Are you up for the Sacred Writing Challenge? National Poetry Month is now more than halfway over, and today’s guest addresses the topic of ambiguity and emotion in poetry. Sofia Wren is another of the earliest connections I made when I started this blog, and we later became critique partners. Much like myself, she’s come a long way as a business woman over the years and continues to transform herself. She truly is inspiring.
Official Bio: Sofia Wren is a writer and spiritual teacher, who also helps other women (and a few conscious men) to express their message and who they really are through creativity and writing. She empowers them to show up, to gain comfort being seen, to build credibility and to attract opportunities, through her integrated menu of healing and intuitive services.
She is certified by the Quantum Success Coaching Academy and is a World Class Healer serving women entrepreneurs who want to share their message in a bigger way. She is a featured contributor to the book Voices of Feminine Leadership and columnist for Silent Voices UK and Quantum Success Magazine. She is a singer-songwriter and has sang on stages in three states. Dedicated to public service she served through Americorps and currently studies at Loyola Baltimore in the M.A. program for Spiritual and Pastoral Care.
The Sacred Writing Challenge
Do ideas come to us or do we come up with them?
It’s a question I think about a lot. I think it is a little bit of both. The Sacred Writing Challenge is both: something that came to my mind organically from who knows where, but I make it happen in real life. (But I’ll get back to that later.)
First I want to talk about why ambiguity is such a powerful theme to discuss during National Poetry Month.
Isn’t ambiguity what makes poetry fun?
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Many definitions of ambiguity include reference to how language is open to more than one interpretation or can have a double meaning.
There’s nothing I love more than basking in the richness of words, playing with them, dreaming of them. I love words. They speak to me, even when there is no mouth speaking them.
I just love everything to do with them: etymology, foreign languages, ancient scripts. Give me all of them, please. I just want to fill my bath with words and soak in the possibilities.
Can you imagine a poem that has zero ambiguity?
Okay, so there probably are some, but we all have preferences and that is mine.
Back to my former point (this topic is fun since I don’t have to commit to anything, right :D),
I really love the mystery of the inspiration process. I believe that everything we want to create is already created, and we just have to listen and be receptive so we can know what to do next in our process. It’s fun.
So I received ambiguity today. It also made me think about emotions. Poetry is a place where emotions can be explored, where we can be messy and yet beautiful. Even ugly words can have a poetic value and beauty to them.
Recently I wrote a story about emotions, based on my own experience. It’s too long to include here so I’ll be vague. But something I realized was just how complex we all are as human beings. We can be sad and angry and frustrated with ourselves and the world and confused and crying and laughing all at once.
We can put a name to the emotions directly, like I have just done, but when we are in the soup of the feeling–how can we truly describe the physical sensation of conflict or even pure awareness of so much going on at once? I think that’s why we have poetry and always will, because to describe the emotional or spiritual or sometimes even mental realms of human experience is to be ambiguous.
Now back to my favorite topic–ideas and where they come from. For over a year I have facilitated a journey of twenty-one days of writing called the Sacred Writing Challenge. It’s an idea that came to me while meditating January of 2015 in clear detail. Since then groups have gathered to participate for free three times, going on a fourth. But it is still to be determined what the source of the Challenge idea is and why the prompts continue to be so effective at connecting people with their deepest intelligence, emotions and inspiration.
Past participants have found themselves inspired by the challenge to write and share meaningful poetry in our safe community and then the world. Perhaps your poetry will take on new form and become something else entirely.
On April 16th, 2016 another round of the Sacred Writing Challenge will begin. We would love to welcome you. If you would like to always know to do and what to write next because you are so open to inspiration then join the Sacred Writing Challenge. You might find your life changing.
You can connect with Sofia Wren and her social media sites via her website.
What tactics have you used to gain writing inspiration? Have you ever participated in any writing challenges?
Guest Post: Please join me over on My Inner Chick for a guest post titled Writing Voice: To Thine Own Self Be True.
Please share this post and its images responsibly. Jeri Walker, 2016
Emotions are a great inspiration in themselves…they can take us into unknown horizons and make writing fun! Yes, I too love the ambiguity that is attached to poetry…interpretations add immense joy to words, unfolding unique dimensions, liberating us from the caged ideas…and that is the precise reason why I have never tried the ‘writing challenges.’ I let my thoughts flow into whatever directions they feel comfortable, word limits scare me, especially while writing poetry yet your call is inspiring.
Nice meeting you Sofia!
Thanks! There isn’t a word limit to the challenge and participants don’t have to do the prompts specifically. It’s just about encouraging everyone to write daily 🙂
Enjoy the world of feelings, poetry and ambiguity, Balroop!
I have to agree with Balroop… emotion is the greatest inspiration. Ambiguity has both effects on me – it either attracts me, or distances me from whatever medium. But words are beauty,there is no disagreeing with that!
Thanks for the challenge. You make a good point about ambiguity although that is sometimes what frustrates readers who are new to poetry. But obviously it’s worth the effort to embrace it.
Definitely! Poetry isn’t everyone’s thing. Some people like the definite meanings of academic writing, for instance. To each their own, but I do love a little mystery…xo
I do believe that stories do exist and we must find them, follow their breadcrumbs so to speak. I generally don’t participate in writing challenges as for me writing is such a timely process. I have to meditate quite a while on each sentence – almost down to every word which makes keeping up with a challenge almost impossible. Maybe a one word a day challenge would work for me. : ) For me, poetry comes out of nowhere and is totally unpredictable. Lovely to meet you Sofia!
That’s awesome Jan– maybe you could create your own one word a day challenge and invite others to join you! Having the community is the really cool part for me 🙂
I think you’ve embraced ambiguity a bit too well, here. I’m still not clear on what exactly the sacred writing challenge is. What is it? How long does it last? And what is it that writers do during the challenge?
RJ, thanks for asking. I’ll let Sophia know you’ve left this question for her.
Hey RJ! If you’d like to know more about the challenge I will give you the link to a full blog post about it. It is a daily writing challenge with one prompt a day. The purpose is to encourage writers to write daily, although they may wish to follow the prompts as they are specifically designed to connect them more fully to their intuition so they always know what to do next in their lives. There is also a contest which you can enter by posting that you have written and participating in a private facebook group associated with the challenge. If you are interested you can check out this blog post:
http://sofiawren.com/special-event-21-days-of-sacred-writing-prompts-for-writers-and-creators-2/
You have such freedom when writing poetry. It does not need to make sense to everyone as it is written from the heart and emotion whether through joy, pain, fear, excitement, anger.
Poetry can be what you the poet would like it to be.
Perhaps this is why not everyone appreciates poetry as they struggle to connect with it. I definitely gravitate to specific types of poetry; those that speak to me.
There are so many different kinds because we can be so free! Freedom is great. I think sometimes it is nice to have a little structure to spur creativity which is why there are poetic forms. But it can be nice to just do whatever you want!
“…the soup of the feeling” — that may just be my new favorite line. “Pardon me, I’m in the soup of the feeling.” 🙂 Anyhoo, while I’m not joining in on the Sacred Writing Challenge, just wanted to say “hey, Sofia!” and nice to see you here on Jeri’s blog. xo
Hey Laura!! Thanks for the shout out. Nice to see you, too!
Emotional SOUP — I like it, too. But then I am a huge SOUP fan, as well, lol.
Xo kisses to you!
I will be honest, I don’t do poetry. However, I love the topic of where our inspiration comes from. Being the “get right down to business” type I had to learn the hard way to give myself over to my rather free-spirited writing process. This is the first time I’ve said this (virtually) out loud but more times than I’m willing to admit I sit down to write an article with a specific theme in mind and from there it’s like heading out on a road trip without a map. My mind takes over and sometimes I end up in a very different place than where I intended to go. I used to fight this, but it was like trying to drive with one foot on the gas and one on the break and the results were awful. Now I just let myself go with it and enjoy the process.
That’s awesome Marquita! I like how you described your process like driving. Following the creative flow is like gliding down a hill for me– a little unnerving but mostly exhilarating if the pace is just right!
*****There’s nothing I love more than basking in the richness of words, playing with them, dreaming of them. I love words. They speak to me, even when there is no mouth speaking them****
WOW!
I believe the “Words” come to me when I need them to most.
because without them, I would not be able to breathe or live.
It’s really that simple.
Words have “Saved” me.
Sofia Wren makes me more excited about POETRY than I already am!
Excellent post, Jeri.
YAYYYY!!!! Well, that’s a compliment! Hehe. I am sure you are already passionate, but it makes me smile to think this post left you inspired and excited to engage with your words and the current of them that runs through your every breath.
Thank you for the comment
I think in order to write poetry you need to have a creative mind – which I definitely don’t and it would be impossible for me to sit down and write a poem. However, I am very grateful to people who do write them as over the years certain poems, especially sacred ones, have supported me through difficult times.
I never tried a writing challenge before. To inspire myself to write, I tend to have to do something physical to relax before I write like sitting quietly and meditating, gardening or walking. For me, resting and relaxing connects me to the writer within. Thanks for sharing.
I used to write a lot of poetry, but turned my focus to novels and short stories. This winter I took an eight-week writing class and we started out writing poetry. What fun to delve into this form of writing and yes–to fall in love with short bursts of words saying an awful lot!
I’m not much of a poetry writer, but I can appreciate words that touch my emotions, either in poetry or narrative. We all love stories and I find it more challenging when the author doesn’t give me the ending. I like having to figure it out myself.
I do not write poems by myself. Ok, to be honest, I did it once, when I was completely in love 🙂 and it feels great. Indeed, probably love and warm feelings to everything and everybody surrounding you is such a great source of inspiration
I’m thinking about ambiguity and ideas and poetry and in some ways an idea is something that emerges out of ambiguity. The ambiguity is the trigger for the creative process and the idea is the outcome of that process. Maybe we need to have National Ambiguity Month.
LOL I love this idea Ken.
I love the name, Sacred Writing Challenge! It hints at the divine spark in each of us that comes out through creativity and artistic expression. And I agree with Ken about National Ambiguity Month! 😉
Thank you, Meredith, and you got it! We each have a spark of divine, creative inspiration. I love seeing it come through people and shine. Have a great day xo
I love writing challenges because I tend to be horrible about creating deadlines for my personal writing. Thanks for the great post, Sofia!
Thank you for having me again, Jeri.
xo
I too love the mystery of inspiration. There is a lot to be said for listening and being receptive. I don’t write much poetry, but I think there are some things best expressed in poetry. The ambiguities and conflicting emotions in life are some of those.
It was very nice to meet Sofia Wren…
I was particularly caught with her clever statements concerning language and its ambiguity…
The fact that several interpretations might be plausible makes Language an interpretive reservoir…
This is a common characteristic of many literary devices, such as metaphors.
Furthermore, etymologies reveal common semantic convergences, from a Genealogic point of view.. and when we learn languages we might clearly notice it…
I also like when she said that ideas come to us as well as we might come up with them…?
I believe that the creative process is linked in equal measure to the object and to the subject … It is an act of synergy, somehow… And that is also valid when mimesis plays a main role, such as it might happen in any sort of realistic art..
A great reading… thanks so much for sharing, dear Jeri… All the best to you. Aquileana ⭐️
Aquileana, nice to meet you! Thanks for your comment.
It makes me think also about the potential for people to interpret poetry in many ways, and perhaps all of them are right. I think that is what is fun about a class or container of people reading things and discussing them. We add to the richness of our own interpretation from their thoughts as well.
Have a great day!