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Writing from the Deeper Self
"Bringing Your Inner Treasures
to the Outer World . . ."
Book Development
with Naomi Rose
December 2008 Newsletter
1. Introduction: "Maybe You Already Have
What You Need"
2. Feature: "How a Book Can Change Your Life
(and Why You Might Want It To)"
3. Sharing: "What I'm Up to These Days:
A Behind-the-Scenes Look"
4. Naomi Rose Services: "Book Development"
and "Creativity Coaching & Consulting"
1. INTRODUCTION:
Maybe
You Already Have What You Need
December, being the last month of the year, is not usually a time when
people start new projects. That seems to be reserved for January, a meeting
of the outer year and the inner resolve and reserves. No, December ~ much
like Fridays in the work week ~ seems to be a time of wrapping things
up, from presents to projects.
In this spirit, I remembered an old project that is literally stored in
my closet (as well as my computer files) ~ a book I once started to write,
based on my own experiences in writing books. Its title is The Book
That Changes Your Life Is the One You Write Yourself, because that's
exactly what happens when you write from the deeper Self. Your mind has
one idea about what the book will be and how it will go, and your deeper
Self has another.
I have recently come to treasure deepening, in contrast to constant newness.
Deepening, to me, means settling in deeper to what's true in you, what
you value, what and who you love; giving more slow, spacious attention
to what wants to claim you and take up space inside you. In this vein,
a December vein, offering you an article chosen from the forgotten book
now remembered seems a gift of deepening. We already have so much within
us, if we give it space and awareness. Even our projects, if remembered
and weeded, can remind us that we are already a work of art in progress.
It's in this spirit that I offer you a tidbit from The Book That Changes
Your Life Is the One You Write Yourself. There's much more to the
book, of course, including a map of the seven phases of book- writing.
If my own resolves for the coming year hold true, this book will see the
light of day again, and be available to help you write the book that changes
your life.
Blessings on the journey. May the books you write ~ and read ~ give you
nourishment, light on the path, joy, and the you you long to be.
~ Naomi Rose
"How
can one attain to the deeper side? One method is to acquire the knowledge
from the life without, and that is going to school and attaining the knowledge
in that way. Another method is quite different; it is not going to school
or institution and study, but closing the door of one's room, sitting
in solitude, closing the eyes, being oneself once again, and trying to
put one's mind within, seeking the source within, getting the knowledge
which be gotten only from within." ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan.
2. HOW A BOOK CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE
(and
Why You Might Want It To)
You can consider yourself blessed if you have ever
read a book that you felt changed your life.
This has happened
to more people than realize it. Sometimes, it takes place in childhood,
while sitting on a parent's lap or lying in bed twisting down into sleep
as that parent reads you a story that sticks with you like oatmeal on
a cold school morning, providing nourishment that lasts far longer than
the time it takes to ingest it and intertwining with the sound of the
parent's voice, the embracing feel of the parent's lap or final goodnight
kiss. Sometimes it happens much later, a book that you have looked forward
to reading or happened on almost sideways and found it speaking to you
so directly, intimately, and even thrillingly that it is as if the author
knew you in particular, knew just what you needed and when you needed
it, knew what ideas, images, language, impressions, storyline, nuggets
of wisdom you needed to clothe and feed your soul in that moment and forever
after. Even though you may have later forgotten the content of the book
or even that you read it, still, its imprint is on you, its atmosphere
has breathed itself into your being. If it were possible to take an X-ray
of your invisible soul, what makes it up and what lives inside it, the
effect of that book would be there.
This is the first stage of a book that changes your life: that it evokes
this kind of deep response in you and makes this kind of impression.
The second stage is that this book actually changes you. You may not have
even set out to be changed; you may have been wanting only a respite from
the sameness of daily life in reading it, or a way into some previously
hidden part of yourself because you sensed, however unconsciously, that
that part contained information you needed, and perhaps even treasures.
Yet some alchemical combination of that book and your being sparks a transformation,
and at some point ~ if not right there on the spot ~ you look at your
current life and also at the life you used to lead, and you realize that
you have changed.
Perhaps you journeyed from a well-worn rutted path on hard-packed dirt
to a mountain top at cloud level, with astonishing vistas in every direction.
Perhaps you left a quagmire for a rich and verdant meadow. Perhaps you
left fear, anger, envy for the experience of inner richness, contentment
with who you are and what life offers. Whatever your journey, whatever
the starting point and the surprising destination, somehow reading that
book was part of what made these changes happen.
And yet the book that can most deeply change your life is the one you
write yourself.
I have frequently heard and read about authors who start writing their
books with one idea in mind, only to discover along the way that the book
itself has a mind of its own. This is implicit in the creative process
~ that we can make room for it and deeply participate it, but not control
it. But this is not quite what I mean by a book changing your life. When
you write from the deeper Self (and this process is not always a plunging
in straight off the diving board; sometimes it is a getting-your-toes-wet
kind of experience), you are present to your real nature, your larger,
interconnected nature; you are inviting this nature to reveal itself to
you through the act of writing. In the process, you meet yourself in a
way that is so intimate and surprising that your sense of who you are
is changed. The smaller identities ~ the "I's" that both anchor
and circumscribe us ~ fall away like leaves off trees in autumn, and though
they may still be visible, it becomes clear that they are no more you
than the clothing you wear. You get to meet yourself in your glory and
resplendent beauty, as well as in the places that, lacking your insight
and compassion up until now, have been relegated to closets and caves.
In addition, your life is transformed by your book in other ways. When
you write from the deeper Self, there is a narrowness, a loneliness, an
isolation that quivers into clear, acute sight ~ and then breaks up like
minute shards of spun-sugar glass, revealing the great breadth of the
Reality of love behind it. You may start out feeling alone, unaccompanied,
the only being on earth to feel as you do; but writing from the deeper
Self is not merely an act of personal will or wish: it is a divine relationship,
a call and response. You do the calling when you begin with the intention
to write from your deeper Self and an open heart.
This is what enables your difficult memories and experiences, which you
have carried inside your ribcage for years, to be set down and set free,
leaving a wonderfully open horizon you can step into to see what the uncircumscribed
future will hold. Yet this intention, this yearning, this willingness
is itself a sign of the presence of the divine, calling you. "Talk
to me, tell your story, show me what is in your heart," the divine
may whisper quietly, behind all the louder voices that would obstruct
your efforts to take this writing path. "Love me by loving yourself.
Bring light to what has been dark and unknown. Illuminate the holy territory
that is your life."
The specifics of the call may not be evident in the beginning. There may
be only a vague wish to write a book, admixed with fears; a compulsion,
perhaps, to tell a certain story; a desire to explore something that has
lived inside you wordlessly for a long time; even the desire to give praise
through the articulation of what lies inside you, as if you dared to trust
that your life, your perceptions, your being, your depth of feeling could
be of value to other readers and to God. However you hear or sense the
call, it is only in the process of writing a book from the deeper Self
(not before, while thinking about it) that your relationship with the
divine becomes palpable and clear. And it is evidenced by the depth of
your feeling as you write, what arises to be written, the miracle of being
given just what you need ~ both in the telling and in your life, and watching
the two intertwine ~ and your bottomless gratitude as you feel the Ineffable
stream through you, leaving those substantive, shimmering words in their
wake.
What touches you in this way, in the process of writing, also touches
your readers. That is how your book comes to be a book that changes their
lives.
_______________________
Excerpted from The Book That Changes Your Life Is the One You Write
Yourself, by Naomi Rose. Copyright © 2008 by Naomi Rose. All
rights reserved.
3. WHAT I'M UP TO, THESE DAYS:
A Behind-the-Scenes Look
One difference
between business and art (I'm fascinated by the differences and, occasionally,
the similarities) is that customers usually aren't very interested in
knowing what happens behind the scenes. (Except for businesses like chocolate
factories, perhaps!) Customers want a good product, delivered well and
serviced well. And basically, that's it.
But I consider you to be much more than a customer for my services and
products. I see you as a creator, someone in whom the divine spark speaks
from within, whether you are writing a book or not. And in that spirit,
I want to share a little bit with you about what I'm doing, these days.
It can be fascinating, inspiring, and instructive to go behind the scenes
with an artist, or a business, or anything where the creative process
is in process. Before the gloss of a performance, there's a lot of trying
things out; a lot of missteps and retakes; a lot of reorganization, throwing
out, taking back, and so on. Creation isn't a "thing," it's
a process ~ and it happens inside all of us. I personally have been fascinated
by the creative process since I was a little girl. Perhaps you are fascinated,
too ~ and if you haven't been, perhaps you will be.
One thing I'm in the midst of is revising a couple of books before publishing
them on a larger scale. I like to be tolerant in my life and relationships,
but I accept being a perfectionist in my art. This takes time.
I am expanding and fine-tuning MotherWealth: The Feminine Path to
Money. This is a book I first wrote in 1993, and published to heart-warming
reviews. Over a year ago, I decided to republish it and add to it, so
that the teachings in the story in (what is now) Book One (the '93 version)
can be brought more intimately into readers' lives so that they can experience
and gain the benefits of MotherWealth. Thus, "Book Two."
I find that it has to speak to me, in the act of writing, for me to trust
that it will speak to you. So that's a major focus right now.
I'm also revising and expanding my book about book writing, Starting
Your Book: A Guide to Navigating the Blank Page by Attending to What's
Inside You. I wrote this slim volume some time ago, and was happy
with it. I sold quite a few copies (perhaps to you) and got some lovely
testimonials. Nevertheless, I wanted to make sure it really works ~ that
readers reading it will get what's involved in starting their books, how
much who they are is an essential part of it. So I'm adding things, then
subtracting things. It's like the first edition was a basically quick,
serendipitous gift to write. Then the expanded version grew a bit too
heavy with additions. Now I'm seeking to find the balance: what more to
include that will illuminate the territory for people who really want
to write a book in a deep way, without saying too much, or anything that
would muddy their way. So this is in progress as well, off and on. And
I have chosen a truly beautiful cover, from a painting by my friend Risala
Mary Laird, a most inspired/inspiring visual artist.
I will be recording a CD shortly, a whole new adventure! I have written
a few songs that have been beautifully received when I sang them, and
so these will be on the CD, among others. I am considering also including
some passages from MotherWealth (spoken, with a dulcimer undertone).
Just the process of getting this all together is quite creative. (I have
sung in quite a few choruses and choirs, and play the dulcimer and piano.)
When these are ready, I will let you know.Hopefully, this very brief glimpse
behind the curtain will make the process of finally reading/hearing these
works more meaningful to you ~ and even inspiring.
Those of you who work or have worked with me on your books will understand
completely how the creative process can be so challenging, on one hand,
and so uplifting, on the other. I think it's because our lives, themselves,
are the books that the Divine is developing! Developing a book from the
deeper Self is not a technique so much as an echo of the true Creative
process. It is the bringing forth of who we really are, in some form that
is transformative to the artist, and also to the reader.
This, then, is some of what's happening behind the scenes with me. What's
happening behind the scenes with you and your creations?
4. NAOMI ROSE SERVICES:
- Book Development
- Creativity Coaching & Consulting
BOOK DEVELOPMENT:
For
the Book Harbored in Your Heart
If you have the desire to write a book because book- writing is truly
calling you ~ and if you find the process of learning about yourself and
cherishing what's inside you as valuable as the eventual end result of
a book ~ then please give yourself the gift of an initial consultation
with me over the phone, or in person if you are local to the San Francisco
Bay Area.
Not only will you end up with a book that really speaks to who you are
and are becoming, whatever the subject or genre, but you will have the
tender and glorious experience of bringing your inner treasures to an
outer world that is waiting for your particular nourishment.
To find out more, please go to my website, below. And if what you read
there resonates with you, please contact me by email or phone. naomirosedeepwrite@yahoo.com,
or (510) 465- 4945.
The book that changes your life is the
one you write yourself.
CREATIVITY COACHING & CONSULTING
You can work
with me in a creative way even if you don't want to write a book ~ or
write at all. Any creative form and path that calls to you, we can work
with fruitfully.
You may want to write something other than a book ~ like a story, a poem,
or a song. You may want to open to your inner painter. You may want to
let your secret musician out. You may want to create a specific project,
or a new way of being, or simply once-and-for- all experience yourself
as a creative human being. In a certain sense, it doesn't matter which
particular focus you choose to express your creativity: whatever the focus,
you will get to connect with the Creative force, use it, and be uplifted
and enlarged by it.
What Is Creativity, Anyway?
My view, in a nutshell, is that Creativity is our connection to the Divine
~ to our larger nature, which we usually are not conscious of. However,
since Creativity is really the nature of our own being, it is already
inside us. When we are able to tap it, open to it, and become an instrument
for it, something incredibly beautiful happens in the process and the
"product."
Sometimes people think that being creative means having lots of new, good
ideas. To me, it includes that but goes far, far beyond that. Anything
that has ever inspired you in your life ~ whether the work of great artists,
or thinkers, or humanitarians, or spiritual teachers, and so on ~ speaks
to the particular ways in which you yourself are creative.
There is an innate yearning to touch and express this Creativity in some
form (or many forms).
Typical number of sessions needed: 4-8
To learn more about how you can experience yourself as a truly creative
person and create in any mode that calls to you by working with me, please
click the "Vision" page at the menu to your left, and
scroll down to "Creativity Coaching & Consulting."