Fortune Teller

This quarter I am thinking about writing and its relationship with therapy.

There is writing that is done for therapeutic purposes and writing that is done specifically for other people to read and gain something from. And perhaps there is writing that straddle both camps.

Therapeutic writing can be self-motivated and written in the writer’s private space and for no-one else to see. There is also writing that can be led, possibly in groups, and can be shared with others going through the same or similar experience.

This writing is where the writer (self-motivated or led) tries to get hold of emotions they feel the need to explore. Write down how you are feeling at this moment. Write three short sentences about things that make you angry. You are in a favourite space, real or imagined; write five words about things you can see; five words about things you can hear; write for the next five minutes about yourself in this space.

The idea behind such exercises is to take the writer deeper and deeper into their thinking, feelings, desires and so on. The writing is like an escalator that helps the writer travel there.

An underlying principle of such activity is that bringing such feels into the open and exploring them and (possibly sharing them) is beneficial to the writer and (possibly) others in the sharing. It is not for me to say whether or not this is true; only the writer can answer this.

I can say I have taken part in such workshops and have written material that is surprisingly true, but I would certainly not like to set out in public. Not set out in public, that is, without my tailoring it a good deal.

The previous sentence leads to the notion that if I were to tailor therapeutic writing it could become writing I aim to share for others to enjoy and gain something from.

However, when I set out to write something I always have in mind that I wish to share it publicly; arrogantly or not I believe (I must believe) I have something worth saying and have the skills to make material worth reading. Enjoyable, humorous, sad, tuneful, ingenious, encourages the reader to see the world in a different light. If I am to achieve anything with my writing from the previous list, I need sharp thinking, broad knowledge, observational techniques, and the technical skills of writing. There are always two questions in the front of my mind when I work.

One: How would I like a reader to react to this? Two: Am I being honest?

As I work these two questions vary in importance.

Just as with therapeutic writing the aim for a writer, I believe, is to try and get to my unconscious thoughts. The questions (exercises) set out above are one of the tricks I use to get going. Which comes back to the unconscious mind.

I have used for this quarter’s poem The Fortune Teller. In this poem The Poet appears to be conflicted in his views of Tarot readings. Fair enough; but have I, a kind of meta-poet here, created a person just full of contradictions. (Am I being honest, exploring the apparent dishonesty of The Poet?) It is true that I come back again and again to such possible confusion. I do not think of this as part of life, but, on the other hand, I do think it is part of life.

When I started writing that day I simply let my mind wander and wrote down lines as they occurred. Here they are, just as I wrote them. For this exercise writing must be done at speed, no time must be taken to think, no going back to correct. Here is what I wrote:

Much do they know.

Enter the ring and start your tricks

Even though I have seen it all before.

Only old tricks have staying power.

Show me a new trick and I will be puzzled

To feed your sense of power.

Staying power belongs to the man who notices.

The man who notices has the strength of ignorance

Only the ignorant dare look into the future

The fortune teller is the miracle worker

Telling us lies and persuading us they are the truth.

Yet I might as well give myself up to the signs of the zodiac

As to believe the prophesies of charts and algorithms.

The future contains much that is new.

Newness is a curse of the ignorant, is the strength of the ignorant.

Newness is a curse, knowledge is a curse, experience is a curse. Reading may well be a curse, writing is a curse, wellbeing is a curse, our striving for wellbeing is a curse. An

achievable goal is worse than an unachievable one, since it hurts more when we miss it because we should have achieved it,.

What is it to be happy? It is to not notice that time goes by.

Which is ignorance, so ignorance equates with happiness.

It may be that in this exercise I have revealed my inner thinking. So feel free to psycho-analyse me if you wish. Going back to this writing the next day I was immediately struck by the line ‘the fortune teller is the miracle worker.’ This gave me the starting thought of my featured poem. Looking back at the lines as I write this piece I am amazed at how much of the poem is revealed in the unconscious writing.

As I worked and reworked on the poem I came back again and again to the ideas in my early scribblings: what is ignorance, what is happiness, and (the key to the finished poem) the fortune teller is the miracle worker.

One further thing I shall share with you on the working of your (my unconscious). I showed this poem to a colleague; I was concerned that my list of Tarot Cards was too long. My colleague was adamant that, in the fortune teller character, I had described my partner who had died suddenly a year before. I was equally adamant that I had not. Looking at the poem a few days after that I realised that I had described him in great detail; I am amazed to this day that, not only did I not realise what I was doing, but I also denied it. What a great worker our unconscious minds are.

In creative work of all types, it is vital that you give your unconscious mind time to work. It may be with exercises, it may be with meditation, it may be by going to sleep with your work in mind. So often people have said to me: ‘I had a brilliant idea this morning .’ The truth is they have not; they have had the idea while asleep and it pops out in the morning. Usually while you are in the shower or having a pee. Honest guv!

So all the elements of therapy writing are here, but I can still not answer if my writing is therapeutic or not. What I do know is that I miss writing when I am not doing it. And I get tetchy, grumpy even; so I better keep writing.

And hope that others get something from it, too.