Meditation of any kind usually takes one of two general forms: as a dedicated practice or as a spontaneous act. By sitting meditation, I’m talking about an activity you do intentionally, usually in a “sacred space”^Q/4 set apart for this purpose, in a sitting or walking posture. Usually the sitting lasts from 20 minutes to an hour or more at one time. In intensive retreats, meditators may even sit still for most of a day for days at a time.

In contrast is ordinary mindfulness in daily life (which may or may not be considered a proper meditation, depending on who you’re talking to). Mindfulness is simply directing the focus of attention to the present moment, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. As you climb a stairway, you may say to yourself, “I am climbing the stairway” as a way to call your attention to the Now.

Sitting and everyday mindfulness are both excellent practices and are ideally both done simultaneously so their effects are enhanced. In typical meditation practices, you expand your ordinary identity (called the proximate-self) and build the strength of your Witness, the face of the Self which observes the moods, thoughts, and dynamics of ordinary consciousness itself. Some people think of their sitting meditations as their spiritual “training” or “workout” and mindfulness in daily life as the “real deal.”

In Whole Writing, there are two basic forms that correspond to sitting practice and everyday mindfulness. These are simply called sitting Writes and ordinary Writes.

Sitting Writes are always done with the conscious intention to have a spiritual practice. Ordinary Writes are done in an unpremeditated fashion, spontaneously when it occurs to you to apply a Whole Writing technique to something you have written (or anything you’ve read, but that’s another topic entirely). Ordinary Writes are done during your everyday routine, whereas sitting Writes break your routine.

Overall it doesn’t matter which form of Whole Write you do, except that you can expect different results from each. Sitting meditation is best done only after making a commitment to perform the practice on a daily basis for at least six months. Any less time and you probably won’t get to see many fruits of the effort. Six months should be plenty of time for you to notice positive changes in your life (including improvements to your writing).

On the Whole Writing blog, let’s start by focusing on the recommended practice of sitting Writes so that if you are inspired to take up this banner you will soon have enough direction to get started effectively. Basically you need to know the who, what, where, when, and why of sitting Writes. I’ll visit this topic in my next several blog posts.

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When some people think of meditative writing they picture a lone figure in a quiet room, facing a sunlit indow, holding an antique pen, and a hand scribbling in a leather-bound journal as candlelight flickers and Baroque music vibrates in the air^Q/4. That sort of set up is not required for Whole Writing (though it’s a good idea to write in an environment where you can be relaxed and effective).

Whole Writing is the only technique I know that seeks to transform every aspect of our relationship with writing by taking a truly Integral approach. The Writes aren’t necessarily a special activity set aside only for special circumstances when you’re in a “spiritual” mood. You can even apply the mindfulness techniques to schoolwork, business reports, fundraising letters, diaries, fine poetry, and everything else. Artists who work in other media may even find the techniques useful.

The notion that meditative writing must be distinct from ordinary writing is a curious one. It is part of the whole marginalization of spirit in the modern world^Q/LR. Spirituality is private. Don’t talk about God, it’s not polite. In a way the privatization of spirituality is a very old impulse going back to the monks who wandered from village to village^Q/LR begging for alms and the wise ones who left the world for caves^Q/LR. Whole Writing doesn’t have to be like that. It’s for people in the real world.

If you can write there, you can write there whole. Once you learn the central techniques of Whole Writing, you don’t have to get up any earlier or find an extra half hour in your day. (But if you do, you’ll be glad for it.) This practice starts with whatever writing you are doing now and asks: how can it be made more complete and comprehensive? How can I bring greater attention to what I do? What can I learn from it about myself? How is this writing already transforming my life here and now?

So write when the impulse arises. Whatever you’re doing today, it’s probably not Whole Writing (not yet). But unless your writing is always safe and uninspired and unoriginal (and who’s going to admit that!), then it is already doing the work of spiritual transformation. By learning about Whole Writing, you can better see what your current writing practice is already doing for you so you can make it work for you better.

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The central techniques of Whole Writing work their magic by revealing to the mind its worldspaces. So let’s hold questions of a how-do-I nature for now. Instead let’s look at worldspaces and why we should want to get to know them better.

Our writing comes from the source of creativity. Often we picture it as some sort of pure light for which we are mere vessels. However, the light of creativity is refracted through many different colors. Human beings are always and inescapably embedded in a dizzying array of contexts and multifarious constructions of reality. As postmoderns have learned, we do not discover our reality; we participate in the making of it.

The notion that we co-create reality can be liberating if it reminds us that we are free to take our burdens as blessings. But often this notion is oppressive for it reveals that language has already defined the categories we must use to change the world. If we are oppressed, we have no other tools other than those given by the oppressor.

A worldspace is a comprehensive picture of what is real that always lurks in the background of our ordinary ways of thinking and being in the world. We can try to make our worldspace explicit through philosophies, theologies, ideologies, or cultural studies. We can erect cosmologies, metaphysics, worldviews, and semiotic systems. We can recite creeds that describe the ultimate concern of humankind and our destiny. We can even follow an Eastern spiritual path of liberation that tells us that the matrix of life is illusion. But each of these efforts always rely upon the worldspace hiding unseen in the background of our awareness.

We can name the worldspace we think we see around us—perhaps we will call it “magical” or “scientific” or “postmodern”. However the act of labeling does not in itself bring about much greater awareness of it. And awareness of our worldspace is not only a step in its overcoming; it can be the very overcoming itself.

We don’t usually inhabit worldspaces. We just live in them. When we want to cross the street, we cross. We obey the given. We don’t question. Perhaps once in a blue moon we may find ourselves waiting at a traffic signal and wondering why people always seem to be in a hurry to get someplace else. However, it usually doesn’t occur to us to ask: why must I cross the road at all? Why doesn’t the other side of the road come to me? These questions don’t occur to us because they arise from beliefs that are not a part of our worldspace (at least not yet).

Now imagine that you are at a crosswalk. But you are not you. You are an electron. What questions arise? Did you think: could I perhaps already be at the other side? Maybe I am actually in both places at once. This question doesn’t seem insane because it arises from beliefs congruent with our self-image as an electron. However, ordinarily the notion that we are in two places at once never occurs to us because we are deeply rooted to our attachment to the notion that we are human persons. In other words, our worldspaces are limited.

What I have called becoming aware of our worldspaces or overcoming them is just another way of talking about inhabiting a worldspace. We poke the boundaries of our world, just as a forest-dwelling tribe explores the furthest reaches of their territory. The tribe elders announce that the Great Forest between the twin peaks and the North River belongs to their people, and then they defend it against all predators. So too we must mark the territory of our worldspaces. We must probe their boundaries and in so doing discover what lies beyond … the unknown.

Inhabiting a worldspace means making the familiar into the unfamiliar and then familiar once again. We are refamiliarizing ourselves with the world. Writing is a tool for inhabiting our worldspaces; it helps us to discover the ordinary in a new way.

Whole Writing allows us to identify the markers that give us our bearings in the cosmos, telling us when we are safely home. Most writing stays with the familiar. Even many writing techniques intended to be used for meditative purposes stay with the familiar, allowing the words on the page to reflect the narcissistic, familiar, and comforting world.

But Whole Writing is potentially different. It is the only technique I know that allows us to set sail with each and every Write on a ship into the unknown. Don’t worry. It doesn’t have to be an unsafe or scary voyage. You don’t have to chart these waters alone or unaided. You can do Writes individually or in groups. And unlike other forms of meditative writing, Whole Writing gives you a special key. It says: here’s a map.

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Here I am. I am doing a Whole Write. I am meditating aloud. Instead of counting breaths, I am making keystrokes. Instead of striking yoga postures, I am forming sentences and paragraphs. Instead of praying, I am offering my Write as a gift to spirit as best I understand it. Whole Writes are a new twist on a very old vocation: spiritual practice.

My Whole Writes have a purpose. They help me to integrate more fully who I am in every possible way and with everything that is not-me. They break down the imaginary walls that divide subject and object, perceiver and perceived, writer and reader, symbol and reality. The writing process is inherently transformative: our psychic interiors become our exterior signatures. Consciousness surprisingly reveals itself not to be our secret depths, but the page or monitor screen.

Symbolizing ourselves is a highly practical activity. We can make to-do lists or love-letters. We can sign contracts. We can write poems or a book. We can blog. Most of us write something every day, at least a bit. Some of us write a lot.

However, most writers don’t intend to turn their writing into a contemplative prayer or yoga. Unless we are highly experienced keepers of journals who have taken specialized workshops or seminars, the notion of writing as a spiritual discipline is probably foreign.

Well, consider it! Words mediate the relationship between the spirit and Self, Self and self, self and other, other and spirit. Words are the most literal form of Logos, the creative principle of the Universe. Pay heed to words; they deserve your undivided attention. In yoga we stretch the body and in Whole Writing we stretch our mind to recover the mysterious present of consciousness.

I’ve mentioned something called a Self so I might as well take a moment to discuss it. (I’ll return to the notion of Self in later blog posts.) That which we recognize as the self is not the Self. The Self is the That which recognizes that the self is not the Self. Got it?

As I write this sentence, my self pitches words, and then catches a sentence. The Self is neither pitcher nor catcher, but the source of creativity itself—the energy of the wind-up pitch, the velocity of the fastball, and the explosion of the ball into the air. (Spirit is an even more encompassing concept: it includes the Self, plus the self and other in an interconnected unity.) These are not difficult concepts to grasp. But spirituality isn’t really about grasping the concept of the Self. Spirituality is about inhabiting the big-case You in real life and allowing the creative lifeforce to work its magic through little-case you.

Whole Writing is a distinct and relatively original form of contemplative practice (usually done by individuals) which uses the written word as a tool in a defined process of integral inquiry. Basically the process begins with preparing a suitable environment^Q/4 and calming the mind through meditation. The next step is raw creation, unedited, and rough. You articulate words as an audible voice, and by envisioning them in a visual form. When the rough draft is complete, the Write is then revised according to the demands of its audience. Words are made suitable for an audience of one (for your eyes only) … the whole world … God … or some happy medium. Finally, integral markup is added to the prose to make explicit the interconnectedness of body, mind, and soul in all dimensions.

What is markup? In Whole Writing, words may be annotated with standard colors, symbols, drawings, even glyphs and scribbles. Mainly the markup represents concepts such as stations, developmental stages and developmental lines, states of consciousness, and perspectives. Don’t worry, it’s nothing too arcane. The notation can be as simple or sophisticated as you want it to be and are able to give expression from a place that’s authentic. Ultimately, Whole Writing can lead us to greater mindfulness and attention in all aspects of our lives, allowing words to be the vehicles that drive us forward to immeasurable heights.

The Whole Writing blog is a resource for anyone and everyone who wants to be more fully creative, original, and integrated. If you write now, you will learn how to express yourself in a more natural and flowing style. If you don’t, follow along and you will discover your own true voice and may even discover that writing is fun!

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