I’ve decided to share a glimpse of what I imagine will be the kinds of creations we are exploring together in this space and in upcoming workshops.

The first is a free-write poem that came from a collage workshop I participated in last year. I have included an image of the impromptu collage and the poem itself.

The second is a free-writing piece that came out of a guided visualization I participated in using the imagery of a lily pad.  The experience happened just after Imbolc, so my psyche was already in the space of seeds rooting down and beginning to make their turn up towards the surface come spring.

Embrace the Bardo
The in-between
Not here, not there
The crack
The fissure
The formless, yet to be formed 

At times quiet
At other times chaotic and wild
Untethered
Unanchored
Unmoored

The space of potential
of unknown
of yet to be and always has been

Let your wildness roam free
Unencumbered
Limitless
Without bounds

The roar of aliveness rippling out through the layers of Earth and the dimensionless Sky

Announcing
I am Here
I Matter

I can’t tell
If you grow up from the bottom
Or you reach down from the top.

It seems in some way you’ve always been both, suspended between the worlds of dark soil and sunlit blossom.

Holding the tension, while softly flowing with the water’s gentle current, like seaweed but rooted. The freedom to go wherever you want doesn’t exist as it does for seaweed, washing up on shore, drying out on sandy landings. For you, the freedom is held in the tension, the movement and unfolding can only happen between the earth and the sky, cradled in the nourishing water, forever growing both down and up.

Some might think it’s a shame that you don’t get to travel to other pockets of place, go on adventures or explorations; some may see your life as limitation, even in its beautiful blossom. You may not ever know the salt of the ocean or the heat of the baking sun on the earth. But what you do know is how living both rooted and sprouting allows for a different emergence, one of surprise, one of cycles, of birth and death, of dark and light.

It isn’t as limited or boring as the roaming seaweed might imagine. Instead, the world is continuously opening to new worlds, deeper worlds; the soil gets richer, darker, more alive, and the reach upward to blossom again in a different way each time brings renewal. The petals never take in the sun the same way twice.

And so, it is also, tethered to the places and the history of family, while also face-turned up to the sky, growing towards a new warmth, ready to unfurl uniquely and singularly.