Natalie Goldberg’s Long Quiet Highway, Waking Up In America Part 1

I met Natalie Goldberg through her book, Writing Down the Bones sometime between 1981 and 1995 when I was in Amherst Writers & Artists workshops and then in my own. During this period I was also reading others’ books of this new way of teaching creative writing that I was experiencing. This fresh replacement of current practices was free of the judgments and the corrections of creative writing commonly found in educational settings but instead founded on positive comments.

Now years later when I see one of her books in the Meherabad free library, I not only take it but I keep it as a real treasure. Long Quiet Highway, Waking Up In America is the story of her life and her relationship with Zen Master Katagiri Roshi. Recently going through slips of paper where I write down words that touch my inner recognition, I found a slip from Natalie’s book—“In writing you bring everything you know into writing. In Zen you bring everything to nothing, the present moment, where you can’t hold onto it.”

During the twelve years of writing about my spiritual awakening and journey to God, I have had an experience not previously known—that of bringing everything I know into writing.* Prior to this I thought of myself as a poet, with my writing years helpful for awakening self-discovery. But it took four “final” drafts of my book to reach the actual one, as with each return from my editor, memories arose that needed to be added until by the fourth I felt emptied out—I had lived Natalie’s first partial sentence.

The second sentence on the paper slip is what I now practice. I began years ago but then stopped. My mind would not obey. I was not ready. Now starting again, this time guided by the examples of Thich Nhat Hanh, although the initial effort was difficult, gradually my practice has felt more familiar.* Each time I catch my inner talk taking place in the past or the future, I stop, look at what I am doing and at what is around me, and while I am not bringing everything to nothing, I am more often bringing my thoughts into the present moment.

My realization is, “Truth exists in a few words; its practice occurs over years.”

*Natalie Goldberg, Long Quiet Highway, Waking Up in America, p. 192; Writing Down the Bones

* Pat Schneider, founder of Amherst Writers & Artists, author of How the Light Gets In, Writing as a Spiritual Practice

* Prema Jasmine Camp, A Flower for God, moving toward publication

* Thich Nhat Hanh, Be Free Wherever You Are