A Walk In The Desert

Or: The Best Ten Minutes I Ever Spent Before Creating

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I've been a little stuck, recently.  After a May full of busy life and very little writing, it's been difficult to wrap my poor, overloaded brain back around The Proper Bearing... and yet, here I sit, with a novel I intended to finish by the end of July, only half complete.  It occurred to me that perhaps I needed to revisit my outline.   So I took a machete to it, earlier today, and in doing so, I had a few revelations about the plot.  But I still didn't feel completely re-energized, as though I could create at my ideal level. When I realized this, I did what I've been doing more and more lately ... I went looking for a guided meditation.   

I know there are many people who say they just "can't" meditate, but I find it extremely helpful when my brain is just too full to get out of its own way.  So I went to YouTube, typed "guided meditation for writing" into the search bar, and gave the first video I found a try.     It is ten minutes long, and by the time I opened my eyes again, I was totally ready to rock and roll... but I knew I had to blog about it, first.

The meditation guides you through the desert, to "a box the size of a warehouse".  Instantly, I pictured a cross between the flat-pack metal storage sheds my father erected in his backyard, and Warehouse 13....  

The meditation then instructed me to fill the box with whatever I wanted ... as long as I did it with the mind I had "before I grew up".   I went wild.  I put paint on my feet and tracked rainbows across the floor.  I grew a rainforest with a tree house, which had a zip line off the deck into a gigantic pile of pillows and bean bag chairs.  One wall was lined floor-to-ceiling with bookcases.  There was a stream in one corner that was a miniature replica of the river I talked about in last week's blog, an old-fashioned typewriter, massive stained glass windows. flocks of birds ... 
And all of this was only the briefest part of the meditation.  I filled a gigantic room with my own whimsy and dreams in a matter of minutes.  I won't spoil the end of the meditation for those of you who want to give it a listen ... because the surprise at the end was part of what made it so amazing.  

But it got me to thinking ... hey, friends and fellow "volatile creative types" ... what's in YOUR box?  

Leave me a comment below ... in the meantime, I'm off to go write!  
Until next time,