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Cocoon your Practice

Dear Writing,
I am so sorry I abandoned you. It’s been two weeks since I last wrote a single word for myself. You’ve waited patiently in the background, but the sense of words choking my veins, needing to get out, words shapeshifting into feelings of anxiety and self-doubt, has been palpable. You Writing, did not abandon me as I have abandoned you.

What a relief it is to sit right here, right now – to go to the page today and write this ‘blog-to-self’ – the post I most need to read.

The truth is I’m a bit crap at prioritising my own writing time. If every writer has their ‘wound’ then that is mine. It’s not that procrastination or writers block keeps me from the page, but rather the ‘stuff’ of life. Eminently justifiable stuff such as the paid freelance work I need to do most days, magazine deadlines, the preparation of my Life Writing workshop (I delivered week one last night and it was wonderful), the seemingly endless stream of social media attendance I do as part of my work that has no determinable end (unless I myself draw a line). There are children and school events, horses and friends and family. And rest. Sometimes it feels that everything exists to steal my time, and while I can be effective in stealing it back, my writing soul aches for long stretches of musing time to wander through the words, rather than the snatched sentences I manage in between other moments.

How can we ‘cocoon our practice’?

I have an artist friend that I admire greatly for many reasons, one of which is her deep commitment to her painting as a first priority every day. This is a mindset, a true expression of the value we attribute to our own art making. Nothing gets in the way of her practice to paint first. She declines just about every invitation or obligation that would take her away from her painting.

I admire this.

I struggle with this.

But I think this is what cocooning may be about.

We value what we create first and most, before all our other endeavours.
We honour our work and the time we give to it.
We defend the time we set aside for it, vigorously, without obligation to others, without hesitation. We simply say no.
We protect our space physically, psychologically even. We create buffers that protect us from intrusions, be they the visitor, the ding of social media, the news of the day.
We immerse our whole self in our practice and we emerge full from the experience, and our writing becomes self-perpetuating.
We give ourselves the right to pleasure and recognise our deepest need to do our art as the truest part of our selves.

And at the heart of cocooning our practice is the deepest held belief that art is worth it.

Writing is worth it.

We are worth it.

Cocooning your practice is a form of fierce love, for the self, for the soul and for all that is created from that space.

I’m working on it.

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Life Writing – New Course

Want a Life Writing tip to get you started with writing a piece of your own history? Life Writing is a style of writing that draws out your unique story and preserves it for you or whoever you choose to share it with. It’s a wonderful way to honour your life and anyone, regardless of their writing skills, can start today.

Read my guest blog Bring Your Story to Life here.

If you would like to know more about this course or wish to enrol call Simone on 5967 1776 or email simonewhitehead@cire.org.au. Life Writing with Lindy Schneider commences Tuesday 15th May at 6.30pm to 9.00pm (4 sessions).

Held at Cire in Yarra Junction.

You can listen to my radio interview on YVFM (1.5.18) here.

Brochure with more details on this course is below.

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The Capital ‘S’ in Self-publishing

Ten years ago, being a Self-published author carried with it the same stigma as admitting you’d met your partner online. Fortunately, both scenarios have changed immensely in the past decade.

I am proud to say that I am a Self-published author and what this means for me is I bring work to the world that might otherwise languish in slush piles at publishing houses for months, perhaps years. I’m not alone in being empowered enough, and brave enough, to take the step to have my voice heard and to take steps to realise myself as an author.

Taking the publishing process into my own hands has meant I am living a truth. I am a writer, and this is the way I make my writing visible. I can’t imagine how choked my writing would become if I did not have this way of ‘releasing’ my words to the world. That moment when you push the button and the words that have been ingrained on your heart are set free into the world is a scary moment, but it is also the moment that makes you as a writer. And you do it again and again.

Carl Jung referred to the capital S Self as the unification of the conscious and unconscious– a wholly complete and integrated Self. As people, as writers, isn’t’ this is what we aspire to? Self-publishing could be part of our Self-actualisation.

While there are dozens of ‘vanity publishers’ out there prepared to take your money and turn your book into a reality (often with very poor editing and production standards, minimal author support and desperately woeful marketing), Self-publishing a book and actually taking on every step of the process is the hands-on way to nurture the birthing process of your book and ensure it gets the life it deserves.

And does being a Self-published author mean you will never be traditionally published? There are many stories of successful Self-published authors being picked up for second books by publishing houses and there is also the emergence of the hybrid author – that is an author who cleverly develops a range of titles across both Self-published and traditional published formats. For many authors the Self-publishing financials make better sense, and the ability for authors to ‘cover all bases’ is their best chance at establishing income streams that are sustainable.

The From This Place book is a great example of a Self-published book that has been nurtured every step of the way. Photographer Angela Rivas and I invested hours in our publishing process. We went to printers, and worked through a myriad of specifications and quotes. (Our printer even came to our book launch we had such a strong relationship!) We sat with our graphic designer, and brought people into our editing and marketing team that we truly loved and respected. The end product is an ode to collaboration and the spirit of ‘making it happen’.

And that is what sharing your gift with the world means. If you’ve resisted Self-publishing because having a large publishing house like your work is the only way you might feel legitimate as a writer then I invite you to examine what is really going on inside your head. If is feels hard, consider a coach. Don’t resist the impulse of your own heart to share your work. If Self-publishing is within your means, honour your work and let the world see you.

 

Photo Credit: Angela Rivas

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Know thyself

Know thyself.

I don’t think there is a single place in our lives where this isn’t relevant.

I am often asked to write PR releases or web content and, for me, the client’s self-awareness of who and what they are about is far more important than their latest SWOT analysis, or KPI (in fact I avoid this jargon on purpose).

Writing great copy requires emotional integrity and honesty. That’s the key to connecting with purpose to the people you are communicating with. You could say it’s part psychology, part writing and part marketing. The questions I ask of clients are the same ones I have muddled over in my own working and personal life. The answers shift over time as I evolve and respond to new opportunities but the ‘work’ in having strong and thoughtful responses to these questions makes everything else that you do flow.

Contemplate your responses to these questions and the writing – whether you engage a professional or want to prepare something yourself­–will be richer, easier and real– touching people where it needs to. Sometimes it’s just a few words that make all the difference.

Here are 10 provocations that can inspire deeper thought (and always more questions!)

  1. My work matters because…
  2. I am passionate about this because…
  3. My authority in this lies in my…
  4. Without this (your service/product etc) the world will…
  5. The three things you will learn/gain from my service/product are…
  6. This is unique because…
  7. How I want you to benefit from this is to…
  8. I stand for (3-5 defining words about who you are)…
  9. What is or where is my edge? Where will it grow…
  10. What do I yearn for?

The more you know your Self, the easier the answers will be, and your brilliance will flow naturally from this source.

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A word about resolutions

As I scrolled through what must have been hundreds of posts this morning offering resolutions and advice for your ‘best 2018’ I couldn’t help but come to one conclusion.
There is just one word that pretty much provides a solution to most of life’s laments.
So in the spirit of sharing and stimulated conversation, I’m going to share my one word today (knowing full well that we suggest to others what we most need to hear ourselves!)

So my one word is this…

OUTSIDE

Yes that’s it – seven letters
O.U.T S.I.D.E.

Try this…

Feeling sad? – go outside
Lacking creative inspiration? – go outside
Kids spending too much time on screens? – go outside
Carrying a few extra kgs? – go outside
Electricity bills too big? – go outside
Lacking motivation? – go outside
Seeking community?- go outside
Feeling stressed about something? – go outside
Lacking appetite? – go outside
Can’t sleep? – go outside
Cranky children? – go outside

(you get it, right?)

Cooking, eating, living, sleeping – do more outside-even meetings (cos let’s face it any time we can get out of the white wall boxes we confine ourselves to has got to be good right?)

So there it is, one word I am going to steer my compass for 2018 by. Enjoy!
Feeling gratitude outside.
(Pic: @wedgetailrides)
#liveoutside

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It’s There

Last week I was planning a trip into the city alone and would be returning late at night. Chatting to my man about my options for travel, it occurred to us that it was safety not ease, or cost or efficiency that was my only concern. My man commented he had never had to think about it for himself. So i wrote this…

IT’S THERE

There it is…
Those small ways
Every day
That I am aware
Aware of my safety, aware of my body, aware I cannot let myself be truly free
Hidden in tiny gestures
Mine and others
The moment that flickers though my mind when I choose a car park that is visible to others,
The way I put my window up if a stranger approaches my car
The tiny moments where I have learned I need to be alert

This is not normal for everyone
Just most women, most of the time, in most circumstances through the world they live in
When I carry my keys instead of putting them in my bag
Hell when I put my bag across my body instead of on my shoulder
All tiny moment in which I know somehow, have learnt somehow, I might not be safe
And it seems it is my role to be a step ahead of those who might seek to harm me

This is not the story of a women in trauma, although we all are somehow.
This is ordinary
This is life
Be alert, you are vulnerable.
The choices you make every moment will contribute to your assault, your rape, your own abuse.
I tried to explain this to my beautiful man, the father of our daughter.
He could not believe the tiny moments a woman felt, that it seems most men, most of the time, don’t need to think about.
But I do, like a reflex, We do. Don’t we?
An unconscious reaction to a world where being female is a risk factor.

Behind the choice of flat shoe versus heel, the twenty dollar note I tuck in my bra just in case, the finger I have on the button that locks my car doors – it’s there.

Before I’ve considered what I wear, or how outspoken I will be, before I have stepped from my home I have made a cascade of choices.

Take the car, don’t walk.
Text my partner my ‘last known location’ just in case.
Stand near the call button in a lift with a stranger.

Not free.
Deeply embedded, enculturated, ground in.
Choices I think, I hope, will preserve me, at the very least make me less of a target.
This is the world we live in. Vulnerable. Always.
Because tiny acts of violence are normal…
Unless we say it’s there.

Lindy Schneider October 2017

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All about Dandelions

The best logos are rich with symbolism and truth. They are more than marketing strategies – they are emanations from the soul and tell our stories in so many more ways than words convey. So I chose a dandelion to represent my mark on the world – my soul in colour and line to show you a little more of who I am. I dreamt on it and followed the scatter of seeds on the wind until I understood what the dandelion symbolised for me.

When I was a child the dandelion was a magical wish maker – it still is.

The tiny flowerets that float out on the breeze show us the magic of breath, the basis of all of life.

The spherical nature of the dandelion head is also called a clock, but it represents the multi dimensional non-linear form of time – circles and cycles of the seasons and the natural world.

Dandelion is also a wonderful medicinal herb. Every part of the plant has its use. It cleanses the liver and promotes balance and health. It restores and supports us to live from our essence.

And she is every where.

When the spring comes the ubiquitous dandelion bobs her fragile head in the green spaces of our lives. She shows us how many small things create a whole.

]She is life in perpetuity as each seed head releases its growth potential gently supported by its own tiny set of parachute-like wings.

I watch my own children delight in finding a dandelion and blow all the expectations and beauty of childhood into the winds of time.

The colours of the rainbow ripple through my dandelion representing creativity and the diversity of life.

I am also a Leo so the ‘dandy Lion’ feels like a fine expression of my Leonine ways.

If we use the breath to breathe life into our words, we bring meaning to the world.

The dandelion is a symbolic embodiment of what that means to me.

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What is conscious business?

Being a conscious business is more than including a ‘think before you print this email’ notice on your correspondence, or placing recycling bins on each floor of your sealed tight, air-conditioned  office-cum-tomb. In fact, in this current rise of the ‘green-wash’, people like you and I are feeling our inner cynics starting to pace the room knowing that sometimes the gap between an advertisable eco friendly initiative and deeper corporate values is a chasm the magnitude of the Grand Canyon.

The very act of advertising a new green ethos may be the very thing that gives a business away.

It is the business that lives its principles and believes in them from the core that doesn’t need to tell the world what they are doing in the hope of a positive rub off on sales.

They do what they do because it is the right thing, and in the process others who believe in the right thing naturally find them and support them.

Being aware and responsible are not strategic business initiatives, they are a base line of what it is to be human and in the world, both as individuals and in the communities in which we work.

A conscious business avoids the rhetoric and weasel word mentality that plagues corporate Australia.

Even the word “values’ has been misrepresented over and over again – scan any corporate mission statement and it will no doubt appear as a key to success, but what does it all really mean and how does it translate to action?

I don’t have answers, but I do think we can all  bring a sensibility and substance to the notion of a conscious business, through the understanding and unpacking of the very words we use to define our daily business activities.

As a human being in the world and as a professional writer, I realise the power of a single word.

If the words lack depth, so too does our content, our message, our mission.

 

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Birth rites, birth wrongs

It started innocently enough. When I first became pregnant 4 years ago, I was surprised at how quickly I became overwhelmed by negative birth stories. I made a very conscious decision to embrace only positive and life enhancing stories about birth, so that I could stay centred and delighted in my pregnancy and birthing time. I left conversations, turned off the TV or just simply tuned out whenever I felt that instinctual feeling that what I was about to hear wasn’t truly supportive.

That worked well for me, so a few weeks ago when I chanced across the ‘final episode’ TV birth scene of what I understand to be a successful Australian drama series, I felt able to view it for what it was, and I was terrified. There it was in all its stereotypical glory, labour portrayed yet again as an angry, confronting, dramatic, joyless experience.

The hallmarks of a ‘ratings worthy’ TV birth would seem to be:

  • Woman screaming loudly and abusing anyone within a 500 metre radius – usually lying on her back in a bed surrounded by strangers and strange gadgets
  • A remark about squeezing out a watermelon
  • Dithering partner suffering an endless tirade of profanity for getting her like this in the first place
  • Over bearing, doom laden doctor threatening the worst case scenario all the time
  • An over-riding drama of some sorts which threatens everything
  • A ‘phew we made it’ ending with everyone gazing adoringly at the babe, and mother looking only slightly dishevelled

Why do we never see lovely, gentle, calm, flowing, spirited births on TV?

Yes, birth is a life or death experience and one cannot take for granted the very thin veil that can exist between these two extremes, in both the babes and the mothers’ experience. Birth can be gritty, hard, messy and demanding on a woman in a way she has never experienced before.

Yet each women’s’ experience is so very different and I know, through my own birthing stories, and that of many other women, that labour is heartbreakingly beautiful, challenging, joyous and expansive. Yes! The process of labour can be all these wonderful things…not just the end bit when the baby is placed in a mothers arms.

What message are we giving our women friends when such a negative image of birth is so normalised in the media today?

So many women must approach their own labours with only these images to inform them about

what birthing is like. And I can’t help but wonder what message we are giving our girls about their precious womanhood via this persistently negatively skewed portrayal of labour.  It is heart breaking that so much of what makes us women is not honoured by the world in which we live.

I am not looking to blame the media or a patriarchal culture for current attitudes to birth. More simply there needs to be some acknowledgement somewhere of a simple truth.

Society views birth from a place of fear, rather than a place of love.

The effects of this seemingly obvious, yet enormous, shift in consciousness about birth would be profound.

There are many implications of the entrenchment of negativity around birth. At the most fundamental level it denies most women the opportunity to know themselves as powerful amazing creatures, and to transform themselves, through their labouring experience, in an entirely new way – spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically.  It denies our precious new children a passage into this world that is ushered by calm beauty. And on a larger scale this negativity denies women of their right to choose how they birth. The current move to criminalise homebirth serves as a poignant reminder of what happens when women, and men, lose the truth – that birth is love, not fear.

Meanwhile, in worse case scenarios,  some pregnant women have no choice but to work  until the birth, a time when rest and contemplation is preferable, if not vital. (Research suggests lack of rest may contribute to higher then necessary caesarean rates.) Doctors book dates for babies to be removed from wombs and childcare facilities are full as newly born mothers are forced back to work just to pay bills. Somewhere in all of this, the prevailing negative attitude to birth has a role to play.

And whilst our media cannot help itself but to resort to stereotypical birthing scenarios, we as informed and conscious peoples, can do more than just exercise our right not to watch.

We can attempt to bring some beauty to the world by talking more about our joyous births, by sharing our stories with anyone who will listen and especially sharing and supporting women who are yet to be mothers, but want to know a better way.

Birth is not a bitter experience, birth is a ‘once in a lifetime’ glimpse of the sacredness that is life.

 

Contact Lindy
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Coffee Cupping 101

Every morning, like millions of others, I partake in the daily ritual of fresh coffee. Earlier this year we bought a coffee machine for home and, after a brief Barista course, I thought I had some sense of the world of the humble bean, and all the varied elements that go together to create each perfect brew. Beans, grind, extraction, milk frothing and temperature, humidity, water quality – I think you’re getting the idea!

Well, that was until yesterday!

Cupping Bowls

Cupping Bowls. Photo Courtesy of Le

Enter our local Barista “B” who, as part of a “Come and Try’ day in Warburton, with locals offering their skills to raise money for the Red Cross, invited us along to a COFFEE CUPPING session. Never heard of it? Neither had I.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that (horrendously) you could order a coffee and it was pot luck whether it was ‘good’ or not. A takeaway latte got handed to you in a polystyrene cup, and in many cafes a latte came with a napkin folded neatly around it, the coffee so blisteringly hot you could barely pick it up,

Melbourne knows coffee. Our Italian heart embraced real, good coffee with the post war immigrants who bought with them the knowledge and the passion for a great brew. Now those in the industry talk about a third wave of coffee houses – boutique roasters are popping up across our caffeine loving town such as St Ali’s, 5 Senses, Seven Seeds, Padre or Brother Baba Budan.

Coffee cupping was once the domain of the growers, merchants, brokers and  roasters of the bean industry, which is second only to oil as the worlds most traded commodity. With the increasing sophistication of all things bean, it is now possible for latte lovers like you and I to learn about aspirating, slurping, and bean appreciation, in much the same way as wine tasters revere their grapes.

So back to the coffee cupping experience – 10 different coffees over an hour, and before your eyes start whirring in their sockets at the thought of such a caffeine hit, relax!

Coffee ready for tasting

Coffee ready for tasting – Photo Courtesy of Le

Lined up on the table are ten ceramic bowls. We are each given a soup spoon and a cup of hot water to dip it in. First fresh grinds (we tasted all single origin coffees) are placed in each bowl and fresh water bought to a precise temperature range of 87-92 degrees is poured over each one. (Good cuppers can even tell if the water has been boiled or heated twice – both big no nos!)

They are left to sit and brew for a time and then we are invited to the first test.It is the olfactory (smell) function that most comes into play with coffee tasting. We are invited to breathe deeply into the bowl and inhale the wonderful aromas of each coffee. It’s a surprise to smell how much variation there can be from one coffee to the next. One rich with citrus, the other roast beef, Bonox overtones in that one, plump vanilla or smoky chocolate aromas in that. A coffee wheel, much like a colour wheel, is given to us that shows progressively the intensity and classification of the aromas we can smell. And not a drop of coffee has even passed our lips!

The official Coffee flavor tasting wheel

The official Coffee flavor tasting wheel

With a hint of ceremony, B gently eases away the crust of coffee that has formed on each bowl and we are invited to approach each sample once again with our spoons in hand, this time to taste each coffee. But again the process is not so much about gulping a mouthful, as it is about slurping off the spoon. The rather fun technique of ‘the slurp’ ensures the coffee is aerated across the palate and throughout the mouth, once again engaging the olfactory sense in the tasting process along with the taste buds.

We try $200 kilo coffee called the Jamaica Blue Mountain Wallenford Estate (the Holy Grail of coffee for those who know), an impressive range from Jaspers, some home roasted beans from a local and, the unique Indian Monsoon, redolent with sweetness and cloves. There’s a great story to the Indian Monsoon bean. Legend has it that the beans are actually left out in monsoon season so that the inclement weather develops the flavours, a technique discovered accidentally when the beans were sent on long ship voyages during monsoon season.

Our session is full of wonderful information about the journey of the coffee bean. Two beans grow

My first taste

My first taste

snuggled in one coffee cherry (hence the flat side where they nestled together side by side) on a coffee bush (when does a bush become a tree I wonder?). Grown mostly in the warmth of our equatorial neighbour’s homelands, coffee growing is now also an emerging industry in Australia with plantings as low down as Byron Bay (Eureka Coffee), extending up into the North Queensland Tablelands. Quality has much to do with screening, a process that ensures uniformity in bean size, without which, roast results would be hampered by burnt smaller beans and green (unroasted) larger beans tainting the mix. There is also much to learn about the qualities of each single origin coffee and how they can be mixed to create well-rounded blends – but that’s fodder enough for a whole other cupping session!

I am left with not only an appreciation for the variety in taste from one region to another, one season to another, but also a renewed respect for all that goes on before our daily grind actually hits our waiting cups each morning.

So much wisdom and energy goes into growing and perfecting the roasted bean, and it can all be destroyed in 20 seconds in the hands of an amateur coffee maker such as I!

Now, I am left wondering; which bean is going to make the perfect espresso for a Tiramisu? Perhaps something with sweet, dark chocolate overtones and a hint of vanilla…mmmm.

Want to read more? Then try the following links: International Coffee Organisation (ICO), coffee snobs , or google Coffee Cupping

Photo Credit : Le Boatwood

 

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