Writing

Ali (the deer who spent time in our garden last summer when her mother would leave her for the day). It’s easy to tell it’s her because she is smaller than usual.

The planet will never come alive for you unless your songs and stories give life to all the beings, seen and unseen, that inhabit a living Earth.

– Amitav Ghosh

As our world appears to spin more and more out of balance, what are the stories that speak to this darkening time? What stories are destroying us, and what stories are sustaining us, helping us to find a path that can return us to a point of balance, a place of belonging?

~ Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee, Emergence Magazine

First rose of the season.

Last week I spent some time painting (decorating) an old journal that I am repurposing to use for taking notes in a writing workshop I am participating in.  Or sort of participating in.  Timing, being what it is, has made it impossible for me to attend the first three sessions live.  My participation is not so much with the group as it is with listening and writing on my own.

Work in progress.

The writing workshop is Writing Beyond Environment with Chelsea Scudder, a contributor to Emergence Magazine.  The theme that we are exploring is Writing From the Roots, and the first session was with Rebecca Giggs from Perth, Australia, author of the book Fathoms: The World in the Whale.  After Ms. Giggs described the place she is from, the place that shaped her, it got me thinking a lot about where I am currently living because that is the place that has been shaping me for the last several years.

The Monopalette color for the month of April was Shell Pink and one of my favorite lessons involved Cubism and flamingos. (I used an old photo I took of some flamingos as inspiration for this.)

Rather than buy a new notebook or journal for the course, I dug through the used the notebooks and journals that have been hanging around here waiting for something to happen with them.  The one I picked out is one I barely used.  Maybe 3 or 4 pages have any writing on them.  It is a journal designed to go with a book by an author I’ve lost confidence in due to her stance on things throughout the pandemic.  She went a little down the conspiracy hole that has been sucking in so many people lately.  That surprised me given all her writing and talk about fear vs. love, and acting from love rather than fear, but I suppose it shouldn’t have.  So many of the people in the yoga, wellness, and spirituality industry (and it IS an industry) have turned towards the conspiracies.  I’m not sure if that is based on fear or finances.  Maybe a bit of both although I suspect that for some, money is the root cause.  There are dollars to be made hawking disinformation about masks and vaccines, New Age spirituality/wokeness, cures for what ails you,  and testicle tanning.

Circles and lines, shades and tones.

Before painting over the pages in the journal, I found myself thinking of a theme about the shallows and depths of the sea, and the shallows and depths of roots.  I am sure I was influenced by the workshop, but there is some of me, some of my own heart or soul, in what I’m producing on the pages.  There is some of this place, too.  Bay, sea, marshes, and the woods/trees all have shallows and depths.

Back to the greening and the hike from last weekend.

I am incredibly far behind in my self-paced learning and projects.  That sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?  Being self-paced should mean that I can’t fall behind.  And yet, that’s how I feel lately.  It’s as if I am always trying to catch up with myself.  That is, in part, due to the fact that I’ve taken on a lot.  There is so much I want to do, day by day.  Writing, drawing, painting, learning, bicycling, walking/hiking, photography, yoga, meditating, chanting.  Add to the mix the usual chores, picking up litter, whatever the next right thing is in terms of activism (writing letters, making phone calls, showing up), and gardening, and it feels like there are not enough hours in the day.

A path through spring greens.

I persist at this craziness.  For now.  I am not sure why other than I am drawn to do these things right now.  My head is filled with ideas, more than I can get on the page (either in words or images).  The newly repurposed journal is likely to be a repository of ideas.  I don’t know if it’s possible to go back and pick up old ideas and run with them.  Sometimes you have to strike while the muse is with you.  Otherwise, as Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about in her book Big Magic, the muse will take the ideas to someone else who will actually use them (and not store them away in a repurposed journal).  But maybe there will be a time and place for ideas I just can’t get to right now.

I don’t know if you can see them but there are clusters of yellow flowers in the background.

This looks like a good place to end this post.  Thank you so much for visiting with me.  Let’s meet out at the Point for sunset this evening.  I’m not sure there will be anything to see given all the clouds that have been hanging over us today.  I wish the clouds would produce some rain.  It keeps missing us and we’re desperately in need of it.  Sunset is scheduled for 7:58 PM.  You will probably need a light jacket.  It’s warm (upper 60’s) but always cooler by the water.

Please be safe, be well, and always be kind.

Not sure what these are. They are blooming all over the place.

A few of the 10,000 reasons to be happy:  2,001)  A muse who is filled with ideas.  2,002)  The time and privilege to be able to play with some of those ideas.  2,003)  Clouds and rain.  Praise the rain! (as Joy Harjo wrote).  2,004)  The beauty of spring.  2,005)  Plants and seeds in the ground.  Now we weed and wait.

A different angle.