Dear Reader,
What’s new in life and practice?
I’ve been absent from this space for half the year. This is so much longer a hiatus than I planned or hoped. I've even drafted that previous sentence multiple times, attempting to re-contextualize myself and re-ground in this space. I'm here now, though. And, really, I've been here this whole time, just not here.
Re-contextualization
Hi, I'm Kelly. I've been writing this newsletter in some shape since 2007, since my earliest days of teaching yoga. I had planned to take the summer off. We traveled a lot (three weeks in Greece and a week on Orcas Island) and moved (!!!), and I anticipated needing more mental space for that than maybe I would have in the past. But then, after the kids returned to school, and I had a few freer weeks, I did not write here, which gave way to an intense quarter of teaching and study (the quick catch-up: I'm teaching college composition and working on a graduate degree in English). In the past, however, I've always made time to write here.
What kept me away was the feeling that I’d forgotten how to write. Writing that sentence makes me laugh, because of course I’m writing all the time— you are too, likely. I've always always always considered myself a good writer. (I think because someone told me I was a good writer in childhood.) And I have written for most of my life, both privately and publicly. In the earliest days of this blog-turned newsletter-turned hybrid, I would sometimes post more than once a day, even. Back then, writing was primarily the arrangement of words in an order I found pleasing. Often, they evoked a very specific, atmospheric quality for me that I wanted to share… yes, share, but mostly create for myself. I gave very little thought to the legibility of these compositions. And this is totally fine! There's nothing wrong with this kind of writing. I still do this, early in the morning, usually before the kids are awake and I haven't even turned on all the lights. This is how poems and essays begin for me now.
In her groundbreaking essay “Between the Drafts,” composition theorist Nancy Sommers describes the discrepancy between language as words and language as mode of communication or way of connection. Sommers writes about her Native German-speaking parents' attempts to teach her German by cassette tape and later her own children's frustration approaching Italian the same way. Her daughter astutely observed “'This isn't the way to learn a language. ..These are just words and sentences; this isn't about us…'” (Sommers 25). Sommers connects these memories to her own research and experience teaching revision where words, rather than the thoughts, purpose, audience or context, were the primary element of focus. Sommers notes that when the focus of revision is words, and particularly “words [as] a load of things to be carried around exchanged,” then revision may not lead to clarity (Sommers 26). Ultimately, Sommers writes “You can't just change the words around and get the ideas right” (Sommers 26). Although she writes about the deep, lonely chasm between what we want to say and what we're currently able to write, Sommers sees revision as a site of empowerment. At the heart of Sommers' essay is a writer's own authority— which is there all along, but must endure revisions to be revealed.
Bruce Ballenger and Kelly Myers take Sommers' work further in “The Emotional Work of Revision,” where they describe the “fear-based narratives” that arise in writers who know that this process requires real revision, but who struggle emotionally to push through (Ballenger 592). Although unpacking this article is probably a project for another day, I'll just say that I feel deeply acknowledged by Ballenger's and Myers' recognition that writing tends to get harder once we've attained some threshhold competencies and awareness about writing as a process for thinking and learning rather than simply a mode of transmitting what we already know.
I suppose this is all to say that I'm growing as a writer. I know I need silence in order to digest what I’ve learned in order to continue to improve, but I need to create some parameters around which I can … you know, be okay with publishing work that I know needs revision and will necessarily be revised as my thinking evolves. Because, otherwise, I can imagine a scenario where someone (ok, it's me) would realize that they'll be growing an evolving and revising themselves forever, so nothing should ever be published. I haven't quite established those boundaries or written myself that permission slip yet, but I'm open to advice or suggestions.
Or… something.
Re-grounding
Those engaged in contemplative practice will know the recursive, re-iterative nature of receiving the teachings. In other words, I've received and given teachings on the same topics many many times, but nothing has ever been repeated. One of the ways I've entered this space in the past is by asking the question “what are you practicing now?” And so, that is my re-entry: What are you practicing now?
Right now, I am practicing
I'm practicing meditation every single day without any breaks. I was fortunate to return to my practice of going on retreat this fall, and I'm so happy to be back in that rhythm after covid's severity prevented it for years.
I’m practicing riding my bike— riding to school and work, riding to yoga, riding to pick up the kids from school and playdates— I'm doing this for fun and to reduce my personal carbon footprint.
I’m reading. I read so much, but always read for fun right before I drift off to sleep.
I'm drinking my vegetables early in the morning. Even though I juiced and smoothied for years, this daily practice is closely tied with my decision to be sober. Every morning, I blend water with some combination (this really depends on how much grocery planning I've done for the week) of celery, cucumber, cilantro and lemon.
I'm practicing sobriety. I know I need to write a full post on this, but for me, sobriety means letting go of the things that stand between me and my liberation. In other words, relinquishing the things that keep me from being fully myself. Some of the things I am practicing active sobriety from/with are alcohol, drugs and people pleasing/ fawning. Coffee is something I got back into this fall; I'm five days sober from caffeinated coffee and one day free from decaf.
I am practicing yoga in the studio and at home. Yoga works, my dudes.
I’m practicing sauna.
I’m practicing giving good gifts by paying attention to the people I love.
I’m practicing imperfection.
READING AND RECOMMENDING
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë. This book is SOMETHING ELSE! Brontë wrote this novel in 1847 (and originally under the pen name “Ellis Bell”— her sisters Charlotte and Anne published under the names Currer and Acton Bell) and received mixed reviews due to the novel's treatment of topics such as infidelity and family violence as well as Brontë's narrative structure (I have a lot to say about this, but I'll save it for another day) and voice. I have long been OBSESSED with Emily Brontë's poetry— here's a sampling on Poetry Foundation's website to get you started— but this was my first reading of Wuthering Heights. This is one of those books that is quite different from the mythology around the book, in the manner of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula.Have you read Wuthering Heights? What did you think?!
Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, by Donna J. Haraway. I know I've mentioned this book at least once in the past, but I really BREATHED it this quarter (I wrote about Haraway's theory of Chthulucene in two different contexts and don't think I'm quite finished with my exploration), and I LOVE IT for us.
I've been reading a lot of late 18th and early 19th century poetry through the lens of Haraway….. Robert Burns's “To A Mouse” and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's “To The Nightingale,” for example. For something a little more contemporary, I have been SOAKING up Louise Glück. We have a poem box (!!!!) at our new house, and I feel really good about sharing “All Hallows” there. Also, November's poem was “An American Sunrise,” by Joy Harjo, and I can't stop myself from pausing to re-read it again and again.
Dori Midnight's newsletter has long been a source of devotional inspiration, storytelling mentorship and organizing fire. If you're interested in learning about liberatory approaches to Judaism and ongoing strategies to support Palestinian freedom, please seek her out!
Practice
Remember how I let all of my data from my Wildcat Yoga Club website just dissolve from the internet? WHO LET ME DO THAT?! There are days when I really regret that decision, so I'm starting the process of locating the media files and re-posing them here. I think in the future, these will be for paid subscribers only, but for now, please enjoy this short sound session. I recommend listening to this while lying in savasana, practicing asana, drawing or painting, writing, doing the dishes, making dinner, staring at your Yule Tree in front of a roaring fire, …..
What are you practicing?
LOVE TO ALL,
Kelly
Sources:
Ballenger, Bruce and Kelly Myers. “The Emotional Work of Revision.” College Composition and Communication, Vol. 70, No. 4, 2019, 590-613.
Sommers, Nancy. “Between the Drafts.” College Composition and Communication, Vol. 43, No. 1, 1992, 23-31.