NaPoMo poetry party.14

Margaret Macpherson lives in Edmonton, Alberta. Right now she is off-grid, seeking the solitude of the lovely little cabin you see in this photograph. That sounds pretty appealing to me, Margaret.

I’m borrowing your words here, Margaret, when you say you are a writer, teacher and mentor who believes in freedom, self expression, justice and the uncanny ability of the human spirit to connect intimately with others. You love people and words and positive energy and your work speaks of your deep connection to humanity. You’re a Northern lass, a second generation feminist with three kids, a husband and a cat.

We met at Banff Centre, a decade ago, and thanks be to social media, we’ve stayed connected. Our recent lunch at U. of A. was a blast, so many things in common to chat about.

Let’s jump right in with three questions, Margaret, as they are windows into the richness of your life;

1. We often say we wish we had more time for certain things. Are you spending your time differently in view of our current world challenges? If so, how?

Margaret: As a writer and, more recently painter, I have always sought creative pursuits but in these strange times I feel a new urgency to create. Not all that I do is for beauty and comfort, either. Sometimes I believe images and text should probe us to reflect, to consider new perspectives or even new questions. Art can, and sometimes should, make us uncomfortable.

I do feel like we have more time, and that’s curious because I’ve always been an artist and a gig worker but now, in the season of COVID 19, the quality of time is different. It’s blurred and amorphous. People are loosing track of days. It’s marvelous in a bizarre way because what is time if not a construct imposed upon us?

I don’t mind this world order falling away; I think it was broken and unsustainable. My hope is that we can learn from this crisis — death is always with us, we can’t love things, giving and receiving are both important in healthy relationships. I want the world to collectively re-imagine and implement a new order that upholds different values and principals. I know if sounds lofty and it’s not that I don’t succumb to Doritos and Netflix from time to time, but I am changed by this reflective period and, oddly, I feel hopeful.

2. What is the core factor that brings vitality and life to you?

Margaret: I think my spiritual life and my intuitive life have been deeply important to my being. I’m a survivor of sexual assault, an outspoken second wave feminist, and someone who gets energy from others, a typical extrovert. This isolation would ruin me if it weren’t for the artistic practices I’ve established and the rich communion I have with my creative self, the Creator within. I always have to acknowledge ego, all the time, however because when it gets in the way, you’re hooped. There is no flow between yourself and the richly mesmerizing spirit world.

I’m experimenting with an expressive visual arts activity involving three principals – deep meditations, trusting the process of the medium (in my case watercolours), and gifting the result. I focus on a particular person or situation and then paint and see what occurs. It’s remarkably revealing at times, but I have to remind myself to acknowledge and let go of ego – I’ve named the practice Non-prophet, just to remind myself how easily ego creeps in.

3. What is one surprising thing that happened today?

Margaret: As I write this, our black cat is sitting on the back porch in the mid afternoon sunshine. Watching her ears twitch, I realize how attuned she is to the coming of spring. My own longing for a deeper connection to the Earth surprises me. It might be time to head out to our cabin in the bush. There is no running water there, no electricity, no neighbours, no cell service, just a riverbank and the quietude of a world awakening. I need to feel the spring stirring, the way my cat does.

Margaret Macpherson has two published novels, Released (Signature Editions, 2007) and Body Trade (Signature Editions, 2012), a collection of short stories, Perilous Departures and four non fiction books. Her stories and essay have been anthologized and her poetry scattered to the winds. Margaret’s website is woefully out of date but if you want to get in touch visit her HERE.

Thank you for visiting with me today, and for our connection over the years. I appreciate your infectious optimism, and welcoming spirit.

Be blessed,
Lesley-Anne

And a poem…

Now, Breathe



Now, there is no more busy
Now, we have time
Now, distraction is foreign
and flights of fantasy are the only 
aircraft we can board.

Now, walking outside is our consolation
and brave sun, in our solitude, a new companion.
Now, the stars are less distant, 
and those we love even closer.

Now, we can’t gather
can’t hobnob, can’t see or be seen.
Now, we are quiet
focused, still.

Let’s breathe.
Breathe while the earth is healing
Breathe while the fields ripen
Breathe while the lungs of our longing
thicken and fill.

Time is on our side, at last.
It is all we have left.
Breathe in the ecstasy
of this world

waiting. 

Margaret Macpherson 
03/18/20 

Cover photo by Joel Clements Photography.

NaPoMo poetry party.13

Rawle James is a mentor, a builder of creative community, and a tireless advocate for social justice. Rawle’s creative vision ten years ago birthed the Inspired Word Cafe, a hip gathering place where many emerging poets in Kelowna have shared their work for the first time in front of a live audience. Rawle led the IWC for the first seven out of ten seasons. Now he focuses his energies on personal coaching, facilitating and public speaking.

You have been an encouragement and creative friend to me over the years, Rawle. Though we don’t seen one another often, I am grateful to keep in touch via social media. It’s my pleasure to welcome you to Buddy Breathing today.

We’ve been asking each one of our guests questions that focus more on how you are rather than what you do, though that’s also important. I find the current situation in the world is cutting through position and power to a deeper place. I wonder what thoughts are prompted for you by these three questions?

1). What is this quieter version of life teaching you?

Rawle: To me, it is reinforcing how much we need each other to live and that we are truly one race. This virus sees our humanity for it matters not your ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, political or religious beliefs. The virus simple looks for a host. Are we will to truly see our humanity. To see the human that we are all. We all walk the same earth. We all breathe the same air. We all drink the same water. We all come from woman. And death will visit us all.

2). We often say we wish we had more time for certain things. Having been given this gift of time, what are you spending it on?

Rawle: Self reflection. I’m looking within to reflect on my beliefs and values and if there are still true for me. This is an opportunity that exist for us all.

3). What is one surprising thing that happened today?

Rawle: On my walk today, I encountered a couple of women who talked about how much they miss touch. As one who loves to embrace others with a hug, I concur with their observation.

Please visit Rawle’s website to learn more about him and his services. His new book can also be ordered there.

Thank you so much for joining in our conversation today Rawle, and for sharing your poetry with us. May you continue to impact lives for good.

Blessings and peace,
Lesley-Anne

…

it’s complete in its emptiness
cocooned in a state of dubious certainty
birth from the same waters of life
that housed me in my mother’s womb

before any I’s are dotted or any T’s are crossed
it is a disassembled inspiration of chaos
floating the cosmos lustfully flirting with the idea of romance
for the spoken word is naked

it awaits capture
to expose and pollinate a creative urge
a download into a suspended moment of arousal
it lays in state to be free verse into a sonnet of images
that coaxes the wild torrent of the dark’s light

it’s not embedded to a rhythm, riff or melody
it’s not nestled on or on top of beats
rapped with meaning
it can paint pictures that evoke memories of days gone by
it can stir feelings of childhood nostalgia
or cowering for safety under the covers from Dracula’s bite

it seduces the imagination in playful celebration of pen and paper
it can question you to ponder the poets meaning asking, what the fuck?
or what colour is the sky in their world?
it can move you to snap fingers in approval or with gratitude
for saying thank you for capturing my feelings
thank you for saying what I could not speak

it’s truth is a naked moment of existence
that oddly resembles my perception of truth
its power can spark revolutions or issue a call to action
to pick up the pen or welded the sword
it is an invitation to know thy self
to explore the evolution of the mind that can uplift our human spirit
it is the unspoken of what we fear
spotlighting the inner story
It is open for interpretation by the listener

It come for you like a train at the station
be there or you’ll miss it
but fear not for it will be capture
for that’s its power
it is between you, the poet and the words
Listen! Listen!
Can you hear it?
Can you feel it?
It sees you!

Blessings and peace,

Lesley-Anne

NaPoMo poetry party.12

Welcome, Karen Connelly, to our virtual gathering. How I wish we were sitting on a couch, legs pulled up, hands wrapped around a cup of tea, but this will have to do. We’ll begin by focusing on how you are keeping in these strange, life altering days, and then move to a poem you’ve selected to share today with us. I know you read this poem on Instagram recently, so I invite folk to head over there after our time together here.

It has been a week or so since I’ve listened to one of your midnight readings on Instagram. It became a way into deeper breaths, resting in the soothing sound of your voice, and readying myself for sleep. I am so grateful to you for those late evening posts.

Here are the three questions we have been cycling back to each day, and your generous answers;

1. We often say we wish we had more time for certain things. Are you spending your time differently in view of our current world challenges? If so, how?

Karen: Hello Lesley Anne,

Because I’m a writer and therapist and work primarily from my home office, I haven’t changed my schedule all that much, except for a daily walk with my teenage son, which is a wonderful gift. Usually he doesn’t want to be seen with me in public, but now that his parents are his only companions, we’re all spending more time together. This has been an unexpected blessing for all of us. Though I also yell at him more—usually from the kitchen to the second floor– because of the Nefarious Screen Factor. We’re all spending even more time than usual in front of our screens.

But that also has brought a surprisingly positive benefit. I practice a neural-somatic trauma therapy called OEI, Observed Experiential Integration, and it’s been challenging and exciting to figure out how to work with clients on screen instead of in person. I have a couple of older and differently abled clients, for whom this change has been extremely helpful. They don’t have to leave their homes in these times of social distancing, and I’ve learned that doing this special body-based work is possible at a distance. So that’s really thrilling—it’s always exciting to learn something new, or to be challenged and realize you can figure out a solution. In fact, for a couple of these clients, working online is much easier. If someone has more ease in the experience of the therapeutic hour, the work tends to be more effective.

2. What is the core factor that brings vitality and life to you?

Karen: I’ve always been a spiritual person with spiritual habits and practices—I’ve been a meditator and student of yoga for decades– but that part of my character has become more defining and more definitive since I underwent an extraordinary crisis a few years ago. I’d let myself slide into that handy category of ‘emergency meditator’—I’d do the work when I really needed to, but I had a lot of secret resistance to the idea of goodness and service.

Cue the major crisis! I was crushed, so my resistances were also crushed. It was excellent. And terrifying. Heartbreaking. It was like Rilke’s poem: you must change your life. There was no more dabbling. I became a trauma therapist (an area in which I’d also meandered and read for years and years). During my training, the spirituality work became very focused and disciplined; I began studying Buddhist and Vedic texts again– really studying them–and meditating, praying and doing yoga every day. So. That is what gives me joy and vitality.

And trees. Walking around. The sky. This world and its creatures. The human voice.

3. What is one surprising thing that happened today?

Karen: A breakthrough that a client had. Completely out of left field; something we hadn’t really talked about before. The realization brought her great relief. More than relief: a feeling of resolution and profound grace. I can’t say more than that about her work but I can talk about my own sense of breakthrough, witnessing that, hearing the lightness in her voice, seeing it in her body. Working with people who are wrestling with PTSD seems, on the surface, to be so depressing. I think this is why I resisted deeper healing myself and resisted becoming a therapist for so long (though I was doing ‘mental health first aid’ for years, mostly with friends and students).

But today I glimpsed in my client’s moment of resolution my own emergence from crisis some years ago. People who’ve experienced severe abuse as children sometimes discover an unexpected freedom when they realize that the worst is truly over. The worst is over because we’ll never be children again, and (usually with good therapy) the trapped feelings that characterize PTSD begin to loosen and resolve. The resiliency, the ability to survive, indeed, the ability to thrive and find goodness in this world: human beings are absolutely extraordinary. There are many qualities about us as a species that are pretty deplorable, but when people heal, when they go down into those depths and emerge, their transformations are always surprising. We’re witnessing a lot of that goodness circulating right now, in this time of global crisis. I love that. I love us!

Karen is a literary writer, editor, teacher, and trauma-informed therapist. You can read more about Karen’s work and sign up for her Courage Room blog and newsletter at www.karenconnelly.ca.

Blessings and gratitude to you for spending time here today, Karen,
Lesley-Anne

Sonnet II/29


From Sonnets for Orpheus, by Rainier Maria Rilke, 
translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy in 2003, 
during the early months of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

 
Quiet friend who has come so far,

Feel how your breathing makes more space around you.

Let this darkness be a bell tower

And you the bell. As you ring,

 

What batters you becomes your strength.

Move back and forth into the change.

What is it like, such intensity of pain?

If the drink is bitter, turn yourself into wine.

 

In this uncontainable night,

Be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

The meaning discovered there.

 

And if the world has ceased to hear you,

Say to the silent earth: I flow.

To the rushing water, speak: I am.

NaPoMo poetry party.7

It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Christine Valters Paintner, who joins us today from Galway, Ireland. Many years ago I read Christine’s book, The Artist’s Rule. Her writing was a refreshing invitation to me to consider how spiritual and artistic practice might be meaningfully interwoven. I read Christine’s book again years later, and the practices continued to be integrated in my life. Then, in 2017, I had the immense privilege of spending a week with Christine at her “Awakening the Creative Spirit” facilitation training in Perth, Scotland. My life is undoubtedly marked by her wisdom, and grace.

Christine is a Benedictine Oblate and an accomplished author, poet, artist, and teacher. Her Abbey of the Arts is an online monastic community offering “pilgrimages, online classes and retreats, reflections, and resources which integrate contemplative practice and creative expression.”

It is wonderful to have you here with us today, Christine.

1. What is your present unique version of life teaching you?
Christine: I am being reminded how much I adore long stretches of time at home in quiet spaciousness and how my own creativity erupts freely in those conditions. 

2. We often say we wish we had more time for certain things. Having been given this gift of more time, what are you spending it on?
Christine: I am writing more poems, but also immersing myself in some other creative projects including a lino block art series for a book on Mary I am writing, collaborating with videographers to create videos for some of my poems, releasing a new album we produced and starting to dream into the next music album already. I am also sitting in silence and listening a lot more.

3. What is one surprising thing that happened today?
Christine: I was standing in the grocery store with a scarf over my face picking out Doritos for my husband and a recording of the voice of our prime minister came over the PA reminding everyone why we were practicing social distancing. I started to weep at the surrealness of the moment, at all the suffering right now, and all the grief in my heart in the midst of trying to carry on the most ordinary tasks.

You can access Christine’s poetry collections here:

Dreaming of Stones
https://abbeyofthearts.com/books/dreaming-of-stones-poems/

The Wisdom of Wild Grace
https://abbeyofthearts.com/books/the-wisdom-of-wild-grace-poems/

I appreciate the poem you have offered us because it recognizes a world of darkness and of light, and the need to hold space for humanity in the tension of these realities. To me this is the contemplative call, and one I believe you answer richly.

May the road rise to meet you, my friend,
Lesley-Anne

p.s. and this, the sound of your voice, blessing all of us.

 

In a Dark Time

Do not rush to make meaning.
When you smile and say what purpose
this all serves, you deny grief
a room inside you,
you turn from thousands who cross
into the Great Night alone,
from mourners aching to press
one last time against the warm
flesh of their beloved,
from the wailing that echoes
in the empty room.

When you proclaim who caused this,
I say pause, rest in the dark silence
first before you contort your words
to fill the hollowed out cave,
remember the soil will one day
receive you back too.
Sit where sense has vanished,
control has slipped away,
with futures unraveled,
where every drink tastes bitter
despite our thirst.

When you wish to give a name
to that which haunts us,
you refuse to sit
with the woman who walks
the hospital hallway, hears
the beeping stop again and again,
with the man perched on a bridge
over the rushing river.
Do not let your handful of light
sting the eyes of those
who have bathed in darkness.

—Christine Valters Paintner

 

Midweek Random Ramble017

1. A big shout out to my friend Heidi McLaughlin on the release of her most recent book, ‘Sand to Pearls’. Watch as Heidi introduces her thoughts on how to make choices that will enrich your life. Yahoo, Heidi!!! I’m excited to read your book, and to feel that tingle up and down my spine when I see some of my own words in print inside! You continue to inspire me in writing and in life!!!

2.

“The secret to great writing . . . is . . .
WRITE!

No, really. It’s true. Too many people spend the majority of their time talking about writing, reading books about writing, wishing they could write, dreaming about the writing life . . . you get the idea. But the fact is, writing is work, and to be a writer one must write and write and write some more.”

Kay Marshall Strom

3. Speaking about being intentional in the daily (writing and everything else), here’s something else to watch and consider… yes, it’s a writing theme today!!! Tim Schroeder, Pastor of my very own Trinity Baptist Church in Kelowna, shares some insights from his book, ‘Life by the Hour,’ in this excellent interview today on ‘100 Huntley Street‘. Another must for my reading plan!

4. Stories… everyone has them… and they are uniquely written parts of our lives.

Stories are gifts. SHARE., as I was reminded this winter in Starbucks most recent advertising campaign. So, I did!

Here, with the permission of the author (me) I will share again what I had the great privilege of sharing at the Christmas Eve Program at Trinity a couple of weeks ago. A number of other brave souls shared their stories as well. I hope to post a video of the program soon, if one is available.

“Hi my name is Lesley-Anne. My mom had breast cancer, and in the back of my mind I wondered if it might happen to me one day. Even so, it’s surreal to me when recently, my doctor calls me back after a routine test. Next thing I know, I’m being rushed in for more tests and day surgery. And as I wait for results, I’m thinking, “How can this be happening?” I’m thinking the worst. I’m angry. I’m disappointed. But, there is this point where I just say, “OK God, I know you are bigger than this. And I want to believe you are enough for me, no matter what.”

At the same time that all this is going on, I decide to join the Worship Choir and help with the Christmas Program here at Trinity. I want to sing, to praise God openly, like I’m taking a stand on what matters most in the middle of my messy life. So I audition for choir and I make it!

The very next weekend we’re on stage, singing a song called ‘Surrender’, and suddenly I’m crying, because the words are so personal, and I’m standing there giving God all my junk, my fear, my anger, over what I’m going through. And in my heart I’m saying,  “Yes, I surrender all of it to you God.” I feel God’s peace inside me.

Soon, we begin rehearsals for this very service. First time we meet, the director explains to us how the music, drama and experience of the Christmas services are all pointing to one central theme; God IS with us… All Shall Be Well. You can’t imagine how I feel as these words sink in. I am overwhelmed by God and how he knows me so intimately. I made it about my promises, and my worship, and my surrender, proving my trust in God. I almost miss it! So God whispers,“I’m here. I love you.”

“All Shall be Well Lesley-Anne… I am with you.”

God is with us.“

Post Script… I received good news from my Doctor… and now I will begin a more vigilant lifestyle… testing more often to ensure everything remains OK. Still, no matter what comes, I stand on the one truth that will sustain me… God is with me.

Soli Deo gloria,

Lesley-Anne