the unusual world of blogging

I've always loved to write
which is why I'm now a blogger

photo by John-Mark Smith, Unsplash

Even as a young child. I remember making tiny books with stories and puzzles that I'd made up, and I did them in the style of comics. (do people still know what a comic is?)

I once was an artist

I've written newletters, leaflets, advertisements  - at one stage of my life I did the artwork (drawings only) for my husband's advertisements for the Yellow Pages (telephone book). He was the gather of it's ads and he did that by promising my artwork. Sadly the art abilities have greatly declined.

but always a writer

I then went on to write more advertising, more newsletters, and moved onto many articles about yoga, and Yoga Teacher Training Courses, as well as Healing Training workshops and Lifestyle courses for women. And a "new age" magazine. Which totally collapsed as soon as someone else got the job of doing it. 

Then as a single mum, I had this idea that I was supposed to  be writing a column for a magazine. Which of course, was preposterous. But I couldn't shake that idea. I even wrote some articles and put them aside. 

I discovered blogging

The years went by, and blogging started. I realised that my magazine column idea was actually that I should do a blog. So I started one when I was in a radio show at kfm. I was asked to talk about spiritual "stuff" and I had the most, best, fun doing this. Shannon, the dj was just fantastic and I loved the way that he would challenge whatever I said. And eventually I started to blog about our discussions. I only did this blog for a short while, and couldn't even find it on a google search. I forget how it finally revealed itself. 

I then moved into doing three blogs, one was about clairvoyance but somehow google lost it in the etheric blogasphere. I also did this one, and a yoga one, both of which of course are still going. I originally started these three blogs with an idea to make courses and write books. All of this has been a long time coming. But I am on the way, all is progressing. (phew!!) The slowness of everything is due to my own inadequacy with the technical side of producing my work.

Honestly, it took me ages to work out how to do things. It seems as though you just click onto icons which help you arrange your post. I didn't realise this initially (huge embarassment), and thought that you just wrote a post and people read it and made comments. Well, no. It's not at all like that. It's actually quite a lot of work, and I do spend a lot of time in the bloggersphere interacting with my favourite bloggers, and, well, "putting myself out there". Which is what one needs to do with blogging.

Some unexpected things have happened along the way. One of my daughters told me recently how one of my blogposts had come up on her pinterest feed. I was so thrilled!! I really didn't know if anyone actually saw my pinterest. 

And I've been featured on two big overseas blogs. Oh, my gosh! These were big surprises, for sure. 

I often wonder if many people read my blogs, and sometimes I do check up with my statistics. I wasn't doing that very often, as I would get depressed because I thought no-one was reading them. But somedays, I'm like "holy heck"! at the large numbers of readers in a single day, week, or month. I grin hugely all day when that happens. 

And I still have not gotten into instagram. I have hardly any pictures there. I'm on twitter (@ratnamurti5), and linkedin (ratnamurti saraswati) too. All the same stuff of course, just my blog posts when and if I remember.

I do have to put in the time

Surprisingly, it all is a lot of work. I know that many bloggers have "parties" where people link up with them with their blogs posts, and I do belong to just a couple of these. I'm not sure that I have the right readership to have my own link parties. I also "follow" a few select blogs too, and this is because I really enjoy them. And I'm automatically on Bloglovin. Kind of like getting splashed over the web, albeit in a tiny way, with all of these sites going on. 

I know bloggers who show their own wardrobe, and have links to, say, Amazon, for readers to be able to buy similar clothes, and this provides income. I'm not the person to do this, I am too reclusive to be "out there". And being this way, has also stopped me "putting myself out there" on social media. Hopefully I can get over myself. I've heard of people just getting removed from instagram, and thereby losing lucrative incomes for no understandable reason, and bloggers who relied on people buying the clothes that they recommended, losing income during corona virus. 

But I do follow a few fashion bloggers, just because I love the way that they express their personality on their blogs. 

I do think that this is one of the keys to blogging: expressing one's own personality. 

Sometimes I'll be chatting with someone (in real life, not virtual) and I'll be thinking: "oh my gosh, you are so interesting; you'd make a great blogger". There must be millions of us out there. But you know, I do love blogging, and intend to just keep on going. 

Do you have any favourite types of blogs? Mine seem to be lifestyle ones. I've only found one yoga blog that I could relate to, and it includes ballet and lifestyle. 

I'm "outside of the box" with my yoga blog

My yoga blog is probably where I do not really fit into a mould. I'm not desperately trendy, nor do I fit into the New Age scheme of yoga, I don't "follow' a Guru. I am just moi with my own experiences and knowledge from decades of spirituality. 

I'm totally okay with being Just Moi. 

And I just absolutely love writing about deep spirituality. No matter whether it's Yoga, Maori Lore, or whatever. I've frequently used quotes from Sufi poets Rumi, and Hafiz, as well as Kahlil Gibran, as they inspire me so much. I'm not too keen on the yoga quotes, some of the modern stuff is just plain wierd. But the Sufi poets, oh my gosh they do make my heart sing. It is though they write from living in the experience of dancing within the Divine. And this is exactly why I have my yoga blog. I'm more about teaching yoga teachers and deep spirituality, and not just of yoga, and that incredible love of true spirituality (from anywhere) is what draws me, like a magnet, to my blog. 

And this is why I'm okay being Just Moi.