Category: Creativity

an open poem…

“Aries and Viriditas” original artwork by Katharine Weinmann

…to a world-weary empath

you can’t leave Earth yet

~ because I just flipped ahead about
a hundred pages in your story and I read
that someday you will be the reason someone else
doesn’t give up on their life

I’m sorry to spoil the end of your epic tale

~ but someday you will be the one who ignites
the blaze in another person’s heart that
won’t ever be put out again

don’t complicate the plot of your story

~ you are here to be lamplighter that hands out
little bits of your flame to ensure the rest
of the world doesn’t exist in darkness

I know you have been scorched so many times

~ to love the world is to sometimes be burned at
the stake by others who mistake your gift
of compassion as a personal weakness

I know it’s not easy to be a bringer of light
to those who have become addicted to shadows

~ but we need you to be a gardener of effervescent seeds
that you will perhaps never see grow into burning rosebushes
that can be seen from space

Oh, my love, don’t give into the calling despair

~ set your life on fire with kindness and watch how many
other people come out of their caves to sit by your
campfire heart to share their own stories of survival

Oh my love, you are my favorite element

~ john roedel ~

It’s Easter Sunday. Cold, with a skiff remaining of the crusty snow that blew in on Thursday, and sunny. We were treated by our friends to a quintessential Easter brunch: locally sourced smoked ham and scalloped potatoes, sauteed asparagus, hot cross buns, and bread pudding with maple syrup. While flowers remain hidden here, a solitary bird, perched high within the branches of the still-bare alder tree, serenaded both our coming and going. A “slow” meal, interspersed with watching the antics of their cats, and our always edifying conversations, with the window open feeling the gentle breeze and hearing the birdsong, I felt the day’s hopeful promise.

Now home, and after a nap (I’ve been plagued with early waking for the past few weeks – The recent full moon? An upcoming solar eclipse? Excitement with Tuesday’s trip? Editing? Anxiety anticipating the long-time-in–coming meeting with a friend on Good Friday, one that allowed us both to lay down our metaphoric load of disappointment and grief?), I turned down the furnace and opened wide the windows to invite in Spring’s energy to displace Winter’s. A bit of packing, tending to correspondence, and this blog, one held in the draft folder for a day when time is short, concentration spent.

John Roedel is a self-described “Facebook poet,” sharing his bittersweet, aimed straight-for-the-heart compositions, often in the form of a photo of a first draft scratched in pen on the lined page of his notebook. On the heels of today’s brunch conversation, one that weaved back and forth through life’s joys and despairs, this felt like the right one to post. Too, that it speaks to his “favorite element” fire, which is Aries and the astrological sign currently ruling our planet. Aries is my sign, too. Fire my element and dosha. And as a self-described “empath,” at times world-weary – the trifecta of reasons for sharing it with you, many of whom I suspect are, too, world-weary empaths.

So, take heart, dear ones. Continue to set your life on fire with kindness and know we’re all in exceptionally good company.

Much love and kindest regards.

A Morning Offering

watching the sunrise on the Sahara a year ago

It’s dawn. Still dark, as yesterday’s “spring ahead” time change makes more noticeable the gift of more daylight in the evening.

It’s Monday, when I typically drop a post, or try to. Last night making pizza and watching the Oscars interrupted my typical pattern of getting to my desk at 6 to write. Too, yesterday I sent off to my editor the big writing project I’d been waking early each weekday for the past few weeks to complete. After pressing the “send” button on the email, I took a breather and walked in sunshine warming and snow melting, passing folks enjoying the same. Smelling, hearing, and feeling spring. My breather continuing until bed time.

It’s soon time to join my 7:00 am Zoom weekday writing space, where after exchanging good mornings we all mute and “vanish” ourselves to our keyboards to write for an hour or longer. I’ll finish this post, despite it being late, and begin pieces for several March submission deadlines.

It’s a post without a theme. Simply keeping my promise made to Muse to write. Showing up at my desk, in the space I created to create. Candle lit. Classical music streaming from the station I re-discovered during those recent trips to Niagara (WNED on TuneIn). Radiant heat glowing on my back. Americano cooling in its handmade Italian cup. Borrowing from my Friday pattern, I’ll leave you with what feels like the perfect poem for today, an excerpt from John O’Donohue’s “A Morning Offering,” in To Bless the Space Between Us:

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

In Times of Terror, Wage Beauty

There are those who want the
world to remain on its current
path. This is not only unacceptable,
but it is painfully unimaginative.
For the beauty of our generation
is we are uniquely situated to
achieve what so many in this
world currently consider
impossible. How exquisitely
beautiful it will be to watch the
current narrative go down in
flames, then witness poetics &
phoenix rise from the ashes.

Embers, ancestors, and angels
await us, loved ones. Forward.

– Mark Gonzales –
In Times of Terror, Wage Beauty, 2014

I’d forgotten I had on my poetry shelf this eloquent “collage of visions.” In response to last week’s attempt to find enough words to notice and name one of the current global narratives literally imploding and exploding, a friend, in her comment, referenced the book, one I had gifted her years back. Immediately retrieving it, thumbing through its simple and beautifully designed pages, I knew I wanted to uplift and amplify Mark’s message and intention here today. Quoting from the back cover:

In Times of Terror, Wage Beauty is a
meticulously crafted series of ideas in
tweet sized digestible prose. It serves as
a personal guide to social change makers
in the 21st century navigating complex
social systems by highlighting advanced
approaches to healing and global wellness.

A quick early morning scroll today on social media and I’m reminded it’s International Women’s Day. Aware of feeling cynical and crusty, perhaps the result of many very early mornings arriving at my desk to write, I’m less inclined to jump on the bandwagon and share any of its memes or create my own. As with so many of these socially-politically designated days, often created, if not co-opted, by the power brokers to highlight and assuage their own interests, or by corporations to make money, I’m tired and disillusioned with the narrative that has become a “painfully unimaginative” rhetoric. I need a narrative like Mark’s. One that insists we not live in a world where any of us needs to shout to be heard, seen, and valued (26).

Instead, a narrative that encourages the simple yet essential acts of creativity – dreams, laughter, love, and imagination (51). One that heals the hearts of those forced from their homelands by centering on their beauty (29). One that remembers stories as ceremony, vessels for ancestors, memories, futures, and the vehicle by which the divine is engaged (41).  One that reminds me “now is not the time to be timid” (21).

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

The Lightest Touch

walking toward the light

THE LIGHTEST TOUCH

Good poetry begins with
the lightest touch,
a breeze arriving from nowhere,
a whispered healing arrival,
a word in your ear,
a settling into things,
then like a hand in the dark
it arrests your whole body,
steeling you for revelation.

In the silence that follows
a great line
you can feel Lazarus
deep inside
even the laziest, most deathly afraid
part of you,
lift up his hands and walk toward the light.

– David Whyte –

Sooooo…in last Monday’s post – one I’d been thinking of writing since the first of the year, in celebration of four years of writing, including 265 posts here – I claimed myself a poet, describing the chronology of my journey to finding my way to a new career, or more aptly, vocation. And, of course, the next day dawned with several rejection emails in my inbox and more that came during the week. A coincidence, but my inner critic has been having a field day ever since.

“Getting too big for your britches, aren’t you?” came her scolding interjection. And for most of the week, despite signing on every morning for a 7:00 am Zoom writing circle, writing and editing poems for submissions, I’ve been hearing her, sotto voce, describe my words and my effort as “trite” and “maudlin”. Ouch.

And, of course. Not only is part of this practice about learning to roll with rejection “out there,” but also, and more significantly, working with (and that can mean ignoring, cajoling, considering…) the rejecting aspect of myself. So, I took us out to play pickleball with my friends. Got into my body and out of my head and was surprised to see both my game improve and my writing.

Too, I received kind feedback from friends, several of whom write and know this terrain well, letting me know their response to how and what I write. The timing of one was nothing short of an answered prayer. Allies who help shore me up to shut down the noise.

And suffice to say, I took several bold and audacious steps toward making a future dream come true, one that utterly delights me, and brings visceral joy whenever I think about it.

Sooooo…I persist. I’m finding my way to a lighter touch. I look forward to the day when my inner critic – who I know arrives to keep me in line because she IS deathly afraid – lifts up her hands, surrenders, and walks toward the light. On the page and in all aspects of my life.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

I Am a Poet

my poems and photos

“I believe poetry is very old.
It’ s very sacred. It wishes for a community.
It’s a community, ritual, certainly. And that’s
why, when you write a poem, you write it
for anybody and everybody…It’s a gift to
yourself, but it’s a gift to anybody who has
the hunger for it.”

Mary Oliver, as quoted in On Being with Krista Tippett

Four years ago, in January 2020, I designed and published this, my third blog, to serve as a platform for my writing. Little did I know then, that with the sudden arrival two months later of world-stopping Covid-19, I’d need to be leaning into writing and this space to cope with the grief of having lost my career and much of what I had assumed to be certain. I wasn’t alone in any of this, but the resulting systemic social isolation occasionally had me wonder.

By September that year, I’d set my sights on learning how to write poetry. I’d dabbled over the years in my blogs and journals, and for as many, was a devoted listener of The Road Home, a spoken word and music program curated by Bob Chelmick on my local radio station. I discovered Poetry Unbound, a podcast offering from my favourite On Being with Krista Tippett, hosted by Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama. With Annie on her leash, I’d plug in my earphones and for fifteen time-stopping minutes, walking familiar neighborhood routes, I’d listen to him read a poem and share his understanding about its structure, meaning, and resonance. An ardent fan, occasionally I’d write about him here, and took advantage of tuning into every free Zoom event around the world, hosted by Padraig reading, talking, teaching poetry. When I learned he’d be coming to Calgary for a retreat in 2023, I made haste months earlier to buy my ticket and reserve my bus ticket – a wise move as we had our first blizzard that weekend.

I joined a couple of Facebook groups for writers and took advantage of many free online readings and workshops to gain exposure to contemporary poets, seeing how they compared with my favourites, helping me find my voice. I was invited by Karen Close, founder and editor of Sage-ing: The Journal of Creative Aging with Creative Spirit, Grace and Gratitude to be her thinking partner and co-editor. Then exactly two years ago, upon the encouragement from one of my public library’s writers-in-residence – another complimentary service of which I have availed myself, I began the work of preparing a manuscript for submission to a well-known Canadian poetry publishing house. With Annie on her cushion by my side, I edited over seventy poems, received feedback from several friends and fellow writers, and emailed the package a week before heading off to walk the Portuguese Coastal Camino. An email in July brought the not so surprising, but none the less disappointing, news that my work had not been selected. It closed with the concise instruction “to persist.”

And so, I have. 2023 found me back in the saddle, submitting regularly to literary journals and online magazines around the world. I attended master classes with esteemed poets and prepared a chapbook for a publisher who had previously accepted one of my pieces. Another rejection, but she gave me the gift of feedback I’m using now to move my writing forward. Monitoring my submissions, tracking rejections and successes, with 70 sent last year, over 20% have been published, including several in national and international anthologies. In the meantime, as many journals invite submissions of art and photography, I’ve jumped in and have had several photos published – for money – have been included in a 2024 calendar featuring Edmonton’s river valley and have won the cover contest twice for our local poetry anthology. I feel chuffed.

I think alot about my writing: Why do I do it? What I give to it and what it gives to me? I’m committed to making poetry my writing genre of choice. Or, it has chosen me, being one who has long had a poetic turn of phrase and outlook on life. Like Mary Oliver, I believe poetry is sacred, being one of the ways I bring the sacred into my life, making my life as poem and prayer. However, unlike many writers, I’m not yet confident that writing is my way to, for lack of a better word, salvation…to reconciling what troubles me. I haven’t had enough experience waking during my soul’s dark night to trust that taking pen to paper will see me through to a metaphoric dawn, let alone a literal one. It is a faith that grows.

I am learning about poetry’s inherent nature of ritual, especially in the process of revising. Here I can immerse myself for hours, quietly reading for rhythm and assonance, writing for placement on the page, making space for the breath, embodying the imagery. This gives me pleasure.

I don’t know who proclaims one a poet. Maybe joining a professional group and paying the membership dues legitimizes one’s efforts. I’m leaning more into the empowering wisdom that comes from claiming myself through learning what it means to be a practicing poet. Exploring organically the design of my way of working; developing discipline and technical skill; rolling with rejection and celebrating success; reaching out for support; being vulnerable. Much of it done in isolation. In hindsight, Covid-19 prepared me well.

Four years ago, I began a new career, or rather, a new one found me. Today I am an internationally published poet and photographer. When I waver in my confidence and question the value of my words in a world inundated with others, I have those from my dear friend, author, and first writing mentor, to hold me in its community:

“And the quality of your writing offers me a moment of presence with you, your thoughts and reflections, and the complexities of the road we travel in and through these times at both the very personal and the larger scale. This is alchemy. Please continue. Please imagine me in early morning–still dark, tea and low light, and waking my day with your gift.”

Christina Baldwin

Thank you, too, for yours sent to me, dear friends. Much love and kindest regards.

on the corner of my writing table

Blessing of Breathing

BLESSING OF BREATHING

That the first breath
will come without fear.

That the second breath
will come without pain.

The third breath:
that it will come without despair.

And the fourth,
without anxiety.

That the fifth breath
will come with no bitterness.

That the sixth breath
will come for joy.

Breath seven:
that it will come for love.

May the eighth breath
come for freedom.

And the ninth,
for delight.

When the tenth breath comes,
may it be for us
to breathe together,
and the next,
and the next,

until our breathing
is as one,
until our breathing
is no more.

– Jan Richardson –
The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

Last Saturday I skipped my weekly river valley camino to attend “Into a Sanctuary of Women,” an online retreat with Jan Richardson. Familiar with her work as a spiritually oriented author, artist and poet, whose words have a particular resonance for women, I welcomed the opportunity to experience her live. The gifts of her presence and her work are akin to another of my inspirational favourite women, Christine Valters Paintner, the online abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a space for, as she names us, contemplative, creative dancing monks. 

Framed by the contents of her book of the same title, Jan used her art to underscore aspects of sanctuary – its components and meanings (refuge, hospitality, making welcome, safety, spaciousness, invitation for transformation), how to make and be sanctuary for ourselves and for others, and its personal gifts and challenges. Her poetry, by form of blessing, became pause and punctuation points. This one, seen earlier in the week on her social media page, was offered to help us settle into the sacred space being created by the hundred plus of us who gathered.

Transcribing it here, now, I imagine reading it quietly as I sit in the morning. I can feel it bringing a solid, soothing start to my day. I envision it reminding me of my life’s inevitable passage, through its eldering landscape to my own passing on. And I know again my kindredness with you, breathing as one, until no more.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

A Gift to Bring You

I’m at a loss as to what to write for tomorrow’s (today’s) post. I started something and put it in the draft drawer, my “kill the darlings” file. No traction…no energy. Maybe an idea whose time has not yet come, or too soon too tender to write about.

Even though it’s Monday, not my usual day for posting a poem and photo, in the spirit of the season, I’ll gift forward a quote from a friend who shares my love of Rumi. A friend who I met years ago at our first writers’ retreat. A friend who made and gifted me and others with clay rattles during our vision quest retreat. A friend who recently published her first book, Solo Passage, the seeds of which she planted in that circle. Thank you, GG.

“You have no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring you.
Nothing seemed right.
What’s the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the ocean.
Everything I came up with, was like taking spices to the Orient.
It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these.
So, I’ve brought you a mirror.” – Rumi

Look. See your reflection. Know you are loved.

And my annual Solstice blessing, originally written in 2017, timeless and ever relevant:

May this Holyday season bring time to cherish all that is good and true and beautiful.
May its dark days invite rest for reflection and renewal.
May Nature welcome you to its beauty, magic and wisdom.
May good health be your companion, relationships enliven and encourage,
work and pastimes fulfill and affirm.
May strength in body, mind and spirit allow you to embrace life’s uncertainties.
May patience, love and kindness – given and received – be yours in abundance.

With love and kindest regards, dear friends.

Seeing in the Dark

“The deepest work is usually the darkest.”

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves”

“I haven’t seen anything from A Wabi Sabi Life lately,” remarked my friend in our long overdue, much awaited Zoom call. A myriad of reasons, excuses even, offered. And as I sit down in my studio Sunday night after dinner, my typical time to craft a post, what thread to pull from the dark interior knot in hopes of loosening its vague, inarticulate, persistent grip?

“A brave woman, a wisening woman, will develop the poorest psychic land, for if she builds only on the best land of her psyche, she will have for a view the least of what she is.”

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves”

Do I write again about friendship? How my initial post rang true for so many women, coincidentally finding several at the time questioning their own friendships? How its precipitant, a letter written to a friend, sank like a stone? Its “no response” response – a risk I weighed yet chose to take – now a knot in my heart tied tight with other friendships that have waned or ended this year.

“So do not be afraid to investigate the worst. It only guarantees increase of soul power through fresh insights and opportunities for re-visioning one’s life and self anew.”

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves”

Do I wonder how I’ll work with feedback given to me from a publisher considering my chapbook submission and why it was refused? Feedback that when taken into consultation with a writer I hold in high regard, she immediately understood and pointed to numerous examples where I hadn’t written myself into my poems. Another risk I had to take: to submit those poems and then to ask for help to understand. Profound and vulnerable, I sense this is as much about my poetry as it is about allowing myself to fully show up – on the page, in my poems, in my life.

“It is in this psychic kind of land development that Wild Woman shines.”

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves”

Do I wax majestic on the memories of my solo month in Italy, fresh with every step I take walking, especially on Saturdays with my Camino group? Poles in hand, boots on feet, pack on back. Or every Italian inspired meal made, Moka pot Americano sipped? It all comes back viscerally even though the skyline is urban, there’s ice in the river, and I don’t hear much Italian spoken anywhere. I finished my photo journal last week, reveling in my photos and extracting from the posts I’d fortuitously written every day on Facebook. And just today I returned to the pages of my Morocco photo journal. Reading my travel diary and selecting photos, I felt a much-needed surge in love for my intrepid self. And now considering my writing, with several poems the result of my journeys, there’s a question I hold even closer, “How far do I have to travel to find myself?”

women on the wild edge

There’s the ever present, though softened ache in missing Annie, five months passed. Woven in now with the passing last week of my mother-in-law. Anticipated at ninety-eight years, to her family she had been lost twice due to Alzheimer’s attacking her memory and ability to communicate over the past several years, and now finally her body. I’ll make the trip this week to attend her funeral as Sig is tending to health issues that, while thankfully being resolved, have wearied, and episodically worried us since August. Grief weighs. I feel its silent tension in my body.

And then there’s the grief and trauma in the world “writ large,” unleashed again with manmade and natural upheaval and destruction (maybe they are one in the same?) taking up a lot of my “mind space,” to quote a friend. To quote another, in the title of a talk he gave last week, “What does love have to say at a time of war?”, I ponder this deeply. With beloved Muslim friends with Arabic backgrounds, and beloved Jewish friends, all of whom are reeling with the daily horrors of it all…and too, in my city with its significant Ukrainian demographic, again dear friends, people who now feel they are being forgotten by the world while their own horrors persist, I try to find and walk the middle way. I think of Rumi – “beyond right doing and wrongdoing there is a field and I will meet you there.” Or as my friend recommends, a higher field to see with depth and breadth a way through the entrenched complexities. It feels like the only way, and yet how? Who takes the first step walking into that dark field? Does it matter who, simply that it be?

“She is not afraid of the darkest dark, in fact, she can see in the dark.”

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves”

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

Solo Traveling

I am home. Met by my husband in sunshine and mild temperatures last Saturday after nearly 24 hours awake, most of those masked in the minority, I arrived safe, sound, very tired and with my checked luggage. It’s taken about a week to recover from jet lag and feel my soul return to my body. I’ve been grateful for another prolonged autumn, warm enough to get back on the pickleball courts and try out my foot after trekking 220/237 km on the Via de Francesco, and close to another 100 km wandering through Florence, Assisi and Rome during the days bookending my walk. I played so-s0 after five months off court, and while my foot felt OK, I realized it’s too much, too soon to resume play daily. Saturday found me in our still colourful river valley walking with my Camino group. It felt wonderful to tie on the boots I’d worn up and down those paths in Italy, now with a much lighter pack, and gloves, toque and a down coat given the sudden shift in temperature…to be reunited with friends who, too, had trekked this past month in Portugal, Spain, Germany, Italy and Eastern Europe

Edmonton’s River Valley – Whitemud Creek towards Snow Valley

“Solitude is one of the most precious things in the human spirit. It is different from loneliness. When you are lonely, you become acutely conscious of your own separation. Solitude can be a homecoming to your own deepest belonging. One of the lovely things about us as individuals is the incommensurable in us. In each person, there is a point of absolute nonconnection with everything else and with everyone. This is fascinating and frightening. It means that we cannot continue to seek outside ourselves for things we need from within. The blessings for which we hunger are not to be found in other places or people. These gifts can only be given to you by yourself. They are at home at the hearth of your soul.”

John O’Donohue

“After this recent month-long journey, bookended by several days of solo wandering, I can assuredly say I am friends with both.”– posted on Facebook, October 20, 2023

Too, I can assuredly say that combining a small group experience with solo time prior, after, or both, is my favourite way to travel. I experienced it most recently in Morocco this past spring when I arrived solo in Casablanca and then extended my stay in Marrakech after the small group excursion. When I think back to having flown into Florence late that Sunday afternoon – finding the tram to take me from the airport to the SMN train station, to then making my way to the monastery I’d booked for the week (all first time experiences) – the combination of trepidation and accomplishment – in this case particularly so as I knew my way better than the local I’d asked – delightfully got me off on the right foot.

Having been to both Florence and Rome several times, I felt confident in my ability to get around. I’m “old school,” preferring paper maps – this trip using a terrific popup version that tucked away in my purse – and I’m quick to ask for help, understanding that in the encounter made, people enjoy knowing they’re needed. I loved wandering early in morning, and suddenly, for example, coming upon the Duomo to be enthralled by the sunlight breaking through the clouds. Countless moments of “moving at the pace of guidance” – going where I wanted, when I wanted – enjoying my own companionship, not missing a soul, the boon of solo travel.

early morning at the Duomo, Florence

That being said, I know, too, what a well-travelled friend had called “low pot” days: when fatigue, feeling overwhelmed, displaced and lonely create inertia, low confidence and anxiety. Its remedy: to acknowledge and either sit with and rest, let be or move through depending on the situation. This crept up on me during my time in Trastevere, when after two weeks of companionship, walking alone together, I was suddenly alone alone. And I was tired… from the exertion, not only of the actual trek in the glorious hot late summer, but too, from the hundreds of kilometers I’d walked in preparation. The inevitable “come down” from the accomplishment and all it took.

So yes, I am intimate friends both with solitude and its gifts of sustenance, renewal, rest and creativity, and too, with loneliness and its sharp edge of separation and self doubt.

A well-established practice of self-care, I’d spend at least an hour daily editing the day’s photos and writing a description to post on Facebook, this time to soothing instrumental Spotify playlists. While it became THE chronicle of my experience (as the very small journal I brought often remained empty for days at a time), in those moments of solitude and occasional loneliness, the comments from friends shored me up to remember the gifts that can only given to me, by me.

at the Trevi Fountain, Rome

Dear friends, if you were among those who followed my journey, and perhaps commented, thank you for the lifeline.

Much love and kindest regards…

The Perfect Place, The Right Time

“And the road is plenty wide and welcoming,
speaking out to all,
This is the perfect place,
this is the right time,
this is where wish becomes possible.”

Susan Frybort, “On the Road of Great Wonder,”
in Hope is a Traveler, 2015

This is the opening quote to a story I wrote about walking my Camino last year. Always intent to write more about that month long experience, one over twenty years in the making, but having felt stuck for months, I enrolled in an eight-week online course beautifully taught by local author and scholar Jenna Butler and hosted by Calgary’s Alexandra Writers’ Centre. I’d reached out to Jenna with hope that by using the sensory explorations and writing prompts in “Chronicling Our Personal Relationship with Place,” I’d be inspired to write. I took as kismet – “the perfect place… the right time… where wish becomes possible” – the course’s starting date as it coincided with the evening before I began walking my Camino a year ago. To deepen into the course’s invitation, I posted on social media a few select Camino photos and salient recollections from each day I had walked last year, May 10-30. Too, I’ve been drawn to learn about some literary forms that I thought would lend themselves to my vision of combining the reworked lyric essays from last year’s Portuguese Coastal Camino blog, my journal entries, and those from the guide book provided by Portugal Green Walks, and my newly emerging poetry.

Half way through the course and my hesitation to begin has persisted. I’ve felt afraid to take the first step, not knowing what I’m getting myself into, or where this is going to take me, despite having reached Santiago a year ago. I’ve wondered if Camino doesn’t want, or isn’t yet ready for me to walk on or with him again. Yes, I am animating Camino, doing so out of reverence and regard for its centuries of history, people and their traditions, cultures and stories, and the more than human elements continuously making for its beauty and its challenges. And yes, I admit, maybe it’s simply me who hasn’t been ready, with it simply being a matter of not yet the right time. Then, after a few hours over the past month preparing – compiling my blog posts into a single document and adding my recent Instagram posts; propping up on my writing table my photo journal with its cover photo of me standing in front of the cathedral the day I arrived; stacking beside me my travel journal, course notes, and Portugal Green Walks’ self guided program notes – this week I finally lifted open my laptop and began. While I’d thought I’d use for incentive the June 30th chapbook submission deadline with a literary journal who recently published one of my poems, given the experimental nature of this undertaking, braiding together from several sources, and wanting to embody in my writing now how I walked then – sauntering to enjoy the vistas – I’ve decided wisely let that go.

Viana do Castelo
view from Villadesuso
Pontevedra

Albeit reluctantly and with regret, I’m using the gift of time received by finally having conceded a week ago that I must step away from playing pickleball. A game I enjoy for its physicality and camaraderie with women, who like me, love being fully engaged in life. A game my chiropractor has suggested I may need to sit out as for the past three months I’ve been nursing an injured metatarsal. Despite regular appointments, taking a few days off from the game here and there, icing, and copious applications of extra strength Volartin, it’s been one healing step forward and several back. Compounding this is the pressure, with worry enough to wake me, of needing to seriously train for another long walk in September. This one not a saunter. This one strenuous with nearly double the daily kilometers over sixteen days, and steady ascents and descents. All a natural consequence of aging, this has brought its own grief as I face such realities. My foot and body as whole are feeling better, and I’m hoping this, too, will become “the perfect place… the right time… where wish becomes possible.”

***

As I’ve written here before, the writerly life is a lonely one, rife with rejection. Just this morning I received two. On the up side, I finally received a print copy of the local poetry anthology featuring both my photo as cover and poem inside, and in the past month, several other photos have been accepted by literary journals making me wonder if I should shift my genre!

As it’s been several weeks since I posted a Monday morning blog, by way of update, our dear Annie dog has had a remarkable recovery from the stroke she suffered the end of April. So much so, I call her our “Lazarus,” as it truly feels she rose from a near death listlessness during those early days. Today, she has returned to all the ways in which she is uniquely Annie to and with us, including interrupting my work at noon by persistently placing her big right front paw on my lap or keyboard. Now I kiss it and her in ever welcome gratitude.

walking with Annie “Bright Eyes”, June 5, 2023

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends. May this post find you on roads plenty wide and welcoming.