by Cassie Premo Steele
from Earth Joy Writing: Creating Harmony through Journaling and Nature (Ashland Creek
Press, 2015)
Earth Joy Writing is about finding joy when we align our creative practices with natural principles. It is about living in harmony with our deepest selves and the natural world. It is about committing to a mindfully creative life in collaboration with nature and, in the process, healing both ourselves and the earth.
We live in a world that is very out of balance. Wounded. Traumatized. In pain. Sick. Dying.
And we humans are also experiencing all of this.
Can this one little book—and you, with one small notebook and a pen—really make a difference?
Oh, yes. With a heart smiling wide, I say to you, “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
~
For the past twenty years, I have been writing poems and novels and nonfiction books and teaching within schools and communities about how our bodies and spirits are wounded, and how writing and creative practices in the natural world can help us heal from these traumatic histories.
As the daughter of a philosopher mother, I began my work, as many people do, in a place that felt like home. In my case, this was an academic setting. In my twenties, I joyfully completed a Ph.D. in comparative literature and women’s studies, balancing studying and teaching and researching while writing a few poems, and I thought this would be my path.
But eventually we all leave home. While I was teaching at the university level, I was becoming increasingly frustrated by the competitive, hierarchical, rational, and linear thinking of that world. I began to spend more time writing in my journal. More time in nature.
One day, while walking in the woods behind our house, I was struggling through the briars and brambles and thinking how much easier it would be if I had a path. And then, right there on the ground in front of me, was a beautiful red-tailed hawk feather.
There was my path.
Make your own path. Look down. Then look up. Learn to soar. See with clear vision.
~
And so I dedicated myself fully to my path as a writer and writing coach. A decade ago, I opened my own office in a historic home that had been converted to an office building in my southern city’s downtown. I held a free informational seminar for teachers and therapists in the area to share with them what I would be doing.
The seminar was well attended. I described my process to them, as I will do for you, and near the end of the meeting, one of the therapists gestured to me that he had a question.
“Yes?” I said.
“Earlier,” he said, “you described that during the ‘lesson,’ as you call it, there comes a point when you give an assignment to the client to write something, and then while the client writes, you write as well. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well.” He hesitated. “Doesn’t that mean you have to be … emotionally involved during the lesson?”
I smiled. “Yes,” I said.
~
Earth Joy Writing is about being emotionally involved. It is about co-creating in a shared emotional space with different parts of yourself, and with different people. And it is about co-creating in a shared environmental space with different parts of the natural world.
We are living at a crucial time. The planet, as even major news networks will tell you, is in peril. Scientists have affirmed what we fear: Many species are dying. Ecosystems are disappearing. Life as we know it on this planet may not have long to live.
We have a choice: We can choose to be emotionally involved, or we can numb our feelings, shut down, and distract ourselves with addictions, violence, and mindless repetitive patterns that pretend to provide an escape.
Earth Joy Writing will guide you, gently, toward the choice of connection, creativity, healing, and cooperation—toward collaboration, community, and care.
How?
Practice.
~
Many people want to live creative and balanced lives. Many people want to heal themselves and the earth. But they stop there, at the wanting.
Earth Joy Writing will take you beyond wanting into doing.
Studies have shown that it takes ten years of practice to become an expert or a renowned artist in a field. Why ten years? Because this is the length of time it takes for someone to practice something enough to become proficient, gifted, and masterful.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Practice, practice, practice!
How do we learn to align our human creative practices with natural principles?
Practice, practice, practice!
To this end, Earth Joy Writing is divided into sections by the seasons and by the months of the year. In this way, you can work in tandem with the cycles of the seasons of our lives and the seasons of the earth. Also, each month of the book provides several suggestions for creative action—indoor exercises, writing prompts, and outdoor activities—that will allow you to feel and experience and understand the lessons of that month for yourself.
In the beginning, we will begin each month by practicing Earth Joy Writing, and then at the end of the month we will reflect back upon what we learned to deepen our understanding through an examination of the natural principles at work in each month and each season. As the cycle of the seasons turns, however, the practices and principles will become more integrated so that the practice reflects upon the principle, and understanding the principle becomes the practice.
Here is the logic behind this: Much of Western philosophy derives from a principle-based foundation, which means that we start with a concept such as “freedom” or “health” or “equality,” and we attempt to apply this principle universally across vastly different situations and circumstances.
But in many cases, this fails—not because there is something wrong with the principles but because they are applied regardless of the context, the society, and the ecosystem in which humans and the natural world live.
In other words, Earth Joy Writing means aligning our practices and principles in ways that grow organically from the ground where we live.
So in Earth Joy Writing, we will begin with you—with you wherever you are, in whatever season it is, in whatever land you live upon, and within whatever circumstances you live. If you live in the southern hemisphere, for example, and it’s winter, you may want to turn to the lessons in the winter section of the book even though your calendar month is June or July.
From the context of this grounding, you will begin to practice Earth Joy Writing in your own way, using your own hands, writing your own words, using your own voice and body and stories.
And in this grounded way, the natural world will join you and begin to teach you, and talk to you, and share with you how we can indeed heal ourselves and the earth as together we learn to live in creative, balanced, and joyful ways.
Curious for more?
Cassie is offering a new course with the Conscious Dying Collective, Navigating Eco-Anxiety: Creating Calm in a Climate Collapsed World.