Coyote Collaboration: Communal Writing with Unsuspecting Strangers
by Erin Robertson
An opening howl
We are part of something much larger than ourselves, an interconnected whole that stretches upward to the stars.
These are my people. This is my home.
Coyote in the desert is howling in the darkness, calling forth the pack, lifting up the Moon.
Photo: USFWS
Why do we write?
Photo: pbs.org
We are artists. What does that mean?
In creative work-creative work of all kinds-those who are the world’s working artists are not trying to help the world go around, but forward. Which is something altogether different from the ordinary. Such work does not refute the ordinary. It is, simply, something else. Its labor requires a different outlook-a different set of priorities. Certainly there is within each of us a self that is neither a child, nor a servant of the hours. It is a third self, occasional in some of us, tyrant in others. This self is out of love with the ordinary; it is out of love with time. It has a hunger for eternity.
-Mary Oliver, “Of Power and Time”
My favorite quote of all time:
For life, too, is only an instant,
Only the dissolving of ourselves
In the selves of all others
As if bestowing a gift
The Over-Soul/Collective Unconscious
...that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart,....within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE….
The mind is one, and the best minds, who love truth for its own sake, think much less of property in truth. They accept it thankfully everywhere, and do not label or stamp it with any man's name, for it is theirs long beforehand, and from eternity….We owe many valuable observations to people who are not very acute or profound, and who say the thing without effort, which we want and have long been hunting in vain.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Over-Soul”
How to write like a coyote
How can you help folks sneak up on writing?
short, simple, visual collaborative writing projects
Have your audience help write your material.
They will REALLY listen!
A multi-step approach to collaborative expression
quick and easy idea generator
workshop
performance
yearofthebirdconcert.com
DIY writing ambassador residency
You never know who needs to howl.
Have a part of your writing practice that removes ego
A few keys to coyote-style collaborative writing:
How do you gauge success?
You are a poet
who has become
part of your community's
artistic, spiritual life,
and isn't that wonderful?
-Mike O’Brien
Resources
What other examples come to mind?
What ideas will you pounce on?
Photo: flickr.com/JustinJensen
Join the pack and let me know how it goes!
303.229.2014
@bocowildwriters
(Facebook + Instagram)
Photo: Janet Kessler