RCG-I Seasonal Salon Summer Solstice 2004
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Summer Solstice 2004 Home Page Do you see the forest or the trees? |
Writing in TonguesWriters need strong egos. After all, who cares if we sit scribbling in the silence of our studies? We have to believe that our ideas and visions are important enough to spend time capturing them, to polish and hone them, to offer them to the world’s eyes. But ego, especially a strong ego, is a mixed blessing for a writer. Ego makes us strong enough to create, but it also often makes us desire to control how we present ourselves to the world. Our self-image may be that of a strong, independent woman. But what of the parts of us that are wimpy and weak? Do we deny them voice, suffocate them, strangle them? Sadly, the answer is often yes. More sadly, what gets unvoiced can be important, moving, evocative; it can be the part that most reaches out to others. So how can we thwart the ego’s desire to control what we say? How can we loosen its grip on our words? A simple way is one that dramatists and fiction writers employ: put on a mask, write in another voice. Writing in the voice of goddesses can especially open us up to strengths we had not realized and passions that had not yet been awakened. But other luminous masks, too, can be compelling:
Writing in “personna” (the Greek word for mask) paradoxically frees more of the self than only using “I” to voice the ego’s messages. Wearing the masks of goddesses as I write has freed me to say things more boldy and bravely than I might otherwise have done. © Patricia Monaghan ~ All rights reserved |
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