Story Telling and Poetry | Life-Built Poems

PASSION IS A FEELING YOU CAN USE

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Oh, finally! After beaucoup years of nonsense about “finding your passion” and “following your bliss,” people of influence are finally telling us more ordinary sorts a better truth. Passion is not a path. Passion is not a guidepost. Passion is really not a will-o-the-wisp phosphorescent light that dances ahead of you and maybe leads you into a bog or something. Passion is a feeling. It comes, it goes, it morphs, it grows. And, more than anything (like every other human…

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CHOOSE YOUR OWN GOOD FIGHT

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Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that every human in the world has at least one thing in common: We, all of us, struggle. No matter who we are, struggle seems to be a fact of life. Some of us have great obstacles to overcome and some of us have more massive ambitions than others do, but, every one of us does have some sort of difficulty making it from where we are now to where…

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MARY OLIVER: Poetry and Peace

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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that every form of Making is ultimately another way of practicing being human. [Humans make things. It’s how we connect with one another and with the World.] I am pleased when I can wander through poet Mary Oliver’s words and borrow her eyes and her heart to see again the beauty and the mystery of Life-Its-Own-Self. The words remind me: I am not alone. That one helps me get back to peace again amid…

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ALIVE AND WELL (THANK YOU VERY MUCH)

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This was supposed to be an easy “nyah-nyah-nyah” sort of post. My plan was to crow about how, despite multitudinous prognostications to the contrary (all those declarations that “OMG! Poetry is dead, Dead, DEAD”), piling words together and mixing them up continues to flow unabated through the world, continues to move and heal a multitude of hearts, continues to evolve and grow and change even in this, our digitally enhanced post-modern world. No extinction is in sight.

JOIN THE LONGEVITY REVOLUTION

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In America, dating since the original Social Security Act of 1935, retirement and making it intact to the “Golden Years,” (when you are supposedly free to stop working and “enjoy” lazing around in the little bit of life span you have left once you stop working) has been a gold-standard goal.

FLIGHT OF THE MOTH (Another IPS)

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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that the world is a communion of subjects and not a collection of objects. [Everyone and everything in the world has a story. You can connect to the story if you lead with curiosity rather than judgment.] It has occurred to me (many times) that everybody walks through worlds made of stories. The stories are, after all, how we make sense of ourselves. Our own stories – our struggles, our mistakes, the choices…

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POET LAUREATE KEALOHA (A Journey)

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In 2010, Steven Kealohapau’ole Hong-Ming Wong – “the slam poet known as Kealoha” — was designated by Governor Neil Ambercrombie as Hawaii’s first (and, so far, only) official state poet laureate.

SPOKEN WORD AND BEING HEARD

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In a world of seven billion-plus souls, one of our deepest human needs often goes unfulfilled – the need to be heard. That may be one reason why the Spoken Word movement, once a subculture on the fringes of the mainstream, is gaining widespread acceptance around the world. THE RISE OF SPOKEN WORD “Spoken word poetry” was born in Chicago in 1984, when a construction worker, Marc Smith, started reading poetry at a popular club and encouraged others to join…

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JOURNALIZE YOUR LIFE

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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that “creativity” is not a talent; it is a way of operating. [The coolest thing is anybody can do it.] I guess it’s a cliché now. One way to enhance your creativity, they tell us, is to keep a journal. Snuggle up with your thoughts and illuminate your feelings, write down your dreams and hunches, collect quotes from the famous and the notorious. Spend time in your own head. Be your own psychotherapist. …

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ON THE ROAD TO MEANING

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In 2001, a group of friends graduated from college and set out on a cross-country road trip to interview people who lived “lives centered around what was meaningful for them.” The boys acquired an RV, and wandered around countryside filming a documentary about their trip in which they brazenly approached all sorts of people who were doing what looked like interesting things and asked them a lot of personal questions about life-issues like, “How do you know that this thing…

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