This is my advice to them: Stop writing, set down your pen, and look out the window. Or lie down on a couch and stare at the ceiling. I don’t mean watch a movie, or engage in a phone call or social media, I mean tune out and wait.

Research has shown that when your mind is at rest is often more active, and at the least as active, as your mind is when it is performing a strenuous task, such as completing a homework assignment.

In the past, neuroscientists assumed that when you’re resting, your neural activity subsides. They believed that when you’re tuned out, your brain behaves rather like a sleeping computer screen with a screen saver dancing across it. But, more recently, by analyzing precise neuroimaging technologies, they have discovered that crucial and meaningful activity occurs in the brain when a person is sitting back and doing nothing at all.

Here’s an excerpt from Scientific American, March 2010: “It turns out that when your mind is at rest—when you are daydreaming quietly in a chair, say, or asleep in a bed or anesthetized for surgery—dispersed brain areas are chattering away to one another. And the energy consumed by this ever active messaging, known as the brain’s default mode, is about 20 times that used by the brain when it responds consciously to an outside stimulus. Indeed, most things we do consciously, be it sitting down to eat dinner or making a speech, mark a departure from the baseline activity of the brain default mode.

“In the mid-1990s we noticed that certain brain regions experienced a decreased level of activity from the baseline resting state when subjects carried out some task. These areas—in particular, a section of the medial parietal cortex (a region near the middle of the brain involved with remembering personal events in one’s life, among other things) —registered this drop when other areas were engaged in carrying out a defined task such as reading aloud. Befuddled, we labeled the area showing the most depression MMPA, for ‘medial mystery parietal area.’”

These researchers decided to call this area the brain’s “dark energy,” referring to the unseen energy that astronomers declare is the mass of most of the universe.

I told my students about this correlation and ask them to set their timers and for half an hour give themselves up to the dark energy that we are barely beginning to understand. When their time is up, they can proceed with their homework assignment.

Almost without exception, these students agree that when they resume the actual activity of writing after this “rest,” their writing seems to flow through them, rather than be squeezed from them, as though they were a tube of toothpaste.

So, try it!

Daily Happinesses

• being told stories by a tree
• swinging in the vines in the jungle
• a white button-down shirt
• the sheaf of parchment
• opening the trapdoor overhead
• stepping into the fairy ring
• the boxes arriving on time

Snakes mating.

When you think of snakes, what comes to mind?

Friendly, slithery little grass snakes slipping across your bare toes in summertime?

A python wrapped around your arm while you dance?

A cobra swaying to a snake charmer flute?

Do you conjure up water snakes or tree snakes, dragons, or evocative statues?

Rattlesnakes bravely protecting their young in the heart of the canyon? A friendly pet in a young boy’s room?

Snakes are found on almost every continent on earth. Sea snakes live in the deepest part of our ocean, and mountain snakes on its highest terrain. They are symbols of health and healing, sex and fertility, protection, transformation, and immortality. Putting any slight ophidiophobia aside, here are qualities of Snakes to inspire a new writing practice.

Health and healing:  One of the oldest symbols of health and healing comes from the ancient Sumerians, who portrayed their deity Ningishzida, an ancestor of Gilgamesh, with two snakes coiling around a rod or staff. This serpent-god had the duty of taking recently-departed souls to their new home. Gilgamesh, as you may recall, was the epic hero who dived to the bottom of the lake to retrieve the plant of life so he could save his friend. But while he slept off his exertions a serpent came and ate the plant. Thus the snake became immortal and Gilgamesh did not.

A familiar—and contemporary—symbol of health is the caduceus: two snakes entwines around a staff. This image originated from Asclepius, the ancient Greek god of medicine and healing, who carried a staff with one serpent wrapped around it. The messenger god Hermes took over the symbol, thus the wings on top.

The dramatic story of Moses transforming a staff into a snake and then back into a staff was also a healing symbol: “Moses made a snake of copper, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a snake had bitten any man, when he beheld the snake of brass, he lived.”

And keep in mind that most medicines have the power to wound or to heal – just as the snake’s venom does.

Sex and Fertility: Many Ancient Greek myths depict the snake as a fertility symbol. The Gorgon in the Temple of Artemis on Corfu wears a belt of intertwined snakes, a fertility symbol as well as a healing one. The wise Minoan Snake Goddes on Crete wields a serpent in either hand. Pytho, the all-knowing earth-dragon of Delphi was depicted as a serpent. (Apollo later slew her and moved into her Delphic home, reconstructing her sacred cavern into his own oracle.)

Another familiar snake story representing sex and fertility occurred in the Garden of Eden, where the serpent entices Eve with the promise of forbidden knowledge of good and evil, a form of self-consciousness, without which she could not experience the fullness of life. The serpent promises everlasting life if she tastes the fruit.

The ancient Hindu understanding of Kundalini, a Sanskrit word  that means “coiling like a snake.” Kundalini is that creative, energetic power of pure desire that can lead to bliss and enlightenment.

Snakes are also symbols of protection: While the Buddha sat meditating under the Bodhi tree, a storm arose. The mighty serpent king Mucalinda cloaked the Buddha in seven coils for seven days, so that he could continue meditating.

In Greek mythology, Ladon is coiled around the tree in the garden of the Hesperides, protecting the golden apples.

The Medusa and other gorgons were ferocious female monsters with hair of poisonous snakes whose were the protectors of the most ancient ritual secrets.

In many myths the Serpent lives in or is coiled around a Tree of Life. Nidhogg Nagar, the dragon of Norse mythology, eats from the roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. The biblical Serpent hides in a Tree of Knowledge.

Transformation and Rebirth: Snakes shed their skin and the concept of transformation and rebirth is perhaps their most important symbol. Hermes, the winged messenger of the Ancient Greek gods, who is often represented by the healing caduceus, had many roles in Greek mythology, one of which was his role of escorting the dead to their new abode.

Immortality and infinity is represented by the “ouroboros”—that universal symbol of a serpent with its tail in its mouth, forming a perfect circle. The origin and many meanings of this profound symbol is shrouded in mythology, history, psychology, but for this writing practice all you need to know is that it represents the “all-in-all”, the cycle of nature and the cosmos, of eternity, and of constant renewal and rebirth.

Writing Practice—The Year of the Snake

Before Buddha departed from earth, twelve animals came to offer their gratitude and devotion. He honored them by naming the years after them in the order arrived: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and boar. We are completing our Year of the Dragon, and heading into … yes … the Year of the Snake.

The horoscope is also based on the rotating five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and wood) and this is the year of the water snake. The water snake is dark and deep: imagine gazing into that dark deep and seeing your personal reflection it. Be prepared for the unexpected . As we’ve said, snakes shed their skin, so they are a symbol of new beginnings. This is a year for transformation, healing, rebirth – and magic.

Here’s your writing practice:

Snake shedding its skin

Imagine all the things in your life that are like dead skin. I know that’s a horrible image, but it really helps to be realistic. We all carry much too much dead skin around with us. Old newspapers, clothes that we’ll never wear again, people who bring us down, a kitchen cupboard that cluttered with items we’ll never use.

Get rid of them.

And since you’re a writer, write down your “dead skin list.” Choose twenty-eight items/people/things/thoughts that you want to slough off this month. Look at old stories, projects, letters too. Do you want to keep those projects in a dusty drawer, or is it time for you to say, that’s it. Let it go. (Or finish it.)

Now every day for one month set yourself a goal of eliminating one thing from that list. That’s your writing practice!

But that’s not all there is to the practice. You don’t want to slough off the old skin and find yourself vulnerable, chilly, delicate… you need to visualize who you become once all the old and all that it symbolizes is cast off.

Imagine three qualities that you choose to become. These qualities will take the place of all the old matter that has disappeared. Do you choose courage? Do you commit to writing that story you always wanted to tell? Or are you determined to say no to the person who makes you depressed?

California King Snake

Write down at least three qualities you want to build up in yourself. Some examples: Kindness. Wisdom. Humor. Freedom. Joy … and begin to think about ways to cultivate those qualities in this magic year – the year of the snake.

Featured guests are welcome – let me know if you’d like to be a featured author on any of my shows. Coming up are topics like writing about clothing, the art of meditation, and crafting an interview.

The paperback and ebook versions of these WriteSpas is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.

It seems to me that’s a perfect instruction for creating a five year plan for yourself. I’ve been thinking about a five year plan a lot lately. There are several reasons for this, but perhaps the most important one is that the last time I created one was five years ago.

So here is a blueprint I made up, based on what I experienced last time, which is still very dear to my heart.

Imagine your Plan in five layers – sort of like transparencies.

1. Inner: How do you imagine yourself inwardly? Wise? Brilliant? Happy? Successful? In love? Reconciled? Satisfied? Adventurous? What is the feeling you long for your soul to experience in five years?
2. Environment: What is the situation in which you wish to find yourself in five years? Look around you. Then close your eyes and imagine your ideal environment.
3. Work. What is your ideal work in the world?
4. Friends and Lovers: What kind of relationships are most important to you?
5. The heart of the matter: Summarize what matters the most to you – how you would like to see things differently (or the same) in five years?

What are some of the aspects for you to examine as you move through these five elements to your five-year plan? Here are some tips:

1. Past-present-future: Think of yourself as a river. You are a source, a flow, and an ocean. Appreciate where you came from, enjoy the journey, and imagine where you’re headed.
2. Trust in whatever happens. Overcome your fear! Fear – even a tiny one – prevents us from doing pretty much anything we want.
3. Work within the reality of what is – don’t plan for windfalls or wishing something would change that’s outside of your situation. Only work with what you can change.
4. Perseverance. This is one of the most quoted phrases in the sacred I-Ching: “Perseverance bring success.” I’d say that, with regard to your five year plan, perseverance is essential.
5. You’re freer than you realize. Basically, your five year plan is restricted only by your self-imposed assumptions that something might not work… release those. Let them go. You are free to manifest your destiny in any way you plan.

This is the most important:

Love yourself for who you are now. Adore yourself so much you want to give yourself the moon.

Good luck!

Thank you, Samantha Stier, for the photo of the ducks.

The first day of May falls at the height of spring and is most familiar to us as the ancient Celtic holiday known as Beltaine…  Bel is the Celtic god of  light, and in the northern hemisphere it is at this time of the year that the light is strongest. The farther north you go, the longer the twilight – that murky, dim, silvery brilliance that imbues the world till late into the night.

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.)

Basket of Flowers by Delacroix

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.
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Daily Happinesses

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

They say that the Sami people, who live in the land closest to the Arctic Circle, have over a thousand words for snow, but none for just ‘snow’ – as we refer to it. I’ve often felt that our word ‘love’ could use  at least 1,000 words to replace how we generally use it, and yet the closest I’ve discovered for  a more specific meaning is when I heard someone ask, “Do you love him or do you love-love him?”

We could do better!

And words don’t – can’t – describe the experience of grief. Since my mother’s death last summer, I often find myself breaking into sudden sobs. Yet I’m not “sad” – that’s not the feeling. Sometimes I’ll experience an intense rush of closeness, or of memory, or I’m flooded with passionate love.

We’re told there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Perhaps that’s so – but none of these words describes the actual, very personal, experience – it just describes certain stages.  Your anger is different than mine – yours may be felt through shrieks of rage; mine might be a white hot ache.

Your denial might be through dancing and singing; mine might be a catatonic numbness. We may share a process – and, as everyone knows who has experienced death, the process of grief is not linear. It’s more like an expanding balloon, those five classic stages layering on top of each other, now this one, now that one, and finally settling around us like a cocoon of acceptance – or at least an acceptance of the inevitability of it all.

Or perhaps when someone we love dies we are thrust inside an enormous cocoon of “grief” (what’s the right word?) and slowly those stages are lifted away and we’re back to being ourselves again.

How can the brief word “grief” encompass such an experience?

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Writing Practice – Making Up Words

Shakespeare made up hundreds of words – why don’t we?

The point is not that there are no words – it’s that there are too many. Or they are yet unnamed. Or they change – and now most words need to become verbs. I’m resialing. I’m grangering. Now it’s time to bergraner, but I feel too prussed.

I don’t seek peace – I’m peacing.

Make up your own words for an intense emotion you’re feeling. What does betrayal really sound like? What does anticipation really sound like – when you specifically anticipate something coming up soon?

I also recommend that you subscribe to Wordsmith.org. This daily word – along with its meaning and etymology – that shows up in your inbox is presented with such lightness, unusualness, and affection that you immediately get a sense that the marvelous Anu Garg has a love for words – not just an interest in them. Do you know what a “yob” is and where the word came from?

And what is a lacuna, after all?

Daily Happinesses

 As I was conversing with a WriteSpa client, and we were discussing assignments and goals, I asked her where she wrote. She hesitated, then said, “It’s a bit problematic…I don’t have a laptop and my computer’s in the living room. I don’t really have a place for it.”

From the way she spoke, I could tell that using “the computer” was for her a chore, a bit of a nuisance, something that she ‘should’ turn on and use, like a vacuum cleaner, perhaps. I knew that for her to have a satisfying relationship with Mr. Write, the ambience surrounding the area where she worked was crucial.

This is not true for everyone. I have friends who are most inspired to write when they’re with a crowd of strangers at a Starbucks. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote on the dining room table, in the midst of a great deal of hustle and bustle. Jane Austen snuck her time in between morning calls (which happen, by the way, in the afternoon). Some authors write in their head, some in bed, some can only do it with a secretary on hand to take down the words.

You need to know what works for you in terms of place. You need to decide what makes you feel secure, at ease, and in a space that you can enjoy. Even if you have to squeeze in Writing between a cup of coffee and taking the kids to school, you’ll find much more pleasure if you surround that brief time with ritual, with some form of beauty, with its own mood.

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Writing Practice – Setting Up Your Space

Fragrance: No matter where you choose to write, decide on a fragrance that you will use exclusively for writing. Choose an essential oil that speaks to you – sandalwood, rosewood, jasmine … whatever you’d like, but one that is not too familiar. Save it for Writing. Smell this each time you’re preparing to open your document. You’ll find it helps enormously when, in the weeks and months to come, you find yourself stuck, depressed, or distracted from Writing, or if you find yourself traveling in another town, far from home, and yearn to write. Through your olfactory glands, your habit of finding pleasure in Writing will be triggered in your memory, and will be reignited. Create the habit now.

Do something that is beautiful in your writing space. A vase of flowers, for example. A crystal. A piece of colored silk. A pinecone. Something that harmonizes and centers you, and reminds you that this moment is between you and Flow and nothing else. If you’re planning on taking your laptop to the local coffee shop, wear a color that inspires, or slip on a pair of shoes you particularly like.

Personally speaking, I wouldn’t listen to music while I write. I know music inspires many people, but I think it undermines the relationship between your heart and your words, because your heart is pulled by the music on the machine, instead of the music of the spheres. Try writing without artificial music for a while and see what happens. You can always go back to it.

Dears, comfort is essential. A supporting chair, or soft couch, or a bed piled high with luxurious pillows – choose what makes you comfortable, but be comfortable. This exercise is about loving the experience of Writing. It’s about appreciating its worth in your life – not about angst, feeling scratchy, or suffering. It’s about wonder, awe, gratitude – and opening another window into what it means to be human.

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Daily Happinesses

• the loud sound of a leaf falling on a still afternoon
• a silver fish in a silver net that can talk and grant wishes
• swimming in a mountain lake in autumn
• a small favor that resonates
• meeting at the street fair
• scraping off the barnacles
• happy birthday wishes

Conflict

I loathe conflict, which, for a novelist, is a terrible thing. This summer I tried to appreciate conflict by playing chess, after many years’ hiatus.

Here’s how Manly Hall describes chess (I’m paraphrasing – check out his book): “The chessboard consists of 64 squares alternately black and white and symbolizes the floor of the House of the Mysteries. Upon this field of existence or thought move a number of strangely carved figures, each according to fixed law. The white king is Ormuzd; the black king, Ahriman; and upon the plains of Cosmos the great war between Light and Darkness is fought through all the ages. Of the philosophical constitution of man, the kings represent the spirit; the queens the mind; the bishops the emotions; the knights the vitality; the castles, or rooks, the physical body. The pieces upon the kings’ side are positive; those upon the queens’ side, negative. The pawns are the sensory impulses and perceptive faculties – the eight parts of the soul. The game of chess sets forth the eternal struggle of each part of man’s compound nature against the shadow of itself. The nature of each of the chessmen is revealed by the way in which it moves; geometry is the key to their interpretation. The castle (the body) moves on the square; the bishop (the emotions) moves on the slant; the king, being the spirit, cannot be captured, but loses the battle when so surrounded that it cannot escape.”

My re-emergence into the world of chess inspired me to take up another old favorite: Sun Tzu’s Art of War. He has some excellent advice (replace ‘war’ with ‘story-telling’).

“In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not good. So, too, it is better to recapture an entire army than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.” In other words, if you’re trying to win your lady or get the job, you don’t do it by storming her apartment or surrounding that office. Getting to the heart of the matter from within works much better – and creates a much better novel.

And Sun Tzu describes six types of terrain, one of which he calls Precipitous Heights. “If you are beforehand with your adversary, you should occupy the raised and sunny spots and from there wait for him to come up.” In other words…arrange a picnic.

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Writing Practice – Make Luft, Not War

WriteSpa – An Oasis for Writers

One of my grandmother’s – and my mother’s – favorite tenets in life was this: “Don’t let your possessions possess you.”

Traveling as they both did, during tumultuous times, when you could count on very little, and yet both of them owning some of the loveliest items in the world (an antique Renaissance dining table, exquisite Victorian glassware from my grandmother’s grandmother, rare Florentine leather-bound books, signed paintings from aspiring and famous artists), it must have been hard to know what was important to keep and what was important to let go.

When my mother was ten years old, she and her family were living in a tiny fishing village in Caldes d’Estrach in Spain. When civil war erupted in the late 1930’s, they were ‘rescued’ by a British destroyer that moved into the bay to evacuate them, since they were the only Americans residing in that area. My mother and her brother and sister were told they could only bring three things with them: a bathing suit, a sweater, and evening dress.

My father brought his extensive library with him wherever we traveled. What other possessions possessed our family? Silks from India, amethysts from Persia, herbs from Catalonia … these all seemed of vital importance to my mother. Also the wooden plates we’d had since the time we lived in Greece and the copper mug my brother made in school… even trying to live as simply as my parents did, some things made the crucial ‘to keep’ list.

But most possessions were constantly left behind, with neighbors, friends, or at a vendor in a flea market in Rome, or at a local charity shop in an English village.

Freedom from too many ‘things’ made the great adventure of travel, which seemed at the heart of my parents’ life together, much more pleasurable.

Writing Practice: The last ten things.

Imagine this: you are alone on a desert island-like-place, and you can only have ten items for the rest of your life. You have no electricity or form of energy outside what you can create yourself (in other words, no laptop or cell phone). Which ten items would you want to surround yourself with?

Most of the time, these are mine:

1. pencil
2. paper
3. guitar (with extra guitar strings)
4. 12 yards of colorful silk (to dance with, clothe myself, keep warm in, use as shelter)
5. a deck of Tarot cards
6. a book (the title always changes)
7. a bed
8. a pillow
9. a cup
10. a pocket knife

What are yours? Write them down. Then go to the next part of this writing exercise:

Remove five of these most vital possessions in your life. What are you left with?

Now remove two more. Reiterate the situation in your imagination: you’re left on a desert island, entirely alone, with only three items for the rest of your life. What are they?

Now remove another.

And another.

So now you discover the one item that you feel you would like to have with you, when all else is gone. For me, the first time I did this, the outcome was a surprise.

I do this exercise for myself every few years or so, and find the first ten items are remarkably stable.

I do it for my main character every time I write a novel, and find it gives me enormous insight into the essence of their being.

• Fresh mangoes falling into the hammock
• Red roofs of Rome
• Diving into the pool
• The greatest kindness
• Smooth sailing
• Brilliant sparkles on the waves
• Knowing the way