Some have said that we teach what we need to learn and that could be true. In fact, I’ll declare it true! I’ve learned so much from being a writing mentor and a facilitator of writing circles.
In the late nineties, I set out to have companions for my writing practice and by providing space for others, I provided it for myself. We are encouraged by one another and gain confidence in taking further risks in our writing.
I’ve continued to go to writing workshops taught by others. I appreciate exploring various forms of writing which I share whether by mentoring one-on-one or in the writing circles. The various writing resources I’ve written wouldn’t have been done without the inspiration from mentoring others and having mentors.
Through the years my mentors have included Lee Maracle, Christina Baldwin, Ann Linnea, Patrick Lane, and Lorna Crozier. When I first met Lee in a fiction workshop, I learned how writing is all-encompassing. “How will this help my writing?” I learned to ask.
Christina and Ann led a circle practicum in Ontario when I still lived there and for five days we immersed ourselves in the circle, learning all aspects of it including guidelines, a structure, and how each member of it is a leader in the circle. I was never a fan of writing workshops and classes (often at community colleges) where each participant offered feedback to one’s writing. Some writers were crushed by those comments and didn’t continue writing. I’m grateful to have learned from Christina and Ann, including reading their books, how to create a “story space” with intention and “four laws of respect.”
The late Patrick Lane was a fine poet and mentor and attending poetry retreats with him was an amazing gift. We poets had an opportunity to work with Patrick one-on-one as he looked at a poem we had just written, offering suggestions and telling stories from his life along the way.
Lorna Crozier, Patrick’s wife and now widow, leads poetry retreats and we meld the memories of Patrick’s teaching with her keen eye and sparkling mind in the same setting on Lake Cowichan, on Vancouver Island, B.C.
Phil Cousineau included a chapter on “The Mythic Power of Mentoring: From Odysseus to Zorba” in his book Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in our Lives. He says: “The mentor, as opposed to the guru, is the one who is there to help you make up your own mind, light your own fire, unfold your own myth. True mentorship draws out your mind, draws out your hidden qualities, puts the bellows to the soul, fans the flame, develops the gold that the mentor is trying to draw out.”
Helping you “unfold your own myth” is a powerful gift as a mentor. I also appreciate what Phil says here: “What is distinctive about mentorship, in contrast to all other forms of teaching and guidance, is the concern for the spiritual life. To draw out the soul is the mythic vision for education at every imaginable level.”
I’m grateful to be reminded of that concern for the spiritual life. Since my early days of reading Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg, I have considered writing a spiritual practice. And what is spirit? Something that brings you fully alive as Brother David Steindl-Rast has said.
In a conversation with Joseph Campbell, Phil Cousineau writes that “Joe” said: “The teacher just gives you information . . generally without a clue about the difference between it and wisdom. . . .Now the mentor is the one who helps you find your own way. But you have to be open; you have to ask questions, you can’t pretend to have all the answers. That takes guts, real guts.”
Phil Cousineau believes that mentors, whether writers, artists, teachers, coaches and fishermen, share something in common. “I believe they resemble what the ancient Irish called anam cara, ‘soul friends.’ They are trusted because the young people in their charge know they have their best interests in mind. These mentors are committed to sustaining the relationship, often for years at a time . . . These soul-guides display an ability to share their gifts of wisdom, but in a literally playful manner; they play with ideas, virtue, insight, wisdom, compassion, even rebellion and defiance, because their deepest concern is for the souls of the young people around them, who secretly long to hear from someone who cares, someone who knows when to let go and say, with a firm but velvet touch, Now is the time for you to become yourself.”
Some have considered me a mentor as they have attended writing circles I have facilitated. Others have read my book Writing Home: A Whole Life Practice and I mentored them through a nine-month writing journey.
I still facilitate writing circles and offer one-to-one mentoring following a PDF version of Writing Home which is now out of print in book form. I also work with writers who are writing their stories from life in the form of a memoir. I’m honoured by the mentoring relationship and feel this is an important way to nourish yourself as a writer. Having a mentor support your writing process is a way to keep your writing “a whole life practice.”
If you’d like to learn about the one-to-one mentoring I offer, you can have a look here: https://www.maryannmoore.ca/circles/writing-home/