Recent changes to this wiki:
Changed pages:
archives/2024
archives/2024/01
archives/2024/02
archives/2024/03
archives/2024/04
archives/2024/05
archives/2024/06
archives/2024/07
archives/2024/08
archives/2024/09
...
Changed by: admins-2017
Commit type: git
Date: 06:38:28 01/01/24
calendar update
diff --git a/archives/2024.mdwn b/archives/2024.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a3c0cdb --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +[[!calendar type=year year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] diff --git a/archives/2024/01.mdwn b/archives/2024/01.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eabfb74 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/01.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=01 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(01) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/02.mdwn b/archives/2024/02.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..521c690 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/02.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=02 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(02) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/03.mdwn b/archives/2024/03.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..023d9e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/03.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=03 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(03) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/04.mdwn b/archives/2024/04.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89ac372 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/04.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=04 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(04) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/05.mdwn b/archives/2024/05.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..82fa0bc --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/05.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=05 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(05) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/06.mdwn b/archives/2024/06.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f0d34a --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/06.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=06 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(06) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/07.mdwn b/archives/2024/07.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e40a494 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/07.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=07 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(07) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/08.mdwn b/archives/2024/08.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d59e39f --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/08.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=08 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(08) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/09.mdwn b/archives/2024/09.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0231a47 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/09.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=09 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(09) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/10.mdwn b/archives/2024/10.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b17404 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/10.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=10 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(10) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/11.mdwn b/archives/2024/11.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1beafa --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/11.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=11 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(11) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2024/12.mdwn b/archives/2024/12.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..65adbba --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2024/12.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=12 year=2024 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(12) and creation_year(2024) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]]
Changed pages:
archives/2023
archives/2023/01
archives/2023/02
archives/2023/03
archives/2023/04
archives/2023/05
archives/2023/06
archives/2023/07
archives/2023/08
archives/2023/09
...
Changed by: admins-2017
Commit type: git
Date: 06:49:53 01/01/23
calendar update
diff --git a/archives/2023.mdwn b/archives/2023.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd03157 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +[[!calendar type=year year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] diff --git a/archives/2023/01.mdwn b/archives/2023/01.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2ed2a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/01.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=01 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(01) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/02.mdwn b/archives/2023/02.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..428672c --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/02.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=02 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(02) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/03.mdwn b/archives/2023/03.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3286b48 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/03.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=03 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(03) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/04.mdwn b/archives/2023/04.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a82af2 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/04.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=04 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(04) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/05.mdwn b/archives/2023/05.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51b064e --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/05.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=05 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(05) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/06.mdwn b/archives/2023/06.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7454b86 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/06.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=06 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(06) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/07.mdwn b/archives/2023/07.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff45784 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/07.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=07 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(07) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/08.mdwn b/archives/2023/08.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a4ac30d --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/08.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=08 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(08) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/09.mdwn b/archives/2023/09.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b58593a --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/09.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=09 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(09) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/10.mdwn b/archives/2023/10.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a342da --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/10.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=10 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(10) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/11.mdwn b/archives/2023/11.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c1a244 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/11.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=11 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(11) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2023/12.mdwn b/archives/2023/12.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66d5788 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2023/12.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=12 year=2023 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(12) and creation_year(2023) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]]
Changed pages:
archives/2022
archives/2022/01
archives/2022/02
archives/2022/03
archives/2022/04
archives/2022/05
archives/2022/06
archives/2022/07
archives/2022/08
archives/2022/09
...
Changed by: admins-2017
Commit type: git
Date: 06:46:17 01/01/22
calendar update
diff --git a/archives/2022.mdwn b/archives/2022.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e738afc --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +[[!calendar type=year year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] diff --git a/archives/2022/01.mdwn b/archives/2022/01.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b3ff765 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/01.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=01 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(01) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/02.mdwn b/archives/2022/02.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e109ab --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/02.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=02 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(02) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/03.mdwn b/archives/2022/03.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ff2fa6 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/03.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=03 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(03) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/04.mdwn b/archives/2022/04.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04cada7 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/04.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=04 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(04) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/05.mdwn b/archives/2022/05.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a02820 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/05.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=05 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(05) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/06.mdwn b/archives/2022/06.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0c2ff58 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/06.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=06 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(06) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/07.mdwn b/archives/2022/07.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..098c5b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/07.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=07 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(07) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/08.mdwn b/archives/2022/08.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2151608 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/08.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=08 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(08) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/09.mdwn b/archives/2022/09.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f250b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/09.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=09 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(09) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/10.mdwn b/archives/2022/10.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3584fc0 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/10.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=10 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(10) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/11.mdwn b/archives/2022/11.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f883931 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/11.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=11 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(11) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2022/12.mdwn b/archives/2022/12.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d49307 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2022/12.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=12 year=2022 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(12) and creation_year(2022) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]]
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 8b13789..8c9a5ad 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1 +1,27 @@ +Differing + +<br>I never imagined that people </br> +<br>with differing abilities </br> +<br>would be the ones</br> +<br>to change my life</br> +<br>and quite often </br> +<br>to bend my mind</br> +<br>but now every day </br> +<br>they do.</br> + +<br>I thought disability </br> +<br>would be purgatory </br> +<br>when pronounced </br> +<br>disabled myself.</br> + +<br>River's Way </br> +<br>teaches me</br> +<br>limitations are just rivers</br> +<br>for bridges to be built over</br> +<br>cause there's always a </br> +<br>way around the river </br> + +<br>now that I know </br> +<br>people with differing abilities </br> +<br>change lives.</br>
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index ffe010f..8b13789 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,81 +1 @@ -August 19, 2021 - -I learned something so unique in college. The guilty part of this story is I never really shared the lesson. Now terror is overcoming Afghanistan. But I saw a news story that reminded me this lesson I learned at Berea College circa 2012, peace really is possible. Let me explain. - -First here is the only prayer I ever wrote. - -<br>Oh God</br> -<br>I learned </br> -<br>It is possible </br> -<br>To stop</br> -<br>A machine gun</br> -<br>Without a weapon </br> - -<br>Let someone tell Afghanistan</br> -<br>Please God</br> - -<br>Begging on knees</br> - - -This prayer poem, I wrote when I saw something about people protesting the Taliban with the traditional Afghanistan flags. - -In college, I took a course in Peace and Justice Studies that focused on the fact that nonviolent resistance has many times through out history been a feasible answer that brought an end to major impossible seeming global conflicts. - -I always had believed this. But at Berea, Dr. Mendel Reyes gave me the facts to back my dreams. Check out the Global Nonviolence Action Database for a complete list. - -Here were some highlights I remember. In Estonia a singing group of unarmed civilians banded together to call for independence which was then occupied by the scary Soviet Union. - -Civil rights in the USA led by Martin Luther King Jr. - -Honduras's campaign for democracy. - -Cambodian Villagers Resisting forced Evictions. - -Indians embrace trees to stop logging activity. - -The list is super long. - -My point is the point I made in my poem. It may seem peace is impossible, but it isn't. We just have to try peacefully, and peace comes. It takes the trying peacefully. It takes more bravery to address a conflict without an equal force. If someone points a gun in your face, it takes guts to talk them down. - -This message is simple, but peace is the right thing. - -I wish the answers were simple for Afghanistan. They aren't. Many will die, no matter what, and it devastates me. I had a close friend from there in college. Knowing him changed my life. What I see going on there, breaks me heart and worries me deeply, the impact the US made is terrible, and the decision to leave willy nilly. Everything is in chaos. The CIA itself initially funded the Taliban, and now civilian society is breaking down, frantically trying to escape it. It is so so sad. - -I just really do still believe in peace and hope. I wonder what we can do from a far? Please leave comments with ideas! - -Flying my Afghanistan flag. - - - - ------------------------ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -[[!img sanpiper_and_pelican.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] -When I painted the Sandpiper and the Pelican, I fell so swiftly in love with the blue waves, it took forever for me to look at anything else, no less try to paint anything else. Then I painted the one with the whale, and was amazed that the night scene was equally vibrant. -No need to wax about this moon. Or all these loons. -[[!img crescent_moon_and_full_moon_172626.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] -[[!img 20210705_180807.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] -[[!img 207265319_556806822159970_8499084151051502855_n__40__1__41____40__1__41__.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]]
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 8b744c7..ffe010f 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ Flying my Afghanistan flag. - +-----------------------
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index b0713b0..8b744c7 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,77 @@ +August 19, 2021 + +I learned something so unique in college. The guilty part of this story is I never really shared the lesson. Now terror is overcoming Afghanistan. But I saw a news story that reminded me this lesson I learned at Berea College circa 2012, peace really is possible. Let me explain. + +First here is the only prayer I ever wrote. + +<br>Oh God</br> +<br>I learned </br> +<br>It is possible </br> +<br>To stop</br> +<br>A machine gun</br> +<br>Without a weapon </br> + +<br>Let someone tell Afghanistan</br> +<br>Please God</br> + +<br>Begging on knees</br> + + +This prayer poem, I wrote when I saw something about people protesting the Taliban with the traditional Afghanistan flags. + +In college, I took a course in Peace and Justice Studies that focused on the fact that nonviolent resistance has many times through out history been a feasible answer that brought an end to major impossible seeming global conflicts. + +I always had believed this. But at Berea, Dr. Mendel Reyes gave me the facts to back my dreams. Check out the Global Nonviolence Action Database for a complete list. + +Here were some highlights I remember. In Estonia a singing group of unarmed civilians banded together to call for independence which was then occupied by the scary Soviet Union. + +Civil rights in the USA led by Martin Luther King Jr. + +Honduras's campaign for democracy. + +Cambodian Villagers Resisting forced Evictions. + +Indians embrace trees to stop logging activity. + +The list is super long. + +My point is the point I made in my poem. It may seem peace is impossible, but it isn't. We just have to try peacefully, and peace comes. It takes the trying peacefully. It takes more bravery to address a conflict without an equal force. If someone points a gun in your face, it takes guts to talk them down. + +This message is simple, but peace is the right thing. + +I wish the answers were simple for Afghanistan. They aren't. Many will die, no matter what, and it devastates me. I had a close friend from there in college. Knowing him changed my life. What I see going on there, breaks me heart and worries me deeply, the impact the US made is terrible, and the decision to leave willy nilly. Everything is in chaos. The CIA itself initially funded the Taliban, and now civilian society is breaking down, frantically trying to escape it. It is so so sad. + +I just really do still believe in peace and hope. I wonder what we can do from a far? Please leave comments with ideas! + +Flying my Afghanistan flag. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + [[!img sanpiper_and_pelican.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] When I painted the Sandpiper and the Pelican, I fell so swiftly in love with the blue waves, it took forever for me to look at anything else, no less try to paint anything else. Then I painted the one with the whale, and was amazed that the night scene was equally vibrant. No need to wax about this moon. Or all these loons.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 05e99c4..b0713b0 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,17 +1,7 @@ -I am changing. +[[!img sanpiper_and_pelican.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] +When I painted the Sandpiper and the Pelican, I fell so swiftly in love with the blue waves, it took forever for me to look at anything else, no less try to paint anything else. Then I painted the one with the whale, and was amazed that the night scene was equally vibrant. +No need to wax about this moon. Or all these loons. +[[!img crescent_moon_and_full_moon_172626.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] +[[!img 20210705_180807.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] +[[!img 207265319_556806822159970_8499084151051502855_n__40__1__41____40__1__41__.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] -I spent a lot of time just thinking of myself as a writer, gaining weight, and not walking very far. - -I want to start walking 300 more steps than I did the day before every single day. My goal is to lose 2 pounds every single month for a few years. - -That is going to be a challenging goal to maintain. - -I am a writer but I want to start writing in a way that is more understandable to dubious readers. I want to write about more practical things people can do to make the world better and more livable for the future. - -I have spent a lot of time and many episodes trying to find a way away from my current lifestyle, out of the town of Bristol, and into Masters programs or jobs that might even be possible but I have just now decided I want to live the rest of my life in Bristol just trying to make the city more sustainable and that is my new main career goal, even if no one ever pays me to do it. - -I no longer want to try to leave here, I want to continue to invest in here, to network further in my community, increasing my involvements. - -I feel strong clarity that all of these new decisions are what is right for me. I have had many past failed attempts, but I have determination and I know I will increase my walking 300 steps, improve my writing, and lose weight. I know I can plant more things and compost more, I know I can talk to my neighbors and try to encourage them that they actively care more about the Earth. - -But the thing I am not sure of is will I be able to make the full impact I desire. I don’t know this because I don’t know how the world will end up being in 60 years. Will society be alive? Will we have transitioned our agricultural systems to regenerative farming, will there still be hope?
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Date: 02:22:27 07/10/21
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diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index f573340..05e99c4 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,28 +1,17 @@ -If we go as we are heading, in 60 years, the entire world will be a desert. +I am changing. -But climate change doesn’t have to be the demise of life on Earth. +I spent a lot of time just thinking of myself as a writer, gaining weight, and not walking very far. -You and I can make a difference! +I want to start walking 300 more steps than I did the day before every single day. My goal is to lose 2 pounds every single month for a few years. -Regenerative Agriculture is one of the best ways to end climate change because it enacts a climate drawdown which sequesters carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, reversing the effects of climate change. +That is going to be a challenging goal to maintain. -We may not be farmers, but each of us in Bristol TN/VA can do something to end climate change with our own food waste and in our own yards. -Composting is a local solution that each of us can do, and if we all started composting and gardening more with the wonderful soil it gives us! +I am a writer but I want to start writing in a way that is more understandable to dubious readers. I want to write about more practical things people can do to make the world better and more livable for the future. -Let’s make Bristol a greener city. -Let’s grow fresh foods we can eat! -We need to compost more! -#COMPOSTFIRST is a new volunteer run project to transform our city into a paradise with public edible gardening and compost on every street! +I have spent a lot of time and many episodes trying to find a way away from my current lifestyle, out of the town of Bristol, and into Masters programs or jobs that might even be possible but I have just now decided I want to live the rest of my life in Bristol just trying to make the city more sustainable and that is my new main career goal, even if no one ever pays me to do it. +I no longer want to try to leave here, I want to continue to invest in here, to network further in my community, increasing my involvements. -One house at a time, one street at a time, we are bringing Regenerative Agriculture right into the city of Bristol. +I feel strong clarity that all of these new decisions are what is right for me. I have had many past failed attempts, but I have determination and I know I will increase my walking 300 steps, improve my writing, and lose weight. I know I can plant more things and compost more, I know I can talk to my neighbors and try to encourage them that they actively care more about the Earth. -And we want you to join us. - -Can we help you plant your spare lot? Would you like help finding an edible plant to grow on your front porch? - -Will you let us install a compost bin in your backyard? - -Write, text, or call Maggie at -423 383 8704 -beautyitselfispurpose@gmail.com +But the thing I am not sure of is will I be able to make the full impact I desire. I don’t know this because I don’t know how the world will end up being in 60 years. Will society be alive? Will we have transitioned our agricultural systems to regenerative farming, will there still be hope?
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 5ba580d..f573340 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,25 +1,28 @@ -Charles Eisenstein said, “what is the origin of the wrongness in the world?” I thought about his question and responded that I wasn’t sure but I thought “perceived inequality” was part of it. Then I heard his answer: “separateness.” It felt rare because often when people ask philosophical seeming questions it seems like there could be multiple best answers, but hearing his answer, I was pretty certain it was the most right answer I might hear. +If we go as we are heading, in 60 years, the entire world will be a desert. -So now I am lying in bed and I get up to drink a fizzing sludge of bacterium (kombucha) and to write this. I think separateness is the origin of wrongness in the world. I think isolation and thinking we are different from other people and other living creatures is at the heart of why people suffer and why the Earth is suffering from such major afflictions too. I myself have been very guilty of separateness. I have felt I am the only one who might understand certain things, like my rare mental illness that I have, and I have suffered alone which grew my separateness in a kind of loneliness that is so prevalent, it should prove itself wrong in a way. +But climate change doesn’t have to be the demise of life on Earth. -I also have given up on doing only the right things when it comes to using my life to make the world a better place, which seems like a good response to the wrongness in the world. I have believed in peace but struggled to believe that hope for peace might be possible. I have believed that we need to reverse climate change, but let myself do all sorts of practices, like eating fast food in culture that throws away containers or not tried hard enough to reduce my waste or recycle. I have believed that justice is important especially to end racial discrimination, but I have not done much to study new concepts regarding issues of Black Lives Matter. I have told myself, I am taking a break from guilting myself into activism because my primary activism is self care. The answer is not guilt. The answer is self care, but not in a vacuum. Self care can be done along side Earth stewardship, so I need to do what I can to improve as quickly as I can. +You and I can make a difference! -I planted some seedlings this year and I learned that regenerative agriculture may be one of the best responses to climate change, and it’s something we all can work towards, even if just by our political choices, or planting trees or a no till garden. I learned that tilling soil turns it to dirt which is one step from desert or dust, and that can cause a lot of harmful erosion and climate change, but reversing that is pretty practically simple, if there is the political will for converting corporate agriculture away from mono-cropping, using pesticides, and traditions of tilling the ground. I guess I had been burnt out but I am not any more. I wish I could start a city wide composting program in my city, and though it seems an uphill battle, I have a college degree and maybe I can. There is no real reason to extinguish hope, but if we go as we are heading, the globe will be completely desert within 60 years. +Regenerative Agriculture is one of the best ways to end climate change because it enacts a climate drawdown which sequesters carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, reversing the effects of climate change. -We don’t have to go to desert. We need to look out our front doors and sit on our porches (together) and solve the problems that face us, reaching as far as we can muster. Maybe I can’t personally solve climate change or separateness, and maybe tomorrow I can’t start a composting program in the city of Bristol Tennessee, but tomorrow I can start thinking about how me and the neighbors on my street can compost more and learn about composting together. And it is practically possible that some day I could bite off a bigger goal like the whole of Bristol. +We may not be farmers, but each of us in Bristol TN/VA can do something to end climate change with our own food waste and in our own yards. +Composting is a local solution that each of us can do, and if we all started composting and gardening more with the wonderful soil it gives us! -But I started this essay not just on planetary hope, but on separateness. And I think separateness is at the root of our suffering as a species and generally as life (including the bacteria that makes up much of us.) So I wanted to think some about what the opposite of separateness would be. +Let’s make Bristol a greener city. +Let’s grow fresh foods we can eat! +We need to compost more! +#COMPOSTFIRST is a new volunteer run project to transform our city into a paradise with public edible gardening and compost on every street! -The question brings someone to mind, a family member who is the single person who has ever spoken with me about this subject on the deepest level I have ever heard, my nephew. One time I was discouraging because of feeling I was different and nobody understood and my nephew responded that I was wrong about being different. Everyone feels what you feel, was the jist of his reply and he argued it so emphatically it felt almost impossible, because I do have a difference that only like 0.3 percent of the people have and it is a major defining aspect of who I am and my identity. But the truth is none of that matters. I am not different at all. -I am not I. +One house at a time, one street at a time, we are bringing Regenerative Agriculture right into the city of Bristol. -Maybe that seems a strange thing to say or is hard for others to wrap their head around. Maybe not though. I am not I, but we are we. I am not different. I am not separate. We are not different. We are not separate. There is a sameness that connects all life on this Earth. Though the feelings I have about you might not be the exact same feelings you have about me, we are collectively more the same than different. We are part of the same larger problems and solutions. Together, we are having the same human experience, or the same experience of living if you are a plant or bird. +And we want you to join us. -We are no less distinct from each other than we are separate than it is possible to separate ones self away from the rest. We are individuals. We have autonomy. We make art or we cook or we grow things or we bomb things. Whatever humans do, beneficial or not, we all have that individualism, that autonomy, that choice of creativity or destructiveness. So I think when we start thinking of ourselves as part of something larger, when we start really believing in collectivism and interconnectedness, we can be better stewards but also feel better about how we take care of our individual selves. +Can we help you plant your spare lot? Would you like help finding an edible plant to grow on your front porch? -We need to look down at our kombucha or our cup of water and realize it is living, it is just like us to the point that it is us. We need to not only see ourselves in others who may be different, but to release the part of ourselves that is so greedy as to need to feel different. We are all different. So in that, we have a commonality. +Will you let us install a compost bin in your backyard? -We need to be nicer to ourselves on a deep level, to practice radical self acceptance, and radical compassion. This is part of other kinds of compassion that involve other people or other forms of life. Our need to take better care of our individual self is not separate from our need to care for each other and our choices to take care of ourselves do not need to neglect other needed actions. Self compassion is compassion. There is no separating or choosing who to put first. If you feel you need to chose, you need to put yourself first. Taking care of yourself first is taking care of the whole if it is the primary need. Then you can go on to care for something larger than yourself. - -When we start thinking of ourselves as more than just individuals, that is where the best things happen. +Write, text, or call Maggie at +423 383 8704 +beautyitselfispurpose@gmail.com
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index b27d61c..5ba580d 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,255 +1,25 @@ -In the Uncontrollable +Charles Eisenstein said, “what is the origin of the wrongness in the world?” I thought about his question and responded that I wasn’t sure but I thought “perceived inequality” was part of it. Then I heard his answer: “separateness.” It felt rare because often when people ask philosophical seeming questions it seems like there could be multiple best answers, but hearing his answer, I was pretty certain it was the most right answer I might hear. -August 25, 2019 just after discharged +So now I am lying in bed and I get up to drink a fizzing sludge of bacterium (kombucha) and to write this. I think separateness is the origin of wrongness in the world. I think isolation and thinking we are different from other people and other living creatures is at the heart of why people suffer and why the Earth is suffering from such major afflictions too. I myself have been very guilty of separateness. I have felt I am the only one who might understand certain things, like my rare mental illness that I have, and I have suffered alone which grew my separateness in a kind of loneliness that is so prevalent, it should prove itself wrong in a way. -In the uncontrollable moments the doctor called psychosis, +I also have given up on doing only the right things when it comes to using my life to make the world a better place, which seems like a good response to the wrongness in the world. I have believed in peace but struggled to believe that hope for peace might be possible. I have believed that we need to reverse climate change, but let myself do all sorts of practices, like eating fast food in culture that throws away containers or not tried hard enough to reduce my waste or recycle. I have believed that justice is important especially to end racial discrimination, but I have not done much to study new concepts regarding issues of Black Lives Matter. I have told myself, I am taking a break from guilting myself into activism because my primary activism is self care. The answer is not guilt. The answer is self care, but not in a vacuum. Self care can be done along side Earth stewardship, so I need to do what I can to improve as quickly as I can. -my mind wants to know what is happening, +I planted some seedlings this year and I learned that regenerative agriculture may be one of the best responses to climate change, and it’s something we all can work towards, even if just by our political choices, or planting trees or a no till garden. I learned that tilling soil turns it to dirt which is one step from desert or dust, and that can cause a lot of harmful erosion and climate change, but reversing that is pretty practically simple, if there is the political will for converting corporate agriculture away from mono-cropping, using pesticides, and traditions of tilling the ground. I guess I had been burnt out but I am not any more. I wish I could start a city wide composting program in my city, and though it seems an uphill battle, I have a college degree and maybe I can. There is no real reason to extinguish hope, but if we go as we are heading, the globe will be completely desert within 60 years. -so it makes up a very complicated story +We don’t have to go to desert. We need to look out our front doors and sit on our porches (together) and solve the problems that face us, reaching as far as we can muster. Maybe I can’t personally solve climate change or separateness, and maybe tomorrow I can’t start a composting program in the city of Bristol Tennessee, but tomorrow I can start thinking about how me and the neighbors on my street can compost more and learn about composting together. And it is practically possible that some day I could bite off a bigger goal like the whole of Bristol. -that I believe until the medicines kick in, +But I started this essay not just on planetary hope, but on separateness. And I think separateness is at the root of our suffering as a species and generally as life (including the bacteria that makes up much of us.) So I wanted to think some about what the opposite of separateness would be. -I'm in love with a gay man, +The question brings someone to mind, a family member who is the single person who has ever spoken with me about this subject on the deepest level I have ever heard, my nephew. One time I was discouraging because of feeling I was different and nobody understood and my nephew responded that I was wrong about being different. Everyone feels what you feel, was the jist of his reply and he argued it so emphatically it felt almost impossible, because I do have a difference that only like 0.3 percent of the people have and it is a major defining aspect of who I am and my identity. But the truth is none of that matters. I am not different at all. -I'm a rubber band ball passing through itself, +I am not I. -like two shooting stars +Maybe that seems a strange thing to say or is hard for others to wrap their head around. Maybe not though. I am not I, but we are we. I am not different. I am not separate. We are not different. We are not separate. There is a sameness that connects all life on this Earth. Though the feelings I have about you might not be the exact same feelings you have about me, we are collectively more the same than different. We are part of the same larger problems and solutions. Together, we are having the same human experience, or the same experience of living if you are a plant or bird. -that will just meet in one strange place, +We are no less distinct from each other than we are separate than it is possible to separate ones self away from the rest. We are individuals. We have autonomy. We make art or we cook or we grow things or we bomb things. Whatever humans do, beneficial or not, we all have that individualism, that autonomy, that choice of creativity or destructiveness. So I think when we start thinking of ourselves as part of something larger, when we start really believing in collectivism and interconnectedness, we can be better stewards but also feel better about how we take care of our individual selves. -and the world is beautiful and dark, +We need to look down at our kombucha or our cup of water and realize it is living, it is just like us to the point that it is us. We need to not only see ourselves in others who may be different, but to release the part of ourselves that is so greedy as to need to feel different. We are all different. So in that, we have a commonality. -until a nurse cracks the door to make sure I'm sleeping, +We need to be nicer to ourselves on a deep level, to practice radical self acceptance, and radical compassion. This is part of other kinds of compassion that involve other people or other forms of life. Our need to take better care of our individual self is not separate from our need to care for each other and our choices to take care of ourselves do not need to neglect other needed actions. Self compassion is compassion. There is no separating or choosing who to put first. If you feel you need to chose, you need to put yourself first. Taking care of yourself first is taking care of the whole if it is the primary need. Then you can go on to care for something larger than yourself. -every 15 minutes they make rounds, - -until I pull one inside of my rubber band ball, - -and meet father Christmas - -somewhere in my deep beliefs. - -I didn't want to be this way - -but at least they said I was sweet this time. - -All my family and friends pretending my notes didn't hurt their ears, - -playing songs on the recorder on the old front porch, - -with my most faithful people lying flat on the floor - -to keep me locked in, in front of the door, - -mental illness isn't done for the drama, - -I just was stuck a little too deep in a dream, - -and the longer I stayed up - -it took me over entirely - -like a run on sentence that would never end. - -The nurses swore to me the only thing that could help me then - -was the sedatives and strong medicines they shot me with. - -I whined at them and said I wasn't hurting anybody, - -but I know the nurses always did the best thing for me. - -When I used to get psychotic, - -it was the worst thing that ever happened. - -Now I just want to be stable, - -but I am no longer attached to control or afraid of my illness. - -I wanted to go forever without returning there, - -but I was glad to see improvements when I had to go, - -and so many people stepped up for me, so high. - -So many people helped me so much. - -And honestly, some of the fantasy I told myself, - -to survive, helped me make a new friend, - -and learn a new favorite sandwich, - -and connect with actual peers, like old Jule and April - -whom I love and miss so much. - - -Last August I had to stabilize my medication and ended up in the psych ward, 5 East, to get my meds straightened out. When I got home, I hugged my dog, and wondered why I felt so sad. At first I labeled the sadness as disappointment with myself, for having to reenter the psych ward since trying so hard not to go, for 15 years. But now that I really think harder about it, that is not why I felt so sad about returning home. - -Home is a place that understands and to a point, elevates normal behavior. 5 East was a community of people all of whom had an understanding of our common mental illness. Home was the real world I inevitably would have to return to. 5 East was the dream, a world I would not let myself return to for a long time, but a happy place, a place where everyone agreed I am a “sweetheart”. In 5 East I had friend, great kinships with my neighbors down the hall. And we all sort of looked out for each other. Jule would go and get me if I got a phone call. I would encourage Jule to come to meals. - -The Story of Jule, my Friend - -Jule was the nicest person to me in the psychiatric wing of the hospital in the week I spent inside, Jule reached out to me in a special way. We had a connection I am fond of. He gave me a contact number for when we got out. But the hospital staff destroyed all of my contacts as I left. Everything else they did was nice. It must have been hospital protocol. I actually did manage to save one number and have the mailing address of a woman, Kathy. But I asked her about her contacts, and all of hers were destroyed too. So no way to contact Jule. - -The thing about Jule though is he said the best place for him was institutionalized. He came off as a bit crazy. It was something about his eyes, that would bug out, and he would get lost in thoughts for a long time until somehow he made it back. I think he wanted to be put in an institution. But it wasn’t entirely because of his extreme mental illness. He did have multiple diagnoses including the one I have which itself is disabling. He needed a place to live safely and life outside the ward was hard for him. His one place he could live was with an abusive relative, who physically abused him. - -He said the place we were, the upstairs of Ballad Hospital in Bristol TN, a wing called 5 East, was the nicest place he ever had been in his life. - -I agreed it was nice. But he really was including all of the places he ever had been. -It was superior to all the places for him. - -I loved 5 East. The nurses were sweet. All the staff was nice. The people were like this wonderful communal family of people who understood. But I also like my friend’s farm, or the beach, or a peaceful room in my college where I graduated. Jule was supremely intelligent. He had graduated programs too. But 5 East really was the best place he ever had been. He was very sincere when he told me. - -Jule was the one person who looked out for me the most in 5 East. That person was not a nurse or staff or even a family visitor. - -He sat across from me the whole time as I transitioned from psychotic to normal. He walked me through what I happened to be staring at, a show he liked on television, Ancient Aliens. -When I decided to stop being so much a part of the group to transition to life outside, he was the one who came and checked on me where I meditated by myself looking out the big windows at the end of the hall. When I was angry at the nurses station one time, I asked Jule to go back into the main room, because I wanted space. He immediately did what I said, despite whatever he himself might have needed. He talked me through whatever drama I was playing out about my mother, because I was thinking I shouldn’t go back and live with her. He was a wonderful listener to me. And having his friendship in that hospital wing felt very protective. I liked Jule a lot. In fact I really loved him. He was one of the best friends I ever have had. - -So a lot of my grief upon leaving 5 East has been that I have to try to stay out of places like that, despite that I adore them. I decided to be on the normal side of the world. Jule decided to stay in the more abnormal quarters. - -I miss Jule every day, and wonder where he is, if he is alive, if they got his meds right, if he is ok. I know he doesn’t have the support necessary to live in the normal world. I know he is in some institution. I wish I could see him again. It really breaks my heart that someone so wonderful, so kind, so smart, will never succeed in the world in standard ways. - -Mental illness is a tragedy in this way. I myself am not doing the best, often. But I have some things people like Jule will never have. But all that I want is to see Jule again, even despite what I have. I would give so much just to go back to that time, the best time, when I was sitting across from him, waking up from psychosis, and learning how to watch TV. - - - -What would I want for Jule? - -During art therapy, - -I got a little jealous of Jule - -because he got so many compliments there. - -No one really seemed to care for my artwork, - -or at least that was how it seemed to me. - -So I confided in Jule, - -told him I was an artist too. - -He said I was good at everything. - -Art was the one thing he seemed to excel at. - -I could say, - -I would want Jule to become discovered as an artist. - -For there to be a whole gallery devoted to his art. - - -And it would be good. - -But what I really crave so much for Jule - -is to simply find a way to be independent on the outside. - -It could be as simple as living off of disability money - -and in public housing. - -Then he could paint but on his own schedule. - -Maybe he is out there somewhere. - -I don’t know. - -In my Pandemic Dreams - -Jule becomes my left side to my right side, - -whichever part of me - -is reaching out to tend the other part of me. - -In the dark shadows, - -I keep my eyes closed a little longer, - -imagining Jule. - -I meet him by the library - -and he takes me back to his small apartment. - -The space between us is a serene gateway of pure love. - - (Diff truncated)
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index f6e5bf1..b27d61c 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,267 +1,255 @@ -You Can’t Delete in Life +In the Uncontrollable -You can’t delete the past. +August 25, 2019 just after discharged -You obviously can’t erase something that happened, +In the uncontrollable moments the doctor called psychosis, -words that were said, +my mind wants to know what is happening, -a nightmare or feeling. +so it makes up a very complicated story -But in some rare occasions +that I believe until the medicines kick in, -I have wanted to. +I'm in love with a gay man, +I'm a rubber band ball passing through itself, +like two shooting stars -Maybe the first was high school embarrassment +that will just meet in one strange place, -I could have done without, +and the world is beautiful and dark, -wanted to eliminate from my history, +until a nurse cracks the door to make sure I'm sleeping, -made me feel so horrible, +every 15 minutes they make rounds, -like I couldn’t go on the same, +until I pull one inside of my rubber band ball, -even small things can have heavy pain. +and meet father Christmas +somewhere in my deep beliefs. +I didn't want to be this way -The worst time I wanted to press delete +but at least they said I was sweet this time. -was also long ago, +All my family and friends pretending my notes didn't hurt their ears, -the first morning I woke +playing songs on the recorder on the old front porch, -knowing my behavior had been +with my most faithful people lying flat on the floor -this strange new word “psychotic” +to keep me locked in, in front of the door, -a word maybe I knew before, +mental illness isn't done for the drama, -but never had myself experienced. +I just was stuck a little too deep in a dream, +and the longer I stayed up +it took me over entirely -So then, heavily medicated, +like a run on sentence that would never end. -I sat there wondering +The nurses swore to me the only thing that could help me then -maybe there was something deeply wrong +was the sedatives and strong medicines they shot me with. -about me, +I whined at them and said I wasn't hurting anybody, -maybe I was not a good person, +but I know the nurses always did the best thing for me. -maybe there was something broken in my soul. +When I used to get psychotic, -In that moment, I wished I could subtract that previous week. +it was the worst thing that ever happened. +Now I just want to be stable, +but I am no longer attached to control or afraid of my illness. -Was it just a week? +I wanted to go forever without returning there, -It seemed so monumental +but I was glad to see improvements when I had to go, -and yet I could not take it away at all. +and so many people stepped up for me, so high. -It felt like what happened in Indiana +So many people helped me so much. -would ruin my life, +And honestly, some of the fantasy I told myself, -and I was trapped with it having happened. +to survive, helped me make a new friend, -There was no going back or erasing. +and learn a new favorite sandwich, +and connect with actual peers, like old Jule and April +whom I love and miss so much. -Actually, I tried for a very long time -to erase mental illness from how people perceived me +Last August I had to stabilize my medication and ended up in the psych ward, 5 East, to get my meds straightened out. When I got home, I hugged my dog, and wondered why I felt so sad. At first I labeled the sadness as disappointment with myself, for having to reenter the psych ward since trying so hard not to go, for 15 years. But now that I really think harder about it, that is not why I felt so sad about returning home. -especially publicly. +Home is a place that understands and to a point, elevates normal behavior. 5 East was a community of people all of whom had an understanding of our common mental illness. Home was the real world I inevitably would have to return to. 5 East was the dream, a world I would not let myself return to for a long time, but a happy place, a place where everyone agreed I am a “sweetheart”. In 5 East I had friend, great kinships with my neighbors down the hall. And we all sort of looked out for each other. Jule would go and get me if I got a phone call. I would encourage Jule to come to meals. -This created a war within myself +The Story of Jule, my Friend -over who I was. +Jule was the nicest person to me in the psychiatric wing of the hospital in the week I spent inside, Jule reached out to me in a special way. We had a connection I am fond of. He gave me a contact number for when we got out. But the hospital staff destroyed all of my contacts as I left. Everything else they did was nice. It must have been hospital protocol. I actually did manage to save one number and have the mailing address of a woman, Kathy. But I asked her about her contacts, and all of hers were destroyed too. So no way to contact Jule. -The psychosis, the mania, the erratic decisions, depression, +The thing about Jule though is he said the best place for him was institutionalized. He came off as a bit crazy. It was something about his eyes, that would bug out, and he would get lost in thoughts for a long time until somehow he made it back. I think he wanted to be put in an institution. But it wasn’t entirely because of his extreme mental illness. He did have multiple diagnoses including the one I have which itself is disabling. He needed a place to live safely and life outside the ward was hard for him. His one place he could live was with an abusive relative, who physically abused him. -all were deeply a part of my identity +He said the place we were, the upstairs of Ballad Hospital in Bristol TN, a wing called 5 East, was the nicest place he ever had been in his life. -because they represented my story. +I agreed it was nice. But he really was including all of the places he ever had been. +It was superior to all the places for him. -And my trying to erase that part was doing more harm than good. +I loved 5 East. The nurses were sweet. All the staff was nice. The people were like this wonderful communal family of people who understood. But I also like my friend’s farm, or the beach, or a peaceful room in my college where I graduated. Jule was supremely intelligent. He had graduated programs too. But 5 East really was the best place he ever had been. He was very sincere when he told me. +Jule was the one person who looked out for me the most in 5 East. That person was not a nurse or staff or even a family visitor. +He sat across from me the whole time as I transitioned from psychotic to normal. He walked me through what I happened to be staring at, a show he liked on television, Ancient Aliens. +When I decided to stop being so much a part of the group to transition to life outside, he was the one who came and checked on me where I meditated by myself looking out the big windows at the end of the hall. When I was angry at the nurses station one time, I asked Jule to go back into the main room, because I wanted space. He immediately did what I said, despite whatever he himself might have needed. He talked me through whatever drama I was playing out about my mother, because I was thinking I shouldn’t go back and live with her. He was a wonderful listener to me. And having his friendship in that hospital wing felt very protective. I liked Jule a lot. In fact I really loved him. He was one of the best friends I ever have had. -So I started talking about myself as mentally ill +So a lot of my grief upon leaving 5 East has been that I have to try to stay out of places like that, despite that I adore them. I decided to be on the normal side of the world. Jule decided to stay in the more abnormal quarters. -finally, half way through college. +I miss Jule every day, and wonder where he is, if he is alive, if they got his meds right, if he is ok. I know he doesn’t have the support necessary to live in the normal world. I know he is in some institution. I wish I could see him again. It really breaks my heart that someone so wonderful, so kind, so smart, will never succeed in the world in standard ways. -I opened up for the first time in a class +Mental illness is a tragedy in this way. I myself am not doing the best, often. But I have some things people like Jule will never have. But all that I want is to see Jule again, even despite what I have. I would give so much just to go back to that time, the best time, when I was sitting across from him, waking up from psychosis, and learning how to watch TV. -on Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality + -because I felt that the class should have included +What would I want for Jule? -other types of people groups like Disability, and Mental Illness. +During art therapy, +I got a little jealous of Jule +because he got so many compliments there. -But that feeling +No one really seemed to care for my artwork, -was more present in that moment +or at least that was how it seemed to me. -than any other time +So I confided in Jule, -except maybe the next week +told him I was an artist too. -and the following month +He said I was good at everything. -and even the whole next semester, +Art was the one thing he seemed to excel at. -because sitting there realizing I was ill (Diff truncated)
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 61dbaee..f6e5bf1 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -265,568 +265,3 @@ I’m not that girl anymore. I am a shaman now.” - - - - - -You can’t delete or erase anything - -but something did get lost - - - -in the process of wanting to leave behind the trauma - -in the process of gaining major amounts of weight - -in the process of not understanding my image in the mirror - -which made me eat more - -in the process of wishing I was not gaining weight - -in the process of grieving - -the loss of that which I was - -in the process of longing for earlier times - -in the process of picking up an endless jar of chocolate chips - -and eating my weight again and again - -in the process of denying my part in the weight gain - -and saying that the medicines made me fat not my overeating - -in the process of trying to understand my relationship - -to my body, to weight, to movement - -which was beginning to become more difficult, - - - -I began to lose something - -that did not have to wash away downstream - -I began to forget something - -that I still had abilities to hold onto, to keep - -that still is here in me - -that will always be a part of my life - -as long as I can move a finger - -as long as I can move anything - - - - -I will always have movement. - -I will always have a special, personal relationship - -to moving my body - - -that is individually distinct, - -spiritual the more I do it - -and more and more spiritual - -the more I think and get into it. - -I will always be a body, - -a moving body, - -and that is something I am just starting to remember, - - - -or rather I occasionally go through spells, - -times, and little individual moments of moving myself - -when I realize how important this is to me, - -to move, - -to be able to move, - - -and most importantly the way I move - -and the way it makes me feel, - -the deeply spiritual feeling of moving - -and how that occurs for me. - -And that is something I would like - -to explore more, - -to grow, - -to develop in me. - - - - - - -So I find myself out in our small front yard - -at first where I find myself standing in Tree Pose - -a yoga pose - -that I always laughed at because it always seemed - -besides being a precise, straight, tall, sturdy way to be - -in yoga, I always felt it could have - -just as easily been called - -“just standing” - -because of the simplicity of the pose. - - - -But I guess part of the reason I find myself here - -is the fact that a huge segment of Eastern thought - -and development has been studied - -in that just standing - -is an actual yoga pose. - -So I stand here in tree pose, - -but now my eyes see an actual tree - -and my fingers are brushing over the tips - -of a young Loblolly pine - -we had planted a couple years ago. - - - -The pine touches me back. - -It always brushes me - -in this living way, - -wildly animate and mobile. - - - -Then I see the stump of our old catalpa, - -another tree we had known. - -So I make a few steps - -and find myself in front of the catalpa, - -and because I am feeling this wonderful, - -rare, elevated feeling of - -being in my body, - -I am inspired, - -and I kick the stump - -as I one time learned to kick and punch - -in a single kick boxing class - -I impulsively attended at the YMCA. (Diff truncated)
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 79e2ef7..61dbaee 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,36 +1,832 @@ -Have you Longed to be part of a Writing Community? +You Can’t Delete in Life -Thought about pursuing higher learning in Creative Writing with a major goal of connecting with fellow writers? +You can’t delete the past. -Are you interested in Contemplative Writing, Meditation, Mindfulness, or at least taking deeper breaths daily? +You obviously can’t erase something that happened, -Our Virtual Contemplative Writing Group is expanding for special interested people. +words that were said, -The leader of our Writing Group is Maggie Hess, world renowned magi, widely published poet, children's book writer and illustrator, healer and self help advocate! +a nightmare or feeling. -Any and all are Welcome to attend via https://meet.jit.si/contemplativewritinggroup +But in some rare occasions -Group meets 8:30 - 9AM Eastern Standard Time, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. +I have wanted to. -To attend, you may stop by at 8:25AM for a brief orientation/ preregistration. Or if you prefer you may email beautyitselfispurpose@gmail.com to ask questions, and schedule your attendance. -Though there is no longer a cost, checks may be mailed to Maggie Hess 245 McDowell St. Bristol, TN 37620 -Feel free to email Maggie to learn more about our growing community! No experience necessary. Just something to write with and an open mind. +Maybe the first was high school embarrassment -If you need technical help Maggie can schedule a practice run with you using the jit.si app or using jitsi from your web browser with webcam. This can be arranged. You also may call Maggie at 423 383 8704 or text. +I could have done without, + +wanted to eliminate from my history, + +made me feel so horrible, + +like I couldn’t go on the same, + +even small things can have heavy pain. + + + +The worst time I wanted to press delete + +was also long ago, + +the first morning I woke + +knowing my behavior had been + +this strange new word “psychotic” + +a word maybe I knew before, + +but never had myself experienced. + + + +So then, heavily medicated, + +I sat there wondering + +maybe there was something deeply wrong + +about me, + +maybe I was not a good person, + +maybe there was something broken in my soul. + +In that moment, I wished I could subtract that previous week. + + + +Was it just a week? + +It seemed so monumental + +and yet I could not take it away at all. + +It felt like what happened in Indiana + +would ruin my life, + +and I was trapped with it having happened. + +There was no going back or erasing. + + + +Actually, I tried for a very long time + +to erase mental illness from how people perceived me + +especially publicly. + +This created a war within myself + +over who I was. + +The psychosis, the mania, the erratic decisions, depression, + +all were deeply a part of my identity + +because they represented my story. + +And my trying to erase that part was doing more harm than good. + + + +So I started talking about myself as mentally ill + +finally, half way through college. + +I opened up for the first time in a class + +on Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality + +because I felt that the class should have included + +other types of people groups like Disability, and Mental Illness. + + + +But that feeling + +was more present in that moment + +than any other time + +except maybe the next week + +and the following month + +and even the whole next semester, + +because sitting there realizing I was ill + +and had been “psychotic” + +caused a pain inside of me I had never known. + + + +During that semester, + +the anxiety grew and grew + +that something might be wrong with me + +because of the mental problems. + +Not to mention, + +I had to take a medicine now + +that was so heavy on my thin, small framed body + +that was beginning to grow fat + +with the weight gain side effect. + + + +My breasts even started randomly lactating, + +a side effect that sounds gross + +for someone without a child, + +and indeed was very hard on my ego, + +of someone who had before all that + +been successful, + +and considered to be pretty and normal. + +Those things, pretty, normal, and successful + +were deleting from my person, + +just as I would have chosen to + +press the button of elimination + +on the idea of me being mentally ill. + + + +Looking back, though, + +after my frame tripling in size, + +after taking on the idea and self concept + (Diff truncated)
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 7b40705..79e2ef7 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ Thought about pursuing higher learning in Creative Writing with a major goal of Are you interested in Contemplative Writing, Meditation, Mindfulness, or at least taking deeper breaths daily? -Our Virtual Contemplative Writing Group is expanding for special interested people, with a reasonable fee. +Our Virtual Contemplative Writing Group is expanding for special interested people. The leader of our Writing Group is Maggie Hess, world renowned magi, widely published poet, children's book writer and illustrator, healer and self help advocate!
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index f8c63aa..7b40705 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -14,9 +14,7 @@ Group meets 8:30 - 9AM Eastern Standard Time, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. To attend, you may stop by at 8:25AM for a brief orientation/ preregistration. Or if you prefer you may email beautyitselfispurpose@gmail.com to ask questions, and schedule your attendance. -Cost is 50 dollars per week, with possible sliding scale. Checks may be mailed to Maggie Hess 245 McDowell St. Bristol, TN 37620 - -You may just attend one, or two classes (or three) for the 50 dollars. It is up to you how many you attend for the fee (one, two, or three). +Though there is no longer a cost, checks may be mailed to Maggie Hess 245 McDowell St. Bristol, TN 37620 Feel free to email Maggie to learn more about our growing community! No experience necessary. Just something to write with and an open mind.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 1786476..f8c63aa 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -23,7 +23,15 @@ Feel free to email Maggie to learn more about our growing community! No experie If you need technical help Maggie can schedule a practice run with you using the jit.si app or using jitsi from your web browser with webcam. This can be arranged. You also may call Maggie at 423 383 8704 or text. +---- +Today's prompt is Manifest. + +What do you plan to Manifest? + +Sometimes all I want to manifest is connection, hope, or self care. + +Today I hope to manifest something bigger, a new writing community where people can feel safe and free to share intimate thoughts with a close new circle of friends.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index a2d5187..1786476 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Our Virtual Contemplative Writing Group is expanding for special interested peop The leader of our Writing Group is Maggie Hess, world renowned magi, widely published poet, children's book writer and illustrator, healer and self help advocate! -Any and all are Welcome to attend via https://meet.jit.si/contemplativewritinggroupdaily +Any and all are Welcome to attend via https://meet.jit.si/contemplativewritinggroup Group meets 8:30 - 9AM Eastern Standard Time, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index c3df5b6..a2d5187 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ Group meets 8:30 - 9AM Eastern Standard Time, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. To attend, you may stop by at 8:25AM for a brief orientation/ preregistration. Or if you prefer you may email beautyitselfispurpose@gmail.com to ask questions, and schedule your attendance. -Cost is 50 dollars per week. Checks may be mailed to Maggie Hess 245 McDowell St. Bristol, TN 37620 +Cost is 50 dollars per week, with possible sliding scale. Checks may be mailed to Maggie Hess 245 McDowell St. Bristol, TN 37620 You may just attend one, or two classes (or three) for the 50 dollars. It is up to you how many you attend for the fee (one, two, or three).
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 60c3a99..c3df5b6 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -21,4 +21,10 @@ You may just attend one, or two classes (or three) for the 50 dollars. It is up Feel free to email Maggie to learn more about our growing community! No experience necessary. Just something to write with and an open mind. If you need technical help Maggie can schedule a practice run with you using the jit.si app or using jitsi from your web browser with webcam. This can be arranged. You also may call Maggie at 423 383 8704 or text. -[[!img happy_holidays_from_maggie.png align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] + + + + + + +[[!img me.png align="right" size="400x" alt=""]]
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index f1815cc..60c3a99 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,148 +1,24 @@ -In and out breathing +Have you Longed to be part of a Writing Community? -Person and dog starting to snooze +Thought about pursuing higher learning in Creative Writing with a major goal of connecting with fellow writers? -Seems too pitch black air. +Are you interested in Contemplative Writing, Meditation, Mindfulness, or at least taking deeper breaths daily? +Our Virtual Contemplative Writing Group is expanding for special interested people, with a reasonable fee. -Bath water, gurgles +The leader of our Writing Group is Maggie Hess, world renowned magi, widely published poet, children's book writer and illustrator, healer and self help advocate! -slowly filtering down drain +Any and all are Welcome to attend via https://meet.jit.si/contemplativewritinggroupdaily -calm midnight melody. +Group meets 8:30 - 9AM Eastern Standard Time, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. +To attend, you may stop by at 8:25AM for a brief orientation/ preregistration. Or if you prefer you may email beautyitselfispurpose@gmail.com to ask questions, and schedule your attendance. +Cost is 50 dollars per week. Checks may be mailed to Maggie Hess 245 McDowell St. Bristol, TN 37620 -From bed, dog swallowing +You may just attend one, or two classes (or three) for the 50 dollars. It is up to you how many you attend for the fee (one, two, or three). -last remarks from soot trickle +Feel free to email Maggie to learn more about our growing community! No experience necessary. Just something to write with and an open mind. -now smooth dog breaths. - - - -Today twenty scenes - -line drawn, each with haiku, hour. - -Send home, old neighbors. - - -Inspired by distant - -cousin, grand, to trim poem - -edges, lone feather. - - -Some of the better - -things I’ve said, been with less words. - -“Fewer,” grammar bunk. - - -Two neighbors sat down - -same time. Re-sketching first poem. - -Art gone. - - -Hoping enjoyment - -of warm hour transpires - -correct postage? - - -Too many eggs - -weigh down strawberry upside - -down cake. - - -Ours seems overburdened - -with too much liquid, slops on - -floor. Dog helps clean. - - - -Now longer breaths, - -from dog, alternate licking. - -Stink bug flicked off back. - - -Unidentified - -at first, flying object, leaves - -scented trail. - - -Lights out in post room, - -twenty scenes rest between mail, - -sorted for Florida. - - -Other lost neighbors, - -snow birders with country hearts, - -basket collectors. - - -Through curtains, clouds, stars, - -smallness occurring by night. - -Less significant. - - -Power of smallness. - -If Earth ended completely, - -what galaxy would care? - - -Yet memories, - -so much sawing today, outside. - -Motors everywhere. - - -Cars and birds buzzing - -like spring caught them on fire. - -Everything busy. - - -Two bikers sailing - -down the street. The one in front - -crouching at knees. - - -All the things my book - -missed in one hour. How warm sun. - -Sketching had to stop. - - -Midnight series, - -trying to capture again. - -Suddenly, abruptly... +If you need technical help Maggie can schedule a practice run with you using the jit.si app or using jitsi from your web browser with webcam. This can be arranged. You also may call Maggie at 423 383 8704 or text. +[[!img happy_holidays_from_maggie.png align="right" size="400x" alt=""]]
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 8b13789..f1815cc 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1 +1,148 @@ +In and out breathing +Person and dog starting to snooze + +Seems too pitch black air. + + +Bath water, gurgles + +slowly filtering down drain + +calm midnight melody. + + + +From bed, dog swallowing + +last remarks from soot trickle + +now smooth dog breaths. + + + +Today twenty scenes + +line drawn, each with haiku, hour. + +Send home, old neighbors. + + +Inspired by distant + +cousin, grand, to trim poem + +edges, lone feather. + + +Some of the better + +things I’ve said, been with less words. + +“Fewer,” grammar bunk. + + +Two neighbors sat down + +same time. Re-sketching first poem. + +Art gone. + + +Hoping enjoyment + +of warm hour transpires + +correct postage? + + +Too many eggs + +weigh down strawberry upside + +down cake. + + +Ours seems overburdened + +with too much liquid, slops on + +floor. Dog helps clean. + + + +Now longer breaths, + +from dog, alternate licking. + +Stink bug flicked off back. + + +Unidentified + +at first, flying object, leaves + +scented trail. + + +Lights out in post room, + +twenty scenes rest between mail, + +sorted for Florida. + + +Other lost neighbors, + +snow birders with country hearts, + +basket collectors. + + +Through curtains, clouds, stars, + +smallness occurring by night. + +Less significant. + + +Power of smallness. + +If Earth ended completely, + +what galaxy would care? + + +Yet memories, + +so much sawing today, outside. + +Motors everywhere. + + +Cars and birds buzzing + +like spring caught them on fire. + +Everything busy. + + +Two bikers sailing + +down the street. The one in front + +crouching at knees. + + +All the things my book + +missed in one hour. How warm sun. + +Sketching had to stop. + + +Midnight series, + +trying to capture again. + +Suddenly, abruptly...
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 23146eb..8b13789 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,17 +1 @@ -Amanda Gorman was 22 when she read her inaugural poem in 2021. -Richard Blanco was 44 when he read his inaugural poem in 2013. - -Elizabeth Alexander was 42 in 2009 - -Miller Williams was 67 in 1997 - -Maya Angelou was 65 in 1993 - -Robert Frost was 82 in 1961 - - ---- - - -Someone has plowed over the barrier of age.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 645703d..23146eb 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,4 +1,3 @@ - Amanda Gorman was 22 when she read her inaugural poem in 2021. Richard Blanco was 44 when he read his inaugural poem in 2013. @@ -10,3 +9,9 @@ Miller Williams was 67 in 1997 Maya Angelou was 65 in 1993 Robert Frost was 82 in 1961 + + +--- + + +Someone has plowed over the barrier of age.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 05e2e50..645703d 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,2 +1,12 @@ -to be determined. +Amanda Gorman was 22 when she read her inaugural poem in 2021. + +Richard Blanco was 44 when he read his inaugural poem in 2013. + +Elizabeth Alexander was 42 in 2009 + +Miller Williams was 67 in 1997 + +Maya Angelou was 65 in 1993 + +Robert Frost was 82 in 1961
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 592f3e1..05e2e50 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,49 +1,2 @@ -Family Self Portrait -<br>I am a little girl.</br> -<br>I need words that are loud enough and I don’t have them.</br> -<br>My siblings play with legos I cannot touch.</br> -<br>No one will play with me.</br> -<br>Daddy is berating Mom.</br> -<br>I am afraid of what it means, of what might happen.</br> -<br>I am afraid of divorce.</br> -<br>I am afraid they don’t love each other.</br> -<br>I don’t want to think about these things.</br> -<br>I don’t have a voice to speak up for my needs.</br> -<br>I am getting lost in the shuffle.</br> - -<br>Those memories are just paint.</br> -<br>I am the painting and the painter.</br> -<br>Feelings and colors smeared over me</br> -<br>to dry and chip and bleed.</br> -<br>I might not even remember what lies</br> -<br>beneath my layers.</br> - -<br>But I know this painting was folded to make all of my choices.</br> -<br>Origami of a little boat</br> -<br>for me to sit inside.</br> -<br>I am the folder too and the navigator.</br> -<br>I get to decide where this boat takes me,</br> -<br>which way to steer.</br> -<br>How to raise the sail.</br> -<br>If courage musters,</br> -<br>if I find new ways,</br> -<br>if I part from my origin,</br> -<br>that is all up to me.</br> - - -[[!img IMG_0075.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] - -Reflection after Family Realization - -When I called my brother who wasn’t there as much, his memory of Daddy screaming at Mom was the bad only thing I hadn’t really remembered from childhood. When Jay said Daddy berated Mom a lot, I knew it must be true. I had remembered a time when Daddy stopped talking to Mom at all for several months, while still talking and taking care of us kids. But I think the screaming happened at a time in my development when my response to it may have been a kind of avoidance and denial in the form of fantasy, fear, biting, and scratching my siblings, that maybe those combination of responses explain why I sometimes withdraw as an adult after hearing harsh words. I feel like I have opened up a wound, a place where there was pain and being alone and voiceless so bad it hurt. I want to heal the trauma, and am glad that it already has a degree less power over me, it seems, than when I hadn’t expressed it. As adults we get to decide what to do with the bad times from childhood, whether to respond with blame, or how to think about the thing that hurt us. Though I see Daddy’s verbal abuse of Mom as the one thing I had not originally remembered, and though it does seem his actions were to a degree worse than any other person in the family, I do believe we all were doing our best and playing out a bad hand of poverty, circumstance, and just the intersection of who we were, 5 or more people living in a small house trying to take care of our needs. - -I am grown and I forgive everyone involved and all of the terrible reality of our situation in that time, though in many ways we still were very privileged and fortunate. I want to take a major lesson from what happened. Analyzing the family, I want to put myself in each of the shoes of my family members and walk a mile, then envision their response to the suffering as if it were my own, because those are the models of behavior I have grown up with. Then I want to heal and grow from each of the responses, I want to take care of each family member as if they could not take care of themselves. I want to nurture myself in a way that I see how I myself could have responded how they did, I want to find a time in my life when I did respond how they did, whether Daddy screaming, Mom being screamed at, or me fearing divorce and learning to withdraw. I want to hold each reaction in my arms and take care of it as if it were a baby. I want to hold every single person in my family as they were then, to pour love and compassion into them, and help them through what I imagine must have felt equally traumatic to them. Maybe the first wrong thing was that Daddy screamed at Mom, but my goal is not to blame. I feel he carried with him into our family his own bad history of his upbringing, and feeling powerless or being berated by his own mother. I do not want to pass forward the blame and injury but to heal the part of it I have carried with me. - -This root that I mention, may seem like a small thing or a big thing, but to me, I believe it is the source of much in my mental illness and all of the harsh things I have ever done and all of my missteps and misbehaviors. Based on my own analysis of my history, I think this might be the main problem from childhood. Of course there were a lot of problems that came along with Daddy’s yelling, that each of these reactions can carry a life of its own. Mom suffered in her way, and even as an adult I have seen her zone out and withdraw herself, so that is one. My older brother Joey suffered and may have acted out in his own way as a kid and felt his own loneliness. My sister Anna suffered to, and her response of taking care of me, through my pain, may have robbed her of some of her happier childhood. And then there are all of the many discomforts and problems I had, not having anyone to play with, being youngest and the role that ended up coming with that. Also Jay, Dani, and Jeremiah are family, and the time they spent with us reacting to our struggle and trying to nurse their own wounds is part of the story. - -The main response I feel now to this sad memory of childhood is tiredness, being so tired emotionally from this wound or scar that I have found, having maybe processed these thoughts enough for now. I deserve rest from these feelings for now. I would like to think about this time a little more in therapy, to see if maybe I can come out with a better lesson. So far my lesson is words can be weapons and should be used carefully. I know often my own words can come out like daggers even more than I intended. I know I need to be careful of the words I use, that neither them, nor my actions try to harm other people. I know also I need to take care of how I feel. I know I need to use the muscle of self compassion I have been exploring and learning how to use, and I need to exercise my self care until I feel completely better. I also need to take away something worthwhile from these memories. - -I am very grateful that I have the gift of expressing myself through writing. Processing through writing has helped tremendously as I am still growing and learning about myself. - -I am grateful to every member of my family, especially my father. He is a good man and generally a very good father, and I forgive him and love him and am sorry if he feels guilty or how this might affect him now nearly 80. I am thankful for all my family members have done for me. As one said, hopefully we all can drag our way up out of this history. +to be determined.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index af02d99..592f3e1 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,15 +1,49 @@ -My computer is an old desktop. I always feel more focused when I sit down before my computer. I've started to call the computer "focus." +Family Self Portrait -Computers are super talented. But I'm certain human minds have something more in one special area, that happens to be something I might just do more than most other humans, my superpower, let's say. Or maybe it is a malfunction, but it is something I do that you do too, that I sometimes do in a way you probably don't. +<br>I am a little girl.</br> +<br>I need words that are loud enough and I don’t have them.</br> +<br>My siblings play with legos I cannot touch.</br> +<br>No one will play with me.</br> +<br>Daddy is berating Mom.</br> +<br>I am afraid of what it means, of what might happen.</br> +<br>I am afraid of divorce.</br> +<br>I am afraid they don’t love each other.</br> +<br>I don’t want to think about these things.</br> +<br>I don’t have a voice to speak up for my needs.</br> +<br>I am getting lost in the shuffle.</br> -Maybe you have been reading my blog and the finicky relationship I have with it, over time, and you can look back and guess what it is I am talking about. +<br>Those memories are just paint.</br> +<br>I am the painting and the painter.</br> +<br>Feelings and colors smeared over me</br> +<br>to dry and chip and bleed.</br> +<br>I might not even remember what lies</br> +<br>beneath my layers.</br> -I will give more information, but first, one person, or smart robot, will have to leave me a guess in the comments. So I am going to play a game with you. +<br>But I know this painting was folded to make all of my choices.</br> +<br>Origami of a little boat</br> +<br>for me to sit inside.</br> +<br>I am the folder too and the navigator.</br> +<br>I get to decide where this boat takes me,</br> +<br>which way to steer.</br> +<br>How to raise the sail.</br> +<br>If courage musters,</br> +<br>if I find new ways,</br> +<br>if I part from my origin,</br> +<br>that is all up to me.</br> -I know something that you might not agree with but that I think is true. -It is something we all do, but in another form, it is something only maybe 5 % or less of the population does. +[[!img IMG_0075.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] -So we have part A and part B. Part A = what do we all do that computers cannot? Part B = what is it I do that some scientists agree is a lot like Part A, but that only a small segment of the population ever will do? +Reflection after Family Realization -I'll throw in one final hint. Some people might have to break the law to try to do what I do naturally. +When I called my brother who wasn’t there as much, his memory of Daddy screaming at Mom was the bad only thing I hadn’t really remembered from childhood. When Jay said Daddy berated Mom a lot, I knew it must be true. I had remembered a time when Daddy stopped talking to Mom at all for several months, while still talking and taking care of us kids. But I think the screaming happened at a time in my development when my response to it may have been a kind of avoidance and denial in the form of fantasy, fear, biting, and scratching my siblings, that maybe those combination of responses explain why I sometimes withdraw as an adult after hearing harsh words. I feel like I have opened up a wound, a place where there was pain and being alone and voiceless so bad it hurt. I want to heal the trauma, and am glad that it already has a degree less power over me, it seems, than when I hadn’t expressed it. As adults we get to decide what to do with the bad times from childhood, whether to respond with blame, or how to think about the thing that hurt us. Though I see Daddy’s verbal abuse of Mom as the one thing I had not originally remembered, and though it does seem his actions were to a degree worse than any other person in the family, I do believe we all were doing our best and playing out a bad hand of poverty, circumstance, and just the intersection of who we were, 5 or more people living in a small house trying to take care of our needs. + +I am grown and I forgive everyone involved and all of the terrible reality of our situation in that time, though in many ways we still were very privileged and fortunate. I want to take a major lesson from what happened. Analyzing the family, I want to put myself in each of the shoes of my family members and walk a mile, then envision their response to the suffering as if it were my own, because those are the models of behavior I have grown up with. Then I want to heal and grow from each of the responses, I want to take care of each family member as if they could not take care of themselves. I want to nurture myself in a way that I see how I myself could have responded how they did, I want to find a time in my life when I did respond how they did, whether Daddy screaming, Mom being screamed at, or me fearing divorce and learning to withdraw. I want to hold each reaction in my arms and take care of it as if it were a baby. I want to hold every single person in my family as they were then, to pour love and compassion into them, and help them through what I imagine must have felt equally traumatic to them. Maybe the first wrong thing was that Daddy screamed at Mom, but my goal is not to blame. I feel he carried with him into our family his own bad history of his upbringing, and feeling powerless or being berated by his own mother. I do not want to pass forward the blame and injury but to heal the part of it I have carried with me. + +This root that I mention, may seem like a small thing or a big thing, but to me, I believe it is the source of much in my mental illness and all of the harsh things I have ever done and all of my missteps and misbehaviors. Based on my own analysis of my history, I think this might be the main problem from childhood. Of course there were a lot of problems that came along with Daddy’s yelling, that each of these reactions can carry a life of its own. Mom suffered in her way, and even as an adult I have seen her zone out and withdraw herself, so that is one. My older brother Joey suffered and may have acted out in his own way as a kid and felt his own loneliness. My sister Anna suffered to, and her response of taking care of me, through my pain, may have robbed her of some of her happier childhood. And then there are all of the many discomforts and problems I had, not having anyone to play with, being youngest and the role that ended up coming with that. Also Jay, Dani, and Jeremiah are family, and the time they spent with us reacting to our struggle and trying to nurse their own wounds is part of the story. + +The main response I feel now to this sad memory of childhood is tiredness, being so tired emotionally from this wound or scar that I have found, having maybe processed these thoughts enough for now. I deserve rest from these feelings for now. I would like to think about this time a little more in therapy, to see if maybe I can come out with a better lesson. So far my lesson is words can be weapons and should be used carefully. I know often my own words can come out like daggers even more than I intended. I know I need to be careful of the words I use, that neither them, nor my actions try to harm other people. I know also I need to take care of how I feel. I know I need to use the muscle of self compassion I have been exploring and learning how to use, and I need to exercise my self care until I feel completely better. I also need to take away something worthwhile from these memories. + +I am very grateful that I have the gift of expressing myself through writing. Processing through writing has helped tremendously as I am still growing and learning about myself. + +I am grateful to every member of my family, especially my father. He is a good man and generally a very good father, and I forgive him and love him and am sorry if he feels guilty or how this might affect him now nearly 80. I am thankful for all my family members have done for me. As one said, hopefully we all can drag our way up out of this history.
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diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 8a43550..af02d99 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1 +1,15 @@ -pending +My computer is an old desktop. I always feel more focused when I sit down before my computer. I've started to call the computer "focus." + +Computers are super talented. But I'm certain human minds have something more in one special area, that happens to be something I might just do more than most other humans, my superpower, let's say. Or maybe it is a malfunction, but it is something I do that you do too, that I sometimes do in a way you probably don't. + +Maybe you have been reading my blog and the finicky relationship I have with it, over time, and you can look back and guess what it is I am talking about. + +I will give more information, but first, one person, or smart robot, will have to leave me a guess in the comments. So I am going to play a game with you. + +I know something that you might not agree with but that I think is true. + +It is something we all do, but in another form, it is something only maybe 5 % or less of the population does. + +So we have part A and part B. Part A = what do we all do that computers cannot? Part B = what is it I do that some scientists agree is a lot like Part A, but that only a small segment of the population ever will do? + +I'll throw in one final hint. Some people might have to break the law to try to do what I do naturally.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 8ae2cd6..8a43550 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,298 +1 @@ - -Fate is Choice, Calling - - - - - -Themes are known to reoccur, in human behavior. There are areas we keep coming back to: cycles, lessons, seasons. - -I just wrote down ten times the idea of fate of calling occurred for me in my life, and the funny thing is, I didn’t realize the commonality between these times until I physically started listing them. And it took for something to happen a tenth time to make me realize these major moments around fate of calling are going to keep coming until I study the idea deeper in my own words, so I can extract from it my lesson learned. Maybe it doesn’t matter as much how I got to this point as much as what I am going to take away from this realization. - -There was this idea that I might know what to do with my life that began before anyone ever asked me the therapeutic question. Then in college Elizabeth Vega asked me “what would you do if you could do anything without limitations?” It seemed like such a big question then, impossible to answer, but something I wanted to try to think of more. Then I went to Costa Rica, a second time in 2015, and when I got there, my plans started not working out, and I wasn’t sure why I had gone there. But when I had gone before in 2001, I had met a wise elderly Quaker, one Lucky Guindon, and I found myself climbing a steep vine covered hill because I wanted to speak with her again before returning to the States. When I got up to see her, I don’t know what caused me to ask the following question: “Is life fate or a choice?” And her response was that it is both. Then maybe the following year, but seemingly unconnected, I asked a family friend the same therapeutic question Elizabeth Vega had asked me, encouraging her to journal on the subject. That was the third occurrence of fate of calling. Then an old college friend left a message on my answering machine that basically said “the story of our life is our decision.” So in the past month, this idea has come back to me again and again, like waves. It even came back to me in the form of qi gong which seems to be a form of meditative movement that uses bodily energy to construct purpose. Also, there is a chinese idea I just read about, Xiu Yang that means you choose your destiny. There even is the Fleetwood Mac song, “You can go your own way.” So in all of this I sensed a pattern. But what exactly is it and what is it saying to me? - -So what comes to mind is write this as if I was teaching the lesson or sharing my answers in self help form. Instead of writing my exploration, writing as if I actually have wisdom of my own. So here goes. - - -These are things you might hear waiting to get into the library or in the hair salon. “When it rains it pours!” and “It feels like fate.” - -But I stand before no barber shop or house of books and those are the things I am feeling, the rain of a thousand fates, all connecting in this moment. - -I guess the rain part is in 2 parts. Both my phone is “exploding” with text messages from various people because something has opened in my communications with my 30 contacts. That and the idea of destiny, of fate, of life’s calling, or purpose is resurfacing for me all over the place, so in that, it also feels like rain. It’s raining meaning, I guess. - -It wasn’t that long ago that I was alone, feeling peerless, or just wondering why am I here? People have often told me to do God’s work when I figure out what it is, but I am 38, and so far my life has been more of a seeker than a sojourner. - -This is feeling like the beginning of a book. Already I can think of ten necessary chapters in addition to this introduction. Just as I was beginning to think I would “just be a poet,” which is something that has occurred to me over and over again and again. - -Autumn says “everything seems to happen in cycles with me.” She’s right. This isn’t the first time I have started writing a book about my calling of writing a book. Maybe that doesn’t make sense yet. - -I didn’t use to think my life would feel prosperous as it does now. My phone is blowing up and they all are people I want to hear from and talk to. That is what I mean in prosperity, regarding connection and fulfilling the intention Life meant for me. - -I have come a long way. - -Actually it is so funny about my phone. I have come so far with the telephone. More than one time, I had such a bad relationship with my phone and the people in it that I threw it in a trashcan down town and tried to leave it completely, only to drive back to that spot and retrieve it before the trash collector took it away. - -How a person feels about their phone seems to reflect how they feel about themselves. - -So maybe I should start with a brief history of my phone relationship. - -In middle school, my best friend and I spent forever talking together on the phone. Maybe it was a rotary, but I think it was a cordless landlines for both of us, her at her parent’s house and me at mine. It was pretty healthy then. We had long lingering hang ups, where neither of us would hang up. - -I could give a chronological account of phones, but the main point is this: they were hard for me in my early adulthood. Relationships also were hard. Lately I feel much better regarding both. I am sure I will hit future rough patches, but something is growing in my phone, and with all of the people lucky enough to be tied to me on my list of numbers. - -Chapter 1 - -Fate is Choice - - - -Listen my children, deep in each person, and you will hear, stretching wisdom, diminishing fears. - -Nobody gives us a book of answers, but this book intends to offer the kind of answers that growing adults seem to desire. - -What are you going to do with your one precious life? What would make your mother proud? What would make you proud if you were transported into a future version of yourself and looking back at your life? - -The question might feel like a bad starting place for comfort’s sake. It can feel like an uneasy question to be asked. What do you want to be when you grow up? This is another way of putting it, a way that has turned off many young children from wanting to answer the question. The idea is too big for them to always know the answer. - -Maybe a better question might be “what do you feel like you were born to do?” But that can seem to giant of a question to. - -Maybe the problem with these giant questions is they are overwhelming, and do not give any kind of guide or piece by piece instruction regarding how to the questions into bite size pieces. This book tries to offer an inch by inch map to your destiny, to give you a clearer picture of what you might do with your life if you could do anything in the world without limits. - - - - -So the idea starts with a big statement. You choose your own destiny. Even if you are confused about your next step or the end goal for you, you already happen to be deciding your life course, in every tiny breath, in every moment of your life. - -So you picked up this book for a reason. - -Claiming your power as an actor in life doesn’t always feel confident. But you should maybe take some deep breaths just realizing the true fact that you have done everything right so far, and you couldn’t possibly go in the wrong direction. - -Every thing you have done, no matter how it may seem like a mistake or fumble, was there for a reason. On one end, the reason is simple, you made the choice, you did the mistake, you picked the path. So on that side, there is choice. You make decisions every second, and it might feel like they brought you to a dark or scary place or maybe you are just confused about how you feel about what you have done or if you’ve done enough. This book says all of your choices are your fate. If you made a mistake it is OK because now you can learn a lesson. If you feel lost it is OK because sometimes you have to really get lost to find the right question to guide you. And yes, it is the questions that guide us, not the answers. -So what are some of the guiding questions in your life? Because learning people savor the questions and find inspiration and gladness in that dark woods of being lost in. - - -Honestly, the simple way to say this, the best way to tell you what you need to know is one brief phrase is “Trust the process.” -What in the World do you Know? - -One time someone pointed out to me that my answer to everything seemed to be “I don’t know.” I was proud of the fact I admitted what I did not know. I saw in that response a superior level of humility, which is a funny thing to be proud of, admittedly. - -Now I am realizing that I know what I need to do and am learning to trust the process and recognize that even what seem to be missteps will build in me improved resilience for which I am grateful. - -______ - - -<br>When a Friend Pointed Out, My Reaction Might be Normal</br> - -<br>Maybe it actually was the insane part of me</br> -<br>Who said “I need to give myself a news break</br> -<br>to restore my mental wellbeing.”</br> - -<br>Of course it probably wasn’t technically</br> -<br>sane or insane just to turn off the smart phone,</br> -<br>but watching a bully led mob try to take control</br> - -<br>of this beautiful land with violence alone</br> -<br>was making my skin crawl,</br> -<br>and seeing them get pretty close</br> - -<br>twisted my lens of the world</br> -<br>too much</br> -<br>that I might meditate myself to a better place.</br> - -<br>Because I know mindfulness is important</br> -<br>towards being able to carry on in a calm state,</br> -<br>yet in this one time, maybe maintaining calm</br> - -<br>was not what was actually needed.</br> -<br>If someone was throwing flames</br> -<br>upon my house, it would not make sense</br> - -<br>to think happy thoughts in that moment.</br> -<br>There is self preservation, awareness of breath,</br> -<br>but we need Democracy to have air left at all.</br> - - - - -------------- - - -I Want to Continue Exploring my Appalachian Identity, Because There is Something More There - -But before I start let me point out the obvious. Donald Trump is about as distant from being an Appalachian as Arnold Schwarzenegger or the blow hole of a whale. You can't claim somebody a hillbilly just because they have an awful demeanor. In fact, that is also the opposite of what I mean when I say Hillbilly. - -So what is a Hillbilly and why do I identify that way? - -I could write pages about what Appalachian Hillbilly means broadly, but I want to explore what it means to me. - -I have heard people say Appalachians are independent people, individuals, strong minded, willing to take up a cause and fight to maintain what we care about. I am all of those things. - -I don't think that any of the stereotype of Appalachia is necessary for the person to identify as hillbilly. So many are tied to this region in more diverse or varied ways than the standard 7th generation Mountain person. New waves of Appalachians still are Appalachians, still have the right to claim this identity if we want to. - -There are about as many variations as Appalachians. I know my Mom is from Massachusetts and I still claim myself hillbilly. Daddy is from West Virginia, but even if he wasn't I think my living in Northeast Tennessee most of my life allows me the right to call myself this way. - -You certainly don't have to be white to be Appalachian. It always interests me which people of color want to identify Appalachian and which prefer to run screaming in the opposite direction. - -I think this is one of those concepts I need to personally dig much deeper into, which means I think I am going to be writing about it every week or so, just to understand it better myself. - -I have a funny memory of the term Appalachia. The first time I remember hearing it may have been negative. Like some kid in school saying "I'm not some dumb Appalachian." Then I might have been in the 6th grade, and my older sister Anna started thinking more about the term as it applies to herself. She identified as Appalachian, and I think I asked her why since my peer had called them dumb. - -I think she paused and thought a little about how to talk to a kid about this term. Then she said, "the people of this region are Appalachian. You get to decide whether you identify with the term or not. Do you?" - -And so the question was put back to me in that way at an early age, and I had to stop myself and think it over. My gut decision was I am one of them, because I live in this region too. - -It may sound simple to have a regional identity just because you live in a region. But in a way it is a very pragmatic reason to identify a way. - -I used to go to a place called Exchange Place, which is in Kingsport TN and used to be run by family friends, and now has been passed on to some family acquaintances. Exchange Place is a living history farm that embraces and reenacts farm living experiences from the 1850s. There always was culturally something to be valued from embracing the old ways. This could be as simple as making your own sour dough bread, to saving heirloom seeds, to using a horse to pull a plow. Old ways are at the heart of what I would call ideal hillbilly culture. Old ways not only preserve a kind of heritage, it also harkens back to those traditional personality traits that I so love about Appalachian people, the individualism, the independence, the willingness to take up a cause, the strong mind. - -A friend of mine works in mental health and told me sometimes Appalachians can be stubborn about accepting treatment because of this individualism. So it is not just a pro, all of these traits can also be a con. It really is important not to romanticize hillbillies, or any group that can be ostracized due to stereotype or even racially. - -I am not done writing about this, but I need a break. - - ----------------- - -Watching the News is Counter to Activism - -I found myself watching news because there is a dark or morbid part of me that wanted to spend hours rehashing the grim events that recently unfolded in Washington. - -I usually am happier and more aware of mindfulness, but with recent news, I let myself care about it too much and I also just sat passive in front of informational videos while I forgot I was breathing. - -I do not believe I am a purely lite person. - -There is a darkness to me that I have known before that I can experience again. - -I wrote a poem about the light lines on tree branches and the peace and comfort they bring me. - -There is always a chance to slip into a deep depression, but I don't think that is the darkest thing that can happen. - -As I said in my poem, there is a light and dark to everything. - -My meditation book suggested looking at nature and focusing on the shadows and then the brightness and going back and forth between them to understand neutrality. - -In meditation, I know we do better not judging our thoughts, keeping a passive attitude towards them. - -There is inside of me a news addict and someone who writes beautiful poems about nature. - -There is inside of me a lover and a snark. - -I was thinking about the battle dark and lightness seem to fight. - -Some say good always wins, but I believe everything is also dark in the end, literal blackness feels to me more powerful than fire. - -Fire extinguishes. - -Life fades. - -Qi, energy, passes. - -Tree lines are eaten up by the night. - -Maybe there is a warped part of me that votes for impermanence over everlasting joy. - -Or maybe ending is more beautiful, not bad, not morbid, but graceful. - -The orange leaf falls to the ground, littering the Earth with nutrition. (Diff truncated)
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 3bac21a..8ae2cd6 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,12 +1,7 @@ -Feel free to think of the following dump as Part 1. Fate is Choice, Calling -by Maggie Hess -copyright 2021 - -Cracked Nut Press
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index c90ab7d..3bac21a 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,91 @@ +Feel free to think of the following dump as Part 1. + +Fate is Choice, Calling + +by Maggie Hess + +copyright 2021 + +Cracked Nut Press + + + +Themes are known to reoccur, in human behavior. There are areas we keep coming back to: cycles, lessons, seasons. + +I just wrote down ten times the idea of fate of calling occurred for me in my life, and the funny thing is, I didn’t realize the commonality between these times until I physically started listing them. And it took for something to happen a tenth time to make me realize these major moments around fate of calling are going to keep coming until I study the idea deeper in my own words, so I can extract from it my lesson learned. Maybe it doesn’t matter as much how I got to this point as much as what I am going to take away from this realization. + +There was this idea that I might know what to do with my life that began before anyone ever asked me the therapeutic question. Then in college Elizabeth Vega asked me “what would you do if you could do anything without limitations?” It seemed like such a big question then, impossible to answer, but something I wanted to try to think of more. Then I went to Costa Rica, a second time in 2015, and when I got there, my plans started not working out, and I wasn’t sure why I had gone there. But when I had gone before in 2001, I had met a wise elderly Quaker, one Lucky Guindon, and I found myself climbing a steep vine covered hill because I wanted to speak with her again before returning to the States. When I got up to see her, I don’t know what caused me to ask the following question: “Is life fate or a choice?” And her response was that it is both. Then maybe the following year, but seemingly unconnected, I asked a family friend the same therapeutic question Elizabeth Vega had asked me, encouraging her to journal on the subject. That was the third occurrence of fate of calling. Then an old college friend left a message on my answering machine that basically said “the story of our life is our decision.” So in the past month, this idea has come back to me again and again, like waves. It even came back to me in the form of qi gong which seems to be a form of meditative movement that uses bodily energy to construct purpose. Also, there is a chinese idea I just read about, Xiu Yang that means you choose your destiny. There even is the Fleetwood Mac song, “You can go your own way.” So in all of this I sensed a pattern. But what exactly is it and what is it saying to me? + +So what comes to mind is write this as if I was teaching the lesson or sharing my answers in self help form. Instead of writing my exploration, writing as if I actually have wisdom of my own. So here goes. + + +These are things you might hear waiting to get into the library or in the hair salon. “When it rains it pours!” and “It feels like fate.” + +But I stand before no barber shop or house of books and those are the things I am feeling, the rain of a thousand fates, all connecting in this moment. + +I guess the rain part is in 2 parts. Both my phone is “exploding” with text messages from various people because something has opened in my communications with my 30 contacts. That and the idea of destiny, of fate, of life’s calling, or purpose is resurfacing for me all over the place, so in that, it also feels like rain. It’s raining meaning, I guess. + +It wasn’t that long ago that I was alone, feeling peerless, or just wondering why am I here? People have often told me to do God’s work when I figure out what it is, but I am 38, and so far my life has been more of a seeker than a sojourner. + +This is feeling like the beginning of a book. Already I can think of ten necessary chapters in addition to this introduction. Just as I was beginning to think I would “just be a poet,” which is something that has occurred to me over and over again and again. + +Autumn says “everything seems to happen in cycles with me.” She’s right. This isn’t the first time I have started writing a book about my calling of writing a book. Maybe that doesn’t make sense yet. + +I didn’t use to think my life would feel prosperous as it does now. My phone is blowing up and they all are people I want to hear from and talk to. That is what I mean in prosperity, regarding connection and fulfilling the intention Life meant for me. + +I have come a long way. + +Actually it is so funny about my phone. I have come so far with the telephone. More than one time, I had such a bad relationship with my phone and the people in it that I threw it in a trashcan down town and tried to leave it completely, only to drive back to that spot and retrieve it before the trash collector took it away. + +How a person feels about their phone seems to reflect how they feel about themselves. + +So maybe I should start with a brief history of my phone relationship. + +In middle school, my best friend and I spent forever talking together on the phone. Maybe it was a rotary, but I think it was a cordless landlines for both of us, her at her parent’s house and me at mine. It was pretty healthy then. We had long lingering hang ups, where neither of us would hang up. + +I could give a chronological account of phones, but the main point is this: they were hard for me in my early adulthood. Relationships also were hard. Lately I feel much better regarding both. I am sure I will hit future rough patches, but something is growing in my phone, and with all of the people lucky enough to be tied to me on my list of numbers. + +Chapter 1 + +Fate is Choice + + + +Listen my children, deep in each person, and you will hear, stretching wisdom, diminishing fears. + +Nobody gives us a book of answers, but this book intends to offer the kind of answers that growing adults seem to desire. + +What are you going to do with your one precious life? What would make your mother proud? What would make you proud if you were transported into a future version of yourself and looking back at your life? + +The question might feel like a bad starting place for comfort’s sake. It can feel like an uneasy question to be asked. What do you want to be when you grow up? This is another way of putting it, a way that has turned off many young children from wanting to answer the question. The idea is too big for them to always know the answer. + +Maybe a better question might be “what do you feel like you were born to do?” But that can seem to giant of a question to. + +Maybe the problem with these giant questions is they are overwhelming, and do not give any kind of guide or piece by piece instruction regarding how to the questions into bite size pieces. This book tries to offer an inch by inch map to your destiny, to give you a clearer picture of what you might do with your life if you could do anything in the world without limits. + + + + +So the idea starts with a big statement. You choose your own destiny. Even if you are confused about your next step or the end goal for you, you already happen to be deciding your life course, in every tiny breath, in every moment of your life. + +So you picked up this book for a reason. + +Claiming your power as an actor in life doesn’t always feel confident. But you should maybe take some deep breaths just realizing the true fact that you have done everything right so far, and you couldn’t possibly go in the wrong direction. + +Every thing you have done, no matter how it may seem like a mistake or fumble, was there for a reason. On one end, the reason is simple, you made the choice, you did the mistake, you picked the path. So on that side, there is choice. You make decisions every second, and it might feel like they brought you to a dark or scary place or maybe you are just confused about how you feel about what you have done or if you’ve done enough. This book says all of your choices are your fate. If you made a mistake it is OK because now you can learn a lesson. If you feel lost it is OK because sometimes you have to really get lost to find the right question to guide you. And yes, it is the questions that guide us, not the answers. +So what are some of the guiding questions in your life? Because learning people savor the questions and find inspiration and gladness in that dark woods of being lost in. + + +Honestly, the simple way to say this, the best way to tell you what you need to know is one brief phrase is “Trust the process.” +What in the World do you Know? + +One time someone pointed out to me that my answer to everything seemed to be “I don’t know.” I was proud of the fact I admitted what I did not know. I saw in that response a superior level of humility, which is a funny thing to be proud of, admittedly. + +Now I am realizing that I know what I need to do and am learning to trust the process and recognize that even what seem to be missteps will build in me improved resilience for which I am grateful. + +______ + + <br>When a Friend Pointed Out, My Reaction Might be Normal</br> <br>Maybe it actually was the insane part of me</br>
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 40c8104..c90ab7d 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,39 @@ +<br>When a Friend Pointed Out, My Reaction Might be Normal</br> + +<br>Maybe it actually was the insane part of me</br> +<br>Who said “I need to give myself a news break</br> +<br>to restore my mental wellbeing.”</br> + +<br>Of course it probably wasn’t technically</br> +<br>sane or insane just to turn off the smart phone,</br> +<br>but watching a bully led mob try to take control</br> + +<br>of this beautiful land with violence alone</br> +<br>was making my skin crawl,</br> +<br>and seeing them get pretty close</br> + +<br>twisted my lens of the world</br> +<br>too much</br> +<br>that I might meditate myself to a better place.</br> + +<br>Because I know mindfulness is important</br> +<br>towards being able to carry on in a calm state,</br> +<br>yet in this one time, maybe maintaining calm</br> + +<br>was not what was actually needed.</br> +<br>If someone was throwing flames</br> +<br>upon my house, it would not make sense</br> + +<br>to think happy thoughts in that moment.</br> +<br>There is self preservation, awareness of breath,</br> +<br>but we need Democracy to have air left at all.</br> + + + + +------------- + + I Want to Continue Exploring my Appalachian Identity, Because There is Something More There But before I start let me point out the obvious. Donald Trump is about as distant from being an Appalachian as Arnold Schwarzenegger or the blow hole of a whale. You can't claim somebody a hillbilly just because they have an awful demeanor. In fact, that is also the opposite of what I mean when I say Hillbilly.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 83a1ea1..40c8104 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ A friend of mine works in mental health and told me sometimes Appalachians can b I am not done writing about this, but I need a break. - +---------------- Watching the News is Counter to Activism
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 51f0335..83a1ea1 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,38 @@ +I Want to Continue Exploring my Appalachian Identity, Because There is Something More There + +But before I start let me point out the obvious. Donald Trump is about as distant from being an Appalachian as Arnold Schwarzenegger or the blow hole of a whale. You can't claim somebody a hillbilly just because they have an awful demeanor. In fact, that is also the opposite of what I mean when I say Hillbilly. + +So what is a Hillbilly and why do I identify that way? + +I could write pages about what Appalachian Hillbilly means broadly, but I want to explore what it means to me. + +I have heard people say Appalachians are independent people, individuals, strong minded, willing to take up a cause and fight to maintain what we care about. I am all of those things. + +I don't think that any of the stereotype of Appalachia is necessary for the person to identify as hillbilly. So many are tied to this region in more diverse or varied ways than the standard 7th generation Mountain person. New waves of Appalachians still are Appalachians, still have the right to claim this identity if we want to. + +There are about as many variations as Appalachians. I know my Mom is from Massachusetts and I still claim myself hillbilly. Daddy is from West Virginia, but even if he wasn't I think my living in Northeast Tennessee most of my life allows me the right to call myself this way. + +You certainly don't have to be white to be Appalachian. It always interests me which people of color want to identify Appalachian and which prefer to run screaming in the opposite direction. + +I think this is one of those concepts I need to personally dig much deeper into, which means I think I am going to be writing about it every week or so, just to understand it better myself. + +I have a funny memory of the term Appalachia. The first time I remember hearing it may have been negative. Like some kid in school saying "I'm not some dumb Appalachian." Then I might have been in the 6th grade, and my older sister Anna started thinking more about the term as it applies to herself. She identified as Appalachian, and I think I asked her why since my peer had called them dumb. + +I think she paused and thought a little about how to talk to a kid about this term. Then she said, "the people of this region are Appalachian. You get to decide whether you identify with the term or not. Do you?" + +And so the question was put back to me in that way at an early age, and I had to stop myself and think it over. My gut decision was I am one of them, because I live in this region too. + +It may sound simple to have a regional identity just because you live in a region. But in a way it is a very pragmatic reason to identify a way. + +I used to go to a place called Exchange Place, which is in Kingsport TN and used to be run by family friends, and now has been passed on to some family acquaintances. Exchange Place is a living history farm that embraces and reenacts farm living experiences from the 1850s. There always was culturally something to be valued from embracing the old ways. This could be as simple as making your own sour dough bread, to saving heirloom seeds, to using a horse to pull a plow. Old ways are at the heart of what I would call ideal hillbilly culture. Old ways not only preserve a kind of heritage, it also harkens back to those traditional personality traits that I so love about Appalachian people, the individualism, the independence, the willingness to take up a cause, the strong mind. + +A friend of mine works in mental health and told me sometimes Appalachians can be stubborn about accepting treatment because of this individualism. So it is not just a pro, all of these traits can also be a con. It really is important not to romanticize hillbillies, or any group that can be ostracized due to stereotype or even racially. + +I am not done writing about this, but I need a break. + + + + Watching the News is Counter to Activism I found myself watching news because there is a dark or morbid part of me that wanted to spend hours rehashing the grim events that recently unfolded in Washington.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 0209ec3..51f0335 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,5 @@ +Watching the News is Counter to Activism + I found myself watching news because there is a dark or morbid part of me that wanted to spend hours rehashing the grim events that recently unfolded in Washington. I usually am happier and more aware of mindfulness, but with recent news, I let myself care about it too much and I also just sat passive in front of informational videos while I forgot I was breathing.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index c870d99..0209ec3 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,53 @@ +I found myself watching news because there is a dark or morbid part of me that wanted to spend hours rehashing the grim events that recently unfolded in Washington. + +I usually am happier and more aware of mindfulness, but with recent news, I let myself care about it too much and I also just sat passive in front of informational videos while I forgot I was breathing. + +I do not believe I am a purely lite person. + +There is a darkness to me that I have known before that I can experience again. + +I wrote a poem about the light lines on tree branches and the peace and comfort they bring me. + +There is always a chance to slip into a deep depression, but I don't think that is the darkest thing that can happen. + +As I said in my poem, there is a light and dark to everything. + +My meditation book suggested looking at nature and focusing on the shadows and then the brightness and going back and forth between them to understand neutrality. + +In meditation, I know we do better not judging our thoughts, keeping a passive attitude towards them. + +There is inside of me a news addict and someone who writes beautiful poems about nature. + +There is inside of me a lover and a snark. + +I was thinking about the battle dark and lightness seem to fight. + +Some say good always wins, but I believe everything is also dark in the end, literal blackness feels to me more powerful than fire. + +Fire extinguishes. + +Life fades. + +Qi, energy, passes. + +Tree lines are eaten up by the night. + +Maybe there is a warped part of me that votes for impermanence over everlasting joy. + +Or maybe ending is more beautiful, not bad, not morbid, but graceful. + +The orange leaf falls to the ground, littering the Earth with nutrition. + +Maybe I am just singing the Circle of Life. + +Or maybe I am studying deep my Tao. + +Whatever the answer is, I am shutting of the news. + +I am tired of listening to the ignorant voices I have at times tuned in, when I could just listen to my own wisdom. + +------------------------- + Transitioning Our Response to Society's Ideals Society is where we get the wrong part of our work ethic. Passion for a calling can lead us to work too, which still should be balanced with doing things to take care of ourselves. Lots of people have a hard time asking for a single day off from work, often because they have inner obstacles built by the societal idea that we must work.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 94cb414..c870d99 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,21 @@ +Transitioning Our Response to Society's Ideals + +Society is where we get the wrong part of our work ethic. Passion for a calling can lead us to work too, which still should be balanced with doing things to take care of ourselves. Lots of people have a hard time asking for a single day off from work, often because they have inner obstacles built by the societal idea that we must work. + +Not working can be hard for someone with a new disability. I have a friend like this. Personally, I generally love not working, but there are times when I imagine life could be better with work. I applied to 3 more MFA programs, recently, but I think I still might say no (again) if accepted. + +Saying no takes more strength, self awareness, and is often the compassionate way. I don't think work often exercises Buddhist practice. Non-doing can accomplish much. + +Another concept is Xiu Yang, which says we are in charge of our personal destinies. Personally, maybe echoing something Anna once expressed, I don't think people working is necessary for our Xiu Yang. For me, Xiu Yang is talking about what we would do if we could do anything without obstacles as our destiny. + +We don't need material things that keep us paying for them. Technically most of us could join a monastery and live with very limited means. I once read I am not allowed to join a monastery because I have a mental disability. I am trying to build a monastery closer to home. + +All of us probably have a kind of pull between doing and nondoing, between work and rest, between active and mediative. When we plan our lives, which side is pulling us? Are we pushing towards activity or settling in? Are we listening more to society's idea that we have to accomplish certain things to be normal too much? + +I know I have listened too much to that idea. I am working harder on that now. + +_____ + Midnight quenching <br>The poems you write in the middle of the night</br>
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 255065a..94cb414 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,15 @@ +Midnight quenching + +<br>The poems you write in the middle of the night</br> +<br>seem different,</br> + +<br>Like there ‘r more there</br> +<br>right there just waiting to flip off the griddle.</br> + + +--------- + + Maggie in Need and Maggie Super Helper I have a sort of Montessori Masters in Self Help from the School of Being Alive. We all have enrolled in a few classes, but it happens to be my major. Which is why I am surprised this is the first time Maggie in Need, my inner being ever really had a real conversation with Maggie Super Helper, my other inner being.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 88512b7..255065a 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -57,3 +57,6 @@ I had seen these moments of rising: all of the starts that it took to complete 1 Self care can be the sum and total of a life. Or we can learn to add on additional commitments plus taking care of ourselves. That is how it was when I packed my bags and moved almost 5 hours away to go to school in Kentucky. I am charging into the unknown, actually in a direction that had hurt me before. Going to school was the initiation of my mental illness in the first time it happened. It took so much bravery just to return to school. And I left all of my usual comforts to do it too. So I learned that at that point I could add commitments to just taking care of myself. But after school, I returned home. I needed rest. I let myself just draw a disability check and not work. And in doing that, any idea I might be courageous was falsely proven a passing notion. But taking the disability time has been bravery too, especially for someone who knows my gifts. Lately I have been adding commitments again. I do some transcribing work. I am part of an online writing support group that has been meeting for over 9 months. I started an offshoot group that meets each weekday. And now that I am getting more and more in the swing of doing more, I might be going back to school in the fall if I get accepted and I kill the belief in myself that I can’t do it, that I am a week, meek wimp, who doesn’t have the ability to do what I really want. I can do it. I can do what I commit myself to every time, because I am smart and I am not committing myself to the wrong things at all. I need to fix my eyes to always see myself through the lens of courage for the rest of my life. This is breath one, step one, note one to that beautiful music. May there be many more. + + +[[!img me.png align="right" size="400x" alt=""]]
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diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 6e19774..88512b7 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,30 @@ +Maggie in Need and Maggie Super Helper + +I have a sort of Montessori Masters in Self Help from the School of Being Alive. We all have enrolled in a few classes, but it happens to be my major. Which is why I am surprised this is the first time Maggie in Need, my inner being ever really had a real conversation with Maggie Super Helper, my other inner being. + +You might think it was a little too full of praise for an average conversation, but Maggie Super Helper is the part of me that exists for the some purpose of building the confidence and well being of Maggie in Need. This is how it went. + +Maggie Super Helper: you sure are patient with your mother. That kind of thing really impresses me about how good of a person you are. + +Maggie in Need: oh, thank you. I had heard you somewhere before, but I am not sure where we met exactly. + +Maggie Super Helper: probably in your gusto. You may be in need even in the most trying times, you seem brave. + +Maggie in Need: (being mindful of breath for the first time in an hour) that feels good, to breath, and also to finally have a real longer conversation with you + +Maggie Super Helper: I'm always here for you if you need me. + +Maggie in Need: (smiling) + +Maggie Super Helper: Remember that time we got lost in the woods? How you for a minute were concerned something might happen to threaten your survival. Remember how good you felt, and also how much more you were aware of the sensation of feeling when you returned home after having that experienced you believed at the time was a brush with death? That feeling you had of being more in touch with your senses than you ever remember, that was your body kicking in and reminding you how important life is to you. You always have loved living so much. It might be important for you to earmark that feeling as a time you can mentally return to if you wonder if you have the courage to do something. You are here on this Earth to do what you decide you should do, even if it seems like a scary obstacle. Thinking back to that feeling might help you. It certainly took bravery. + +Maggie in Need: thanks for pointing that out to me. Are you going? + +Maggie: Why don't we just combine forces from here on out? + +--------------- + + Why I Claim "Appalachia" and Declare Extremists Aren't You might ask me, Maggie, what's the point in thinking about hillbillies? What's the point in sympathizing with a stereotype of ignorant, low life, stereotypical people in a time when our country has so recently been damaged by extremists who in many ways resemble hillbillies? It might sound like I am wrongfully defending a type of person who just a couple days ago committed violent up-rise resulting in murder, unduly yet instigated at heart by the nation's own president. These are dark times in our nation's history. I do not mean to stand behind the extremists at all. I have always been a progressive, a believer in pacifism, compassion, a feminist at heart, and someone who hates racism. I do not know what forces all cause a group to find themselves so misunderstood, so damaged that they would tare into, vandalize, and storm into the hallowed halls of our Nation. But I think it is a question worth thinking over. Why would a people feel so unheard that they feel a need to do something rash, that might even be done with a sense of passion or pride? I know for as long as Appalachia has been around there has been rising up in Appalachia, a kind of activism that was originally something I would have stood beside. On the early end of Appalachian history, out of state lawyers came in to our rural parts and offered low sums of money for the mineral rights underneath our soil. From this there came coal mining with the debt to the company store, little monopoly style coins called script, used to marginalize the people. Of course not all regional people ever consider themselves hillbillies at all, in part due to coal and the fact this vein of energy that keeps the lights on for much of the nation to a point, isn't something various people identify with. Some people in this region are new to the area, or always lived in the city, are of an ethnic variety that generally isn't represented as hillbilly, and certainly many of us do not like or condone Trump or what he stands for.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 87d7d3a..6e19774 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ So I think as a culture our nation needs an nonextremist option that may identif - +_________
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 8c9fb75..87d7d3a 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ But the world has gotten to this dark stage where that insolent president was ab You might wonder why I still think I am an Appalachian, despite all that I've said about what happened earlier this week with the desecration of the Capitol by violent extremists. Those people who did that, did have a hillbilly stereotypical look to them, but I know a kind of hillbilly that is a different thing entirely. I would not claim those people in my Appalachia at all. My kind of hillbilly might invite you in for beans and biscuits, or biscuits and gravy. They might lead a revolution against Mountaintop Removal, or stand strong for coal, or live in a place that doesn't mind one way or the other about coal. My kind of Appalachian includes Afrilachian poets, and other poets, poets of all kind, in fact, I am partly drawn to call myself Appalachian because of the musical, interesting way many of us hillbillies talk and the country road twisting manner many of us use to talk. I like the Appalachian people. I never really wanted to leave the region, no matter where I'd go, and I always found myself looking back longingly at the hills and mountains when I did go to the ocean or somewhere far away. Appalachia is home and the hillbilly people are my neighbors, brothers, sisters, and friends. There is something good at the heart of hillbilly culture that is worth cherishing. -So I think as a culture our nation needs an nonextremist option that may identify as misjudged maybe but a people who consider ourselves Appalachian, a kind of person who may consider ourselves Democrats, Republican, or none of the above, but who just agrees with the hillbilly name. All across the world, from China to Myanmar to the Gaze strip, there are kinds of people who in their way are grouped in the stereotyped way that Appalachians have been gathered together. There is something racial to the idea of the hillbilly. And though the picture is sometimes a negative idea that binds us, we have the right to identify as hillbillies and Appalachians if we want to. I need to think more about this subject, but I always have made the decision to see myself as part of this regional identity. Seems when I am thinking of myself as Appalachian I am exploring the right thing, so I am going to keep on doing it. +So I think as a culture our nation needs an nonextremist option that may identify as misjudged maybe but a people who consider ourselves Appalachian, a kind of person who may consider ourselves Democrats, Republican, or none of the above, but who just agrees with the hillbilly name. All across the world, from China to Myanmar to the Gaza strip, there are kinds of people who in their way are grouped in the stereotyped way that Appalachians have been gathered together. There is something racial to the idea of the hillbilly. And though the picture is sometimes a negative idea that binds us, we have the right to identify as hillbillies and Appalachians if we want to. I need to think more about this subject, but I always have made the decision to see myself as part of this regional identity. Seems when I am thinking of myself as Appalachian I am exploring the right thing, so I am going to keep on doing it.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 15780c8..8c9fb75 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,5 @@ +Why I Claim "Appalachia" and Declare Extremists Aren't + You might ask me, Maggie, what's the point in thinking about hillbillies? What's the point in sympathizing with a stereotype of ignorant, low life, stereotypical people in a time when our country has so recently been damaged by extremists who in many ways resemble hillbillies? It might sound like I am wrongfully defending a type of person who just a couple days ago committed violent up-rise resulting in murder, unduly yet instigated at heart by the nation's own president. These are dark times in our nation's history. I do not mean to stand behind the extremists at all. I have always been a progressive, a believer in pacifism, compassion, a feminist at heart, and someone who hates racism. I do not know what forces all cause a group to find themselves so misunderstood, so damaged that they would tare into, vandalize, and storm into the hallowed halls of our Nation. But I think it is a question worth thinking over. Why would a people feel so unheard that they feel a need to do something rash, that might even be done with a sense of passion or pride? I know for as long as Appalachia has been around there has been rising up in Appalachia, a kind of activism that was originally something I would have stood beside. On the early end of Appalachian history, out of state lawyers came in to our rural parts and offered low sums of money for the mineral rights underneath our soil. From this there came coal mining with the debt to the company store, little monopoly style coins called script, used to marginalize the people. Of course not all regional people ever consider themselves hillbillies at all, in part due to coal and the fact this vein of energy that keeps the lights on for much of the nation to a point, isn't something various people identify with. Some people in this region are new to the area, or always lived in the city, are of an ethnic variety that generally isn't represented as hillbilly, and certainly many of us do not like or condone Trump or what he stands for. But the world has gotten to this dark stage where that insolent president was able to manipulate the masses for a reason. I think some of the cause that has led to these violent uprisings are rooted in these same stereotypes and the feeling of identity that people sometimes happen to have with Donald Trump because he talks in a certain way that they identify with. I've heard self proclaimed hillbillies saying they don't like Hillary because they felt she was making fun of them, and I think that is a risk any liberal might sustain. We have to make sure that we are not fueling the fire, so we have to be careful because standing against coal can seem like being against a way of life. This is one reason many Appalachians joined team Trump, which ended up being a racist, sexist group, but initially may have just been mad because Hillary laughed at them and didn't understand how to talk to them.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index d2633d3..15780c8 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,18 @@ +You might ask me, Maggie, what's the point in thinking about hillbillies? What's the point in sympathizing with a stereotype of ignorant, low life, stereotypical people in a time when our country has so recently been damaged by extremists who in many ways resemble hillbillies? It might sound like I am wrongfully defending a type of person who just a couple days ago committed violent up-rise resulting in murder, unduly yet instigated at heart by the nation's own president. These are dark times in our nation's history. I do not mean to stand behind the extremists at all. I have always been a progressive, a believer in pacifism, compassion, a feminist at heart, and someone who hates racism. I do not know what forces all cause a group to find themselves so misunderstood, so damaged that they would tare into, vandalize, and storm into the hallowed halls of our Nation. But I think it is a question worth thinking over. Why would a people feel so unheard that they feel a need to do something rash, that might even be done with a sense of passion or pride? I know for as long as Appalachia has been around there has been rising up in Appalachia, a kind of activism that was originally something I would have stood beside. On the early end of Appalachian history, out of state lawyers came in to our rural parts and offered low sums of money for the mineral rights underneath our soil. From this there came coal mining with the debt to the company store, little monopoly style coins called script, used to marginalize the people. Of course not all regional people ever consider themselves hillbillies at all, in part due to coal and the fact this vein of energy that keeps the lights on for much of the nation to a point, isn't something various people identify with. Some people in this region are new to the area, or always lived in the city, are of an ethnic variety that generally isn't represented as hillbilly, and certainly many of us do not like or condone Trump or what he stands for. + +But the world has gotten to this dark stage where that insolent president was able to manipulate the masses for a reason. I think some of the cause that has led to these violent uprisings are rooted in these same stereotypes and the feeling of identity that people sometimes happen to have with Donald Trump because he talks in a certain way that they identify with. I've heard self proclaimed hillbillies saying they don't like Hillary because they felt she was making fun of them, and I think that is a risk any liberal might sustain. We have to make sure that we are not fueling the fire, so we have to be careful because standing against coal can seem like being against a way of life. This is one reason many Appalachians joined team Trump, which ended up being a racist, sexist group, but initially may have just been mad because Hillary laughed at them and didn't understand how to talk to them. + +You might wonder why I still think I am an Appalachian, despite all that I've said about what happened earlier this week with the desecration of the Capitol by violent extremists. Those people who did that, did have a hillbilly stereotypical look to them, but I know a kind of hillbilly that is a different thing entirely. I would not claim those people in my Appalachia at all. My kind of hillbilly might invite you in for beans and biscuits, or biscuits and gravy. They might lead a revolution against Mountaintop Removal, or stand strong for coal, or live in a place that doesn't mind one way or the other about coal. My kind of Appalachian includes Afrilachian poets, and other poets, poets of all kind, in fact, I am partly drawn to call myself Appalachian because of the musical, interesting way many of us hillbillies talk and the country road twisting manner many of us use to talk. I like the Appalachian people. I never really wanted to leave the region, no matter where I'd go, and I always found myself looking back longingly at the hills and mountains when I did go to the ocean or somewhere far away. Appalachia is home and the hillbilly people are my neighbors, brothers, sisters, and friends. There is something good at the heart of hillbilly culture that is worth cherishing. + +So I think as a culture our nation needs an nonextremist option that may identify as misjudged maybe but a people who consider ourselves Appalachian, a kind of person who may consider ourselves Democrats, Republican, or none of the above, but who just agrees with the hillbilly name. All across the world, from China to Myanmar to the Gaze strip, there are kinds of people who in their way are grouped in the stereotyped way that Appalachians have been gathered together. There is something racial to the idea of the hillbilly. And though the picture is sometimes a negative idea that binds us, we have the right to identify as hillbillies and Appalachians if we want to. I need to think more about this subject, but I always have made the decision to see myself as part of this regional identity. Seems when I am thinking of myself as Appalachian I am exploring the right thing, so I am going to keep on doing it. + + + + + + + + Claiming my Courage I don’t know if misunderstanding ourselves is true of everyone or just too many people. I know all of us only see ourselves from our own perspective. There is something we all share in that struggle to know our true identity. Perspective means that I often have a false notion of who I am. Or maybe I am too caught up in the moment or whatever is going on to know who I am in the heart of it. A friend pointed this out to me recently. I had studied the idea of misleading perspectives in a psychology class in college. But I hadn’t recently thought that maybe this idea might be the change to the story I believe about myself that I have been seeking and really need to know who I really am better, to gain confidence, and start being more faithful to myself.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 20277c7..d2633d3 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,35 +1,3 @@ -Sometimes poems spit out like snow. Sometimes I write a poem certain it will be a classic. When I wrote this poem, I just needed to hear myself think something about the comfort I find in nature's Constance. Something seems worth sharing this poem because it shares that happy response to nature. Maybe the lines read like limbs to a tree. - -* * * - -The line of light on branches - -reminds me of sunnier times. - -Maybe I will go outside. - -Some aspects of existence - -stay the same. - - -Everything the sun touches - -changes somehow. - - -Walking Brazen - -I saw in the Eastern sky - -the clouds parted. - - -There’s a dark and a light to everything. - -* * * - - Claiming my Courage I don’t know if misunderstanding ourselves is true of everyone or just too many people. I know all of us only see ourselves from our own perspective. There is something we all share in that struggle to know our true identity. Perspective means that I often have a false notion of who I am. Or maybe I am too caught up in the moment or whatever is going on to know who I am in the heart of it. A friend pointed this out to me recently. I had studied the idea of misleading perspectives in a psychology class in college. But I hadn’t recently thought that maybe this idea might be the change to the story I believe about myself that I have been seeking and really need to know who I really am better, to gain confidence, and start being more faithful to myself.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 4e59d22..20277c7 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -26,3 +26,22 @@ the clouds parted. There’s a dark and a light to everything. + +* * * + + +Claiming my Courage + +I don’t know if misunderstanding ourselves is true of everyone or just too many people. I know all of us only see ourselves from our own perspective. There is something we all share in that struggle to know our true identity. Perspective means that I often have a false notion of who I am. Or maybe I am too caught up in the moment or whatever is going on to know who I am in the heart of it. A friend pointed this out to me recently. I had studied the idea of misleading perspectives in a psychology class in college. But I hadn’t recently thought that maybe this idea might be the change to the story I believe about myself that I have been seeking and really need to know who I really am better, to gain confidence, and start being more faithful to myself. + +But this thought just woke me up. What if I really am courageous? What if that is the one word that best described me, who I am, and maybe this is what I need to be a whole person, standing firm in the way I need to, so I can live the way I hope to live, and make the future that I want to be proud of. + +So I’m stepping back from the girl who thinks of myself as meek and incapable or crazy and a quitter. I need to remember all of the power it took to start all of the things I have started. I need to remember the person who finds myself lost in the woods and finds my legs under me and walks barefoot for my own survival. I am a girl who chose writing as my vocation because I wanted to change the world with it. I am the girl, yes because girls are tough, who has done a lot of things that might be called crazy, but always maintained my dignity through episodes of mental illness that were never chosen, I am the girl who did yoga in the mental ward to instate peace in my present state, who never was violent. I am the girl who has been an activist, standing together with environmentalist fighting climate change and mountaintop removal and proclaiming voice against unilateral war long before it was cool. + +I haven’t done activism for a long time, and there is a good reason for that. I have been arduously working on myself, healing myself, learning to meditate, and taking care of myself as my job. And that is just as valid and courageous as defending the Other. Standing up for myself is what I have been doing in my own way, in caring for myself. But this has been a missing link in my self care, knowing who I am in the first place, really thinking of myself through the lens of reality, not just the daily one step at a time version. + +I had seen these moments of rising: all of the starts that it took to complete 12 years striving for a college degree, my taking up causes, my religious self care, my commitment to my poetry, all of these ways I have followed my inner drum beat. I had seen these moments of rising and had thought, that’s not me though. I had thought that the rising was not me because the moments of rising were not ongoing daily tasks generally. I had just seen the self care, and hadn’t realized all of my acts of leadership are of the same ilk as the self care. It all is me, and it all is courageous. I had thought the special moments were just flukes. The high points and proudest times were there because of the ongoing self care. Self care is courageous. + +Self care can be the sum and total of a life. Or we can learn to add on additional commitments plus taking care of ourselves. That is how it was when I packed my bags and moved almost 5 hours away to go to school in Kentucky. I am charging into the unknown, actually in a direction that had hurt me before. Going to school was the initiation of my mental illness in the first time it happened. It took so much bravery just to return to school. And I left all of my usual comforts to do it too. So I learned that at that point I could add commitments to just taking care of myself. But after school, I returned home. I needed rest. I let myself just draw a disability check and not work. And in doing that, any idea I might be courageous was falsely proven a passing notion. But taking the disability time has been bravery too, especially for someone who knows my gifts. Lately I have been adding commitments again. I do some transcribing work. I am part of an online writing support group that has been meeting for over 9 months. I started an offshoot group that meets each weekday. And now that I am getting more and more in the swing of doing more, I might be going back to school in the fall if I get accepted and I kill the belief in myself that I can’t do it, that I am a week, meek wimp, who doesn’t have the ability to do what I really want. I can do it. I can do what I commit myself to every time, because I am smart and I am not committing myself to the wrong things at all. + +I need to fix my eyes to always see myself through the lens of courage for the rest of my life. This is breath one, step one, note one to that beautiful music. May there be many more.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 49cdb07..4e59d22 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,23 +1,28 @@ -Maggie Hess, Poet +Sometimes poems spit out like snow. Sometimes I write a poem certain it will be a classic. When I wrote this poem, I just needed to hear myself think something about the comfort I find in nature's Constance. Something seems worth sharing this poem because it shares that happy response to nature. Maybe the lines read like limbs to a tree. -Reviews: +* * * -“an excellent poet.” The Blue Mountain Review +The line of light on branches -“beautiful work” K’in Poetry +reminds me of sunnier times. -“Articulate moving poetry - Makes you forget where you are in the moment.” J Wead +Maybe I will go outside. -“Evokes images of the interconnectedness of all beings from the jump, as well as the destructive yet ever changing and ever adapting spirit of humans and nature.” J Fleenor +Some aspects of existence -“Deep, yet relatable” J Wead +stay the same. -“tackles both the mundane and the extraordinary experiences of daily human interactions with grace and levity.” M Mermaid -“a new style of poetry” M Laurel +Everything the sun touches -“Tactile – amazing.” J Wead +changes somehow. -“a lovely sketch of a poem” Friends Journal -“beautiful enough to read a hundred times over.” A Angeleen +Walking Brazen + +I saw in the Eastern sky + +the clouds parted. + + +There’s a dark and a light to everything.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 57aac2c..49cdb07 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Maggie Hess +Maggie Hess, Poet Reviews:
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 309e164..57aac2c 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,101 +1,23 @@ +Maggie Hess -[[!img images___40__3__41__.jpeg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] +Reviews: -I have been thinking a lot about Contemplative Writing and abstract paintings too actually. My mind finally got to a deep place on contempl writ after 8 years as a research assistant in the subject. So interested in what I find next! - -[[!img 132442439_225168842334500_2345667966191420441_n.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] -__________ - -Christmas Stars - - -Lights in early morning - -have a certain glow. - - -Last night, we were watching a dumb Christmas special, - -but got a call by a community naturalist - - -to drop everything and witness - -the convergence of Jupiter and Saturn. - - -So grateful to be told to look up, - -their planets shining so clear, - - -so much easier to understand for me - -than Christmas. - -_____________________________ - -Something about knowing I am small makes me feel more connected. -___________________________ - -It takes perspective to see the pattern. - -It only seems visible when the sun and moon are in just the right position. - -Often we look up and all we see is sky, or ceiling. - -It's that rare moment, when the etches of tree branches, begin to resemble something you saw this time last year exactly, just for a flash, or the blink of an eye. - -You might go around muting yourself until your voice has to be let out. - -You might dream of a connection you disbelieve is out there. - -You might wake up with a realization at the tip of your tongue. - -It's something you noticed before though. - -It may have been a long time ago. - -The pattern is the whole point of the noticing. - -How can I record my habits so I know what they are? - -It's a simple question, I find myself asking, still unsure of the giant answer I just discovered. - - - - --------------- - -In my sleep, I solved my own riddle. What is larger than me but still pertaining? - - -Here’s another. What do my dog, a pandemic, and president Trump all have in common? What does Bernie Sanders, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and my Mom also share in common with all the other things I have listed? Atmosphere. - -When I woke up this morning, somehow I remembered that all of our problems and poetry on this Earth, have a third dimension that is too often forgotten. - -I went to walk by a pond. A great blue heron and 20 geese orbited over head, both species passing in a circle above my little bulb. Everything I could lay my eyes on, under the hazy sky, all shared a common atmosphere, and generally, a perspective and a centering on this Earth. I hug trees and love this world as much as the next person, but we are not confined to the scope of the atmosphere around the Earth. Our existence, life goes billions of astronomical units beyond this measly atmosphere. When we forget to apply the vastness of space to our experience, we are existing in a shell of ignorance, ignoring the very important scope of life, of the world. In everything we can study, from human emotion to empathy to kindness and compassion, our understanding of things misses the truth if we exist with oblivion towards the scope of things. Just knowing about our own atmosphere is small minded, shrinking the purpose and the beauty therein. - -What can I do to remember the stars, the vastness of existence? Personally, it seems reasonable that reading more about our Universe will teach me something about my self. I have started studying the solar system, imaging the amplitude of our small world, and the giant realm of the galaxy, of everything. If someone says everything, and forgets the majority of what it means to be something, they are not being realistic, if by everything you mean the things of this Earth only, you are forgetting the size of our world. If you looked at the whole Universe on a giant map, our Earth would not even be visible. Concerns of individuals matter in the ethical sense that human needs are important. But you have to consider the sheer magnitude of the stars in everything, every time you think or plant a tree or beg for water, you have to consider the fullness of the Mystery, of Science, of Life. - -I’ve been sitting and studying mindfulness and breath for a long time. Breath just goes to a certain point, all of it retained within our biome. There is more to living even than life itself. - -I began learning about Halley’s comet, something I had only had heard of before. I did some math and noticed that in 3 and a half or 4 years, Halley’s comet will be as distant as it ever is from our Earth and sun. In 1986, Halley’s comet passed in its orbit as near as it ever gets to us here on Earth. - -I began learning about the Voyager 2, something I had barely known about before. Voyager 2 is 11 billion miles away. In November 2018, when Voyager 2 left our solar system. - -How can I call my creations poetry or art if they don’t consider but a pea world in the scope of the Universe? To be a poet, I must know the full mystery. To be a human with any claim to consciousness I must have some knowledge beyond this Globe. - - -[[!img happy_holidays_from_maggie.png align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] - -Happy Holidays from Maggie! +“an excellent poet.” The Blue Mountain Review +“beautiful work” K’in Poetry +“Articulate moving poetry - Makes you forget where you are in the moment.” J Wead +“Evokes images of the interconnectedness of all beings from the jump, as well as the destructive yet ever changing and ever adapting spirit of humans and nature.” J Fleenor +“Deep, yet relatable” J Wead +“tackles both the mundane and the extraordinary experiences of daily human interactions with grace and levity.” M Mermaid +“a new style of poetry” M Laurel +“Tactile – amazing.” J Wead +“a lovely sketch of a poem” Friends Journal +“beautiful enough to read a hundred times over.” A Angeleen
Changed pages:
archives/2021
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Changed by: admins-2017
Commit type: git
Date: 15:45:06 01/01/21
calendar update
diff --git a/archives/2021.mdwn b/archives/2021.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..325ac2d --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +[[!calendar type=year year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] diff --git a/archives/2021/01.mdwn b/archives/2021/01.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b5bb5d --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/01.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=01 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(01) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/02.mdwn b/archives/2021/02.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3903fe8 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/02.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=02 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(02) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/03.mdwn b/archives/2021/03.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0c7f1e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/03.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=03 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(03) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/04.mdwn b/archives/2021/04.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5fb95cb --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/04.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=04 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(04) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/05.mdwn b/archives/2021/05.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec47bca --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/05.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=05 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(05) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/06.mdwn b/archives/2021/06.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8af1077 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/06.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=06 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(06) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/07.mdwn b/archives/2021/07.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..54ccb3d --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/07.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=07 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(07) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/08.mdwn b/archives/2021/08.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6242ff --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/08.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=08 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(08) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/09.mdwn b/archives/2021/09.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a8d92cb --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/09.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=09 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(09) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/10.mdwn b/archives/2021/10.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2514206 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/10.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=10 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(10) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/11.mdwn b/archives/2021/11.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c5f9fd --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/11.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=11 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(11) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]] diff --git a/archives/2021/12.mdwn b/archives/2021/12.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4132294 --- /dev/null +++ b/archives/2021/12.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +[[!sidebar content=""" +[[!calendar type=month month=12 year=2021 pages="page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion"]] +"""]] + +[[!inline pages="creation_month(12) and creation_year(2021) and page(posts/*) and !*/Discussion" show=0 feeds=no reverse=yes]]
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index d12c80a..309e164 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,8 +1,7 @@ - [[!img images___40__3__41__.jpeg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] - +I have been thinking a lot about Contemplative Writing and abstract paintings too actually. My mind finally got to a deep place on contempl writ after 8 years as a research assistant in the subject. So interested in what I find next! [[!img 132442439_225168842334500_2345667966191420441_n.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] __________
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index af296a8..d12c80a 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,57 +1,8 @@ -Who you are and why you want to join an MFA? - -[[!img images___40__3__41__.jpeg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] - - -I am mentally disabled, but I also am a career poet already. I have been so committed to “my craft” for so long that I have had 40 of my poems published by small presses, I have published 30 books of various genres and kinds, including self publishing 8 poetry chapbooks on Amazon, I sought and acquired an English degree with a concentration in Writing. The degree took me twelve years but at least by the end of it, it was firm in my mind that I am committed to a career of poetry, regardless of how foolish an idea that may seem. I received a few writing awards (in college), was honored with a couple finalist recognitions for chapbooks in the real world, and I guess considering all of these things, I want to join an MFA because these achievements are not enough for me. - - -I broke down my main reasons for the MFA into 4 categories: - - -More community - - -Writing community is something I had to an extent pursing my concentration in writing and bachelor’s degree at Berea College. I happened to grow up in a Literary family that published our own small poetry magazine out of our home, and incubated in me a healthy, organic, appreciation of poetry from a young age. So I had the rare experience of having a father who helped to found a creative writing group for Poets and Writers in Abingdon, Virginia, and when I was in high school I actually got to attend my first meeting of that group, which actually meant a ton to me. It was strange to be placed as a 16 year old in a group of strange old Poets. I wanted to read a poem that I wrote called “One” and actually remember getting emotional and crying during my spot. There was something peculiar about every one of the Poets there, maybe most significantly because I was one of these eccentric creatures myself. - - -My time in writing community has been on and off, but I currently have a delightful group of fellow writers that I am part of. We meet virtually in videos online. Being in this totally extra curricular group is turning something alive in me as a writer, making me twice as productive, and I already was pretty prolific. But not something where I am fulfilling my craving for writing community entirely. Our group meets at least one time per week, and I just formed a second contemplative group that budded off the first that meets daily, but my hunger for Poetry group is not being met at all, it is like I am some kind of Poetry addict. The part of me that desired community is going crazy trying to figure out how I can make this into something I get to keep and hold onto forever in my life. - - - -Personal Transformation from Disabled? - - -I go back and forth. Do I want a paid career in Poetry? On the surface, it seems I am perfectly happy keeping it something I can do off the grid, of sorts. Being a Disabled Poet allows some degree of liberty. A disabled person who does not economically have to work, has all the time in the world provided to them for doing their writing, but maybe not enough stimulation or community to nurture their career of Poetry. -But if I enrolled in a MFA, I would have more structure. Some of the MFA seems ridiculously easy, like producing the number of poems for the thesis seems a cinch, yet still it is one part of the program I would very much delight in doing. - - -Teaching - -I can’t guarantee I will have the energy or capacity to teach after my MFA is completed, because of my Disability and the volatility of the unknown. But I did start thinking about the teaching component in a new light. I never had a solid teaching philosophy until recently, but I realize the main point of teaching for me as someone who has a lot of opportunity to encourage my Literacy is to Give Back. The idea of teaching as giving back propels my interest in Teaching much more than when it was just a possible career and a way to extend my Poetry. It could be students of any age, but I want to give others a way into Poetry, to enable students to have Poetry in their lives because it has been such a gift to me. - - - -More education - - -So enrolling in a MFA serves a higher purpose, actually, than just feeding my craving for community and Poetry. It feeds my craving for community and Poetry in a way that I might be able to have my drug of choice as long as I can. - - -More publication - - -When I graduated college, I think I had 11 poems published and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I would produce and publish more. Part of self publishing felt a little like I was eliminating opportunities to be chosen by major poetry presses for chapbooks. I think it doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive, but there is a still a lot I know I could learn about publication, namely how to submit more quality manuscripts so that they are chosen more and more. - - -There is so much I could learn in so many areas. So all the signs seem collectively to point to the MFA. - +[[!img images___40__3__41__.jpeg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] -___________ -I am pretty excited because I just got an art idea. I have a trick I use where I take long breaks in the stream of my visual art creation. I take a break because I know what it does to my mind every time. I begin to wonder if I really am an artist. When the doubt fully encapsulates me, and all I can see is the last awful thing I painted, going through that helps me as an artist. It refreshes my mind, resets my page blank, then like clockwork, when all hope is dried up for me ever painting anything good again, I get an idea. I will tell you more about this idea when it progresses. I never would have a tattoo, but this idea came as what I would want as a tattoo if I ever did, so it is something very near and dear to my heart. It's gonna be hard to capture. [[!img 132442439_225168842334500_2345667966191420441_n.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] __________
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 2884393..af296a8 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,56 @@ +Who you are and why you want to join an MFA? + +[[!img images___40__3__41__.jpeg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] + + +I am mentally disabled, but I also am a career poet already. I have been so committed to “my craft” for so long that I have had 40 of my poems published by small presses, I have published 30 books of various genres and kinds, including self publishing 8 poetry chapbooks on Amazon, I sought and acquired an English degree with a concentration in Writing. The degree took me twelve years but at least by the end of it, it was firm in my mind that I am committed to a career of poetry, regardless of how foolish an idea that may seem. I received a few writing awards (in college), was honored with a couple finalist recognitions for chapbooks in the real world, and I guess considering all of these things, I want to join an MFA because these achievements are not enough for me. + + +I broke down my main reasons for the MFA into 4 categories: + + +More community + + +Writing community is something I had to an extent pursing my concentration in writing and bachelor’s degree at Berea College. I happened to grow up in a Literary family that published our own small poetry magazine out of our home, and incubated in me a healthy, organic, appreciation of poetry from a young age. So I had the rare experience of having a father who helped to found a creative writing group for Poets and Writers in Abingdon, Virginia, and when I was in high school I actually got to attend my first meeting of that group, which actually meant a ton to me. It was strange to be placed as a 16 year old in a group of strange old Poets. I wanted to read a poem that I wrote called “One” and actually remember getting emotional and crying during my spot. There was something peculiar about every one of the Poets there, maybe most significantly because I was one of these eccentric creatures myself. + + +My time in writing community has been on and off, but I currently have a delightful group of fellow writers that I am part of. We meet virtually in videos online. Being in this totally extra curricular group is turning something alive in me as a writer, making me twice as productive, and I already was pretty prolific. But not something where I am fulfilling my craving for writing community entirely. Our group meets at least one time per week, and I just formed a second contemplative group that budded off the first that meets daily, but my hunger for Poetry group is not being met at all, it is like I am some kind of Poetry addict. The part of me that desired community is going crazy trying to figure out how I can make this into something I get to keep and hold onto forever in my life. + + + +Personal Transformation from Disabled? + + +I go back and forth. Do I want a paid career in Poetry? On the surface, it seems I am perfectly happy keeping it something I can do off the grid, of sorts. Being a Disabled Poet allows some degree of liberty. A disabled person who does not economically have to work, has all the time in the world provided to them for doing their writing, but maybe not enough stimulation or community to nurture their career of Poetry. + + +But if I enrolled in a MFA, I would have more structure. Some of the MFA seems ridiculously easy, like producing the number of poems for the thesis seems a cinch, yet still it is one part of the program I would very much delight in doing. + + +Teaching + +I can’t guarantee I will have the energy or capacity to teach after my MFA is completed, because of my Disability and the volatility of the unknown. But I did start thinking about the teaching component in a new light. I never had a solid teaching philosophy until recently, but I realize the main point of teaching for me as someone who has a lot of opportunity to encourage my Literacy is to Give Back. The idea of teaching as giving back propels my interest in Teaching much more than when it was just a possible career and a way to extend my Poetry. It could be students of any age, but I want to give others a way into Poetry, to enable students to have Poetry in their lives because it has been such a gift to me. + + + +More education + + +So enrolling in a MFA serves a higher purpose, actually, than just feeding my craving for community and Poetry. It feeds my craving for community and Poetry in a way that I might be able to have my drug of choice as long as I can. + + +More publication + + +When I graduated college, I think I had 11 poems published and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I would produce and publish more. Part of self publishing felt a little like I was eliminating opportunities to be chosen by major poetry presses for chapbooks. I think it doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive, but there is a still a lot I know I could learn about publication, namely how to submit more quality manuscripts so that they are chosen more and more. + + +There is so much I could learn in so many areas. So all the signs seem collectively to point to the MFA. + + +___________ + I am pretty excited because I just got an art idea. I have a trick I use where I take long breaks in the stream of my visual art creation. I take a break because I know what it does to my mind every time. I begin to wonder if I really am an artist. When the doubt fully encapsulates me, and all I can see is the last awful thing I painted, going through that helps me as an artist. It refreshes my mind, resets my page blank, then like clockwork, when all hope is dried up for me ever painting anything good again, I get an idea. I will tell you more about this idea when it progresses. I never would have a tattoo, but this idea came as what I would want as a tattoo if I ever did, so it is something very near and dear to my heart. It's gonna be hard to capture. [[!img 132442439_225168842334500_2345667966191420441_n.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] @@ -93,3 +146,6 @@ Happy Holidays from Maggie! + + +
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Changed by: maggiemargarethess
Commit type: web
Date: 17:35:50 12/25/20
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diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 889e518..2884393 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ I am pretty excited because I just got an art idea. I have a trick I use where I take long breaks in the stream of my visual art creation. I take a break because I know what it does to my mind every time. I begin to wonder if I really am an artist. When the doubt fully encapsulates me, and all I can see is the last awful thing I painted, going through that helps me as an artist. It refreshes my mind, resets my page blank, then like clockwork, when all hope is dried up for me ever painting anything good again, I get an idea. I will tell you more about this idea when it progresses. I never would have a tattoo, but this idea came as what I would want as a tattoo if I ever did, so it is something very near and dear to my heart. It's gonna be hard to capture. - +[[!img 132442439_225168842334500_2345667966191420441_n.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] __________ Christmas Stars @@ -87,3 +87,9 @@ How can I call my creations poetry or art if they don’t consider but a pea wor [[!img happy_holidays_from_maggie.png align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] Happy Holidays from Maggie! + + + + + +
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Commit type: web
Date: 13:44:33 12/23/20
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diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index e5625d6..889e518 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -I am pretty excited because I just got an art idea. I have a trick I use where I take long breaks in the stream of my visual art creation. I take a break because I know what it does to my mind every time. I begin to wonder if I really am an artist. When the doubt fully encapsulates me, and all I can see is the last awful thing I painted, going through that helps me as an artist. It refreshes my mind, resets my page blank, then like clockwork, when all hope is dries up for me ever painting anything good again, I get an idea. I will tell you more about this idea when it progresses. I never would have a tattoo, but this idea came as what I would want as a tattoo if I ever did, so it is something very near and dear to my heart. It's gonna be hard to capture. +I am pretty excited because I just got an art idea. I have a trick I use where I take long breaks in the stream of my visual art creation. I take a break because I know what it does to my mind every time. I begin to wonder if I really am an artist. When the doubt fully encapsulates me, and all I can see is the last awful thing I painted, going through that helps me as an artist. It refreshes my mind, resets my page blank, then like clockwork, when all hope is dried up for me ever painting anything good again, I get an idea. I will tell you more about this idea when it progresses. I never would have a tattoo, but this idea came as what I would want as a tattoo if I ever did, so it is something very near and dear to my heart. It's gonna be hard to capture. __________
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 17dc8c7..e5625d6 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,6 @@ +I am pretty excited because I just got an art idea. I have a trick I use where I take long breaks in the stream of my visual art creation. I take a break because I know what it does to my mind every time. I begin to wonder if I really am an artist. When the doubt fully encapsulates me, and all I can see is the last awful thing I painted, going through that helps me as an artist. It refreshes my mind, resets my page blank, then like clockwork, when all hope is dries up for me ever painting anything good again, I get an idea. I will tell you more about this idea when it progresses. I never would have a tattoo, but this idea came as what I would want as a tattoo if I ever did, so it is something very near and dear to my heart. It's gonna be hard to capture. + + __________ Christmas Stars
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 1941f1d..17dc8c7 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,5 @@ +__________ + Christmas Stars
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 46ee7ca..1941f1d 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,18 +1,28 @@ Christmas Stars + Lights in early morning + have a certain glow. + Last night, we were watching a dumb Christmas special, + but got a call by a community naturalist + to drop everything and witness + the convergence of Jupiter and Saturn. + So grateful to be told to look up, + their planets shining so clear, + so much easier to understand for me + than Christmas. _____________________________
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 17da823..46ee7ca 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,3 +1,25 @@ +Christmas Stars + +Lights in early morning +have a certain glow. + +Last night, we were watching a dumb Christmas special, +but got a call by a community naturalist + +to drop everything and witness +the convergence of Jupiter and Saturn. + +So grateful to be told to look up, +their planets shining so clear, + +so much easier to understand for me +than Christmas. + +_____________________________ + +Something about knowing I am small makes me feel more connected. +___________________________ + It takes perspective to see the pattern. It only seems visible when the sun and moon are in just the right position.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 0443600..17da823 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -45,3 +45,8 @@ I began learning about Halley’s comet, something I had only had heard of befor I began learning about the Voyager 2, something I had barely known about before. Voyager 2 is 11 billion miles away. In November 2018, when Voyager 2 left our solar system. How can I call my creations poetry or art if they don’t consider but a pea world in the scope of the Universe? To be a poet, I must know the full mystery. To be a human with any claim to consciousness I must have some knowledge beyond this Globe. + + +[[!img happy_holidays_from_maggie.png align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] + +Happy Holidays from Maggie!
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Changed by: maggiemargarethess
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Date: 21:55:58 12/20/20
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diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 3fd8e01..0443600 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,17 +1,32 @@ It takes perspective to see the pattern. + It only seems visible when the sun and moon are in just the right position. + Often we look up and all we see is sky, or ceiling. + It's that rare moment, when the etches of tree branches, begin to resemble something you saw this time last year exactly, just for a flash, or the blink of an eye. + You might go around muting yourself until your voice has to be let out. + You might dream of a connection you disbelieve is out there. + You might wake up with a realization at the tip of your tongue. + It's something you noticed before though. + It may have been a long time ago. + The pattern is the whole point of the noticing. + How can I record my habits so I know what they are? + It's a simple question, I find myself asking, still unsure of the giant answer I just discovered. + + +-------------- + In my sleep, I solved my own riddle. What is larger than me but still pertaining?
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3fd8e01 --- /dev/null +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +It takes perspective to see the pattern. +It only seems visible when the sun and moon are in just the right position. +Often we look up and all we see is sky, or ceiling. +It's that rare moment, when the etches of tree branches, begin to resemble something you saw this time last year exactly, just for a flash, or the blink of an eye. +You might go around muting yourself until your voice has to be let out. +You might dream of a connection you disbelieve is out there. +You might wake up with a realization at the tip of your tongue. +It's something you noticed before though. +It may have been a long time ago. +The pattern is the whole point of the noticing. +How can I record my habits so I know what they are? +It's a simple question, I find myself asking, still unsure of the giant answer I just discovered. + + +In my sleep, I solved my own riddle. What is larger than me but still pertaining? + + +Here’s another. What do my dog, a pandemic, and president Trump all have in common? What does Bernie Sanders, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and my Mom also share in common with all the other things I have listed? Atmosphere. + +When I woke up this morning, somehow I remembered that all of our problems and poetry on this Earth, have a third dimension that is too often forgotten. + +I went to walk by a pond. A great blue heron and 20 geese orbited over head, both species passing in a circle above my little bulb. Everything I could lay my eyes on, under the hazy sky, all shared a common atmosphere, and generally, a perspective and a centering on this Earth. I hug trees and love this world as much as the next person, but we are not confined to the scope of the atmosphere around the Earth. Our existence, life goes billions of astronomical units beyond this measly atmosphere. When we forget to apply the vastness of space to our experience, we are existing in a shell of ignorance, ignoring the very important scope of life, of the world. In everything we can study, from human emotion to empathy to kindness and compassion, our understanding of things misses the truth if we exist with oblivion towards the scope of things. Just knowing about our own atmosphere is small minded, shrinking the purpose and the beauty therein. + +What can I do to remember the stars, the vastness of existence? Personally, it seems reasonable that reading more about our Universe will teach me something about my self. I have started studying the solar system, imaging the amplitude of our small world, and the giant realm of the galaxy, of everything. If someone says everything, and forgets the majority of what it means to be something, they are not being realistic, if by everything you mean the things of this Earth only, you are forgetting the size of our world. If you looked at the whole Universe on a giant map, our Earth would not even be visible. Concerns of individuals matter in the ethical sense that human needs are important. But you have to consider the sheer magnitude of the stars in everything, every time you think or plant a tree or beg for water, you have to consider the fullness of the Mystery, of Science, of Life. + +I’ve been sitting and studying mindfulness and breath for a long time. Breath just goes to a certain point, all of it retained within our biome. There is more to living even than life itself. + +I began learning about Halley’s comet, something I had only had heard of before. I did some math and noticed that in 3 and a half or 4 years, Halley’s comet will be as distant as it ever is from our Earth and sun. In 1986, Halley’s comet passed in its orbit as near as it ever gets to us here on Earth. + +I began learning about the Voyager 2, something I had barely known about before. Voyager 2 is 11 billion miles away. In November 2018, when Voyager 2 left our solar system. + +How can I call my creations poetry or art if they don’t consider but a pea world in the scope of the Universe? To be a poet, I must know the full mystery. To be a human with any claim to consciousness I must have some knowledge beyond this Globe.
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don't forget the scope of the Universe!!!
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Changed by: maggiemargarethess
Commit type: web
Date: 13:25:29 12/20/20
rename index.mdwn to don__39__t_forget_the_scope_of_the_Universe__33____33____33__.mdwn
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/don__39__t_forget_the_scope_of_the_Universe__33____33____33__.mdwn similarity index 100% rename from index.mdwn rename to don__39__t_forget_the_scope_of_the_Universe__33____33____33__.mdwn
update for rename of index.mdwn to don__39__t_forget_the_scope_of_the_Universe__33____33____33__.mdwn
diff --git a/comments.mdwn b/comments.mdwn index e22b50a..184483f 100644 --- a/comments.mdwn +++ b/comments.mdwn @@ -5,6 +5,6 @@ Comments in the [[!commentmoderation desc="moderation queue"]]: [[!pagecount pages="comment_pending(./posts/*)"]] """]] -Recent comments on posts in the [[blog|index]]: +Recent comments on posts in the [[blog|don't_forget_the_scope_of_the_Universe!!!]]: [[!inline pages="./posts/*/Discussion or comment(./posts/*)" template="comment"]]
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index d9ceb01..b4987d8 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -21,3 +21,26 @@ The pattern is the whole point of the noticing. How can I record my habits so I know what they are? It's a simple question, I find myself asking, still unsure of the giant answer I just discovered. + + +----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- + + +In my sleep, I solved my own riddle. What is larger than me but still pertaining? + + +Here’s another. What do my dog, a pandemic, and president Trump all have in common? What does Bernie Sanders, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and my Mom also share in common with all the other things I have listed? Atmosphere. + +When I woke up this morning, somehow I remembered that all of our problems and poetry on this Earth, have a third dimension that is too often forgotten. + +I went to walk by a pond. A great blue heron and 20 geese orbited over head, both species passing in a circle above my little bulb. Everything I could lay my eyes on, under the hazy sky, all shared a common atmosphere, and generally, a perspective and a centering on this Earth. I hug trees and love this world as much as the next person, but we are not confined to the scope of the atmosphere around the Earth. Our existence, life goes billions of astronomical units beyond this measly atmosphere. When we forget to apply the vastness of space to our experience, we are existing in a shell of ignorance, ignoring the very important scope of life, of the world. In everything we can study, from human emotion to empathy to kindness and compassion, our understanding of things misses the truth if we exist with oblivion towards the scope of things. Just knowing about our own atmosphere is small minded, shrinking the purpose and the beauty therein. + +What can I do to remember the stars, the vastness of existence? Personally, it seems reasonable that reading more about our Universe will teach me something about my self. I have started studying the solar system, imaging the amplitude of our small world, and the giant realm of the galaxy, of everything. If someone says everything, and forgets the majority of what it means to be something, they are not being realistic, if by everything you mean the things of this Earth only, you are forgetting the size of our world. If you looked at the whole Universe on a giant map, our Earth would not even be visible. Concerns of individuals matter in the ethical sense that human needs are important. But you have to consider the sheer magnitude of the stars in everything, every time you think or plant a tree or beg for water, you have to consider the fullness of the Mystery, of Science, of Life. + +I’ve been sitting and studying mindfulness and breath for a long time. Breath just goes to a certain point, all of it retained within our biome. There is more to living even than life itself. + +I began learning about Halley’s comet, something I had only had heard of before. I did some math and noticed that in 3 and a half or 4 years, Halley’s comet will be as distant as it ever is from our Earth and sun. In 1986, Halley’s comet passed in its orbit as near as it ever gets to us here on Earth. + +I began learning about the Voyager 2, something I had barely known about before. Voyager 2 is 11 billion miles away. In November 2018, when Voyager 2 left our solar system. + +How can I call my creations poetry or art if they don’t consider but a pea world in the scope of the Universe? To be a poet, I must know the full mystery. To be a human with any claim to consciousness I must have some knowledge beyond this Globe.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 4e6b01b..d9ceb01 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1 +1,23 @@ -check back for changes +It takes perspective to see the pattern. + +It only seems visible when the sun and moon are in just the right position. + +Often we look up and all we see is sky, or ceiling. + +It's that rare moment, when the etches of tree branches, begin to resemble something you saw this time last year exactly, just for a flash, or the blink of an eye. + +You might go around muting yourself until your voice has to be let out. + +You might dream of a connection you disbelieve is out there. + +You might wake up with a realization at the tip of your tongue. + +It's something you noticed before though. + +It may have been a long time ago. + +The pattern is the whole point of the noticing. + +How can I record my habits so I know what they are? + +It's a simple question, I find myself asking, still unsure of the giant answer I just discovered.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index c1aff9c..4e6b01b 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,31 +1 @@ -Virtual Contemplative Writing Group forming - -Any and all are welcome to attend. - -Basically this is a time to connect with yourself as a writer. - -You may write creatively during this time or you may journal. You also can just sit there and think about what you might like to write in the future. You don't have to be the next Thomas Merton to call your writing contemplative. This is a broad term when I use it, an inclusive term. It will not feel like a pressured time to come up with something brilliant, just a relaxed setting in which by you writing and me writing, together, we are collectively more encouraged to write something. - -Daily practice (Monday through Friday) - -Starting December 2020. - -8:30- 9:00AM Eastern Standard Time - -8:30- 8:40AM EST first 10 minutes meet and greet, recommended for new participants - -8:40-8:55AM EST next 15 minutes Contemplative Writing practice. (We will write together, but in this group, not share our works. Members are encouraged to share your writing later by email.) - -8:55-9:00AM EST wrapping up and saying goodbye - -copy the following link: - -https://meet.jit.si/contemplativewritinggroup - - -Jitsi is an open source video meeting platform. All you have to do to attend is click the link. - -with questions, feel free to write Maggie Hess at beautyitselfispurpose@gmail.com - -Maggie Hess is a poet, essayist, blogger, and children's book writer, illustrator. Hess advocates for disability resilience with her BA from Berea College, and looks forward to swimming pools. Her books are available on Amazon in print, Kindle, and Audible. Her growing online classes can be found at Skillshare.com - +check back for changes
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 54c3f63..c1aff9c 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -27,5 +27,5 @@ Jitsi is an open source video meeting platform. All you have to do to attend is with questions, feel free to write Maggie Hess at beautyitselfispurpose@gmail.com - +Maggie Hess is a poet, essayist, blogger, and children's book writer, illustrator. Hess advocates for disability resilience with her BA from Berea College, and looks forward to swimming pools. Her books are available on Amazon in print, Kindle, and Audible. Her growing online classes can be found at Skillshare.com
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index bb0ae23..54c3f63 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,8 +1,10 @@ Virtual Contemplative Writing Group forming -Any and all are welcome to attend. Especially good for someone needing a calm start to your day, and those needing mental healing. +Any and all are welcome to attend. -Basically this is a time to connect with yourself as a writer. You may write creatively during this time or you may journal. You also can just sit there and think about what you might like to write in the future. You don't have to be the next Thomas Merton to call your writing contemplative. This is a broad term when I use it, an inclusive term. It will not feel like a pressured time to come up with something brilliant, just a relaxed setting in which by you writing and me writing, together, we are collectively more encouraged to write something. +Basically this is a time to connect with yourself as a writer. + +You may write creatively during this time or you may journal. You also can just sit there and think about what you might like to write in the future. You don't have to be the next Thomas Merton to call your writing contemplative. This is a broad term when I use it, an inclusive term. It will not feel like a pressured time to come up with something brilliant, just a relaxed setting in which by you writing and me writing, together, we are collectively more encouraged to write something. Daily practice (Monday through Friday)
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index d98e17f..bb0ae23 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -2,6 +2,8 @@ Virtual Contemplative Writing Group forming Any and all are welcome to attend. Especially good for someone needing a calm start to your day, and those needing mental healing. +Basically this is a time to connect with yourself as a writer. You may write creatively during this time or you may journal. You also can just sit there and think about what you might like to write in the future. You don't have to be the next Thomas Merton to call your writing contemplative. This is a broad term when I use it, an inclusive term. It will not feel like a pressured time to come up with something brilliant, just a relaxed setting in which by you writing and me writing, together, we are collectively more encouraged to write something. + Daily practice (Monday through Friday) Starting December 2020. @@ -23,3 +25,5 @@ Jitsi is an open source video meeting platform. All you have to do to attend is with questions, feel free to write Maggie Hess at beautyitselfispurpose@gmail.com + +
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index e2cfcb5..d98e17f 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Virtual Reflective Writing Group forming +Virtual Contemplative Writing Group forming Any and all are welcome to attend. Especially good for someone needing a calm start to your day, and those needing mental healing. @@ -16,7 +16,8 @@ Starting December 2020. copy the following link: -https://meet.jit.si/VirtualWritingSangha +https://meet.jit.si/contemplativewritinggroup + Jitsi is an open source video meeting platform. All you have to do to attend is click the link.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 278ce4b..e2cfcb5 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -14,9 +14,9 @@ Starting December 2020. 8:55-9:00AM EST wrapping up and saying goodbye -use the following link: +copy the following link: -<a href="url"> https://meet.jit.si/VirtualWritingSangha </a> +https://meet.jit.si/VirtualWritingSangha Jitsi is an open source video meeting platform. All you have to do to attend is click the link.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 3887530..278ce4b 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ Starting December 2020. use the following link: -<a href="url">meet.jit.si/VirtualWritingSangha</a> +<a href="url"> https://meet.jit.si/VirtualWritingSangha </a> Jitsi is an open source video meeting platform. All you have to do to attend is click the link.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 86f637e..3887530 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ Starting December 2020. use the following link: -<a href="url">https://meet.jit.si/VirtualWritingSangha</a> +<a href="url">meet.jit.si/VirtualWritingSangha</a> Jitsi is an open source video meeting platform. All you have to do to attend is click the link.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index c1f3307..86f637e 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -Virtual Meditation Group forming +Virtual Reflective Writing Group forming Any and all are welcome to attend. Especially good for someone needing a calm start to your day, and those needing mental healing. @@ -10,13 +10,13 @@ Starting December 2020. 8:30- 8:40AM EST first 10 minutes meet and greet, recommended for new participants -8:40-8:55AM EST next 15 minutes Meditation (varying practices, may be guided or silent depending on group, always beginner level) +8:40-8:55AM EST next 15 minutes Contemplative Writing practice. (We will write together, but in this group, not share our works. Members are encouraged to share your writing later by email.) 8:55-9:00AM EST wrapping up and saying goodbye use the following link: -<a href="url">https://meet.jit.si/VirtualMeditationSangha</a> +<a href="url">https://meet.jit.si/VirtualWritingSangha</a> Jitsi is an open source video meeting platform. All you have to do to attend is click the link.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 0b2187f..c1f3307 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Starting December 2020. 8:30- 9:00AM Eastern Standard Time -8:30- 8:40AM EST first 10 minutes meet and greet, required for new participants +8:30- 8:40AM EST first 10 minutes meet and greet, recommended for new participants 8:40-8:55AM EST next 15 minutes Meditation (varying practices, may be guided or silent depending on group, always beginner level)
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index e4c6d5c..0b2187f 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -20,3 +20,5 @@ use the following link: Jitsi is an open source video meeting platform. All you have to do to attend is click the link. +with questions, feel free to write Maggie Hess at beautyitselfispurpose@gmail.com +
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 5423e30..e4c6d5c 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,30 +1,22 @@ -I got a new idea to use my website as if it is an etch a sketch or quotidian mandala, changing the content on a daily basis! So here goes. +Virtual Meditation Group forming +Any and all are welcome to attend. Especially good for someone needing a calm start to your day, and those needing mental healing. -Thursday, December 10, 2020 +Daily practice (Monday through Friday) -Look to the Horizon and Your Eyes will Heal +Starting December 2020. -I used to say look to the horizon +8:30- 9:00AM Eastern Standard Time -and your eyes will heal +8:30- 8:40AM EST first 10 minutes meet and greet, required for new participants -because my sister shared a study +8:40-8:55AM EST next 15 minutes Meditation (varying practices, may be guided or silent depending on group, always beginner level) -about long distance gazing +8:55-9:00AM EST wrapping up and saying goodbye -and how it improves vision. +use the following link: +<a href="url">https://meet.jit.si/VirtualMeditationSangha</a> +Jitsi is an open source video meeting platform. All you have to do to attend is click the link. -Lately I feel my eyes resting upon - -the gentle blue sky - -with the silhouettes of golden brown trees - -dressed bare across the scenery - -and I think now something more is healing - -when I look to the horizon than my eyes.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 1d24a44..5423e30 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,46 +1,30 @@ I got a new idea to use my website as if it is an etch a sketch or quotidian mandala, changing the content on a daily basis! So here goes. -Wednesday, December 9, 2020 +Thursday, December 10, 2020 -Trying to be Sunny +Look to the Horizon and Your Eyes will Heal -"It's trying to be sunny +I used to say look to the horizon -says Maura this morning +and your eyes will heal -on a line we agree, +because my sister shared a study -sometimes we just need to say things +about long distance gazing -with somebody listening. +and how it improves vision. -At noon, gleaning sun -breaks through the glass, -where Mom and I eat cake. +Lately I feel my eyes resting upon +the gentle blue sky +with the silhouettes of golden brown trees -When I called you, +dressed bare across the scenery -I was trying to be sunny. +and I think now something more is healing -Sometimes we just need to try. - -Then later, it comes through - -easy. - - - - -Today I want to write something about mood and pandemic. I think I am going to draw an (unscientific) graph of what I remember my mood was like during the course of this pandemic, starting in March when I began to shelter in place and ending now, in December. Then I would like to graph my mood as it is currently over the course of a day, and finally how it was prior to the pandemic over the course of a day. At the heart of my desire to graph my mood (and see other people's graph's) is that due to pandemic fatigue I have been experiencing, I think my creative energy, which is the joy of my life, is decreasing gradually lately. I do think I can retrieve it. I know I am very resilient, and I think that if I exercise a lot more, then my mood will boost on those activity juices alone. Keeping it up during a pandemic can be a challenge, but I am committed to being happy, which according to His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the meaning of life. - - - -[[!img DSCF6178.JPG align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] - - -[[!img DSCF6177.JPG align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] +when I look to the horizon than my eyes.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index e21665d..1d24a44 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -3,6 +3,38 @@ I got a new idea to use my website as if it is an etch a sketch or quotidian man Wednesday, December 9, 2020 +Trying to be Sunny + +"It's trying to be sunny + +says Maura this morning + +on a line we agree, + +sometimes we just need to say things + +with somebody listening. + +At noon, gleaning sun + +breaks through the glass, + +where Mom and I eat cake. + + + +When I called you, + +I was trying to be sunny. + +Sometimes we just need to try. + +Then later, it comes through + +easy. + + + Today I want to write something about mood and pandemic. I think I am going to draw an (unscientific) graph of what I remember my mood was like during the course of this pandemic, starting in March when I began to shelter in place and ending now, in December. Then I would like to graph my mood as it is currently over the course of a day, and finally how it was prior to the pandemic over the course of a day. At the heart of my desire to graph my mood (and see other people's graph's) is that due to pandemic fatigue I have been experiencing, I think my creative energy, which is the joy of my life, is decreasing gradually lately. I do think I can retrieve it. I know I am very resilient, and I think that if I exercise a lot more, then my mood will boost on those activity juices alone. Keeping it up during a pandemic can be a challenge, but I am committed to being happy, which according to His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the meaning of life.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index fce6993..e21665d 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -5,3 +5,10 @@ Wednesday, December 9, 2020 Today I want to write something about mood and pandemic. I think I am going to draw an (unscientific) graph of what I remember my mood was like during the course of this pandemic, starting in March when I began to shelter in place and ending now, in December. Then I would like to graph my mood as it is currently over the course of a day, and finally how it was prior to the pandemic over the course of a day. At the heart of my desire to graph my mood (and see other people's graph's) is that due to pandemic fatigue I have been experiencing, I think my creative energy, which is the joy of my life, is decreasing gradually lately. I do think I can retrieve it. I know I am very resilient, and I think that if I exercise a lot more, then my mood will boost on those activity juices alone. Keeping it up during a pandemic can be a challenge, but I am committed to being happy, which according to His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the meaning of life. + + + +[[!img DSCF6178.JPG align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] + + +[[!img DSCF6177.JPG align="right" size="400x" alt=""]]
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Changed by: maggiemargarethess
Commit type: web
Date: 12:26:07 12/09/20
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diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index bf929da..fce6993 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1 +1,7 @@ -I got a new idea to use my website as if it is an etch a sketch, changing the content on a daily basis! So here goes. +I got a new idea to use my website as if it is an etch a sketch or quotidian mandala, changing the content on a daily basis! So here goes. + + +Wednesday, December 9, 2020 + + +Today I want to write something about mood and pandemic. I think I am going to draw an (unscientific) graph of what I remember my mood was like during the course of this pandemic, starting in March when I began to shelter in place and ending now, in December. Then I would like to graph my mood as it is currently over the course of a day, and finally how it was prior to the pandemic over the course of a day. At the heart of my desire to graph my mood (and see other people's graph's) is that due to pandemic fatigue I have been experiencing, I think my creative energy, which is the joy of my life, is decreasing gradually lately. I do think I can retrieve it. I know I am very resilient, and I think that if I exercise a lot more, then my mood will boost on those activity juices alone. Keeping it up during a pandemic can be a challenge, but I am committed to being happy, which according to His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the meaning of life.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index cfabb10..bf929da 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1 +1 @@ -I need a break from having my beautiful expression on this page. I am not sure what is the point of this blog here because I never get feedback on it at all and am not sure who is reading it. +I got a new idea to use my website as if it is an etch a sketch, changing the content on a daily basis! So here goes.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 7cd5400..cfabb10 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -1,1497 +1 @@ -<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=author0d7-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B08L84THNR&asins=B08L84THNR&linkId=f2ef67743f3156325bb4a74bde082829&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066C0&bg_color=FFFFFF"> - </iframe> - -<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=author0d7-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B08L4ZJ6R4&asins=B08L4ZJ6R4&linkId=333927791e07bd795d1b2d352a7f33e6&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff"> - </iframe> - -<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=author0d7-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B08KSMKFTY&asins=B08KSMKFTY&linkId=3f67ad0a42370381094336946193be27&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff"> - </iframe> - -<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=author0d7-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B08CG6H9XD&asins=B08CG6H9XD&linkId=77e69f939849fcc0b8a158a7a2d848a4&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff"> - </iframe> - - -<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=author0d7-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B07RBZ23PS&asins=B07RBZ23PS&linkId=7e658fd43065061ae43371981ff6f14d&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff"> - </iframe> - -<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=author0d7-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B07L1C11Z6&asins=B07L1C11Z6&linkId=3c5a353c891c7df121ba91c5072658b0&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff"> - </iframe> - -<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=author0d7-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B07QQTTXP4&asins=B07QQTTXP4&linkId=08d7982313571271579ba819ed9d1b1e&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff"> - </iframe> - -December 8, 2020 - -Sing loud and sing often - -speak clear and speak true - -I am trying to temporarily extricate rhyme from my poetry. It is good to use sometimes, and I am an advocate of rhyme in modern poetry, but currently I am trying to emphasize something different for the time being, and it can be a little hard when you feel a certain musicality inside you to remove the catchiness that can exist internal in your Voice before it even hits the paper. So I am taking this paragraph to remember I am the master of my own words, no matter what. - -Sing loud - -Sing proud - -That is what I just wanted to write. Yes, it is a contradiction. Yes I said I wanted to do without the rhyme for this moment, but I wanted to expose what it was that I couldn't seem to help but express. - -Sing often - -Speak even if your voice feels weak - -Express your truth - -Freedom in every bird - -Is that caged heart singing - -Sing your music to the world - -Let yourself be known - -Break the cage open - -Wear something beautiful and sexy - -Stand on that stage - -Proud of who you are - -Stand on that stage - -Having shown your noble heart! - -This that you see on this blog in this entry is all just coming through me as you see it. I edit a little as I write, but I am mostly just letting it happen. I like going back and forth between poetry and prose in a single body of writing. I like how it reads and writes. It feels fluid, natural, and strong. - -I could say, maybe I should just get all the rhyming out of my system, but the thing about a rhymer like me is it is very addictive, and seems to feed into itself and never stops once the flood gates open. So more constraint practiced. - -I gave my love an Oaken grove -with letters tall and little -She stood inside the dip of Earth -sweeping between vowels -I gave my love a poem -built with strong trunk -and not too many adjectives -except for hearty adjectives -like Oaken - -Maybe not keep all the poems. Actually I do have a system for keeping every poem I write, and I think that more than anything has contributed to my strength as a poet. I recommend other writers start saving your writing. I lost a lot before I started, and it can be intimidating to start holding onto poems or any writing for that matter. I have published over 40 poems in small presses, but I get something from saving my poems that goes way beyond and above publication. To me publication is a goal, but it is not the main heart of the saving process. It really does something in the writing process A. to be able to draw back upon saved words B. to be able to reread what you wrote a long time ago C. it helps in the letting go of the words you just wrote, so you don't fall too in love with what you created D. you can go back and edit them later which is something I don't do enough, but I have seen it really improve (my father's) poetry E. it makes it a whole lot easier to submit later F. it helps you know what you have and can feel like a great accomplishment to see how much you accumulate. I could go on and on. - - - - - - - - - - -December 7 still, 2020 - -As a special treat, I am republishing My Hojoki here. It is available on Amazon and Audible, but has not been read or appreciated enough, so I want to spread it again here. - -My Hojoki (Nonfiction) - -I have never lost a home and I can only imagine how a fire is to survive with all your things on the other side. But for months at a time I lost my mind and for years my self control and my self confidence were shattered so violently I wasn’t sure I would ever be myself again. Maybe mental state comes and goes, as does strength, and earthly possessions. - -Sometimes it was just a porch that saw me through to sanity, connecting me to birds and the nature around me. Birds dipping into old unused chimneys. Summer flocks or maybe bats. As the flocks is with woman kind. - -These homes on my street have historically housed African American men, women, and children. In this sooty Southern town we all wait for the same rain. Birds, robins, sparrows, and swallows, all rejoice when it comes. - -There was a time when fruit trees were abundant on this street and chickens roamed free. My family moved to McDowell Street thirty years ago. The flocks, avian and human, stay the same. But fewer and fewer of the people are the exact same as when we started. - -Once I found the wing of a morning dove in my back yard. Nights can be cold for person and creature. Everyone perishes and comes once to life. But I never will know where the titmice rest at night or how they survive the freeze. - -Once I learned about the patterns of human psychology and the fractal make up of wings the same mathematic structure as flowers and galaxies. Homes and heads and herons all work by similar rhymes and reasons I think. - -Sometimes humans laugh at feathered animals as dumb or crazy but we are not in any tighter hold of our existence. We could all die tomorrow. Or we could all go crazy. Even the mights on the down have a certain natural might. - -In my time on this Earth, I have seen many grim things. Just last week a neighbor froze in his home, just as once birds fell loose from the heavens in an ice storm, As solid as I am today, my mind was once lost, unhinged by mental illness. - -I watched the world from inside the hospital window, wishing to piece my scattered thoughts back together. One entire October I spent in a ward, depressed and unable to fund outpatient care to get adjusted on my medicines. All I wanted that month was to feel sunlight and crunch leaves under foot, with black vultures circling. It’s lonely in the mental ward at 17. At 20 it seemed impossible to scramble out. - -Once I met a hummingbird in the snow that had come so unexpected so early in Autumn. - -My hopes were never lost completely. But I did not know how to find my competence again. I had to go on medicines that made em drool and stare in space. Eventually the medicines adjusted with me and I adjusted to my medicines. - -My dignity was present but confused. I did not want to talk about myself as mentally ill. I did not realize the other people in the ward had hard stories like my own. - -My mind felt blank and worn out for weeks and months. Then I started making a whirlwind of bad decisions. I accrued credit card and would end up declaring bankruptcy. I changed my mind too much, about everything. I started college again, at expensive schools, and had to withdraw because I had trouble making friends, because I was anxious about failure, because I could not move forward one step at a time. - -I withdrew from college more than anyone I have ever known. Other times I just quit. Of course, in order to quit multiple times I tried more than others. Sometimes I still muttered to myself when I could, if no one was around. The cardinals and the blue jays listened. The crows did too, always responding more than I ever spoke. - -I made other decisions unrelated to college that were impulsive and risky. When I took unplanned trips, there were consequences. I traveled to Maine and was hurt by a stranger in an isolated bus terminal. - -I had trouble finding friends I could trust, I thought. Paradoxically, I also had more support than most , so I endured a self made loneliness far too long. It took so much work to get to where I am now. Even just five years ago I cried and suffered in crisis every night. My medicines needed readjusting. - -I am a pacifist but one of the worst results of mental illness was I physically hurt a woman’s hand in anger once. I also spent a night in jail for accidental property damage when I was entirely lost mentally with insanity early in my illness. How can a person call themselves a pacifist if they hurt someone else as I did? - -Sometimes flocks take formation and it is the most amazing sight. All of the individuals somehow keep perfectly respectable distance, and the whole group moves so simultaneously, so in sync. I go to a tree in fall and every year I muse over the dropping leaves, swept up in a gust, becoming birds. - -Annually, I am in awe of the beauty and mystery. Every day I see something magical outside. - -Some woman though, some person, is still trapped on the other side of the hospital glass. Unable to watch the swallows and bats sweep into old chimneys, unable to crunch leaves under their feet, someone else is experiencing suffering of mental illness like I did. - -I see these insane people in my mind’s eye. Maybe it is temporary. I think everyone could be helped with the right circumstances, like me. Supports of caring family and friends, always having a home, legal help in dire straights, and perseverance from inside. - -Secretly, I think we all would have hope for perseverance if we were given the necessary treatment and complied with those who have our best interest in mind. Currently so many with mental illness go directly to jail and no one pays their bail or defends them. Currently not enough people can afford medicines or even find studies to help them become sane. - -I know I am one of the most lucky ones with this illness. - -From my front porch I tell the birds my story, most often lately, with long stares of meaningful connection. Sometimes I whistle to the towhee that rustles its beak deep in our plants under the grapevine, searching for grubs. - -I believe in a kinship with living beings, human definitely but also those in flight. I have known the same heron for years where I visit her creek each week in spring, summer, fall, and winter. Once I cried out because she had been absent or hidden for so long. Then like a wish granted, I saw her lanky daughter wading in a pool near the white water falls. Soon after, I saw my old bird friend, the mother, and I noted the difference between her and the juvenile – her wing span so much broader. - -Revisiting the shore, when rarely I am able, I have watched the plovers and sanderlings who run in and out with the tide. Their numbers seem to me to retreat into some distant place of non-being. I have worried they are thinning in numbers. - -As the pelicans always seem constant and still fed by fish and good enough waters, I think about them as threatened by vulnerable human pollutions. Toxins and rising tides rip apart this world in every region. There is no perfect safe place from the elements, only an ability to choose not to wreck and ravage our planet. - -It takes some of us longer in our lives to feel sorrow. But, we all fall down in our own way. We can lie crying or stand again a stronger person, reaching back with an open hand to pull the next individual to their feet. - -I fell and it felt like my thoughts would never be clear again. I fumbled in sorrow and thought I never could be happy again. I dropped and hit the lowest place I could imagine, but it was not the bottom just a dip I would look back to with sentiment. - -But now I have climbed back up the hill and seen the top of the mountain. I know where the scarlet tanager lives high in the canopy. I live on a street on the base of the Holston Mountain. Sometimes I walk so climatically thrilling. I fall sometimes but I know the answer with resilience is to get back up as quickly as you can possibly can yet remaining sure and steady on your feet, and to never criticize yourself for being too slow. - -I know I will never fall as low again as the pits of where I have been. I know I will never be in a mental ward again, and I also know everything of the mind is possible, meaning loss of control may happen to anyone at any time. So maybe I am wrong about the ward and my going there again. But I know just as likely that anyone else is just as likely to be hospitalized for their mental state as me to return to that pit of suffering. And I know the best pace to exit and the way out and I never would waste time climbing that steep hill again. - -I tell you this because anyone can fall and hurt and suffer. You can be struck ill at any moment in the worst, most unexpected way. You need to know this first to create a living hope for you to tap into if you fall. - -Next, you need to know this so you can celebrate what you have and where you are now. Last, if you already are suffering you need to know a kinship with someone out there who has a peaceful happiness and mental wellness. - -If you know you have mental illness, you need to know hope. There is hope for you and for all of us, for the endangered birds and every fragile wing. When you look to the birds I want you to know that there is hope for all the Earth. - - -December 7, 2020 - -Dear Friends, - - -By some criteria, only one in seven people recover from schizophrenia. I have a sister diagnosis, schizo-affective disorder with the same root word schizo that means “split mind”. Being told you have schizo-affective disorder or schizophrenia can seem a diagnosis worse than cancer. But there is hope for people with these mental illnesses. I don’t think that the schizo- diagnoses are good words for the illnesses we suffer. Fortunately, Japan, the first country to rename schizophrenia, has acted as an experiment which proved the name is weighing down those effected by the illness. An early effect of renaming the disorder and thus of the introduction of the new concept was an increase of the percentage of people who were informed about their diagnosis (from 36.7% in 2002 to 69.7% in 2004: n = 1944). Being informed about diagnosis is paramount to treatment outcomes. So I would like to suggest that Westerners follow in the footprints of Japan (and now Korea) and rename schizophenias. My suggested new name for these illnesses is to use the same term Japan used “integration disorders” because that name so improved Japanese outcomes. I would like to get this name changed and would like to do it officially, so anyone who has suggestions about how to go about that, please write me and let me know. - - -Kindly, - -Maggie Hess - - -sources cited: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/40/2/255/1944451 - -https://theconversation.com/the-concept-of-schizophrenia-is-coming-to-an-end-heres-why-82775 - - - -December 6, 2020 - -[[!img 20201126_121020.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] - -I am hoping to walk more each day for the main purpose of mood lift and poetry generation. It's looking like I need to walk one more time than feels comfortable each day. I walked 2 dog walks today, and clearly would have been better if I did 3. Often I just do 1, but could do 2. - - -December 5 and a half, 2020 - -An old college friend called and left an important voicemail for me. She said it is important to shift our perspectives and the story that they tell especially when there are details that we are forced to fill in ourselves and what comes up as a result of that. I am thinking it over and figuring out what it means for me. - -Walking always stirs my mind, so immediately upon hearing Kaleigh’s message, I brought my dog to a favorite place to walk. The soccer field is becoming a wetlands, and one lone robin stood out to me, wading along and pulling up worms and reminding me something of myself. - -I think K hit right into something that could prompt me into a better direction. I hadn’t been feeling bad at all but I had been pushing down thoughts that seem negative the way I have been imagining them. My thoughts have been negative emotions towards my family, because since I live with my mother, the family I grew up in is constantly being considered, whether because my siblings call my Mom or she talks about family a lot. The truth is I don’t hate my family, but what is the truth? (Diff truncated)
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn
index bc57e70..7cd5400 100644
--- a/index.mdwn
+++ b/index.mdwn
@@ -20,6 +20,71 @@
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</iframe>
+December 8, 2020
+
+Sing loud and sing often
+
+speak clear and speak true
+
+I am trying to temporarily extricate rhyme from my poetry. It is good to use sometimes, and I am an advocate of rhyme in modern poetry, but currently I am trying to emphasize something different for the time being, and it can be a little hard when you feel a certain musicality inside you to remove the catchiness that can exist internal in your Voice before it even hits the paper. So I am taking this paragraph to remember I am the master of my own words, no matter what.
+
+Sing loud
+
+Sing proud
+
+That is what I just wanted to write. Yes, it is a contradiction. Yes I said I wanted to do without the rhyme for this moment, but I wanted to expose what it was that I couldn't seem to help but express.
+
+Sing often
+
+Speak even if your voice feels weak
+
+Express your truth
+
+Freedom in every bird
+
+Is that caged heart singing
+
+Sing your music to the world
+
+Let yourself be known
+
+Break the cage open
+
+Wear something beautiful and sexy
+
+Stand on that stage
+
+Proud of who you are
+
+Stand on that stage
+
+Having shown your noble heart!
+
+This that you see on this blog in this entry is all just coming through me as you see it. I edit a little as I write, but I am mostly just letting it happen. I like going back and forth between poetry and prose in a single body of writing. I like how it reads and writes. It feels fluid, natural, and strong.
+
+I could say, maybe I should just get all the rhyming out of my system, but the thing about a rhymer like me is it is very addictive, and seems to feed into itself and never stops once the flood gates open. So more constraint practiced.
+
+I gave my love an Oaken grove
+with letters tall and little
+She stood inside the dip of Earth
+sweeping between vowels
+I gave my love a poem
+built with strong trunk
+and not too many adjectives
+except for hearty adjectives
+like Oaken
+
+Maybe not keep all the poems. Actually I do have a system for keeping every poem I write, and I think that more than anything has contributed to my strength as a poet. I recommend other writers start saving your writing. I lost a lot before I started, and it can be intimidating to start holding onto poems or any writing for that matter. I have published over 40 poems in small presses, but I get something from saving my poems that goes way beyond and above publication. To me publication is a goal, but it is not the main heart of the saving process. It really does something in the writing process A. to be able to draw back upon saved words B. to be able to reread what you wrote a long time ago C. it helps in the letting go of the words you just wrote, so you don't fall too in love with what you created D. you can go back and edit them later which is something I don't do enough, but I have seen it really improve (my father's) poetry E. it makes it a whole lot easier to submit later F. it helps you know what you have and can feel like a great accomplishment to see how much you accumulate. I could go on and on.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
December 7 still, 2020
As a special treat, I am republishing My Hojoki here. It is available on Amazon and Audible, but has not been read or appreciated enough, so I want to spread it again here.
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn
index f5a2ede..bc57e70 100644
--- a/index.mdwn
+++ b/index.mdwn
@@ -20,6 +20,80 @@
<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=author0d7-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B07QQTTXP4&asins=B07QQTTXP4&linkId=08d7982313571271579ba819ed9d1b1e&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff">
</iframe>
+December 7 still, 2020
+
+As a special treat, I am republishing My Hojoki here. It is available on Amazon and Audible, but has not been read or appreciated enough, so I want to spread it again here.
+
+My Hojoki (Nonfiction)
+
+I have never lost a home and I can only imagine how a fire is to survive with all your things on the other side. But for months at a time I lost my mind and for years my self control and my self confidence were shattered so violently I wasn’t sure I would ever be myself again. Maybe mental state comes and goes, as does strength, and earthly possessions.
+
+Sometimes it was just a porch that saw me through to sanity, connecting me to birds and the nature around me. Birds dipping into old unused chimneys. Summer flocks or maybe bats. As the flocks is with woman kind.
+
+These homes on my street have historically housed African American men, women, and children. In this sooty Southern town we all wait for the same rain. Birds, robins, sparrows, and swallows, all rejoice when it comes.
+
+There was a time when fruit trees were abundant on this street and chickens roamed free. My family moved to McDowell Street thirty years ago. The flocks, avian and human, stay the same. But fewer and fewer of the people are the exact same as when we started.
+
+Once I found the wing of a morning dove in my back yard. Nights can be cold for person and creature. Everyone perishes and comes once to life. But I never will know where the titmice rest at night or how they survive the freeze.
+
+Once I learned about the patterns of human psychology and the fractal make up of wings the same mathematic structure as flowers and galaxies. Homes and heads and herons all work by similar rhymes and reasons I think.
+
+Sometimes humans laugh at feathered animals as dumb or crazy but we are not in any tighter hold of our existence. We could all die tomorrow. Or we could all go crazy. Even the mights on the down have a certain natural might.
+
+In my time on this Earth, I have seen many grim things. Just last week a neighbor froze in his home, just as once birds fell loose from the heavens in an ice storm, As solid as I am today, my mind was once lost, unhinged by mental illness.
+
+I watched the world from inside the hospital window, wishing to piece my scattered thoughts back together. One entire October I spent in a ward, depressed and unable to fund outpatient care to get adjusted on my medicines. All I wanted that month was to feel sunlight and crunch leaves under foot, with black vultures circling. It’s lonely in the mental ward at 17. At 20 it seemed impossible to scramble out.
+
+Once I met a hummingbird in the snow that had come so unexpected so early in Autumn.
+
+My hopes were never lost completely. But I did not know how to find my competence again. I had to go on medicines that made em drool and stare in space. Eventually the medicines adjusted with me and I adjusted to my medicines.
+
+My dignity was present but confused. I did not want to talk about myself as mentally ill. I did not realize the other people in the ward had hard stories like my own.
+
+My mind felt blank and worn out for weeks and months. Then I started making a whirlwind of bad decisions. I accrued credit card and would end up declaring bankruptcy. I changed my mind too much, about everything. I started college again, at expensive schools, and had to withdraw because I had trouble making friends, because I was anxious about failure, because I could not move forward one step at a time.
+
+I withdrew from college more than anyone I have ever known. Other times I just quit. Of course, in order to quit multiple times I tried more than others. Sometimes I still muttered to myself when I could, if no one was around. The cardinals and the blue jays listened. The crows did too, always responding more than I ever spoke.
+
+I made other decisions unrelated to college that were impulsive and risky. When I took unplanned trips, there were consequences. I traveled to Maine and was hurt by a stranger in an isolated bus terminal.
+
+I had trouble finding friends I could trust, I thought. Paradoxically, I also had more support than most , so I endured a self made loneliness far too long. It took so much work to get to where I am now. Even just five years ago I cried and suffered in crisis every night. My medicines needed readjusting.
+
+I am a pacifist but one of the worst results of mental illness was I physically hurt a woman’s hand in anger once. I also spent a night in jail for accidental property damage when I was entirely lost mentally with insanity early in my illness. How can a person call themselves a pacifist if they hurt someone else as I did?
+
+Sometimes flocks take formation and it is the most amazing sight. All of the individuals somehow keep perfectly respectable distance, and the whole group moves so simultaneously, so in sync. I go to a tree in fall and every year I muse over the dropping leaves, swept up in a gust, becoming birds.
+
+Annually, I am in awe of the beauty and mystery. Every day I see something magical outside.
+
+Some woman though, some person, is still trapped on the other side of the hospital glass. Unable to watch the swallows and bats sweep into old chimneys, unable to crunch leaves under their feet, someone else is experiencing suffering of mental illness like I did.
+
+I see these insane people in my mind’s eye. Maybe it is temporary. I think everyone could be helped with the right circumstances, like me. Supports of caring family and friends, always having a home, legal help in dire straights, and perseverance from inside.
+
+Secretly, I think we all would have hope for perseverance if we were given the necessary treatment and complied with those who have our best interest in mind. Currently so many with mental illness go directly to jail and no one pays their bail or defends them. Currently not enough people can afford medicines or even find studies to help them become sane.
+
+I know I am one of the most lucky ones with this illness.
+
+From my front porch I tell the birds my story, most often lately, with long stares of meaningful connection. Sometimes I whistle to the towhee that rustles its beak deep in our plants under the grapevine, searching for grubs.
+
+I believe in a kinship with living beings, human definitely but also those in flight. I have known the same heron for years where I visit her creek each week in spring, summer, fall, and winter. Once I cried out because she had been absent or hidden for so long. Then like a wish granted, I saw her lanky daughter wading in a pool near the white water falls. Soon after, I saw my old bird friend, the mother, and I noted the difference between her and the juvenile – her wing span so much broader.
+
+Revisiting the shore, when rarely I am able, I have watched the plovers and sanderlings who run in and out with the tide. Their numbers seem to me to retreat into some distant place of non-being. I have worried they are thinning in numbers.
+
+As the pelicans always seem constant and still fed by fish and good enough waters, I think about them as threatened by vulnerable human pollutions. Toxins and rising tides rip apart this world in every region. There is no perfect safe place from the elements, only an ability to choose not to wreck and ravage our planet.
+
+It takes some of us longer in our lives to feel sorrow. But, we all fall down in our own way. We can lie crying or stand again a stronger person, reaching back with an open hand to pull the next individual to their feet.
+
+I fell and it felt like my thoughts would never be clear again. I fumbled in sorrow and thought I never could be happy again. I dropped and hit the lowest place I could imagine, but it was not the bottom just a dip I would look back to with sentiment.
+
+But now I have climbed back up the hill and seen the top of the mountain. I know where the scarlet tanager lives high in the canopy. I live on a street on the base of the Holston Mountain. Sometimes I walk so climatically thrilling. I fall sometimes but I know the answer with resilience is to get back up as quickly as you can possibly can yet remaining sure and steady on your feet, and to never criticize yourself for being too slow.
+
+I know I will never fall as low again as the pits of where I have been. I know I will never be in a mental ward again, and I also know everything of the mind is possible, meaning loss of control may happen to anyone at any time. So maybe I am wrong about the ward and my going there again. But I know just as likely that anyone else is just as likely to be hospitalized for their mental state as me to return to that pit of suffering. And I know the best pace to exit and the way out and I never would waste time climbing that steep hill again.
+
+I tell you this because anyone can fall and hurt and suffer. You can be struck ill at any moment in the worst, most unexpected way. You need to know this first to create a living hope for you to tap into if you fall.
+
+Next, you need to know this so you can celebrate what you have and where you are now. Last, if you already are suffering you need to know a kinship with someone out there who has a peaceful happiness and mental wellness.
+
+If you know you have mental illness, you need to know hope. There is hope for you and for all of us, for the endangered birds and every fragile wing. When you look to the birds I want you to know that there is hope for all the Earth.
+
December 7, 2020
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index e5b4845..f5a2ede 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -25,23 +25,19 @@ December 7, 2020 Dear Friends, - By some criteria, only one in seven people recover from schizophrenia. I have a sister diagnosis, schizo-affective disorder with the same root word schizo that means - “split mind”. Being told you have schizo-affective disorder or schizophrenia can seem a diagnosis worse than cancer. But there is hope for people with these mental illnesses. -I don’t think that the schizo- diagnoses are good words for the illnesses we suffer. Fortunately, Japan, the first country to rename schizophrenia, has acted as an experiment -which proved the name is weighing down those effected by the illness. An early effect of renaming the disorder and thus of the introduction of the new concept was an increase - of the percentage of people who were informed about their diagnosis (from 36.7% in 2002 to 69.7% in 2004: n = 1944). Being informed about diagnosis is paramount to -treatment outcomes. So I would like to suggest that Westerners follow in the footprints of Japan (and now Korea) and rename schizophenias. My suggested new name for these - illnesses is to use the same term Japan used “integration disorders” because that name so improved Japanese outcomes. I would like to get this name changed and would like -to do it officially, so anyone who has suggestions about how to go about that, please write me and let me know. + +By some criteria, only one in seven people recover from schizophrenia. I have a sister diagnosis, schizo-affective disorder with the same root word schizo that means “split mind”. Being told you have schizo-affective disorder or schizophrenia can seem a diagnosis worse than cancer. But there is hope for people with these mental illnesses. I don’t think that the schizo- diagnoses are good words for the illnesses we suffer. Fortunately, Japan, the first country to rename schizophrenia, has acted as an experiment which proved the name is weighing down those effected by the illness. An early effect of renaming the disorder and thus of the introduction of the new concept was an increase of the percentage of people who were informed about their diagnosis (from 36.7% in 2002 to 69.7% in 2004: n = 1944). Being informed about diagnosis is paramount to treatment outcomes. So I would like to suggest that Westerners follow in the footprints of Japan (and now Korea) and rename schizophenias. My suggested new name for these illnesses is to use the same term Japan used “integration disorders” because that name so improved Japanese outcomes. I would like to get this name changed and would like to do it officially, so anyone who has suggestions about how to go about that, please write me and let me know. Kindly, Maggie Hess -sources cited: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/40/2/255/1944451 -https://theconversation.com/the-concept-of-schizophrenia-is-coming-to-an-end-heres-why-82775 +sources cited: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/40/2/255/1944451 + +https://theconversation.com/the-concept-of-schizophrenia-is-coming-to-an-end-heres-why-82775 + December 6, 2020
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 63e5a8b..e5b4845 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ to do it officially, so anyone who has suggestions about how to go about that, p Kindly, + Maggie Hess sources cited: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/40/2/255/1944451
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 82e8652..63e5a8b 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -25,14 +25,24 @@ December 7, 2020 Dear Friends, - By some criteria, only one in seven people recover from schizophrenia. I have a sister diagnosis, schizo-affective disorder with the same root word schizo that means “split mind”. Being told you have schizo-affective disorder or schizophrenia can seem a diagnosis worse than cancer. But there is hope for people with these mental illnesses. I don’t think that the schizo- diagnosises are good words for the illnesses we suffer. Fortunately, Japan, the first country to rename schizophrenia, has acted as an experiment which proved the name is weighing down those effected by the illness. An early effect of renaming the disorder and of the introduction of the new concept was an increase of the percentage of people who were informed about their diagnosis (from 36.7% in 2002 to 69.7% in 2004: n = 1944). Being informed about diagnosis is paramount to treatment outcomes. So I would like to suggest that Westerners follow in the footprints of Japan (and now Korea) and rename schizophenias. My suggested new name for these illnesses is to use the same term Japan used “integration disorders” because that name so improved Japanese outcomes. I would like to get this name changed and would like to do it officially, so anyone who has suggestions about how to go about that, please write me and let me know. + By some criteria, only one in seven people recover from schizophrenia. I have a sister diagnosis, schizo-affective disorder with the same root word schizo that means + “split mind”. Being told you have schizo-affective disorder or schizophrenia can seem a diagnosis worse than cancer. But there is hope for people with these mental illnesses. +I don’t think that the schizo- diagnoses are good words for the illnesses we suffer. Fortunately, Japan, the first country to rename schizophrenia, has acted as an experiment +which proved the name is weighing down those effected by the illness. An early effect of renaming the disorder and thus of the introduction of the new concept was an increase + of the percentage of people who were informed about their diagnosis (from 36.7% in 2002 to 69.7% in 2004: n = 1944). Being informed about diagnosis is paramount to +treatment outcomes. So I would like to suggest that Westerners follow in the footprints of Japan (and now Korea) and rename schizophenias. My suggested new name for these + illnesses is to use the same term Japan used “integration disorders” because that name so improved Japanese outcomes. I would like to get this name changed and would like +to do it officially, so anyone who has suggestions about how to go about that, please write me and let me know. + Kindly, Maggie Hess -sources sited: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/40/2/255/1944451 +sources cited: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/40/2/255/1944451 + https://theconversation.com/the-concept-of-schizophrenia-is-coming-to-an-end-heres-why-82775 + December 6, 2020 [[!img 20201126_121020.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]]
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 9ac6731..82e8652 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -23,12 +23,15 @@ December 7, 2020 -Schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder might be more effective diagnoses if they were renamed. https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/40/2/255/1944451 The disorder was renamed in Japan and Korea and actually has improved treatment outcomes for patients. +Dear Friends, -An early effect of renaming the disorder and of the introduction of the new concept was an increase of the percentage of people who were informed about their diagnosis (from 36.7% in 2002 to 69.7% in 2004: n = 1944). Moreover, 86% of psychiatrists of the 136 psychiatrists working in the Miyagi prefecture found that the new term makes it easier to inform patients and family about the diagnosis, which in turn facilitated education about the illness and psychosocial interventions.4 + By some criteria, only one in seven people recover from schizophrenia. I have a sister diagnosis, schizo-affective disorder with the same root word schizo that means “split mind”. Being told you have schizo-affective disorder or schizophrenia can seem a diagnosis worse than cancer. But there is hope for people with these mental illnesses. I don’t think that the schizo- diagnosises are good words for the illnesses we suffer. Fortunately, Japan, the first country to rename schizophrenia, has acted as an experiment which proved the name is weighing down those effected by the illness. An early effect of renaming the disorder and of the introduction of the new concept was an increase of the percentage of people who were informed about their diagnosis (from 36.7% in 2002 to 69.7% in 2004: n = 1944). Being informed about diagnosis is paramount to treatment outcomes. So I would like to suggest that Westerners follow in the footprints of Japan (and now Korea) and rename schizophenias. My suggested new name for these illnesses is to use the same term Japan used “integration disorders” because that name so improved Japanese outcomes. I would like to get this name changed and would like to do it officially, so anyone who has suggestions about how to go about that, please write me and let me know. -Some of my readers might know I struggled with the diagnosis schizoaffective for a long time. Lately I have been viewing it as a term for the doctors to use to come up with ways to help me, and not for me to worry over. For other people who have trouble drawing that conclusion, I think it would be useful if the terms were changed. +Kindly, +Maggie Hess +sources sited: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/40/2/255/1944451 +https://theconversation.com/the-concept-of-schizophrenia-is-coming-to-an-end-heres-why-82775 December 6, 2020
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn
index e0b6184..9ac6731 100644
--- a/index.mdwn
+++ b/index.mdwn
@@ -20,6 +20,16 @@
<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=author0d7-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B07QQTTXP4&asins=B07QQTTXP4&linkId=08d7982313571271579ba819ed9d1b1e&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff">
</iframe>
+
+December 7, 2020
+
+Schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder might be more effective diagnoses if they were renamed. https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/40/2/255/1944451 The disorder was renamed in Japan and Korea and actually has improved treatment outcomes for patients.
+
+An early effect of renaming the disorder and of the introduction of the new concept was an increase of the percentage of people who were informed about their diagnosis (from 36.7% in 2002 to 69.7% in 2004: n = 1944). Moreover, 86% of psychiatrists of the 136 psychiatrists working in the Miyagi prefecture found that the new term makes it easier to inform patients and family about the diagnosis, which in turn facilitated education about the illness and psychosocial interventions.4
+
+Some of my readers might know I struggled with the diagnosis schizoaffective for a long time. Lately I have been viewing it as a term for the doctors to use to come up with ways to help me, and not for me to worry over. For other people who have trouble drawing that conclusion, I think it would be useful if the terms were changed.
+
+
December 6, 2020
[[!img 20201126_121020.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]]
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn index 7295732..e0b6184 100644 --- a/index.mdwn +++ b/index.mdwn @@ -24,6 +24,8 @@ December 6, 2020 [[!img 20201126_121020.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]] +I am hoping to walk more each day for the main purpose of mood lift and poetry generation. It's looking like I need to walk one more time than feels comfortable each day. I walked 2 dog walks today, and clearly would have been better if I did 3. Often I just do 1, but could do 2. + December 5 and a half, 2020
diff --git a/index.mdwn b/index.mdwn
index b1a1fda..7295732 100644
--- a/index.mdwn
+++ b/index.mdwn
@@ -20,6 +20,10 @@
<iframe style="width:120px;height:240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=author0d7-20&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=B07QQTTXP4&asins=B07QQTTXP4&linkId=08d7982313571271579ba819ed9d1b1e&show_border=false&link_opens_in_new_window=false&price_color=333333&title_color=0066c0&bg_color=ffffff">
</iframe>
+December 6, 2020
+
+[[!img 20201126_121020.jpg align="right" size="400x" alt=""]]
+
December 5 and a half, 2020
@@ -1327,3 +1331,6 @@ At least I am healthy and safe. At least I can sit on my porch and be 6 feet fr
+
+
+