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| Along the Misty River Catherine Al-Meten |
Monday, December 5, 2011
At the Threshold: Another Stop along the Journey
Life as a writer has changed so much over the span of my life. Learning to read and write as a child, I also was blessed to have a Mother who read to us every night, taught us to sing, play, and read music, encouraged us to love language, culture, and the great adventure of Life. She also introduced me to life as a spiritual journey, providing me with tender guidance, open-minded thought, and a deep, abiding connection to all things connected to Creator Spirit...active imagination, dreams, love of the fantasy embedded in the narratives of ancient history and sacred texts. I have always been fascinated with the written word, and the visions, images, and great epics a good piece of writing can awaken in the mind.
As a child, I recall my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Lois Rasmussen, allowing me to bring my favorite book to school. My Mother had read us Mr. Wicker's Window, many times, and I guess I had talked about it. My favorite teacher of all time, Mrs. Rasmussen, let me sit in front of the class on a little wooden chair, and read my favorite parts to the class. On another occasion, my husband, daughter, and I were driving from San Diego north to our home near San Francisco, and I read The Oregon Trail to them the entire way. Other favorite books, Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, and dozens others, have been my companions and guides for many years.
Coupled with my love of reading is my passion for writing. Never without a pen (sometimes hard to find, but nevertheless, in my purse, pocket or clipped somewhere on my body), I cannot seem to think or speak without a pen in my hand. My thoughts flow more easily from a pen or keyboard than they seem to from my mouth. So this blog is a way for me to connect with you, someone I presume loves reading and writing too, and hopefully, we will share some ideas about what it is that inspires us, touches us, motivates us, and instructs us as we grow in our writing practice.
My passion for reading runs the gamut of genres; so too does my love of writing. I'm an indiscriminate write, writing only that which connects me to a steady stream of ideas that I am chasing. Or following a dream or mystery that takes me down a path of ideas strewn with turn offs, jogs in the road, and faint trails covered with the debris of past storms. After a long, complex piece of research and composition, I sit by the trail munching on a piece of fruit and thinking in Haiku or dreaming in Arabic, taking a rest with the music of Chopin or a song about the letter B with the Dixie Chicks. Love of language, words, ideas, dreams and visions, enable me to breathe in the fullness of life, and that's what I intend to share as we begin this adventure of the Writer's Journey.
As a child, I recall my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Lois Rasmussen, allowing me to bring my favorite book to school. My Mother had read us Mr. Wicker's Window, many times, and I guess I had talked about it. My favorite teacher of all time, Mrs. Rasmussen, let me sit in front of the class on a little wooden chair, and read my favorite parts to the class. On another occasion, my husband, daughter, and I were driving from San Diego north to our home near San Francisco, and I read The Oregon Trail to them the entire way. Other favorite books, Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, and dozens others, have been my companions and guides for many years.
Coupled with my love of reading is my passion for writing. Never without a pen (sometimes hard to find, but nevertheless, in my purse, pocket or clipped somewhere on my body), I cannot seem to think or speak without a pen in my hand. My thoughts flow more easily from a pen or keyboard than they seem to from my mouth. So this blog is a way for me to connect with you, someone I presume loves reading and writing too, and hopefully, we will share some ideas about what it is that inspires us, touches us, motivates us, and instructs us as we grow in our writing practice.
My passion for reading runs the gamut of genres; so too does my love of writing. I'm an indiscriminate write, writing only that which connects me to a steady stream of ideas that I am chasing. Or following a dream or mystery that takes me down a path of ideas strewn with turn offs, jogs in the road, and faint trails covered with the debris of past storms. After a long, complex piece of research and composition, I sit by the trail munching on a piece of fruit and thinking in Haiku or dreaming in Arabic, taking a rest with the music of Chopin or a song about the letter B with the Dixie Chicks. Love of language, words, ideas, dreams and visions, enable me to breathe in the fullness of life, and that's what I intend to share as we begin this adventure of the Writer's Journey.
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