As part therapy and part devotional writing practice, I often use writing prompts given to me. I don’t know what I will be given, and I don’t know what I will write, I simply put pen to paper and let it form before me. These prompts can be an amazing technique for getting over writers block, or for self analysis and self exploration. I don’t think about the prompt too much, I don’t usually edit what words hit the page, and after the fact I often find myself surprised by what is created within the spilled ink. It is as if the deepest parts of me surface, and the small snippets of subconscious become a focus for conscious meditations. Today I was given the prompt “If I were a house, my walls would be…”
I fully expected that the word ‘walls’ would bring forth ideas of boundaries, defensiveness, perhaps even raise the many challenges I have faced this last year. As always, I surprised myself.
“If I were a house, my walls would be cracked and patched with plaster and paint. They would be old and new, rough and smooth. Layered with years of paint in various colours, reflecting the seasons and reasons of my life. Here and there, holes still remain from pictures long since removed. Art peppers the walls in muted, rich and earthy tones; pictures and paintings and fabric hangings. To the stranger, a single glance would reveal a creative and artistic house, beautiful and uplifting. It would take a renovator, someone who understands the nature of broken things, to see the cracks and repairs beneath the surface. Someone who knows how much time and effort goes into gentle repairs and careful redecoration. Someone who knows how to make old, tired and broken things beautiful again with love and belief. My walls show the story of a house made a home with perseverance and pride.”
Writing prompts are endlessly revealing. Take the time today to put pen to paper and let yourself be surprised.
Blessings, Romany
The Poet Priestess 