Today Lisa Jo asks us to stop, drop, and write for five minutes on the word, “catch,” without worrying if what we write is right. GO! “Look! Penguins!” I was maybe four years old, and we were at the train station. Great-Aunt Emma had come from out of state for a visit. Sister Mary Lucinda. […]
Mindful Aging–Corn, Cars, and Snowshoes
Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate . . . To my own surprise, I burst out with hot conviction. ~Florida Scott-Maxwell as quoted in Mindfulness, p. 93 I’ll call him John. He was a retired minister who lived in […]
Saturday Snaps: More From the Canyon
Just some quiet photos from Laity Lodge. Still in the stillness,
It Will Not End Up Here
How did I end up here wrapped in a circle of poets (I don’t even call myself a poet) where we showed up to taste peaches and wild grapes, to crush the flesh of nectarine and sing fig songs? How did I end up here in cedar-scented sacred breeze benched above a liquid mirror […]
Give Yourself Permission
I could hike Circle Bluff again. Or I could swim in Blue Hole. Or both. Or I could lay claim to a hammock. But I want to do art, I say. I used to do art. Crocheting, cross-stitching, soapmaking, scrapbooking, stamping, quilting. Painting–not so much. But doing art takes money. And there’s the clutter […]
Turned Around at Laity Lodge
Am I really here? All week we’ve gathered in the Great Hall, sunk in soft sofas or perched on chairs, and faced the fireplace. And my heart burned with words and songs, and tears flowed, but they could not extinguish the flames. Since Thursday, I’ve felt embraced by the canyon and living avatars. This morning, […]
Poetry as Rust
There is change in the breaking when flakes of feeling surface, exposed, blister and bleed on paper, transformed into a poetic patina of words stripped from the heart. Responding to the challenge Photography and Poetry as Rust through The High Calling and T.S. Poetry Press. If you have time, check out my “rusty” photo set on Flickr.
Lay Me Down on a Bed of Books
I wake wrapped in zebra sheets. (Maybe that accounts for my battling-the-tiger dreams of the other night.) Light streams through the basement window, and I turn, and full moon hovers bright. I’ve tossed all night, brain churning with medical and financial waves. I reach out and pat them, chenille scattered–Patsy Clairmont and Blackwater Ben and […]
I Have This Need . . .
They came back last year. Full and flowing and bubbling over like the Frio inself. The High Calling editors. Their words carved a hole in my soul. An aching yawn in my heart that longs to be filled with the beauty of a Texas canyon. To embrace those who have become like family. L.L., who […]
Walking Wooden
They’re at it again, these two. Claire and L.L. Asking us to stretch our “creative fibers.” To share our history symbolically. In photographic images. And poetry–a sonnet. Claire challenges us to find five photos that answer five specific questions. I didn’t realize how much my life has been shaped by wood. 1. Who Made Up Your […]
