#1 Starting out

Lucía and Gwyneth take a close look at the piece “Morning Dedication” from their book “A Wound in Time”. They discuss how it came to be written, writing as a declaration of intent, and how even simple everyday things can convey big meanings.

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Text of the week: “Morning Dedication” from “A Wound in Time” by Lucía Moreno Velo & Gwyneth Box. Read in this episode by Imogen Smith.

Transcription

Gwyneth:

Hello and welcome to the Writing Spirituality Podcast, brought to you by the Grounded Spirit Project. We’re delighted that you’ve joined us. Whether you’re a writer first and foremost, or write as part of your role as community or spiritual leader, this is the place to find ideas, tools and prompts to get started, to keep going and get finished, and to find a home for your writing.

[music]

Lucía:

Let’s take a moment to focus:

Take a deep breath.

Relax your body.

Let go of your to-do list,

and be fully present, here and now.

Welcome to episode number one: Starting out.

I’m Lucía.

G.

And I’m Gwyneth.

Today we’re going to take a look at the piece “Morning Dedication” from “A Wound in Time”, read here by Imogen Smith. Let’s first just listen to it.

Imogen Smith:

Morning dedication

In the tree outside my window, the birds were singing at dawn;

I, too, raise my voice in thanksgiving.

On the neighbor’s stoop, the cat grooms herself, carefully, earnestly;

I wash away the past and start each day anew.

The oranges on my kitchen counter are bright and unashamed;

I will be true to myself in body and mind.

The coffee cuts through early morning blur to clear my head;

I will offer honesty to those I deal with.

There are dandelions in the yard, their faces wide and welcoming;

I greet this day and all it brings with cheerfulness.

L.

Mmm, I love this piece.

So, this is one of the pieces from one of our books, from the Modern Pagan Prayers Project. The first book, which was “A Wound in Time”, that was inspired by the pandemic and written in 2020. Why did we choose this piece? Gwyneth?

G.

Yes, why did we choose to talk about “Morning Dedication”? Well, it’s the first piece in the first book of the Modern Pagan Prayers. It’s not the first piece that we wrote, but it seems a good piece with which to start the podcast, because we’re going to be talking about a different piece of writing in each episode and this, this piece, it was not, as I say, not the first piece that we wrote and some writing is inspired and it happens naturally and you just want to write it, but here it was written intentionally with the intent of something to go at the beginning of the book. It was almost a declaration of intent and it seems a really good choice to start here with something that we’re very familiar with because we wrote it, although in the future we won’t always be talking about our own writing, but this is a piece of our own that we wrote for a specific purpose. And yeah, more than anything else, I think it’s a declaration of intent.

L.

And sometimes those are the hardest pieces, right?. You look at your project, your book or whatever thing you’re doing, as a whole and you see something missing. There’s been no inspiration for it and you say, “well, I need a piece that serves this purpose.” And then you have to sit down and write it.

G.

Absolutely.

L.

And it’s very hard to write when the muse is not sitting right next to you, whispering words into your ears, right?

G.

It’s hard, but it’s sometimes just important, essential. And I’m pretty sure that the listeners are going to be put in that situation quite regularly. That there’s an event or there’s an occasion, or there’s a, a need for a piece of writing and yes, you can’t get out of it. If that’s what you do for your job, or if that’s what you do in your role in the community, then you have to get out there and write.

L.

Exactly, and I remember you started this piece. You were the one who first wrote the first draft, the zero draft, as I like to call it. What technique did you use to write it? What did you do? What trick did you use? Tell us about your magic.

G.

Oh, I’m not sure. I think that, I mean, it was a moment of inspiration. It was lying in bed in the morning and hearing the birds. Those birds were really there. The piece starts “In the tree outside my window, the birds were singing at dawn” and that’s what happened. I lay there, listening and I thought, well there’s different ways I can react to those birds. It can be “heck it’s not light yet, why on earth are those birds up and about and waking me up”, or I could say, “I, too, raise my voice in thanksgiving”. And I remembered that a friend who, we shared a flat many years ago, and she said that I did actually walk around the flat in the morning singing and I was not aware of that. But, so those two ideas, of the memory of sharing the flat with Natalie and listening to the birds in the morning, gave me a beginning. And I thought, from that point, the rest of it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not true. It’s… I think real life is a stepping stone to creativity. I don’t think the facts have to be there the whole time. So… yes, it’s… That was my trigger.

L.

Yes, sometimes you just need to grab a small thread and then pull it and the whole pullover will unravel from it, right? You heard the birds and you said, “Well, I am trying to write something to start a book and here I am starting my day.”

G.

That was it.

L.

I think that was what clicked there, right? So, what, what is… When you start something, how do I go about that, what inspiration can this bring? And then you went on an imaginary walk around your neighborhood and your home and your morning.

 

G.

Yes. It was more, not necessarily my morning. Again, it was more “what do you do in the morning?” Well, you… you get up, you you look out the window, you make coffee , you have a shower, you walk into the kitchen, you… all these different things, and… I’m not sure; in the text they’re in a particular order; that isn’t necessarily the order that would apply to my morning. And, there are things like, well, the cat: the cat, there is no cat on the neighbor’s stoop. I’m not sure the neighbor’s got a stoop. I can’t even see it if it is there. But, what I was looking for there, was very much universal images –  images that would, would be understandable by anyone who heard the piece. It didn’t have to be a personal truth, although the idea of cats grooming themselves is something that, sadly at the moment there is no cat in my life, but there have been in the past and there will be again in the future. Yes, and I don’t think there are any oranges in the kitchen, either, but why not? It would be a normal beginning to a day: orange juice. So it was just looking at these little things and having got that first idea of raising your voice in thanksgiving at the beginning of the day, it was also that, it was this declaration of intent of positivity, of setting up the day to be positive in the same way as opening up this new book with a tone of optimism, particularly because it was being written in the pandemic and there were some quite, not negative, but some quite difficult subjects we covered in the book.

L.

Yeah.

G.

And I think, I think I wanted this, there is a bigger truth, and that bigger truth may be positive.

L.

Yes.

G.

I wanted that as a declaration at the beginning.

L.

Yes. And then, and then one thing that I want to say about this piece is that it repeats the same structure five times. And I think one of the reasons why it works is because you are taking each imaginary relatable morning moment and making it a metaphor for your own declaration of intent , and that’s one of the reasons it works, because it just takes you through that repetition and though that, umm, I don’t know how to express this…

G.

Well it’s got that structure, hasn’t it? If you saw it on the page, you would see that it is five couplets,  and the first line of the couplet is the observation – the birds, the oranges, the coffee, the cat… – the, the second line, it’s almost a call and response. The second line is “this is my response to that”  – “this is how I can apply it to me and my life and my early morning declaration of intent”.

L.

Yes, and what the reader, or the person hearing it, does is understands really fast what you’re doing, and will even anticipate by the time you talk about the oranges, which is the third couplet, then the reader is already anticipating how the oranges are an example for your own attitude towards life, right?

G.

Yes

L.

And I think that’s something that makes the reader participate into the story you’re telling.

G.

Yes. I think that that’s one of the tools that I’ve brought across from my poetry writing is the idea of pattern. Pattern helps the reader to understand the intent of the piece, to follow along with it because often if we’re reading, if we’re reading our words to an audience, and it’s the first time they’ve heard the, it can be very difficult, because they’ve got to have something  to grasp onto, and, and by giving them a structure it helps them to predict, it helps them to keep up with the meaning. There we can also not that the language here is actually very very simple. There’s nothing particularly ornate, yes, there’s nothing overly ornate in this.

L.

Yeah, you don’t need a thesaurus to understand this.

[Laughter]

G.

For once. Yes.

[Laughter]

G.

That’s that’s really important, I think, when it comes to words that are for sharing.

L.

Mm-hmm.

G.

Or words that are for listening to. Because I definitely felt this was something which was to be spoken aloud. And if it’s to be spoken aloud, if it’s to be spoken for someone else rather than  just for yourself, you want them to know what’s going on, and so you use familiar language we also touched on different senses: sight, sound, taste and smell, touch… and that will make it have a wider appeal. And also, yes, I think it makes it more relatable. I think we need to come back to the idea of using sense, senses, probably we’ll talk about that again in a later episode.

L.

Yes, yes..

G.

I’m sure we’re going to find a lot of the themes that we’re talking about here are going to come back as we look at other pieces of writing.

L.

What I see here is that, faced with the task of writing something for a purpose and without any previous inspiration it’s: One, finding inspiration in a simple thing in your own life. Two, making sure that it’s relatable and universal. Three, using it as a metaphor for what you want to say. Four, use pattern to repeat that with other images that are relatable. And fifth, use simple language that everyone can understand even when faced for the first time with the piece. And this is because the intent of the piece is to be used widely by people in many different situations, and to be heard and not read, if necessary. So, umm,  I think, you know, these are things that, these are techniques that we use constantly in prayer, but that can also be used for other things other than prayer. Like, if you need to make a speech, if you ned to make, you know, a greeting, a small speech or whatever, all of these things help and if you, if you listen to great orators, you will see that they use these things constantly. I’m thinking about “yes we can”…

[Laughter]

L.

Or “veni, vidi, vinci.” All these things come again and again and again I mean we haven’t invented anything but they’re very effective, yes.

G.

Yes. The, the tools of rhetoric, the repetition, the patterns that are used, and, indeed, the sounds. There’s not a huge amount of sound patterning in here, but we’ve got “wide and welcoming” , the dandelions in the yard, they’re wide and welcoming and you’ve got that “W” repeated there, which is a useful technique when you’re, when you’re trying to create something memorable. We’ve got the cat on the stoop who grooms herself, and again, the stoop, grooms, and those, those sound echoes, they’re not rhymes, but they are echoes, yes, we can talk about alliteration and we can talk about consonance and assonance and that, but we don’t need the formal words to recognize that there’s a pattern in there.

L.

Yeah.

G.

So those help bind the piece into a, a complete integral unit.

L.

Yes. Yes. But I do feel that that’s a step beyond.  At first, when you start writing your zero draft, you probably will not have that. You’ll just have the ideas… that are awfully sketched, and then, when you revise, you can work on binding the piece with the sounds – at least for me because English is not my mother tongue. That would definitely be very difficult for me to do that. But even if you don’t have that, if you’re faced with the task of writing something for the public, for your community, you don’t need to have the perfect piece for it to work. Right? I mean I’m not putting you down at all… you’re a poet! Not all of us are poets, Gwyneth…

G.

[Laughs]

No, no, no! And also, there’s a huge difference in what you’re writing and how it’s going to be used. I mean, this was written to be included in the book, to hopefully be used time and again. And yes, we spent – together – we spent time making sure that this was as right as we could make it. I’ve no doubt that someone else would make it more right- But this, to us, was finished at this point. But, if you are asked to read something which is going to be a “one-off”…

L.

Of course, yeah…

G.

…it doesn’t have to be quite so perfect. Though if it can be that’s wonderful.But it probably doesn’t need to be. If it’s going to be spoken rather than printed, it also, perhaps, doesn’t need to be quite so perfect. Because we tend to think that the, the written word is, needs to be more polished than the spoken word. I mean, listen to us now, on the podcast, we don’t have a script, we have notes, but we’re not reading from a script. It’s not going to be polished. And I think that we’ve got to recognize how our words are going to be used when we are writing, whether we are writing notes for ourselves to read from, or something to be published and distributed to, tens, scores, hundred…

L.

Yes, definitely. If it’s a one-off, the meaning probably takes precedence. And one of the, of the things that, one of the techniques that you use here to convey meaning is using very small things in your everyday life to talk about very big things that might be difficult to talk about. And that’s something I think that’s very useful, and if you are talking to a close-knit community you can properly address things that are less universal and more specific of your community, that people will really relate to, and then write something that is very tailored to your public. And that would be very meaningful to them because it is tailored to them. Yes…

G.

Yes. Always, whenever you’re writing, the first, or, yes, I think the first, thing you need to think about is who your audience is, how the piece is going to be used and obviously the content matters, but the content of this piece could have been any number of things. The intention would have been communicated the same if I’d used herbal teas, not coffees, or, or whatever.

L.

Hmm.

G.

Or a dog not a cat, a different flower. But the content actually was incidental.

L.

But we did have trouble with the word “dedication”. And I think, and, and a lot of the problems with that word was the meanings that are given to that word in the communities where we grew up, right?

G.

[Laughing] Oh yes.

L.

That was a very specific thing.

G.

It was.  Titles can matter a great deal, and I’m afraid that this title – “Morning dedication” – it mattered to me a great deal. The word “dedication” was the word that I wanted  and that was because of my personal understanding of the word dedication. It’s, erm, it’s from the fact that when I was a child I was brought up in a Baptist household, and we didn’t have christenings… the families brought the baby to the church for a dedication service. And my understanding was that it was the family who were dedicating themselves to bring up the child In the Christian religion, in the Baptist Church,not dedicating the child: it was a declaration…

L.

Right.

G.

A public declaration of belief, and of intent and, for me, that was what this particular piece was. But I can understand that, yes, the words might mean… because I think you, you Lucía, talked about “Devotion” as a possible title?

L.

Yes, yes… For me, dedication it’s more that you dedicate something, right? Well there is the idea of, umm…, of purposely assigning a purpose of an object. Let’s see if I can explain this… that, I have in my home, a stove that is dedicated to the goddess Bridget, so the stove’s spiritual purpose is to serve the goddess, and it’s set aside as in the service of the goddess. So for me that’s what dedication means. Of course, we all know that words have two – or three or four or five – or infinite meanings, so it doesn’t mean that one meaning is more important than another, it just means that you have to use the words that apply to your community.

G.

Very much so.

L.

That’s just what it means. Because we were writing books that were for a very wide audience, you know, we settled on that word, because it was your draft zero, and because it was important for you.

G.

[Laughs]

L.

And it’s fine. And we did say at the beginning of the book, you know, “change whatever you want” as a reader, so it’s useful for yourself, yeah.

G.

Yes. And that’s just worth mentioning now, as well, that when you put your words out there, if you do publish them, if you distribute them, actually, although, yes, the copyright is yours, the words are yours unless you declare that they are in the public domain, in which case they can be modified, erm, but yes, if you put your words out there, people are going to interpret them in their own way. Your reader, your audience is going to hear something and, when I say “dandelion”, I know exactly what flower I’m thinking of, but it may actually be that your local dandelions look quite different from the ones I’m, I’m thinking of, and you’ll be visualizing the cat and the neighbor’s stoop, in a particular way, in a type of architecture, type of house, that isn’t the type of house that I was envisaging when I wrote that line, your words, you’re not going to be sitting next to the reader and painting the picture for them. If they’re part of your shared community, the chances are that they’ll interpret the words in the way that you intended. Hopefully.

[Laughter]

G.

It doesn’t always happen. But you, also, there’s just a little bit of a warning about having to be willing to let go of words.

L.

Umm… Yes… And that’s one of the reasons why having an editor is useful. Because then you have a second pair of eyes that reads the piece and says “Have you thought this might be interpreted this way?”

G.

Yes.

L.

And you probably haven’t…

G.

Yes, an editor or a co-writer…

L.

Yes, or a beta reader… just, you know, people who are used to reading and…

G.

[Laughing] I’m going to call that a “beta” reader  [pronouncing it “bee-ta”] because otherwise I’m going to hear “better” as in “more good”, so, I’m going to call that a bee-ta reader.

L.

Oh. I meant the Greek word. Isn’t that “beta”?

G.

Yes, beta [pronouncing it “better”] or beta  [pronouncing it “bee-ta”], but, yes, I, for clarity’s sake, let’s pronounce it “bee-ta”.

[Laughter]

G.

Beta is probably the correct pronunciation, but it does sound exactly the same as I’d pronounce “better” – and that’s also something to be aware of if you’re reading your work, that there are words that will sound one way and they could actually mean something else… people will hear what they expect to hear, won’t they?

L.

So that’s the reason why you have to keep it simple. And that’s the tip of the week: keep it simple.

G.

Yes we do seem to have gone and touched on a huge number of things in this first episode. Which is great. We haven’t gone into great depth for many of them, but I think that we will circle back in later episodes and touch on many of them again… But, yes, we’re coming up to the tip of the week, aren’t we? So, Lucía, I think you already said this, but let’s have the tip of the week.

L.

The tip of the week: keep it simple. Justjust keep it simple in thought and in language. There’s lots of meaning in everyday things like coffee and hot water and flowers, just keep it really simple so that it can reach a very wide audience. And if you’re writing for a very specific audience, keep it simple keeping that audience in mind, so use whatever language is simple for that audience.

G.

OK…

L.

If you keep it simple, it’s also simpler for you.

G.

[Laughing] Yes.

L.

In my opinion.

G.

Yes. No, no, no… It…oh, I don’t, hmm… I’m not sure. I think sometimes the, the simplest texts have taken a lot of effort to make them that simple. I think they can be deceptive.

L.

Yeah. Yes. Simplicity in language is difficult. I meant simplicity in thoughts, in ideas. You’re right. Simplicity in language is very difficult to achieve.

[music]

G.

And now it’s time for listeners’ questions. And if you’d like send in, a question or comment do just send us an email. But, what about the question for today, Lucia?

L.

So we’re going to take a question that’s been asked in some of our workshops which is, “How do I write a piece for a very diverse group?” so exactly the opposite of what we’ve been talking now. We’ve been insisting, you know, if you’re talking for your community, use their language. And people say, “Yeah, but what happens if it’s not my community? It’s like an interfaith event, or it’s just a demonstration, or a fair, and I’ve been asked to say a few words to this whole, wide variety of people that have basically nothing in common, right? How do I write a piece for that occasion?” And, umm, for me the answer is keep it simple. For me the answer is find the one thing that, that is, having all these very different people come together in the first place. Right? And start from there. So…

G.

Absolutely. If we’re talking about a, a demonstration or an event of some kind, there is a common cause isn’t there? There will be something that will unite everybody. And starting from that point… Sorry, I interrupted you…

L.

No no no no no… you’re right… If people are there for a demonstration, then they have a common cause. If it’s an interfaith event, interfaith events are usually held to be celebrating something, or mourning something… Just start from there. If it’s a fair, then, you know, why are we having a fair? Because it’s the town anniversary, whatever… So, start there, in a very simple thing, and and see what you can build around that, right?

G.

Yes.

L.

Don’t try to touch on all the differences that everyone has. First, it’s very difficult; second, you’re going to get something wrong, and you’re going to offend that particular section of your audience.

G.

Yes,

L.

Just stay in the common ground. And also believe in yourself, right? Believe that if someone has asked you to write those words, it’s because you can write those words, and people around you look up to you as a speaker and a writer, right?

G.

Yes, and they think that something, that you will have something to say that’s worth listening to.

L.

Exactly.

G.

And, I think that that’s one thing that I’ve seen a lot of when people have been asked to speak, and they get really really nervous, and it’s like, well, somebody asked you, you’ve been invited for a reason. Umm… Yes, speaking in public is, apparently one of the things that people fear most, one of the most horrendous experiences that you can go through, but, one thing is if you put yourself forward, well, that’s your choice, but if somebody else you to speak, well they have faith in you, so just hold on to that thought.

L.

Hmm… Sometimes we are our worst critics. And we don’t see in ourselves what other people are able to see in ourselves. If someone saw a good speaker, a good writer in you, it’s because you’ve proven that in the past. so you can do it again. Just keep it simple and if, if you doubt yourself, get an editor. Get someone to read whatever you’ve written, and give you their honest opinion. Someone who knows the community or the event as well as you do. And…

G.

That’s important, because if you ask someone who isn’t part of the community or the event, they may entirely miss the point. And this is something to be very careful of, and, again I’m sure it’s something that we will repeat frequently, that, having an editor, or having a beta reader, is very, very important but they have to understand what you’re trying to do. They have to understand what the situation is, what your audience is, your goal is, because if they don’t, and if they’re not part of your audience, they’ll start giving opinions which really aren’t going to be helpful.

L.

Yes, what I would do, is just give someone in the organization what I plan to say, and ask them, “Will this offend anyone?” Right?

G.

Yes.

L.

I’m not going to go down and, you know, on grammar issues and whether you think my choice of words is… [laughs], you know, too formal, or whatever. Just, “Will this offend anyone?”

G.

Absolutely.

L.

And then, just move ahead.

G.

Looking, then, more at the content than the, than the container. Yes…

L.

Yes. ‘Cause finding a good editor, a good reader, takes time. And being a good editor is not easy – it’s job on itself, yeah.

G.

Yes. Okay. so that was writing if you’ve got to write for a diverse group. And, as we said, that was a question that came up in one of the workshops that we ran, indeed, several, I think… So if you’ve got a question, and you’d like to ask it – we’re talking about the writing questions, we not talking about the spiritual questions – so if you’ve got a writing question, do send it in to, umm, I think the address is hello at groundedspiritproject.com.

L.

And, you know it’s so funny to see how scared you are that someone is actually going to ask us a spiritual question…

[Laughter]

G.

Aah… not scared, just I might not give the advice that’s expected.

L.

All those will go straight into the spam folder. [laughs]

[music]

L.

Let’s give our listeners some homework.

G.

Oh, yes, homework…

L.

Let’s move on to the writing prompt.

G.

Yes, yes. It’s an important part of the podcast, is going to be that we will each week we are going to be giving a prompt or an exercise and, even if it doesn’t particularly inspire you, it’s good practice to actually try and do something. Nobody’s going to be marking this homework, it’s for yourself, but you’re accountability is that we are going to be here producing a podcast each week, we actually think that, as listeners, we would very much like you to be producing some writing each week.

L.

Yep. So give yourself one week to do a piece of writing on this thing: your morning routine. Think about it, and think about what you want for the day every day. Every day you start your day, right? And write a piece that can be reused as part of your daily routine or your personal ritual. How do you start your day as a fresh start, every morning? Using, as a stepping stool, the very small acts that you do in the morning, whatever those are. This would be a more personal piece of writing, using your own personal routine.

G.

Yes.

L.

You want to add something, Gwyneth?

G.

No… I think that, umm, that’s very much it. It’s about seeing each new day as a clean slate and how do you set it off in the right, with the right attitude? What is it that  you can look at in your routine, and is there some piece that you can use as a dedication to the day?

[Laughter]

L.

If you’re very new to writing and this seems daunting, make a list of the things you do in the morning before you leave your home or you start working. And just try to make it a repetitive piece. Just like the one we read. And see if you can find for each of those things that you do in your morning, see if you can find a purpose for your day that would parallel your acts. Like, if you wash your face, or you shave in the morning, think, how can that be a metaphor for starting my day anew.

G.

Though I will say, a lot of us have quite long routines in the morning, and the one thing I would say is that length doesn’t actually matter. The piece that we’ve just spent all this time talking about, is just ten lines. And even that is more than it perhaps needs to be. So don’t feel that you’re expected to have written, I don’t know, a thousand words, or a hundred lines of a piece of poetic poetry…

L.

“Ode to my morning!”

G.

Yes, and it doesn’t have to be in a poetic form. If what you want to write is a piece of prose, that’s absolutely fine, too. There are no rules here, this is just a prompt. And the prompt is: think about your morning routine and about what you want for the day, each day, and write a piece that you might reuse yourself as part of your daily routine in the morning.

L.

But there is one rule. It’s got to be written for next week. ‘Cos we are here, your accountability partners. And, if you want, you can share it, on Instagram or on Twitter and tag us!

G.

Oh yes.

L.

Tag the Grounded Spirit Project and we’ll take a look at it.

G.

We will indeed.

[music]

L.

Thank you for being with us today. You will find the script, links and notes for this episode at www.groundedspiritproject.com. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram. If you have any questions, tips or thoughts to share, send them to hello at groundedspiritproject.com and we may feature them in the podcast. Don’t forget to leave a review, follow the podcast, follow and tag us on Twitter or Instagram and share the podcast with your community. So…

G.

That’s the, that’s the most important thing, isn’t it? Is sharing the podcast, creating this community. Because that’s what we want within the Grounded Spirit Project, and specifically with the podcast, Writing Spirituality.

L.

Let’s support each other and make writing less of a lonely experience. So, see you next week and don’t forget to write!

G.

Bye-bye!

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