Happy Holidays! (December 21, 2015) Winter Solstice

Happy Holidays - Celebration of the Winter Solstice

The Seasons

October 25, 2015



This is an essay I wrote about the seasons. I do like them, in spite of my love/hate relationship with winter. I like the fast and complex northeast. It will always be my home. Here's an essay I wrote about the light/darkness. The seasons are directly related to light and dark. I wrote on this subject.because with all the frantic episodes of nature, it might be interesting and consoling to other people.


The lightness of love and the darkness of pain - this is my emotional experience of light and dark. The light enlightens, but the dark delves deeper below to bring us closer to truth. We definitely need a balance of them. As a child, I was told I had my days and nights mixed up. I would sleep all day and cry all night. This explains something about me I think. I struggle with varying degrees of light and darkness hoping to eventually bring balance within. Sometimes, I go to bed early, waking up in the dark before dawn and living in the beautiful silence and stillness of early morning before all the hustle and bustle of day arrives. I love this time. I find it both creative and spiritual. I associate it with blue, purple, green - the cool colors...the blue gloaming, the blue frost, purple darkness and the green of the moon.

The light, with all its everyday incidents that make up life is the substance I need for energy and observations. It is where I'm part of the world, instead of the stillness of the night. Its radiance brings continuing awe and wonder to my life coupled with all the love and affection I receive from other beings and the beautiful things they say and do. Here I live with the thick of life.

The bright yellow, red and orange - warm colors, revive me, take me to places and help me get things accomplished.

The peaks and valleys of moods also come to mind. I can feel happy like the sunshine, or sad in the darkness. But there's light in the blackness and darkness in the light. So I have my ups and downs, but eventually land on solid ground where everything is balanced and even.

The silence of night can be scary or beautiful. The hustle of day may be lively or aggravating.The summer oceans and tides, when I'm drifting on the surface of the water bring me peace, but so do the miraculous winter wonderlands.

The adage, "Variety is the spice of life," rings true to me, and I definitely have a relationship with the four seasons and light and dark. The light is definitely the heart and the dark is the deep soul. Both make up the wholeness of life.

The Practice of Life

This is something I really have known to be true.





There are great highs
There are troubled lows
Moments of bliss and happiness
Moments of grief and despair

What is to be said
in the practice of lie
There are peaks and valleys
They are dark and light

But whose life is perfect
so completely mapped out
That there are no traumas
No tears and no grief

Everything is just peachy
No problems at all
The great american dreamer
But what a total bore

We experience pain
to learn lessons in life
If we're not doing this
We're not growing and evolving

There has to be hard times
Where we're the downtrodden
Or else we're not present
in the experience of living

So let be said
The mystery of life
is to live it deeply and fully
and learn all that we can

And when it's over
Then we can say
we've lived it totally
Both the suffering and the joy

Summer Life

The summer with all it's activities are powering up my energy, but also depressing me at the same time. The reason: patience. There are so many things pending that I want to happen, and I'm afraid something will go wrong, that I worried myself into depression. I did yoga this morning and it seemed to help. I'll go out for a walk later. Exercise  seems to help. I got a chance to get away for a couple of weekends, but something about being a tense caregiver is true for me. You can never let go enough to let yourself relax. There's always a worry in back of your mind someplace. I'm taking courses, they're helping me keep my mind active, but I'm too distracted. I've got to slow down. Stare at the sun. Try to enjoy some moments in my life, because, life is much too short. I see it flying past me, and I've got to stop. Right now and live in the moment.

Developing My Writing Through Courses

April 27, 2015


I'm doing my TLAN certification and taking other writing courses. It's unbelievable how many people use writing and art to help themselves with problems, whether emotional or physical. I like to be right in there with them to write them some kind words. I'm taking classes with people all over the country, both for therapeutic and literary purposes. The courses are really great, I love them. Once I get that certificate, I'm going to do real things with writing and art. I've always done this, but now I'll have some credibility and meet some new people in the field. It's going to be the next higher tier to my accomplishments. I'm so happy about it!

TLAN Certification

March 22, 2015

I'm so excited. There's a new certification that's being offered by the TLA network (Transformative Language Arts Network). I've been accepted into the program and should finish it within the year.
This will give me the knowledge and background (and bio) to accomplish what I want to accomplish
with my writing. I'll know more about writing and poetry therapy, and I'll bring my other art forms into it too. (photography, harmonica, arts and crafts). I want to work with special needs kids, and I have experience in that, but there are so many other populations that I'd like to work with too. (veterans, elderly, mental health consumers, homosexuals, etc.). I never thought I'd ever get any credential for what I do, but this one is feasible and affordable and I already have part of it done. I'm really looking forward to getting this and helping people across the globe with their problems through writing and the arts.

Creative Writing Class

I'm taking an online creative writing class that is teaching me so much. I'm getting into writing stories of all kinds, and my poetry has improved greatly. The teacher there does not let us critique each others' work, only what we can say to inspire or encourage. There's a lot of talent out there. People have to find the time to write, that seems to be the biggest problem. She shows us how to put structure, texture and voice in our writing, and also how to revise it to make it sound much better. There are four parts to this class I'm taking, she has quite a few. It's called Writing the Wave and it comes in four eight week parts. I'm just about finished with three. I definitely want to finish it. All this knowledge I can take with me when I write in the future. All the ideas brainstormed in here with be books or parts of books in the future. This I'm really excited about!

Hostility in My Life

I don't know what it is, but wherever I go (well not everywhere), there is something or someone hostile to me. I feel like I have no respect, no friendships, just this mad attitude. It seems to exist no matter how nice I am. I try to do the write things, always choosing right (almost always), but I always get left in the dark. Since this is a blog about creativity, I've written a poem to help me get through this. It's called Darkness.


Darkness

The flow of my life
the calm, easy ride
I take to receive
the love of the earth
has suddenly come to
a halt. I've been meditating
on rebuilding positivity
and all good,
however, there is a
wall pushing me back
and not letting me go
forward. Hostility may
be his name. Crazed
energy is blocking
all of my love. I
stop and try to work
it through. My head
is spinning. I feel like
a crumb left out for
the birds, wings clipped,
mirrors smashed

Wheres the party,
the dance, the elegant
dinner?

I feel like I'm
left in the dark.

The Season of Winter

January 24, 2015

Since it's Saturday and it's snowy today, I thought this haiku poem might amuse some people. It's a 5-7-5 format.

silent snow falling
black streets filled with white dusting
life in the winter

Getting Off to a Healthy Start

January 15, 2015

I took a test for what nutritional type I am, and it came out to be the protein type. This has been told to me on and off during my life. But it's important to eat write to stay lucid and at a healthy weight, so I am going to try this high protein diet, low carbohydrate diet. I really feel lethargic, and not up to doing the writing and all the things I do to help myself feel better. And if I can't do them, how can they possibly help. Writing is good, the best for helping with my negative emotions, but I can't shake this tired/anxous syndrome. It's under control, but there are so many days, that I just don't feel like doing anything. That is not good for me. I need to write and do my artwork, and I need to have more energy. I'm driving now, but still don't like going out in the cold weather. But I will. I have got to make up my mind and do it. And, guess what? I have to follow through. I'm working on a number of stories, that I'd like to finish, but haven't had the energy or motivation to. But, now I will.

Dealing with Negativity

January 1, 2015


2015, wow! Well, one thing's for sure, I certainly learned a lot in the past year, and I expect to achieve much  more in the coming year. I'm taking a psychology course, and it's all about negative people pressing your buttons. They try to draw you into their negativity, because they're not feeling good, so they bother you. So, if you write, they don't like that you have this resource, so they start criticizing and arguing with you and try to upset you. Writer's Digest calls them trolls. Some people call them "cyber-bullies." Whatever, you call them, try to stay objective and not invest any emotion in them. When I write, I like to write through issues and things going on in my mind like depression or loneliness. In my book, Over the Golden Horizon, I write through so much pain and hurt. But, when I read all that today, guess what! All of that negativity and hurt is healed. It really works. In the creative writing course I'm taking, the class responds to our writing with encouragement and inspiration. That's what it's all about! So don't suffer. Create! And don't worry about all those negative people bother you.