Volume X, Issue 19
October 6, 2021
Dear ,
It was fun to go back into my Word-zine archives and choose a special "golden oldie" to share with you today. This one is from February 2012. Volume one, issue 6, to be precise, with some freshening up and a different featured writing. I hope you enjoy it. I've been thinking about home a lot these days, as the
last of the Ryan family, my sister Mary, just moved from our hometown this past August. I didn't realize how sad it would make me.
But that sadness is more than counterbalanced by the joy of living so close to the homes of my kids and grandkids. And the bonus joy of having my daughter send me a photo of granddaughter Ellie whipping up the pumpkin bread recipe I made so many times in my childhood home. How sweet is
this?
May thoughts of home, real and metaphorical, bring you joy this week! Today's prompt can help. And
home is a rich subject to write about, as so many writers have proven from Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel to Robert Louis Stevenson's poem "Requiem": Home is the sailor, home from sea, / And the hunter home from the hill.
One more thing: if you're looking for writing inspiration and support, I'd love to have you be a part of my "The Seven Energies of Writing" class that starts next Wednesday, October 13. Details below.
Love and light,
Maureen
THE SEVEN ENERGIES OF WRITING:
WRITING WITH HEART, MIND, BODY, AND SPIRIT
A Holistic, Whole Brain Approach, with Tools and Strategies to Enhance Creativity, Productivity, Ease, and Enjoyment
Yes, writing can be easier! If you’ve ever had a hard time getting started writing, finishing what you’ve begun, or gotten stuck in the middle (AKA writer’s block), learning how to engage with your own unique mind, heart, body, and spirit in the most helpful “energy of writing” for you and your work at each stage of your process—and on any given day—will be a game-changer. In this class, we’ll explore—and practice—the ins, outs, and
benefits of all seven energies of writing, through the lenses of body, heart, mind, and spirit. You’ll learn and practice invaluable tools and strategies you’ll use again and again to write with maximum ease and effectiveness. Yes, you can be more productive, creative, and fulfilled, no matter what kind of writing you do or how experienced you are.
WHERE: The comfort of your own home, via Zoom
WHEN: Wednesday evenings, 7 - 9 p.m. on October 13 and 20, November 3 and 17, and December 1, 8, and 15.
COST: for seven classes, recordings, and materials: $220
TO REGISTER: Choose whichever method of payment works best for you. After you make your payment, you’ll receive a welcome email with our Zoom link and details. I’m so looking forward to having you in the class!
To pay via Venmo, find me here: @wordplaynow
To pay via Zelle, find me here: MRGatWordPlay@gmail.com
To pay via PayPal or credit card, click here.
To pay via check, please email info@wordplaynow.com for instructions.
Questions? Email info@wordplaynow.com and I'll be happy to answer them.
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt
This is WordPlay—so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's “home."
PROMPT: Five 5-Minute Ways to WordPlay Yourself Home
Here's the truth: We carry home inside us, in all of its comforting, healing, heartwarming, joy-giving manifestations. Isabella Rodriguez's beautiful poem above is proof that home is always available, as close as our "supposing," or, more straightforwardly, our imagination.
Here's another truth: We are often busier than we would like to be, assaulted by an onslaught of information, events, to-dos, so that even when we are physically AT HOME we don't feel at home. We writers also fall victim to the trap of living primarily inside our heads, where all our words run rampant and unruly, rather than in our whole being—body, mind, and spirit. Sound familiar?
Would you love to have access to the warm, wonderful feeling of being "home" in any moment of your life? If so, here are five 5-minute ways to allow words to bring you home. (Yes, it does come down to allowing.)
With each of these WordPlay methods, simply
* read the instructions
* gather any materials you need
* set your timer for five minutes, and
* go!
- Read aloud (slowly!) a short piece of writing that inspires you. Start with Isabella Rodriguez's "Home." Let the words inhabit you as you read (or, if you're brave, sing) them with full expression. (Yes, you can make up a chant or melody to ANY set of words. Try it!) Your voice is a powerful tool; words are powerful tools. Put these two together and feel the homecoming that
happens in your body.
BONUS: If you haven't already done so, begin gathering, as you come across them, your own collection of inspiring quotes, poems, essays, and paragraphs of prose that can be read in five minutes or less. Repeat this practice over and over. (It's a great way to, with no effort, become more attuned to the rhythms of language, which will make you a better writer.
- Recite a mantra. Try this one from Thich Nhat Hanh: "I have arrived, I am home." (Read more about it here.) Sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes, inhale to the words "I have arrived" and exhale to the words "I am home." You can substitute any word or phrase of your
choosing. Repeat until your timer rings. When other thoughts show up invited, as they will, just let them be, let them go.
Try this "coming home" to your breath and body first thing in the morning and last thing at night through this very simple meditation process.
- List words you love for their sound and meaning. Abstract words: soothe, inhabit, prosperity, stillness, joy. Concrete words: sassafras, kitten, breezy, lullaby, lapis lazuli. Onomatopoeic words: boom, buzz, sizzle, zoom, meow. Then read your words out loud, with expression. Don't they bring a smile? And you can use these words as prompts for future
five-minute writings later on, so they are a gift that keeps giving. Every good writer pays careful attention to diction (individual word choices), so you are honing your appreciation for the distinction between words at the same time you are creating the homey experience of being a dwelling for words you love.
- Write about home. Natalie Goldberg, in her book Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, says: "I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life... I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay; how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only real home I'll ever have.”
Her book made an enormous difference to me when I first read it years ago. One of the exercises in it was to write about home without referring at all to a physical residence. Do that.
And, another time when you want to visit "home," write about a physical residence that was home to you—whether or not it was ever your mailing address.
- Sing yourself home. When words are paired with music, it's a magic carpet ride to other times and places, including places that have been homes. (For me, one of those homes was a dark green Plymouth Valiant with "three on the tree." Oh, the times I had in that car, sometimes alone, sometimes with a treasured friend! Most songs are less than five minutes long. Pick a song that takes you
to a "home" you'd like to be again, put it on, and sing along. With gusto. Isn't it a bit of a miracle that almost any song you could want to hear has been posted on YouTube by someone? Whenever I have a yen to hear a particular one that transports me to my freshman dorm room, my Girl Scout Camp, my "home-with-a-new-baby" days, etc., I almost always find it. Just now, I "Celebrated Myself Home," thanks to Kenny
Loggins. Want to join me?
Judy Garland, as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, said it best: "There's no place like home." I hope you enjoy each of these five metaphorical "ruby slippers" leading home.
Are they simple? Oh, yes. Have you done them before? Likely. But we forget to use the simple things we know all the time. So let these five WordPlay ways remind you that we all have had the power to go home all along.
MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of
Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water.
She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, “We are meant to midwife dreams for one another.” Maureen also believes that serious “word
work” requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best
learn—and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours!
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