. . .

Today, I asked this question:

What do we need to remember?

The answer was the card Awakening.

The Card: Awakening is the 20^th card in the major arcana: the card of transformation, of realization, and a shift in perception. This “awakening” is to the true self, without doubt. It suggests a joining with others, and responsibility. Unlike the Judgement card in the traditional Rider-Waite Tarot deck, this spirit has come for everyone. All rise!

So what does this card mean for you, as the writer?

Remember that the role of the artist is to shine the light.

What do you see when you look around you? What needs to be addressed, revealed, celebrated or transformed? Where do you see a different, or unspoken, truth? In other words, what do you need to say?

Every person has their own unique perspective, and your writing is rooted in how you experience our shared world. Remember that the role of the artist in any society is to offer that different view, to encourage us to reconsider our commonly-held beliefs so we can grow and change together. Sometimes, our art is a direct challenge; other times, an exploration, a celebration, or a dissection. Your story may be dark or painful, it may seem apolitical and personal, but as long as it is your truth, it matters.  Sharing your artistic vision can literally shift the way the rest of us see.

It can also bring us together. All rise, remember? When readers encounter feelings and experiences they share in someone else’s stories, those strangers are no longer so strange. The more stories, the more truths, the more chance that they will find validation in your experiences or your imagination. So, whether you are still dreaming, or writing, or in your final edits, take some time to reconnect with what is universal in your story. Don’t forget: the people in Awakening are standing in the same pool of consciousness. Together, they lit the windows in their world.

Remember this: Do not doubt your voice, or the fact that we need it. Trust the light, and embrace your true self.  Only you can tell your story.

How can you apply this card to your work?

In the coming weeks, I may give you a series of questions to ask yourself in this section, or offer you a writing prompt or exercise. My focus for your work may be different than the focus for you as a writer. I encourage you, also, to find your own connections between the card and what you are working on, and I feel quite comfortable that you will find some!

This time, I want to go back to the card, and answer today’s question very simply:

Remember to transform.

Ask yourself:

Do your characters change over the course of their experiences?

Is everyone safe and the same in the end?

Do you have enough twists in the plot?

Is your reader pretty sure, right from the beginning, that she knows where she is going, and does she get there pretty much exactly as she expects? (If so, you need some surprises!)

Does an image in your poem allow your reader to experience something in a new way?

Does the reader change?  Did you make her laugh, break her heart, teach her how to dress a wound? Will she always think of herself now as your sister?

Keep it dynamic. Keep it unique. Keep it true to your felt experience. Keep it connected to the essence of our shared humanity.  I suspect that you will hear the cards repeat some of these messages in the coming weeks, just when you most need to remind yourself.

Happy writing!

*The Shining Tribe Tarot: Awakening the Universal Spirit, created by Rachel Pollack, comes with a detailed book that describes the nuances and the inspiration behind each card. If you want to know more, or have your own Tarot practice, I strongly recommend it.