Hawaiians have a saying: “In the word, is life; in the word, is death.” As a poet and a writer, I believe in the power of words. It’s a part of the nature of the scribblers in the world, that. We believe our words make a difference. No, I lie. Real writers and poets believe we are magicians who remake the world. When all is said and done, it seems to me, all of us humans are little more than…
There is a poem written by a much-respected performing poet and the author of at least five collections of original poems, Brendan Constantine, that captures an exploration of the power of language and the creation of meaning quite beautifully. The poem, “The Opposites Game,” arose out of a writing exercise for Constantine’s elementary school creative writing students at Windward School in Los Angeles, California. It is also a powerful look through the eyes of children about a perennial and perhaps…
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that what you already have is the starting point for building the space where you want to be. [Gather your resources and see what you’ve got. What you choose to use and how you choose to use them breathes life and form and definition into the Why you are already living.] The Light of My Light (LOML) and I made some “What-Get Soup” again the other day. The soup is a throwback to…
I am reading Andrew Santella’s book, SOON: An Overdue History of Procrastination from Leonardo and Darwin to You and Me. Again. This little book is setting off all kinds of firecracker strings in my head. Santella, like me (and maybe you too?), is a self-confessed procrastinator so he’s at least well-practiced in trying to suss out the whats, the whys, and the wherefores of that almost universally censured habit, procrastination.
As you know, if you’ve spent some time rummaging around in this blog, I’ll ask my readers to share a self-made poem that has meaning and mana for them. I am always surprised and pleased by the work of the people who take the time to respond to this request. This latest lovely is a story-poem by fellow online entrepreneur Donna Holberg (a.k.a. “Deelilah”), a wonderfully down-to-earth storyteller who has lived a lively and adventuresome life. She has, she says,…
Despite assorted life-coach advisories and dictums, I have never actually found the search for and contemplation of my own self particularly interesting. When you’re adept at making (and living) in stories and poems, searching for your one “true” self seems like a waste of time. Delphic pronouncements about the importance of “knowing thyself” are fine, but then there’s that New Age-y corollary that says you have to also embrace and love that self unconditionally or something. This last bit is…
There once walked a gentle, funny, and very stubborn man, a musician who believed passionately in the power of people singing together out loud. It was his skill to induce crowds of friends and strangers to join their voices together and create transcendent harmonies that lifted up the people’s hearts and spirits and set the world to shining for a while, cloaked in visions of belonging, of unity, and of peace. With his long-necked five-stringed banjos, his 12-stringed guitars, and…
The thing about living your life as a poem or a story or any other kind of art is that there’s got to be a theme to the thing. (It’s one of the rules, according to grade school English and art teachers when it comes to analyzing some bit of self-expression.) This online dictionary I am looking at tells me that a theme is “an idea that recurs or pervades a work of art or literature.” It’s how you make…
One of my favorite quotes about seeds comes from writer-filmmaker-cum-social entrepreneur Kenny Ausubel who co-founded Seeds of Change with his wife Nina Simon in 1989. The seed- growing company’s mission, “to restore ‘backyard diversity’ into the food web through marketing organic, biodiverse heirloom seeds to gardeners,” continues to this day. Around the same time that Ausubel was doing that, he was also helping to put together Bioneers, a non-profit group that holds an annual conference which, it says here, functions…
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that anger energy can be used to unify rather than divide. [Anger is a wake-up call, a signal that change is needed. If you can respect other people’s ways of dancing while working towards making room to do your own dance, the anger can lead to more understanding, communication, and caring. Not easy, but doable….] Three ‘R’s make up the Anger Trifecta: Resentment, Rage, and Regret. We all know that. And almost every…