The following reflection is done in the style of a Whole Write.

Topic: light

The flicker of my candle flame captures my attention. I can see the top half dancing over brim of the candle, the wax melted down around the side, a candle glow makes the vanilla-colored candle look green. Inside, the candle is hollowed out like a cave or a honeycomb or the soft belly of a shell; a fire torch burns yellow, blending indistinctly into the air, consuming and warming it. The flame appears to flicker as the air is extinguished. But the air in the room is still. I wonder if the flicker has anything to do with my breath. Avoiding? …

Light. Breath. What do I know about light and breath? I shut my eyes and breathe. I can’t see light when I breathe; not, at least when I assume a position of meditative attention. Avoiding? …

Light. Attention. What do I know about light and attention? I am paying attention to the light of my candle because it’s the only thing nearby moving. It seems interesting. Observing the candle flame will probably be more fun than, say, watching a can full of pens. The candle seems alive. Avoiding? …

Light. Aliveness. What do I know about light and aliveness? Light is, I think, not really alive. Or is it? Perhaps in some obscure philosophical sense light is alive, the way some people talk about the Earth as being an organism or the Kosmos as a living entity. But that’s a metaphor, isn’t it? Is Spirit alive? That, I think, is an more interesting question. Avoiding…?

Light. Spirit and aliveness. What do I know about Spirit and aliveness? Spirit is All, and therefore beyond distinctions such as alive or dead. Alive and dead are frames of reference relative to time; yet Spirit is timeless and therefore the same aspect of Spirit is both alive and not alive, depending on the angle you are taking with it. This world, this history, this universe… all this will eventually be no more. We know this is a fact. The Sun will explode. Many Suns have already exploded. The earth will return to the swirling balls of matter from which it was formed billions of years ago (or something like that). Spirit is alive and non-alive, but it is the aliveness of Spirit that seems most alluring, attractive, worthy of attention. The inertness, the finitude, the Emptiness? … Avoiding?

Light. Finitude. What do I know about light and finitude? Light seems infinite, I think, because our senses cannot penetrate it. The stars in the sky. The edge of the rainbow. The distance to the Sun. These span many millions of miles, and even so we do not see the end. Belief. Faith. Evidence. I struggle to speak of how it is that light seems infinite; we know it’s not, relatively speaking; yet we do not simply take its finitude or infinite as a matter of faith, but we seek evidence. We have evidence. But what is the evidence for Spirit, for the timeless infinite beyond life and death. Avoiding…?

Light. Spirit. Evidence. What do I know about the evidence for Light and the evidence for Spirit? Spirit is awareness, an awareness that can become more expansive. Spirit can become aware of aspects of reality through training that are invisible to the casual attention or “lightly informed” awareness. And that full(er) expansiveness, at least insofar as I can tell, extends to every fold of the tapestry of the universe and every angle on the universe reveals not additional tapestry but additional universes and universe-like worlds beyond my ability to fathom, each with its own delightful tapestries.

Light, it seems to me, is a metaphor for Spirit, a metaphor that captures something of its grandness and expansiveness and deep infintestimal minutia. And yet light does something Spirit can never do. Light goes out. I blow out the candle. Smoke. And the aroma of vanilla.

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On Until today, I’ve posted “The edge of vanilla,” an example of a contemplative Whole Write. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look for those of you wanting a brief overview of the entire Write process.

Step 1. Preparation. I put on classical music. I get comfortable seated on a chair before my computer keyboard. I try to think of a topic. I light a candle on my desk. The topic of “light” spontaneously occurs to me as I see the candle flame.

Step 2. Warm-up. I meditate for a few minutes. I close my eyes, relax, and sit comfortably. I direct my attention to my breathing. I count from 1 to 10 a few times to get into the flow, then gently stop counting and allow my attention to simply rest with my breath. After a while, I begin to get ancy to start writing. I redirect my attention to my breath. Then, when I’m back in the flow of the meditation and have no desire to leave the state, I spontaneously open my eyes and begin to write.

Step 3. A Contemplative Write (also called a “sitting Write”). I write in a continuous, unbroken stream of consciousness. There is no stopping; no writer’s block; not even a pause for more than a brief moment. I “listen” to the “voice in my head” and allow it to take an audible quality. I “hear” myself composing entire sentences in response to the topic. The sentences are not always (or even usually) complete, grammatically correct utterances. That’s fine. I may write, “The flicker of my candle flame captures my attention.”

If I were judging my writing, I would immediately criticize this sentence. It’s passive voice. It’s ambiguous. It’s really not that interesting. Is it really my candle flame? Isn’t candle flame itself a rather dull phrase? Shouldn’t I really revise it to say something poetic-sounding like “My line of sight fastens onto an amber sword of shimmering deliverance from darkness”? No. None of these critical responses occur to me, though it would be quite common if they occur to someone less experienced with the Whole Write process. The Inner Judge must learn to be silent. The Critic is not part of the process; not at this step in the Write, anyhow. I simply write and write.

I follow the standard technique of (a) inquiry, (b) response, (c) cue, (d) engagement, and (e) return. When I find myself pausing or beginning to feel blocked, I write ellipses followed by “avoiding?” Then I start a new paragraph and type a standard response (i.e., a restatement of the topic), followed by a cue (the last word or phrase on which I was stuck), followed by a question to help me to reengage the topic. “What do I know about the topic and X?” where X is the blocking phrase. Finally, I immediately answer the reengaging question with the first response that comes to mind.

Step 4. Revision. This part of the process demands that we ask the question: who is the audience for the Write, and does the written expression need to be modified to be suitable for sharing with that audience? Usually the Write is an audience of one and the answer is no. The Write is then compiled in a notebook or (if composed on a computer) printed and saved in a folder. Each Write is always dated.

If the Write is to be shared with a small audience, it may be advisable to clean up the text first. The clean up work can be very minor if, say, you are sharing with someone your Write as a stream of consciousness piece of self-expression.

On the other hand, the revisions may be extensive if your aim is to use the Write to simply get your creative juices flowing so that you can overcome writer’s block on a formal essay, article, or book. Some of the posts on the Whole Writing blog have started as contemplative Writes, but were later revised so that they presented material in a more logical fashion that would be easier for students of the process to follow along.

Step 5. Markup. Markup is a crucial part of the process because it reengages the critical faculties (your inner judge or critic), but in a healthy and dynamic way. You ask your inner critic not to critique the piece for style, wittiness, correctness, originality, or anything like that. Instead, you ask your Inner Critic to examine how the piece of writing expresses your current worldspace as best you understand it at this point in time. In order to determine your “worldspace,” you will need to employ some sort of psychological map, integral theory, holistic model of human well-being and functioning, and so forth. Indeed, it’s best to use a map that considers not only psychology but biology, culture, and sociology as well.

You can use any map that suits you, from an archetypal (Jungian) map of human functioning, to a map based on core types (Mars/Venus, Ennegram, or astrology), etc. However, most maps are quite limited. Whole Writing recommends that you strive to use the most comprehensive map that makes sense to you. This blog uses a combination of the Kronos mandala and the perspectives of Integral notation described in Ken Wilber’s Integral Spirituality. I recommend this map for others to use as well, though it will definitely take study to become familiar with it.

Don’t worry if you don’t have all the features of your map of choice down by heart. Nor should you worry if you’re not sure if you’re using a particular notation “properly.” Remember, this is a practice; you are doing this exercise for your benefit, not to pass a graduate course in psychology or Integral theory. You simply markup your writing as best you know how, identifying the relevant stations, stages, states, types, quadrants, lines, and so forth.

You can use colored markers, crayons, or HTML color tags. You can scribble in the margins of your paper or add superscripts and subscripts to your typewritten sentences. You shouldn’t worry about being comprehensive in the markup you add. Your concern is simply to record your impressions as they occur to you at this point in time without dwelling in an overly lengthy period of time on any one Write.

If you have not already done so or don’t use a computer, you will add a “date/time stamp” to your Write. This date will help you to record not only when you did your Write, but also when you marked it up. The time is a record not only of what you said but what you can see, at this point in time, about the worldspace of your consciousness.

Step 6. Periodic reflection. It’s a critical part of the Write process to go back to your older Writes on a regular basis (say, every six months) to see how your writing and markup have developed over time. It’s recommended that as you do so you freely add additional markup or amend your old markup. But not by erasing! Instead, you can simply cross out markup that seems inaccurate or partial to you and add additional notes that better reflect your thinking today. Perhaps you will want to use a different style of marker (if you printed your Write on a color printer six months ago, perhaps this time you will mark it up using colored ink markers).

You can continue to revisit your old Writes as frequently as it makes sense for you to do so, each time discovering new dimensions to your worldspace that were previously invisible or seemingly uninteresting to you. Each time you do so, you build your consciousness of your worldspace until you get to the point where you have become far more completely aware of that way of looking at and being in the world.

At that point, you can say that you’ve “evolved” to a higher or wider or deeper worldspace. This may be the worldspace, in fact, predicted by the Kronos mandala or another Integral model of consciousness development (or it may not be predicted based on your previous understanding). But you may very well will find that you have “written yourself” into a higher level of consciousness.

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