Tag: writing

Soul Sunday

Good morning. It feels so good to be sitting in my own little writing corner, in my comfortable home with the beautiful, still sunlight filtering in. It feels so good to be unscheduled after a lovely, restorative night’s sleep. My husband is headed out on his bicycle. Riding his bike is one of my husband’s favorite things to do. I am writing and reading and sipping coffee, so I am utterly exhilarated, in the process of doing my favorite things. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog, and in my own little corner of contentment (both inside and outside), this is the poem that popped out of me (see below). What poems are trying to pop out of you? Put pen to paper, or hands to keyboard and give it a whirl. What a wonderful way to get to know yourself better!

CONTENTMENT

“What is contentment?” In meditation, she asked.

And from something inside of her, the answer was grasped.

Contentment is feeding your passions,

With time and energy and focus and love.

Yes, just feed your passions with all of the above.

Well-fed passions equal contentment, it’s true.

When you do this, you’ll find your purpose anew.

Ah, so now I clearly can see,

Contentment is living purposefully.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday – Funday

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I am feeling a little “deep” this Monday. It must be the eclipse or the fact of my youngest child’s looming high school graduation. As Rumi, the wonderful poet said (back in the 1200s, no less), “Life is a balance between holding on and letting go.” Timeless. As Carl Sagan said, “Magic.” I think that Rumi’s quote is the very definition of creating a loving, warm, happy family – finding that just right balance of “holding on and letting go.” It isn’t easy. Balancing anything takes concentration, stamina, and determination and desire.

Another quote I read yesterday that stuck to my heart was this quote from Alex Winter about the recent death of the actor, Fred Ward. “He always elevated the films he was in.” Isn’t that a wonderful thing to notice and to say about someone? Is this perhaps a wonderful goal for anyone to achieve? What if your goal was to be an elevation of whatever situation you are in, at any time? “He or she always elevated the life he or she was living.” Can you imagine what this world would look like if we all just tried to elevate ourselves in any situation which we find ourselves being in, on a daily basis?? I like to believe that if we all tried to do this, we would see a lot less of the pain and horrors that have become a staple of our everyday news.

I’m sorry to turn what is often a silly day on my blog into “Deep Thoughts”. I’ll close with a laugh, how about that? Here is one of Jack Handey’s best deep thoughts:

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you'll be a...

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

It’s Your Thing

I don’t believe that there is any decent writer who isn’t also an avid reader. Most days before I start writing, I do a fair amount of reading. Interestingly, no matter how randomly I seem to choose my reading materials in the morning: news stories, essays, book chapters, tweets, horoscopes, old journal entries of my own, text exchanges, magazine articles etc., a common theme often seems to evolve. Today, from my various readings, I jotted down these ideas that seemed to be “the message” which my most intuitive self was trying to bring to the forefront of my mind and into the guidance of my everyday life:

Don’t fixate on the negative.

Enjoy and fully appreciate the everyday modest delights in life.

Keep it simple.

One of my readings this morning included this quote:

“A multitude of small delights constitutes happiness.” – Charles Baudelaire

This morning, not long after I jotted the French poet’s astute quote down into another one of my almost full leather bound notebooks (On an aside, I consider these notebooks of mine to be some of my greatest treasures in life. These ever-evolving notebooks contain thoughts and wisdoms that provoke my own thinking, and they guide me and inspire me to my own innate wisdom and peace. These personal treasure boxes are available for anyone who can read and who can think and who can feel, to create and to accumulate and to savor. If you don’t have a “thought museum” journal/notebook/scrapbook, start one today. They are like potato chips. You won’t be able to stop at just one.), I started reading another excellent article by the New Zealander, Karen Nimmo. Karen Nimmo is a psychologist and a prolific writer and this particular excerpt from her article stood out to me, and enforced and validated this one main message that seems to be the theme of my reading today:

“Life is challenging, that’s the deal we all sign on for. But if you find one thing — one thing — that gets you excited even in small doses, one thing that makes you come alive, preserve it. Nurture it. Build it. Sneak back to it. Invest in it. Because it’ll be there for you all the days of your life.” – Karen Nimmo

I have often thought that if I am fortunate enough to grow old and feeble, I hope that I will always have the ability to read, and hopefully, even to write. (More than once, I have even pictured little old lady me, perched in her comfy bed, in the nursing home, reading to her heart’s content, all day long until it’s time for dinner, and then I even hope to be able to read, while I am eating my dinner.) Reading gets me excited, even in small doses. So does writing. Writing makes me come alive. And so every morning, as Nimmo suggests, I preserve these activities. I nurture them. I prioritize them. I sneak back throughout the day to look at my blog, and to read any comments, and to read other various written communications that have caught my fancy. I invest in these activities on a daily basis, because they are an investment in my own happiness and fulfillment and feeling of purpose. My happiness and excitement and contentment is positive energy that spills out to my home environment, and to my family, and to my pets, and to my friends, and to my community and to my world. My investment in my deepest, truest self (even in small doses) ends up being my gift of joy to the world. Win-win. What is “that thing”, that “one thing” that makes you come alive? What’s that “one thing” that brings out your most beautiful, positive, alive and happy energy, so that when you do “that thing”, it only adds to the bank of positive energy that our world so desperately needs right now? Whatever that activity is for you, doing “that thing” is your gift to yourself, to your family, to your friends, to your community and to your world. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to all of the rest of us, to do that thing that makes you feel the most alive, even if it is only in small doses. In a world where we are facing a horrific crisis that has absolutely no winners, we need loads and loads more of the magnificent, light-filled, uplifting, excited, loving, positive energy that is a “win-win” for all of us. As Nimmo says, find “your thing”. “Preserve it. Nurture it. Build it. Sneak back to it. Invest in it.” Do it for yourself. Do it for all of us.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

What a Writer Wants

I saw this quote on Twitter today and I thought, “Wow, I do love Nicole Lyons because she just so eloquently expressed the hopes of most of us writers.” When I think of who I would love to have met in person from the past, Mark Twain always comes to mind and even Oscar Wilde. I so admire clever writers. When I am watching a movie or reading a book or even noticing a fun quote from Twitter, and I see a line that just says exactly how I feel in the most relevant, interesting, “damn, you just captivated that enormous feeling and sensation in one simple, profound sentence”, I am in perfect awe.

I wonder if we would be disappointed by our favorite authors, though. Comedians are often the most depressed people among us. (probably because they are so good at pinpointing all of the absurdities of life that the rest of us so blissfully ignore) They aren’t always “on” and I think that comedians often resent their own humorous talents for the expectations that these innate gifts create. I believe that most of us who love to write are introverts. I, myself, am an extremely friendly introvert. People don’t believe that I am an introvert because I’m friendly and “perky”. But I am a friendly, perky person who likes to spend a lot of her time with her friendly, perky self. I express myself much better when I write. My mind is always on overdrive so that when I speak, I think that what I say, often comes out kind of confusing and jumbled and ditzy and regrettably, many times, too direct. But when I write, I understand myself distinctly. When I write, I discover my most authentic, vulnerable self. So, it is true, as Nicole Lyons states, that when I write, I share my barest soul with you, my beloved readers. Thank you for treating it so kindly and respectfully.

A. A. Milne Quote: A writer wants something more than money for his work: he wants permanence.
The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respec... Quote by Leo. C Rosten - QuotesLyfe

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Your Story/Plot Twist

People have commented to me more than once, that they are amazed that I write consistently, practically every single day, at least one sentence, on this blog. I do like to believe that I am a reliable, loyal, consistent person. I think that to get really good at anything, you must do it consistently. Certainly, I do like the idea of this blog being a comfort to those who come here every single day, to ponder along with me. The thought of our virtual, intimate commune, fills me with a form of deep and grateful contentment.

That being said, as fulfilling it is to have readers and to have others validate my musings, I do this blogging for me. It is not a chore. It is not even a purposeful, daily practice. Writing is one of my greatest joys and pleasures. When I am writing, it is the part of my day that I feel most fully myself. My writing time is probably the most sacred time of my day. I can’t wait to get up and write in the morning. I get giddy thinking about what I am going to write about next. Writing is my passion and I now realize that I let it remain dormant for much too long a time in my life. Throughout the years, my desire to write would try to force itself out, pushing through the doors, in the form in extra long emails to my friends and my family, in flowery work memos at my part-time jobs, in extra-descriptive posts about items that I was selling on eBay, and in half-started journals along the way. But I didn’t really open the door wide open to my passion for writing, until 2018, when I was 48-years-old. I didn’t surrender to my muse despite all of its gentle nudging and subtle hints sent along my way. I didn’t allow my longing to write to become a priority, until I decided that I would have to do it, or bust.

What is lying dormant in you? It is never too late to open the lid, pull it out, dust it off, throw away all of the old crusty criticisms from yourself and from others, and just do it. Just bask in it. Have a reunion with your deepest longings. Feel the joy of reconnecting with that which makes you feel more alive than anything. If you feel a stirring, but you are not sure what that stirring is, look for clues. What makes you curious? What gets your most rapt attention? What did you love to do as a child? What did you love to do that you shut down long ago, because someone else put it down? What is something you liked to do, but you stopped doing it, because you were afraid of stealing the spotlight from someone else with the same interest and talent (i.e. “my brother is the musician in the family”)? Whose talents do you most admire? What do people remark about what is special and unique and interesting about you? What are you quick to volunteer to do? What are things that you do, that when you do them, time stands still? These are the breadcrumbs that will lead you back to your passionate self. And remember, it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing or how they are doing it. This world would be an incredibly dull, uninspiring, unstimulating place if we all liked and did the same things, in the same routine way. Start a love affair with your deepest self today. It is never too late. The recommitment ceremony in your heart will be incredibly beautiful, and it will be one of the best feelings you have felt in a long time.

“It’s your story. Feel free to hit ’em with a plot twist at any moment.” – Think Smarter, Twitter

Michael Hyatt Quote: “Consistency is better than perfection. We can all be consistent-perf ection is

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday – Funday

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credit: @Daryl_Elliott (Twitter)

I thought that I would help out my fellow writers this morning. This one made me giggle and yet also made me be a little in awe of its cleverness at the same time. Maybe that’s the true mark of excellent writing.

Have a great week!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Tortured Artists

“Putting a creation into the world is asking to be understood and loved. The answer is not always yes.” – Allison Moorer

Allison Moorer is a country singer and song writer, but she is also an amazing memoirist. Shelby Lynne, also a country singer, is her sister. I recently read Allison Moorer’s memoir, Blood, which describes the tragedy of her alcoholic father shooting the girls’ mother, and then himself, in their front yard, when both ladies were still teenagers. It was a hard, emotional read, but Moorer’s writing is so pure and fearless and insightful. I enjoyed the book, immensely, despite its devastating content.

In an interview, Moorer claims that she would have been an artist, even if she hadn’t come from such a dysfunctional background, but the art would have been different. She says this: “I don’t think my art would have had as many teeth as it does. I don’t think you have to necessarily suffer to make great art, but the truth is that most great art is born of it.”

It is Aldous Huxley, the author of A Brave New World, who is credited with the idea that all great art is born of suffering. And there are so many examples to support that idea. When I was in college, I took an Art History class. The professor kept us enticed, by promising the class, that if we first paid attention to the artists’ various styles, techniques and designs, she promised to give us the dish on their crazy, dramatic, and often depressing life stories. The stories which she told us, about the various artists’ lives were much more interesting, than any soap opera that we were hoping to hurry home to watch. As Mark Twain said, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”

I have given this idea of great art being tied to suffering, a lot of thought. There is no one whom I know, who has never suffered any heartache. There might be degrees of heartache, different levels of heaviness which we could put up for debate, but in the end, pain is pain. And pain is a part of living a life. It seems to me, that many artists, whether fearless or compulsive, have a drive to explore their pain, in order to make something beautiful and meaningful, come out of it. I don’t think that the great artists, and singers, and writers and other creatives necessarily suffer more than anyone else does. It’s just that they aren’t afraid to explore that suffering. When we open ourselves up to reach in and to pull out our deepest creativity, we also offer up to the world, our most profound vulnerability. And that is terrifying. What is more naked than the total baring of your soul?

I have painful experiences which have occurred in my life that I don’t choose to write about. They’re too hot to the touch. I may never write about certain elements of my life and that’s okay. But I’d be incredibly naive to think that my writing, my expressing, and my overall “being” doesn’t have any sparks and tears and echoes of all of my own life’s experiences, even the heaviest, heartbreaking ones.

I don’t think that all great artists can be lumped in as hypersensitive, addiction-riddled depressives, with wrecked up lives. I honestly think that our greatest artists are among the bravest people in the world. They aren’t afraid of the truth. They have nothing to prove to anyone. Oftentimes, great artists are alchemists who go full into their pain, with a strong desire to make something beautiful, enduring, and universally understood, out of their own deepest, inner turmoil. And we all benefit greatly from their courageous attempt to transform their pain into love, as a gift from themselves that they generously and boldly share with the world. We have museums, and libraries, and record charts, and theaters filled with people’s deepest expressions of their fullest selves, and we treasure these gifts. These treasures are reminders of the force of creativity, that is the true essence of all that is.

255 DUTCH ARTISTS ideas | dutch artists, art, dutch painters

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good morning, friends. I think that I will call you “soulmates” on Sundays. Good morning, soulmates. Sundays are usually the most popular day here on the blog. I love that you all are open to poetry. I love that you have helped me to rediscover the poet in me. I hope that you have also discovered (or rediscovered) the poet, in you, as well. Sundays are devoted to the emotional, sometimes non-sensical, mysterious spillage of words called poetry. Please explore the poem which I have written for today, and please also, feel comfortable and safe to share your poems in my Comments section. It has been wonderful sharing this moment with you on this lovely, tranquil day, my beloved soulmates. I look forward to many more connecting moments with you. Peace.

Keeper of the Words

Sometimes the words spill out of me and I can’t contain them.

Depending on how forceful and projectile the emotion is behind them,

The words scramble desperately to find their way on to the screen,

quicker than I can type them into visual form.

Sometimes the words slide out of me and surprise me,

I had no inner rumination of their simmering pot in my conscience.

The words leave me, before I even knew that they were with me.

Sometimes I have no words. I have nothing to write.

Nothing. My inner cache is empty. And that is okay.

When I have nothing to write, it clears the space,

Until the words accumulate again, to fill the void,

As they always do.

The words don’t require my participation,

They only ask for the keys to release them.

When the pressure mounts and the time is ripe,

I generously allow the words to flow out.

I am not the jailer of the words,

I am only their keeper.

Jailers suffocate and diminish and intimidate,

Keepers nurture and protect and trust in growth,

And further, keepers innately know when it is time,

to let their beloved charges fly free.

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

MP

I am in the middle of reading The Listening Path. Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way, reiterates her insistence, in her latest book, that the quickest path to yourself, and to your creativity, is in writing “Morning Pages.” Writing Morning Pages is the practice of writing three pages, in your own handwriting, a stream of consciousness, before you even get out of bed, every single morning. I think that I tried this once, decades ago, and I only lasted a few days. Back then I had a house full of young children, who all had the uncanny ability to hear the hinges of my eyelids open, every morning, and to bound into my room, ready to start their/our day. I have restarted the process of writing Morning Pages. I have three days in, so far, and I am hoping to make it last. Cameron calls writing the Morning Pages part of your “Believing Mirrors” because they can get you in touch with your deepest dreams, and they can help you to believe that you can attain these dreams. She says that writing the Morning Pages (which are for your eyes only) helps to heighten your intuition, and writing them helps you to hone in your attention, as to what really matters to you.

“Morning Pages are simple but dramatic. They turn us into who we want to be. What could be better than that?” – Julia Cameron

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Peace, Today

My writing ideas haven’t been flowing to me these past few days. Sometimes I get a surge of so many ideas that I have to run to my computer, or to at least to a scrap of paper, so that I can copy my inspirations down to keep up with my racing mind and my surging passion for what lays on my heart. But this week, I’ve been distractible and I’ve been trying to make sense of things that I am probably never going to completely understand during my lifetime on Earth. So this morning, in my perusing of different writers whose work I like to read, I came across this excellent thought by C. Joybell C. The way she describes her mothering is what I have always strived to do, as a mother, sometimes more successfully than at other times. Still, the way that she describes it, is so beautifully put, and it is probably incredibly comforting to her son:

“Kids go out into this world and try to escape everything they know, try to escape the strings they’re tied to, try to escape the pedestals they’re put on, try to escape the spoons shoved into their mouths: why? Why do their souls flee their nests? Because their nests are cages. My son is never trying to flee because his nest is me and I am the sky: a vast blue space that he can fly around in! His nest is me, his nest is the sky. Let me tell you, when the sky is your home, you never want to escape that.”

I reached out to C. Joybell C. once. We share a love of writing (and of perfume), so we had a really nice interaction. Writers love to hear from their readers (this I know). I’ve had some really nice correspondence with authors over the years. If a writer’s words really make a difference in your life, make the point of reaching out to them. I can almost guarantee you, that they will write back to you. Writers love to write, in all forms.

Peace, friends. Give yourself a long, cool glass of tranquility today. When the fear thoughts, or the worry vibes start to take over, stop yourself. Say, “Not today, self. Today, I give myself peace.”