Counter-migration

Photograph is property of Ariana Salvo. May not be reproduced without permission.

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium. It will be lost. The world will not have it.

    It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.” 

-Martha Graham  

This morning I did a writing exercise with my dear friend Ahava Shira, who lives on Saltspring Island in British Columbia. Ahava is a creativity mentor, writer, performer and loving inquirer whose work brings together creative expression, entrepreneurial business skills (which she calls Heartrepreneurs) and personal development to help women find success and fulfillment in work that is joy-filled and life-giving, and in their relationships with friends and family. She leads courses, workshops and retreats, and conducts one-on-one sessions. I highly recommend you visit her website and learn more. She also hosts a radio show on which she reads poetry, plays music and talks about the practice of Loving Inquiry called Love in the Afternoon on Mondays at 1pm PST (it is best enjoyed with a hot cup of tea ;-)). 

Ahava and I have been writing together once a week for about a year now. We do so via Skype, which is such a blessing, because it means she can be right in front of me as we write, and I can see her facial expressions as she shares what she has written and vice-versa. The last few weeks she was waiting for a new computer to arrive, so we could not write, but today she was all set up again and rearing to go, so at 10am we were both seated in our respective creative spaces ready to write. 

I rarely share my more creative/journal writing on my blog, but Ahava was convinced that what I wrote and shared with her this morning needed to be on my blog, so I thought I would give it a try and see what you think since I did say that I was going to be incorporating more of my creative writing into my blog posts. So here you have my creative journal writing piece from this morning. It does not (yet) have a title. I think it may end up being "Counter-migration," but I am not quite sure yet. Reading it again now I am quite certain that is is a sliver of a larger piece in the making. Perhaps I will write the rest of it in the new year, looking back. 

Counter-migration 

Morning sunlight on my sheer cream curtains makes me wonder into another day and what it holds. I think my life is shifting, but I have thought that too many times to be sure. The land of snow is pulling my heart north. Soon my body will be island-bound, returning to its natural habitat, bound by water and community. Its wildness reflecting and amplifying my own.

They say when you leave land you love it misses you as much as you it. That there is always a gap there waiting for you to return—slip back into, belong. The way you can sometimes slip back into a relationship with a dear friend with complete ease even after years apart.

If I were a landscape, I would be an island – a small one at that. I don’t really know why that is, in case you are wondering. It just is.

A week ago I watched hundreds of birds migrate overhead, their dark bodies fluid v-shaped streams, one after the other, dark waves against the blue vault above. It reminded me of a fall evening after picking up a load of turnips for market at the end of a long day. Limbs tired, contentment warm in my chest. We heard them before we saw them, pulled over at the side of the road on our way back to the farm, leaned up against the van, our necks craned up, eyes squinting against the last radiance of light stretched out long across the coastline and the inky darkness of the Atlantic. Above, wave after wave of geese determinedly pressed forward on their arduous journey south. Sunlight the colour of honey gave the left over stubble of the hay fields a grainy, dreamlike appearance. A cold wind blew steady. The sensation inside my body was one of contented yearning—for what I am not sure. The seasonal migration perhaps? The biological urge to give in to the pull of the land and sky? There was, back then, a daily conversation between my body and the land. The moon pulled my tides with her full pale face. At the most basic, biological level I was in synch with the universe.

But this is not about the past or discontent. This is my life. I am finding my way home. I am getting on a plane headed north in two weeks--my migration counter-intuitive. Am I fighting the inevitable, or giving in to some inner truth? It is hard to know. I pray daily. Morning, evening, and often in-between. Will something come of this trip north? Will I remain, the return portion of my ticket unused? Will the land, I wonder, still have me? Will it have held my spot open for me to reinhabit?   

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Do you keep a journal to record your thoughts? If you do, how long have you been journalling, and what do you enjoy most about having a journal? I invite you to and write an entry entitled "Migration." If you feel like it, post a sentence or two from your entry in the comments section below.

Have a beautiful Wednesday night, and an inspiring day tomorrow, friends!  

Counting down

It is the first day of the last month of the year, a.k.a. December 1. Outside all I can hear is wind blowing through the trees. It is a clear blue sunny day. The wind is shaking the Autumn leaves from the trees, sending them scuttling along the pavement. Tree limbs are breaking and falling all over the city and every now and then I hear sirens heading off to help someone remove the heavy limbs from a shattered roof or a crushed car. I am learning to love all the trees in this city. The Japanese maple out back that is still clinging to the delicate, deep red crumpled palms that adorn its branches. The huge oaks out front that, if I close my eyes, sound like the froth subsiding along the shore after a wave has broken. It is a new language, the language of trees, and I am accustoming my body to living beneath the vast canopy as much as I am accustoming my ears to the never ending sound of wind that is one of the few weather features that distinguishes winter in this part of the world from the rest of the year.

The other feature that distinguishes northern California is the fog that seeps in soft like a barefoot thief in the night, enveloping the trees and lamp posts so that when I look out the living room window with my cup of hot tea, there seems to be something mysterious about the street we live on. I feel as though I am looking out onto a scene from a mystery novel, and as though any minute a carriage is going to come clapping down the street and a shady character with a top hat and an upturned collar is going to emerge from it. I kind of love it the way the fog blurring everything gives our otherwise picturesque neighbourhood an air of mystery.

I have been thinking a good deal about the fact that this is December, and about the fact that exactly one year ago I was beginning Reverb10, a month-long commitment to write a blog entry using specific prompts that were emailed to me every day for the month of December. Gwen, the woman who hosted Reverb10 just sent an email out yesterday informing the thousands of people that took part last year that she is not going to host it this year, and that we should do our own thing. Last year she was in Colorado. This year she is in Mexico, and I guess the beach just doesn't scream "write your prompts!!" like the snow of Colorado did. I can totally understand that, but I have to admit that I had kind of been expecting to receive a prompt today to start me off on the journey through December to the new year, so when I woke up this morning I found myself wondering how I could come up with my own way of bringing 2011 to a close and preparing for a new year.

I have been feeling ready for a new direction for this blog. Last December was all about reflecting back on the previous year. I think reflecting back has its purpose, but over the last few weeks I have made a number of changes in my life, and I am really feeling ready to be here, right now--not reflecting back over the last year and not reaching forward into the future. As I type this I am realizing that this was one of the reasons that I created this blog: to create a space in which I could write about presence. It has been interesting that since I began, I have written a good deal more about the past than the present. So the fact that I am finally ready to be writing about the present a year and a half after I started this blog is rather amusing to me.

So as we move into December you may notice a shift in my writing. I am going to start including a good deal more creative writing into my blog. I may throw in some poetry or quotes that I come across here and there. I am going to be using this space as a place to explore where I want to take my blog this month. I am hoping that my process generates some questions or ideas that stimulate your own creative energies as well. As we move through the month, I would love to receive your feeback on which entries you love and would like to see more of. If anything I write or share stimulates your own creative process I would also really love it if you would share images, thoughts, ideas or links to your own blog entry in the comments section below. If you are having trouble making comments, select "anonymous" in the comments pull down menu and then just sign your name after your comment. I do not want to miss out on hearing from you because you are having trouble leaving a comment.

I am really excited to be heading into December with you, friends! I am looking forward to the month ahead and to the possibility for more creative sharing and dialogue. I wish you all a wonderful month, and look forward to seeing you right here tomorrow!