Daylight saving time ended last Saturday night, but for the entire week, I’ve been consumed with time, anticipating the fifteen hour difference between San Diego and Okinawa, where I’m headed for a visit with my daughter and her family. My husband, a seasoned global traveler, offered his advice for easing jet lag. “Just get up [...]
Archive for the ‘writing for wellness’ Category
For the Week of November 12, 2011: If You Could Turn Back Time
Posted in expressive writing, life writing, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors on November 13, 2011 | 4 Comments »
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 16, 2011: Exorcising Negative Emotions
Posted in expressive writing, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on October 16, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak; whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break (From Macbeth, by William Shakespeare) Have you ever felt the need to get feelings or frustration with something off your chest, the ones that keep you awake at night or gnaw at you until they’re voiced? As it [...]
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, 2011: 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 [...]
For the Week of September 18, 2011: The Colors of the Cancer Experience
Posted in art and writing, expressive writing, healing arts, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on September 19, 2011 | 5 Comments »
I returned to San Diego last evening after a weekend collaboration with colleague and artist, Heidi Darr-Hope in Columbia, South Carolina. Heidi’s artistic work is well-known as well as her long-time involvement in the cancer community, leading healing arts workshops. Our collaboration began in 2004, when I traveled to Columbia to lead an all-day expressive writing workshop at [...]
For the Week of September 11, 2011: Life Changes in an Instant
Posted in expressive writing, writing as a way of healing, writing for wellness, writing prompts for cancer survivors, writing to heal on September 11, 2011 | 3 Comments »
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. The question of self-pity. Those were the first words I wrote after it happened….I had made no changes to that file since I wrote the words, in January 2004, a day or two or three after the fact. For a long time I [...]
