| I’ve found the process of writing the 8-week ecourse a challenging one. I’ve been facing the same hurdles as if I were writing any memoir. My journey into wild words has not been as much of a linear progression as I would like. For every moment of revelation, there’s been one of stuckness. For every time I remembered what it meant to write wild, there was another of forgetting, and having to go round the learning process again. Until, at last, I truly knew it.
In order to make the course into the best learning vehicle that I can for my students, I’ve had to wrestle it into form that engages the reader. If I don’t achieve that, then I’m writing only for myself, and that’s not my aim. My aim is to teach. The reason my story is in there is that is stories reach deeper into our psyche than dry facts. And much more important than being true to the facts, is being true to the emotional heart and spirit of a story. So, I’ve employed artistic licence. I’ve removed complications and deleted repetition. I’ve given a sense of linear progress, a narrative arc to my journey. I’ve based it in one location, and focused it around one hero, the extraordinary tiger. There’s no doubt that the tiger has been pivotal in my journey, but here he’s also representing the sea and the dolphins, the lynx, the wild boar, and the eagles, who have played equally important roles in my life. Really, it’s not a ‘disclaimer’ I want to put at the start of the ecourse, it’s a ‘reclaimer’, and for that matter a ‘re-finder’. I reclaim my right to free myself from the tyranny of facts. In doing this I re-find the passion and power of my original experiences. This is one way I can reclaim the wildness, and pour it into my words. |
Bridget Holding
Words, the sacred, psychology. Nature and the nature of the self