Weekly Wide-Awake #27

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Poetry. Hidden Doors. Gratitude.

Dear Friends,

I am thinking about truth and miracles. I am thinking about poetry and gratitude conversations. I am thinking about justice and peace. I continue working through the Miracle Project and MONDAYS ARE FREE — two writing classes that I am taking that I absolutely love. The leaves begin to fall and I believe in miracles. Leaves change in perfect time. Mornings cool like a deep breath. People gather in the name of love at festivals and churches and retreats. The center holds. That all is miraculous.

I marched in Atlanta’s Pride Parade this weekend. It was an example of absolutely joyful resistance. Standing on the side of love. Using our voices to shout and sing. Walking together in solidarity and celebration. My soul needed to be surrounded in something more than cruelty and hate. To see beyond cruelty and hate, we must live into solidarity and celebration — Big Love. The Pride Parade was Big Love.

May we carry Big Love into this week.

With glitter all over my clothes and a heart smiling from the tips of my toes.

Love,

Katie

MONDAYS ARE FREE 096 — 100

Literature Magazine. Plots. Rhythm. Quitting. Poetry.

EXERCISE 099: QUIT

use your reclaimed time

Write a nine-sentence note quitting a job (current, past, imagined) that you despise. At least six sentences must celebrate (concretely) how you will use your reclaimed time.

Thank you for the opportunity to be Queen of the World, but I respectively resign. Laying down the burden of controlling absolutely everything will allow me to pursue personal meaning. Because it will no longer be in my purview to judge and compare and criticize, I will focus on breathing and intention and light. I will seek joy in mind, body, and soul. I will make friends with my 15 year-old self who feared her future living with Turner syndrome. I will create something every day. I will savor everything. I will listen to cats’ purrs. I will pay attention to clouds.

Read entire post here.

The Door in the Ordinary

The Hidden Door to Tirta Empul

The Impossible Opening

There is a historical brick factory across the street from my house. In front of the factory (now a renovated art gallery/house) there is a worn, uneven path made from bricks crafted of Georgia clay.

In walking toward the trail to where the brick path leads, I noticed the loose brick dusted in magical gold. I reached down to pick up the beautiful glittering square and noticed a large wooden door with worn iron handles at the back of the factory slowly opening. The afternoon sun could not hide the light beams dancing from the door. I gingerly walked toward the door, like the new kitten who lives next door and fearlessly moves in the direction of magic.

Read entire post here.

Gratitude Conversations #4

Seth Godin. Leonard Pitts Jr. Justin Sullivan.

Why Gratitude?

In 2017, heartbroken and eyeballs deep in despair, I started searching for things for which to be grateful. I asked myself the question asked by poet Katie Farris

“Why write love poetry in a burning world? To train myself, in the midst of a burning world, to offer poems of love to a burning world.”

I reached out to people who — in the way in which they live — write love poems to our burning world. I cast my net far and wide amongst my heroes — those I knew personally and those who teach us all by their example. I invited artists, philosophers, psychologists, politicians, professors, yogis, writers, clergy, and others into a dialogue about gratitude. I am deeply grateful to those who said yes. Read more about my gratitude project methodology here.

Read entire post here.