Catalyst: A Memory that You Don't Remember

Your writing catalyst is to find a memory that you don’t remember. You’ve got plenty of memories that you replay over and over again in your mind. This time you’ll be fishing in your subconscious for a piece of the past that you don’t really remember.

Maybe you have only a tiny smidgen of it or the thinnest slice, but you’re going to hold on tight and pull the whole thing in.

It’s all there inside of you, only you don’t usually have free access. In relaxing and allowing things to float up without taking conscious control of their direction, you’ll be discovering something in the forgotten past.

You’ve already relaxed, but try relaxing even deeper. Let your mind float on the waters like a rudderless boat. Let your mind float to wherever the current moves it. You can trust and let go. Watch how an image from the past will slowly float up into view.

Like an iceberg, most of it is underwater. Get a sense of its size and shape. Now start writing by letting one word lead you to the next word.

You don’t know where you’re going, but the memory will take you where it needs to go. Be ready for surprises as your writing illuminates a piece of your past.

Up On Your Mountaintop - A Writing Catalyst

I used to imagine climbing in the Himalayas. I had met someone who had taken a trek to that part of the world and and she spoke eloquently about the silence there, the sound of the wind, the complete leaving behind of the world. The going beyond of labels. The going beyond of stuff and need systems. The going beyond of expectation and disappointment. A place to meet your essential self, and where every other concern is irrelevant.

I never made it as far as the Himalayas. On my way there, I found another part of the world where I began climbing spiritual mountains. Thirty years later, I am still climbing. When I finish climbing one mountain, another rears up in front of me.

Reaching the top after a long climb, it’s always worth it. I can see around myself for miles. The deep quiet up there. The wonder of being alone with myself and G-d in a majestic world.

Up there on the mountaintop, there is no one to approve of you or disapprove of you.Up there on the mountaintop, you can see through your own eyes without sponging in the visions that sit in other peoples' eyes. Up there on the mountaintop, you have the luxury of relaxing completely because there is no one to threaten you with an image of who and what you're supposed to be. Up there on the mountaintop, you have the freedom to dream your own dreams.Up there on the mountaintop, you are safe. There's a tree lying on its side. You can sit down with your back up against the log. You can breathe the clear air and look out across to the other mountain peaks. If there arepeople doing what you're doing on those other mountaintops, they are so far away that you can't see them. And they can't see you. You are perfectly alone with G-d. Use your writing to climb up your mountain and sit at the top. What does it feel like to breathe deeply and know that you are safe, completely alone, and invisible to the rest of the world? Do you feel peaceful? If there are nagging thoughts that have followed you up to the top of the mountain, then take them and gently put them into a box that closes securely and send it sliding back down the mountain awayfrom you. What are the weather conditions up on your mountaintop?If it is a clear day, then how far can you see? If there is fog and mist, then what sits revealed to you close by where you can see clearly?

Do you feel discomfort with the intense stillness and the fact that you are completely alone? Can you be patient and see what happens after the initial discomfort begins to wear off? Do you begin to remember what you are carrying inside of you? You contain enough feelings, thoughts, and memories to keep you busy for as long as you choose to stay on your mountaintop. Turn these over in your hands like smooth, richly colored stones you might find in a riverbed.

Or just lie down on your back and look up at the sky, letting your mind wander. If there are clouds, watch them racing across your field of vision. You can write about being on your mountaintop in the form of a poem. You can start each line with the phrase:"On my mountaintop....."On my mountaintop...."On my mountaintop. . .Or choose another phrase to repeat as a refrain. Once you explore your mountaintop you will be able to take it with you wherever you go and in whatever situation you find yourself. It is a place where no one can touch you, where no one take away your inner peace, self-knowing, and experience of G-d’s Presence always being with you. When you climb to your mountaintop, you leave behind all your self-doubt and dwell in peace with yourself just as you are.

Now go to your mountaintop.

Preface to My Upcoming E-Book

BLUEBERRY FIELDS FOR BREAKFAST
A Cooking Companion for Creative Souls

I divide my mornings between cooking and writing. The carrots may get diced and thrown into a poem, and the poems peeled and tossed into the soup. The trick is how not to burn the rice if I get busy in making that last paragraph of a story just right.

The writing and the cooking benefit from each other—their pathways of creativity intersect, run parallel, and even merge. My writing room is next to the kitchen, and I’m not one to follow strict recipes on either front.

Some might believe that a recipe is engraved in stone, but not so. It goes against the very grain of the creative soul to repeatedly follow directions to the last letter and produce the same success again and again. There has to be some variation, improvement, or twist to make a difference.

We are not only here in the kitchen to prepare supper, we’re also here to taste of innovation and insight, experiment, and play. And take risks as we eagerly wait to see what comes out of the oven and what happens when peppers are added instead of tomatoes. Or when we flick cranberries into the stuffed cabbage.

As one might expect from an unrepentant creative personality, my cookbook is not simply a collection of recipes. It does happen to have a few recipes tucked into personal recollections, reflections, legends, and lore on the subject of cooking and eating. As well as other diversions and a sprinkling of poems. Actually, most of my cookbook is a diversion into other areas where the art of cooking naturally leads—to the art of being grateful, the art of sharing, the art of loving, and the art of celebrating.

This cooking companion roams through my incarnations as daughter of one of the first heath food Moms, as connoisseur of solitary meals in Bar Harbor, Maine, and as chief cook and nurturing presence to my tribe of children and grandchildren in Jerusalem.

It’s been quite a journey from the natural beauty of the Maine Coast where inspiration came built in to the landscape to the spiritual intensity of Jerusalem and the challenge of cooking creatively for a multitude of teenage girls, toddlers, and hungry sons-in-law.

As I form little balls of cookie dough and discover that I can fit six rows this time instead of the usual five or flatten them with a pecan on center instead of using a moistened fork, I am also cooking on my writing and art work. At the end of a row of cookie shapes, I may suddenly discover the inspiration for my next collage or the climax of a story that eluded me when I put my mind squarely in front of the task.

The kitchen transforms into a creative “zone” much like the runner’s zone where solutions can arise effortlessly while washing the dishes or stirring the soup.

My hope is that these creative cooking excursions will lead you to transform your kitchen into a place for relaxation, tranquility, and fun, a fertile ground for breakthrough insights to emerge. And when all that creativity and happiness spill over into the food, it is guaranteed to be more nourishing and taste even better.

Baked Apples

Flexibility is related to creativity. Some of the greatest discoveries were made when certain unexpected conditions required someone to change course mid-stream. Our first reaction when faced with this seeming bit of adversity is to scream, stamp our feet, and try to breathe deeply.

It’s like finding that all you have is lemons when you were about to make cranberry punch. The creative individual is never daunted. He or she takes the lemons, squeezes them, adds a bit of sugar, and makes lemonade.

There’s a wonderful phrase in the Jewish tradition, and it often comes in handy. It goes: “Also this is for the good.” It Hebrew it’s “Gam zu le tova.” There actually lived a wise man whose name was Nachum Ish Gam Zu who, as tradition goes, originated this phrase since he was always seeing the good in everything that happened to him.

One of the qualities of a creative cook is making the best of what’s at hand. In fact, it can be a creative challenge that you choose to embark on. Instead of jumping in the car and running over to the supermarket to get what’s missing, you make alterations either on your menu or the specific dish you’re making. When your brain starts cooking and you leave yourself open to inspiration, you can stumble on some of the best discoveries of your cooking career.

When you are moving in the direction of simplicity rather than diversification and complexity, there’s a certain beauty that might have been once lost and now reappears. Since we easily get accustomed to thinking in complexities after a certain age, usually around the age of seven, we can’t always return to simplicity on our own.

By that time, we have certain need systems in place, and most of this comes from the society that socializes us into believing, for instance, that something has to be very sweet, include chocolate, and need an electric whipping machine to be worthy of the name “dessert.”

One day, you may discover that you’re about to prepare a dessert, and the only ingredient you’ve got is apples. Or maybe, you have a severe time limitation before those guests will be tumbling through the door. Or maybe the supermarket is closed on Tuesday afternoons from two to four when everyone is taking a siesta, as they do in Israel. And all you have is apples.

It’s the moment of reckoning when simplicity rears its glorious head and you discover that apples, alone, can be dessert. They can be cored, filled with some brown sugar or honey, maybe dates or raisins, maybe walnuts, or whatever you have on hand. Or they can be made simply by washing them, placing them on a baking tray, and sticking them in the oven for an hour.

A baked apple connoisseur will experiment to find which apples taste tart, which are sweet, which are smooth, and which are crunchy even when baked. Since each apple variety has its distinctive flavor and crispness, you can try making several diffent kinds of apples on one baking tray.

A delicious baked apple for dessert is a great reminder that the easiest, the simplest, the cheapest, and the most natural can sometimes be the best.