Thank you to all the writers I’ve learned from and worked with, all the shared inspiration over this life and any other lives who are invisible to or unremembered by me.

I offer this experiment freely with the intention of inspiring you to connect with the inner you, the inner one who carries stories, who receives stories, who tells stories. Our energy follows our stories.

What story is at the center of the spiral? What stories form the form? The shell? The staircase? The plant? The DNA of our body? How is this writing experiment going to spiral out from here?

Here is a writing experiment I’ve undertaken with a several writing nests. I understand the thinking behind paywalls and protecting our work from being used, again and again, and not being compensated or paid. I appreciate the importance of reminding ourselves of the value of the gifts we share with others.

As you write, you may notice a longing for connection with other writers. Connection = being witnessed and witnessing.

I notice we contain multitudes. My identities include: writer, friend, forest walker, listener, work culture participant, ritual maker, plant communicator, canine nurturer, woman, intellectual, canoeist, creator with my hands, nutrition student, be-ing, grandmother, mother, partner, ex-many things.

Each of these identities is in relationship. Each of these relationships expands or contracts based on my participation. The ability to be present, to be both the observed and the observer, to be in a loop of reciprocity, a giving and a receiving, this is the place of practice. Sweetness might be here. Waves of emotion.

In our relationship with writing, we might feel pressure to achieve an expected outcome. In relationship with other writers, the expectations we have for an audience, for our own success, might recede into the background. We might notice the relationship of writer to words, of writer to writers, of words to words, is the presence we’ve been seeking. It’s the reality in action of being seeing and seeing another.

To write/create alone may feel safe. To write/create in a group may feel unsafe.

What do you want for your life?

Who do you want to be?

What kinds of experiences do you want to have?

What are you willing to invest in your becoming?