Morning Pages - My ticket to high flight!

A daffodil bouquet in the kitchen catches late afternoon sun.

I am a writer who loves to write.  I really do.

I think about what I want to include in each blog post a zillion times before I ever sit down to write.  I linger on an idea, expand it a little, maybe expand it more or erase it--poof! Gone!

In late summer of 2013 I began to write what I call "Morning Pages."  I got the idea from The Artist's Way - A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron.

I was at point in life where I had decisions to make regarding what directions I wanted to pursue.  The more I tried to focus the more confused it all became, until, frustrated, I came across this idea of using Morning Pages as a tool for creative recovery.  

A seemingly pointless process, as she says, it nonetheless is a pivotal tool that she relies upon to both find and retrieve one's creativity.  (She also uses "The Artist Date," but that is the topic for another blog post.)

Basically, Cameron describes Morning Pages as three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness writing.  The cool thing about it, in my opinion, is that I can write about whatever comes into my mind.  There is no wrong way.  I guess the only wrong way is not to write.

The idea is to "do anything until you have filled three pages," as she states.  Just getting three pages written pushes the writer to the other side of fear, negativity, moods.  Three pages takes us beyond our own critical censor and to our own quiet centers.  For me it has become a form of meditation.

Horses of a similar color capture my  imagination.

Three pages.  How hard can that be?  Especially for one who already writes a daily diary and a multi-year journal?  

Well, I discovered, harder than one might think--and, surprisingly, easier, too.

Here's an excerpt from an early entry:

Sitting outside the cabin with Ken and Dad enjoying the morning sunshine and buzz of the hummingbirds over my head.

Molly is in heaven!  Dakota came to play briefly and now she's resting in the shade, ever watchful for darting daring chipmunks.  Molly actually caught one last night but we're hoping it was just stunned and not mortally wounded.

Now she's focused on an area sitting so still and quiet, hoping to get lucky.  She reminds me of that iconic dog sitting in front of the phonograph.

The wind chimes sound so lovely and the front gate flags are flapping in the morning wind.  But, this little patio is in a very protected pocket and only occasionally get a breeze or two...

See what I mean?  I can write about everything and nothing!  Just as long as I write three pages!!

Here's another excerpt from several months later during my first visit to Niagara Falls:

Niagara Falls as it appears from below looking up.

We started by donning the yellow thin plastic "bags" to see it on the Journey Behind the Falls tour.

Stepping from behind a protective tunnel wall was an instant drenching!!!

Water, the power and fury of water shot up my sleeves, down my neck, made soggy my jeans despite the "bag" and my real raincoat and scarf underneath!

The water was powerful and thrown at us in such fury that it was difficult to see but despite that I snapped photos with my poor wet camera with waterspots all over the lens.  It was breathtaking!

My entry into Morning Pages.

Sometimes I think of what I want to write while walking with Molly in the morning.  And, sometimes I've got the topic all set in my head and the moment I uncap my fountain pen, I find I'm writing about something else entirely!!

In April, 2014, I wrote in Morning Pages, Book 3:

I began writing my blog yesterday.  Here I have had a site for all this time and let it sit empty--mostly because I had no idea what to say or how to begin.

So, and it's likely because I've been dutiful in my Morning Pages writing, I've just decided to "write" like I'm doing now.

I'm also enclosing photographs as part of each entry.  Why not?  I have some incredible images that would be fun to share with the world.  

I wonder if I'll have enough to say?  Do I have enough words inside me to write a diary, emails, Morning Pages AND a blog?

My current notebook for Morning Pages.

After filling four notebooks in the original style, I ran out of notebooks.  I tried several sources to locate something similar--plain cardboard cover with unlined pages.  Not too big.  Something I can tuck in a bag if I'm on the go.  I like unlined pages because it enables me to write large or small--however and whatever feels right for that day.

Finding none with those characteristics, I finally decided to create notebooks for myself using my own photographs as the cover on a internet site called Vistaprint. 

So, you can see that I'm in Book 10.  I write every morning, with few exceptions.  I feel it clears my head and helps me clarify my thinking.  It enables me to "slip the surly bonds of earth*" while savoring the sweet characteristics that make life so wonderful and rich.  


I'll close this post with a quote from M.C. Richards, 
"Poetry often enters through the window of irrelevance."

*"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth..." taken from "High Flight," a poem by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.