Writing as a Sacred Path
A Practical Guide to Writing with Passion and Purpose
By: Jill Jepson
Published: December 1 2008
Format: Paperback, 256 pages
ISBN: 978-1-58761-325-8
Publisher: Celestial Arts
"This impulse may sound like masochism or addiction, and perhaps it is, but it is also something greater and more compelling: it's a vocation, a calling", writes author and world traveler Jill Jepson, in her powerful and spiritual examination of the writing life Writing as a Sacred Path : A Practical Guide to Writing with Passion and Purpose. The author describes the writer's calling as a spiritual journey, and endowing that path with the virtues of the monastery, the shaman, and the warrior.
Jill Jepson believes that for a writer, the very act of creation is an essential part of life. In the same way as a person must breathe to live, so too must a writer put words on a page. Along with writing being crucial to a writer's bodily existence, so too is writing part of the writer's internal spiritual self discovery. Drawing upon the mysticism of both the Eastern and Western cultures with which she is very familiar, Jill places the act of writing within the realm of the other worldly. Indeed, the author considers writing an act of creation, that takes on mystical overtones, as the writer embarks on that inner journey in search of truth.
Jill Jepson (photo left) recognizes the spiritual path that compels the writer to follow that unending and relentless inner calling to write. She doesn't describe writing, which can be as painful as a shamanic experience, as profound as a mystical experience, or as dangerous as a warrior's battle, as being an easy life. Instead, writing can be painful, and wrenching, as the innermost feelings of the soul are rendered into prose or poetry. Writing itself becomes a gift of that journey, from within, and even from reaching out to a spiritual world that is unseen by others. The calling of the writer places the individual, almost into a portal that extends between the corporeal world, and that of the spirit world.
For me, the power of the book is Jill Jepson's unflinching, and unerring plumbing of the depths of the compulsion to write and create. Drawing on her on personal travels around the world, and deep within her own spirituality, she brings together the deepest and most profound inner truths of the writer's journey. Along with the spiritual guidance for the writer, Jill Jepson also provides practical instruction for harnessing the powerful energy flowing from personal contemplation and interaction with the spiritual realm. The discipline necessary to write well follows closely the discipline of the monk, the transformational power of the shaman, and the will of the warrior. Through personal examination, the most personal and powerful archetypes can emerge, and stream into the writing via the subconscious mind.
I highly recommend the essential guide to the spiritual aspect of writing Writing as a Sacred Path: A Practical Guide to Writing with Passion and Purpose by Jill Jepson to anyone seeking to understand the deeper personal journey within oneself that imbues writing with greatness. For the person who hears the calling to become a writer, and chooses to follow that past because there is no other choice, this book is an indispensable spirit guide to greater understanding and wisdom.
Read and discover the connection between the creative process, and the internal spiritual life as shared by Jill Jepson, in Writing as a Sacred Path: A Practical Guide to Writing with Passion and Purpose. Her writing guide nurtures the restlessness of the creative spirit, while developing the enlightened soul that dwells within the artist. This book will take the writer on a voyage deep within, and to the farthest reaches of the world and beyond. The writer will be a greater person, as well as a more profound wordsmith, as a result.
