Confessions of a Rogue Healer: Why I Write on Typewriters
(That was me typing on a Smith Corona Silent in the remote cabin I'll mention soon, around 2015. A sprawling novel that became fragmented and disjointed when I tried to digitize it. A Valuable learning!)
Kindred Spirit,
After I broke my neck in 2008, from 2010 to about 2013, I underwent a radical apprenticeship with a healer. It was via her tiny healing school in San Francisco, Pleasanton, and Corte Madera in California.
During the first few classes, my whole body was vibrating. The teacher touched a woman's sternum, and the woman burst into tears, confessing all of her childhood traumas to an astounded room.
'This is where I am meant to be', I thought. Chills ran up my spine. 'I didn't know things like this were taught, but I knew they existed.'
The school closed down soon after my mentor's death a few years ago, and it was a bit of a shock for me. Because I knew that now I was one of the only ones worldwide holding this knowledge.
Not to mention SFAI closed down recently as well. That was where I went to graduate school for painting.
(So my history is vanishing in my wake?)
Anyway, I bring this up because much of what I learned from her, PC, who I call Calypso Byrd,
When I worked with clients, I touched them, and tears flowed forth. Past life memories often emerged. Pre-conscious memories. Etc etc etc.
Anyway, I realized how important it was to guard the sense doors after I released trauma from a woman which she'd sustained while watching a film as a child. Another woman walked with a limp and no doctors could figure out why, until, during somatic exploration, she remembered that she'd seen a little girl hit by a car as a child. She took on the injury via her empathetic nature.
Anyway, for the healing sessions to work, I had to be present. I had to be more than present; ablaze... full of light. After a Vipassana, 10 days of silence, they were powerful.
What else was frightening was that, 7 days into the retreat, I still reached around for my phone out of habit. That wasn't my body. It was this 'habit body' that was acting of its own accord.
What I realized was that the more I was on screens, the less present I was. And vice versa.
As a writer, this posed a bit of a problem. For years I struggled with it, and I wrote things. I just fell out of my body too often, and had to shake off this trance before sessions for hours and hours.
I lived on a sailboat. I lived in a cabin in the redwoods. I lived in an airstream.
I was essentially always trying to simplify and escape being over stimulated.
Now I live with my children, in a city. No more of that, for now. I need to build my life consciously to stay 'ablaze'.
And to do that, I use typewriters. I use digital minimalism. I lock my phone in a box. I use a NEXUS, a box of paper cards. I read on paper and I write on paper.
To share what I learn in my growing, and to continue to learn from the world, I started Present Company around a select group of LIVING people... Every new moon we unfold our papers (The Bloom Papers) and unfold ourselves.
We return to reality. To the joy of being.
Because while I run Classic Typewriter, people keep pushing 'digitizing' everything onto me. Digitize, scale, become a commodity. Make video upon video.
Yes, but that defeats the purpose. I'm not Luddite. I use tech. But I don't want to be on screens all day. And I don't want it to be the only way to interact with me or my company.
My ideal is to run a company entirely offline. So far, I have it to just two 'screened' interactions. And the rest is blissful paper and natural light.
Is it a fool's errand? I don't know. But even a fool's errand can become a living thing in this over-connected world.
And yes, it is typewritten.
And there are interactive opportunities for writing in, gathering at special seasons, surprises by mail, all those sorts of things.
While billion dollar companies gradually take over the world, I walk out in nature, rush to the typewriter, and spend my nights hand-scribing notes and folding letters.
The Bloom Papers are not only about folding inward, but folding outward. My 'internal' notes branch outward somehow. Threaded together like roots, like stars.
I woke up last night, startled at my own beating heart.
I'm getting that vibrating feeling again, like I'm in the right place.
I live a unique life under these immortal stars, and I look forward to hearing more about yours.
In any case, stay human my friend.
Write On,
Steven Budden Jr.
Present Company => Humans Blooming Offline Together. If you want the details, follow the link and send your address... they'll come by MAIL.
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Classic Typewriter Co. => Finest Typewriters in the World
Chapel Hill, NC
PS (More and more of my writings will go into the paper newsletter when it launches at November new moon).
Recommended Machines:
Hermes 3000
Our top of the line writing machine.
Timeless modernism, with every non-digital feature you could ever need.
Legendary Swiss Engineering.
Jack Kerouac, Sylvia Plath.
#writeon
Smith Corona Silent
The machine that started it all for me.
A fluid feel, visible engineering.
Hearkens back to the age of 'vintage', with the metal-rimmed keys.
A sturdy, understated, shockingly cool workhorse.
TS. Eliot wrote The Wasteland on one.
Smith Corona Sterling
A more affordable, minimalist approach to luxury than the Hermes 3k.
This beauty will last a lifetime (and probably much more).
Comes with a deluxe hard shell case.