Living the Comma #38

[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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Living the Comma #38

Nature. Power. Emerson.

“The law of nature is: Do the thing, and you shall have the power, but they who do not the thing have not the power.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear Writer Friends,

I recently spent a weekend inside Acadia National Park. Climbing stone stairs. Walking carriage paths. Listening to rushing water. Combing rocky beaches. Breathing ocean breezes. Noticing granite boulders. Learning about moss and ferns. I am convinced that Nature has the power. Nature does the thing. Nature does not have to be reminded to do the thing. Nature roots and blooms. Nature ebbs and flows. Nature lives and dies.

Writing does the thing. Writers and poets understand this. The slowing down. The paying attention. The finding awe. The telling about it, as Mary Oliver instructs. Writing brings me a bit closer to the thing. Writing brings me a bit closer to the power.

Conversations with Authors — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays Explained — Why Self-Reliance Matters Today — Harvard Classics Series

“O friend, never strike sail to a fear. Come in to port greatly, or sail with God the seas.” — Emerson

Listen to the series here. [28 minutes]

Nature — Chapter 1

“There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.” — Emerson

Read Nature, Chapter 1 here.

Compensation

“There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty to wisdom; hey are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action I properly am; in a virtuoso act I add to the world; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing and see in the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon.” — Emerson

Read the entire essay, “Compensation” here.

A Writing Prompt —

“This week we take our cue from Jedidiah Jenkins, whose letter reminds us that achieving our aspirations doesn’t bring automatic wholeness. Instead, he says, ‘This is the invitation of love: perform wonder. Perform surprise. Perform desire.’ And endeavor to find delight in the color in the flower in the ditch in the road. Please join me today in posing this question: Dear Love, what would you have me know about striving”— from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Letter’s from Love Substack Community

Do the thing this week. Have the power. Strike sail to a fear. Let Nature repair. Plant in deserts. See darkness recede on the limits of the horizon.

From the heart of the comma,

Katie

Thank you for Living the Comma with me. Face-to-Face meetings resume in September. Stay tuned. Subscribe to the Wide-Awakeness Project and share your light. It has never been more important.