Community Blog
These posts were all written by someone in a Soul Writing group or workshop in ten minutes or less—really!
Not only that, what you read is virtually unedited from the original, timed writing. Several pieces often have the same title since groups write together on one prompt. Join us anytime to try it out for yourself. For now, happy reading.
Once again …
As a musician, I have learned to take the small troublesome passages and work them, until all the friction has smoothed out.
Don’t you know who I am?
Tonight, knowing no one, I sat in the campfire circle and dared play a song. I didn’t play all that well, my fingers rusty and cold, my voice rusty and soft and then spurting out like air in the pipes.
Don’t you know who I am?
Growing up in small-town Louisiana, in a fairly prominent family, everyone knew who I was. I couldn't go anywhere, or do anything, without someone noticing. It made for excellent conditions for paranoia to grow like a weed.
Never again
The last time I thought "never again," as our family had scattered, and my parents' ashes floated out into the sunrise they loved so well. Well . . . here I am; specifically to add the first of my generation to that dawn tide.
All of a sudden…
I spent the whole afternoon yesterday watching the light fall on the marshes, watching a Great Blue Heron preening in the afternoon glow and the Snowy Egret catching little tiny fish wriggling in its beak.
Here’s how I know
I once heard a published writer say that writing her memoir had cost her tens of thousands of dollars in therapy, and I believe it – was relieved to hear that this might be part of a universal path, as it’s been the foundation – the may pole for me around which everything else has been born.
Here’s how I know
This morning there was one ripe fig on the tree that the squirrels had not yet nibbled. There was a purple bloom of borage not yet withered in the cold.
I didn’t know
If I were to frame the shot, I’d bring the camera in through a window streaked with rain or steam or fog. Or better yet through an open door with the focus soft, the Watcher’s gaze landing on the figures beyond: people stretching on their own at the barre, on the floor, or using the seat of a chair.
I never got to…
I really suck at goodbye. Not just when someone passes away -- whether or not I had time to anticipate. If we have a lovely afternoon together, I'll need to grieve for a bit before I can really feel the joy of the memory.
The whole picture
The whole picture is blurred, but not because it is raining. Not because the window is dirty or painted black. The whole picture is blurry, not because of a camera mishap. The whole scene is blurry because I will not stand still.
The true test begins (shit’s getting real)
I'm taken aback by the snakes on the path. Emerald green, with fierce red eyes. They symbolize all that I am still to experience on this road to independence.
The whole picture
If I could fly up like a bird and see the whole picture -- the whole sad and complicated picture -- maybe I would know what to do. Maybe I could put my arms around it.
Swimming beneath my thoughts I find …
Rabbits. Everywhere. They’ve hopped into my life as a logo on the bottle of my favorite wine from Cyprus. They’ve squeaked at me through their prairie cousins the pikas from out of the Discovery Channel. But most often I see them simply standing, ears erect, wide silent eyes watching over our back lawn, like small stoic sentinels.
A child’s drawing
1972. My mother sits at her drawing table. She is wearing blue shirt and blue jeans. I stand next to her and peek over her shoulder. She looks up at me and smiles. She is working in ink.
When all else falls away
It’s a start – being able to lock eyes, if only for a short time, with all the deeply buried insecurities, all the lies I heard and internalized, instead of swatting them away like flies – removing myself from their incessant, maddening buzzing, as I so wish I had done.
That’s life
That's life, always changing. Growing and dying. Making noise. Wanting attention. And even if you don't pay attention -- it just does its thing. A clamor, or a soft chime. Whatever -- it just keeps going.
Say my name
I am from the deep past, the deep earth, the raiding Vikings and the Pict folk who knew their Mother was Nature and their Father was Time.
Say my name
My name is not yours, my essence not for the taking. Tune to my frequency if you wish. Dance to its music, but don’t sweep it off the table into your handbag and disappear into the night.
Say my name
My name is also often mispronounced. Not slaughtered, but just the wrong name. “Ah-na” like I am some proper British royalty, not “Anna” with my nasal-y Chicago “aa”.
Say my name
Once upon a time, before every other baseball player from any Latin country had my same last name, people used to mispronounce it…