Take your dreams seriously. Play with them.
Dear ,
You're invited to "Write Yourself" this week, whether or not you can come to Tuesday or Thursday night's workshop in Charlotte -- though I'd be so excited if you could (details below). It's such a treat to create writing "live" in community with like-minded people.
But it occurred to me, as I was preparing for this week's workshops, that I could send each of you who receive the Word-zine a prompt now so that you can "Write Yourself" no matter what. There's a loose theme for each workshop, and Tuesday's (July 30th) is "nest." I've gathered a few pieces of writing that use the word or idea of "nest" or "nesting" in some way. The one I'm sharing with you is a meditation I wrote a number of years ago. Scroll on down to read it, along with a prompt that really will help you to "write yourself."
Happy nesting!
Love and light,
Maureen
WRITE YOURSELF! If you have always wanted to write, or used to write, or have just forgotten the joy of engaging in language as a tool of creative growth, join me in one or more of these workshops filled with WordPlay. After all, play is the way we learn best -- we're free to question, to experiment, to break through to something new, all our own. Surprise yourself! And reconnect with the power our words have to shape our very lives.
Want to come? Just use PayPal or credit card with one of the links below
or shoot me an email at info@wordplaynow.com to let me know you're coming and on which date(s) and pay at the door:
Tuesday, July 30th, 7 to 9 p.m.
WHERE: Covenant Presbyterian Rec Center, 1000 East Morehead, 28204
LINK: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=BNKBCFMS7CXMS
Thursday, August 1st, 7
to 9 p.m.
WHERE: South Charlotte near Stonecrest Shopping Center (Details provided upon registration)
LINK: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=LGG5SSWE46AJJ
Tuesday, August 6th, 7 to 9 p.m.
WHERE: Covenant Presbyterian Rec Center, 1000 East Morehead, 28204
LINK: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=CWR9KFPM6ZKC2
See attached registration form for more offerings.
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| An Artist's Meditation I cup this nest in my hands, one of three nests
a friend gave my son. Because she loves us,
she asked us to repeat, twice, which bird
had made each nest. I am not ashamed to admit
that I can't remember now whether this one,
woven of leaves and dryer lint, bits of
cardboard and clear plastic, strands
of hair the color of my friend's
is the Cardinal's, or the Titmouse's
or the Carolina Wren's. For what is important
is the truth it is speaking to me, a truth
I have needed. For years,
without knowing it, I thought
creativity was a means to get
something -- attention, awards, recognition,
maybe even love... The bird that made this nest
is teaching me to trust
that I already have everything
I need, that creativity is about being willing
to be used, to say yes
to what is asking to be born through us
out of the everyday stuff
of our lives. Because our works, our words
want to come into the world. Or maybe
because the world needs them.
~ Maureen Ryan Griffin
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Write Yourself! Writing Prompt
This is WordPlay -- so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? While the theme for tomorrow's Write Yourself workshop is "nest", what I've pulled out for your prompt are the words "I say yes to..." Here's an excerpt from Spinning Words into Gold that explains why: One of my all-time favorite pieces of writing is an essay in Natalie
Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones entitled "The Power of Detail." She wrote it sitting across from a friend in Costa's Chocolate Shop in Owatonna, Minnesota, and near the end she says, "A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp's half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter... Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist -- the real truth of who we are..."
I think about the yeses I have said that have put me where I am today, typing these words that have somehow arrived to where and when you are reading them. These yeses feel holy-the yes to taking my first creative writing class, and then more yeses: The yes to being in a writing group. The yes to staying up half the night-or longer-to birth poems that couldn't wait.
The yes to eleventh hour postmark-deadline runs. So many yeses. Sixteen years' worth now. There are other yeses, too. Yes to seeing the May apples bloom by the creek each April, yes to the three shapes of leaves on the sassafras, yes to my children each day. And the yeses I struggled to say: Yes to clutter and mess and juggling bills. Yes to job losses. Yes to my mother's death. For, as Sophy
Burnham says in The Book of Angels, "we cannot even determine after a while what's good, what's bad. What we thought a blessing has such thorns, we can hardly hold it in our hands, while what we thought was terrible turns out to wear a crown." What about you? What have you said yes to? And what do you say yes to right now?
What do you say yes to? Set a timer for ten minutes, and "Sprint" -- in other words, write continually without stopping. (For the applauding timer I use, just click here.) Begin with the words "I say yes to..." and repeat them as often as you need to.
Say yes to everything you love. Say yes to everything you don't love (Why? Because, as they say, "what you resist, persists.") Say yes to the writing (and other art of any description) that is waiting to be birthed by you. |
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 two collections of poetry, 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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