I went to a writing weekend at Esalen in Big Sur, California back in October 2003. At the final session, all the attendees gathered together and we were all asked to reflect on these questions: What do I do to keep my heart open? How do I stay in touch with the source of compassion inside myself in these difficult times?…
In March 2009, a dear friend chose to begin the process of dying “consciously.” What does that mean in this culture so notoriously youth-obsessed and morality-denying?…
There were clouds upon waking but blue sky triumphant behind and around them. Then a wind that kicked up as I sat in my upstairs knotty pine room and tried, with some desperation and silliness, to concentrate on words. Afternoon was errands, a Ladybug coffee meet-up, and then back here to regroup.
…
In his smart and insightful collection, Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer’s Vocation, William Stafford has the briefest of essays that always has something to say to me. Originally published in the second issue of the the-then-fledgling FIELD in Spring 1970, it’s called…
These days, when civility in public discourse has plummeted to yet another low when accusations fly like poisoned arrows from one ideological camp to the next, facts are taken out of context and twisted, and half-truths and blatant lies treated as equivalencies on nightly newscasts, I’ve turned back to Jenny Holzer’s…
It’s been over twenty years since Natalie Goldberg urged us to “free the writer within” in what seemed, at the time, her groundbreaking (well, in some circles) book, Writing Down the Bones, first published in 1986. Yep, Reagan was still President…
And so, for the first time in my life perhaps I took the lamp, and went down to my inmost self. But as I moved …
A while back, I took an online class that was all about getting past writer’s block. I’m not even sure that I had a case of writer’s block at the time; I’d been writing away fairly regularly, with the usual peripatetic ups and down but somehow something felt—and thus kept getting—stuck. Looking back now, I think what I mostly needed at that moment was…
It’s almost sultry here in Oregon as I type these words, sitting outside listening to the temple bells make their music to my ears. I’m alone this week with J. down in Corvallis. And I’m thinking more about Cynthia, and how much I’ve missed her …
Mary Oliver is a beloved contemporary poet. Her work is read at weddings and funerals and by Garrison Keillor on his radio show, “The Writer’s Alamanac.” Even my yoga teacher in Corvallis, Oregon, often began our class with inspirational lines from Oliver’s work…
