I wanted to let folks know that over the last month I have been going through chapter by chapter in the book editing material and making some adjustments. I reworked the introduction with a possible second rework in order to condense it even more. I have been through the first four chapters shifting material around and clarifying some passages as well as pushing some monster-sized content towards the back of the book in a final bid to decide once and for all if this extra material goes or if maybe the book is in truth three books or maybe two, or if I simply need to condense condense.
I am going to be working on a new rewrite of the introduction very soon to see if I like it better. I have discovered that perspective is everything in writing. What seems vital has a way of being not so important later. So we will see what I come up with and if I like the smoother slicker shorter introduction. Once I get that nailed down, I will be posting it here. If it stays pretty much as is, then I will break it up into two posts most likely. If I can get it down to something far simpler, perhaps only one.
I am finding that the writing has evolved over the last two years and the way I was writing just two years ago about the experience has changed. Seriously, the change is for the better. Sometimes writing material AS it happens is very different from gaining some distance from it. The difference for me is in my ability to condense and simplify. The simplicity simply does not seem to be as readily apparent when up close. I think this is partly due to its being so fresh. Over time you have the opportunity for the experience to roll and tumble in the mind enough to find ways to keep it more direct sometimes. But not always. I have been very glad that I had so many notes in my journal from which to draw, as this has helped me to use both perspective as well as the fresh experience together. What is most apparent is just how much of a process this has been. Its literally been a moving target in terms of perspective and understanding. This book will very much be "as it happens" and thus is a snap shot of the process in what I would think would be an earlier stage awakening that moved along at a fair pace once certain things took place. Even in the last week some new material has been coming up for me that has shifted my perspective about what this has been all about for me. Earlier on in the experience I could not see things in quite the way that I do now....particularly about the nature of belief and just how deep some of our dysfunction can go as it relates to concensus reality or old belief systems. Kundalini is unbending and continues to sweep and clear and then provide a different view than ever just a week ago. Or a year. The only challenge in all of this is knowing when to leave well enough alone for fear of adding too many layers of the process to the book. Sometimes its good to be quick, tidy and get on with things.
I am trying to do both.
The book offers a view of this experience that is different from most. It examines what moves us as humans, how we get caught up in repetitive memes, and how to break out of them. It also shows that even in the midst of awakening we can get stuck on sand bars and that waking up is just the first step. The process continues onward without end as we are driven forward in a kind of spiraling fashion towards our Essential Being or Self. While some of this can happen in a glimmer, there is still the backlog of material that needs to be removed. It deals with methods to cope with kundalini as well as a few pieces of poetry from this blog. It looks at how changing the nature of belief can return you to a more natural state and that its possible that our baseline being was perhaps meant to be one in the awakened state. I don't think its a big mystery why we do not experience this as a normal course of our development in larger numbers, and I suspect that more awakenings will continue to take place. The book examines several foundational elements for working through this experience in a way that will bring you a fuller life. These elements are grace, forgiveness, karma, and the higher self integrating higher order energy into the day to day experience. i discuss grace not in a religious sense, but relate it to a human experience that we can all relate to. Grace did not come along once the bells were tolling in the churches, no, grace is a fundamental state of human experience and its not an esoteric state or one that is hard to feel into or to embody. I illustrate how grace can lead to the inspired state that can leave you feeling so much more able to release age old material and soul wounds from the heart mind and soul.
We just had a fierce storm here this evening. So fierce that we had wind gusts that must have approached 50 mph. My beloved old silver maple, with its cleft at its base which suggested to my daughter that it was an entrance into the underworld of fairies is not lying on the ground, taken out by a giant gust as I stood closing the window after the computer nearly skittered across the front porch. I will be working on clearing that for the next few days but tonight, with the electricity out, but a spare battery on hand, I will be using what juice I do have on the intro rework so I can get something onto the blog that I am considering including for the intro.
Goodnight everyone!
UPDATE: 10/26/2012
Whew! Let me tell you, working on a book is more work than you might have believed. I have taken a large 1400 page manuscript and condensed it down to about 500 pages. I was told by an editor that because of how wide my margins were and the size of my fonts and spacing that I had several pages of a "cut" book on each of the pages I was writing. I am working on this, and it is like building a house only to whittle it down to a cottage. How do you make a castle into a cottage, I ask you? I have to be so terribly concise and be entirely on point and organized! The book emerged from a journal and bears that genesis, but now must be something more. With less. I am working with an editor who will tackle the work of first reading portions of the manuscript and then later will be helping me to sharpen it into a book proposal. Since I could easily spend many thousands of dollars having her work on it for me, I am trying to get the heavy lifting done and simplifying it so it still gets the job done. Everyone tells me I should write several books. I honestly can say that I don't know how to cut the book up in order to do that. The story is part journey through awakening and also using myself as an example for pointing out some important things that can serve awakenings that sometimes came hard, easy, and also fell from the sky as if on cue. It is part story, but part lesson. I would like to keep that sensibility in the writing. I often dream of having a group of people work with me the same way I used to attend critiques in art classes. We would all sit around and offer suggestions based on our take on the work. Sometimes things we never considered emerge as possible opportunities. I am now working with the trimmed version and writing it from scratch again using the old version as a template I need to distill even more. It makes me wish I could just write the book from start to finish without having edit much. Boy wouldn't that be great?
I am going to be working on a new rewrite of the introduction very soon to see if I like it better. I have discovered that perspective is everything in writing. What seems vital has a way of being not so important later. So we will see what I come up with and if I like the smoother slicker shorter introduction. Once I get that nailed down, I will be posting it here. If it stays pretty much as is, then I will break it up into two posts most likely. If I can get it down to something far simpler, perhaps only one.
I am finding that the writing has evolved over the last two years and the way I was writing just two years ago about the experience has changed. Seriously, the change is for the better. Sometimes writing material AS it happens is very different from gaining some distance from it. The difference for me is in my ability to condense and simplify. The simplicity simply does not seem to be as readily apparent when up close. I think this is partly due to its being so fresh. Over time you have the opportunity for the experience to roll and tumble in the mind enough to find ways to keep it more direct sometimes. But not always. I have been very glad that I had so many notes in my journal from which to draw, as this has helped me to use both perspective as well as the fresh experience together. What is most apparent is just how much of a process this has been. Its literally been a moving target in terms of perspective and understanding. This book will very much be "as it happens" and thus is a snap shot of the process in what I would think would be an earlier stage awakening that moved along at a fair pace once certain things took place. Even in the last week some new material has been coming up for me that has shifted my perspective about what this has been all about for me. Earlier on in the experience I could not see things in quite the way that I do now....particularly about the nature of belief and just how deep some of our dysfunction can go as it relates to concensus reality or old belief systems. Kundalini is unbending and continues to sweep and clear and then provide a different view than ever just a week ago. Or a year. The only challenge in all of this is knowing when to leave well enough alone for fear of adding too many layers of the process to the book. Sometimes its good to be quick, tidy and get on with things.
I am trying to do both.
The book offers a view of this experience that is different from most. It examines what moves us as humans, how we get caught up in repetitive memes, and how to break out of them. It also shows that even in the midst of awakening we can get stuck on sand bars and that waking up is just the first step. The process continues onward without end as we are driven forward in a kind of spiraling fashion towards our Essential Being or Self. While some of this can happen in a glimmer, there is still the backlog of material that needs to be removed. It deals with methods to cope with kundalini as well as a few pieces of poetry from this blog. It looks at how changing the nature of belief can return you to a more natural state and that its possible that our baseline being was perhaps meant to be one in the awakened state. I don't think its a big mystery why we do not experience this as a normal course of our development in larger numbers, and I suspect that more awakenings will continue to take place. The book examines several foundational elements for working through this experience in a way that will bring you a fuller life. These elements are grace, forgiveness, karma, and the higher self integrating higher order energy into the day to day experience. i discuss grace not in a religious sense, but relate it to a human experience that we can all relate to. Grace did not come along once the bells were tolling in the churches, no, grace is a fundamental state of human experience and its not an esoteric state or one that is hard to feel into or to embody. I illustrate how grace can lead to the inspired state that can leave you feeling so much more able to release age old material and soul wounds from the heart mind and soul.
We just had a fierce storm here this evening. So fierce that we had wind gusts that must have approached 50 mph. My beloved old silver maple, with its cleft at its base which suggested to my daughter that it was an entrance into the underworld of fairies is not lying on the ground, taken out by a giant gust as I stood closing the window after the computer nearly skittered across the front porch. I will be working on clearing that for the next few days but tonight, with the electricity out, but a spare battery on hand, I will be using what juice I do have on the intro rework so I can get something onto the blog that I am considering including for the intro.
Goodnight everyone!
UPDATE: 10/26/2012
Whew! Let me tell you, working on a book is more work than you might have believed. I have taken a large 1400 page manuscript and condensed it down to about 500 pages. I was told by an editor that because of how wide my margins were and the size of my fonts and spacing that I had several pages of a "cut" book on each of the pages I was writing. I am working on this, and it is like building a house only to whittle it down to a cottage. How do you make a castle into a cottage, I ask you? I have to be so terribly concise and be entirely on point and organized! The book emerged from a journal and bears that genesis, but now must be something more. With less. I am working with an editor who will tackle the work of first reading portions of the manuscript and then later will be helping me to sharpen it into a book proposal. Since I could easily spend many thousands of dollars having her work on it for me, I am trying to get the heavy lifting done and simplifying it so it still gets the job done. Everyone tells me I should write several books. I honestly can say that I don't know how to cut the book up in order to do that. The story is part journey through awakening and also using myself as an example for pointing out some important things that can serve awakenings that sometimes came hard, easy, and also fell from the sky as if on cue. It is part story, but part lesson. I would like to keep that sensibility in the writing. I often dream of having a group of people work with me the same way I used to attend critiques in art classes. We would all sit around and offer suggestions based on our take on the work. Sometimes things we never considered emerge as possible opportunities. I am now working with the trimmed version and writing it from scratch again using the old version as a template I need to distill even more. It makes me wish I could just write the book from start to finish without having edit much. Boy wouldn't that be great?
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