Have you noticed that we are writing by hand less and less these days? Sometimes it’s just a signature with a blunt stylus at the grocery store, or a polite signature with your finger on a credit card payment screen. Handwriting certainly seems like a dying form, as we happily type on our keyboards, and respond to emails that fly in from all over.
Is this an issue with handwriting away? Or is it the inevitable unfolding of language forms over the centuries, from oral to printed, and now electronic? Before we move on, let’s slow down for a moment and consider the role of writing through hand plays.
Able to revive an art form
I believe that handwriting still serves a deep purpose in our lives and to let it die would be a disservice to our souls. Especially since it is no longer necessary for communication, handwriting as an embodied act of creative expression, a harmony of mind and body, can now be freed to express its true nature. Handwriting doesn’t need to be folded and died. It can rise again as the original artistic process, unique to each of us, available to all, and truly intimate.
Before writing, humans made signs. They were drawn in the sand, painted on cave walls, carved on rocks. These marks were formed out of a deep desire to connect with the power of the world. By drawing the tree, the bison, the moon, an understanding occurred, an energy was touched. (Anyone who draws is aware of this.)
Our alphabet grew out of these drawings – of a bull, a fish, a hand, a hook, a house, a cave. These shapes are passed along, making the actual images easier to handle. By 1200 BC, a 22-letter alphabet emerged with Phoenician traders and over time evolved into the Roman alphabet. This curriculum system was effective for trade. It also remained a magical portal connecting the inner voice to the outer world, and ideas were brought into form through the movement of the hand on the page.
Our brains love it when we write by hand
A recent article in The New York Times (“What’s Lost as Handwriting Blurs”)) A study at Indiana University was described where children who had not yet learned to read or write were asked to draw a letter freehand, then trace it with a dashed outline, and then press the correct key on a computer. The researchers were surprised to find that brain activity was stronger from freehand drawing actions, which fire in three different areas, while tracing and typing movements barely stimulated the brain.
The article also states that children who handwrite seem to be able to generate ideas more easily, and older students retain information better when they take lecture notes by hand. There’s something about the messiness of writing, its transformative nature, that wakes us up, fires the synapses, gets us going. That ancient way of understanding the world through drawing is still at work in the process of writing by hand. It turns out that it’s the imperfection and change in how we write that sparks our creative flow.
Handwriting as a mindfulness practice
Whether you enjoy your handwriting, or are embarrassed and uncomfortable with it, hitting the page with some “slow writing” every day can open up your creative channels and keep them humming.
It’s a practice of looking at ourselves, how we write, our handwriting and allowing ourselves to be unique, quirky, imperfect – and to appreciate them.
It’s not about improving your handwriting, it’s more about improving your character than meditation (although both can be a side benefit!). It’s a practice of seeing ourselves, how we write, our handwriting and ourselves, unique, quirky, imperfect – and allowing them to be appreciated.
When I write by hand, I fall under the spell of forms and magic and mystery about who I am and how I show up in this world. The letters are traces left behind, tracks of my inner journey through this life.
When I write by hand, familiar shapes rotate and create new combinations. But it’s something about the physical act – holding the hand and the pen – which is meditation, that brings me into the present. Body sensations are the basis – pain, touch, softness of paper. The moving line is the breath that flows along. And the words that appear on the page are thoughts that take shape, weather on the horizon.
It is this physical aspect of writing – sitting and listening through body, hand, pen – that can prove something substantial and true. Every shape, every word, is an expression of how the world is living in me. When I write by hand, I go all the way to the end of the page, enjoying the sensuality of it all, the way the letters link and dance and go together, waiting expectantly for the next pulse, the next wave, the next thought, ready to articulate. Handwriting is the reporter, based on the past, shaping it all, wondering and being in the moment.
Embracing both the old and the new
I am not suggesting that we abandon our computers and go back to pen and paper. (Though taking the time to write a thoughtful letter can be a really rewarding activity.) I’m just as involved with the growing world of online information.
What I’m suggesting is that handwriting can become a theoretical process, a generator of insight, a profound activity as we confront the vast, fast-moving electronic world. This is the whole process.
Practice: Put pen to paper
Sit down with a couple of sheets of paper in front of you and a pen you like to write with. Feel your body, your fingers holding the pen, your hand resting on the paper, your arm ready to guide, your feet resting on the floor or your back.
At the top of the page, write the words “when I write by hand” and then see what pops into your mind next. It may be a childhood memory of learning to write. Follow the associations to explain what you have until you come to a break in your thoughts.
Write the prompt again, “When I write by hand….” And get to it, don’t worry about words, complete sentences or perfect punctuation or spelling. Sit still. Let your writing slow down. See how the forms change with this change of speed. Notice how you feel.
Fill up two sheets of paper, or write for 10 minutes, then read what happened. Where did you start? where did you end up You are involved in an ancient practice of bringing the height of thought—what the ancient Chinese called “heaven.” Joining “heaven and earth” through human expression is the essence of art.
