Writing on demand, however, was a challenge. Taking out the pen to fill the empty pages with wishful notions of wit and wisdom took practice. Many mornings were spent staring at the blue lines propped on my knees, pen in the right hand and mug in the other, waiting on the muse. As I grew emotionally, the writing in the spiral bound notebooks bore witness to the transformation that took place in my life.
Sometimes the darkened room became light and the words became lists. While other mornings words flowed doing cartwheels and somersaults, scrambling children in the schoolyard, lining up at the bell to be accounted for.
Whatever the outcome of the morning scribbles, by the last sip of coffee, the page would bear witness to another day. Sometimes there was little more than a to-do list, ideas for a new chapter, a newsletter in the offing, and occasionally my next great idea. The early morning pages are illegible, and if not immediately transcribed to the computer become forgotten banter.
Over the last forty years that single Steno Pad was replaced by numerous, colorful spiral bound notebooks lining shelves in the garage. One time I revisited my works documenting the timeline for my memoir, The Shaman Chef: My Life and Other Recipes, about how cooking saved my life.
About a year ago the city had five big trucks lined up in the parking lot in the local park shredding paper. On that day the weighty boxes were stacked into the car , driven to the park, and the energy set free. After all, most of what was stored there was unreadable even to me and had long been committed to my memory and memoir.
Several years ago, I began the process of rewriting. To me the process was like preparing a glace de viande , refining and reducing to make words that stick to the back of your tongue, leaving a fragrant taste after your last bite. This process took discipline and many hours of sitting and examination of every smell, texture, and personality that I had ignored. In addition, there was now the external critic, the editor who required reading of book after book on writing. So what came easily at eleven became refined at fifty. Then the work began. Still today I am grateful that my grandmother gave me the first glued pages that began my dance with the bear. So today, after all these years, I write.
I encourage you to begin a daily ritual. It could be a walk, a meditation, or yoga. It is a one day at a time proposition. Many years ago, my friends stashed me away at a house in the woods to heal in solitude. He was a painter. I was amazed that he had so many canvasses lined in a bin. I wondered, How he had done this; in the silence of the woods? The answer: one painting at a time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Known as The Practical Shaman, Renee Baribeau is a mentor, healer, teacher, and writer. Over the past fifteen years, she has trained with a long list of traditional shamans and modern-day mystics. She has received rites of passage from Q’ero elders in Peru and a Mapuche shaman in Chile, and apprenticed with a Lakota elder in Southern California for ten years. A graduate of the Healing the Light Body two-year program with the Four Winds Society, she studied directly with Jose Luis Herrera. She has also received the healer’s blessing from Swami Kaleshwar.
Renee is Director of Desert Holistic Network/Holistic Helping Hands, a growing health and wellness chamber of commerce and virtual marketing portal based in Southern California. Former resident shaman for the We Care Holistic Spa, she now runs a private practice that serves individuals, including numerous high-profile and executive clients in Beverly Hills and New York City. Possessing an entrepreneurial spirit, Renee has owned two successful restaurants and catering companies, and spent ten years as a corporate executive. Walking comfortably in two worlds, she is both a successful business leader and a humble servant of her community and the earth.
In 2010, Renee’s healing memoir, The Shaman Chef; How cooking saved my life scheduled for publication in autumn 2012, placed her among the top 25 finalists in The Next Top Spiritual Author competition, emerging from a field of over 2,500 candidates from around the world. Her Recipe for a Creative Awakening was chosen to be a chapter in an anthology entitled Pearls of Wisdom, Thirty Life Changing Ideas featuring Jack Canfield.
Known as The Practical Shaman, Renee Baribeau is a mentor, healer, teacher, and writer. Over the past fifteen years, she has trained with a long list of traditional shamans and modern-day mystics. She has received rites of passage from Q’ero elders in Peru and a Mapuche shaman in Chile, and apprenticed with a Lakota elder in Southern California for ten years. A graduate of the Healing the Light Body two-year program with the Four Winds Society, she studied directly with Jose Luis Herrera. She has also received the healer’s blessing from Swami Kaleshwar.
Renee is Director of Desert Holistic Network/Holistic Helping Hands, a growing health and wellness chamber of commerce and virtual marketing portal based in Southern California. Former resident shaman for the We Care Holistic Spa, she now runs a private practice that serves individuals, including numerous high-profile and executive clients in Beverly Hills and New York City. Possessing an entrepreneurial spirit, Renee has owned two successful restaurants and catering companies, and spent ten years as a corporate executive. Walking comfortably in two worlds, she is both a successful business leader and a humble servant of her community and the earth.
In 2010, Renee’s healing memoir, The Shaman Chef; How cooking saved my life scheduled for publication in autumn 2012, placed her among the top 25 finalists in The Next Top Spiritual Author competition, emerging from a field of over 2,500 candidates from around the world. Her Recipe for a Creative Awakening was chosen to be a chapter in an anthology entitled Pearls of Wisdom, Thirty Life Changing Ideas featuring Jack Canfield.
Other Blog Posts by Renee: Confessions of a Cell Phone Junkie
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