Rules for Writing in Your Journal

Rules for Writing in Your Journal...

Or Any Sojourn into Expression and Creativity.

Just begin.

Start at the beginning:

A word, a thought, a sensation, a glimmering dream, nothing...

Not even nothing is forbidden here.

Say, scribe, strive, stumble, scribble, scrawl,

With longing or release,

Being precise or random,

Felling small or incomprehensibly huge.

Just begin.

Everyone needs a safe place 

To be the self they are 

In the moment.

Everyone:

Including you, even the spirits.

Maybe even God needs a safe space here,

Or not.

There is no sacrilege,

No trying.

There's just do-being.

Being still and moving at the same time.

That's the yin and yang of creativity,

Like a song:

do-be-do-be-do-be-do...

An effortless song

That you cannot get out of your head

Until you sing it.

So, sit still and sing.

Let the pen move.
Set it free.
You may be surprised
at what you see.

Love,
Rick

When you get stuck, lower your standards.

William Stafford

 

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, April 2015, All Rights Reserved

The poem in the picture from my journal is an excerpt from
A Song Sparrow Singing in the Fall
by Wendell Berry
New and Collected Poems, p.176