The story of Parzival is the story of all teenagers – a quest to navigate the tumultuous waves of adolescence in a passionate search for their authentic selves, using honor, chivalry, loyalty, and love as guides.

During the seminar block, we read Parzival out loud, or the students read sections at home at their leisure, and recounted episodes in the class. We discussed themes and images, archetypes, history, and legend. But, most importantly, each student was required to write his or her own stories. Like the tale of Parzival, each one is set against the thrilling medieval backdrop of jousting and castles and crusades and kingdoms and strange mythical creatures—but each is as fresh and original as the students themselves.

The students in the class of 2011 and 2012 at the Great Barrington Waldorf High School are to be heartily commended for extraordinary work – amazing stories that are enticing, moving, funny, and wise – so compelling that they had to be published and shared.

You can buy it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or order it from your favorite independent bookstore! Or, local friends, please contact me and I’ll arrange pick up at the school for copies. (That will garner the most revenue for the school.) Please note that 100% of ALL PROFITS BENEFIT The Great Barrington Waldorf High School.

In ancient times, when we were closely connected to the rhythm of the seasons, on the eve of Beltane, we lit bonfires to Bel to call back the sun. We jumped over the fires to purify ourselves, and we blessed our all-important animals by leading them from winter barns to summer pastures between those bonfires. Celebrations were filled with merriment – dancing, tournaments, feasting, and love-making. Flowers were abundant and even the mysterious Green Man was sometimes visible.

There are many celebrations honoring mid-spring. At the school I went to in Sussex, we left baskets anonymously on the doorstep of an elderly or unwell neighbor. Girls woke before dawn and we bathed our faces in the dew (although it was usually soft rain). We danced around a maypole, the girls wearing wreaths and garlands and the boys covered (or so it seemed) in bells. At the end of the complex, varied, joyous dancing, the maypole was colorfully braided with the ribbons we had been dancing with.

Taine means fire and Beltaine was the celebration of Light and Fire. This is the time of year when the energy of the earth and our bodies is the strongest. Fiery Aries has moved into earthy Taurus and if you’re friends with a farmer, you’ll rarely find them socializing now – there is so much work to be done.  We’re now into the summer half of the year, a time when the sun rises early and sets late, and when everything is growing hard.

There’s good reason why the Druids honored the sun above all else: the sun is our earth’s heart. It beats now, at this time of year, with the most passion. It is in love with the earth and with the people on it. Take off your hat at sunrise and sunset, as the people of the Highlands in Scotland used to do, in honor and appreciation of our marvelous Sun.

The Elfin May May Pole

People all over the world mark the circling seasons with festivals, as they have from time immemorial, but sometimes we forget the origin of these festivals. Festivals connect us to our earthly, physical cycles of light and dark, sowing and reaping, birth and death. As a writer or any creative person, you know this intimately: you cannot create art without living and experiencing life. There’s a time to experience and a time to create.

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Writing Practice – Fertility and Creativity

But we’re not talking about young teenagers in love. We’re talking about any age, any sex, and any form of creativity: this is the time to take your heart’s work to a new level of love-making. It’s time to be passionate about what you’re doing and how you’re living.

Use this light-filled energy to grow your creation with an intensity that is unmatched the rest of the year. Wake at dawn, wash your face in morning dew, and sit outside in the early morning sunshine to write a poem. It was said that the man who washes his hands in May-dew would become particularly skillful with knots and nets. Turn that ancient skill into knotting words together or imagine your piece of writing as a beautiful silvery net to catch fish with.

And you can prepare a bountiful May basket by filling it with your favorite words, a poem you’ve written that you love, inspirational fragrance or crystals, perhaps even some delicious may-cakes. Keep it near your workspace for inspiration. Treat your writing spirit as a beloved neighbor who needs a gift of sustenance.

Here are more activities to quicken the life force of your creativity: Light a candle and jump over it (symbol of the great bonfire of Beltaine – do this with attention and care). Wander to a stream or lake or the ocean and bless the water spirits. Listen and listen even more: the words you need to write are there, ready to leap from the sparkling ripples onto your pages. If you have a small garden, or even a window box, or live on the edge of the woods, keep in mind that – like Samhain in the middle of autumn – Beltane is the time of the year when the veil between this world and the invisible world is thin and can be parted. This is when you might see or sense fairies, elves, or other elemental beings – spirits who nourish your creativity even if you can’t see them. (If you want to try to see them, wait till late in the evening, then bend a rowan or willow branch into a ring and gaze through it.)

Earlier this spring I was contacted by a woman named Melissa Harshman who, along with several others, have formed the Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Association, a group dedicated to honoring the lives of the suffragists and establishing a memorial in their honor at Occoquan Park where my great-grandmother, Ada Davenport Kendall, and many others suffered terribly for the right to free speech. Last month, several women reenacted the Silent Sentinel protest in front of The White House to commemorate passage of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote. They wore period clothing and carried replicas of the purple, gold, and white banners the original women held. Their purpose: to keep history alive.

Letter from Lucy Burns to Ada Davenport Kendall requesting her to come to Washington immediately.

In January, 1919, Ada Davenport Kendall had joined a band of distinguished women from all over the United States to march on Washington and protest in support of women’s right to vote. They chained themselves to the fence outside the White House, so that they couldn’t be driven away, and they were taunted and beaten. Many were society women, wives of prominent politicians, elegant and dignified, and they couldn’t believe how they were treated when all they were asking for – peacefully – was the right to vote.

Many of the women were jailed. Ada was sent to the notorious Occoquan workhouse – where conditions were far more ghastly than most people know. The Occoquan, she wrote, was “a place of chicanery, sinister horror, brutality and dread” from which “no one could come out without just resentment against any government which could maintain such an institution.” Family legend has it that her husband, Frederick Kendall, printed her letters to him in his newspaper and eventually word of the atrocities to these women spread around the country. She got the jail, the jailers, and some dreadful politicians into so much trouble that she was released early, and theybegged her to leave the jail.

Of course, she refused. She insisted that every single suffragette who was still being held – without charges, without a trial, and treated with great cruelty – had to be released as well. After that she was confined to solitary again and when she protested that treatment again by going on a hunger strike she was forcibly fed – which, the way it was done back then, was another form of torture.

Eventually, the idiots in Washington realized that they were making idiots of themselves. Husbands slowly began visiting their wives and couldn’t believe the condition they were in. The 200 or so imprisoned women were eventually released and Congress passed the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920, which gave women the right to vote. (Still, twelve states rejected the amendment and women still weren’t allowed to vote in 1952!)

Ada speaking at a suffragettes' meeting in Buffalo, NY.

These are some of the stories my mother and others have told me about my great-grandmother, Ada Davenport Kendall:

A man was beating his horse with a whip in front of her house, and she dashed outside, grabbed the whip, and began whipping him with it.

She had a beloved parrot who she called Pol.

When she was twenty, she became the first woman reporter for the Buffalo Express. The then city editor, Frederick Kendall, (he later became publisher) objected strenuously – but within two years they were married. I love to imagine their conversations!

My cousin Peter was seven when he went to Bam’s – as we always called her – for Christmas in the mid-1940’s. He writes: “The whole family was there. At night I slept in the bedroom above the kitchen. There were grates that allowed the warm air from the first floor to rise. I’m awake in anticipation of Christmas morning. Suddenly I hear a door open to the kitchen from the outside. I look through the grate and see a shabby man enter and go to the icebox (refrigerator), get something, and leave.  A while later it happened again with a like person. This went on all night long. In the morning it was Christmas. But all I wanted to know was what that was all about.  Sam [our uncle] told me that Bam always left the door open and the fridge stocked, so the homeless (the word, then, of course, was “bums”) could have a meal, and the Christmas one was always special. I had never heard of anyone doing such a thing, and I never have since.”

Another story we great-grandchildren were told was that she wanted a fireplace in one of the rooms in the house. Her husband said no, and when he came home there was an axe in the wall. When he inquired about it she replied, “That’s where I want the fireplace.”

While Ada was incarcerated at the infamous Occoquan workhouse, she spent much of her time in solitary confinement, where she made friends with one of the many rats, shared with it her meager portion of maggot-infested food, and named it Machiavelli.

The Poet

After asking relatives for stories they remembered about her, and researching her biography, I came across this mysterious poem she wrote that made me feel closer to her than ever:

THE LADY OF MY DREAMS

Like flash of wild bird in the night,
A tender fleeting thing, —
Or like a breath of soft sweet air
When Winter kisses Spring, —
As falling rose leaves in the rain
Her fragrant presence seems ;
She is the answer to my soul —
The lady of my dreams.

With wild unrest she fills my heart,
The tender fleeting thing,
And yet I would not touch her hand
Or still her wandering.
As well imprison opal fire
Or catch the moon’s white beams ; —
And so I follow with my soul
The lady of my dreams.

                                                                                                                    Ada Davenport Kendall

A reviewer writes: “Winslow Eliot knows a writer’s soul intimately because she herself is a writer, and a fine one at that. She has used this first-hand knowledge and her considerable creative gifts to bring forth an oasis for each season, where wordsmiths can “nourish and revitalize” their relationship with Writing. I began my journey with “Winter”, and I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this book. It’s an amazing synthesis of poetry, useful information and highly effective exercises for the writer — beautifully crafted and wonderfully inspiring. I will put its lessons into practice immediately. I encourage all my fellow writers to join me in refreshing and recharging themselves with regular visits to Winslow Eliot’s delightful “Write Spa”.”

Photo: Sid Howells

When I was a girl and traveling around the world on a freighter with my family, we sailed through the Straits of Malacca and paused in Singapore to unload our cargo of copra. There we took a sampan into the city and found an elegant, red-and-gold restaurant where we ordered the specialty: sarang burung, or bird’s nest soup.

As we ate, this is what the waiter told us: edible bird’s nests are made by the little sea swallows of Indonesia. These are harvested from the ocean three times a year. Using coconut-fiber ropes, young men climb down the sheer cliff onto a ledge high above the rough waves, carrying empty sacks with them. There they wait on a wobbly rope platform for just the right wave to approach. When they see one, they leap into it, clutching their sacks, and are swept under the ledge on which they had been standing. They are washed into a dark cave where they scrabble and fumble around the slippery walls, seeking the bird’s nests. When they’re ready to return, they have to time it just right, or the violent waves will crush them against the cliff, or they’ll be swept out to sea.

Nyai Loro Kidul, the goddess of the South Seas, is the patron goddess of the bird’s nest gatherers. She’s also your WriteSpa guide for this watery month of March. Briefly, her legend (one of many) is that she was the wife of the king of Java, and a rival wife became jealous and put a spell on her that made her horrifically ugly with a skin disease. In despair, she fled the palace and wandered to the ocean where she dreamed that if she leapt into the waves she would be cured and would regain her beauty. This she did, and the spirits and demons of the sea crowned her the Spirit-Queen of the South Seas. From her dwelling place in the heart of the ocean she controls the waves and tides of the oceans around her. She is sometimes depicted as a mermaid with a tail; other times the lower part of her body is a snake. She is also wife to the Sultan of Yogyakarta, known as the “Great Mountain,” whom she visits once a year to consummate their relationship.

Writing Practice: Be Brave

As a writer – or any creator – you have experienced times when you feel stuck. You don’t know how you can move forward in your project or get out of your rut. Try to imagine your stuckness as the skin of a snake that you’ve outgrown. Your writer’s block is your not-so-easy process of shedding the skin that no longer serves you.

Photo: Gunkarta Gunawan Kartapranata

Nyai Loro Kidul’s skin disease brought her to the brink of despair, until she learned how to jump into the stormy waves, and was not just healed but crowned queen of the seas. She had shed the skin that no longer served her. Another aspect of Nyai Loro Kidul’s mythology is her ability to change shape several times a day.

This is something you as a writer do as well: you take on the shape of one character, and then another. If you are trying to paint the wind in the pines or a rider galloping across the moor, you take on the shape of the wind – or you become the horse. You are the magic. When you’re feeling that your skin is too tight, try something new. This is a good time to venture in a different direction. Take a break from the ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’ and deadlines and self-imposed word counts. Do something daring and different. Write a song instead of an article. Get out your water-colors instead of counting how many pages you wrote today. Try extricating yourself from a skin that’s too tight by wriggling into a previously unexplored and potentially scary activity.   

Nyai Loro Kidul is not a benevolent goddess: she’ll take the soul of any one she wants. Let her. Fishermen are scared of her, and you should be too. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fish – that’s your life. Instead, it means you should throw yourself into the ocean of Writing and let yourself drown in it, come what may. Be like the bird’s nest gatherers. Be brave.

Daily Happinesses 

• flying an orange and purple kite on a windy day
• the scent of cedar in an old chest
• Islamic tiles in a walled garden
• breathing your lover’s breath
• nudes
• sailing into a hidden harbor for a rest

 

Here’s what it’s about:

“Your life is an adventure. Every morning you wake up and anything at all might happen! You can set off on a journey, speak your mind, buy something, sell something, look at a painting, take a walk, be chased by a wild boar … the possibilities are endless.

As a writer, you know this is true. You imagine experiences with the soul of an adventurer. You create things – you cast a magic spell and a world is manifested. A person is developed. A story unfolds.

The adventure is thrilling – but it can take its toll. Rest, pleasure, enjoyment in the journey is as important as charging into the fray. You need an oasis.

“WriteSpa – an oasis for people who love to write” is that refuge. It’s a place where you can feel rejuvenated and encouraged. It’s a place that’s fun, fulfilling, and will inspire serenity and nourishment in your writer’s soul.”

I welcome your feedback on these creative writing practices. Some examples are “the soul of color” and “writing great dialog,” “how to interview the most important person in your life,” and “What the Dalai Lama said when he was asked what he’d do if he was told he had fifteen minutes left to live.”

Contact me if you’d like your ecopy. And, if you’d like, let me know if and which practices were helpful to you. I welcome your feedback, especially as I’m preparing the next three seasons.

John Locke

I got in the car today, drove to my local Barnes & Noble, and noticed the special display where John Locke’s book, Wish List, is featured all by itself, not just alongside books by world-famous authors, but in a special section. I felt a burst of pride because I remember when John and I first met, and the dreams we shared, and how he was so happy and proud to be self-publishing. As many of you know – those who have followed my posts through the years (for example, “No Longer Waiting For The Call That Will Change Your Life”), John’s commitment to independent publishing changed my life, as well as that of many, many other writers.

Even though I’ve read Wish List several times (I edited it, in fact!), I still plunked down $4.99 and bought the book and took it to a friend, who doesn’t yet own an ereader. I considered it a great gift because I’m not only helping John (and my friend – it’s a furiously fast, fun, thrilling read), but I’m also helping the whole indie author community.

This is why:

Last summer John Locke, the New York Times bestselling author and the first self-published author in history to sell 1 million ebooks, partnered with Simon & Schuster in a first-ever “Indie sales & distribution agreement.” His print books are now published by John Locke Books, under the Simon & Shuster distribution umbrella (Telemachus Press continues to publish his ebooks). This means that beginning this month, his novels are available for purchase wherever physical books are sold, including Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and airports. Wish List, the first book being published, is expected to have an initial press run of 750,000 copies.

Most importantly in this mind-blowing publishing deal is that John retains 100% of the rights to his books.

John’s publishing deal with Simon & Shuster could be a game-changer for independent publishing. Putting a deal like this together was a huge thing, and not many authors would have been equipped to recognize, understand, and take advantage of an opportunity like this. Because of his extraordinary business acumen, John was uniquely qualified to appreciate all the ramifications. Right from the beginning of his self-publishing adventure, when he found out he could sell an ebook for 99 cents and get a 35% royalty, he worked on publishing strategies to be successful as an author.  Throughout it all, he never gave up any of his rights or control.

I hope other indie authors will realize how important this milestone truly is. An indie book has hit the shelves of major retailers, untouched by publishers, and unaided by media publicity and multi-million dollar marketing campaigns! We need to get behind Wish List and rally our support. Because if this book makes it, the door will be opened in ways we never imagined. John wanted to show the world that indie books belong in retail stores! This is what he is hoping to achieve, what he has always wanted to accomplish: to bring prestige and publicity to indie work. It’s truly the opportunity we’ve all been waiting for – an indie author has gotten in the mainstream publishing door, but we need to make sure that door stays open for all of us! We can do that right now by supporting John’s success in every way we can.

John has turned the publishing industry on his heels by his brilliance, his success, but, most importantly, his imagination. Not just in his wildly creative, laugh-out-loud thrillers, but in his business and marketing concepts. He thought outside the box, and he saw what could be instead of what is. Fortunately, a major publishing house was interested in stepping into the future along with him, and forged a different author-publisher relationship than any that has gone before.

John Locke has changed the rules, the players, and the game itself. From now on, the publishing industry may never be the same. I hope you’ll show your support the same way I did: by picking up a copy of Wish List and sharing this great news with your reader-friends.

Find out more:

SavingRachel.com

Telemachuspress.com

Your life is an adventure. Every morning you wake up and anything at all might happen! You can set off on a journey, speak your mind, buy something, sell something, look at a painting, take a walk, be chased by a wild boar … the possibilities are endless.

As a writer, you know this is true. You imagine experiences with the soul of an adventurer. You create things – you cast a magic spell and a world is manifested. A person is developed. A story unfolds.

The adventure is thrilling – but it can take its toll. Rest, pleasure, enjoyment in the journey is as important as charging into the fray. You need an oasis.

“WriteSpa – an oasis for people who love to write” is that refuge. It’s a place where you can feel rejuvenated and encouraged. It’s a place that’s fun, fulfilling, and will inspire serenity and nourishment in your writer’s soul.

“Writing through the Year” is a compilation of WriteSpas to carry you through fifty-two weeks of writing pleasure. It’s published in four volumes – Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn. “Winter” is available now – Spring is coming soon!

WriteSpa, an oasis for people who love to write, is a place you can come for quiet, rejuvenation, and refreshment. In this oasis, Writing is your friend. Writing becomes a respite – the shade of a palm tree – the cool drink from a spring – a friendly encounter.

Photo: Arturo Mann

January 2012 – It’s time for a paradigm shift. How often have you looked at a sunset and said, “I love that sky!” Or you listened to the radio and said, “I love that song!”

Recently, I realized that it’s time to experience this differently. These past few weeks, walking on the beach early every morning, contemplating the years past and the years ahead, filled with intense emotion, relentless thoughts, and focusing on the steady rhythm of my bare feet on cool sand, I continued to long for stillness, peace, and even joy. It all seemed so
elusive.

But after several days I finally heard something – a voice, a feeling? I don’t know. But I heard it distinctly. It said: “Listen to the waves.” So I stopped and listened for a long time, hour after hour, hearing as though for the first time all the subtleties of the waves, the deep, booming roar of the ocean, the crashes, the whispers, the rustle of the foam on the sand, the sweeping in and the sweeping out of so much water, the endlessness.

The process was like getting to know a strange language I had never heard before. I realized the waves are not individual entities: they speak for the whole ocean. And this is what the waves say, over and over:  “I only want to love you. Let me love you.”

In that moment the world shifted. I realized that everything in the world longs to love us: the birds, the sky, the wind, the light. Even people! You might think that you want to be loved, but imagine or remember the joy of yourself being in love. And so with nature, or the sand under our feet, or the nose of a puppy. It all wants to love you, as much or more as you love it.

So the next time you look at a sunset, hear it say this to you: “I only want to love you. Let me love you.” And when you feel the breeze on your face, or you watch a star twinkle – let it love you. Because that’s all it really wants to do.

  Now that you have spelt your lesson,
   lay it down and go and play,
   Seeking shells and seaweed
   on the sands of Monterey,
   Watching all the mighty whalebones,
   lying buried by the breeze,
   Tiny sandy-pipers, and the huge Pacific seas.

  Robert Louis Stevenson
from ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses’

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Writing Practice – You Are the Beloved

Photo: JaneArt

We’ve been programmed to think that selflessness and doing good deeds for others are vital for our wellbeing. We’ve been told that sticking with a lousy job, an abusive boss, and bleak sacrifice is what life is about. Self-denial is part of our existence.

That’s all true, to an extent. But it’s not the whole story. What matters most in the world is you. You need to care first and foremost about yourself. Everything you do and care and feel and think needs to be with you at your center, no one else. You are the dearest, the kindest human in your life. You are the sun – let the others orbit around you. And that way your light shines on them and they flourish and grow and shine as well.

By loving yourself, I’m not advocating selfishness or greed! It’s the opposite, in fact. Greed is not loving yourself – greed and selfishness will make you sick, just as it makes the world sick. Loving yourself means being as kind and loving toward yourself as you would be toward someone you love very dearly.

That’s all very well and good, I hear you say, But how can we do it? Years of conditioning, of people telling you the opposite or setting your value in terms of wealth or attractiveness or success makes it impossible. So what is the process? How can you practice this?

Since you love to write, begin by using Writing as your main practice. How often have you said, “I love that poem”” Or, “What a great word – I love it!” Now turn the experience around: Words, sentences, grammar, stories – they all want to love you. Let them. Let a word adore you. Allow a sentence to speak its pleasure in being with you. Enjoy the poem’s gift of loving you.

Look at a phrase or a paragraph in your story and surrender to it. For this writing practice, the effort is not to feel you are the master of your work. Let it love you. Let it pamper you, take care of you, worship you, adore you. Let the poem say, “This is for you. Enjoy!” Surrender to the love your words have for you.

Think of surrender not as giving up, but giving. Think of it in the same way the sun surrenders to its orbit and the moon surrenders to being a reflection in silver light.

Or the candle surrenders to being lit.

Or a flower surrenders to its own fragrance.

Surrender to being your own light, your own happiness, your own fragrance, your own beating heart. Surrender to yourself.

All else falls into place around you.

You are the beloved.
_________________________________________________________________

Daily Happinesses

• precision as you cut the diamond
• belonging
• a flight of fancy
• nestled under the wing of a chicken
• what the raven said

Karin, my interviewer, asked me intriguing questions including whether the editing process forces me to remove a favorite scene. (Answer: Yes!)

She also asked about the kind of books I write, the publishing process I’ve gone through, and whether  my characters take on a life of their own and segue into different personalities or different situations than I originally thought.

Fun questions to respond to and I hope you’ll find it fun to read.