Like Thoreau, like Emerson, my first allegiance is to the spiritual life. To me, as I currently understand it, this is a life whose primary trade is an earnest exploration of what humanity shares: the mystery of existence and life.
My writings are still not of this quality. I haven’t focused. They are still divergent. But I need to give myself some slack. The core of my poetics of writing as spiritual practice has been here, growing organically from 2011 to 2023, with the bulk of my growth from 2014 (when I discovered blogging) to 2022 when I began associating with writers who are also into spirituality. I started serious journaling. I fell in love with Thoreau, note-taking, etc.
This almost solipsistic writing life was shattered by an exposure to the literary community at ANWW20. Suddenly, just because of one workshop, I was categorized as a colleague of veteran and established writers. Suddenly, there was an exposure to contests, of possibly winning. And then, my poem was published. For the first time, I was published outside of my turf (my website). Suddenly, I had to write a bio—a brand that summarizes who I am and what I’m trying to do.
I’m meeting all these writers, doing these walking experiments, I was really exploring and diverging. And along the way, there were several instances that I needed to synthesize and articulate my poetics.