Instructions for Life

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting– over and over announcing your place in the family of things. – Mary Oliver in “Wild Geese”

Family of Things

Mary Oliver saw herself in the family of things.  She recognized that by opening to what was happening around her, she was already part of the natural world. Imagine Mary as a young child walking alone in the woods away from her difficult home life when she first heard the raw honking of Canadian geese break silence.

She saw the kindness of the lead bird float on air currents allowing trailing birds to fly faster with less effort. The tired goose dropping back, graciously letting others take the lead. Oliver watches the flock head to the same wetlands where food and safety were plentiful. A beautiful rhythm year after year. Mary Oliver took this wisdom of what she encountered in nature and wrote many poems. In “Wild Geese”, she penned these words “you do not have to be good” nor “walk on your knees,” but let the “soft animal of your body love what it loves.” In my reflection of these words, I think Mary suggests that experiencing the natural world helps us begin to shift from whatever we’re experiencing—anger, frustration, sadness—and realize there is a place for us. That we can accept ourselves—belong.

Oliver’s instructions for life are  simple: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” She said one of the wonderful things about being immersed in life is the joy of surprise. Feeling joy is a redemption for our life, no matter our struggles she insisted “the world goes on…”

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Rising Hope

The Power of Rising Hope

“Your struggle with your varied self, or selves, yields your art… .” – Joyce Carol Oates, The Faith of a Writer.                     

Morning begins with chirping cicadas, the hum of distant cars winding their way to work, and the smell of rich coffee. For a few single breaths, it’s a narrow and wonderful place where I find myself. The harmony of simple things and places is gold to me. Then, an unexpected rap on our door, again and again. Kerplunk! Rising hope vanishes like a stone thrown into the river–frustration and irritation tornado in. Suddenly, my castle of contentment crumbles.

Write this story? Why not? Who knows what unloved parts of me need attention. I’ve learned writing about deep feelings my own humanity becomes known to me and rising hope follows.

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And I listened

I had to be four or five when I first heard the golden rule  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  These words uttered by my mother when my sister and I accidentally tied my brother to a tree (mainly my sister). My mother’s use of the rule, I believe, was to appropriately socialize the two of us. Yet, even at that tender age, I knew we couldn’t just stand by when he, my brother, scared, teased, and, generally, irritated us most of the time. WE were the victims as my older sister tried to explain. But, later, Grandmother McKenney disagreed. And I listened.

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Gifts of Creativity: More Good Follows

“The spirit of an artist’s gifts can wake your own.” – Lewis Hyde

Give Freely
“Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you,” remarks Annie Dillard in her book “Give It All, Give It Now.” She shares her view about the writing and creative life by describing the grand generosity and great courage giving asks of us: to give, to share, to offer what we can to the world. Dillard said when gifts of creativity are offered, “…something more will arise for later, something better.”…and more good follows.

Creating what rings true requires us to pay enormous attention to the world. For many, it is our love and destiny to create–our romance with possibility and the unwritten promise to imagine more. Barb, an artist, saw beauty in her garden and captured it in dazzling watercolor. She painted me a set of beautiful notecards of pink petunias with bright lime green stems. Afterwards, a friend was experiencing a loss and I sent her a flowered notecard with a few lines of poetry. Giving changes us.

Want the world better
Sharing our creativity shows we care about the world and want it better. When Anne Frank picked up her pen to write, although just a little girl, she was possessed of great insight and courage. She had the power to enter the minds and hearts of others bringing about deeper understanding, wider love. It’s true, an act of creation can have a rippling effect. Consider son-in-law Chris who created a magnificent red and white mosaic birdhouse featuring Charlie Parker, a brilliant black saxophonist whose life was cut short. His gift to the world brought new significance to the musician and by donating his creation raised money supporting a burned mountain top in Colorado.

More Good Follows
Ask yourself, the next time you sit down to create, what do you find yourself being pulled toward? Perhaps you want to write poetry about unrequited love, the search for inner peace or the struggle to find meaning and purpose in your existence. Photograph the beauty and finality in nature–or paint an unforgettable purple sunrise. Whatever your gifts are, cultivate imaginative compassion and notice how more good follows. You can begin today. As Anne Franke reminds, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Your life and others will be richer for it.  – Becky

Writing/Creativity Exercise:

  1. Re-read the glorified words of Francis of Assisi, “For it is in the giving that we receive.” To begin, reflect on the many ways you can offer gifts of creativity to others. Recognize and celebrate your talents.
  2. Now select the ways you want to share and light up someone’s life. Your time, talent and creativity can make a difference. Consider:
    1. Interviewing an older relative or neighbor and writing one of his stories.
    2. Painting a small canvas of a colleague’s dog or the big fish she caught.
    3. Photographing a beautiful sunset and giving to someone you love.
    4. Listening and encouraging a friend who is struggling.
    5. Other ways to give: offering your talent of organization, playing the piano or singing to a shut in, baking and decorating someone’s favorite holiday cookies. The opportunities to give are endless.

 

For more inspiration, check out our website www.thewritingandcreativelife.com.

Or follow this link to purchase our latest book, The Fire Inside.

Postscript;

“May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.” – Leonard Cohen

During this special season, sharing our love and friendship might be the best gifts.

Here’s to the good that you find and the great that awaits.

Warmest Wishes,

Becky

 

What Are You Remembering?

On my stove the kettle whistles and suddenly I see my grandmother’s face in her tiny kitchen. A small, veined hand grasps the hot handle of an old teakettle. Grandmother is making cinnamon tea. She looks out the small window. Above the horizon, a blue mist, small and noisy songbirds. Her face turns to me.

Do dreams flow from memories or do memories become dreams? What are you remembering?

Certain images keep floating in my head and sometimes surprise me when I least suspect. Perhaps only a scrap or fragment of a long held dream resonates, but its incompleteness stirs a longing. I follow it. Maybe the inspiration is an aroma—Old Spice, a horse barn—or the prettyprettypretty sounds of a happy cardinal. Today the inspiration is a treasured photo–a black and white of Grandmother in her kitchen. Then, the whole story comes into focus.

Every year after I could walk, I spent two to three weeks in the summers on my grandparents’ farm.  A two-bedroom bungalow with a screened in sagging porch was their humble home. Two big fir trees stood as towering sentries in the front yard. All manner of wildlife homesteaded there—red squirrels, one lonely hoot owl, starlings, goldfinches, and grackles. On clear days, I would climb to the top of the tree and scout the horizon. Once, I saw a red-tailed hawk looking for mice in the cornfield—and getting one—before flapping away to the woods.   

Memory carries a strong emotional kick like walking past a playground and suddenly you’re mad again chasing Greg, the fourth grade bully, all over the school yard. These experiences are part of who we are, still inhabiting us sometimes like a summer cold that won’t go away. Experiences that are inside us beg to be freed. Remembering them can be a triumph or a challenge. What are you remembering?

Few rules existed at my grandparents’ house. Until sixth grade, Grandma let me run around without a shirt as long as Grandpa and Uncle Jim were in the field. Divine pleasures. I could eat as many Washington cherries as I wanted from the two trees in the back orchard. My fingers stained bright red. The hay loft was my secret place and it was there I became a little headstrong. No one climbed the ladder to the loft without my permission. Of course not many people asked, but I was always ready waiting for a special knock or the magic word for them to enter.

What are you remembering?

Writing/Creative Exercise:

  1. Write or create about a treasured object. Take a walk through your house or, perhaps, in your yard. Reflect on two or three objects that you love. For each, consider the history, who gave it to you, what it means to you. Consider its shape, color or place where it belongs. Then, select one that is the most evocative and express your creativity through painting, photography or whatever stirs you.
  2. Read Photo Album by Meenakski Iyer https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1187839/photo-album/Everyone has certain images that keep floating in their heads. How do we prime these and let them reveal themselves? Begin by scanning through an old photo album of people in your lives. What did they mean to you, to another? What were some of the special stories about them? What do you remember? Select two or three that resonates with you. Choose one. Consider using this line as a starter sentence: It was a day I’ll never forget or She/he had a face of _______. If you’d rather, choose a line that works for you. Then write, repeating the line several times throughout your poem or prose.

For more inspiration, check out our website www.thewritingandcreativelife.com.Or follow this link to purchase our latest book, The Fire Inside.

 

 

 

 

Mother on Mother’s Day

Mother on Mother’s Day. How can I possibly write about her? Create something with meaning? Hold her in my heart? Mother-daughter relationships are dynamic, created and recreated over time like an artful layered painting. Our canvas, my mother’s and mine, was brushed with light and shade. Yet, I found there was richness in both.

What Do You Know: This is what I know.

I was aligned in the same orbit with her. We were intertwined with an energy force that allowed me to develop independence and Mother to see with new perspective—giving each the power and space to grow and transform. My relationship like most mother-daughter bonds was complex and layered, creased with the places and depths of our living, and filled with fragile things and other things that mattered. There was synchronicity and love between us.

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Coming of Age: Becoming Creative

“Walls turned sideways are bridges.”–Angela Davis

Openness, curiosity and, yes, change spark creativity. Sometimes, change arrives because of something we’ve set out to do. Often, though, it approaches us sideways like a sudden flash of light, and, suddenly, we’re thrown into cold water. Transitions like coming of age experiences drop us like a stone into the swirling eddy of our lives. They are wild places where we are challenged, left naked and afraid. At least a rise in blood pressure. We can either sink or use our arms and legs to reach a farther shore. Becoming creative helps us navigate. Here’s my story.

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The Sweet Smell of Remembering

The Fire Inside: A Companion for the Creative Life

Chapter Five: Wooing the Muse

The Smell of Remembering

“Already many of the memories of the previous two weeks had faded: the smell of that small hotel in St. Andrews; that mixture of bacon cooking for breakfast and the lavender-scented soap in the bathroom; the air from the sea drifting across the golf course; the aroma of coffee in the coffee bar in South Street.” —Alexander McCall Smith, Trains and Lovers

Ahh, the sweet smell of remembering? Have you ever encountered a scent that takes you back to a place or person? A whiff of Old Spice, for instance, and you are a little child sitting beside your grandfather at church. Or the sweet perfume of cinnamon and you’re back in Aunt Mary’s kitchen licking the bowl while her head is turned. Smell triggers memory. As children, we notice scents and associate them with certain people or experiences. Years later, when we encounter the scent again and the same associations are aroused, memories return.

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What Can Cranes Teach You?

“Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.”—Mary Oliver

Photo by Jeanne Dill.

The cranes’ visit.
Last week, on a side road off Nebraska Interstate 80, I heard them first, the “music of an angelic avian chorus” as naturalist Paul A. Johnsgard describes the strains of the sandhill cranes. For more than a thousand years, five hundred thousand cranes have come to Nebraska and refuel in the harvested cornfields along the Platte River Valley consuming corn and other grains.

The cranes’ thin, pointed black bills move up and down like pistons and, while their heads blink red, they pick clean the harvested fields. When you see them from a distance—all those legs and elbows—they look like the moving parts of a great overheated threshing machine.

What can cranes teach you?

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Books to Inspire Your Best Writing

With the new year, one of your resolutions may be to get to your writing desk more often, and write faster and better, and more! If you’re like me, it helps if you have a little inspiration to get going. I believe in reading as preparation for writing, and want to share with you some of my favorite books for getting the writerly juices flowing.

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