[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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Taking A Walk #17
Taking a walk with Joy Harjo
Grace
for Darlene Wind and James Welch
I could say grace was a woman with time on her hands, or a white buffalo escaped from memory. But in that dingy light it was a promise of balance. We once again understood the talk of animals, and spring was lean and hungry with the hope of children and corn.
From “Grace” by Joy Harjo
Grace as the promise of balance. Original grace is the promise of balance — from birth — that is freely given and does not have to be bought, negotiated, or earned. The seasons, tides, and sun know grace. Babies, animals, and nature know grace. Sky, earth, and oceans know grace. They know it down deep. They know it in the place that knows falling apart and coming back together. They know it in the place that knows impermanence and equanimity. They know it is the place that knows joy and sorrow. They know it in the place that knows life and death. They know it in the place that knows blood and tears.
Remember
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember…From Joy Harjo’s “Remember“
Shedding and molting. Falling and breaking. Cracking and bending. Changing and breathing. Tempering and weathering. When I think about life’s motion as huge, existential, connected, outside of my grasp, beyond my understanding, happening in perfect time, built on previous motion, heading in the direction of the good, rooted in omniscient love, I am comforted. Motion is a kind of impermanence. It is comforting to think about motion as an opportunity for joy. It is comforting to think of motion as an invitation to pay attention. It is comforting to think of motion as dancing with the not yet or the as if.
Praise the Rain
Praise crazy. Praise sad.
Praise the path on which we’re led.
Praise the roads on earth and water.
Praise the eater and the eaten.
Praise beginnings; praise the end.
Praise the song and praise the singer.Praise the rain; it brings more rain.
Praise the rain; it brings more rain.From Joy Harjo’s “Praise the Rain“
Touch it all. Taste it all. See it all. Feel it all. Praise it all. On the journey to being whole, praise it all. Lift every voice. Rise up and sing. Pass it on. Let it shine. Light a fire. Hosanna. Hallelujah. It comes from the same place.
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Taking A Walk #16
About Katie
From Louisville. Live in Atlanta. Curious by nature. Researcher by education. Writer by practice. Grateful heart by desire.
Buy the Book!
The Stage Is On Fire, a memoir about hope and change, reasons for voyaging, and dreams burning down can be purchased on Amazon.
