My family got hit with some unexpected bad news this week. The kind of bad news that makes it feel like you can't breathe for an hour or so, there's so much anger, fear and confusion.

But its also the kind of bad news that can make you stronger, that forces you to do the inner work we often avoid or don't realize we need to do. Choosing to work through tough times rather than just getting bitter and feeling helpless is hard, but ultimately freeing.

Rumi's poem, "This Being Human" says it perfectly:

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

To do that, to truly welcome and entertain a crowd of sorrows you need support. So the other poem I turned to yesterday was John O'Donohue's "Beannacht":

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

What poems do you turn to for comfort and support in tough times?

Yesterday was a perfect spring day. Perfect. Sunshine, a cool breeze, birds chirping, squirrels playing, buds beginning to poke their heads out of the soil.

I spent most of the day outside raking leaves and tidying up our yard for spring. It was glorious! And all day I had the first few lines of this poem singing in my head:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
~e.e.cummings

Today is another glorious spring day and even though I can't spend it outside in my backyard, I am still thankful for "everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes."

Last weekend, my dear friend, Jane, and I led a thoroughly successful (if we do say so ourselves) poetry workshop on writing desire! It was so fun to meet people interested in expressing themselves through poetry and it was such a privilege to hear their creations at the end of the day! 

So for those of you that couldn't make it, I thought I'd post a play-by-play of our writing process. 

Step 1: As our participants entered in the morning we asked them to choose a phrase that jumped out at them from the many borrowed lines of poetry Jane and I had at the back. We had them do some journalling on why they chose that phrase and how it connected to their own experiences of desire. 

I chose this phrase from "The River Merchant's Wife" by Li Po: 

Step 2: We had lots of magazine cut-outs on a table and asked everyone to choose two or three images. Using one image at a time as a prompt we did some freewriting. In the first photo below, my freewrites are the two solid paragraphs at the bottom of the left hand page and the top of the right hand page. 

Step 3: Based on the freewriting we asked participants to start find the poem in the chaos. One of the aids we offered was to find inspiration in the borrowed phrases from Step 1. You can see my rough drafts on the page in the middle and my inspirational images and phrases in the 2nd picture below. 

Step 4: Edit. Edit. Edit. :) Jane and I discussed six helpful tips for shaping, pruning and editing poems. You can see two more of my drafts here: 

Step 5: Celebrate! Even if the poem didn't feel complete or otherwise entirely satisfactory to the author, lovely words ended up on the page and all of our participants did a fantastic job! 

So there you have a very simple synopsis of our fantastic workshop. You'll have to come next time to get the full experience! (And if you're too far away feel free to download my free poetry workbook on the resources page!) 

Bonus: Here's the poem I wrote based on the picture of the couple dancing, which was one of the two images I chose to do my freewriting on. Enjoy! 

six years after vows
we slow dance in the kitchen
to your favourite song
the one you always play
when thinking of me

remember that first night
the question in your eyes
the answer in mine
urgent, unquenchable curiousity
skin against skin
lips against lips

I lean my head on your shoulder
aware of all the places
our bodies meet
mix fire and earth
still hungry
still exploring

love lies heavy
a thunderstorm inside my chest
the tight, constricted awe
of you, of this, of forever. 

p.s. Many thanks to both the Carleton Ecumenical Chaplaincy and Faith & Arts Ottawa for sponsoring our workshop! 

"For though a poem is made of words, what touches us is between and beyond them. The words might be simple or complex, of themselves, they have no magic. But together the words become part of a structure that encloses intimate space." ~ Kim Rosen, Saved By a Poem

The poems that I love, I love for this reason: because they enclose intimate space. They make it possible to voice what it means to be truly human, to talk about what is often unsayable, to comfort or grieve or love. Poetry speaks to that part of ourselves beyond logic and reason, beyond our often ultra-analytical and rational ideals, to the part that doesn't know how it knows, but recognizes truth when it hears it.

Last time around I told you a story about first love. This time its a story about kindred spirits. Kindred spirits that are too often far away. 

I met Sarah the Christmas of 2007. A lot had changed in my life recently and she had been through similar transitions, breaking down old patterns of thinking and feeling and trying to find Truth in what was left. 

We hit it off right away, the only problem was, I was just visiting. We lived across the country. So for the next year or so we wrote lovely long emails and found the solace we needed in our long-distance friendship. 

This poem comes from an email she sent me once more lamenting the distance between us and the fact that we couldn't sit face to face with our beloved cups of tea. 

So, for all soul friends out there that have experienced the frustration of distance, this one's for you:

p.s. This is a triolet--you can learn how to write your own here! 

Here's the event poster with all the details! If you're in the Ottawa area this March, I would love to see you there!!

It's hard to believe that this little adventure of mine is now almost 7 months old! It's been so lovely to hear so much positive feedback about my postcards and I'm very excited to see what the next six months hold. 

I was especially thrilled to be asked to contribute to an online magazine this month! You can check out Sprout Magazine here and see what creator Amanda is all about! And you can get a copy of the 3rd issue (with one of my poempostcards in it) here!

As you can see I've been tinkering with the site (hope you like it!). I'm also tinkering with new ideas! Watch for a free Poetry as Prayer e-course in the nearish future. And I'm hoping to be able to order the 8 new postcards I made for the 2012 calendar as actual postcards!

Speaking of calendars, I've got just a few left and since we're half way through January they're half off! Get them for $10+shipping!

This New Year's Eve I've been reflecting on my habit of jumping far ahead into the future and getting bogged down with questions and uncertainties. Recently, I have been wrestling with questions of meaningful work and meaningful friendships and how to find them. I have a great job, just not one I'm terribly passionate about, and good friends, but too many of them are far away. 

Which has created this underlying feeling of malaise, despite all of the truly great things in my life, like having a wonderful Christmas holiday, like beautiful, fresh snow, like a great husband and good health. Malaise is the perfect word: "a general feeling of discomfort, illness or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to determine." 

Tonight, even setting goals seemed off-putting because of all the "how"s and "if"s and "maybe"s surrounding them. And then, thankfully, I remembered this quote from Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet: 

"Here, where I am surrounded by an enormous landscape, which the winds move across as they come from the seas, here I feel that there is no one anywhere who can answer for you those questions and feelings which, in their depths, have a life of their own; for even the most articulate people are unable to help, since what words point to is so very delicate, is almost unsayable. 

But even so, I think that you will not have to remain without a solution if you trust in Things that are like the ones my eyes are now resting upon. If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge. 

You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. 

And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)

In this New Year remember that its not so much what happens in your future or what your plans are, but how you choose to live. If I hold onto to the "how" of life, choosing gratitude, compassion, care, contentment and trust, the big questions and the uncertainty that comes with the future seem much less daunting. 

I will live my way into the answers eventually. And so will you!

Happy New Year!