By Victress Hitchcock
Saturday, January 30 I will be leading a day-long retreat hosted by Tara Mandala called Writing and Contemplation: Journeying Inwards. Right now there are so many forces of negativity and fear and confusion in our world; it’s so easy to get caught up in an endless rollercoaster of hope and fear. To spend a day contemplating and writing with no agenda, no pressure to achieve anything is a perfect antidote to the stress so many of us are experiencing. I am looking forward to it myself!
One of my favorite quotes about writing is from Flannery O’Connor who said, “I write to discover what I know”. That is what we will be doing during our day together. We will alternate periods of space and awareness practices with a variety of short writing practices – prompted writings, poems, random observations. There will be a map for our journey but there is no set destination. The day will be an exploration. Who knows what each of us will discover!
My background is in filmmaking. For forty-five years I wrote, directed, produced and edited films, the last two brought together my years of experience as a Buddhist practitioner with my experience as a filmmaker. During all those years, I wrote journals and poems and scripts and essays. In the last few years, since retiring from full time film production that I have turned my attention to writing. The more I write, the more I am intrigued by language and words and finding ways to express my inner world through words. These days, I find myself writing a lot of poetry and have put together two collections – Hello Honey: Eighteen Poems from the Path and Whoosh Stripped Bare. My most absorbing and challenging project is a memoir of the two transformative years, 1998-2000 I spent living on a ranch in the Wet Mountains of Southern Colorado.
Creativity is a force we all have inside us that can take many forms. There is no special gene for creativity. The secret is – we just have to do it. We just have to give ourselves the time and space to allow our creativity to express itself. I have studied writing with Anne Lamott and Natalie Goldberg and I have learned so much from them, but the most valuable teaching they have given me is – just keep writing. I can hear Natalie’s voice in my head – “It doesn’t matter if you write the worst crap in the world, just keep writing!” I look forward to spending a day discovering what we know and sharing with each other.
Some of my recent poems have come directly or indirectly from my feelings about our confused world. This poem combines some of those feelings with insights that have arisen from my meditation practice:
Leaving Home
When Siddhartha walked away
from his palace
no servant came with him
to sweeten his tea
to close the curtains
in his room
turn up the air conditioner
polish his shoes
He walked away alone
with only a longing
unnamed
unformed
lodged
deep in his heart
a longing to know why we suffer
a longing to find freedom
only when he stepped out onto
the hard rocky road
barefoot and
alone
the soles of his feet
torn and bloody
only when ants crawled
across his chest as he slept
and rats shared his food
only then did Siddhartha’s heart
impaled on lifetimes of sorrow
melt into an ocean the size
of the universe each
tiny newly hatched sparrow
held in his fierce embrace
Only then did freedom dawn.
There have always been wars
There will always be death
There is no escaping sorrow
it is the sea we sail in
the fire that burns in our bellies.
The Buddha did not find freedom
hiding behind the palace walls or
wrapping his tortured body in silk
The Buddha stepped out into
the blazing sun
and walked barefoot
down a hard path
a path followed
by Jesus of Nazareth
by mystics
and visionaries
revolutionaries and saints
century after century
None of them found freedom
by following the rules.
No one finds liberation
by playing it safe.
This post was written by Victress Hitchcock, and is posted here with her permission. For more information about the “Writing and Contemplation” Daylong Virtual Retreat she will be leading on January 30, click here.
About Victress Hitchcock
A long time Buddhist and filmmaker, Victress’ works include – Blessings: The Tsoknyi Nangchen Nuns of Tibet and When the Iron Bird Flies: Tibetan Buddhism Arrives in the West. In 2013 she was authorized as a Buddhist teacher by Anam Thubten. Since retiring from production in 2017, she has become a writer of poetry and non-fiction. She has published three collections of poetry including Hello Honey: 18 Poems from the Path and most recently Whoosh – Stripped Bare. She is working on a memoir, entitled A Tree with my Name on it, of her years living alone on a ranch in the mountains of Colorado. For more information on Victress’ films and writing and to purchase copies of Hello Honey and Whoosh Stripped Bare go to victresshitchcock.com.
Photos: Header and Buddha statue (Bodhi Stroupe)
