yourpassions.tk

Do you believe in magic? Let me ask a deeper question here: What is magic? I keep a link to Dictionary.com on my favorites bar. The drift of their definition is that magic is appearances created by sleight of hand and devious means. I'm so disappointed. I do believe in magic, and the magic I believe in is the appearance of the unexpected, that which is not ordinarily possible. A related word is supernatural. That word, supernatural, brings me to the point of this post. Questions may be the single most powerful life writing tool. I refer to those open questions you pose on the page, then suspend thought and write the answers from wherever they come — your subconscious, God, the Universe. I'm less concerned about the source than the substance. Winding along the path of my daily adventure of discovery on the pages of my journal, I wrote into a dream fragment that took place in a church of sorts, a sacred space. I posed a question: “What is sacred? What does the concept mean?” Tw...

This morning as I wrote in my journal a name flowed out onto the page along with the thought, “Which Truth is True?” I have many conflicting feelings about this person, whom I'll refer to as Heesh, because nothing about the identity of this person is important. On impulse I began listing “true statements” about Heesh. I admire Heesh. Heesh makes me nuts. Heesh sometimes says hurtful things. Heesh is a b... . Sometimes I avoid contact with Heesh. Heesh doesn't mean to be hurtful. I learn a lot from Heesh. Etc. The list grew. Without conscious transition or intention, I began adding statements about my role in this relationship, the filters I perceive through. My filters subtly shifted as I realized the role they have been playing in my perceptions of this person. I became aware that I can choose filters.  At some point my hand quit moving and I fell into a reverie, staring at the tiny lights on the small Christmas tree a few feet away. I became transfixed by the glow as it warm...

How often do you stop to think about the source of mushrooms when you slice one up for an elegant meal you’re preparing? Did you know that commercial mushrooms grow in manure in dark caves? “Wait a minute,” you may be thinking. “Are you trying to spoil my dinner? And what on earth do mushrooms, manure and and caves have to do with life writing?” More than you would have guessed. Mushrooms are a gourmet item, turning many a mundane meal into a foodie’s feast. Stories perform a similar function, perhaps livening conversation at that feast. Though not all stories have mushroom-like roots in dung, and not all originate in darkness, some of the most compelling ones do. I mention this to urge you to look back through your life and explore a few of those dark moments you generally prefer to leave behind closed doors in the dungeon of memory. Grab a pen and paper and fling open that door, fearlessly facing the never-quite-forgotten. Do this with a strong sense of hope and confidence that yo...

Yesterday was my dad's 90th birthday. One day last week the following conversation took place between my husband and me: “Rats! I forgot to shop for a card for my father!” “Why don't you make him something like Gil made my mother?” Gil is a friend of my mother-in-law's who lives in her retirement community. For her recent 98th birthday, he snagged some historical highlights of her birth year from the web, added a few sappy sentiments at the end, and wowed everyone. It was sweet, but … if I were going to do something like that, it would be a bit more, well, elegant. And definitely not sappy. “I don't want to. It would take forever. … But … let me look at Gil's thing again.” He dug it out. Hmm, I thought. How long could it take to pull a few facts off the web. A little bit more formatting, maybe a couple of graphics. Surely I could think of a suitable conclusion. I cranked up Google to explore 1920. Most events pertained to war, the aftermath of war, or what would lat...