Weekly Wide-Awake #51

[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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Walking. Kintsugi. Poetry.

Living the Comma #23

Dear Writer Friends,

I want to write about what it means to walk forward. During the final week of Lent, I want to walk forward. As spring begins, I want to walk forward. After marches with millions, I want to walk forward. As a researcher who studies wide-awakeness, I want to walk forward. As a writing group guide, I want to walk forward.

We walk forward when we join choirs and communities and congregations and writing groups whispering and shouting and singing and writing, “Hosanna! Save us! Save our world.” We walk forward when we listen to one another and seek to understand. We walk forward when we pay attention and tell about it. We walk forward when we take small, toddling steps and create. We walk forward when we imagine the world we want and work to make it so.

Read entire post here.

MONDAYS ARE FREE EXERCISES 206-210

EXERCISE 210: THE FIFTEEN MINUTE WALK

compose to the rhythm

From this week’s accumulated material, write about your fifteen minute or fifteen block walk, or your fifteen minute practice. Pay attention to your breathing as you write. If you can, compose to the rhythm of your breath.

I was walking slow enough this morning to notice a cardinal. That is important because cardinals are my mother’s favorite bird. There is something sacred about walking slow enough to notice your mother’s favorite bird. The breath of it all. Socks to feet. Feet to shoes. Shoes to floor. Floor to door. Door to pavers. Pavers to path. Path to cardinal. The faith of it all. Faith in Way. Faith in healing. Faith in progress. The rhythm of it all. The rhythm of the community as we move together on the path. The rhythm of the second when I am sure I lock eyes with the cardinal who knows he is seen and loved for all his cardinalness and the lifetime of cardinals I have known. The courage of it all. Courage to be red and brilliant when you are red and brilliant. Courage to fly when flying demands leaving the ground. Courage to understand that we are connected — people and cardinals — when we walk slow enough to notice.

Read entire post here.

Spit and Spaghetti #15

Brevity

The Delight of Golden Joinery

My childhood bedroom walls were adorned with beautiful china plates carefully curated by the women in my family — my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Kittens, butterflies, and flowers, mainly, watched over my comings and goings well into my adulthood. Gradually, several broke during moves and time and my need to keep them with me as I grew up. In their gifting and their breaking, they are a delight. In their gifting and their breaking, they tell a story. They tell the story of loving and growing. They tell a story about cherishing and changing. They tell a story of beauty and brokenness. The plates have been with me my entire life. I wrapped them in bubble wrap and kept them safe, always intending to do something with them.

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The Synthesis of Hyacinths and Biscuits

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. – Carl Sandburg

April is National Poetry Month. I love to write about poetry. From celebrating the craft of Poet Laureates, to mining the riches of new poets’ work, to collecting Presidential Inaugural poems, to exploring the cracks and crevasses of my favorite poets’ verse, poetry has been root and bud, figure and ground, breath and imagination, grace and precision, hyacinth and biscuit. Dipping my toe into the poetry writing waters in MONDAYS ARE FREE exercises has given me new love and admiration for poets.

Read entire post here.

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