Awakening

sunshine of summer
      dew lazes on red lilies
                     lizard still asleep

When you first open your eyes each morning, notice how the thinking mind jumps in. It begins to judge, explain, interpret and ponder. To avoid turning the brain's hamster wheel, take a deep breath and release it. Take another. Focus on a thought of gratitude for the day.

Awaken with six breaths that bring your attention inward. Follow the breath from the abdomen up to the nostrils. Then let it out slowly.  When you focus on the breath, you'll begin to feel a relief. The wheel stops spinning.

Daily writing practice helps to release the illusion of control. It permits experiences to unroll with each letter, word, sentence and paragraph. The flow from within reveals mysteries and enables creativity to percolate.

Creative Write: Begin with thoughts of summer. Bring attention to experiences. Write with sounds, sights, scents and textures. Stay spacious in awareness and gentle the mind without judgment.

Notice the day's wisdom as it appears on the page or screen.

Review Relationships

What does relationship mean to you?

Recall a memory of your first relationship?  Do you remember a stuffed animal or a caring for a pet?  Does a situation with a parent, relative or first friend come to mind?

How do you relate to the importance of yourself in regard to others?

Consider also relationships to the environment, money, and nutrition.  How have you related in the past and in the present?

What themes appear in your communication with family, friends, a spouse, or love partnership?  Do you recall your first infatuations?  How did you deal with betrayals?  Do you carry past frustrations into other situations?

How did you perceive these relationships back then?  Did you feel a reciprocity or an unequal give and take?  What do you notice about your current relationships that reflect back to the initial ones?

Creative Write: Write about a relationship that helps you learn more about yourself.  Write first from the moment of a communication.  Then write from your current wisdom and sense of self.  What have you learned? What do you need to continue working on?

What insights does writing about a relationship provide? Let the flow help you create a character for a story. Choose a name for the character and move him or her into the relationship. How does your character communicate within the challenges?

Bird Music

Have you ever spent time really listening to birdsong?

Certain times of day and seasonally, birds create the most music.  For hours before dawn mockingbirds sing non stop. Many birds begin their musicals at noon. At sunset they unite once more in chours.

According to Wilson Flagg, bird song may be divided into four classes. Canaries and Bobolinks sing rapid notes. Their songs flow uninterrupted, filled with fervor and ecstasy.  Moderate singers like the robin employ slow notes without pauses or rests in their different strains.

The interrupted singers don't modulate their notes with rapidity. They make decided pauses between strains. Mockingbirds are the marathoners in this third class.  The fourth class contains warblers whose notes consist of one or two strains not combined into a song like a bluebird.

Listen today and write what you hear in the dee dees. phreeps, and trills.  Let birdsong inspire a poem or story.