Time to Wander and Wonder

To sing, you need to put courage behind your song. To be heard, you need to put your heart into your song. And time. It requires time.

 -Rod MacIver

Writing involves self-expression for its own sake. It also includes the desire to communicate so others will notice and appreciate the words.  

Write to wander in wonder at words that would give you contentment. Write your notions first for yourself, then shape them to share.

Creative Write: What do you want to express today to the World?  Begin with a song and write beyond it with all your senses.  

Write the Sounds

"If you listen to the river long enough, if you stand on the bottom rung and tune in, the river offers unity with all things." 

-Herman Hesse

Herman Hesse wove river symbolism throughout his novel, SIDDHARTHA.  He revealed the river offers access to all knowledge if you tune into it and let it slip beneath you. Your patience will reward you, if you believe delving into the flow has something to offer.

Through his character, Siddhartha, he reveals the music of life, "all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events..."

Creative Write:  Chose a symbol from nature, such as a river. Let it accompany and guide you in your writing as you listen and write with its rhythm.  Hear the voices
 and respond to them. Write with sounds and scents.  Discover life's music.

Color, Words and Rewiring the Mind

Do you ever feel challenged to do something opposite of what your mind seems to lead you to do automatically?

Take a look at the words above.
                                        Say the colors out loud, not the words.

Observe what an effort it took just to focus the mind to change your way of thinking!

Your brain wanted to read the word as you battled it to say the color.

It's the same when you struggle with the negative thoughts that arrive when your monkey mind jumps around. The same way you worked with colors and words, focus on a positive and concentrate until you override the negative.

Changing negative thought patterns takes mind control and diligence. You can do it. You just practiced.

What do you think? Will this concept help with your writing?

The Abilities

"One of the best abilities is dependability."  

- Head football coach, University of Oregon Ducks, Chip Kelly

We live in a world where the media focuses on failures and foibles. Take time today to think of your abilities.

What do these abilities mean to you:  accountability, credibility, flexibility, and mobility?  Show them in action in your daily life.

Which other abilities do you believe in?  Thinkability, lovability, playability, funability, careability.

Notice possibilities you can use in your writability.

Make a list of wild abilities and write to them.   Be creative.

Summer Solstice

Today, June 21, celebrate Summer Solstice when the sun reaches its zenith. It will provide the longest period of daylight in the northern hemisphere. Summer solstice derives from Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).

Cultures around the world hold events to celebrate Solstice. The Celts & Slavs celebrated the first day of summer with dancing & bonfires. They feel it helps to increase the Sun's energy. The Chinese marked the day by honoring Li, the Chinese Goddess of Light.

The Pagan Festival of Litha, celebrated by Druids, venerates the Solstice as the "wedding of Heaven and Earth.” Druidism worships nature and believes in the spirits of mountains, and divine guides.

Stonehenge in southern England holds the largest festival. Here, more than 350 mounds surround a stone circle at the center. Dating back to 3100 BC, Neolithic people started the construction. Experts cannot agree on whether Stonehenge served as a temple, a burial ground or an astronomy site. Nobody can figure out for sure how the stones were erected. Mysteries abound in the region.

Starting at midnight on the eve of Summer Solstice, revelers, spiritualists and tourists gather to dance around the fire, star gaze and hug the stones at Stonehenge. They wear robes and flowers to celebrate the year’s longest day.

The summer solstice is one of the rare occasions in the year when open access to the stones is allowed by English Heritage, custodians of the monuments.

Enjoy a writing festival today in celebration of Summer Solstice. Imagine yourself reveling at Stonehedge near the fire. Think about Shakespeare and have a "Midsummer Night's Dream."

Stardust and Gratitude

Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you’d think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.

From The Lives Of A Cell by Lewis Thomas

Struggling past a recent illness, I used the healing time to ponder my role in life's mysterious twists and turns. I thought about those who have traveled before and remain in memories with me on my journey.

Lewis Thomas's book, THE LIVES OF A CELL, deals with the probabilities of our existence and its amazements. I recommend it to everyone.

Imagine one ancestor missing a connection with another, meeting death too soon to meet that connection. Or not even finding the connection in the first place. Without those connections through the generations, I would not have an opportunity to write these musings.

I agree with Thomas that we should remain in a "dazzlement" at our presence on this earth. Why do we not awaken each morning dizzy with gratitude? Why do so many feel entitlement and not responsibility for their actions? How have individuals lost the desire to delve into and dwell in the amazement of the natural world? How can we take anything for granted?

Years ago I wrote a poem after a day of those "terrible trifles." Through the poem I moved into a feel of the Dazzle!


Darwin's Notions

When morning presents a dead battery,
or my shoe pulls up gum before I arrive
"on the dot" at the canceled meeting,
I take a breath. Then I march on.

I’ve hitchhiked in cells of ancestors,
as they survived disease, famine and war.
Always the magnets of egg and sperm
collided in time. Whew, I'm here!

A click of virtue or coy regret along the way . . . and no me.

I’d like to think I’ve tripped inside mitochondria of wild ones,
defiants who left comfort to commit experience.

I remember when she tied her life up with stars
in a foggy sky. Chased wind
with daisies and bits of straw in her hair.
Barefoot, she focused on breathing.
Waited for the click, at the right time.
- Penny Wilkes, Flying Lessons (Finishing Line Press, 2008)


In her book, GREEN SPACE, GREEN TIME, Connie Barlow writes, "Our star system was born of a colliding outwash of exploding stars. We now know that every element on earth and in our bodies was created in a supernova that blew up in this sector of the galaxy some five billion years ago."

We arise from reworked stardust and should exist in a state of wonder. Take time today to acknowledge it and write your stardust dreams. Share your dazzlement!

Happy Father's Day

"When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, 'Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?' He answered, 'If the zoo wants you, let them come and get you.'" - Jerry Lewis



My father had a great sense of humor.  An entertaining prankster, he always shed a positive light on life.   He certainly would have teased me with the above joke.

I swarmed him with questions about the world.  One right after another.  If he couldn't answer them, he would tell me a story.  We shared our love of sunsets which he called, 'the great ball of fire."  

He left this earth 34 years ago for parts unknown.  He'd always say, "I can't leave till my work on earth is done."  Unfortunately, I think he had much more to do.

One of the tricks he played on my husband (then boyfriend) involved the day Michael asked him "for my hand in marriage." Mike knew my father would respect that tradition. Close friends, my Dad and Michael's shared delight that we had started dating four years earlier.  

Michael walked into his office and asked if they could talk.  He stood but my father motioned him to the chair across from his desk.  This chair had held many dignitaries who would sink low in the cushion and have to look up at my father.  Not many out-negotiated him from this position.

"Penny and I would like to get engaged," Michael said sitting tall.

"Engaged in what?"  my father's straight-faced response.  Then he burst out laughing and shook Mike's hand.

He rose, went to the closet and called me, knowing I had my ears tuned in the next room.  He brought out a tray with three glasses and a bottle of Ballentine's Scotch.  

My father never drank so our eyes widened.  He asked Michael to stand and for me to stand next to him. Then he offered the glasses to us.  When he turned the top on the bottle, music flowed !   He had us.

Michael and I will celebrate our 43rd Anniversary the end of June.  I know my father's thinking of something clever for our 50th.

Happy Father's Day.

Creative Write:  Share a humorous story about your father.