Altered Spaces and the Art of Writing: An Intentional Cultivation

Whether in the form of poetic metaphors or detailed descriptive reports, language can guide us through our deepest and subtlest encounters with ourselves and the world. It is also an under-appreciated way to engage the mystery of the body. The words we choose, the prose we write, the poetry we stitch, the songs we compose — all have a marked corporeal element. Our relationships with our physical bodies — as well as “the energy body” that is often described in terms of subtle anatomies — shift as thoughts get embellished in ink (or pixels). In other words, writing, like spiritual practice, is an embodied process.

Try this simple exercise out for size: What happens when we couple our writing to the subtle interior form we might call the “wheels and breath body”?

• Step 1: Grab a piece of paper and a writing instrument.

• Step 2: Consider the following three phrases: intellect, vision, and impostor syndrome. Write about 7-10 sentences. Do not use the eraser or the delete key.

• Step 3: Sit in a comfortable position. Set a timer for seven minutes. Close your eyes. Engage your ajña (third eye chakra) by focusing acutely on the spot between your eyebrows. You may feel a tingling sensation. This is good. You may feel pressure on that spot. This, too, is awesome. Even if you feel discomfort, endure it. Then visualize the three prompts (intellect, vision, and impostor syndrome) being transmitted from the third eye spot to the writing surface before you. Write another 7-10 sentences. Do not use the eraser or the delete key. Again, commit to your first impulse.

Do you see a difference in the words and feelings before and after the exercise?

Our bodies are sites of knowledge. When we connect these sites to language, to the visionary “sight” of writing, we can recognize patterns, name feelings, identify blockages — even overcome writer's block. In other words, our writing processes allow us to witness ourselves by standing both within and outside our physical bodies.

When we explore the edges of consciousness through meditation, breathwork, or ritual practice, we are often encouraged to leave language aside. We quiet the monkey mind, still the inner chatter, let the words go. But when we return from these altered spaces to integrate and reflect on our sometimes ineffable experiences, we face a problem: How do we take up language again to articulate our now fading memories? Some people think that words only continue to obscure things. But even if words never entirely capture the richness of our experience, they allow it to connect with others, grow and spill forward into our lives and the lives of those we touch.

For example, say you sit down to meditate after a yoga session and experience a profound state of quiet peace and self-acceptance. In your journal you note, “I felt a profound state of quiet peace and self-acceptance.” But then you think: those words are true, but they are also somewhat bland. They are too familiar — they sound like a typical Instagram post! So you dig back into your own experience. The image of a still green pond comes to mind, and then the feeling that your body was slipping into the cool water, which held you up in a maternal embrace. You find your own words to capture this image down, and when you show it to others you see something light up in their eyes. You have amplified your experience with words and images. The writing now carries a magic it lacked before.

Of course, there are an amazing variety of practices to generate the sort of altered states that both defy and attract our attempts to articulate them. In the Hindu Śākta (goddess) Tantra tradition, ritual and meditative practices lead the seeker to powerful altered spaces without the use of any psychoactive substances. During practice, one can sometimes suspend mundane thoughts and actively engage with the macrocosm beyond, even if it is for a short period. This world is populated with divine and celestial beings, and time and space can be experienced far differently than in our everyday lives.

Such experiences call us to articulate them in our writing, but they also resist it. The craft of writing — facing a blank page and then translating thoughts, emotions, and epiphanies into poetry or narrative —  can be difficult, sometimes incredibly so. But this hard work is a kind of alchemy that refines and unpacks our experiences, allowing their inner essences to crystalize through articulation. Sometimes writing gives us insight into the subtler and sometimes contradictory dimension of our feelings — say, for example, how a painful association or memory can also be accompanied by a quality of joy, or how a quiet rapture is tinged with a certain color, a reddish flare, for example, which in turn calls up images of flowers or sunsets that open up further associations. In this way, writing can help us work out and work through mysteries that surround us, including the mysteries that we are.