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Writer's pictureGary Hewitt

Altered state of being

Greetings all and first up let me thank my lovely readers for commenting, liking, loving and sharing yesterday's post. Huge love to Anna, Shilpa and Jo for taking the time to make your presence known. I salute you all.


Today I shall look into a particular train of thought that has been sleeping in my subconscious. It is this question. Is writing a form of meditation? Now some may argue that such a thought is rather daft and that writing is certainly not. You have to engage with your conscious mind and take your time to formulate the correct sequence of words onto a page. Then there is the argument that when you are truly in flow with writing you do transcend into a certain state of being. Many a time I've written and once I've finished and looked back I do ponder where on earth that particular piece of work came from.



This is quite a deep subject when you put your mind to it. I know when in deep meditation I've certainly gone into a place of an unknown quality. I ask myself do I go somewhere similar when writing and I would have to say that this is the case. When I put on the right kind of music, tell myself I'm going to write and set myself a deadline and then go the words just come to life. I'm doing something akin to this right now as these words appear on screen. Sure I set the theme but truly, I may directing the flow of traffic but I'm not necessarily driving all those little cars of thoughts and phrases. They will just happen on by into my cognitive vibration and make their presence felt.



For me, the ultimate kind of free flow writing is something called the Stream of consciousness. Now this is at the edge of creative writing and it's akin to doing a headstand on a rollercoaster going at full pelt and not having a clue how you're going to get round the next bend. There's no structure really, grammar isn't important, even spelling sometimes, it is magical chaos and I do like to drop it in sometimes when I get the chance. It doesn't happen very often but when it does, let's literally go a little bit loopy and let the wheels come off and turn into little frisbees orbiting the little globe of mania that you're floating on by in. Shall we give it a go. Oh, ok, let's pick a theme first, something quite mundane such as lemons. Lemon's uh? What can you possibly do with lemons? Let's find out.



"This odd little thing that looks like a plum is staring back at me from within a glass. I did fill it and now one slice is sinking into another in a plume of smoky water and does it speak to me, oh I don't know, maybe, maybe it wasn't there in the first place, just maybe it wants to dance with the letters gassing on about some random eye test. Oh no way. Imagine sticking those darn letters in front of me to talk about absolutely nothing at all of any consequence. Maybe I should send the letters to take the test, what will they see. Maybe they'll tell me they hate oranges. They really do get miffed at being in the same bracket as dear old St. Clements you know. Ages ago I went to a church called St. Clements, was it in the Strand I think, I can't quite recall but it was rather a magnificent place to visit. Did you know that the city of London has some magnificent examples of architecture in those fine churches. From St. Botolphs in Aldgate all the way to St. Brides which I think's down near St. Pauls. It's a side of London not many see but what's got to do with lemons. Lemons rock and maybe there should be a lemon temple where we all extol the virtuosity of the god of juice. Or maybe, it's time for this stream of consciousness to come to an end. Still, at least there are good vitamins in a good old slice of lemon, vitamin C I believe with some certainty but I better check, I've been wrong before you know and maybe lemon would be a splendid way to start a game of wordle."



Now as you can see, the paragraph above is quite potty. There isn't any particular sense of direction and it goes off on a tangent into the most bizarre places and it's times like this when you can strike creative gold. It's certainly not boring but surreal, bonkers and may have you questioning your sanity. I think mine went some time ago so truly it doesn't matter to me, I'm quite happy to traverse the realm of subliminal memory excavation to unearth certain nuggets of nuttiness. Before I go though, anyone in London truly ought to visit the churches there, the magic of Sir Christopher Wren is something to behold as well as many other leviathans of architecture. Who'd have thought that lemons could take me into those old memories.


On that note and after a good donation of creativity I shall take my leave. I shall see you soon and adieu and enjoy your Saturday (or Sunday). Much love to all.



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