You don't have to be a yoga practioner to enjoy Bruce Black's Writing Yoga, published by Rodmell Press. Although he does present parallels between journaling and poses, creative stretching and physical bending, the author's gentle, almost meditative prose shows how mindfulness in both writing and yoga opens us up to inspiration, appreciation, creativity, curiosity and commitment. Here's an excerpt of Writing Yoga by Bruce Black, a lovely contribution to both fields of writing craft and yoga:
In the years following my mother’s death, I switched jobs from newspaper reporter to stock clerk in a bookstore, then entered publishing to become an editor. I began placing stories in magazines and newspapers. Throughout those years I kept pocket-sized journals with me and during lunch spent hours writing, filling pages with questions about how to write and what was important to me, what I felt passionate about. Those journals were the precursors to the journal that I began keeping in 2007 to explore my yoga practice.
Until 2007 I had kept journals off and on, losing interest, picking up a thread again, using a journal to keep track of well-written or moving passages in books or to record something of interest that I saw that day, experimenting with story ideas or ways of presenting a story. Eventually those journals served as draft notebooks in which I worked out plot or character issues. The entries were less about my own thoughts and feelings, more about the thoughts and feelings of my characters…
Each time I stepped onto my [yoga] mat as part of my home practice, I opened my journal for a few minutes and jotted down my thoughts instead of immediately beginning the poses. Writing in the journal became a way for me to notice more closely what was happening in my life—what was going smoothly, what seemed hard—and how I was responding or failed to respond to the challenges…
The journal and the mat are places where I can think through problems that I’m facing without judging myself and without feeling pressure to solve the problems. I can just let the problem out and consider it, the way I might look at a tree or rock, without trying to “solve” it. And in the process of looking, I’ll see something that I hadn’t noticed before, the hint of a path, the suggestion of an answer.
To purchase Writing Yoga from Amazon.com, click here. To visit Rodmell Press, click here.
-- Janet Boyer, Amazon Top/Vine Reviewer, author of Back in Time Tarot, Tarot in Reverse (Schiffer 2012) and the Snowland Tarot (Schiffer 2013). Featured in Tales of the Revolution: True Stories of People Who Are Poking the Box and Making a Difference (A Domino Project eBook edited by Seth Godin)
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