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writing

a passionate affair with words

September 18, 2010

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” – Gustave Flaubert

 

Ooh, can you feel that one?

Am I the only one afflicted by this or does it happen to you too?

Do you ever get an electric shock from words?

Does your skin ever tingle when you find just the right combination of letters and spaces that speaks directly to somewhere deep in your body?

Do you ever feel like your heart or your soul or your toes or your neck actually understand what the writer said before your brain does?

Do your eyes sparkle or tear up when they read something that touches you exactly where you are in the moment?

Have you ever read something three times and felt nothing only to find on the fourth visit it grabs you by the heart and won’t let go?

Does your throat read words more intensely and reactively than your brain?

Do you gulp words down in bites far too big to chew because you cannot get them in quickly enough?

Do you delight in finding kindred spirits on the page or screen?

Are words as necessary to you as your breath?

…or is it just me?

The Seeker, writing

Who am I?

August 29, 2010

“What you call yourself matters.
Words send signals, labels are magnetic.
Your soul deserves accuracy.”- Danielle LaPorte

health shop

My latest lesson has come up half a dozen times in the last few weeks. Lessons are like that. First they tap and then they knock and then they yell and then they show up with a brass band, horses and hula-hooping acrobats. I’m trying to learn how to listen when they tap or knock because it is getting increasingly difficult to clean up horse shit.

Jamie and the amazing group of women from Circe’s Circle were the tap. It wasn’t easy being called on my lack of ability to say, “I am a writer,” but it was exactly what I needed. Then I opened Danielle LaPorte’s site this morning and I heard a knock. I figured I’d better answer this door before the yelling starts.

“Recognize if you’ve outgrown your “title”.
Deepen your claim, or lighten it right up.
Carve out your own personal lexicon. Snug, and radiant.
Educate people in who you are.
We want to know, for real. ” – Danielle LaPorte

Who am I?

Armed with journal, pen, and my pink suede Oxford Dictionary for clarification, I am off to make a list. My soul does deserve accuracy. (As does yours – you are welcome to join me. Who accurately are you?)

I’ll meet you soon.

xo

writing

I am (not) an Artist: A Creative Manifesto

December 20, 2009

“Give your soul a voice and reconnect with the messy, colourful, musical, sensual, experimental, fully engaged, and artful side of life.” – Sonia Choquette

CreativeManifestoA few weeks ago I wrote a post about being afraid to make art. Lots of you wrote back or commented and said that you knew exactly what I meant. It seems a lot of us are afraid to say that we are artists.

Within a few days I knew that I had to do more with this fear: I had to face it. I wrote myself a letter, which turned into a dare, which turned into a manifesto, which turned into a collaboration with a dear friend and this lovely piece of art.

I told you that I had a present for you, but even I never imagined how wonderfully it would turn out. Penny took the words I had written and made them look beautiful. Thank you Penny! Please accept this as our gift to you this festive season. May the new year bring you everything you wish for!

(Just click on the image to download it to your computer. )