Hi Friends (or should I say Bonjour?)——
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I just got back from an epic 8 days in Paris where I was teaching an in-person Mindful Writing Workshop as part of a Writing + Yoga retreat co-hosted by Red Diamond Yoga. Before you get FOMO, know that this was two years in the making and so much went into things behind the scenes. It was beautiful and amazing to finally be there, living the experience we’d been working toward with a special group of writers…..I really believe in the magic of those that gather and it felt like we were all meant to be there at this time, in this place.
lining myself up with the city of light.
Each day started with a yoga class in Jardin du Luxembourg/the Luxembourg Gardens taught by my co-teacher, followed by our writing workshop taught by moi. In workshop, we both generated work and got feedback on our words. Along the way we read the work of writers inspired by Paris, wrote of our own homes using the perspective gifted by travel, and wrote to and of the art we were taking in. Afternoons were dedicated to adventures in the city.
Cities give.
One thing I began receiving were reminders of death.
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I’m generally obsessed with hauntings. It’s part of the theme of a book I’m working on——and in many of my writing workshops I start with an exercise about writing about what haunts you. I believe if there’s a ghost, there’s a message.
You are being asked to open to it.
The past year has been one of my hardest. I’ve had to face the death of a version of myself, relationships, some scary health challenges and some deep disappointments. I was a different person when my colleague and I began planning this trip two years ago——and being in Paris right away I sensed the chance to let go of the hauntings stuck to me. Plus, walking a city with such history, the ghosts were different than the ones in New York. I had a chance to face them all, listen, and feel into my own deaths while still alive.
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In the Pere Lachaise cemetery I pulled out my camera to take photos of the graves and noticed sun smears across the lens. I cleaned it, tried new angles, but I was picking up streaks of light.
“Your camera’s broken,” one of the writers said when I showed her. She put her camera to her face, took a few snaps—-nothing but what was visible to the eye. But when I took a photo or video there was a dance of light. Later, outside the cemetery, I tried again, and the sun smears were gone.
Could it have been the image of ghosts, messages, hauntings passing though?
In France I kept thinking of my grandmother, who had some French lineage, wondering who of my ancestors might be buried in or around the city. As a writing retreat, we visited the cafes, bookstores and homes past writers haunted. I was grateful to touch the graves of Gertrude Stein, Victor Hugo and Jim Morrison.
Everywhere we went there was a palimpsest of history.
The ghosts were multiple.
On day five, we visited the Catacombs, 20 meters under Paris where millions (yes, millions) of skeletons are housed. The phrase above the entrance reads: "Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la Mort," which translates to "Stop! This is the empire of Death".
"Stop! This is the empire of Death"
Trying to look serious at the Empire of Death (which I was).
I was speechless, walking through hallways of bones. It was a kind of death meditation—-allowing me to feel into death while still alive.
The energy was heavy, but not sad.
Death meditation, or maraṇasati in the Buddhist tradition, is a practice that aims to help people appreciate their mortality and live life more fully. The goal is to remind practitioners that death can happen at any time, and to encourage them to live each moment with urgency and purpose. Death meditation can help people let go of attachments to the material world. It’s a practice also found in the yoga tradition——think of how many practices end with Savasana, or corpse pose. You’re being invited into “practicing” death—-that complete letting go.
Death meditation is not meant to be morbid or self-pitying, and can actually help us feel lighter and unburdened. Coming to terms with death can help you live life fully, and wake up to what’s here.
Walking through the bones I felt questions.
What was dying?
What had died?
Whose bones came before my own?
What did I need to honor?
In what unseen ways was I not alone?
What deaths could I turn toward and fully feel to heal?
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Later, tripping through the galleries at the Louve I was weirdly relieved by the emotive statues and paintings—-I realized, in this last intense year I’ve had SO MANY emotions I thought I was feeling, but I hadn’t had the time/ space/ chance to really give them room to breathe.
“It’s because in New York we tuck our feelings away,” a friend said when I expressed this. It’s true, New Yorkers have big feelings but to get to from point A to B often keep things to themselves or press them away (note the resting NYC face on the subway). The drama of the art was cathartic.
Walking the swirly streets of Paris with the endless spiral staircases, glitter bomb of the Eiffel tower and cafes with the chairs pointing outward to catch all the action encouraged me to feel——while I’m alive. And realize this won’t all last forever.
OFFERINGS:
Write of what has died to you.
Write about what haunts you. What is the texture of this haunting?
If you had a year to live, what would you write? (shout-out to Diana Goetsch’s quote: “Write as if from the grave.”
Ram Dass famously wrote Be Here Now. What is here, now, to you? Be with it on the page.
UPCOMING SUMMER COURSES:
The Portal: a summer-long online program for women creatives combining writing workshops, craft lessons, amazing guest teachers, and one-on-one coaching. We start June 18th! Info here.
Generative Sprints: a 6-week online class that will Get You Writing. We start July 25th! Info here.
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See you on the Full Moon, friends.
xx
I’m so struck by how you felt questions. And here’s a question yours leaned into: did any of the honorings and deaths overlap?