A Day for Self-Healing

 

Louise Bishop's work, Words, Stones and Herbs (2007) focuses on the healing power of literature. She discovered a 15th-century manuscript which provides treatment for everything from a flesh wound to mental ailments. In medieval times, medicine involved the study of language related to the seasons and the power of  nature. 

A doctor often placed a written charm on a broken leg to speed the recovery process.  What we today consider, the placebo effect, became a vital part of medicine back then. Bishop mentions that people would memorize 150 lines of poetry to assist healing.

Years ago I learned from Dr. Norman Cousins that humor heals. A day of silliness and naps would get the job done.

The Heart of the Matter

Why does the heart always get credit
when pleasure or pain take the breath away?
“We do the work,” say the lungs.
“Breathe. Breathe. We fix it.”
The heart claims it never breaks,
“I don’t even wrinkle.”
Fingers create fists, “We feel, really feel.”
"Well, we run from distress,” the feet say.
Liver and kidneys shout that they
deal with all bodily evils first.
The eyes edge in,
“Tears wash away the chaos.”
“Hey, don’t forget us adenoids and tonsils,
if you still have them."
“Anyone home?" asks the spleen"  The appendix
can’t even pronounce vestigial.”
The navel chuckles, “Don’t ask the colon for its opinion.”
The brain has remained complacent
“Have fun without me,” it sings
as it flits out an ear.
                          - Penny Wilkes

Take a day for self-healing. 

Let Humor Soar

Reality can get in the way of creativity. Take a chance with humor. It might turn out to twirl into a launching pad for your attitude.

Let humor our to soar when gravity sucks.

Think of five ways you would use humor to create positivity.

If you feel in a pickle see the world upside down. Hang by your knees from a tree's branch.Try the notion of changing places. Imagine daisies in the sky and clouds rooted to the ground. What would they dialogue about?

If you play it safe, take more chances.  

If you run an organized life, what if you scattered your life about?







Open different doors.

Alter your routine. Do something you’ve really wanted to try and never had the time to do.

Start laughing and do a silly dance.

Search for faces and animals enveloped in roses. Invite them to tea.

Take a reality break. Jump into the crawl spaces of fun and fantasy.

Flight of Words

It zings the page and rises

curls like waves dashed into foam.

To grasp a first line that
flies to the vanishing point.

Sun at the horizon mystifies 

then dips beyond the sea.

How to paddle out to discover 
the shape of story.

It's hidden and teases, 
waiting for notions to collide.
A mythology of merriment,
bubbled by the waves.
It exists beneath
foam left for discovery.
Anenomes bloom pink
with purpled tentacles 
soothed by flow
then fingers or prey
get sucked right in.

Search for the Shine

 

A man is not his hope, nor his despair, nor yet his past deed. We know not yet what we have done, still less what we are doing. Wait till evening, and other parts of our day’s work will shine than we had thought at noon, and we shall discover the real purport of our toil. As when the farmer has reached the end of the furrow and looks back, he can tell best where the pressed earth shines most.  - Henry David Thoreau

Time to stop for nature's miracles

without cellphone delays.




When many of us require an audience,

the daisy never requests applause.

It needs to rise from the earth,

to shine with each morning's dew.

Reciprocate with a scent of awakening,

to flare magenta into a twirl.




Soon majesty of the moment will

attract a bee to nuzzle the future.

Find the Shine.

Discover Novelty

 

    I believe that the creative individual not only respects the IRRATIONAL in himself, but courts it as the most promising source of NOVELTY in his own thoughts.He rejects the demand of society that he should shun in himself the primitive, the uncultured, the naive, the MAGICAL, the NONSENSICAL; that he must be a "civilized" member of the community.  
   The truly creative individual stands ready to ABANDON all classifications and to acknowledge that life, particularly his own UNIQUE life, is rich with new POSSIBILITIES. 

- Frank Barron, research psychologist at UC Berkeley in The Psychology of Imagination.

Take a day to let your imagination lead you to dwell in novelty.

     Let curiosity pull you in several directions.

             Squint and search in the white spaces.

                  Write your name with water from puddles.

Have conversations with sparrows and statues. 

      Befriend animate objects and name them.

           Examine trees and their leaves in detail. 

                Overturn rocks and see what wriggles.

Design the food around your plate.

Consider the nonsensical, write a line or two of made up words: Trenkle, Wraptle, Frodoodle

               Become a character in a realm of magic.

Write your discoveries with the flow of chartreuse ink.

Recharge

 

"Give up yourself to others. Give up yourself to life. 

Give up struggling to make sense of it all." - Tao Shan

Imagine lowering a bucket into the sea of turquoise water. Fill yourself with wonder.

Turn on mellow music. Rather than identifying with thoughts, pull back and just observe them.

Look up at the sky. Consider the possible rather than trying to capture permanent.

Accept the day's moment-to-moment occurrences. Know your preferences and remain relaxed and accepting when they are not met.

Seek compassion with an open heart. 

Experience each day's offerings with wisdom, strength, courage, and freedom.





Permit your life to unfurl to a story of understanding. Let go of fear, anger, and negativity. 

"Follow the light, hide in the cloudiness and begin in what is." -Zhuangzi

Rise and Recharge.

Connect with Nature

 

As post-Romantic subjects, we have become used to defining our identities apart from the everyday, through various forms of leisure and imaginative escape. Our idea of nature, like art, has helped to enable such forms of self-definition. To embrace an everyday nature means shifting also how we define our selves, no longer through forms of imaginative escape of transcendence but though our ordinary lives, work, actions and relationships.   - Scott Hess “Imagining an Everyday Nature” from ISLE Winter 2010.

During my morning run, flowers explode from nooks and around corners. Birdsong chases me as mockingbirds, crows, house sparrows, seagulls, and cormorants enchant the breeze.

I watch others pass in cars and on foot and wonder how many can name the trees, flowers, or bushes in their neighborhood?  

Do they take them for granted along with the birds and insects as they swerve out of driveways, talking on cell phones? 

When they return home, will the t.v and computer screen push them away from a natural influence?  

Take time to slow down and redirect attention to our place in the web of nature around us beyond the technology that defines our lives.

Take a stroll and marvel!  Winter and early spring explode and put on a show for the benefit of everyone. 

Use your eyes, nose and fingers to explore the magic of seeds into blossoms.

Listen and identify the birds in your garden. 

Be grateful for ways nature balances and shows you how.

Find ways to connect and identify with everyday nature.

Nature's Possibilities

 

"Look at that river," he said, "Can you see it? Let's suppose that the water is time passing. If where we are now is the present, where do you think the future is located?"

I  thought for a moment. It seemed like an easy one. I gave the most obvious answer. "The future is where the water goes, down over there."

"Wrong!" my father declared, "Fortunately."

If the point at which you immerse yourself is the present, I thought that the past is the water that has flowed past you, that which has gone downstream and where there is nothing left for you, whereas the future is the water that comes down from above, bringing dangers and surprises. The past is in the valley, the future is in the mountains. This is how I should have replied to my father. Whatever destiny may be, it resides in the mountains that tower over us."   -  from, The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti. 

The mountains bring the water for adventures. The view from a mountain top provides perspective and possibility to move into a flight or a flow.

Consider the mountains and what you have not thought about before, when making goals. 

Discover creativity and potential in all aspects of nature. How will sunset color your imagination?

Capture a Storm

Before the storm, the sea flaunts its personalities. During their flights of defiance against the wind, seagulls ripple on the currents like kites. They evade the force as long as possible, wielding magic in the thrust of wings. Pigeons circle in formations catching the drafts. Subtle changes alert the birds' radar to seek shelter before intensity could whip them from the sky.

Pelicans and seagulls find protection on the edges of cliffs as winds broil. Cormorants rise into the branches of pine trees and preen. A winter sea and sky toy with the color wheel and capture a view that defies a camera's eye.

In India, darshan means getting a view. The clouds escape to reveal a panorama of the Himalayas from the foothills.  The Himalayas give up their darshan.  They're letting you have their view.

The Pacific ocean has provided a darshan on its day of wonder.  It doesn't show itself right away.  The tease encourages a search for your own words and imagery of discovery. 







The sky provides an opening.  Where does it lead?

As the storm passes, the sky returns to calm the sea and reflect the blue.  Seagulls ready their feathers for flight.









 Capture a winter scene with words. 

Daily Details

 

“I forgot what things were called and saw instead what they are.” 
- Margaret Atwood

During your movement through the day, describe people and objects rather  than name them. When you  greet someone, go beyond the name. Try, "Hello Sparkler. You look like the gleam  of  bubbles today. " Use fresh metaphors, color and emotions to relate  to relationships and make connections.

Notice buildings, birds and bushes.Let  them come alive with all your senses.

What does weather smell and taste like?

Enjoy a day of details.

Marvel in Moments

"The secret of health is not to mourn the past or worry about the future but to live in the present moment wisely."  - Zen Proverb

Human beings have such a difficult time just "being."  We are always doing . . . worrying about yesterday, then shuddering about tomorrow.

The natural world has a lot to teach about existing in the marvel of moments. 

When the brain sends out negative thoughts or someone sets you off about events in the past or future, take time to identify with an animal in nature.  

Make time for a walk. Forget about politics, negativity, and even the weather. 

Go for a natural immersion.

Appreciate the feeling of breezes on the arms, a whiff of eucalyptus or a scent in your environment. 

Listen to birdsong and look up to appreciate the miracle of flight.

Let the shimmer on a hummingbird's wings in sunlight activate a peaceful state of mind.

Observe behaviors that fill each moment. 

Enjoy a glorious opportunity to dance, trot, and breathe in, then out.  

Once in a rhythm, you will stop the mind chatter.  

Let laughter stimulate the stomach muscles to tighten.

The magic of minutes in the present will calm your nerves. Find a friend who will remind you to stay in that focus.

In the details merge with the marvel of moments.

 

Self-Discovery in Travel

When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. Things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in. 

 - D.H.  Lawrence

Travel adventures stimulate a trip into discovering more about the self. A mountain path entices with turns to arouse wonder. The way provides challenges of rocks and ruts. A traveler uses all the senses and never forgets to look up beyond leaves and branches.

A voyage into international paths awakens an awareness of the joys and challenges individuals encounter.

At times, we become set in our ways and dwell in automatic when our purpose, as Eleanor Roosevelt said, is "to taste experience to the utmost."

Wander into the wilderness to connect with your Write Life. Travel in writing breaks outmoded ways of thinking. A travel adventure energizes experience, wonder and astonishment.

Write into what you search for. Ask what mystifies and thrills. Let your fingers escort you with a pen or computer keys.

Discover your true self. Delve into the discomfort caused by boredom and boundaries.

Express the textures of language and delights of food.

Vary your speed and distance covered without a focus on the destination.

Write to escape and let Lawrence's "unlying life" rush in.

Music Play

 

"It was always a joy to play with Miles. It was full of risks, full of mystery. We weren't afraid of the unknown. We relished the unknown. We loved getting lost and making something happen almost out of thin air. . . . we were more like magicians maybe. That was what Miles paid us to do. To reach down deep, to really concentrate, really focus. And not on what we were doing as individuals but what we were doing collectively." - Herbie Hancock, pianist for Miles Davis 

Miles Davis explored new territory with his trumpet in a freeflow manner. He attracted musicians for his group with a similar improvisational magic. Davis provided sketches of scales and melody lines and told everyone to improvise. He called for almost no rehearsal time before a recording.

Even if this is not your type of music, let it knock you around and push you to the edge.  Let it cause improvisation in your writing.  Just go with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcg2Do13RJc

Absorb the intensity of notes. Start writing with nowhere to go except a translation of the energy. Take risks, mine for mystery and get lost in a rhythm of words.

Go down deep and explore as your fingers play the keys as a pianist might, inspired by the other musicians.

Did you feel jangled and write in a different style?