For The Wild - FRANCESA LIA BLOCK on Finding Rhythm Through Word ⧸323

00:00:01.000 Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today I'm speaking with

00:00:07.140 Francesca Lea Block. Magic, like art, like love, you know, it is a practice. They're

00:00:13.760 all one thing to me, frankly, but it is a practice and it takes a lot of work and daily

00:00:20.320 diligence to commit to them. And we're being pulled. I mean, I'm constantly being pulled

00:00:27.120 the way, not just by the things I have to do to survive, but also the things that I don't have to

00:00:35.140 do that somehow seduce me into thinking that I need them to survive. Francesca Lea Block, MFA,

00:00:43.900 is the author of more than 25 books of fiction, nonfiction, short stories, and poetry, and has

00:00:50.520 written screenplay adaptations for her work. She received the Spectrum Award, the Phoenix Award,

00:00:56.200 the ALA Rainbow Award, and the 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award,

00:01:03.020 as well as other citations from the American Library Association

00:01:07.120 and from the New York Times Book Review, School Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

00:01:14.940 Oh, Francesca, thank you so much for being with us today.

00:01:18.260 I'm really looking forward to slowing down and having a really good and deep conversation with

00:01:26.820 you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really honored to be on this program.

00:01:32.680 Wow. I'm honored and appreciate your time. And I just feel really drawn to your work because I

00:01:40.820 feel like so much of it really delicately balances the beauties and joys of life with

00:01:46.900 the absolute pain and difficulties that come along with it. So as we open up this conversation,

00:01:55.600 I'd really love to hear more about how you cultivate this balance and speak honestly

00:02:00.000 to our confusing human existence. It's funny. I was just thinking about this topic before

00:02:09.120 this a little earlier this morning. When I drive across town, I'm going to the east side a lot

00:02:16.000 more lately and every block I'm feeling one or the other of those emotions like this guy

00:02:26.120 with the pink clouds is is making me want to cry and then these people living under the bridge are

00:02:33.400 making me want to cry in a different way you know and it's always like that I'm feeling both of those

00:02:40.500 things almost all the time and I remember having that since I was a child except during the times

00:02:47.560 when I've sort of numbed out and it's become too overwhelming to feel either of those things

00:02:56.180 but most of my life I think fortunately I've been able to stay in touch with that and

00:03:02.000 it can be really challenging but I think really rewarding as an artist and also just as a person

00:03:08.660 yeah gosh i'm thinking about so many of your book reviews and um that i read in and preparing for

00:03:17.240 this conversation and also there is something that you wrote on twitter where you say you were

00:03:23.620 born to make beauty in the slaughterhouse of the world you were born to toil you were born to love

00:03:29.960 offer yourself up to the light of the golden eye of the sun to the silver mouth of the moon

00:03:35.380 to the gods and goddesses of love loss is inevitable but do not fear it end quote

00:03:42.180 oh i really love that i could really thank you so much again and i just there's so much i could

00:03:52.000 ask about this quote but definitely something coming to me and please share more as it comes

00:03:57.220 to you but how do we remember to center beauty in our understanding of the world i think just

00:04:05.360 the consciousness to look for it because when you start looking for it it is it is everywhere

00:04:10.880 at least in in many of our privileged lives but I think nature provides it always for everyone

00:04:21.660 certainly and one another right our interpersonal relationships so I think just

00:04:29.340 awareness around it I think as a writer it helps me I'm constantly trying to keep a record of it

00:04:37.860 for the purpose of my work because I want it to be the inspiration you know I use it as inspiration

00:04:46.520 but it of course also then feeds my life because I am paying attention sometimes when I

00:04:54.800 it's hard to pay attention and I have the purpose of creating art it brings me back to that so I

00:05:04.000 think not that you have to be an artist to do it but whatever practice whether it's taking

00:05:08.780 pictures to remember whether it's keeping journals whether it's sharing with your friends

00:05:15.780 you know just keeping a record as a reminder of what exists around us and certainly art too

00:05:24.640 write through music i feel it through visual art i feel it through books the quote that you

00:05:33.020 mentioned i was inspired by the egyptian book of the dead in this really beautiful translation

00:05:39.780 which i can send you the the name uh and it was i was researching that for the novel house of hearts

00:05:49.960 and then I was realizing that the Egyptian book of the dead is

00:05:54.500 full of all my spiritual beliefs that I didn't even know

00:05:59.360 were so specifically there and that quote is a lot from that yeah that's something

00:06:07.960 something I've yet to dive into but I've had friends that have been really drawn to

00:06:13.820 that book and have created entire uh practices and life ways based from it so i know it's

00:06:21.760 really powerful so thank you that's now on the list uh and since it's still winter that's a

00:06:27.540 really good time to get into it yeah but yeah it brings up a good point for me of

00:06:32.360 how can literature give us permission to feel and experience beyond what we would normally find

00:06:40.740 in the confines of our daily lives and how might this allow us to explore

00:06:45.980 ourselves you know the world around us more deeply I think again because of my work I'm

00:06:55.060 reading a lot to help my students to strengthen my own work I'm looking at it through the lens

00:07:03.540 of craft but of course what is really amazing about these books it's often the themes and when

00:07:16.320 we revisit some of the great classic books and we might think well you know how it's a classic so

00:07:23.860 therefore is it really going to be relevant and then you go back and you see these these lessons

00:07:30.680 in this much in these books I only in the last maybe five years I believe read Invisible Man

00:07:38.700 by Ralph Ellison and I somehow missed it growing up and I thought every single one of my students

00:07:47.100 needs to read and reread this it is so amazingly relevant for today and and craft wise it's

00:07:53.800 perfect it's a perfect creation so I don't know if I answered your question exactly I'm just

00:08:00.360 But I know that there is so much to be learned from the books that you love and also to just allow yourself to love what you love and do a deep dive into it and then to understand why so that as an artist, you can learn from it and strengthen your own work, ideally.

00:08:25.480 Yeah, it's almost like apprenticing with the teachers and whether it's our teachers, our elders, like folks that we respect.

00:08:37.180 And I wonder where that desire or practice of apprenticeship has gone because I really think about that a lot with children I know in my community and how our education has shifted so much.

00:08:56.300 and how there were times in our human history where we really practiced and apprenticed and

00:09:04.920 honed skills for years and how that shaped us and our human experience and our relationships

00:09:13.300 and our craft um so or our crafts so i yeah i really appreciate thinking about that that

00:09:22.120 when we read we're almost taking time to be with mentors in a sense and that's really beautiful

00:09:28.760 and that i love the way you're phrasing it and i think that certainly in the thorn necklace which

00:09:35.520 is my memoir and craft book i talk about find a mentor is one of the principles of writing for

00:09:43.040 from how to be a writer in the world for me personally and then i i talk about well i was

00:09:48.940 really fortunate I have to have it in my my dad but a lot of people might not have that there

00:09:56.360 and maybe a teacher but you might not have that but yes I talk about books you know it's right

00:10:02.080 there in the book I've been lucky to be a teacher to have I've worked with some of my students for

00:10:09.860 over 10 years and i think i not only is it really hopefully helpful to them i i find for myself

00:10:20.100 it's i learned so much about the craft by teaching the craft you know and again i'm turning to the

00:10:28.500 books to to deconstruct and and help demystify some of this magic that not i mean it's still

00:10:38.300 magical but to try to understand how this magic is is done so i i really feel that perhaps in in

00:10:47.920 this world of mentoring writers there that that model exists uh in a nice way so i i feel really

00:10:59.400 fortunate to have that yeah speaking of the thorn necklace which really i think focuses

00:11:08.240 on the power of creative process and the healing journey. I'm wondering about your own journey

00:11:16.400 and how it's evolved in your years as a writer and what magic the written word contains for healing

00:11:22.720 from varying perspectives of life. I mean, it certainly helped me profoundly. I really would

00:11:32.580 say it sounds a little dramatic but I do feel it sort of saved my life or saved my sanity I mean I

00:11:38.520 always went to writing as a way to help calm my anxiety understand the world connect to others

00:11:49.460 as I became published it was a lot easier to actually connect to others through it

00:11:54.320 and I feel extremely lucky for that and the bonds that have developed through my writing

00:12:00.200 Most of my relationships actually started through someone either reading my work or a student or a friend who I share work with, went to school with, so teachers of mine.

00:12:20.760 So it's been healing in so many ways, both the internal process of just getting the story down and then the more external process of sharing and connecting and hopefully helping someone else.

00:12:37.620 I've had that experience, too, where people have been in really painful circumstances and have felt heard or understood through something that they've read, maybe that I've written.

00:12:50.760 I read a book that I love. I think you'd really like if you have not read it called The Midnight

00:12:55.980 Disease. And it's about hypergraphia. And this woman who had, she's a neurologist.

00:13:05.960 She had a terrible trauma and couldn't stop writing. And later when she healed some from it,

00:13:15.780 she wrote a book based on these sort of endless writings covering the pages and pages sort of

00:13:25.020 ramblings in a way but it turned into this book on this science of you know this the way that

00:13:32.100 writing actually changes brain chemistry and can be a source of healing they did a study on

00:13:41.240 Holocaust survivors and they said that the two things that helped were right telling their story

00:13:48.860 rather and massage so both things that get something out of the body in a way and I think

00:13:56.080 writing is is a form of that too or has been for me I'm kind of being drawn to as we speak about

00:14:08.400 healing also speak about pleasure and I really love in your books that they offer these pathways

00:14:17.280 to give ourselves permission to be present and to find pleasure within our environments and our

00:14:23.100 inner selves and and so I'm interested in the role of pleasure both within your books for the

00:14:28.600 characters and within the act of reading and imagining itself I know that I get a lot of

00:14:37.480 pleasure writing about my characters experiencing pleasure so I've always just done that for

00:14:45.740 myself and hopefully that has translated I tell my students write about the things that you're

00:14:53.200 obsessed with and don't worry if there's something that you think is insignificant

00:14:59.820 because if you're passionate about the basmati rice the doll you know ginger i mean like it

00:15:09.480 whatever it might be it it and you write about it with specificity and passion and detail

00:15:14.940 the reader's going to have that visceral response and they're going to be able to derive

00:15:21.540 pleasure out of it too so I really tried to to do that and when I was very young I went to

00:15:31.740 hear the band X play and I remember I was you know late teens I remember watching the people

00:15:41.560 move to the music and and thinking I want to write something that makes people feel viscerally

00:15:47.580 the way music makes me feel because no other art form is so gets into my body it's that same way

00:15:55.180 and so that's another motivation for me when I'm working it's how can I make someone else

00:16:03.660 feel and not always just pleasure sometimes it is pain but feel in a visceral way what I'm feeling

00:16:12.480 maybe maybe selfishly to make me feel less alone but also hopefully to give them something some

00:16:22.900 kind of a gift to and then maybe they are you know if they are also writers they might think

00:16:30.680 about ways to go deep into their own experience to translate it so that someone else can feel

00:16:37.340 and experience that and then that of course is I think empathy starts there I yeah I really see the

00:16:48.420 wisdom in this because I think when people are passionate and in love and present with what

00:16:55.280 they're working on speaking to writing on I know I get drawn in I mean as soon as you started

00:17:01.440 speaking about rice and doll and ginger I was like oh yeah like if somebody were really passionately

00:17:06.860 writing about that I'd want to know more and it's not maybe something that I it would be my go-to

00:17:12.440 if somebody said well what are your interests maybe I wouldn't right you know but if somebody

00:17:16.620 were really into that I'd be like yeah right and I think there's so much beauty in that itself

00:17:21.480 because in a sense it's also taken out of the capitalist model of how do we find joy or how to

00:17:30.440 you know it's like finding our interest again or or I don't know if that's the way to say it

00:17:36.700 But it doesn't cost us anything to feel passionately, to write passionately, to share passionately with what we're drawn to in this world.

00:17:49.040 And I think that actually makes us healthier humans.

00:17:51.780 It revitalizes our relationships with ourself and others.

00:17:55.600 And I think it's a real and it's almost a practice of gratitude as well, because when we're focusing on what we love and what we're passionate about, we're in a creative, grateful state.

00:18:05.960 Absolutely.

00:18:06.700 yes yeah I'm not necessarily a writer but now I'm like wow I actually I'm like okay where's my

00:18:13.080 journal because this seems like something that would actually uplift me throughout the day and

00:18:18.160 focus my mind I was just speaking with somebody about mental hygiene and it's really easy I know

00:18:25.220 for me personally to start feeding whether it's negative thoughts or anxious thoughts or

00:18:31.660 Or just things that aren't necessarily reality, but I can really make them reality in my mind, and then I live by that.

00:18:41.060 And one of my mentors was like, okay, Ayana, mental hygiene, you need to reel this one back in.

00:18:48.540 And so again, it connects to what you're saying for me, because when we're in these practices of passion, love, gratitude, it is mental hygiene.

00:18:58.460 We are cleaning up the corners of our mind and we're refocusing ourselves on on things that bring us life rather than everything else that can just seep into us so easily.

00:19:11.840 You know, it's not hard now, especially with all the media and just all the emotional pain that so many of us feel.

00:19:19.420 I think it's really easy to get bogged down by fears and stresses and all that stuff.

00:19:25.800 So, yeah, I'm feeling very grateful to be reminded of these practices, because I think it's also empowering, like we don't need to be stuck. It's another way to like, come back to the pleasure and the beauty of life. And yeah, so thank you.

00:19:41.460 Yes, thank you. No, and it's true. It's thinking about being in the flow of something, which isn't always easy to get into the flow. But when I am writing, when I am dancing, when I am listening to music, when I am teaching or talking about writing with someone else, I, walking in nature, you know, with my dogs, there's no cost to those things.

00:20:05.920 and they are so completely consuming for me

00:20:14.160 that it pushes the anxiety away

00:20:16.620 in this really powerful way

00:20:19.640 without trying to force a positivity.

00:20:25.080 You know, I think I'm not good at saying,

00:20:27.040 well, just see the bright side.

00:20:29.360 You know, that's not, the more I do that,

00:20:31.760 the more I'll sort of see the dark side.

00:20:33.460 But if I...

00:20:35.920 do something actively engaged with the world actively it's that's when I can

00:20:43.220 start feeling much so much better so I think that's and it's interesting bring up capitalism

00:20:50.700 in the sense that as you say these aren't things that we have to depend on that model for in the

00:20:58.680 same way most mostly so a good reminder for for me too because it is so easy and just being

00:21:05.840 people you love really that's the number one thing um without phones around

00:21:11.200 distractions yeah

00:21:15.240 in the outhouse fingers pitter patter we are waiting forever after

00:21:29.460 on the blackboard meet me at the station i'm at platform seven

00:21:35.700 Waiting for the wind to change

00:21:39.020 Hold his neck up

00:21:45.060 Lifeless like a turkey

00:21:46.780 Limb and feeling breathless

00:21:49.040 Pressed upon the coffee stand

00:21:51.700 Didn't I say I'd stay home tonight

00:21:58.640 Didn't I say I'd stay home tonight

00:22:02.760 yeah i wonder there's an interview you did a sex magic podcast and you said

00:22:27.800 quote the books make me aware of what I need to learn end quote and I'm wondering how does the

00:22:35.500 process of reflection and refraction through storytelling alter both the listener and the

00:22:41.500 storyteller nicely said so I think when I set out to write a book I don't necessarily know

00:22:48.420 why I'm compelled to write it I don't start with the theme in other words and most of my students

00:22:55.220 don't seem to start with the theme and when I teach a class I bring up the theme at the end

00:23:00.420 and I say write down what are the things that you believe in that you when if you thought you were

00:23:06.520 to die tomorrow what would you want people to know that you believed about the world and you can write

00:23:11.680 them as cliches it's just for the meaning as opposed to the the way you say it although many

00:23:18.580 of them say very original beautiful things and then I say is that in your book and they'll look

00:23:24.880 back and oh it is or no it's not but I could put it in more so I think these books teach us

00:23:32.260 or these not just books but I think art teaches us what it you know what it is at least for me I

00:23:40.600 need to understand or learn when I wrote House of Cards I didn't understand that it was a I knew

00:23:47.720 there was a myth that I was very drawn to the character emerged sort of full-blown in my head

00:23:55.420 when one day in response to the way another book ended and that I'd written in a very tragic way

00:24:03.180 and this character came to avenge that character and I had these elements I knew it was going to

00:24:10.900 beset in the Salton Sea that's all I knew and I discovered the story as I went and I discovered

00:24:19.320 ultimately that the story was a search for love but not as much the romantic love that's that's

00:24:28.400 depicted but finding the self and putting the self back together so that was something that I

00:24:34.600 had to you know wander through the desert for a long time to discover interestingly this is a

00:24:42.260 little bit of a tangent but my beloved therapist of many years speaking of mentors passed away

00:24:48.040 got very sick and passed away within the years a few years ago and I went I was having trouble

00:24:53.880 going to see anyone else because just she was such my soul mate you know mentor and I found a woman

00:25:02.540 I liked and I still wasn't sure because it was hard to attach again but she said this I was

00:25:09.400 telling her about my book and or no I'm sorry I wasn't even talking about my book I was just

00:25:13.020 talking about what was going on in my life at the time and she said it sounds like you're wandering

00:25:18.120 in a desert like so thirsty for for this love and I started laughing I said do you know that's the

00:25:26.600 book I'm writing basically you know it is that search in the desert so think synchronicity

00:25:33.940 synchronicities like that also sort of validate that's another topic but um that I feel like I'm

00:25:43.560 on the right path when I when I have that so anyway that goes way off topic but to your point

00:25:51.280 about what was it sorry no it's good I like when the stream of consciousness takes over and we just

00:25:58.820 are led by what we're being um yeah what we're being I'm sorry theme that was it yeah no I I

00:26:08.440 like when that happens you we just get taken by the stream but um yeah I I want to think about

00:26:16.260 the importance of magic and enchantment in a world that is rapidly attempting to create

00:26:23.440 uniform experiences of reality. And I see as social media grows, it seems that we are often

00:26:32.280 swapping imagination for simple stimulation. And I wonder about the long-term impacts of there being

00:26:38.980 less reading, less imagination, I think less magic because of the ubiquity of social media

00:26:45.440 and our phones yes and i think that's in the last few years i've been really developing a magic

00:26:52.400 practice and i i haven't thought of it as specifically to counter that but i think that

00:26:57.500 makes perfect sense um this is something that i do with collage and candles and water and glass

00:27:07.780 and the moon and these like sort of poems drawings not for sharing as as my art but for my own

00:27:19.020 spiritual practice and healing um and zero phones and zero you know posts and photos

00:27:31.200 myself or whatever the stuff that we do i don't know anyway so i think that it magic like art

00:27:41.280 like love you know it is a practice they're all one thing to me frankly but um it is a practice

00:27:47.900 and it takes a lot of work and daily diligence to to commit to them and we're being pulled i mean

00:27:56.120 And I'm constantly being pulled away, not just by the things I have to do to survive, but also the things that I don't have to do that somehow seduce me into thinking that I need them to survive.

00:28:10.320 So I think it's this interest in spirituality and mysticism and magic and tarot, astrology that, you know, is partly being distributed through the internet, which is great, right?

00:28:27.740 we have access to that in in different ways um some of my friends who who do that kind of work

00:28:33.600 and reach people broadly but also to find it and away from that in a in a concrete way in real time

00:28:43.140 and space yeah i guess i'm also or following this thread is it seems that reading and free thought

00:28:54.000 are seen as threats to the current systems of power, which I guess really isn't anything new

00:28:59.980 when thinking back in history. But, you know, now I'm thinking about so many book bans and school

00:29:05.640 districts across the United States, you know, for instance. And I'm just wondering, what is it about

00:29:10.860 the power of imagination and transportation that makes it so threatening to these vast systems of

00:29:17.540 power? You know, I love it when my students talk a lot about trigger warnings, right? And

00:29:23.620 of course I don't force anyone to read anything that makes them feel that way but I stop and I

00:29:29.660 say just think about this fact these are words on a page that's all they are but they're making us

00:29:36.320 feel this how potent that is you know whether you choose to read them or not whether it's too much

00:29:44.560 for your mental state at the time but just the fact that these words are doing this that's

00:29:52.780 Dante, that's power. So it would make sense to me that, you know, we're being distracted from

00:30:00.220 some of that in order to not fight back against some of this stuff that's happening. And I think,

00:30:08.760 yeah, I do notice a huge difference, less people reading, but storytelling is survival. It's how

00:30:15.380 we survive ourselves, but it's also how we help others survive. You know, there's a book called

00:30:21.420 Wire for Story by Lisa Cron that she just talks about the way storytelling evolved to keep us

00:30:30.380 alive because when you're sitting around the campfire talking about how you escaped the

00:30:34.720 dinosaur you know you're you're not just engaging somebody in in a way that takes their mind off

00:30:41.640 things you're you're actually showing them how to survive that dinosaur you know that whatever it

00:30:48.920 might be whatever that symbolizes now. Yeah, I want to talk more about this idea of survival.

00:30:57.140 And there was, well, there's this kind of twofold. There was a quote from your recent

00:31:02.340 interview in the Daily Mail where you say, quote, I think that those two things, the survival aspect

00:31:08.480 and the craft aspect are actually connected. That's another thing that I teach in order to

00:31:14.100 learn the message of the story in order to survive, one needs a structure that helps the

00:31:19.800 reader identify with the character to go on the journey of the story and learn the message of the

00:31:24.560 story, end quote. And maybe the second part to that is thinking about the value of myths and

00:31:30.680 archetypes as profound messages for survival. And in that same interview, you say, quote,

00:31:37.260 I feel that these stories give us a template on how to survive in the world in a way. That's why

00:31:43.020 they've survived so long. Even if we don't understand why we are drawn to the story,

00:31:48.100 we may still feel it resonate and give us some kind of guidance. I love them for that, end quote.

00:31:54.960 So thinking about your work continuing this legacy of myth, and how do you connect it to

00:32:02.060 the greater human project of survival? I think that I like those quotes because I sound much

00:32:11.240 more articulate than i feel now about it um but let's let me think if i can add anything to that

00:32:18.280 thank you for sharing them i think that as i said with house of hearts i didn't know why i was drawn

00:32:25.140 to the particular myth um i have others too like orpheus is one persephone um i just keep going to

00:32:34.960 them trying to understand why and maybe I'll never fully understand why but there is something about

00:32:44.580 going into the underworld about seeking the beloved about piecing someone back together

00:32:52.460 that resonates for me as a human in the world so I think just following that

00:33:01.120 desire to understand ourselves and looking to these mentor stories as you kind of created

00:33:10.960 that metaphor at the beginning I know for me it's just it's just an essential and I'm always trying

00:33:20.040 to encourage people to follow that path and I think the craft aspect of that is just how do you

00:33:26.660 make the reader care as much as you do about this story and this character so that they will

00:33:35.760 also understand this message that the myth imparts so whether that is making a character

00:33:45.600 gifted in a special way flawed in a certain way whether it's making sure they have a clear

00:33:52.680 want or desire a strong antagonist whether it's about seeing them change which i think is really

00:33:59.660 the basic of a principle of a story is how does someone change over the course of the story which

00:34:06.840 is a guide for how to we do we survive change which is inevitable in our own lives yeah it's

00:34:14.860 interesting because i'm like this change that's inevitable i'm thinking about the book you wrote

00:34:21.780 called love in the time of global warming and i think it's interesting how you captured human

00:34:27.760 emotions and setting regarding a process that we still don't even know the full ramifications of

00:34:33.400 and so i think the question of inevitability and the mystery and how those two things connect

00:34:44.640 because like even of course death is coming for all of us like that's inevitable but there's a

00:34:51.700 great mystery of how we're going to live until that moment and similarly with climate change

00:34:59.260 i think it signifies a death yeah a grand death of many different species of ecosystems of

00:35:07.140 ourselves in many ways of our history and legacies but yet again we don't we see it happening and

00:35:14.380 Sure, we have data and we can point to graphs, but ultimately, we don't know how it's going to unfold.

00:35:23.340 And we don't know when the next natural disaster will hit or where or how severe.

00:35:29.040 I mean, there's just so much that is.

00:35:31.560 So it's interesting.

00:35:32.560 It's like inevitability and mystery.

00:35:34.400 I keep going back to these two words.

00:35:36.360 And I think you were able to work with those two themes really well.

00:35:42.240 And I wonder if you have any thoughts on that.

00:35:45.780 I love the word mystery, you know, and for me, there's a spirituality that is very redemptive

00:35:55.520 in the face of the inevitability of change.

00:36:00.140 And change also is not always, it's scary, but it's often a really positive thing, right?

00:36:07.260 Birth is change too.

00:36:09.620 So love is change too.

00:36:12.240 So I think growth, you know, all these things, healing.

00:36:17.520 I think, though, what I, for me, it's this idea that something goes on and continues no matter what.

00:36:27.540 And again, I would call it love.

00:36:30.000 I would call it art.

00:36:31.300 I would call it spirituality.

00:36:33.500 I would call it magic.

00:36:35.180 They're all really one thing to me.

00:36:37.020 but i mean this is my i it's maybe the first time i've said this publicly and it when i say it

00:36:44.180 privately people just look at me like what are you talking about but it's just my reality is my

00:36:48.080 spiritual beliefs are are based in the idea that for me just for me personally when my children

00:36:56.040 were born i had this sense that i was you know almost complete um there was there's still a

00:37:05.080 still a missing piece but that that was complete in in finding their souls again it just felt so

00:37:12.280 clear to me and I felt that way with a few other people in my life as well and I think that

00:37:19.280 that feeling however it whatever it looks like for an individual might be very different

00:37:26.540 not to be the birth of a child but love or whatever you know it it it goes on it's it's

00:37:33.600 eternal for me so that's how I deal with this a lot of these feelings of fear and of change and

00:37:42.340 I guess that word mystery goes along with that too because I don't understand it it's why I'm

00:37:49.440 so inarticulate as I talk about it now but I I know it's real I believe in it just like I believe

00:37:54.960 in the mystery of you know the universe yeah thinking about like love mystery magic enchantment

00:38:07.820 they all they're all touching each other in one way or another and uh and i wonder in times like

00:38:15.460 these how we turn to magic and enchantment how do we imbue the places in which we live with this

00:38:22.980 degree of magic as you often do in the landscape of California because if we know that we are

00:38:28.860 directly connected to the earth and there really is no separation there I think that to imbue

00:38:36.620 our environments around us with that I love the word enchantment because I think there's so much

00:38:41.980 respect in that word yeah there's and the gratitude of course to be enchanted is to be

00:38:48.620 drawn to in a way that's so um like i could feel it in my body what enchantment feels like but i

00:38:55.440 think you know as we've talked about disconnection or social media or the distractions that's like

00:39:01.360 really a block to the enchantment and if we're so focused on our phones or taken to some other place

00:39:08.140 it's really hard to imbue just outside our window with enchantment we may not even see the

00:39:15.840 enchantment I think that's part of it when we're distracted we may walk right by oh yeah anything

00:39:22.100 whether it's the butterfly the dandelion coming through the crack the you know our neighbor

00:39:28.220 sitting on the porch with her face in the sun I mean there's like all these moments and all these

00:39:32.760 stories and so many worlds and lives happening all around us but I think in today's world also

00:39:39.920 just being so fast paced it's hard to slow down enough to imbue our surroundings with this magic

00:39:48.000 enchantment so yeah i don't know if you have a practice for this or the importance of that

00:39:54.640 re-enchantment with our environments yeah um i do want to say one one thing just back to the words

00:40:01.300 magic enchantment i'll do i i was teaching a class on fairy tales and magical realism i do a lot of

00:40:08.420 And I was researching the meaning of the word fairy tale.

00:40:13.180 And there's a Tolkien quote about not being able to define magic, really.

00:40:20.460 It's something that is ephemeral and you can't quite ever define it.

00:40:26.720 So I'm constantly looking for ways to understand and express it better.

00:40:33.160 And words sometimes, I love words so much,

00:40:35.560 not a lot of times language isn't even enough but that's sort of an aside um when you talked

00:40:43.120 about how to bring it to the environment i think it's some of the things i mentioned earlier like

00:40:47.740 having to started this magic practice that it i i always wanted to do something like this and i

00:40:54.820 felt a little maybe i don't know a little judgment of myself for it i don't know why but when i

00:40:59.580 started doing it i was like oh this is what i did when i was 12 years old you know and younger all

00:41:04.080 the time like dancing in the garden with the flowers you know building little fairy houses

00:41:10.680 or whatever um lighting candles you know doing collages writing little poems that aren't for

00:41:18.440 the intention of publication drawing little pictures for you know of what I imagine my world

00:41:24.520 I would want my world to be like so always dogs dogs always always help with that for me in my

00:41:31.540 whole life animals in general but for me it's been pretty spiritual deep relationships with

00:41:37.900 these dogs I found mostly so I think you know cultivating that you know and I've been dating

00:41:46.860 someone for a few months now and what I keep sort of joking about these peak moments you know like

00:41:53.240 I'm having another peak moment and I'll be like wait what but it's it's just because I'm I'm

00:42:03.040 paying attention so much when I'm with him and I'm honoring that

00:42:10.800 moment to moment sort of experience so I'm seeing stuff much more often I had that also when my

00:42:18.520 children were young because I was just so focused in on them and my relationship with them in the

00:42:24.900 moment that the care and the love so I think I think it's a it's really a lot about attention

00:42:30.240 too which is as you know your whole thing about this sort of slow discussion and

00:42:37.260 and thinking about things feeling it being present it's powerful

00:42:42.700 Raven is my name

00:43:09.620 My mother is the wind

00:43:14.780 Cradled in her arms

00:43:22.200 Danced together on the breath

00:43:27.080 I have traveled to the edge of death

00:43:36.700 Laughter fills the void

00:43:41.140 There's so many things to ask you

00:43:48.520 and I know our time is getting shorter

00:43:50.020 but there's definitely a theme that I wanted to bring up

00:43:54.140 which is the hero's journey and the journey of womanhood

00:43:56.740 and I'm just thinking about the balance of sharing

00:44:03.580 what it can be like to come of age and I'm curious to hear your reflections on healing our inner girl

00:44:12.480 and the journey of womanhood that comes with it this is definitely something very personal to me

00:44:19.540 right now um being a woman in this world and and knowing that there you know I've had a lot of my

00:44:27.700 own traumas that have come with that and I don't want to bring them along any longer I don't want

00:44:34.520 to continue bringing them into the next year next year so um yeah just this healing of our inner girl

00:44:42.160 is in the journey of womanhood yeah just I'd love to hear your thoughts on that

00:44:47.940 it's a constant one for me it will probably be till I die I can't imagine it ever fully

00:44:55.400 healing to be honest that doesn't mean i can't be feel a lot healthier feel joy certainly

00:45:02.980 help others maybe help others more because i'm i still have to confront it so so much

00:45:11.800 i i think it is an ongoing journey and that's it that's okay to to know that

00:45:22.300 part of the healing is just feeling it being doing the work

00:45:28.940 uh and being conscious and aware and probably biggest thing of all you don't have to do it

00:45:37.540 alone my motto is basically life is really can can be really hard and we don't have to do it

00:45:44.740 alone we just have to reach out a little and and open ourselves a little and we'll have others

00:45:51.420 there to support us as they also go through this same journey and that to me is so powerful and

00:45:58.880 beautiful and when I write these books which revisit this this journey over and over again

00:46:05.340 really it doesn't have to be a book again someone can do it through many types of work but I'm

00:46:11.340 sending a message of in a bottle sort of out into the world and saying like I'm experiencing this

00:46:16.860 are you, you know, how can I help you? And when I get a response, then I'm also healed more. So

00:46:24.760 I think it's about community, consciousness, being present, mentorship, being mentored as

00:46:31.840 you brought up, mystery, spirituality, all the things we've talked about. It's part of that,

00:46:39.760 that journey. Yeah. And I love how in your book, especially your new book, House of Hearts,

00:46:50.520 often focuses on a journey or a quest, but this is not just a typical hero's journey. There's

00:46:56.620 something, I think, deeply feminine and complex as well. And I'd love to hear more about how you

00:47:03.700 tap into the feminine journey archetype through writing so i interestingly i wrote this book

00:47:10.780 very stream of consciousness in vignettes um like i was sort of dreaming it and once i had that draft

00:47:17.960 down and it did have a journey to the underworld which they sort of all seem to have

00:47:25.240 but the then what I did was I kind of put a much more rational hat on and I started looking at

00:47:37.600 story structure traditional story structure and I studied it and I rearranged the story

00:47:44.320 in a much more traditional way but because I had started with such a deep internal mystical

00:47:52.740 stream of consciousness poetic approach i'm hoping that that common you know that by adding

00:48:00.280 this structure it actually strengthens the story and and so it's kind of a masculine feminine

00:48:06.700 right brain left brain process to find that for me i i do think you know i i looked at hero's

00:48:15.120 journey i looked at heroine's journey gustav fraytax pyramid vladimir prop and the screenplay

00:48:20.200 beads um and i think another a few others as well but you know really there are some basic

00:48:29.660 structural elements that go through many of them but the key the trick is to kind of start with

00:48:36.980 the very personal and then start thinking a little more about your audience and about how to present

00:48:45.700 a story that people can understand and again learn from in the way that we talked about earlier

00:48:53.500 so I don't know I think I think those are all I love studying all the different structures and

00:48:59.360 then I love when my students come back and say you know what this one I don't like this this

00:49:03.140 didn't work or this one resonated for me or this felt formulaic but it's just about knowing the

00:49:09.120 different structures and for me a three-act structure is is a kind of a natural way of

00:49:15.100 seeing the world but it's not for everyone in any case I think it's a very this story is a very

00:49:23.460 personal one but it's also very much grounded in in myth and traditional storytelling and I guess

00:49:32.360 that's what my basic philosophy is it's a mixture of those two elements putting those things

00:49:38.720 together your personal experience and what we learned from our ancestors and mentors

00:49:45.080 yeah along with the hero's journey I guess I'm wondering as a storyteller what do you think are

00:49:54.660 some of the most important stories of our time or what messages do you think the collective is

00:50:00.440 really in need of right now well you know of course this this whole movement now for for

00:50:09.040 you know diverse voices all this is is hugely life-changing important you know world changing

00:50:17.480 I think that is is maybe probably the biggest thing I've seen in my or is the biggest thing

00:50:25.020 I've seen in my lifetime as far as a paradigm shift and to be in the midst of it is really

00:50:30.340 exciting so I would say that I think you know just getting giving people opportunity and

00:50:37.280 validation that their stories matter and if they have their voices have been silenced and giving

00:50:42.740 that platform to be heard it's going to change the world and it just has to continue like that

00:50:49.560 and hopefully we'll do so I mean I feel this generation is not going to let go of that you

00:50:55.060 know and they shouldn't yeah I think it's also fascinating because there's the stories of our

00:51:02.920 time or that collectively are very present for us but then you know your books have been so

00:51:09.780 influential for decades and I think that storytelling can really connect us and with

00:51:17.640 others across time and of course there's stories that we've been telling for thousands of years

00:51:25.120 and reading for hundreds of years and yes and so yeah how do we make stories that hold up against

00:51:31.980 the test of time or what do you see with the stories that have been able to do that

00:51:35.980 I think uh they help us you know they start by connecting us to a character

00:51:46.020 in a way as I mentioned earlier that that we feel we can identify with that character

00:51:52.160 and there are craft techniques that do that that I talk a lot about in my classes but

00:51:57.100 you know they they start with that and then they they often go on some kind of a journey

00:52:03.080 and teach something thematically and I think there is a universality to that also I just to go back

00:52:13.200 a little to what we were talking about earlier you know i was fortunate so fortunate that

00:52:17.320 i was told my whole life because i was surrounded by happened to be born into

00:52:22.780 a time and place and with parents that said your voice matters your stories are important

00:52:29.020 you know they have value what i my goal is as a teacher now so many people do not have that

00:52:36.900 do not grow up with that so what i try to do is like how can i give that validation and it is

00:52:42.840 so beautiful to see how people who are carrying these stories it's wonderful stories around with

00:52:49.300 them they just need that little bit of validation and and then some little bit of craft which we

00:52:56.460 all which i constantly am learning more about every day but and then it's just like they they

00:53:02.680 just it's just a blossoming it's so beautiful so the more of that i think then uh the more of that

00:53:11.420 kind of support and encouragement we can give to each other, the more these beautiful stories will

00:53:17.620 emerge and hopefully fight this, you know, wave of perhaps this idea that stories are

00:53:27.540 less important than, you know, the kind of makeup that you buy or whatever it might be,

00:53:33.000 you know, so I think that there's a very hopeful movement around this validation of voices as well

00:53:40.580 as these other things we're talking about that are maybe trying to combat it yeah well Francesca

00:53:46.720 this has been such a beautiful and heartfelt conversation and I'm wondering as we begin to

00:53:55.440 wrap up I really want to meditate for a moment on the distinctly human goal of so many of your

00:54:02.880 characters which is the search for love and often though we're sold false images of what love looks

00:54:13.060 like or even means and i'm thinking of house of hearts which heavily features a cult focused on

00:54:19.980 finding self-help and so i am interested on how do we learn to recognize real and powerful love

00:54:27.040 oh that's a good question it's taken a long time for me i would say um i think knowing the self

00:54:37.280 deeply or at least you know sometimes when we're very young you may not feel

00:54:44.660 we do yet and that's the mean we can't have profound love so i don't want to make it sound

00:54:50.320 like it's out of reach but i think the the the understanding of the self the understanding of

00:54:57.140 the shadow self the understanding of the wound and the past history just like you would create

00:55:03.140 a character really you know to create a good character in a story you need to understand

00:55:09.080 these things about them um i think to be in the world and to really understand love you know it's

00:55:15.020 still a lot of putting together the severed parts of the self through whatever practices,

00:55:21.800 you know, whether it's talking to a friend, whether it's writing, whether it's another

00:55:27.060 form of art, meditation, all the healing arts, movement, music, really those, that is the

00:55:37.540 journey and then i think once you've begun to repair and as i said remember it goes on the

00:55:45.200 repair could go on for a very long time but once you've begun the process of awareness around it

00:55:50.640 and support from someone who understands us you know then i think it can happen it's really a lot

00:55:59.600 of um i believe in this attachment theory in psychology which is about finding someone who

00:56:06.060 really sees you in whatever role they could be a parent but they might be a mentor teacher or

00:56:11.440 friend and they might be a lover but you know might be a child and build this strong bond with

00:56:20.900 them that then becomes internalized for both of you and I think that those strengthening those

00:56:28.120 relationships strengthen the self and then allow for more loving relationships to grow out of that

00:56:36.060 But I'm still figuring it out.

00:56:38.480 I'm still trying to figure it out.

00:56:42.200 Well, wonderful.

00:56:43.460 Thank you again, Francesca.

00:56:45.060 I really enjoyed this time with you.

00:56:49.420 And yeah, look forward to,

00:56:52.120 and now I just want to curl up with a book, honestly.

00:56:54.160 I'm like, okay.

00:56:56.200 I'm ready to hunker down for a moment.

00:56:59.620 Me too.

00:57:00.280 Thank you so much.

00:57:01.400 This was beautiful to speak with you.

00:57:06.060 Thank you for listening to For the Wild podcast.

00:57:08.740 The music you heard today was by 40 Million Feet, India Blue, and Ariana Saraja in Flight Behavior.

00:57:16.880 For the Wild is created by Ayanna Young, Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell, and Julia Jackson.

For The Wild - February 15, 2023

FRANCESA LIA BLOCK on Finding Rhythm Through Word ⧸323

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