Writing from the inside.
This has been journeying through me over the past twelve hours.
Even as I slept - the phrase having come to me just as I was dozing off - the
idea seemed to move, fluid like a stream. Not an ocean. Not a river. Slower,
smaller, trickling. Yet steadily in motion.
What is writing from the inside?
It is reaching within: sometimes deeply, sometimes just barely
breaking the surface. It is seeing what’s there and referencing it to the outer
world. That outside landscape might be the actual one: trees, weather, season, geographic region,
biome; or it might be the circumstances of life: profession, relationships, activities.
But always, writing from the inside is a dialogue. (Not a
monologue as it sometimes feels, author typing or scrawling pen across white
page landscape…) It is not just a reiteration of internal emotions; it is,
rather, a conversation with the externalities in our lives, in others’ lives.
Writing from the inside is a process that reintegrates inner and outer, recognizes
how they are in connection with one another. Merging. Fused. One.
And thus, writing from the inside brings us back into the
fullness of humanity, into our place as a species on the planet, in harmony with
all that is.
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
