Writing isn’t always thus, of course. Sometimes it is a great effort, especially when I write about personal problems or my own faults. It is a struggle to see into my heart when it is not suffused with light. But the actual act of writing creates the clarity I need to view my true intent. Self-justification comes out as pontification. It is stiff on the page, a red flag to my inner-knowing. Writing is a meditation, a form of introspection. This is not the same as keeping a journal. My journal is the catalog of my life…the what, who, when, and why of existence. At times I find myself listing hurts in my journal, justifying my anger, or placing blame for my unhappiness. It is a necessary part of my growth, because it exposes me to myself. Coincidentally, it is a documentation of my days. This venue differs from my meditative writing. When I sit at the computer, I truly lose myself. I become the creation. I focus my eyes on the red oak tree outside my window. Its striated bark blurs as I watch sunlight flicker across the massive trunk while my fingers fly across the keys. In this process I make many mistakes, yet I do not look at the screen. The red, wavy lines will locate the need for corrections later. This manner of writing elevates my awareness to a place where I'm not distracted by the mechanics of putting words down on paper. Spelling, grammar, and precise wording can wait for editing. The idea is to unleash the flow without restriction. Usually I can make sense of it. The act of fixing my sight outside helps connect my awareness to what is happening inside.

Years ago, in St. Thomas, I wrote a novel. I would wake at 3 in the morning and write for 3 hours before my family arose for school and work. I was energized, excited, and totally happy. At first, I wondered if I would harm my health since I was not sleeping more than 5-6 hours a night. Instead, it gave me more energy than sleep could provide. Daily, in those early morning hours, I would compose 4-8 pages. It began as the result of a nightmare. I woke in fright, and I felt I had to write it down. I never wrote an outline, nor did I know the direction the work would take. At the end of each sitting, I'd scratch a few sentences on a sheet of paper. During the day I'd look at it and wonder how I would be able to develop it further. However, the next morning my eyes would open at 3 (I never needed an alarm during this creative outpouring) and after a short meditation, the words, and pages, would flow.

When I finally reached what I felt should be the logical conclusion, I didn’t know how to write the ending. For two days I sat at the word processor and wondered about writer’s block and the fallacy of what I was doing. I decided on a Sabbatical, with a weekend meditation on our boat, by myself. I did not plan to write. I would do a fruit fast, and spend as much time meditating as possible, without the interruptions of daily life. As I drove across the island, I chanted a catchy phrase I'd heard years before that was meant to help connect you to your higher self. "I am a being of violet flame, I am the purity of God’s desire." Over and over I chanted, and switched to a mental rendition as I stopped at the grocery store for fruit. It was 1987, and St. Thomas was beginning to experience homelessness, which was not yet widespread. As I left my car, internally chanting, a native woman wove and stumbled toward me. Her eyes were wild. Her face was streaked with some sort of red lines, radiating like tear tracks on her gaunt cheekbones. Tattered, torn, and filthy, her pungent body odor was strong enough to gag me at a dozen feet. I did not gag, however. I gazed into that maniacal visage and mentally continued my words. I "saw" a purple burst of light shoot from the top of my head into hers. She stopped. A beatific smile lit her face. She turned and walked away, never saying a word. Later, a friend who worked in the area said the woman had been known to attack people, and had been jailed repeatedly. Neither of us ever saw her again.

At the boat, I did a meditation that became an astral projection. During the course of writing my novel, I experienced one other such incident; it has never happened since. When I returned from this almost dream-like state, the ending of the novel was with me. I found paper, and completed the story in longhand as dusk enveloped the harbor.

The manifestation of my novel was, for me, a magical experience. When it was complete, I realized how much of it was about me, even though fictional. The heroine’s thoughts, her dreams, her aspirations, were mine. Her desire to be something better that she was, and to be truly connected with God, was a mirror of my reflection. In finding her soul, I found my own.