Last week was a leisurely, slow-travel road trip with a friend to the southeastern hills of Eastern Washington and Spokane then a loop back to PDX via Moses Lake and Yakima. We took in many truly awesome sights, scenes, vistas
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What Gandhi Considered Sins…
Seven and deadly and, still, sadly, beyond relevant today.
1. wealth without work.
2. pleasure without conscience.
3. knowledge without character. …
It does take a village…
We held a neighborhood potluck party today. An utterly delightful (and delicious) afternoon of sharing food, conversation, and laughter. Memories and reminiscences since some of our neighbors have been on these blocks for over fifty! years! New friendships and connections. Lots of glasses raised
Everyone Should Have a Vision, Mission, & Purpose
I wrote these guiding-light principles way back when (twenty years? 2003) when I was working with a creativity coach. All this years later reading them again…
And so after a month of daily scribbling…
Since last fall, maybe early November, I’ve been drafting (mostly) a poem a day with time off for Thanksgiving…Every day in the short month of February, I posted my thoughts about the process, as well as excerpts from the daily poems, one-a-day like a creative vitamin…
Here We Are in the Years…
A dear, dear friend from my long ago past life was found this week. What a gift that is! I, who pride myself on not losing touch with those I hold so near and dear lost this person, how, I don’t even recall. But now he’s found, thanks to a mutual pal who braved the vagaries of Facebook to connect with him. And already, after a mere 24 hours of e-mail back-and-forth, man oh man, there are some people you just pick up with where you left off…
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One-A-Day: Poetry as Creative Vitamin
Since last fall, maybe early November, I’ve been drafting (mostly) a poem a day with time off for Thanksgiving, a 60th birthday party, Christmas, and our recent delirious spate of February spring. I’d long meant to tackle such a project…
Cat’s Cradle
As the whole world likely knows, the reclusive author, J.D. Salinger, died at the age of ninety-one last week. I was royally hooked on everything written by Salinger when I was an impressionable teen. Franny and Zooey was my favorite…
Keeping the Heart Open
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?…
Dem Bones
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…