My writing misogi is beginning at the start of my 10th year as a widow. It’s taken me a long time, yes, but I’ve been moving ahead slowly all the while. Yet now it is as if some enormous wave is sweeping me up and in its wake creating great and momentous changes to my life. Strange, but welcomed.
At any rate, I am confident that this writing practice will do me good as I write all the time and so putting more discipline to my whimsical musings and ruminations will unclutter my desk and most other surfaces in my home of the thoughts residing there gathering dust.
A misogi is a training term I know from my practice of Aikido. It is a practice more intense than normal practice and so it is meant to push a little harder than is comfortable. Of course, I like to write but the push for me is the daily writing practice in a more formalized way.
Why do this? Besides decluttering my home for me it is a practice that focuses my energy, my life. In the morning which I see earlier than I used to … about 6:30-7:30am - instead of picking up my ipad to read the morning news on the various worthwhile apps - NYT, Washington Post, LA Times - or looking at my inbox feed from Huffington Post, the Atlantic, or (heaven forbid) turning on the TV to hear my favorites talk the news, I grab my pad of paper, my freshly made cup of coffee and head outside onto the deck to sit and enjoy the exposure to a yard I’ve been transforming for nearly 50 years: it is worthy of a look now. I have a little fountain nearby and, as this deck is attached to the back of my house, it is away from the pervasive street noise present even on this quiet suburban street in the foothills. As I sit here I can watch the sunrise over my massive old oak tree, it becomes visible at about 9am.
This way my day begins with the most positive sensations I can manage if only for a brief time on more busy days. It makes a difference how one begins the day and as I find the day to day world increasingly frustrating with my mostly fruitless attempts to use electronic devices - I can develop a mindset worthy of these challenges in that I am ready to laugh my way through the day rather than growling away and making myself one of those unpleasant old people that populate the world. I will be one of the dotty ones that find life amusing. It is as it should be.
I look forward to reading this misogi project daily so that it can give me some of that valuable boost for the day.
How interesting! Syd recommended it to me and also to encourage me to get going on starting up a Substack.