Sky and earth reflect eternal values. Inferior concepts fall away like ashes. The wind ebbs and flows under the sky and across the land dissolving words into dust. Don’t talk. Breathe life in. (Tao Te Ching, Chapter Five, Interpreted by Terry Chitwood) Eternal values, like the sun, illumine the land. Words as […]
A Question of Heart
“A gifted young woman writes a poem. It is rejected. She does not write another for perhaps two years, perhaps all her life” (If You Want To Write by Brenda Ueland, p.8). Are all writers this sensitive? Maybe. Maybe not. Is this even the right question to be asking? One answer that Ueland has for […]
Should I Leave a Trace?
The title of the book Leaving a Trace by Alexandra Johnson makes me pause to contemplate its multiple meanings. The word “trace” strikes me initially as a faint line, a light imprint, not of much importance. Should I take my life lightly? Is my life story not important? Is my story lost in a multitude of […]
Melting the Ice: Freeing the Writer Within
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you). In her book, Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal, Alexandra Johnson quotes Franz Kafka: “Writing,” Kafka jotted in his journal, “is the axe that breaks the frozen sea within” (p. 9). If you let your imagination roam freely, you run into the multiple […]