“Poem to a four word prompt”

 

        Last weekend during a women’s “Wintry Mix” art retreat, we studied the element fire. We drew four slips of paper from a paper bag as it was passed around. Mine read:

bonfire          campfire           passion          comfort 

I wrote this poem using my four words, while observing a burning votive candle for awhile. Give that process a try! Here’s to writing more in 2020!

Passion

She wore her passion

bright as a bonfire,

her eyes dancing wildly

like flickering flame.

Oh no you don’t,

she affirmed.

No longer will I smile passively

like the Southern Belle you honed,

holding back my thoughts

in deference to your own.

Come, she offered.

Join me here by the campfire I’ve built for all.

For all.

For, all are welcome at my campfire,

warmth,

like love,

melting all over the land,

forgiving all transgressions,

especially my own.

Come.

Come sit with me in the comfort of stillness, silence,

no words,

no judgement,

just the crackling of heart openings.

Our flames quiver,

 merge,

 stretch upward,

 outward,

playfully,

joyfully,

until our campfire

settles easily into a cozy, steady, mesmerizing source

of comfort, warmth,

connection.

Namaste.

“Joining the Conversation”

What fun to totally let your mind roll first thing in the morning to a random prompt!

Prompt: 10 min. “Joining the Conversation”

Joining the conversation is always a bit tricky. You leave to go to the bathroom, weaving your way among the tables, eyes searching for the ladies’ room sign, having chosen a spot in the conversation where you knew a little of what was being said. You’d heard that part before. Didn’t want to miss anything but, damn, you had to pee!

Time to pull out a toothpick? Get the salad out of your teeth? Apply some lipstick. Find a mint. Fluff the hair.

Returning to your seat, smiling as you go, you perk up your ears to see where the conversation is now, not wanting to interrupt, but longing to jump back in, as you replace your purse on the chair back, pick up your white linen napkin, scootch your chair back under the table and take a sip of water.

Randomly, the subject has changed from that of Cynthia’s husband’s mom’s foot that wasn’t healing well to an update on one of Lee Anne’s kids who’d gotten married last year in a grand affair in California you’d also unfortunately missed.

“Wait, sorry. What did I miss? Are Meredith and Jim pregnant? Moving back to North Carolina?! Did he get that new job??”

Rachel takes her fork and scrapes it across the empty plate, gathering remnants of the decadent flourless chocolate torte they’d all shared after their monthly meal, while Jaime fills me in on Lee Anne’s news. Abbreviated synopses allowed among these friendships, decades in the making.

“Stand Alone”

Prompt: 5 minutes “Stand Alone”

“Stand Alone”

Stand alone. On your own two feet. See what you can do without any others to stop you, to help you, to harm you, to interfere, to suggest other ways. What does your heart say? What is your heart saying to you? 

Stand alone. You already do stand alone. But alone with a living God burning brightly inside your very heart chakra, comforting you, guiding you, suggesting ideas that will catapult you to the Highest Version of Yourself that you can imagine. We just don’t often take the time to listen to that part of ourselves. Yes, I believe the Holy Spirit is a part of each of us, so intertwined with every fiber of our being that we can never not be holy. If we listen.

Stand alone. I used to stand alone and mope inside about being alone. Why doesn’t anyone really understand me? I need them to understand me! I cried tears and sobbed guttural wails as I wrestled with the challenges of growing up, maturing, moving from an insecure teenager to an insecure adult, an insecure wife, mother, neighbor, church member, volunteer, over-achiever. Until it all came crashing down on me in the form of what would morph from one day of a swollen throat, fever, body aches worse than the flu, fatigue that slammed me flat to the surface of my water bed and wouldn’t let me go, into the woman I am now. Twenty-five years I’ve lived inside my body alone, alone in houses full of people who cannot understand this bizarre chronic illness. But now I stand alone – secure in Who I Am.

Sat nam.

“Boundaries Burst”

Time: 10 minutes       Today’s Prompt:         ” Boundaries burst”

Boundaries Burst

Boundaries burst every time. What the hell, you might say? I thought I’d learned that lesson and then you realize you’ve done it again — compromised your integrity, your soul, giving in to the pressures to be liked.

Boundaries burst when you’re a people pleaser. When you let yourself be guilted into making a different choice. “Sure, I’ll come to that.” “Sure, you can borrow my ________ ” fill-in-the-blank. “Sure!”

Boundaries burst when inside your head your voice is telling you one thing, reacting with a zillion thoughts, none of which come out of your mouth. “No problem!”

My husband calls it “Southern Belle Bullshit” — when (women) say one thing and mean another. He holds up his two outstretched hands: one motioning “come hither,” the other rigid, palm out, staunchly saying “No! Stop!” This always gets a laugh from an audience, but now when he does this, I notice at least half the time he has a point, has caught me sending mixed messages. Old habits die hard.

Boundaries burst when we throw off the shackles of our past. When we suddenly see, “Aha! Now I get it!” It might only seem like a tiny shift in perspective, but it’s an important one, a huge one, really.

Sometimes people have the tendency to overcorrect themselves — the gargantuan pendulum swing necessary for them to practice a new way. Off-putting, it can seem to others. Suddenly a shock. But no one is going to hand you permission to change on a silver platter when it means they no longer can rely on your co-dependence! Get real! But the brusque change can bristle others’ feathers, I’m just saying.

Boundaries burst for others, too. Let’s say you’ve had brick-tight boundaries, letting no one in. No one. Always protective of yourself. Emotions locked up so tight inside your chest, nary a tear has escaped your eyes in decades. Feelings bottled up, emotional expressions kept in check, invincible, strong. Well, maybe the occasional outburst, which no one saw coming or understood, because mostly you’ve never let anyone close enough to know the real feelings going on inside of you. But in the process, you have no intimate relationships. Not many anyway. Not really intimate. You’ve protected your heart with boundaries so clear it hurts. Boundaries bursting then are like a tight, full balloon ready to be tied off, but instead, something causes you to let it go, releasing it into the air in front of you. It sputters around the room in relaxed delight and you exhale and laugh and smile! You’ve let your drawbridge down, and others, timidly at first, start to cross the divisive moat you’ve built around yourself for years and years. Ah, yes. Love rushes in when boundaries burst. (time)

Writing Workshop Is Not Group Therapy

Great piece here about separating the writing from the subject matter. The reason I love writing memoir, actually, is the process of rising above the events, situations, even feelings, and employing the craft of writing to try to effectively “universalize” the message and touch the lives of others in a positive way. I keep my personal journals personal – my therapy! Thanks for this, Allison K. Williams!

Writing Workshop Is Not Group Therapy.

 

“Interior Vision”

Tuesday, July 22, 2014, 11:11 am

Prompt: “Interior Vision”   20 minutes

Interior Vision

         Interior vision happens when we stop the madness of the world to dwell with what’s inside our very cells, our breath, behind our eyes where luscious sunsets melt their beauty, trickling rose and orange down into our very souls, at the cellular level we cannot see, cannot fathom, yet feel all the same.

Interior vision. With interior vision there are no blind spots, only more and more mirages that manifest into truths you feel with your very heart, way down deep. You think, “Aha! Truth!” But as soon as you think it, “it” dissipates into a thousand glass shards, reflecting light that bounces all over the place, like too many kids on a trampoline at one time. Truth ricochets from one side of your head to the other and you smile as you reach for it yet again, it was so profound, you almost had it, almost had it!

Damn. You lost it, but it felt so good. You felt so good for a second or two. One with the Divine, only lasting as long as the flutter of a soft breeze in the kelly green leaves of the mighty oak, planted solidly in the earthy ground, roots running long and deep, locked into the core of mother earth. And so you ground yourself again, resuming the long, slow, deep breathing, inhaling love, exhaling fear; inhaling peace, exhaling fear; emptying your mind of worldly thoughts of tasks that beckon you away from connecting with this interior vision. What’s that about? Why so elusive?

Ahhh. Breathe again. More deeply. Even more deeply. Light the incense to help you find it again. Hold that crystal quartz, the malachite, the rhodocrosite maybe? Inhale the Nag Champa fragrance and close your eyes and make a path, a space for interior vision to come forth, to blossom. Inhale “sat,” exhale “nam.” “Truth is my identity.” Breathe in time with the soft instrumental yoga music in the background, a clear sapphire pool of answers as you dare to stick one toe in. Not ready? Inhale deeply, exhale even more, with a full sigh if you have it in you.  Empty out, empty out the garbage of your sticky life, your busy mind. Let the soft low beats of the tabla, the plucks of the harp, the lilting bass clarinet sing you once again into that quiet place where interior vision can emerge. Where truth rises up, a single image loaded with paragraphs of inarticulatable messages from spirit.

I am the smiling dolphin rising from the sea, nodding genuine loving-kindness and approval to the thirsty me on the shore. It is good. We are one. We are all One. Mere drops of the same healing ocean. There is hope. At least for this moment in my interior vision.

My sacred place

My sacred place.

My beautiful friend, Dani, whom I met at an Elizabeth Berg writing workshop last August, has created a lovely writing nook for herself. One of these days perhaps I’ll get my own decluttered enough to post a photo, too! In the meantime, I’m enjoying writing personal things for myself and working on finishing my manuscript – hence the infrequent blogging. If you’re a writer and don’t have your spot, this post will inspire you to create one!

Thanks, Dani! Cheers!

Ginny

“A gentle heart …”

Prompt: 15 minutes: “A gentle heart….”

A Gentle Heart

A gentle heart is what I have sometimes, what I show to the world. I hide the dark part of my heart, my soul processing shameful feelings secretly, purging them of any power over me. The self-doubt, the insecurities, the grief, depression, desperation, feelings of futility, despair.

I breathe. Deeply. Remember to do as I’ve been taught — let those darker images pass, like clouds on a windy day. Breathe in love, breathe out fear. Fill myself up with so much love, so much light; breathe out any resistance, any darkness, any remnant of any fear. Cultivate a loving heart, a  compassionate heart, a gentle heart.

In my mind I picture a little me, about three or four years old, and I take that little girl in her handsewn powder blue light cotton nightgown onto my lap, wrap my strong, warm arms around her. “Shhh…,” I say. “It is all alright. I’ve got you now. You can relax, just be.” And I clutch that little Ginny to my breast so I can hear my own heartbeat. It slows, beats steadily, then more quietly, strong but reassured as I relax and relearn to just be.

Be, like a perfect newborn, no expectations, so no disappointments. Inherently worthy. Without. Doing. Anything.

So hard, sometimes, to remember I am still this perfect child of God, even with all my imperfections. I am not Jesus Christ! I don’t have to be perfect to be worthy! As a matter of fact, that is the Easter message, as I prepare my heart during this Lenten season, opening myself again and again to the abundant grace of God.

A gentle heart. Thank God God has a gentle heart for all Her children. I crawl up into the lap of God and listen to the steady beating of His gentle heart. I breathe along with the breath of God until our hearts beat as One. I close my eyes and inhale deeply the Oneness, and I fill myself up. Then I slide off my Father/Mother’s lap and prepare to go about my day with a quieter, gentler heart.

Six Weeks

Six Weeks

In six weeks I’ll be a grandmother and I don’t really know what to think about that. Everyone says, “Congratulations! It’s so much fun being a grandmother! Bet you can’t wait to get your hands on that baby!”

I do love babies. I consider “the nurturing mother” my strongest archetype. Yet for some reason the expectation of this first biological grandchild has me feeling a bit unsettled, and I’m not sure why.

The Mother’s Journal I kept when my daughters were in utero and growing up.

I love to hold newborns. I do so easily, naturally, swaying back and forth automatically. Whenever I stand up to hold a baby, cradling it in my arms, immediately my weight wants to shift side to side like a metronome. My eyes take in the little one, peering into those innocent eyes, or admiring the sleepily closed, rosy eyelids. I stop momentarily to lift the little bundle to my nose to breathe in that heavenly, sweet new baby smell they lose after a while, when they become bigger children.

And they do grow — so quickly. It seems like yesterday when I held my own babies in my arms, swaying, and sometimes I was just so tired that I longed for a night of uninterrupted sleep.

Sometimes, in the moment, it’s hard. You’re tired and she cries and you don’t know what she needs, what she wants, and she can’t tell you yet, and so you give her everything you’ve got, I mean everything you’ve got, and sometimes she settles down and you sigh with relief and resume the loving, natural, relaxed stance, but sometimes … sometimes it’s just not enough.

Like when she’s in middle school and you hate those catty girls she seems to care so much about, who say mean things to your precious one and you want to tell her it doesn’t matter, that in ten years you won’t care, if you even remember at all that they laughed at the new haircut you were so delighted with as you smiled at your reflection in the mirror that very morning before school.  

Like when she’s in high school and thinks she’s grown up and doesn’t need to be in by 11pm, no one else has to be in so early, I was only ten minutes late, you can’t ground me for that, oh yes I can, give me your car keys. Now. I hate you, well, I still love you, but we’ll talk about this later, go on to your room. Now.

God, it’s hard to grow up. It’s hard, sometimes, to be a kid, a teen, a young adult, a parent, a mother, especially a “good” mother, whatever that is, and it changes with each child, with the times, and there are no rule books, there just aren’t. Maybe I’m scared it’ll be hard to be a grandmother, too.

Breathe. Sigh.

It always turns out all right. Perfectly, really, since there is no one “right” way, only choices, then more choices that add up to one’s life — infinite possibilities, and they’re all okay. Really, they’re all okay.

Perhaps it’s best I don’t know what to expect in six weeks. Sure I’ve heard, I’ve read, and mostly it sounds terrific. But will she love me as much as she loves her other grandparents? Will I have the energy to be present in my granddaughter’s life the way I want to be? Health challenges limited and defined so much of how I ended up mothering my own, but we lived under the same roof so at least I got to be with them, reading books in bed, inhaling the Johnson’s baby shampoo smell on their clean toddler heads. Will I have the physical energy to drive to see this new baby, to keep her overnight when her parents go out-of-town or need a break?

It blows my mind to see my little girl all grown up now, round with child, resting her arms on her belly, wondering if she might have “an outie” before her daughter sees the light of day. It amazes me to see her organized home, where decoratively painted and ribboned wooden 3, 6, 9 numerals hang on the rod in the nursery closet, already separating by sizes the matching outfits and dresses others have graciously given them or they’ve already bought from Baby Gap. It touches some part of my heart I cannot name, do not know, when I am shown the inside of the drawers of the dresser/changing table given to them by friends and now filled with freshly washed and folded onesies, teeny tiny socks, soft pima cotton swaddling blankets, hooded bath towels. Was I ever this organized? If so, it was definitely when I was awaiting the birth of my own firstborn, this now-almost-mother who is no longer “mine.” Ahh…maybe this is what threatens my peace in some way — a feeling that this milestone will somehow end a chapter of my own life, when really it should just open up a new one.

Me with my firstborn.

Now, in my own home, I sway with anticipation, cradling my doggie (my dogs have always consoled me) and I wait, tentatively, for the birth to be behind us, for all to be healthy and well and on the other side of this momentous occasion. How strange to know this new little life will fill all our hearts with more love than we can imagine, stir feelings in me I’ve never known, complete some part of the circle of life I don’t even feel I’m missing. All I know is that my own grown up little girl better be all right. God, may she have a smooth labor and delivery, a healthy baby, and the strength and good health to enjoy the abundance of rewards that come with the blessing of motherhood. Keep her safe, God. Just keep my baby safe.

“Somewhere else…”

Prompt: 10 minutes: “somewhere else…”

Somewhere Else

Somewhere else is where I went when I tried to relax yesterday. Get it? Tried to relax! Who else has to try to relax? Have I been uptight my whole life? Has the need to appear confident, in control, “together” ruled my life all these decades?

No, surely not. There must have been some times before the self-conscious playground days when I loathed recess for fear of looking stupid or getting hit with the ball I had no natural athletic ability to either hit or avoid. I do remember moments, faint moments … of something else, somewhere else…

At the Quaker Church where I went to kindergarten in 1964, there was a delicious, sweet clover-smelling grassy hill we used to play on while our mothers held babies and chatted before collecting us to take us home for lunch and naps. We’d look for lucky four leaf clovers, of course, that would grant us fantastical wishes. We made clover chains to wear as crowns upon our heads, necklaces around our necks. And sometimes, if I’d worn pants that day, which wasn’t often for girls in 1964, I would seek the rush of rolling down the big, scary hill like the boys.

With my hands by my bony hips, my arms pressed to my sides, I pretended I was a log, let myself go, and I rolled and I rolled down that bumpy hill, eyes closed, losing myself in the exhilaration of the feeling of green, earthy freedom, innately trusting gravity to keep me safely tethered to the ground. With a thud, I would come to a stop at the bottom, giggling, spent, just resting there, opening my eyes to see puffy, white clouds. I’d make pictures in my mind of their ever-changing, cotton ball shapes against the deep blue background of the sky, while other kids hopped up to make the climb to do it all over again.

I wonder how long I stayed there, allowing myself to go somewhere else? To enter the cloud castles or climb the cloud beanstalks? Or did I hurry back to Mama to see what I’d missed that day when I was at school and my little brother had all of her attention?