Hello,
Writer.
Today we'll be doing some loving kindness practice for the writers in our community who are under fire.
This may mean literal fire,
Bombs,
Natural disasters.
These could be writers who are deeply unsafe,
Dissidents,
Writers under house arrest,
Writers in hiding.
This work can be done for writers in your own community who are not allowed to tell their truth,
Who are unsafe,
Who are at risk.
Writers who are hungry,
Writers who are scared,
Writers who are risking their lives for words.
For this practice,
I recommend that you choose a specific community or region to direct your loving kindness.
We'll be looking at all the different kinds of writers in that group of people.
It might be a country at war that you want to send loving kindness to all the writers who are there right now.
It could be a population,
A gender,
A race.
It could be a group of writers in your community who are at risk in some way,
Unsafe in some way.
Take a moment to choose who you would like to focus on today.
You can always do this again with a different group.
This work is an act of solidarity and empathy.
It is a standing ovation.
It is a bow of gratitude.
It is bearing witness.
You might envision this group as the flag of the country they're in or a space that they occupy,
A symbol or some other visual aid.
You'll have to use your big,
Wonderful writer's imagination to fill in the gaps of your knowledge.
Just do your best.
As with all loving kindness practice,
We begin with ourselves.
For today,
What I would invite you to do is to think of a time when you felt scared to write something or when you were told you couldn't write something,
When it was dangerous in some way,
Could be very small,
Could be internal or external,
Felt dangerous to write those words,
A moment when you were under fire as a writer.
See if you can bring a picture of yourself at that time to your mind,
Connecting with that feeling in a way that feels safe,
Of being divergent,
Of having something that needed to be said,
But that there might be consequences,
Or the feeling of not being able for whatever reason to bring those words forth,
And the holy fury of being silenced by others,
By society,
Maybe even by yourself.
We'll work with the same phrases for all of the writers that we work with today,
Altering them depending on the group.
You're directing these phrases to yourself in that image that you have visualized.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be safe.
May I be inspired.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be safe.
May I be inspired.
Do that once more on your own.
Taking in a deep breath,
And exhale as you let the image fade.
Take a moment to bring to mind the image of the group,
The community,
The country,
The region that you are going to give loving kindness to today.
This is for all the writers in that space.
And of course,
By extension,
When you give loving kindness to a writer,
You're also giving loving kindness to their readers,
The people who will be the beneficiary of these words.
We'll begin just holding this whole group under the umbrella of these phrases.
All the writers.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Once more,
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Taking in a deep breath,
And exhaling.
We'll move through different groups of writers within that larger community.
When you do this on your own,
You can get even more specific between each group.
I invite you to inhale and exhale,
Exhaling through the mouth,
Allowing the image of that particular group to fade before you bring in the next one.
And then when you end,
You'll extend this loving kindness to all writers everywhere.
There may be groups that I am unaware of or that I've forgotten,
So please fill in the blanks.
We are co-creating this loving kindness practice.
Let's start with the journalists.
If your group contains journalists,
You can bring one specific one to mind that represents all of them,
A logo of a broadcasting network,
A general image.
We'll be moving quickly through this practice because it's meant to really be done on your own.
Yeah,
Just as needed and maybe more now than usual because of everything happening in the world.
You can make it shorter,
Longer.
Let's think of all the journalists in this community.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
A few times on your own.
Breathing in and out.
We move on to the poets.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
And on your own.
If your group has speechwriters,
Please bring them to mind.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
Now bring to mind all the fiction writers of this community.
The novelists,
The short story writers,
The flash fiction writers.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
Breathing to mind all the non-fiction writers,
The biographers,
The memoirists,
Those who write educational texts and papers,
Whose work appears in journals,
The essayists.
They may wear other hats.
They might also be scientists or doctors.
Any number of people,
But they are writing.
They're writing.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
Breathing in and out.
May you be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
Breathing to mind all the bloggers,
All the folks who write impassioned,
Long captions on their social media pages,
The truth tellers,
The explainers.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
Bringing to mind all the songwriters.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
Bringing to mind all the journal writers,
The people with diaries,
Little notebooks,
The writers writing privately,
Alone,
Secretly,
The writers whose words we may never read.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
Bringing to mind all the people sending emails,
Writing important letters to loved ones,
To leaders,
To the world at large.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
Bringing to mind the people who need to write policy papers and laws,
Judicial decisions,
The people whose words will make this group's life better or worse.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
Finally bringing to mind all the children writers,
The young writers in this community,
The ones who are just learning their letters,
The ones who are exploring their art through texts and captions and diaries and spray paint,
The ones who are speaking their poetry,
Singing their songs,
Writing on signs,
Chanting in the streets,
Saying no,
Saying yes.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
Calling forth that image of this community once more.
All the writers under this umbrella.
The ones who are alive,
The ones who are gone.
All the writers who are under fire in this community or in this situation.
All the writers who have ever been under fire in all of time,
In this community,
In this situation.
Widening that circle to include all writers everywhere,
Past,
Present,
Future.
May we be happy.
May we be healthy.
May we be safe.
May we be free.
May we be inspired.
Breathing in and out.
As I ring the bell,
I can notice any sensations in your body,
Your heart,
Your spirit,
Your mind.
If you have more writers you would like to bring under this practice today,
Then you can keep doing this work.
Recognizing the interbeing of all writers everywhere.
Recognizing our lineage of writers.
Recognizing ourselves as ancestors to future writers.
May all writers everywhere be happy,
Healthy,
Safe,
Free,
And inspired.
Thank you.
Thank you.
