Before you put pen to paper

Before you put pen to paper

you listen for a voice,

for words, 

for something--

a sound, an image, anything--

but hear nothing 

except silence,

see nothing 

except an empty page.

It's only once you touch 

the page with your pen 

and begin moving your hand 

that you can hear something, 

see a shadow cross the page, 

and hurry to catch it

the way you might try 

to catch a rabbit 

or a butterfly.

It's as if nothing can happen

until the pen parts 

the sea of silence 

and reveals a path 

that you can follow 

(even if you still can't see it, 

can only feel your way), 

knowing the ground 

beneath your feet

is solid and you're not 

walking on clouds 

or thin air.

Maybe you can see a bridge 

high above a river, 

and you can see the light 

reflecting in starbursts 

off the surface of the water below 

as you cross the bridge 

drawn by the sound of music in the distance, 

notes you've never heard before 

that keep drawing you closer to its source, 

hidden in the woods, 

waiting for you to arrive.

What do you have to say this morning?

The blank page is waiting.

All you hear is silence.

No words, yet.

Try not to panic.

Try not to think OMG, I'll never write anything.

Try not to listen to the negative 

voice in your head telling you 

how could you ever think 

you could write anything?

Instead, take a breath.

Close your eyes and exhale.

Take another breath and open your eyes.

Do you see the blank page in front of you?

What if you imagine it's like a still body of water

waiting for you to step into it?

Or like a snow-covered path

before anyone else has set foot on it?

Or maybe like a beach in the early morning

after the tide has retreated, leaving behind

a pristine patch of sand waiting for

your footprints to mark the start of the day?

Begin wherever you are and go from there.

Begin with a memory of someone who brings you joy

or with a wound that refuses to heal.

Put down a word --"grasshopper," say, or "grass" 

or "sunlight" or "coffee" -- and see where the word leads you.

Put aside your fears of making a mess--writing is a messy process!

Put aside your doubts that your words won't mean anything.

Listen to the voice encouraging you to begin,

the voice that you first heard urging you

to put words on paper.

Open yourself the way you'd open a book.

Let your pen touch the page.

Make a mark on the paper--a star, perhaps,

to guide you on your way--and listen 

to the words that come to you now.

Listen to the wind whispering

"Write! Before it's too late!"

Now turn the page and begin.

If you don’t follow the words when they come,

If you don’t follow the words when they come,

if you fail to pay attention or

if you think you can find them later or

if you make the mistake of ignoring them or

if you believe they’re unimportant or

if you hope you’ll be able to draw them out of thin air sometime later, 

maybe when you have the time, 

or maybe after dinner, 

or maybe just before you get into bed, or

if you put off writing just because you’re embarrassed 

to stand still in the middle of the sidewalk 

typing on your phone or jotting in your notebook 

as people pass you by 

afraid they’ll think you’re rude 

not to say hello or acknowledge those around you, 

if you don’t follow the words the moment they appear, 

listen, I’m telling you 

they’ll fade into the mist and disappear 

and it’s rare—if ever—that you’ll find them again, 

they’ll desert you in search of someone else prepared 

to hear their call, someone listening with an open heart 

the way you need to listen patiently for days or weeks or months, 

for however long it takes, for the sound you’ve been waiting 

and wanting to hear, and you—

you, the one who couldn’t spare a moment, 

who pretended not to hear anything—

if you don't follow the words when they come,

you’ll be left empty handed with nothing more than 

a faint dream of what might have been 

on the blank page in front of you .

Out of thin air

It's always hard to let go,

to put down your pen,

to take a break.

You don't want to lose

the connection you make

with yourself when you write.

So you debate with yourself--

stop or keep going?

Keep listening or not?

The thing is you never 

know what you'll find

if you keep waiting.

You never know if something 

will fly across the sky and 

you'll catch a glimpse

and suddenly the words

you need to write 

will appear

like magic

out of 

thin air.

But only if you

stay in your chair

and keep waiting

listening to the silence,

staring at the page

in anticipation of

whatever 

might come 

out of nowhere.

It's like dreaming

Each morning I listen to the silence

and hope to hear a voice and words

I've never heard before.

I listen with my ears

but, really, it's a different

kind of listening

that requires you to open

your heart, to hear

what you're afraid to say

or what you don't yet know

you need to say.

It's your voice and not your voice,

it's your hand holding the pen

and writing down the words

on the page and not your hand.

You hear something, a voice

beyond words. (Are there even 

words to describe it?)

It's like being bathed in light

or immersed in water

and you feel like you're floating

on the page as words 

emerge from your pen

and you see the letters

taking shape and the words

forming on the page

even before the words form

in your mind--as if

you are witnessing your thoughts

coming into being,

what you think and feel

unknown until you can

see the words floating 

in front of you.

It's like dreaming,

and when you open

your eyes the dream vanishes,

and you see instead

a page filled with the words 

you collected from a world

before it disappeared.

This is the practice

So you sit waiting, listening to the silence of early morning,
and in the silence you can hear your breath, and in your breath
you can find the words you need to begin.

And the pen begins to move and thoughts unfreeze like flows of ice
breaking away from shore, slowly moving downstream, the current
taking you where you've never been before.

You have to trust your breath, trust your hand holding the pen moving
across the page, trust that the words will make sense later when you put
down your pen and return to read what you've written.

It's as if you are writing in a fog, a daze, a dream, not knowing what
the words mean, just accepting them--the sound of them, the shape of
them--as they spill and fall and tumble onto the page from your pen.

How you find the words or how the words find you is a mystery. Why
this word? Why these words in this order? It's all part of the process of
writing, of letting go, of observing without judgment whatever comes,
whatever life brings you.

This is the practice.