The clock ticks with relentless accuracy while I wait for a shiver of connection. In the trunk of this tree of self, I realize it’s on me now. I am my own advisor. If I were to actually act in that capacity, what would I tell myself? “RIght now there is nothing.
“Nothing about which to worry, nothing about which to rejoice, no aches, nor pains, no elation, nor disheartening ennui.”
There is only a moment of quiet – the tick, tick, tick of a clock, counting the seconds of this empty moment of peace.
I wonder if this is the normal truth of most lives, or am I alone here? Is this why we are driven toward busy-ness? Would life seem to last forever if this moment lasted the length of it?
Tick, tick, tick.
This was the kind of thing running through my mind while waiting for the voice of inspiration during the ten minutes of writing time on August 8, 2022 after the opening meditation. For that ten minutes, the voice of inspiration never came. I had no words to address the meditative prompt, no words to tell a story. Just emptiness…so, that’s what I wrote about. I kept this, because even when the muse is absent, one can still write something. For me, these moments occur.
All.
The.
Time.
Later that night, for our last prompt, the muse brought me an acrostic. The prompt was Beyond the Beyond:
Beautiful dreamers create Everything they see. Your life is One like this Never empty, always budding Day after Day.
This is How we Endure.
Beginning with one thought Each trmbling into the next Yearning for substance Otherworld to ours. Now is the time. Dream.
Four writers from the collective, Wise Women Write share thoughts about Spring and creating space for light.
Beauty of Spring
Amel Tafsout
After so many weeks of rain, I feel revived by these first spring days. The sky is wearing its azureus color, and the trees are waking up from their sleep. In one day, they transformed themselves, dressed in their most magnificent shimmering leaves and letting their blossoms burst to celebrate the awakening. The lawns covered with fresh grass look like a velvet jade carpet of bright green with tiny wildflowers. People are coming out of their homes starting to work on their garden making sure to decorate them with the gorgeous colorful flowers. Singing Birds are flying, interacting with each other, and announcing that the spring is back. I love seeing the tree blossoms in white and pink; the tulip tree rising, opening its gorgeous pink blossoms looking like bells of silk petals.
The weeping willows are wearing their lacy leaves, bending on a small lake giving shade to everyone. Why do they have such a sad name? I would call them the lacey whispering willow. Life is back, joy is here. My heart is open. Let’s breathe the spring breeze!
Anne B. Jeffries
The cherry Blossoms
Lilt white around their edges
Pink tunneling down
Silky plum petals
Spiral towards their soft centers
Brown stamens stand up
Lynnea Paxton-Honn
New blooms in this vintage yard – surprises. Tiny white blossoms climb the wire fabric draping the cement wall. Clusters light the drab gray. “Look,” I say, “Look, we have new blooms!” I am excited. Every Spring the yard presents us with something brilliant and new – a treasure missed by the weed whacker or mower. The soil is so moist, and nutrient filled, home to earthworms accidentally uncovered as weeds are pulled.
I am entranced, enchanted, bewitched, charmed, enamored.
AV Singer
Bumble bees
Connect dot to dot
Flower to flower
Not a care
About dallying visitors
They earn their name.
Honey bees
Make plans
Hovering
Deciding, diving
Or flying elsewhere
Unceasing, determined.
I pause
Sit on my walnut stump
Mesmerized warm
By sunshine
Lulled by beesong
The exquisite dance
Brings peace.
Peace
Follows me indoors
Baby lemon trees
Stretch on a windowsill
Safely sprouted in
An empty Toasted Nori container.
A young grapefruit tree
Reminds me with
A sweet scent of citrus
I am thirsty now.
Please water me.
I counsel
A tiny avocado
Growing next to an older
Brother
I am going to trim you
Right here
Be prepared.
Nature
Inside and out
Becomes my family
My heart swells with love
Love for bees
Love for trees
Love for Spring.
Simplify to Amplify
Amel Tafsout
All my life I moved to various places, cities, and countries. I packed and unpacked, repacked then packed, repacked and unpacked again. I needed to get rid of so much, pieces of memories, giving books and clothes away, leaving furniture behind. What an amazing feeling to be able to do so. I remember my nomadic ancestors, who had nothing, they faced hardship and challenging weather and managed to live with less. The feeling of simplifying my life starts with having less.
I never heard the term “hoarding” until I came to the US. Why keep so much stuff when it would be great to let other people in need enjoy it, and feel the freedom to have less?
Having the flood in my storage unit enabled me to release more stuff.
The more I give things away, the more I amplify my life. I feel light, free, and at peace. My life is amplified with my memories and my life experience. That is what I will take with me. Loving people, beautiful moments, laughter, and kindness.
Anne B. Jeffries
A jutting cliff edge
My body the narrow ledge
Itself
Nothing beside
Or above
Or below
Except
Everything
The sea, a perpetual cycle of depth and layer
All metaphors exhausted
The sky
A wide, domed light show that shoots
Gulls across its face
All the previous noise released as music
Lynnea Paxton-Honn
How could she get this across to her audience? Such a big concept – PEACE. Too many words just detract – words create unrest as brains worry to get understanding.
PEACE
Even one thought can distort the unity and cohesion of PEACE.
PEACE is unconditional Love. Is that too simple? PEACE is not the absence of antagonism but the fullness of Joy. It is our true HOME – our infinite, eternal dwelling space.
AV Singer
Pesky fleas jump. Their burning bites instigate a purge, an urge to rid this house, and consequently my mind, of all that no longer matters.
Demented flies swim upside down across the newly serene floors in a mad attempt to capture my attention. “Persist, adapt, transform.”
I text my children. “I feel a burning desire to simplify.” They’ve seen it before, this need to get rid of dusty, outgrown treasures to amplify Light.
If you are interested in reading more from the writers in Wise Women Write, here is the link:
As an intuitive I get a lot of information from a lot of places, and it’s presented multiple ways. The knowledge doesn’t just blossom, it bursts into my awareness like a supernova. Sometimes I can make sense of it: an ah-ha that feels so right that chinks that had heretofore been missing, suddenly click into place. Other times I wonder, “What the heck just happened?”
This year my guides nudged me to practice. Intuition isn’t something that just happens, although it used to seem that way. Over time I have learned it is something that can be practiced, like music. While meditating upon this notion I heard: Practice psychometry. Learn to read objects.
Objects? Where should I start? I look around my house. I know the history and value of almost everything, but then my eyes settle on a basket of rocks. Why not?
I have always been a rock collector, picking up specimens, not only as keepsakes from my travels, but also from my yard. Somehow, they become coveted objects. I had never thought much about them, I just collected them, took them home, and put them into baskets.
One day, after nightfall, while walking in my garden, the scant light of a half-moon shone upon a small, kidney-shaped rock. It was smooth, soft to the touch, and as black as the velvet of the sky.
A comfort rock.
I slipped it into my pocket and rubbed it as I walked about. When I went inside, I placed it upon my altar. From time to time, I picked it up to rub its silkiness, then I put it back among the other treasures that remind me of who I am. It’s been there for several years.
For this new practice, my perfect little comfort stone was not my first choice. Another altar stone caught my attention, a chunk of red jasper from Patagonia, Arizona.
I held it in my hands, cradled between my palms. First, the stone felt cold, then colder still. Odd. The more I held it, the colder it got.
“Follow the cold,” I told myself. “Follow the cold.”
In my mind’s eye a migration of people passes, wind howls. Darkness, ice, snow blow against them. They shuffle on, heads down, dressed in fur.
Profound cold. Ice-aged people in an ice-aged world.
Excited, I practiced for several days. I was learning to let go of preconceived notions. It was an important lesson because often intuition is skewed by personal ideas or desires.
On the fourth day, feeling as if I was learning how to read these rocks, and to let go of what I expected to learn about them, I picked up my comfort stone.
The lesson of preconceived notions didn’t stop my monkey mind forming them. “It is most likely black basalt, washed and tumbled smooth from a creek bed. Where did it come from? Somewhere atop the Sierra Nevada.”
I nestled it between my palms. Immediately I saw a tumbling washing machine.
“Well, that can’t be right.”
I focused on the feel of the rock as I had been doing, expecting this one, as had all the others, to be cold and either remain cold or get colder.
Not so.
There is heat. And the more I held it the hotter it became. It became so hot I was compelled to let go, and when I picked it up, I placed it against my cheek. It was as if a tiny furnace burned inside it.
I followed the heat.
Suddenly, there was the washer again.
What?
Ahh! Then it came to me. This tiny rock was tumbled in an industrial rock polisher! It was sold as gravel, “polished” to resemble river rock and used as a blanket to line decorative waterways or patios. In my yard, it lined a drainage ditch. Before that, it knew only pressurized heat, not volcanic, pressurized. Pressurized heat seemed very important to this reading.
I pressed the lingering warmth against my cheek, cherishing it, and then set the tiny, black rock onto my altar.
How surprising.
As I left my bedroom, a notion hit me. Is it possible that some of the major psychic events I experience come from the very rocks I stand upon? How much do rocks know?
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in his book, Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism, “in this piece of paper is a cloud.” Inspired by his words, Anne B. Jeffries gave the women in my writing group this prompt on August 28th: In this tear is everything.
Lynnea Honn wrote:
Foretelling
Foreshadowing of
winter shadow stretches out
and yawns Preparing
Shari Anderson wrote:
Cascading
Sounds, tones,
Ideas, words
Water-falling
Pummeling
Cleansing
Rubbing
Wearing away
His-story
Revealing Myself
Wholly New
I wrote:
In this tear is everything – every story ever told, from the inception of our Earth until this very moment, and this one, and this one, and this one…and…this…one.
Writer’s block is not a myth. It exists. Most writers experience it. What is it? In my opinion, writer’s block is a symptom of all our tears – the backed up stories carried inside – stories one does not want to face.
You know what I mean. We all tell ourselves stories to get through life. When we tell them long enough, they seemingly become truth. I bet writers have more than their share because they tend to narrate moment by moment.
As a writer, I dumped bits and pieces of my story onto my characters and into their plots. I’m beginning to wonder, can I continue to pass off my life to imaginary others or should I own up to my stories and claim them? By claiming them, might they become part of your story as well, just as yours would become part of mine?
From a very young age, we look at the reflection of ourselves in others’ eyes. If someone takes the time to see who we really are, we know ourselves. We learn to trust and love our core being. Instead, I fear, most of us see how others measure us against cultural standards, especially women in my generation, the first generation to deal with contrived image saturation in visual media.
Recently, I went with friends and family to see Barbie, a movie about a doll designed to perfectly depict a contrived image of beauty that saturates television, magazines, book covers, and advertisements. We all expected fantasy, a perfect woman in a perfect world gone awry. What I didn’t expect was a profound statement about the way each of us as women see ourselves. We need to sit up and take a look at this.
As the movie progressed, Weird Barbie was introduced. Just the mention of her made me sit up. When I saw her I thought, “My God. This is the first time I have seen myself depicted in the media.” I can’t say it’s the equivalent of the reaction that women or men of color have, but it certainly was a reaction that I couldn’t ignore.
I saw myself.
Weird Barbie.
Huh.
This set off a chain reaction. I started to remember and notice things I never had before.
As a young prepubescent woman, I didn’t hear sex ed in school, nor did I hear it from my mother. She never spoke of such things. I believe my father worried about me because my self-esteem was poor. He taught me how to be a woman with his Playboy magazines as examples.
He loved me, but that was not the right approach for a little tomboy that developed quickly into a BIG girl at age ten.
To say I wasn’t ready is a gross understatement. I loved climbing trees, riding horses, playing imaginary games of hunt, shoot, and capture, playing the saxophone in marching band, swimming, tennis, jumping (I loved to jump off roofs and balconies). You name it, my blossoming got in the way of all I loved to do. Big breasts were the bane of my existence.
Later, when I was old enough to have crushes, I learned from magazines that men liked big-bosomed women.
Why didn’t they like mine?
What turned them off? My legs? My teeth? My hair? My eyes, hands, feet, intellect (I was a smart girl.) Was it because I didn’t do girly things? I didn’t play with dolls or other girly toys. I felt uncomfortable in dresses.I found lizards and brought them home. I had a pet crawdad. Once, I had a pet fly. I continued to ride horses, to play tennis, to swim with a team, and chuck hay bales out of a barn. I talked to frogs.
I was weird.
I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be the stereotypical girl that boys sought. I had breasts, dammit.
As a teenager I felt comforted by The Velveteen Rabbit. It wasn’t because I loved soft, worn things. Rather, it was because I felt pitted against my culture’s vision of ‘ideal woman’ and didn’t believe I fit it. I thought if I could allow myself to be loved, to get shabby with attending to others’ needs, it would prove I was worthy.
It turns out, life doesn’t work that way.
I practiced yoga to keep perfect proportions. As I aged, I found it was more meditative for me. Recently, I learned a new way for me to practice meditation. I found it in a book called, belonging here: A Guide for the Spiritually Sensitive Person, by Dr. Judith Blackstone. In it, she teaches a technique to fully inhabit one’s body. During it, one focuses breath in the feet. I couldn’t do it.
I didn’t acknowledge my feet.
I really only noticed them when they hurt.
As I moved my breath into my ankles, it was easier to focus, though I worried I didn’t have the delicate ankles I was supposed to have.
Then I moved breath into my legs.
With devastating clarity, I realized I saw my legs as objects – not part of self – objects!
Did I classify other parts of self as objects? My hair? My hands, my eyes, my breasts, hips, belly? OMG! My neck, my chin, my nose? Is there anything about my person that wasn’t an object to be presented and judged as worthy, or in my case, not?
Then it occurred to me. If I have this problem, do other women my age suffer this way? How about men? Do men suffer this way?
I suddenly resented Mattel for not giving us Weird Barbie before this, because now I am old and can never become stereotypical again.
My daughter asks, “Why would you want to be?”
That’s an excellent question. I can only answer that I have spent a lifetime worrying about it. Am I good enough? Am I thin enough? Am I desirable? Are my breasts big enough? Are they too big?(Yes, dammit.) Do I meet the code that others impose upon me?
Why, indeed, should I worry about this?
I fear I am not the only one with such self-conscious judgment. What can be done?
For me, seeing Weird Barbie has been a god-send.
While I resent Mattel for not presenting her earlier, I am also grateful she has finally made her appearance. After meeting her, I am beginning to see my own body as the finely tuned instrument it is. Without it, I could not produce the tone I have when I sing. Without it, I could not have birthed my babies. Without it, I could not have fed them for as long as they needed. Without it, I could not have jumped off roofs, or out of trees and felt that exquisite moment of flight. Without it I wouldn’t feel the pain of a stubbed toe, or the caress of ocean waves. Without it, the cool evening breezes wouldn’t thrill me as they have. Without it, I wouldn’t remember what it is like to touch another human, or pet my favorite cat, or feel the earth beneath my bare feet. Without it, I couldn’t smell the deliciousness of Spring or see the vibrating color of a bright orange rose.
When I asked my daughter if she remembered her Barbies, she said, “No. I didn’t have Barbies.”
Trust me. She did. I know. I spent hours making clothing for them.
As we talked more, she did mention she had dolls that rode her Breyer horses. I looked it up. The Barbies in her day had knees that bent.
She had Barbies. How Barbie looked did not define my daughter’s self-image. If anything about Barbie defined something for my daughter it was what she did.
Barbie rode her horses. Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Looking back, I don’t think boys turned away from me. I am fairly certain I turned away from them because I didn’t believe I was stereotypical enough. Physically, I may have been, (I have breasts, dammit) but, psychologically, I am Weird Barbie. I don’t claim that proudly, I just am. I always have been. The image I see in a mirror does not define me.
The Barbie movie says it best. If you get a chance, watch it. I’d be interested to hear about any awakening you might have had after the experience. Now, wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone were to design an Old Weird Barbie with saggy bits? And a Ken to adore her?
My neighbor worried that my fig tree was giving up. There were several reasons: I cut her back so she doesn’t have to work so hard while Californians ration water. She lost the shade to which she was accustomed when the large companion tree that sheltered her was trimmed. As a reluctant gardener, my plants fend for themselves. I am not heartless, instead I am desperate to help conserve our water supply, so I wait and watch wondering what grows here naturally, and hoping some of it will be good to eat.
Who will survive the new, harsher conditions?
My Black Mission fig leafed earliest. The first inflorescences began to bud late this Spring.
What makes her so successful?
Figs have fed hominids and others throughout history. Uniquely adapted for harsh conditions, it grows where other plants fail. Technically, that which we call a fruit is actually an enclosed collection of flowers. Stem growth forms a bulb within which this cluster of flowers develops. Each blossom is destined to become a single, tiny drupelet. Encased within a protective womb, they do not need to fight heat or dry conditions. Some species, forming both male and female flowers, do not need assisted pollination. Others invite a miniscule female wasp into their chambers to spread pollen while she lays her eggs. These flowers then grow into a cluster of drupes, all encased within their pristine environment. (No worries, the babies escape before we eat the figs.)
This year, a few flowers ripened early, oh so sweet. I await the others. My fig thrives in this hot, dry climate and can live a century. Planted during my lifetime, she will be my companion as long as I am here.
On Monday July 17th, Shari, one of the members of the writing group to which I belong, threw us this prompt: fig leaf. A short ten minutes later, we had the following offerings. I am thrilled to present my writing sisters and their responses to her prompt.
Fig Leaf – Shari Anderson
When I was a young child, my father planted a grapevine and a fig tree in our backyard. It was
biblical
“Every man under his vine and his fig tree”
inspired.
I don’t remember the grapes –
maybe they never fruited, but the figs were juicy and delicious. The leaves of that tree were
wonderful,
unusually shaped with lots of rounded edges, sensual, with female curves.
Why a man, under his fig tree? Why not a woman? Why not just the fig tree itself, shapely,
verdant, simply divine?!
But, my favorite backyard plant was a wild cherry bush, which we used as a hideout, gorging ourselves with fruit while fighting off attacking pirates.
Fig Leaf – Dianne McCleery
The other day, I had to duck under fig leaves to reach Valarie’s front door. And I loved it. I love the hugeness of fig leaves. I love their shape. And, of course, I love to eat figs, especially since they are really flowers, not fruit. I’ve always appreciated adding pansies or nasturtiums to salads, but their tastes are “eh,” not like the deep deliciousness of figs. Yes, I am a fan.
Fig Leaf – Joyce Campbell
The fig leaf reminds me of an outstretched hand
Welcoming and offering a space to land.
Winged beings pause there, some large and some small,
And those with vibrations I can’t see at all.
Hidden below in the cool of the shade
Sprout tiny green nuggets, a prize for their fame.
Soon to be wrinkled and golden with age,
Dried to perfection a treat with no shame.
Fig Leaf – Anne Jeffries
As far as I’m concerned,
Eve’s “transgression” freed humanity
From an unconscious tunnel of an existence.
Imagine Utopia:
Yours different than mine, I suppose
But however that flowered garden is laid out before you
Without the snake
Slithering it’s SINewy offerings
There is no Will
No humanness at all:
Our choices and failings, our triumphs and joys, our sufferings and lessons.
Eve took us, perhaps out of our pure animal nature.
She gave way for the fig leaf of shame
To eventually free us from innocence
Fig Leaf – Amel Tafsout
Covered with a gentle morning frost.
Stretching your fingers to many directions
The lines of your open palm
Go back to the beginning of creation.
Your soft green color soothes the sight
Attached to the blessed tree.
You share shade generously.
You hold your sweet biblical fruit with care.
Then leave with the wind.
Blowing to a new world
Moving with lightness
Dancing your way freely
Ending on Adam’s private part
Covering up Humankind
Living in the complexity of reality.
Afternoon Delight – Barbara S Thompson
Do you remember the scene from
A Woman In Love
When the meal slowly unfolds
at the garden table
like luscious lovemaking?
As guests
caress and stroke
kiss and swallow plump red grapes,
black olives and
cheeses, soft and hard.
In slow, sultry nibbles.
Alan Bates leans back in his chair
with heavy lidded eyes
preparing to explain
the proper way to eat a fig,
It is an English garden after all.
When Eleanor Bron selects a smallish fig
piercing it’s base with one long, elegant finger
splitting it open to reveal the pale purple fruit within
Heavy with seed and fragrance
Slowly she opens her mouth
biting into the flesh
her soft moan echoing around the table.
Fig Tales – Betsy Rich Gilon
Ancient one, your leaves flutter,
The desert wind murmurs,
Camels leave footprints.
Would I have felt
The stories you tell,
Had I bitten into your flesh
Fig Leaf – Symbol of Shame? – AV Singer
Protection from sun
Invitation to hunt
hidden treasures,
Oh, fig leaf,
Why you?
∞
Fingers of mercy
on palm so large,
how long
must you
hide me?
∞
Figs ripen
hidden behind
green curtain.
Why is this
forbidden?
Please connect in the comments, or by clicking on the Like button. For more information about figs, follow these sources:
“Idiot,” her brain screamed when her feet stopped running at the edge of the wood. Her heart entered the darkness, even though it was folly going through the dense undergrowth, especially at her age.
Entering the field behind her, her followers screeched her name, “Ella, Ella.”
They would follow her path, etched by her own feet which had forged a damned line through the tall grasses straight to her current location.
What choice did she have?
She crashed through the brush. Branches ripped at her bare legs and arms. “More path paving,” she muttered.
“Ella.”
So much anger, so much time spent at the end of a rope. She couldn’t blame them. She wasn’t any better off than the lot of them, struggling with the emptiness thrust upon them. She understood the burden she had become, but couldn’t agree to their solutions.
A patch of sunlight caught her eye. She pushed through the foliage and gasped as the first wash of light engulfed her. She knew this place. Knew it as the end of the line.
Ahead of her was a thirty-five foot plunge into a raging river.
Branches snapped as her followers entered the forest.
“What choice?”
She walked toward the cliff.
At the edge, a single lily waved, lifted to and fro by a gentle breeze, a white flag of surrender.
She sighed and sat, legs dangling, and stared at the water below.
Once, then twice, the wind pushed the lily against her bare arm.
She looked at the sky: quiet, clear serenity above her. “Three hours until nightfall.”
The lily nudged her arm a third time.
It was possible. If she was as quiet as the sky, she could hide in the undergrowth until dark.
I am very grateful for my sisters of Women Writers of the Well. If you are an aspiring writer reading this, I recommend the idea of joining or creating a group of like-minded people who meet with the intent to support each other’s writing efforts. The magic of connection is everything. It’s a miracle. Without the support of these women, it would have taken much longer to find my way out of the dark, uninspired hole into which my creativity fell. They shone a light into that darkness and helped me crawl out step by step. I am still climbing, but I can see the way ahead.
In an effort to get me working on this blog again, I asked my writing sisters to share work with me any time they wanted it published. Anne B. Jeffries shared my last blog. This blog I share with Shari Anderson. She sees the Light everywhere and shines it brightly for her students, her musical sisters and brothers, her family, and her friends of which I am so blessed to be considered. Shari combines musicality within her prose and poetry. She isn’t afraid of experimentation. She publishes songs and chants, and is a beloved performer in this lovely area of California. She is one of those people that prefers to see the positive even when others can’t see it. Here is the sample of her writing she has sent to share with you:
Meditation Writing
Her voice –
warm and compassionate
Magically weaving wisdom and breath
Loving head to knowing heart
In, through and around
A creative dance from impulse Divine
traveling as words into our minds
Shari Anderson
2/6/23
Family Dynamics
Why does the word, dynamics, when paired with family, feel so very different than the same word applied to music?
“Family Dynamics” feels complicated, determined by emotional responses and past triggers, but talked about with rational, linear vocabulary completely insufficient to the task.
Dynamics in music evokes: expressiveness, freedom, flow, creativity, give and take, communication.
Maybe the key to better family dynamics is a musical approach, an excitement, a curiosity, an impulse to dive in so we can soar.
Shari Anderson
2/6/23
“So, we can soar.”
I agree with this wholeheartedly, having come up with a different viewpoint from the prompt “Family Dynamics” using words such as: responsibility, expectations of generations, fear tactics, grief dynamics, frustration with education, anger and growth – family – it is what it is: life shared.
The fact is, we all come out of families with a better understanding of who we are, and how to love.
That is cause for celebration. That’s enough to make us all take flight.
Shari is the one that pointed out that my attempts at creating acrostics with the word ‘practice,’ amounted to a journey through a lifetime study of music. My words take flight here because she found the value in them. I didn’t read these in this order because I didn’t write them in this order, but she saw it this way and now I do too:
Thank you Shari.
Thank you Readers. May you take flight until next time you land on my blog space.
In June of 2020 I ‘graduated’ from teaching. Teaching requires mindfulness and extreme focus, a one-hundred percent investment of love during time spent one-on-one with a child or with a group in the classroom. It requires setting aside self to see and hear others instead.
One of my sister writers, author of “Cross Roads,” Anne B. Jeffries, agreed to post on my blog this week. She had just finished a full day of commitment at school but she came to write with us. She is adept at pouring Heart. When she attends our Wise Women Writing group, she feeds our souls. In a mere ten minutes, she addresses each prompt with profound honesty. Her act is an inspiration for the rest of us. She demands authenticity for herself, while maintaining curiosity, joy, love, and compassion for the rest of us.
Dear Readers, I don’t know what some of you do, but I do know that if you are reading my blog you have a sincere desire to connect with heart. Anne’s heart makes a big connection.
Anne, thank you. I feel honored that you have given me your words to give to my readers. Fellow teacher, fighter for children, fighter for people, Anne, I love your heart. You pour out all it carries every day and I know your students feel your intent. Your writing takes away my breath and reminds me that teaching is something I still love to do.
Memories Sleeping
It’s not just my memories sleeping,
It’s all of it.
A honey drip slowness.
I can catch up tomorrow.
Just want to sink down in sleep.
Rest.
Like a frenetic fall.
What is the charge?
Is it my nervous system that signals the experience to fizzle,
Lose its edges?
Then, sink away in categories and compartments,
With no present security access?
Where is my agency?
Who is filing these memories and who granted permission for this protocol?
Or, maybe, it’s all chaos and no “thing” has access.
My consciousness just sifts above it all like a metal detector pulling up old coins.
What about the pieces made of wood and plastic?
What loosens those?
Eternal Minutes
He said it’s like wearing a lie on his face.
I feel that way all the time.
In class- with him- with them.
Like I’m a puppet driven by a motor I did not program, or know how to run.
Today,
For hours,
I peered out from below the lip where I stuffed myself down into a pouring cup,
Until all the drops of the eternal minutes,
Ran out against the automaticity
Of that forced time.
Family Dynamics
There is something about the inability to walk away.
A fabric woven together?
Fabric doesn’t work
because it’s made of thread that can be woven into something else.
My sentiment is too deep to separate out –
Like color in the sky?
Nope
Color is only light.
What holds us together?
Is it, in fact,
A choice?
Check it out
If you would like to read more of Anne’s work, check it out here:
Connection 