Photo via Tomas Sobek
“The writing of (Soma)tics is an engagement with the thing of things and the spirit of things” … CA Conrad.
Since I discovered CA Conrad, his (Soma)tic exercises have greatly influenced my writing. (Soma)tic poetry investigates the “infinite space between body and spirit by using nearly any possible thing around or of the body to channel the body out and/or in toward spirit with deliberate and sustained concentration.”
Tomorrow, I will start a one-week writing workshop in Malibu Hills at Camp Hollywood Heart. To help my writing students learn (Soma)tic techniques, we will go on a sound walk and have a reiki bowl burning ceremony. On the sound walk, we will focus our attention on sounds and we will incorporate the sounds into our writing. In the reiki bowl burning ceremony, the students will write down negative things that they want to let go of. They will write on biodegradable paper. After finishing, they will tear the paper up, place the papers in the bowl, and we will symbolically burn the paper by throwing it off of a cliff.
As the students write, they will receive reiki energy work from Reiki Master, Carlos Caridad from the Centre For Life in Los Angeles. The energy work is intended to heal emotional trauma and stress and bring back to balance the electro-magnetic energy fields of their bodies. We will have a mini writing session after the reiki practice and see the impact it has on their bodies. The ceremony will take place in a Jewish sanctuary at Gindling Hilltop Camp.
I was inspired to create the reiki bowl burning ceremony after reading one of Conrad’s exercises.
Wash a penny, rinse it, slip it under your tongue and walk out the door. Copper is the metal of Aphrodite, never ever forget this, never, don’t forget it, ever. Drink a little orange juice outside and let some of the juice rest in your mouth with the penny. Oranges are the fruit of Aphrodite, and she is the goddess of Love, but not fidelity. Go somewhere outside, go, get going with your penny and juice. Where do you want to sit? Find it, and sit there. What is the best Love you’ve ever had in this world? Be quiet while thinking about that Love. If someone comes along and starts talking, quietly shoo them away, you’re busy, you’re a poet with a penny in your mouth, idle chit-chat is not your friend. Be quiet so quiet, let the very sounds of that Love be heard in your bones. After a little while, take the penny out of your mouth and place it on the top of your head. Balance it there and sit still a little while, for you are now moving your own forces quietly about in your stillness. Now get your pen and paper and write about POVERTY, write line after line about starvation and deprivation from the voice of one who has been Loved in this world.
victor yates 