Renee GregorioThe Writer Who Inhabits Your Body
Somatic Practices to Enhance Creativity and Inspiration
Renée Gregorio is a poet, longtime aikido practitioner, and master somatic coach. She has published nine books of poetry. Her most recent, Abyss & Bridge, won the New Mexico–Arizona Book Award for Poetry. She has been granted writing residiencies at the Millay Colony for the Arts in New York State and the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, NM. She teaches body-centered writing workshops across the United States. She lives in New Mexico.
PREFACE Words That Become You
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION Please Remove Your Shoes
Part One
Center Is Everything
1 A Source of Knowing
2 Working through the Body—What Body?
3 Postures of Authenticity
4 Aligning Head, Heart, and Hara:
The Column
5 Centering in Intention and Care
6 Following Center’s Intelligence into Your Work
7 What’s Revealed through Practice
Part Two
Opening the Body to Language
8 Your Dojo of Solitude
9 Creating Space and Spaciousness
10 The Writing Body’s Emergence
11 Writing, a Surrender
12 Ways of Naming
13 The Dance of Listening
14 Bringing Your Body to the Page
15 The Companion Energy of Support
Part Three
Turning Obstacles into Doorways
16 The Doorway of Our Histories
17 The Doorway of Doubt
18 The Doorway of Fear
19 The Doorway of Our Darkness
20 The Doorway of the Gap
21 The Doorway of Hiding
22 The Doorway of Difficult Emotions
23 The Doorway of Disorder
Part Four
The Roar of Your Writing
24 Finding What’s Central to Your Work
25 Becoming Direct
26 The Power of Your Distinct Voice
27 Gathering
28 Exploring Your Roar
29 Honing What’s True:
The Act of Re-visioning
30 Tending the Fire
31 Delivering Your Words
CONCLUSION Claiming the Voice You Have
THE PRACTICES Committing to Your Embodied Writing Life
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
