Writing for Adults

After a great away time for a deep spiritual drop, I am back, a little. I am no longer writing for children. I do have some projects on the go:

• I have an essay on spirituality and aging in the anthology You Look Good For Your Age, by Rona Altrows, University of Alberta Press, just released.

• I am one of 20 international contributors to a book discussing what it means to be awakened, from the lived point of view of ordinary people, rather than teachers or gurus. What’s Awakening Really Like, by Marianne Broug. It’ll be available later this month.

• A new website is in the works  – it’s past time for a change.

And I’m loving taking photos. That’s become a joy. You’ll be able to see some in the website, coming soon.

Maureen 

After a long break

I’ve been away from this blog for a long time.

In my deep dive into a quiet spiritual place, writing fell away as a discipline. I still wrote, but in fits and starts, as it arose. I let that happen, knowing I needed to step back to allow a new way of writing develop. Or not. I knew it might not, and accepted that. That in itself was the greatest surprise, the greatest indicator of deep change. Writing was no longer the central joy of my life, and I was willing to let it go, if that where this new depth took me.

It seems to be bringing me back to writing, in a drive to submit a story, to write a grant application, to get other things sorted to make space for whatever is coming, this new way of writing that hasn’t arisen yet. I don’t know what form it will take, although I have hints. A project on meditating in my garden. More writing for children. Poetry. I’m learning to let it come, when it’s ready.  I respond to what arises. Today, that includes working on a grant application. Perhaps it will be less gruesome than usual, as I simply write it, and leave the omg I hate this I hate this I hate this for someone else to play with.

Maureen

January in Canmore

Meditating in the Garden

I’ve been working on some writing projects – or rather, the working is happening. I don’t know the words for this – only that’s it’s not my drive, but being driven. When it’s time to work on a particular project, I do. When it’s not, I don’t. There’s a great simplicity to this, when I can relax into it.

I’m having the most fun with a project on meditating in the garden, which emerged from my love of gardening and meditation. I’m writing about the garden as a place and a focus for mindfulness meditation.

I’ve written a series of short pieces, each paired with a photo I took in my garden. I decided to  exclude anything taken elsewhere, which means I had to pull a photo I’d intended to use and forgotten where it was taken. This is one of my challenges – to keep the project totally within my own garden.

I wrote most of it late last year, in three days of scribbling out scrappy notes. “Oh, I could write about this, and this, and this.” The photography took off last June, when I looked into the garden early one morning and saw sunlight backlighting a peony, grabbed my camera and started shooting. Somehow I see light differently now.

This project has emerged from the spiritual shift, and seems to be directing itself. I follow along, enjoying the ride.

Maureen