No matter how self-governing we believe we are, we remain slaves to the tyrannies of whatever remains unconscious within us; whatever we have refused to stand up to and face. So, the greatest problem we may confront is that who we have let ourselves become may now be our chief obstacle. Once we realize this, Read More …
It’s not that my writing is fine; In fact, in bad lighting I can’t read it myself. But I always supposed that my grandchildren’s children, discovering my journal, and, of course, my old diary– slick, gold-leafed, rich as a relic itself— would conjure a view of that rascally genius, the writer they’d figure greatgrandpa must Read More …
It’s funny, the details that a human mind captures and keeps. A typical human brain is made up of approximately 100 billion neurons, with up to 100 trillion connections made between them. All in all, the mind has a storage capacity of 2.5 petabytes. One single petabyte is equal to 1,000 terabytes which in turn Read More …
Ink on the plate will yield a rich print from the weight of the press. You may ink again and print fifty times, a hundred. But after a first run the plate may hold enough ink in its teeth to run a ghost. This second run is changed not true to the image you’ve scratched Read More …
One in a wizard’s costume one, as a queen one, a tiger ……………….grandchildren race through the house, shrieking, tying us up in spells …………………………….with voices like high-pitched wind. Even the youngest, at two, is fierce, perhaps the fiercest. Grabbing my husband’s arm, she insists he hug her ………………at each pass she makes of the room. Read More …
Transcript: SCENE 1 Mom: EUGEEEENEEE! Your bipolar medication. (pills shake in the pill bottle) Eugene, get back HERE! I’m gonna grab you by the SCRUFF! THIS IS GOOD FOR YOU! I’m your mom! It’s cause I care about you! Eugene: Mreoww! Mom: COME ON OUT. OK, and stay out! SCENE 2 Mom: RAHHH (Mom breathes Read More …
I’ve used safety pins to hold together bra straps and the hem on a skirt. There were big safety pins colored pink and blue for cloth diapers and I bit my lip trying hard not to poke my dear baby’s tender skin. I’ve used safety pins to hold together coats when I’d lost a button Read More …
The management and expression of and response to emotions impact all aspects of both intrapersonal and interpersonal relationship. The nurturing and modeling of effective emotional and behavioral responses can be shared through storytelling. As storytelling educators, we also become cheerleaders whose words and actions can make all the difference in the world: In an old Read More …
The quilted blanket of stories lies under me now. Brown, green, blue, gray, Lines, squares, boxes, squiggles, Where I curled up in the warm, unsewn Pieces waiting to be stitched by me. This twists and turns stand by to unfold, Faces wait to reveal themselves As I float above in the ether, Waiting to become Read More …
A leaf falls from a family tree, faces float by in dreams he does not recall. An old woman stands at the podium, scowling, tapping the conductor’s stick in her hand. A gentle pachyderm with hazel eyes reaches out to touch the young patriarch. But he disappears again as my fingers close. I see a Read More …
Who will pack my clothes and seal them in an airtight, clear plastic bin To pull back the lid two years later, to sniff for the scent that was me? Who will turn every picture upside down for months that roll into years because It is too painful to pass a photo of me? Who Read More …
Looking back, “the power of the word” was making fundamental and lasting transformation, in me and my community, all along. Four years ago, I was invited to give a TEDx talk in Hamburg, Germany about my work in Holocaust education. My first visit to Germany was in 1995 when I participated in a service-learning Read More …
Abstract The Ballerina concrete poem is archetypal, a symbol, one of a series of images. As I created the poems, sorting words like seeds to produce images, often with rhyme and meter, unconscious energy beyond the personal unconscious found a way into the process, and actually became the process. C. G. Jung refers to the Read More …
I was tired of thinking about how ……..this never became that, why the only …………….word I could not describe as anything more than a noun, as if dictionaries ……..contradicted me, always different …………….from the subject or the object, lonely purpose of a preposition. Surprise, ……..since so often the world concentrates on …………….adverbs since everyone wants Read More …
A real One would Point out I don’t Belong— neither Do you. We try, Admirable gestures From the Heart, for Staying a Part of Them is All, forget Separating ourselves, Impossible to Find righteous Men. We Know from History looking Back turns Us to Salt—as Well it Should, any Reproaching ourselves Pointless. Only The forgiving Read More …
The last time I opened myself, well, who can remember while the young have no boundaries. Imagine if all just moved around in metaphorical pots, did not intrude on each other! Nonetheless, climbing vines exist, always greedy for sun, in fact, and therefore able to scale anything, as if they were on the play ground, Read More …
Thirst The Old Maiden To The Treasure Chamber Reflective Essay by Fabrice Poussin While the artist may never fully know, nor realize the impact of his or her work, he or she may certainly hope to reach to the greater number of people. Arts which have been created for thousands of years Read More …
Oh Mother what holds you Crippled in pain The joys of your children Support from a cane? Three baby girls freed from your hips You speak of a true love Released from your lips Oh Fathers Where Art Thou Lying in graves Bones that are creaking No memories made One eyes of water And hair Read More …
Reflective Essay by Sally Rogers Person-centered techniques respect what a child or adult is feeling. The understanding is that each one of us is the best one to ultimately know our true self and what we really want or need. A therapist or teacher can help us to understand ourselves by reflecting back what we Read More …
Abstract Research in the emergent field of expressive writing shows that writing our stories helps us to make sense of our lives. As we write, the brain’s neuroplasticity and circuitry change. As I have witnessed consistently in my Women’s Writing Circles, sharing our personal narratives with others in a safe circle, creates both individual healing, Read More …
i am a red fox horizontal under wet leaves i am a red fox white feathers in my teeth it was her time it was her time waiting …. looking up at the sky i come from beneath i come from beneath to take her home she forgot she forgot silver fingers and a corset Read More …
David comes to the door all smiles, water bottle and notebooks in hand. He has been writing all week and excited to share some of the experience with me: the a-ha! moments, the times the writing flowed, and when it didn’t. We have only an hour to meet, and these sessions, structured around David’s specified Read More …
Death is at the table with us when we write together at Turning Point: The Center for Hope and Healing, where I’ve been facilitating workshops for people with serious illness since 2003. The workshop participants have been through a dizzying amount of surgeries or strokes or heart attacks or chemotherapy treatments. They don’t flinch at Read More …
Rosarium Threnody “Tell the beads of the chromosomes like a rosary, Father.” – Kathryn Kysar from her poem, “Coyote Addresses Science” We tell the string of chromosomes like a rosary, follow, finger by finger, the coiled helix home, count mitochondria for the Mother of God. We bear each mutation to the cross as if we Read More …
– for Kris Kristofferson and Ken Wilber Endless, empty darkness, ineffable, voiceless eternity, no thing to speak of just this Still Perfect Silence now light so bright it hurts your hair since you’re there to see it and the good news is you both see and be it since you are it in this manifest Read More …
Poem by Melissa Rose and Michael Ting Reflection by Melissa Rose Female Voice Male Voice Female and Male Together I don’t remember how I got home last night I woke up hungover Last night was a blur Drank too much Head still pounding I take a shower Removing The smell of her sweet perfume Washing Read More …
Turning Don’t get mad at the mauve brown trees, furry on the hillside, sticks up close. We all have to host the wind and weather, a knock on the bones of new November. Don’t be sad when winter rules, claiming every roof in her white way. The days that we have are quick and tender, Read More …
Poems by Matthew Gray and Timothy Johnson Reflection by Timothy Johnson Freedom of the Hills When did I exchange without thought, my mountains for civilization extensive childhood memories when I pondered alpine landscapes filled soulful desires unmet dreams haunt the waking reaching peaks now burned A Foggy Day on the North Shore It is difficult Read More …
Hospice House of St. Luke’s Hospice in Bethlehem, Pa., sits tucked away at the bend of a road. A floor-to-ceiling mosaic greets visitors in its welcoming entryway. To the right, a kitchen stocked with snacks and comfort food is ready for family members who need a break from their bedside vigils. A library with cozy Read More …
Let the River Take Me A compilation poem Let the river take me — Even when it hurts, it breathes with the joy of laughter, undulating. I choke on life, I’m really here in the world. I keep trying. I am a survivor. Manipulate the truth; truth to be heard. The road to hell is Read More …
So this is the edge then, this shoreline of glass— How every letter contains the sound of its own breaking, its own holiness. What is held as sacred, as truth. How often I have sat right here, on the finest line, inkedalong a wilderness of empty page, and how each word is placed like a Read More …
What does Right Livelihood mean in the context of TLA? How does it relate to finding and staying in conversation with our life’s work while keeping the cupboards and gas tank full as well as caring for our health, art, soul, and community? Laura Packer and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, between them, have decades of experience. Laura Read More …
