Small Gods, Big Joy, and Writing Well

byfreedom1207

2K followers

10 years ago

On the way home from taking my daughter to school the other day, I was stopped at a stop light. The sun was bursting through the windshield when something to the left caught my eye.

There had been a frost the night before and a giant, old chestnut tree on the corner was losing it's leaves from the cold. As I sat at the stoplight I was caught in the dance of the big, green leaves pirouetting to the ground in the morning sunlight.

It was just a moment, a brief few seconds, yet the joy will always remain forever embedded in my heart.

As soon as the traffic lights changed, the falling leaves became crushed under the wheels of rushing cars and my dance with them ended with the thought that life is really made up of what we notice about it...the small gods of achingly beautiful moments, and even that which wipes them out...so that they can begin again.

As I made my way home I was pondering on the preciousness of that unsought moment of stillness...how it wasn't pre-planned, or organized, or scheduled in. How it had absolutely nothing to do with me at all. How it just sort of happened with such beauty and grace, and then it ended with the flow of life and the moving traffic.

These are the kinds of moments that make for good writing.

Small. Simple. Yet they can be mined for gold if we learn to write about how the moment felt to us rather than only describe what it looked like.

Writing for me has always been about conveying an experience from the heart rather than the head...about connecting on an emotional level with the reader and hopefully having them walk away from the words feeling moved, or changed, or stretched, or simply more at peace.

Of course the world is full of many voices and all kinds of writers and I have great respect for the myriad of unique voices, styles and methods out there, many of which I admire a great deal and have learned much from.

Such is the way the small gods speak to us when we quiet the mind and open the heart.

Truly, the small gods are all around us, in every moment, in every life, because it's the small gods that each of us have in common to some degree or another. So if you want to write about them, there's certainly no lack of them around you.

For example, if you are reading this, it's a pretty sure bet that your heart is beating, you are breathing in and out, and your brain is functioning.

Thank you, small god of beating hearts...

of breathing...

of functioning brain...

How about thank you, small god of computers, internet, eyesight, coffee...

of morning sunlight...

of transportation...

of children, chestnut trees, frost...

You get the picture.

Life is about feeling grateful for the little things.

It's about the big joy that can come from the small and ordinary actions we take or things we pay attention to.

When the mind gets quiet, cleansed of ego pride and arrogance, free of all concepts and ideas of the way life should be or who we should be, when stillness remains deep inside while actions take place, when we can be humbled by the smallest acts of grace; then we can truly accept the fleetingness of the journey between birth and death and begin to really relax into it, have more fun, laugh more often, write more authentically, give more freely, feel more deeply - even during times that are challenging...or perhaps I should say,especially during times that are challenging.

The gift of small gods is big joy, and this can make us write well.

It's a quiet kind of joy...simple...easy...light...uncomplicated. It's almost like these moments of gratitude add up over time, an exponential spreading out of goodness, love, awareness, and beauty.

This is not to say that everything is always rosy, and yet it is still possible to feel that underlying joy and still keep on writing, even in the midst of adversity or hardship, for great beauty can be found in the human condition..especially our own.

There also seems to be such a great perfection in the unfolding of a life. There's just so much we have no clue about, and that seems to make us all a bit crazed with the need to find out, so we can be in control, so we can be certain, so that life can feel solid and secure and sure.

However, if we attempt to write from a place of security, control, and the known, you can pretty much guarantee that the words will fall flat and your readers will too...by doing a face plant right into their keyboard or book! Even a product review could be written in such a way as to connect emotionally with the reader by telling a personal story, a funny anecdote, or how the product made you feel to own it or use it etc...but try and fake it and I bet readers will sense it right away and be gone.

In the end, whether we're interested in writing or not, it behooves us to take notice of the life we are living and give thanks for the small gods of big joy wherever and whenever they appear to us - which is always and everywhere if you're paying attention.

Warmly,

Heather