Exhale with Words
In meditation, we follow the breath in and out. We track body sensations, thoughts, and the movement of the mind. Meditation wakes us up to our lives. It offers a way to see the world in a clear, neutral way.
When we write, we breathe in sensory details, digest them, and exhale them in whatever way we choose to best express ourselves.
Poet and political activist Muriel Rukeyser invites us to “Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry.” Her outbreath was the poem.
I exhale creative nonfiction, these blog posts, and book marketing pitches. My friend Ray breathes out horror stories while Lisa crafts quirky mysteries and essays.
Even writers who “make stuff up” ground the worlds they build in a reality they have experienced. If they didn’t, no one could understand their work. This is why we have metaphors and similes. Things are other things and they are like other things. We pay attention, sit and walk and listen to the world around us. Grounded in the Earth’s gravitational force, we exhale our lives into form.
For more wisdom from authors like Muriel Rukeyser, please check out You Should Be Writing, the new writing journal from Mango Publishing by Brenda Knight and Nita Sweeney.
