Anyone who has written anything from a term paper to the Great American Novel has felt it: That sinking feeling of emptiness when you stare at a blank Word document or piece of paper. You know you want to say something, but for whatever reason the words just won’t come out. It’s like someone built a dam between your creative energy and your mind and there’s nothing you can do to access it.  In our culture we call this writer’s block, and I learned early on that when this happens the best thing to do is get up, walk away, and hope that when I return to my computer in an hour.. or two.. or 24… the gate will be open and the ideas will flow freely. 

When I’m in the right frame of mind to write or create, it’s never a struggle. The words just pour out effortlessly and when I’m done I often read back over my “work” and think to myself: Where did that even come from?

After spending some time reading Sally Kempton’s new book, Awakening Shakti: The Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga, I know that this creative energy is the goddess Saraswati at work (I call her Sara for short). Sara often comes to see me in the mornings when I’m drinking my coffee. Often it’s right before a deadline when I’m panicked that she shows up as if to say, “Chill out, Erica. We got this.” Whatever I was struggling to say comes out like magic. Voila! (All this time I was giving credit to the caffeine!

Let me put it another way. Beyonce gets help from her alter-ego Sasha Fierce when she’s performoing. Saraswati is my secret weapon for writing.

In the afternoons, I imagine Sara leaves to help someone else, probably college students who stayed up too late the night before who work best after lunch. So I’ve always thought it was imperative to do my writing at that magic time of day where the words seemed to flow.
I never knew that I could simply ask Sara for help by imagining her in a meditation!

In Awakening Shakti, Kempton explains how to call on different goddess energies through meditation to help us with all areas of our lives, from wisdom and creativity to prosperity and beauty and more.

Growing up, I was taught that we all had God-given gifts and talents. The idea was that God decided before if you’d be a gifted artist or athlete, a whiz with numbers or a crazt scientist. Then, it’s your job in life to nurture those talents, as if by working hard and learning as much as you can about something you have some sort of control over how successful you’ll be in the world. The problem with this way of thinking is that it doesn’t give you much reason to work hard at the things that don’t come naturally to you–as if they’re kind of a lost cause. But just because you’re not great at getting things down on paper, for example, doesn’t mean the world doesn’t need to hear what you have to say. It’s like saying you can’t pracitce yoga becuase you’re not flexible… how are you ever going to get flexible if you don’t practice?

It’s nice to have an experienced guide who can demystify the whole process and make it seem so-very-accessible–even for people who aren’t experienced meditators. In fact, just reading the words in this book has a meditative quality. I think Saraswati must have been there during the writing process.

What energy do you wish you could cultivate more in your life? Have you ever thought about meditating on it?