Taking Care of Ourselves With Words
Yesterday I wrote a very short story about a girl who was wide-awake. Today I fell into a deep sleep again. And now, with these words, the light turns on. I am flowing. Sometimes I can’t believe how much our bodies experience. Stress, the way it hovers in the chest, a...
Writing: Loving, Inseparable
Stuff goes into the writer, a whole lot of stuff, not notes in a notebook but everything seen and heard and felt all day every day, a lot of garbage, leftovers, dead leaves, eyes of potatoes, artichoke stems, forests, streets, rooms in slums, mountain ranges, voices,...
Plenty of Joy in the Circle
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us “universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison...
Cultivating Courage and Compassion in Transition
In March, I was invited to UBC to participate in a panel on “Jobs Outside Academia” for students in the faculty of education. A friend and colleague, Heather Duff, suggested to the organizing committee that I be a part of the conversation because of the...
The Journey to Freedom Begins With These Words
I give births. I enjoy giving births. Helene Cixous Everything is alive now. Spring brings permission to begin, again. A fresh perspective, as if we could be virgin, (re)newed. This past weekend saw me fulfill a dream, long ago hatched. A dream begun inwhen I first...
We Need Each Other to Flourish
This week’s post is a favourite passage from Nancy Houston’s exquisite novel An Adoration, in which the character Fiona says: Mama claims that people can’t exist in and of themselves, they’re a patchwork of everything they’ve seen and done, their heads are teeming...
Slowing Down Time
In this peaceful place time slowsdownwith onestepafter another nowhere to gobut here Hear the flow of breath creek, life Finda spot to rest and write whatever comesfrom presence, memory Hold gentlyas if the soul has already leapt Listen a...
Finding Our Ways with Words
A few weeks ago I had a dream: A young girl was showing me a series of books I had written, all of which were about healing by reframing my experience through art. I was amazed and delighted when I awoke and remembered it. Another message from my unconscious showing...
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