Blog Archives

Why do I write? – Literature, A Love Letter

12/13/2018

“…loneliness – that terrible loneliness, in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold, unfathomable, lifeless abyss.”
~ Lord Bertrand Russell

I feel it’s panging. I’m happier than I have ever been and yet, I still feel it’s panging, maybe it will never go away. The loneliness. Maybe that’s part of the price we pay for the evolution of universal consciousness. The necessity of the illusion of separation, the illusion of the ego and the consequence of such an ensnaring hallucination. We’re allowed glimpses of union with the Divine but we’re never allowed to stay there. It’s a challenge, the balance… walking the fine line of living.

In moments of loneliness it’s important to feel it, to feel it and let it pass. To feel it, but never stay there. Everything is impermanent. I struggle there. To not hold on, to let it pass, to release it – this is a skill, one I have yet to master. Maybe without this illusory separation we wouldn’t search, and thus we wouldn’t evolve. Writing helps me to question, to clarify my ever expanding inquisition into the nature of reality, and the life I find myself in. It helps me in making sense of the life that is moving in perpetual motion, all around me.

“That is why I write – to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance.”
~ Paulo Coelho

If we were in constant union with the Divine, why would we go anywhere else? Would we not just stay, for all of infinite eternity? Would we not just resort to complacency? It is this unfillable loneliness that keeps us searching and I think it is the process of acknowledging its unending presence that may show we are on the path towards true surrender and acceptance. Isn’t it avoiding this loneliness and trying to fill it, that gets us so lost in the first place? Isn’t it this running?

I understand the pain that precedes acceptance, I have lived in the fear, just before the relief of ultimate surrender. I have a new appreciation for writers and artists who say they create their masterpieces because they have to. It’s the only way I find comfort in the soothing of my pain and loneliness – the only comfort I find that hasn’t allowed me, or ever tempted me, to join the madness of the loss of self. Writing is me, speaking to myself, reminding me that I will never be alone, yet as this world so dichotomously exists and mysteriously works, I will always be alone in my experience. Therein lies the contradicting beauty of life.

“Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself… It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.”
~ Harper Lee

Divine discontent. Mmmhhh. It knocks the wind right out of me, the only way truth knows how to hit, fierce and fearlessly. The loneliness subsides when I reach out and touch it. When I begin to do something of purpose. I write because I have to. I write because it is the only way in which I have come to know myself. I write because it allows me to touch my pain, to visit my wounds, and to feel my loneliness, without losing myself in it. I write because pushing aside this human condition of unshakeable emptiness can only be soothed by divine intervention. For me, writing is that intervention.

Writing gave me time and space, it never forced anything out of me, it couldn’t. Even when I tried to force it, writing never let me. It was a flow, mind to body, body to pen, pen to paper. It’s a form of being, a form of meditative dance. Recalling my thoughts and emotions with a new presence, letting them pass through me. Writing was a friend that heard the poison and let it out of me, before it consumed me and had the chance to spread, to grow. Writing taught me compassion, forgiveness, love. It gave me space not only figuratively, without placing the weight of guilt on me, never questioning how long I would be gone; but physically, by offering me a space to grieve, or joy, or feel, or just simply not know and write.

“Write hard and clear about what hurts.”
~ Ernest Hemingway

This. This speaks to me, because it is in the hurt, in the midst of this pain that I write the truth of the sorrows and wonders of existence and the ethereal beauty of life. It is in the soothing of that loneliness that the Divine speaks to me. It is in the the freedom of expression, the flow of thought, and the release of the pressure that often builds in my brain. It is in this condition of creative flow, the extravagant nature of the words that somehow fill the page, without my being able to claim ownership over them. It is there, that I find myself, that I find my voice for painful authenticity.

I write because it has always been there for me. It has always given me so much, and asked for so little in return. It has given me the gift of life, the gift of myself, and it has given me the gift of bringing this awareness back to me. It never asked for my dedication or commitment when I wasn’t ready to give it. It brought me comfort when I was sure there was none to be had and it brought me the gift of company, when I felt lost and lonely. It offered solace, a place to rest my tired eyes and weary head, when all I had to offer were my own words in friendship. It challenged me, but only as much as I was ready to be challenged. It never pushed me away and understood when I needed a break from the weight of its verity. You see, writing only ever asked for one commitment from me – it asked for truth, and truth, I wasn’t always ready to give. Writing was good to me, always understanding, patiently waiting for my return, no matter how far I wandered.

“Writing eases my suffering… writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.”
~ Gao Xingjian

I used to fill my notebooks with my pain, tear out the pages so nobody would ever accidentally find them and see the truth of my life, the truth I tried so desperately to hide. I would burn them, erase the memories from my existence, hoping one day I could forget. I planned to rewrite these old stories and start my life anew. I would write when the pain became too much, when it seemed there was nothing left to do but write. I wrote because I had to, because my other options left me drowning without the hope for one last breath. I wrote for survival, I wrote for freedom, and I continue to write for these reasons, blessed by the collaborative commitment to sincerity.

I write because the pages never judge me, not for loving those who hurt me, not for spilling all my shame, not for sharing all my secrets, not for almost breaking – I write because it never tried to save me. I write because it’s never tried to make me choose between my love and my freedom, it never threatened my independence and the will of my free spirit. I write because it never punishes me for my mistakes or belittles me for my lofty ideas and less than perfect grammar. I write because it meets me in my sorrow, reminds me of my power, and leads me to my strength. Writing is my gift to myself. It is in sharing our gifts with the world that true healing can occur, and so I write because I don’t know what else to do, and I desperately crave my own healing. I write to remember who I was and who I am, and to understand the gap between the two.

I write because it soothes, it breaks me open in all the right places and allows me moments to touch my pain. I write because it reminds me to never get lost in the notion that I will ever be free from my wounds, and it is in this realization that I am truly released from the shackles of my own mind. In never trying to save me, writing always gives new breath to old life, and renews my spirit. Acceptance comes to sit with me and avoidance leaves my bedside. I write because while it may be critiqued by others, as long as I follow specific parameters, nobody could ever tell me what to write.

“Why am I compelled to write?… Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and anger… To become more intimate with myself and you. To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy. To dispel the myths that I am a mad prophet or a poor suffering soul. To convince myself that I am worthy and that what I have to say is not a pile of shit… Finally I write because I’m scared of writing, but I’m more scared of not writing.”
~ Gloria E. Anzaldúa

I write because it bridges my worlds, the ethereal and spiritual become physical, when I put pen to paper. I write because as I touch the pages I touch my soul; with each motion of the pen my chains are broken. I write for my sanity, because existing in this world is tough enough and living in it is bound to make you go insane. I write to remind myself that I will never be like them, that I will never be known or understood and I write to remember that’s perfectly okay. I write to understand myself, and I write to remember that mindful self-acceptance is a practice of self-love and care, and that is enough for me.

I write because it relieves the darkness in me and allows me to not be overcome with sadness. It relieves the pain that will never leave me, for I am a healer and the best healers remain wounded. I write because it has never dismissed me for speaking the truth, even when it wasn’t exactly what it wanted to hear in that moment – writing has always been faithful and has honored our lifelong agreement, a commitment to truth.

Writing gave to me, and so, I write because I have to… because giving back to the only thing that has continually given me a remembrance of my reverence for life, deserves all of me. Writing consumes me and never spits me out. Writing hears, feels, sits, and gently takes my hand, whispering to me: “remember who you are…remember. No one passes the gateless gate, so be no one, or say ‘fuck it’ and be anybody you want to be.” I write for me.

“Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me – the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.”
~ Anaïs Nin

I write to make sense of the world, to make sense of my thoughts, to make sense of me, and to make sense of my place in the mess of it all. I write because it transcends thinking, the words flow through my finger tips as if they are finally coming home, familiar, belonging. I write to love myself, to go within and love all of me, because grasping out there taught me lots of valuable lessons, but never did me any favors.

I write because I am all I will always have, and because in writing I realize the beauty in that statement – the beauty and truth that transcends the sadness at the thought of such a lonely path. It is in writing that I feel the palpable truth of life, that I feel whole, that I feel complete. I can never give that up, it is all I have ever longed for. It is writing that always takes me home, back to me, back to my freedom. I truly write, for me.

“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.”
~ Roald Dahl

Thank you for reading, the original article can be found on my favorite publication, here:
https://www.elephantjournal.com/2018/12/why-do-i-write-literature-a-love-letter/

Sending You SO Much LOVE,

Lauren Ashley

0 Comments

Inevitable Heart Break ~ Blazing A Path Through

12/11/2018

0 Comments

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
~ Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
~ Leonard Cohen

To make my life narrative a very dramatic and long story short: I had to experience a lot of people showing me that they weren't properly prepared to love me well, for me to awaken and accept that my path would always be a different one. It took repeated cycles, pain, my choice to suffer, and innumerable lessons. It took clear instances of my being shown through experience how those broken on the wheels of life often resort to hurting another. It took my being told, by those lost and separated from their own divinity by the veil of illusion, that I wasn't worthy of love. It took that. All of it, for me to find my place amongst my hearts longings, and in it's midst, to remain grateful.

I of course believed the story of my lack of lovability, I agreed with it. Within myself I found it to be true. So through my life's experience at that time, I kept finding those who would prove it to be true. Those who would agree with the horrors in my mind, those who would believe the lies I had been fed. I attracted those who would confirm the story I had already been telling myself, and in this confirmation I felt familiarity and comfort. The self-fulfilling prophecy was well and alive in my life, feeding me shadows and illusion and leaving me feeling broken, desperate, and hungry. It took somebody looking me in the face, emotionless, telling me they couldn't love me. It took somebody I loved, somebody I admired and respected... it took this one, not the person I expected, but of course the right one for the job. It took this perfect situation, this terribly ideal heartbreak. It took him. It took the words, said without feeling or hesitation, without compassion or regret, telling me that he didn't love me. It took this. This is what was necessary for me to recognize the patterns in my life, for me to come to my senses, for me to comprehend the totality of what the fuck I had been doing to myself.

"Upon the dark road you are traveling, do not seek out the light, the illusion, the fallacy and incessant need for all things external. Have no fear, take the darkness as your comfort because you are the light shining in the dark."
~ LJ Vanier, Ether: Into the Nemesis

It took lots of pain for me, it took decades of darkness. They say everybody goes through their dark night of the soul... but I lived there... for me it was home. It took decades of my staying there for me to realize that I had been asking all the wrong questions. Why didn't they love me? Irrelevant. Ego based. Illusion. They couldn't love me. They never loved themselves. Thus, while I acted like I loved truly, and believed it, I had become terribly good at projecting the lies of this illusion I had so willingly bought. I had learned to become clever at avoiding my inability to love myself, so well in fact that I was able to hide it, even from me. Soon I was violently shaken by life's inevitable turmoils and I was suddenly faced with the realization that my lack of self love and violent self-doubt, walks lovingly, hand-in-hand with an inability to fully accept, and truly love another. I never loved myself. How could I expect another to love me? I didn't know what that would look like. That's why I was there, trying to convince somebody who could never truly love me that I was worthy... all a contrived subconscious trick to feed the ego, in hopes of temporarily satiating its thirst, so that it would momentarily feel whole in the illusion of worldly, outside-myself-love. I never asked myself what made me worthy of love, what made me worthy of my loving me? I never took the time to feel, and grieve, and mourn. To feel my pain, fully, to fall to my knees in despair at dusk, only to awaken at the start of a new day and understand that it is my existing, my simply being, that makes me worthy of all the love in the world... including and ESPECIALLY my own.

"Perhaps we should love ourselves so fiercely, that when others see us they know exactly how it should be done."
~ Rudy Francisco

The story doesn't necessarily matter. The ins and the outs. I remember the story, and I remember it well. It is my gift in being grounded in the world. My wounds offer me the ability to remind people that they can find their way out of the shackles of their subconscious programming. They hold the power necessary to reconnect with their most trusted and oldest friend, their highest, most connected selves. We hold the ultimate power in our own lives, we can liberate ourselves from the madness. It is only when we choose to walk ourselves out of the dark and lonely cave, it is only when we choose to walk into the light. It helps to have support, it helps to have somebody who understands, somebody who has been through it, it helps to have a connected soul to guide us on the journey. However, it still remains our journey, we cannot be carried, it is up to us to take the steps for ourselves. It is up to us, individually, because on the other side of the illusory veil of fear lies your unremitting freedom.

"It has been said that time heals all wounds. I don't agree. The wounds remain. Time - the mind, protecting its sanity - covers them with some scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone."
~ Rose Kennedy

I remember my wounds, I tend them daily, I keep them open... uninfected and cleaned. Tended, but open. So that when a friend tells me that she finds her heart shattered by the man she loves and finds it hard to pick her pieces up off the bathroom floor... I remember. I was there yesterday. I'll visit again today. I bring fresh flowers to the graves of my old lives and thank them for the gifts they offered me in our time together. I feel the ache in my chest where it becomes clear once again why they call it heartbreak. My chest yearns to be filled with anything, anything that will help me forget, forget the hole that is left, in the place that used to be occupied by my beating heart. The feeling where your chest aches in pain as if your heart has literally been broken beneath the ribs of your outwardly in tact chest. The throb of loss, the ache of heartbreak, the emptiness. I take a moment to breathe it in and remember that I am comfortable and safe here. I no longer need to run from this feeling. I welcome it. In its knee breaking totality, I surrender myself to its pleading.

When she asks me if I cried like this, like she is now, I am able to softly tell her, with a gentle confidence in my voice, "I did, and it felt like it would never end... but it does... it does end." I know it well, and it is because I am comfortable and safe knowing it well. It is because I accept it and no longer run from it or grasp to change it, or fix it, or heal it. It is in befriending my heartache that I am able to keep my composer and appreciate the beauty in the moment, as my heart relates to hers through the blessings of experience and understanding. I see her, without judgment, because how can I judge a place that I have been? A place I visit often. It is in these moments that I am grateful for my remembering, for my holding these memories close to me. These memories of my lostness in the world and the suffering I endured as a result.

"become intimate with your fears. listen to them. sit cross legged. give them your undivided attention. offer them comfort. offer them rest."
~ Nayyirah Waheed

I suffer less now. I still feel pain. I feel it more completely. I let it take me, wherever it so desires. I let it have me, without fight. I feel it fully when it visits me, without asking it to leave. I thank my pain, I ask it to stay. To sit with me, for just a few moments longer. I feel my longing before I part with it, that piece of myself that is merely illusion. Yet it brings my physical mind some comfort in knowing that it still remains. In remembering my pain, in being visited by my demons, I am reminded of how I am not at all the same, and yet I remain. I am reminded that it is my consciousness that continues to experience. That I am a spiritual being having a human experience. That I have always been the observer. The witness. This pain sits with me, never touching me. She sits cross legged in front of me, loving me with the understanding and sadness that fills her familiar brown eyes. It is in this moment that I am reminded of my humanness. I am reminded of my attachments. But I, in this instant, am also simultaneously reminded of my freedom and the parts of me that remain unscathed and unchanged. I am reminded of my soul. It is in these moments I am visited by my demons of the world and reminded of the love of this universe... which is one with my true divine nature. The collapse of my duality, the implosion of my awareness through this experience. The incessant bleeding of my human existence collapsing into stardust. In a flash, in a moment, it is gone.The bones of my past keep my longing company, before returning to the graveyard where they await their fresh flowers.

"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise."
~ Miguel de Cervantes

Those of us, the lucky ones, strong enough to blaze a path through our heartbreak, always come out the other side. Leaving ash in our wake we shed our skin like a snake, and let it burn with the stories of our past. We sweep out the cobwebs of the people we've been, and the lives we've lived, all that no longer serve us. We gather our courage and weave new webs of light to better suit our higher calling. The journey isn't easy, choosing to step into challenge and discomfort every step of the way is painful and scary. But your time in the fire pales compared to the pain of living a life that is not meant for you. It is us, who make it out of the fire and find our freedom, that then have the tools to go back into the fire, to burn once more and help our brothers and sisters find their way. The fire cleanses us, it frees us from the shackles of our subconscious story, it gives us the fresh slate we need to carve our new life. Like the Phoenix, we rise from the ash reborn. We all have heartbreak, life has a way of breaking us wide open, leaving us with a choice: to heal and soften to the wonder of the world, or, to build a wall and close ourselves off from the ecstasies of true connection. The various ways in which life breaks us all, is part of what reminds us of our humanness and offers us comforting visions of the beautiful vulnerability of our true humanity.

"This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and
invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond."

~ Rumi

So it is here that I leave you, hoping to have helped you feel something. Hoping that you are able to take something from these words of truth. Be gentle with yourself, be kind to yourself, give yourself the gifts of feeling.

With So Much LOVE,

Lauren Ashley

0 Comments

Pieces of Gold + silver

Why do I write? – Literature, A Love Letter

“…loneliness – that terrible loneliness, in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold, unfathomable, lifeless abyss.”
~ Lord Bertrand Russell

“That is why I write – to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance.”
~ Paulo Coelho

“Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself… It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.”
~ Harper Lee

“Write hard and clear about what hurts.”
~ Ernest Hemingway

“Writing eases my suffering… writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.”
~ Gao Xingjian

“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.”
~ Roald Dahl

Inevitable Heart Break ~ Blazing A Path Through

"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
~ Leonard Cohen

"Upon the dark road you are traveling, do not seek out the light, the illusion, the fallacy and incessant need for all things external. Have no fear, take the darkness as your comfort because you are the light shining in the dark."
~ LJ Vanier, Ether: Into the Nemesis

"Perhaps we should love ourselves so fiercely, that when others see us they know exactly how it should be done."
~ Rudy Francisco

"It has been said that time heals all wounds. I don't agree. The wounds remain. Time - the mind, protecting its sanity - covers them with some scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone."
~ Rose Kennedy

"become intimate with your fears. listen to them. sit cross legged. give them your undivided attention. offer them comfort. offer them rest."
~ Nayyirah Waheed

"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise."
~ Miguel de Cervantes

Lauren Ashley

Archives

Categories

Pieces of Gold + silver

Why do I write? – Literature, A Love Letter

“…loneliness – that terrible loneliness, in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold, unfathomable, lifeless abyss.” ​~ Lord Bertrand Russell

“That is why I write – to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance.” ~ Paulo Coelho

“Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself… It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.” ~ Harper Lee

“Write hard and clear about what hurts.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

“Writing eases my suffering… writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.”~ Gao Xingjian

“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.” ~ Roald Dahl

Inevitable Heart Break ~ Blazing A Path Through

"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."​~ Leonard Cohen

"Upon the dark road you are traveling, do not seek out the light, the illusion, the fallacy and incessant need for all things external. Have no fear, take the darkness as your comfort because you are the light shining in the dark."​~ LJ Vanier, Ether: Into the Nemesis

"Perhaps we should love ourselves so fiercely, that when others see us they know exactly how it should be done."​~ Rudy Francisco

"It has been said that time heals all wounds. I don't agree. The wounds remain. Time - the mind, protecting its sanity - covers them with some scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone."​~ Rose Kennedy

"become intimate with your fears. listen to them. sit cross legged. give them your undivided attention. offer them comfort. offer them rest."​~ Nayyirah Waheed

"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise."​~ Miguel de Cervantes

Lauren Ashley

Archives

Categories

“…loneliness – that terrible loneliness, in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold, unfathomable, lifeless abyss.”
~ Lord Bertrand Russell

“That is why I write – to try to turn sadness into longing, solitude into remembrance.”
~ Paulo Coelho

“Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself… It’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.”
~ Harper Lee

“Write hard and clear about what hurts.”
~ Ernest Hemingway

“Writing eases my suffering… writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.”
~ Gao Xingjian

“A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.”
~ Roald Dahl

"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
~ Leonard Cohen

"Upon the dark road you are traveling, do not seek out the light, the illusion, the fallacy and incessant need for all things external. Have no fear, take the darkness as your comfort because you are the light shining in the dark."
~ LJ Vanier, Ether: Into the Nemesis

"Perhaps we should love ourselves so fiercely, that when others see us they know exactly how it should be done."
~ Rudy Francisco

"It has been said that time heals all wounds. I don't agree. The wounds remain. Time - the mind, protecting its sanity - covers them with some scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone."
~ Rose Kennedy

"become intimate with your fears. listen to them. sit cross legged. give them your undivided attention. offer them comfort. offer them rest."
~ Nayyirah Waheed

"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise."
~ Miguel de Cervantes