For the past week or so, I’ve been embracing solitude, honoring the need to pull back and retreat from the busyness of my past many weeks of travel, family visits and non-stop activity of the holidays. I’ve rediscovered the joy of the quiet routine that nourishes my writing life, re-created a place of sanctuary in [...]
Archive for the ‘healing arts’ Category
For the Week of January 22, 2012: The Small Islands of Sanctuary
Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on January 22, 2012 | 5 Comments »
For the Week of January 15, 2012: Lost and Found
Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors on January 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“Before you know what kindness really is,” poet Naomi Shihab Nye tells us, “you must lose things…” Loss. It’s often synonymous with cancer. Loss of hair, parts of the body; loss of self-image, of dreams, or loss of loved ones. We feel overwhelmed as we face a landscape defined only by losses, hopelessness and grief. [...]
For the Week of January 1, 2012: Shaping A Life
Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on January 1, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Last night the sound of celebrations echoed through our neighborhood, amplified by one of the many canyons that cut through San Diego. Fireworks, songs and shouts announced the departure of the old and the arrival of a new year, and perhaps for many, a list of well-intentioned resolutions: exercise more, lose those extra holiday pounds, [...]
For the Week of December 4, 2011: Forgiveness
Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, life writing, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors on December 4, 2011 | 9 Comments »
My parents died several years ago, and in the aftermath of their loss, the dynamics between the siblings in my family were turbulent and hurtful. Grief, which all of us experience, is complex. It sometimes emerges as anger or resentment directed at others, and in the death of a parent, with one family member striking [...]
For the Week of November 6, 2011: Movement and the Muse
Posted in art and writing, expressive writing, healing arts, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors on November 6, 2011 | 6 Comments »
and the body, what about the body? Sometimes it is my favorite child, uncivilized. . . And sometimes my body disgusts me. Filling and emptying it disgusts me. . . . This long struggle to be at home in the body, this difficult friendship. — Jane Kenyon, “Cages” Yesterday [...]
For the Week of October 31, 2011: The Seasons of Cancer
Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors on October 29, 2011 | 7 Comments »
I live in an area of California that boasts nearly perfect weather. Sunshine dominates our days. Our palm and eucalyptus and palm trees refuse to don the showy colors of autumn, and rain, while we can count on some, seems always in short supply. Yet there is evidence, no matter how subtle, that autumn has [...]
For the Week of October 23, 2011: The Comfort of Ritual
Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on October 23, 2011 | 2 Comments »
The shoes put on each time left first, then right. The morning potion’s teaspoon of sweetness stirred always for seven circlings, no fewer, no more, into the cracked blue cup. Touching the pocket for wallet, for keys, before closing the door. How did we come to believe these small rituals’ promise, that we are today [...]
For the Week of October 9, 2011: When Night Stretches into Forever
Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, life writing, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on October 9, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Even in the cave of the night when you wake… you push with your eyes till forever comes in its twisted figure eight and lies down in your head… ( “Waking at 3 a.m.,” by William Stafford, in Waking at 3 a.m., 1972) We’ve all had them, those sleepless nights when our fears and worries [...]
For the Week of October 2, 1011: The Stories of our Scars
Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, life writing, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on October 2, 2011 | 5 Comments »
i was leaving my fifty-eighth year when a thumb of ice stamped itself hard near my heart you have your own story you know about the fears the tears the scar of disbelief … (“1994,” by Lucille Clifton) There’s a scar on my head, behind my hairline, that runs from one ear to the other. [...]
For the Week of September 25, 2011: The “C” word.
Posted in expressive writing, healing arts, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on September 25, 2011 | 7 Comments »
At a breast cancer rally she rises Above sixteen positive lymph nodes To tell the world that cancer is a wakeup call That resonates to the cell level… (“The Lesson,” by Judy Rohm, in The Cancer Poetry Project.) The “c” word: courage. Imagine a shiny quarter. On one side, the word “cancer,” and on the [...]
