Meeting the ghost of yourself.
Read this short extract from Jean Rhys, After Leaving Mr MacKenzie, about meeting the ghost of her former self:
A church clock chimed the hour. At once all feeling of strangeness left her. She felt that her life had moved in a circle. Predestined, she had returned to her starting-point, in this little Bloomsbury bedroom that was so exactly like the little Bloomsbury bedroom she had left nearly ten years before. And even the clock which struck each quarter in that aggressive and melancholy way was the same clock that she used to hear.
Perhaps the last ten years had been a dream; perhaps life, moving on for the rest of the world, had miraculously stood still for her.
2
The little old man in the bowler-hat who sold violets was at the corner of Woburn Square when she passed the next morning. While she was still some way off the idea that he might recognize her half pleased and half embarrassed her. She stopped and bought some flowers. He was just the same - shrunken, perhaps, under his many layers of dirty clothes. His light-blue eyes, which were like bits of glass, looked at her coldly. He turned his head away and went on calling:· 'Violets, lady, violets,' in a thin, feeble voice.
She walked on through the fog into Tottenham Court Road. The houses and the people passing were withdrawn, nebulous. There was only a grey fog shot with yellow lights, and its cold breath on her face, and the ghost of herself coming out of the fog to meet her.
The ghost was thin and eager. It wore a long, very tight check skirt, a short dark-blue coat, and a bunch of violets bought from the old man in Woburn Square. It drifted up to her and passed her in the fog. And she had the feeling that, like the old man, it looked at her coldly, without recognizing her.
From: Jean Rhys, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie.
Spend a minute or two thinking about your own life, ten or fifteen years ago. Now do a flow writing exercise on meeting the ghost of yourself from that time - begin with the words: I turn the corner and see her/him there in front of me . . . try to keep writing without stopping for 5 or 6 minutes.
Then read through the piece you’ve just written and underline anything that strikes you in any way – anything you find unexpected, surprising, powerful or moving, or any words and phrases that you feel pleased with.
Next, imagine having a conversation with the ghost of yourself from the past.
Is there anything you would like to say to your past self? Any advice or warnings you’d like to give? Or any comfort and reassurance?
Would your past self recognise you? If they did, what would they want to say to you? What would they think of you and the life you are leading now?
Spend 30 minutes writing a story in which you meet your past self and have a conversation.
This is a useful exercise to repeat many times, meeting the ghost of yourself from different stages of your life - from ten, twenty, and thirty years ago.
A Creative Writing Exercise
An exercise exploring your relationship to words and language:
Think about the way language affected you as a small child.
What sayings did you often hear from your parents or primary carers, or from your brothers and sisters?
If you grew up in a very religious environment, how far did the words and language of that religion influence your feeling for words?
What about the mass media - advertising jingles you heard on the television, etc.?
And rhymes or stories you were told by the adults around you? And what songs did you often sing, or hear sung by others? Think about the kind of language you heard at school, both from teachers and from other children.
If you grew up in another country or culture, maybe more than one language was spoken in your home, or perhaps a dialect, or your first language may have been very different to English.
These are all important in shaping the way you use language today in your writing.
Think carefully about all the influences you received as a child in terms of words and language, and take about 5 minutes to make a few notes about them.
Next, think of two or three common sayings or stories that you remember most clearly and vividly, and write them down. Think about the context in which each of them were said to you. Who would have said them? Can you hear someone's voice in your head saying them? Where would you have been when you heard them? How old were you then?
Now choose one of these two or three you've just written down, and take 15 minutes to write a short story about it, in which a child is hearing the saying or story or song. What is the effect on the child? How does she or he feel about it? What do they say or do in response? Try to make your story as vivid and immediate as you can, as if it were happening now.
Language is two-edged – it can be used to hurt as well as heal, to destroy as well as create. Wars can be caused by words - words can be used to avoid communication, as well as to forge relationships.
Think about your relationship with language now, in the present time. Why do you want to write? What is the importance for you of using words as a means of self-exploration, self-expression, and for communication?
Write down a sentence or two expressing your thoughts.
Finally, drawing on all the work you’ve done on this exercise, allow yourself 10-15 minutes to write a short poem about the importance of words and language for you now, as an adult who wants to write, expressing the way you feel about words.
What sayings did you often hear from your parents or primary carers, or from your brothers and sisters?
If you grew up in a very religious environment, how far did the words and language of that religion influence your feeling for words?
What about the mass media - advertising jingles you heard on the television, etc.?
And rhymes or stories you were told by the adults around you? And what songs did you often sing, or hear sung by others? Think about the kind of language you heard at school, both from teachers and from other children.
If you grew up in another country or culture, maybe more than one language was spoken in your home, or perhaps a dialect, or your first language may have been very different to English.
These are all important in shaping the way you use language today in your writing.
Think carefully about all the influences you received as a child in terms of words and language, and take about 5 minutes to make a few notes about them.
Next, think of two or three common sayings or stories that you remember most clearly and vividly, and write them down. Think about the context in which each of them were said to you. Who would have said them? Can you hear someone's voice in your head saying them? Where would you have been when you heard them? How old were you then?
Now choose one of these two or three you've just written down, and take 15 minutes to write a short story about it, in which a child is hearing the saying or story or song. What is the effect on the child? How does she or he feel about it? What do they say or do in response? Try to make your story as vivid and immediate as you can, as if it were happening now.
Language is two-edged – it can be used to hurt as well as heal, to destroy as well as create. Wars can be caused by words - words can be used to avoid communication, as well as to forge relationships.
Think about your relationship with language now, in the present time. Why do you want to write? What is the importance for you of using words as a means of self-exploration, self-expression, and for communication?
Write down a sentence or two expressing your thoughts.
Finally, drawing on all the work you’ve done on this exercise, allow yourself 10-15 minutes to write a short poem about the importance of words and language for you now, as an adult who wants to write, expressing the way you feel about words.
A Journey through the Underworld:
If we look at traditional myths and cultural folktales, it is interesting how many archetypal journeys involving women take her into the underworld, and how often they are centred around relationships with others. Where men go off on quests to kill dragons or gorgons or other monsters, or to discover hidden treasure, or to find the Holy Grail, we often have women going into the realm of shadows, or the realm of the dead.
Many of the myths of women taking journeys into the underworld are centred on the theme of women being separated or alienated from a loved-one - a daughter, a lover or husband, a mother, or a sister.
For example, Persephone, Eurydice.
In these stories they are mourned by people who love them. In Persephone’s case, it is her mother Demeter who succeeds in rescuing her. In Eurydice’s story, it is her husband Orpheus who fails to rescue her because, although he has been warned not to look back, he does look to make sure she is following behind him.
There is a myth which I find much richer and more complex than any other - the myth of Inanna-Ishtar and Ereshkigal.
Inanna-Ishtar was the Sumerian goddess of heaven and earth, life and fertility, and in the myth she journeys into the underworld to find Ereshkigal, her "dark sister", ruler of the realm of shadows. The sisters are rivals – they’re even rivals in love: Inanna-Ishtar’s consort becomes Ereshkigal’s lover.
So the sisters have a lot of hostility and anger towards each other and Inanna-Ishtar decides to travel down to the realm of shadows to confront her sister. The reason for her journey is to assert her authority there, to declare herself Queen of heaven, of earth and of the underworld, and to force her sister to yield to her authority. She puts on all her finest garments, jewels and weapons ready to confront her sister. But as she penetrates further and further into the underworld, passing through each of its seven portals or gateways in turn, she finds she can only pass through each portal by parting with something, giving up something. So Inanna-Ishtar has to give up first her jewels and her finery, and then her garments, then even her physical body, piece by piece, to her sister. By the time she confronts her sister she is literally in fragments.
The myth ends with the regeneration of Inanna-Ishtar, through the intercession of her consort (and her sister’s lover), because Inanna-Ishtar cannot die since she is but the daylight side of Ereshkigal herself. The two sisters need each other since they are two halves of one whole.
Think what the underworld might represent for you, what does it mean in the context of your life; for example, emotional distress, childhood traumas, bereavement. It might be a great fear you experience – fear of rejection or abandonment, fear of illness, fear of dying, fear of losing your loved-ones, fear of criticism or failure. Try to think of an underworld in your inner emotional life.
It’s helpful to remember that, for most of us, we will take this journey many times in our lives – it isn’t a once-for-all journey. We all have our own underworlds and they are always there, co-existing with the rest of our selves and our lives.
While this can be very painful, it does mean it’s just as true that while we’re in the underworld the rest of our lives still exist too, and the other parts of ourselves are still in existence even when we don’t feel connected to them - even when it doesn’t feel as if we’re ever going to come back from the underworld, we can and will. And each journey we make into the underworld is different – it’s never the same journey - and we learn new things each time.
Begin by noting down some particular points:
1. Decide what the underworld means to you in your own life.
2. What would you like to discard at the gates, or portals, to the underworld? What things in your life are holding you back, preventing your personal growth. For example, damaging emotions, patterns of behaviour, negative habits of thinking, destructive relationships, etc.
3. Who would you meet in the underworld? Maybe someone you have unfinished business with, someone you need to confront?
4. What would you like to say to them, and how would you like to resolve the confrontation and your feelings about this person?
5. How do you return from the underworld? Do you go through it, or do you retrace your steps?
Using your notes, try a flow-writing exercise on entering and passing through the underworld, beginning with the first gate or portal. Start with the words: “At the first gate I stop and . . .” then keep flow-writing for 5 minutes.
Now build on your notes and your flow-writing in order to write a poem or a story about a journey through the underworld.