Report from Santa Fe; Natalie Goldberg

The National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Taos, New Mexico. Hello, I'm Levine Mills and welcome to Report from Santa Fe. Our guest today is Natalie Goldberg. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Always, always. I love having you here. Well, you're an artist, you're an author, you've always been a teacher, no matter what form you took. But we are celebrating, among other things, a new book, and also the 30th anniversary of writing down the bones. So tell me about this book. Well, it came out in 1984 and it sold almost two million copies and it keeps selling. I think people really want to write. Of course, I wasn't aware of it when I wrote it. I was in my 30s, but it

broke a paradigm in the way writing is taught and seen in this country. I bring it forth as a practice, just like you would practice tennis or softball. And it was a whole new way of looking at the way you can write. Well, millions of people, because this is now in 18 languages and I'm told that it's the best -selling book of all time about writing. Probably. Probably, I know. I don't check on that book. But it's given millions of people credit to express themselves as writers. You have very practical, delightful techniques to get people to start writing. And then again, as you say, it's the practice of it. It's zen in action and the tension between freedom and discipline and that wonderful expansion and contraction. But yes, but you were recently honored in Tauce. They had Natalie Goldberg day. Yes.

Tell me what happened that day. Oh, I mean, so much. It was in the old courthouse on the plaza above the stores. And there were all these beautiful murals signed by the unpainted by the old Tauce painters. Huge windows looking at Tauce Mountain. And they gave me the mayor, gave me a proclamation, which was very specific about what I have done for Tauce. The publisher who was 23 when Bones was bought and was just a young kid at Shambhala is still there. He wrote a long proclamation too about the process of buying the book. And then I got up. It was remarkable. Well, the most delightful thing for me was, and I've heard the tape for this. We're going to listen to it in a minute. But iconic New Mexico author, John Nichols, and a wonderful friend of his, Sean Murphy, put together

a song for you to the tune of Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice. It's all right. But this one is Don't Think Twice, just right. Yes. Weaves lines from your books and other titles of your other books into this thing. We're going to only listen to one stanza. And while we listen, we'll just take a little look at this beautiful proclamation. Great. Thank you so much. Carrying my writer within. I'm going to stop off and visit all my students' homes. I'm going to teach them all how to write down their bones. We'll practice first thoughts and composting skills. Don't think twice we'll just write. Well, I wasn't, I was just charmed by that plus they're very good

musicians too. Oh, they're wonderful musicians and they meet together with at the Bratsky Book Store one evening a month for years and years and play music together. And with the owner of Bratsky Books to Rick. And so he did this and totally surprised me. Evidently, there were 18 stanzas. Oh, you know, John is wonderfully long. Yes, and I'm Sean helped him whittle it down to seven. It was, it was amazing. Now that was the next day in the morning. Saturday, it was a whole weekend event. Saturday morning, they had people come up and tell how they discovered bones and what it meant to them. Well, I've got to ask you something because what does the title really mean? To me, it's very ambiguous and just rich in possibility. So we're good. That's what I want. Because I know that it's ambiguous. It has many, many resonances. So tell me what I should know about the title.

Okay. That's a good question. Yeah. Just that I thought of it spontaneously when I needed the title for a class I was teaching in Minnesota and someone said, well, what are you going to, what's the name of it? And I said, writing down the bones. And actually, specifically though, now I know it means writing down the real genuine things you have to say. Not what you think you should say or something polite, but the real feelings deep down. Let's be honest, because that's the only place you'll find in real writing that's alive and genuine and reaches other people. Because if I say, what did I do for my summer vacation? It was really fun. It was interesting. It doesn't say anything. That's actually a good assignment, but we weren't taught how to approach it.

So when you say don't think twice, just write. I want to focus a little bit on the practice aspect, because the word practice, again, is ambiguous. It's something you practice to make perfect, but also the practice of a spiritual practice and the writing practice. So you're saying that whether you're wrestling with demons or have quoted writers, blockers, anything like that, just write. Just shut up, pick up the pen or open your computer and go. There's no such thing as writer's block. It's physical movement. When somebody is running, if they run every day, suddenly they say, oh, I can't run. I can't run. It's ridiculous. They get out there and run whether they want to or not, often whether it's snowing or raining. And so writers can do that too. That's what I mean. It's a practice like an athletic practice.

We haven't applied writing as a practice, but we do it with athletic activities. Writing music, with everything, even with painting. You have to practice, but with writing, because what are the tools of a writer, pen, paper, and the human mind, we were afraid of the mind. So we stayed away. We thought we'd go crazy if we enter our minds. Well, you do say that what's important is the writing manifests the relationship you have with your own mind. You also say, write what disturbs you, write what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about, be willing to be split open. Yes, that's the real way. That's where people want to, you know, that's what people want to hear about. They don't want to hear that my summer was fun. Yeah. They want to hear the real details of what went on. And you're allowed to say them. Well, the other thing you talk

about, so the conventional idea of a writer is you get someone waiting there for inspiration, and then all of a sudden, or in peace, we'll come out of them. Oh, yeah. But you're saying you just sit down in the chair, and you keep practicing. Then inspiration will become more often, and because you've practiced when it comes, you'll be able to grab it. That's lovely. You say that writing is your practice, but your pleasure is your artwork. You've been painting as long as you've been writing. I just want to show another one of your books here. It's called Living Color. And we have with us a couple of your paintings that I'm very, very fond of, and this is a recent, when did this book come out? It came out in 2014. Oh, perfect. So it is up -to -date kind, you know, I'm working on it. Yeah, it's very up -to -date. Oh, good. So Living Color, tell us a little about the difference between writing as a practice, and painting as a pleasure.

I don't push myself with painting. I don't want to develop. I just want to enjoy it. But what I realize writing that book, Living Color, is that painting actually feeds my writing life. Number one, in the silence of paint, I think I work out unconsciously things I want to write about. Also painting makes me aware of the visual world. And really, what is writing, but a visual art? You have to make the reader see what you are trying to communicate. Well, one thing that you write about writing that is so moving to me, that writers live life twice, and like a cow that eats it food once and then regurgitates it to chew and digest it again, we have a second chance at biting into our experience and examining it. Yes. Whether we want to or not. Yeah. Yeah.

Another book that I didn't bring with me is your memoir book. Tell me a little about writing memoirs, because you're saying fourth graders are doing it now. Oh, I guess I've written a lot of memoirs, but I think you're talking about old friend from far away. Yes. Yes. Yes. Memoir used to be something that people did at the end of their lives, usually a state's person or a writer who wrote all their life, but America broke that open. The United States was original in this. They realized they cracked open that form, and realized you could write a memoir at any point in your life. So people started writing them at 2030, and to my surprise, when I was on book tour for old friend from far away, in left bank books, in St. Louis, Missouri, a teacher came up to me and said, I wanted to come and hear you talk, because my fourth graders are writing their memoirs now, which I thought was

totally wonderful, because what is a memoir, but about memory, and it keeps you in touch with your life. So these fourth graders are really feeling the texture of their life. And what a gift to their later adult self, because by the time they're 25, they won't remember, you know, maybe two or three incidences from fourth grade. So, you know, the more you can capture life as it flies. And actually, I say, if you've lived 20 years, you have enough material for the rest of your life to write about. Well, I want to get to your new book, to this beautiful book, it's called The Great Spring, Writing, Zen, and this zigzag life. So tell me about this. And also, the ear titles are so fraught with delicious meanings. Talk a little bit about how you chose this title. Oh, okay. Well, I like it. I like to have a title that has a

double meaning, you know, that it isn't just lead. The lead might have a double meaning. But The Great Spring is, of course, you know, sometimes winter can be really overbearing, and spring comes, and it gives total new vitality. So that's one level. The other level in Zen, especially Japanese Zen, that The Great Spring is another term for enlightenment. Suddenly, you wake up, and the world is alive to you, and things, old things, and old frozen ideas drop away. Isn't that a beautiful way of thinking of enlightenment? Yeah. And we can have many enlightenments where you just realize that's the person I'm going to marry. Yeah. The Great Spring. Yes. Well, you have such wonderful stories in this book. We're speaking today, by the way, with Natalie Goldberg. We're talking about her new book, The Great Spring, but we're also celebrating the 30th anniversary of writing

down the bones. So in The Great Spring, you tell some stories. One of them is there on a pilgrimage to Japan, and you meet some Japanese people. So you were going to... I was going to a Japanese monastery, and I didn't speak any Japanese, and a friend hooked me up with a Japanese couple who spoke English really well. And I said, they took me out for coffee, and I tell the story in there. And I said, well, how do you speak English so well? And they said, well, we went to England, and my husband is studying philosophy. So I said, oh, who are you studying? And he said, a manual Kant. I said, you're kidding. I studied a manual Kant. I got my MA at St. John's, here in Santa Fe, and I did my thesis on a manual Kant. Oh, didn't it? I said, why do you want to study him? I said, I want to study Dogen. Dogen is the great 12th century Zen Master. And he went Dogen. Dogen

is really hard. You don't want to study him. And yet for us, Kant would be so hard. I know. So it was sort of a cross -cultural mix -up. It's just charming. But how hard is the practice? What was life in that monastery? It was miserable. It was so hard. At 3 a .m., we woke up, went and sat in the Zendo for 40 minutes, and the bell rang. And when I was first there, no one spoke English. And Zen is the kind of thing where they don't tell you anything. You learn by example. So the bell rang again, and everybody jumped up, and so I followed them. They were way ahead of me, and they were running for exercise down the streets of the town. But it was, you know, what was it at that time? 4 a .m. They were running really fast, and I tried to catch up, but I kept missing. So it looked like Mark's Brothers movie. They were going down one road. I was going down another. And then we did

military style army exercise in the Zendo. Hit the ground, do push -ups. And I was always up when they were down, and I caught on after a while, but it was very hard. And there was also a lot of physical privation in addition, like you didn't eat much, and then you tell this wonderful story at the end of eating this boiled, you know, perhaps not to attractive food. But when you were done, you went to the train station. Was it the train station you bought? I was so relieved to be out of there, and yet I appreciated I was there. I grabbed, I bought some M &Ms, because they didn't have anything like that there. And because it was so hot in Japan, and you met, the M &Ms were melted, and they were all over my face and hands. And suddenly one of the very strict monks showed up at the railroad station in his traveling garb, which is very formal. And I panicked and tried to stick my hands in my pockets. I didn't know what

to do. And he came over to me, and he could see me with my face full of chocolate. And he pulled out of his robe, and showed me an arm and joy. And we both laugh. Oh, these stories are wonderful. The other one that was really a revelation to me was a dog bite story. You know, gave us a short version of that. Oh, well, I was in France, and it was after doing a month -long meditation retreat with Ticknot Han, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who was so wonderful. And afterwards some friends we went traveling. And I was so high from the retreat that I couldn't decipher things very well. And I saw old house in the distance, and I imagined it was a cafe that I could write in. And I went right up to it and was a private home. And a guard dog was hiding,

and it leaped out and bit me in the leg. And I got out of the way. Luckily, he was chained. And I had to fly home emergency. But I didn't hate the dog. I knew that he had been trained. And it was really human beings who were always guarding their property. And it was a remarkable experience. And actually, it was the first story I ever wrote, you know, because I was used to writing books. First essay I wrote was that dog bite enlightenment. Oh, that's what I call it. And most people would be limping around moaning and groaning and worried about rabies and all these things. And you were at such a blissful level that you just sailed through. It was another experience. Now don't think I'm always like that. It was

just very lucky. Yes. So you are giving a lot of reading here on a book tour now for both books. But I was really interested. I was in the audience. And people asked you 30 years later looking back at writing down the bones. What would you tell your younger self? Oh, that was a good question. You're talking about an albacurkey on Friday night. And I don't remember what I said then. But if you're asking me now, you can think about it. Well, you think about it. Two of the things you said, I think I took the heart. Eat more chocolate and have fun. But perhaps you have more sophisticated advice, but that'll do. Okay. That's great. But then let me take that by extension. What would you tell the artists and the writers out there? You know, who are struggling? And one thing that I love because I'm a better editor than a writer was that you said, you know, when I sit down and let the writing write, you know, when I just sit down and write, the writing writes itself. So what

advice do you have? There are people who want to be an artist, who want to be a writer. What practice? Practice. And what you need to do is let writing do writing and you get out of the way. Let painting do painting and you get out of the way. How do you do that? Don't worry about good or bad. Don't try to be great. Let yourself have mistakes. But don't correct them. Keep going. Use your mistakes and incorporate them into your work. And mindly, don't worry. There's no place to go. Just, you know, settle into your work deeply. Now, you are in a time of not working because when you do these tours, it's pretty, you know, it's a lot of travel and meeting new people. But people come up to you and they say, thank you, your book changed my life from testimonials. I mean, whatever the

hardships of travel are, I've heard some of these people telling you how much you've impacted their life. So so are you writing or painting now? Or this is a time of travel? And I'm reading. I'm reading a lot. When I travel, I'll usually go to art museums. See, that's what I mean. Art is the balance for me for my writing. Well, they're literally. Yes. So I'll just go look at art and take it in with my whole body as a way to refresh myself. But if I'm lucky, I get a really good book. I'll find a really good book. And when I'm at the airport and stuff, I don't get the time drops away. I meant to mention with the dog white story and how beautifully you handled it, you had some other health challenges. Well, yeah, the dog bite was in 1992. I know. And it was also a specific part of your body and a real invisible cause. But you had had another challenge. Yes.

Just recently, I've had cancer in 2014. I for 14 months, I was dealing very intensely with cancer. Actually, I wrote and put together the great spring while I had cancer in the afternoons when I didn't really have anything to do because I'd get treatments in the morning. I had them, really it was a lovely time when I wasn't in pain and scared and everything. I just the world dropped away and I looked through my notebooks and found old essays and I wanted to record in case I didn't make it through. In case I died, I wanted to record some of the things of my life. So the great spring has me playing ball with my father at eight years old, how I love tennis. And then stories where I traveled, I threw in everything. And what's your favorite part of the great spring? Oh my goodness. I think the favorite part is that

the great spring, each story is actually for me a painting where I try to fill the entire essay with detail. So when you're done reading, you have a picture of some part of my life, some adventure when I hiked in Banda Lear looking for the stone lions. So I think that's my favorite part is how I wrote it. Well, speaking of pictures, I want your living color painting writing and the bones of seeing. So people who want to see and understand more about your painting, but they can also go to your website, which is Natalie Goldberg .com. That's easy enough to find out the blog and things about your book. It's a very, also where I teach. People always want to know that. It's also my paintings. Yeah, I just can't emphasize that enough because as you move through life, you've always been a teacher, be it a teacher of practice, a

teacher of pleasure, a teacher of students who come burdened with this dream of being a writer and you just, poof. Yes, you know, the most proud thing I have is a teaching certificate. And in New Mexico, they gave it to me permanently for the rest of my life because before bones came out, I taught, I taught in the public schools. And sometimes I feel that I should have gone back to the public schools because you never get to be with those kind of kids on your own. And I loved them. And the need is so great in the public schools. Oh, yes. I love the public schools. Yes. So our guest today, Natalie Goldberg, this is her new book, Writing, Zen, and the zigzag life. What do you mean zigzag life? Well, of course, doesn't everybody know that our life never goes linear. You never say, I am going to do this and this and this when I grow up. And that's what happens.

If that's what happens and you follow that straight line, you're in trouble. You've become very rigid and you're pretty unhappy. Life, you know, serves up things all the time, even getting cancer. And we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the best -selling book about writing in world history, writing down the bones, freeing the writer within. And so what do you have to say to this book? Oh, thank you for opening my life. It allowed me to write a lot of other books and to get them published. And also, as I wrote it, it taught me how to write. Don't think I'm doing this totally for other people. When I teach is how I learn to write and I write with my students. Well, thank you so much. You know, I thank you for these books and for the beauty of your art. Our guest today is

Natalie Goldberg. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. This was a pleasure. Me too. And I'm Lorraine Mills. We'd like to invite you to see us next week. This is Report from Santa Fe. Thank you for joining us. Past archival programs of Report from Santa Fe are available at the website reportfromsatife .com. If you have questions or comments, please email info at reportfromsatife .com. Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the National Education Association of New Mexico and New Mexico, please email info at reportfromsatife .com.