Creative Wordshops Newsletter June 2020

Dear seeker of words and images
Looking at your image in a clear stream, you answer the question
by your very presence
It’s Dori lettertime. (As from now I’m sending the letter via mail chimp)
Living midst the uncertainties of the age, this month’s theme centres on zen
pen – writing being and meditation. [Why Zen Pen?
Zen (Chinese chán ‘quietude’) invites us to be present, to live and write
simply.
Pen (Latin penna ‘feather’ ) refers to both practicing the art of
writing and the implements we use. It also invites us to play in a safe
place – as in playpen.

I saw this cat on a recent dawn walk. It seemed to be meditating -perhaps cats are natural meditators? This one seemed to sit in a quiet space amid a tangle of branches – (a tangle of non-thoughts?) On my early walk the next morning, I came across a dog in more or less the same spot. Cat no longer in the tree.
I wonder what somatic (being in the body) cats and dogs can teach us about meditation and being? That focused gaze – that look and listen awareness…that presence. They live and move in and through the life force of the five senses. And what happens to our writing when we slow down, look listen, engage in the miracle of the body and write from the stillness – ‘the still point of the turning world’ (TS Eliot)? When we enter this slow down silence? You might recall T S Eliot’s Macavity the Mystery cat who ‘when he’s half asleep is really wide awake.’

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