"befriending my subconscious"

essayist, author, and environmental writer Christina Rivera on opening and shutting her "subconscious door," holding suffering and grief, and the sparkle of beginner's mind 🌊

This is a Beginner’s Mind interview, a series that explores the intersection of mindfulness and creative practice. Zen master Shunryū Suzuki Roshi said, “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind, there are few.” This series shines a light on the practices that sustain people in their daily lives and open the path to new possibilities. Subscribe below to make sure you don’t miss any future interviews. ✨

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Today’s interview is with essayist and environmental writer Christina Rivera, whose debut memoir, My Oceans, came to me by way of this good creatures interview with Nancy Reddy at Write More. I was on a family trip in San Francisco and I was scrolling along in a zombie moment when we’d just landed in our airbnb and the kids didn’t need me for awhile, and I read this line: “I was just interrupted five times by a child in the writing of that last sentence.” I laughed out loud and kept reading and nodding my head.

Later that day, I was wandering with my kids in City Lights Bookstore and bought a copy of her book (Sorry, Nico, I know I said I wouldn’t buy any more books for awhile…) I’m glad I defied my book buying pause because My Oceans has been hugely important to me over the last few months and I needed to dog-ear it and underline the hell out of it. It’s one of the few books I’ve read that has named the climate grief I feel and how it intersects with my feminism and my love for my children and the natural world.

In her author’s note, Rivera writes, “I wrote this book between naptimes and mealtimes and bedtimes. I also wrote this book in pieces because it was through my fragmentation that the distinctions between Earth’s oceans and my own receded. The shape, the movement, of these essays was always waves. Sometimes crashing, sometimes lapping, sometimes with riptides that pulled me into existential crisis and spit me out. I don’t pretend to have answers. If my journey has taught me anything, it’s to rigorously confess that I make mistakes that we have all made the so-many mistakes that have landed us upon this eroding shoreline of warming waters, melting glaciers, and waning species.”

Somewhere along the way of underlining and starring countless lines, I thought, “I need to ask her for an interview because I bet she would have a lot of wisdom to share.” She did. Read on, friends, for a peek into Christina’s practices. I especially love what she shared about opening and shutting her “subconscious door,” holding suffering and grief in this moment, and the sparkle of beginner’s mind (& if you’re reading this in email, click HERE to read it in full!) 🌊

“Writing memoir feels like publishing half your face.”

What are your writing/creative practices? Do you have any rituals or habits that help you?

I’m a big fan of befriending my subconscious as my best writing friend. Much of what I write feels like snippets of dialogue stolen from conversations I’ve had with my dream self, and some of my best published sentences were lines I texted to myself at two am and then found on my phone in the morning. I’m actually somewhat shy and quiet in person, so this very chatty subconscious self is funny to confess. If you read My Oceans carefully, you’ll see this pattern because I often embed these conversations-with-myself into my essays. My creativity is also very seasonal.

Autumn is my primary creative season, and the minute the kids go back to school, I start going to bed at 8:30pm and waking up at 5:30am. That early dark hour, while the house sleeps, feels sacred to me. And if I can get to the page fast enough, it’s my ripest hour for continuing the conversations I had through the night. I try to protect those morning hours by staying off my phone, deferring my marketing-writing work, and even asking family members not to talk logistics with me until after noon. If I’m sorting out weekend dog sitters for hockey tournaments at nine am, the rest of my day kind of takes on that left-brained voice, and that makes my right brain scowl.

Also, there’s a “subconscious door” that I have to actively open and shut. For example, as summer approaches, I need to close it. Otherwise, my subconscious is banging at the door, and yet the school plays, sports camps, and camping logistics are all screaming louder, and then I can get into a very angsty and sharp-tongued place. But it’s September right now, my happiest (if deliciously exhausting) month of chasing my writing muse! So let’s stay in this nice season?

What are your mindfulness practices? Do you have your own definition or way of thinking about mindfulness? Can you describe your practices and what they bring into your life?

In July of ‘24, in preparation for the onslaught of ‘25 that I felt coming, I did a Buddhist retreat with my ten-year-old daughter. When I came home, I pulled together an altar. I didn’t have to do much. As it turned out, I had been collecting items for my altar for two decades and didn’t know it. But I told my mother-in-law I was looking for an altar and she said she had something in storage, and it showed up on my porch and fit perfectly into my tiny writing room (converted, quite symbolically, from the kids’ nursery).

The items on my altar were things I’d picked up from my travels around the world: shells, sculpted deities, storied stones, etc. They were collecting dust in boxes and corners, but all sighed with relief when they found homes on the low table in front of my kneeling cushion.

“Does taking a photo of an altar steal its soul? (I hope not!)”

I started lighting a candle and sitting for twenty-ish minutes, a few times a week. That seat, now, feels like the only reason I’ve survived the last year. This year still feels like a daily game of surviving the grief. But now I need to sit like my dog needs her walk outside. And for a few minutes of every meditation, I put my forehead to the ground and I hold my grief like I would a baby. When I give my grief my attention, it seems to let up, and give me permission to feel other non-griefy things.

These days, most of my short meditations are guided. Depending on my mood or struggle, I pick guided meditations from the Plum Village app or the Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet curriculum I did last fall. I love the ways those calm voices and words and mantras set the tone for my day. That all being said, I have fallen off my meditation practices enough times in my life to know that it could all just walk off a cliff at any moment. But I really hope not. If nothing else, the global and national suffering of this era has really pushed (shoved?) me into my rededicated practice.

Do you see your creative and mindfulness practices as connected? In what ways?

I definitely see my creative and mindfulness practices as connected. My mindfulness practice helps me move more fluidly between states of being. Like, that “subconscious door” I talked about earlier? It can sometimes be one of those revolving doors at the front of hotels, and my creative urges are like my kids: running into it and pushing as hard as possible and screaming as it picks up speed, and then unable to stop the momentum as it bites at their heels. Meditation helps me opt for the other door, the swinging one I can open and push through, that closes gently. My dream recall is also better, and that’s partly because it was part of my new mindfulness routines to (finally!) kick my phone out of my bedroom.

The term “interbeing” is also on the back of my book, and that’s Thích Nhất Hạnh’s word. “Interbeing” was already how I felt the world, but Thích Nhất Hạnh gave me the word to describe it. Also, a Zen Buddhist nun just showed up in my work-in-progress novel, and she’s subtle but persistent. So maybe that’s how my creativity and mindfulness intersect? In subtle and still-surprising ways!

Do you have a mantra or motto related to your creative/mindfulness practices/life?

Well, first, I have a whole wall of mantras and mottos pinned to the wall over my altar. My memory is crap and I enjoy constant reminders. Seasonally, I move the quotes around, retiring some and adding new elements. Here’s a few of the things on my wall today. Interestingly, I think each of these quotes can be read through a creativity eye, and also a mindfulness eye…(different angles of the same gem?!)

“Trust the unsaid things to remain unsaid. Trust the silence to speak through the seams.” —Beth Kephart

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” —James Baldwin

“Migration is not an easy or pleasant thing for a tiny bird to face. [...] The tiny bird, before conditions force it—not driven by fear, but drawn by Hope, commits itself in perfect confidence to that infinite ocean of air.” —Evelyn Underhill

“We must live by the love of what we will never see. That is the secret discipline.” —Rubem Alves

“You are enough.” —Terry Tempest Williams

“My son recently plopped on the couch, looked around, and said, ‘The vibes here are different than the rest of the house…’ lol”

What helps you when you get stuck with your creative/writing practice?

I don’t often get stuck with my writing. I think that’s because the pressures of parenthood make every minute I get to write, feel both urgent and sacred. I’m also very forgiving of myself. I think parenthood makes you a more forgiving person in general. So many days, my writing goals get dropped. But maybe I still listen to a writing or mindfulness podcast in the carpool line. Or I finish reading an essay while waiting for kids at lacrosse practice. Or I didn’t get to sit at my altar, but I can still turn ten minutes of my dog’s walk into walking meditation. Lowering my expectations of everyone (including the country) seems to serve me well.

I also really believe in the power of incubation. I’ve been sitting on a novel draft for a year, dreading the number of comments in the margins that needed to be tackled. But when I did finally drop into it last week, I had fresh clarity and the revising was swift, like my subconscious had indeed been working behind the scenes. Incubation can look a lot like “stuckness.” The pressure can feel uncomfortable, but I like to trust that momentum is secretly building.

What does the phrase “beginners mind” mean to you? Does it connect to your creative/or mindfulness practices? How?

I really hate expectations, so the concept of eternally embracing “beginner’s mind” brings me tremendous relief. I will only and ever claim myself “a student of” Buddhism and mindfulness, knowing full well that I could walk off the cliff of my nice routines and cute wall quotes at any moment. There were a few years in my 20s when I attended Vipassana retreats and meditated every day. But then I fell in love with a boy, and it all went out the door. And then I had a baby, and it all went out the door again (for like ten years!).

You caught me in a moment when I’m rededicating myself to the practice. But that’s just because the suffering of the planet feels otherwise incapable of being held. And I do want to hold it. That feels the least I can do. Meet its eye and hold it with love.

I’ve never thought about how “beginner’s mind” applies to the craft of writing! My first book was a non-fiction book of essays, and that was a five-year skill-learning curve. The novel I’m now working on has required an entirely new set of fiction craft skills. So that was also a long journey of mistakes and study (that I’m still on). And the third book (already talking to me) is, of course, yet another genre. But I love the journey of writing a book. I love starting over. I love beginnings. Maybe for the same reason that I love travel: everything sparkles when you see it for the first time.

“I forgot to mention that I almost always first-draft by hand. Between writing and meditating, I go through a lot of candles!”

Are there any books / writers / teachers / approaches that have been transformative for you that you would recommend to readers?

Thích Nhất Hạnh’s tools and teachings and community of Engaged Buddhism have provided me with the most practical path through the suffering on this planet today. I have religious (Christianity) trauma, so I don’t go around telling everyone that. I don’t like to go around telling anything to anyone! I’m probably a bad parent because I even hate telling my kids what to do! But you asked, and so there you go. Engaged Buddhism is not a religion, but more of a philosophy, specially adapted for Westerners who love their individuality and freedom. I also have some trauma around the word “freedom,” but Zen Buddhism really turned that word upside down for me. Turns out I love wide internal skies to fly in, and I needed to see the world from a much more distant, Third-Person Omniscient, maybe even Fourth-Person POV (for the word nerds). ;)

A Prompt from Christina

Try inviting, or invoking, your ancestors into both your creative and mindfulness practices. No one told me to do this, and I’ve been surprised by what’s come from fostering the connection.

I gave my ancestors a space and items on my altar, and now I feel them circumambulating my daily life in both creative and spiritual ways. By the way, I don’t really know my ancestors. A lot of my heritage is either broken, or lost, or felt as black and white as the few existing photos I’ve seen. But when I light the candle and feel into my lineages, my perspective and understanding of time shift. And I think those shifts are healthy, both for awareness of a body-in-time, and also for fresh POV of a body-in-story. Anyway, it’s just an idea to play with if it sounds interesting to you. I followed my curiosity, and now I feel more warmly enveloped in a continuum of existence.

My well-loved copy of My Oceans in Pacific sunset light ORDER YOUR COPY HERE!

Christina Rivera is the author of MY OCEANS: Essays of Water, Whales, and Women (Northwestern University Press, March 2025). Her work has won a Pushcart Prize, the John Burroughs Nature Essay Award, and appeared in Orion, The Cut, The Kenyon Review, Longreads, and Terrain.org, among other places. You can learn more about Christina and MY OCEANS at www.christinarivera.com. You can also invite her to your book club or subscribe to her series of blue love letters, MobyBytes, on Substack!

More from Christina

• I highly recommend Christina’s series of blue love letters, Moby Bytes (below) 🐋

• Order your copy of MY OCEANS: Essays of Water, Whales, and Women

• Follow Christina on Instagram

• Read an excerpt of MY OCEANS at The Cut, Terrain.org, or Longreads.

• Learn more about Christina at her website: www.christinarivera.com.

• Invite Christina to your book club or writing group.

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