ABOUT ORIGINAL & WILD VOICE IN SPEAKING AND WRITING

“Over these many decades, I find unequivocally that each person has a unique one-of-a-kind way to speak/write in their own voice, from their own experiences and fantasies.

“In this sense, each person decides to go whichever way they like, or feel called to, in whatever pattern… depending only on what they themselves wish to accomplish or feel most fulfilled by in speaking, performing or/and writing.

“There is a long tradition of original voice. For instance, like their written works or not, Bret Easton Ellis has his own voice, as does Stephen King, as does The Buke, as does DiPrima and Ginsberg, Sexton and Teasdale and Dickenson. One would not mistake one for the other.

“My friend, the late Kurt Vonnegut, had a charism of personal voice and imagination. Alighieri’s voice is different than Yeats or Blake. Rumi is distinct from Kabir (Persian poets) who is distinct from Mirabai (Northern Indian poet).

“Stafford is different than Bly, though both are prairie poets. Alegria is different than Paz, who is different than beautiful Opal Whitely, who is different from the masterful Koch or the rebellious Sor Juana. Jung is way different than Freud, and Toni Wolff is differently voiced than either.

“I give you only a tiny sample above to speak of those who strove for/ dared to speak and write in original voice… this coming about by their investment, immersion in their personal interests, by way of speaking/writing in wild ways that came to them naturally, by truthtelling, by not sequestering knowledge or imagination, by leaving the constraints of ego, by speaking/ writing from their own life experiences and quandries, and by following through a dark woods, something that is sure-footed.

“I often see that one of the proofs of wild and natural voice seated well, is that though whatever we write or speak takes craft and is hard to do, even so, often also what we write or speak surprises us in some useful way each time we truly unleash.

“Then is when we think things, say things, write things we never could have thought of solely from ego… or when we were closed down, or trying too hard.

“I’d mention too one of the great secrets of writing and speaking…

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PERSONAL JOURNALS: WHEN IN SIGHT OF THE FAR ENCAMPMENT

WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH THESE PAINTED JOURNALS

I’ve still a significant amount of 60 years’ work in journals.
But too, at different times of my life, I’ve lost some journals,
or accidentally left them on trains, and some have been stolen.

I’ve burned some for lack of space to store them,
and placed other pages of grief in fast moving water upstream.
I’ve torn out pages and made papier maché faces
with my handwritten words still visible
on the cheek under the eye,
or behind the ear.

I’ve shredded some journals to confetti
to make celebratory props for a child’s wedding play.
Some have been destroyed by angry people during my childhood
and by those maddened by love/hatred;
some were confiscated at school and never returned.
(You will write 100 times, “I will not write poetry during class.”)

Some are falling to pieces for I live in dry high country desert
these past many years, and the tree skins they are writ upon
are so, so old, the page corners can break like cracker
when I turn them.

Some are filed by year in a kitchen cupboard;
others have no years affixed and are stacked
with their blue and red and yellow spiral bindings
looking like metal serpents biting all the pages together.

Some are writ with reasoned straight lines of left-hand writing;
some are writ like a child writing cursive for the first time,
uphill, downhill, upside down… for these are my dream journals,
written in the middle of the night under only moon for lantern.

And some of my favorites are ‘my painted books’
with all my handwrought paintings, my invented fonts,
and wild illustrations marching across every open space within,
like some wild x-ray of a living human psyche.

And there are many notebooks with just a few pages writ,
for I loathed the slow feather of the ink on cheap pulp paper.
And there are more and different journals, square, rectangular
and all written in the language of quiet-personal/ present tense.

Many journals hold writings that seem like a conversation
held outdoors in winter,
wherein the words, the promises,
the secrets which will not remain secrets forever,
were suddenly frozen in the air as they were written
… and are thereby preserved in the meat locker,
for as long as long is long.

I’ve thought of willing my painted journals, my painted books,
and thousands of sheaves of handwrit pages:
There are the universities who would like my ‘papers.’
But I wonder at someone analyzing
these time-suspended beings,
and trying to thaw them out,
in order to write a paper
about ‘what she meant when she said x.”

No, these journals, for now, live as little catacombs,
and I go there sometimes, to visit the dead… and the living.
My journals are my clearest and cock-eyed witnesses
to my time spent on earth with the story hags, the poem potters.

Thus, my journals and painted books will stay with me a while yet…
But, in the end, at the end, I deeply sense now, am certain now
that  I am in sight of the last, far encampment…
that
all my papers
must return
to what they were once, long ago:  trees…

Thus, I’ve made my plan: I’ve left word
to consign my papers to the fire,
so they can become ash…
and thence be taken up in a soft woven bag…

and I’ve asked that whomsoever still lives…

to spread these ashes on the earth where those who love me…

want something hopefully beautiful to grow in my name…

something beautiful to grow from the humus of my agonistas, dreams and ideas…

something beautiful to grow from the ruthless counsel of angels in those pages,

the ones who bid me write:

“I hope you will go out
and let stories happen to you…
and that you will work them,
water them
with your blood,
your tears
and your laughter…
till they bloom…
till you yourself
burst into bloom.”

Thereby, may all find for us
the good evidence that this indeed
is what I,
and ever so many other dear brave souls,
earnestly endeavored to do
in this one precious and wild lifetime…
wherein from Mother Earth
came the ink, the pens,
the pencils, the pigments, and the papers
…but from the angels and the ancestors
came the stories.

Amen.

(and a little woman)

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“WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH THESE PAINTED JOURNALS”, ©  2010, All rights reserved. Dr. C.P. Estés, poem from La Pasionaria: Collected Poems of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés:  A Manifesto on The Creative Fire.” This particular work may be used non-commercially as long as it is kept entirely intact, not added to nor taken from, and this complete notice including usage, author and copyright notice is clearly printed upon it. Other permissions ngandelman@aol.com

*las agonistas: the agonies

Topmost image: a cairn, which is a stacking of stones, each stone placed with a prayer, and the cairn being built at a special place marking the leave-taking of one world, and the entry into another world in mind, spirit, soul or body, or all.

Storycito: The Wildest Woman of All

Just from my heart to yours: There is a usefulness to a small satirical story… as medicine to prevent us from small-ifying everything vast and radiant down to a burnt cinder. We cannot be nourished from burnt bread.

Come this other direction, toward the vast mysterium. The doors, the doors of the universe ever stand open… even when many eyes are closed.

Yet be not impatient, for you are the able witness to this world and to the worlds within worlds. By your seeing clearly and teaching gently, you will teach others to truly see. Our existences will be the richer for your bringing the goodness of your gifts forward, bit by bit, adding to them each day.”

this comes with love and with peace,

Dr.E

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ONCE, WHEN SOMEONE TRIED TO TRADEMARK THE WORD “GOD”

by c.p. estés

A ‘somebody’ tried to trademark the word ‘God,’ so it could belong to only them, so only they could say what all godly things meant and what godly rules were to be followed, and what godly things were to be officially taught…

But the youngish trademark official behind the counter said, not unkindly, “You cannot trademark a name unless you are that person. “God” is a name, you see, so you must show proof that you are God.”

The ‘somebody’ replied: “I am not God…uh, except on Tuesdays, I try to dress and talk as though I am, but all that aside, I KNOW about God and that should be enough.”

“I’m so sorry,” said the official. “You’ll have to bring God in here in person to sign this trademark application. You yourself, no matter how much you know,

Dear Fellow Travelers…

…the most crippling disease of our time: the same four stories flattened out and told over and over… how to steal; how to kill; how to diminish; how to live dead whilst alive. The periodic tables are more captivating.

A great soul, a great storyteller, has a life lit by a winged thing … one which rustles, throws off flashes of lightning when sensing treasure … a sudden thought, an abrupt intuition, whilst passing over any unmapped mountain range… and holds to those flashes, does not ignore the pull to fly closer, to prospect.

Refuse to submit to anyone who insists we ought understand the entire world as though it is merely a shopping list… to be copied from week to week. The mystery. Hold to the mystery. Mystery is Imagination’s most ancient name.

In making your story, tell whomsoever will listen, in your own way, and with love … then tell them again: Story that lasts is a Fire that flows from anything in us that is Eternal.

Painting of Firebird and Carpet  is the cover for the forthcoming Creative Fire book by C. P. Estés

excerpt from ms The Storyteller’s Bible for Filmmakers, Animators, Writers, Artists, Gamers and Inspirators, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, ©1970, and The Creative Fire: A Manifesto on Living A Life of Creativity, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, ©2009, All Rights Reserved.

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