Morning Pages (Writing by Hand)

I didn’t stop the flurry of activity yesterday to spend any time writing in my journal, and I’m not sure why I did that or why I do that on a regular basis. I suppose I need to develop the self-discipline it takes to commit to writing, by hand, at least three pages a day. My other articles and web logs should start here as well, since the necessity of slowing down helps my mine to capture the words that accurately depict what I want to portray. On the computer I type so fast that the importance and significance of each word seems exponentially diminished.

Of course, even when writing by hand I seem to get hung up occasionally, but not so much as on the computer. This morning, I get up, take my vitamins, and retrieve my shirt form the dryer. It’s really time for me to get to work, and I have to fight the urge to quit writing and go. Putting these words down on the page is at least as important, perhaps more so. But, still, lurking within me like some thief in the shadows is this desire to immerse myself in mindless busy work, almost anything avoid the revelation, the peeking behind the veil, the uncovering of parts of my psyche I’d rather not look at.

And it seems like these morning pages always lead to that very place – does it not? Sometimes the writing may circle like a vulture over a rotting carcass, drifting, and waiting, deciding, until the time is right and it drops to feed. And there it is on some putrid, shadowy, decaying part of me that I’d rather never have been made aware of. I can only avoid the awareness by not writing, because invariably the morning pages reveal my own shadow.

I stop writing for a moment and click the computer mouse to synchronize my work database. The vulture circles away, recognizing the need to wait, rising away and drifting with the distraction I’ve embraced, but it is only a matter of time before it settles in again.

Sometimes, though, the morning pages hunt, rather like a hawk, predatory and focused. Hawk writing is infinitely more exciting. The hunt progresses – the hawk glides above the terrain eyeing the ground hundreds of feet below for the slightest indication of prey, ideas so small they are nearly undetectable, flitting to and fro in deep grass. Yet, with swiftness and bloody accuracy the hawk dives on the kill and the idea is captured, swept away wriggling in clutching talons, now a revelation for anyone who cares to notice. And so it is.

This writing here, in these morning pages, has more fight, more color, and more awful beauty than is ever captured when the machine stands between my fingers and the page. The direct feel of pen on paper is so much more sensuous, more tactile, and thus more satisfying. There is more to feel, to watch, to experience, and the left brain, rather than criticizing and editing, is caught up in the act of forming the words on paper while the right brain is free to wander and feed the left brain the ideas that it needs to transcribe on the page. The intuitive brain is then in charge - which brings to mind a quote -

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

~Albert Einstein


We truly have things turned around. We have put the cart before the horse. I cannot say it better than Mr. Einstein. It truly is a matter of turning things aright.

I see this with horses and people all the time – being rational when we need to be intuitive….but, I have gotten off track. Or maybe the hawk just captured that tiny prey animal it was seeking. Sometimes it’s hard to say.

But for now, I have completed my three handwritten pages and the work-a-day world beckons. They do expect me to work for the wages they give me……ho hum.