August 2001   Twin Cities WELLNESS  "Exploring  the 21st Century's New Medicine"

LIVING IN THE SPIRIT Bathing in Mud with Natalie Goldberg DAN GRIFFEN I WAS EIGHT years old when I knew I wanted to be a writer. Having looked to the pantheon of great writers, I saw their personal misery and hopelessness transmuted into beauty and truth on the written page. I felt the deep separation between the vision of life I put on the page and the life I was living. I was 21 years old when I realized that to be a writer did not mean I had to continue on a path of self-destruction. Today, I understand that I do not have to destroy myself in order to create. I talked about that idea in a phone interview with Natalie Goldberg the other day.  We spoke about her books. We spoke about the challenges of writing over the years and how she has reconnected with the freedom and love for writing she knew when she was younger before the pressures of success and performance had begun to choke her spirit. We talked about how people sometimes search for an external source to tell them how to write and oftentimes, who to be. She said to me, “There is no sense in that—trying to be Ernest Hemingway—just be yourself and find your own voice.” I believe that is one of her core teachings, just as it is in Zen, to help people experience themselves—all of themselves—as being okay. Goldberg has found a way to guide herself and others into a place where they find their source and instruction from within. To unearth themselves. Put it on paper. Give it life. Give it voice. No other writer has affirmed that for me more than Natalie Goldberg. For her, writing is deeply tied to her experience of life. Writing practice is life—it is not about life. Writing practice opens one up to the first mind, that pure mind that is deeply connected to all things. It opens us up to ourselves. This fall, Natalie Goldberg will be presenting a workshop entitled “Splattered with Mud and Dripping Wet: Writing Practice and Total Self-Acceptance” where participants will be shown ways to connect detail, place, and memory from the heart-mind and writing from total self-acceptance. This does not mean fixing ourselves. Rather it is a process through which we find our own voice as writers and our own voice as human beings. Who we are and what we think, no matter what it may be, is okay. Put it on the page. Let it go. Do not censor it. Do not rein it in. There will be time for that later. First practice letting it go. In writing there is letting go and allowing whatever comes up to come up—just as in Zen. Without judging it allow your writing to take on a life of its own. Follow it rather than having to be the one in control.  Goldberg invites us to cease the struggle. To embrace ourselves and our humanity and insanity as nothing more than who we are. As writers we often believe that we cannot write about certain things. We must avoid certain thoughts, just as we should do in other parts of our life. If we think them we must dispel them. We must hide them. Ignore them. This fall we will have a chance to go within and jump into the muck. To wallow in it. To bathe in it. To run our hands through it and let it get all over our bodies. Let go of judgment. Surrender ourselves and come out dripping wet. Come out splattered with mud having entered the muck and the darkness and mined them for all of the precious gold they hold in store.  Natalie Goldberg is an author, artist, Zen student and lay priest. Her books include Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer’s Craft, and the bestsellers Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind. Natalie has studied and practiced Zen Buddhism since 1978, with the late Dainin Katagiri-roshi, Thich Nhat Hahn, and now, Dosho Port-sensei. She has presented workshops nationwide and is a mentor to many aspiring (and accomplished) writers. Goldberg’s workshop, “Splattered with Mud and Dripping Wet: Writing Practice and Total Self-Acceptance,” will be offered at Metropolitan State University on Oct. 27-28. Cost is $225 if received by Oct. 1, or $250 for late registration. For registration information contact Clouds in Water Zen Center, 308 Prince St., Suite 120, St. Paul, Minnesota 55101, call 651-222-6968, or email to info@cloudsinwater.org. Dan Griffin is a member of Clouds in Water Zen Center and a local freelance writer. Home | Wellness? | Writers Info | Subscribe | Links | Contact Us P.O. Box 897 Stillwater, MN 55082 tel: 715-259-3385 or fax: 715-259-3386 email: info@tcwellness.com © 2001 Twin Cities WELLNESS newspaper. All rights reserved.