Janice Hunter's Sharing the Journey — soul food and support for coaches, writers and homemakers

Turning Tides and a Quick Catch-Up

by janice on July 11, 2010

We must be open to all points of the compass; husband, children, friends, home, community; stretched out, exposed, sensitive like a spider’s web to each breeze that blows, to each call that comes. How difficult for us, then, to achieve a balance in the midst of these contradictory tensions, and yet how necessary for the proper functioning of our lives. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, (A Gift from the Sea – 1955)

Thank you to every one who commented on my last post. As often happens, this post began life as a reply. I decided to post it instead, for those of you who don’t subscribe to comment threads.

A few weeks ago, if I’d logged in and found those comments, so full of wisdom, compassion, understanding, friendship and appreciation, I’d have wept with the emotion of it all. But today, after a few sunny, pain-free weeks full of music and reading, what I feel is a surge of contentment and gratitude…and a growing – but comfortable – longing to get back to some balanced blogging.

I’m not ready for daily blogging or inbox safaris yet, but I’ve regained enough perspective and clarity to know that taking a step back was entirely the right thing to do. I remember a few of you ‘logging off’ for a bit in recent years and coming back stronger and even more creative because of it.

In the hundreds of hours I’ve gained by not logging on every day, a deeper sense of calm has helped me – and my husband – stay more grounded while we navigate tough financial times and our kids’ teenage turbulence.

Before I dulled my own shine by spending too much time at a table, writing and reading online and not living enough, my writing tapped into a part of me that was more aware, more open, intuitive, communicative and creative. I feel this offline break is leading me back there.

When I wrote my coaching column, the monthly deadline suited me, but blogging’s blurred the line between ‘writing’ and chatting. My best bouts of creativity follow a clear pattern: on fire > burnout > rest.

I’m not a slow and steady, constant, reliable kind of blogger even though I love community connections and always feel the need to creatively filter and pass on what I experience. Because I’m slowly becoming my old synchronicity-loving self again, I’ve recently ’stumbled across’ lots of expressive arts courses, events and opportunities that have excited me and my daughter.

The universe has also delighted me with surprise visits from FOUR old and dear friends and their families en-route to and from holidays in Scotland. This means my daughter can have real life outings with her long-distance friends instead of just texts and cyber relationships.

My son, still physically unable to pursue any sports or social events that involve activity, is an inspiration to all of us. He’s simply taken the imposed rest time to fill his life with other things he enjoys, and is brave enough to believe that if sporting friends abandon him during this traumatic phase, then their friendship isn’t as valuable as he thought it was. He’s the poster boy in this house for living the ‘It is what it is…’ and ‘What will be, will be…’ way of life.

Our garden’s still a mess after the winter ravages, but I’m feeling the benefits of having aligned myself with the seasons again. I’ve been noticing the sudden breezes before storms and appreciating all the summer flowers in my garden when they come into bloom. Simple pleasures, like sitting on the back doorstep, enjoying a coffee in the sun, have been flowing back in like gentle waves and restoring me.

Being more mobile and proactive these last few weeks has also given me a boost. It’s meant that I’ve felt brighter and more positive and even shed a few midlife pounds; I’ve done less of what I call ‘C’ eating (Comfort/Celebration/Consolation/Compensation/Convenience) and am feeling the benefit. I now have more energy to support my friends who are battling cancer and my dad who’s experiencing health challenges in his eighties.

I sense that a lot of you experience similar blogging tides and seasons. I wrote a newsletter article a few years ago called Ebb and Flow so it’s now fairly apparent that I was a ‘tidal’ writer long before I became a deciduous blogger. I’ve no idea when I’ll be logging on again, but in the meantime, here are a few questions for you to ponder before we meet again:

What are your creative patterns?
Do you ever get an icky feeling or a sense that your blogging’s straying out of alignment with your integrity or seasonal/tidal patterns?
If you took a blogging break right now, for two straight weeks offline, how would you fill that time? If the thought appeals, what, if anything, is stopping you?
What do you need more of right now?
What do you need less of?
What do you need to say NO to?
What do you need to say YES!! to?
What expands you?
What contracts you?
Do you ever C-eat? If so, what do you really need instead of food? What is food (or drink) a substitute for?

Thank you, once again, for being so appreciative of my desire to craft something constructive out of the ups and downs of my life and for making this a place I enjoy coming back to.

Janice

Any comments...?

Deciduous Blogging, Soul Gardening and Cherishing our Children

by janice on June 22, 2010

It is…the parent willing to nurture a child that will decide our fate. ~ Barack Obama, in his inauguration speech.

A few months ago, I coined the phrase ‘deciduous blogger’. It seems I have a natural tendency to take frequent breaks from blogging; my blog often lies dormant while I gather strength, ready to reach for the sun, put out fresh new growth and blossom again.

I used to have a love-hate relationship with blogging; I’d periodically succumb to blogweariness, not only from writing and commenting at length, but from visiting dozens of blogs every day and spreading myself too thin in an attempt to participate in supportive, reciprocal blogging.

In that depleted state, I’d become more aware of the tribal drums of blogging and the underlying currents of hypocrisy, egotism and exploitation that so often leave me feeling queasy. Now, if blogweariness or cynicism sets in, I simply have a break.

These past few months, however, I haven’t been going through a spell of deciduous blogging. I’ve actually been battling a wind that’s felled dreams, washed away blossom overnight and threatened to uproot me. My roots ache from having to hold on so tight, even though I know that every storm they weather strengthens them. Sometimes, letting go is simply not an option.

Despite a notebook full of drafts and a camera full of photos to share, I’ve been resting after a confluence of losses, bad news, family health problems, teenage exams, financial blows and a minor but confidence wrecking car crash. Even when I wanted to log on to explain, and to bask in the warmth of my online friendships, I spent a part of my time away virtually immobilised with back pain; sitting at a computer was impossible.

I’m a very honest writer and cherish authenticity and integrity; I believe in looking for the learning in challenging situations, but in two months that have included a short spell in hospital, doctors’ visits, physiotherapy, friends’ battles with cancer, and a medical diagnosis that threatens to blight my son’s adolescence, every bird, bee, cloud and sign from the universe has told me to lay low, rest, fill up the jug and focus on my own health and that of my family. That’s the only way I can replenish my soul and my writing so that some day, I can turn it all into something that might touch, help or resonate with others.

So often we advise extreme self care but are the last to practise it. I love my family, my friends and online buddies, but if I don’t take care of myself, I have nothing of quality to give – and this beautiful world of ours deserves the best we can give, not half hearted love on automatic pilot.

I hope to be writing again soon, here and at my Kitchen Table Space; a comment response I left there the last time I logged on formed the core of this post. I adore my wee blog; I built it with love, hard work, time, energy, laughter, tears and a genuine desire to connect at the heart, to contribute something of value to the world, even if it’s just a splash of floral colour on a dreary day. I don’t get writer’s block; when I have an overwhelming need to stop writing and start living more, to clean house and do some soul gardening, I’ve learned to listen.

I hope you’ll bear with me while I tentatively dip my toes back into blogging waters.

In the meantime, here’s a video I’d urge you to watch if you’re an educator or have kids, nieces, nephews, young neighbours or grandchildren. As you know, I’ve had an organic, patchwork career which has included teaching, so I really resonated with Sir Ken Robinson’s latest TED talk. (I posted his 2006 TED video here when I started out blogging.)

In this latest talk, he discusses principles and beliefs that my husband and I actually live by when it comes to our kids. (To read more about how we try to nurture their talents, please check out my piece called Sharing the Journey.)

The poem in Sir Ken’s video is also deeply personal and special to me; used in this context – and because of the pain both my kids have been through these last few months – it had me in tears. I logged off weeks ago to cherish my loved ones and my health and I’m glad I did. I posted today because I wanted, more than anything else, to connect with you again.

Janice

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Any comments...?

How to Write like Adam Lambert (revisited)

by janice on April 26, 2010

Sorry I haven’t been writing or visiting blogs for a while. The volcano in Iceland turned a spur of the moment week away into an expensive and traumatic travel saga! We were very lucky; hundreds of thousands of people were stranded further afield in much more difficult circumstances, but the two day journey across France, the English Channel, England and Scotland was exhausting and we’re still a bit disorientated from the effects of sleep deprivation. It’s chastening to remember that most of the planet’s inhabitants are this tired all of the time and never have the luxury of a holiday in the first place.

We did have a fantastic time on the actual holiday, though, and I hope to share some highlights with you, but posting will have to wait while I decimate dust bunnies and catch up on email, laundry and sleep…

In the meantime, for those of you who are enjoying my blog-birthday wanderings through the archives, here’s another post from my first month of blogging in April last year. It’s one of the best pieces of advice to blogwriters I’ve ever written. Coincidentally, Adam Lambert was recently a mentor to this year’s hopefuls on American Idol, and he gave some excellent advice. He’s a consummate performer and his voice thrills me, really hits the spot.

See you soon. ~ Janice

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How to Write like Adam Lambert.

We watch American Idol every season, a small nuclear family sitting in a Scottish living room, eating pizza, my husband and I drinking wine, all of us enjoying not only the talent, but the stage-managed drama and entertainment of it all. It cuts across the age gap and gives us common ground to discuss.

This year, Adam Lambert has been our favourite from the start. But here’s why he got me thinking about writing the other day.

Talent alone is not enough.

Millions of people want to sing or write, to touch hearts with their voices. Millions would love to make masses of money from doing it, too. But what makes some people stand out?

Adam Lambert started young, that’s clear to see, and I reckon he’s had the support of his loved ones since the moment he figured out what he was born to do. I loved when his dad pointed out, against a backdrop of childhood photos of Adam dressing up and performing, that he was never much into sports.

He’s not a new phenomenon. He’s put in hard graft, earning a living from delivering Broadway performances every night, week in, week out. Maybe he even failed a few auditions along the way and learned from those, too.

He’s honed his talent with hard work and determination, and has learned how to command a stage, create presence and connect with an audience.

He chose to go the American Idol route, confident that the time was right. Impeccable timing and choosing the right platform are crucial for all artists who want to take their work to a wider audience.

He came to the show, daring not only to be different, but to be himself and different. The hair, the earrings, the painted nails, they’re simply symbols that say I’m not afraid to be me.

And just when we were getting used to that, the hair got slicked back and the image changed, just to mix things up.

He’s been versatile, experimenting with a variety of styles yet always, always letting his unique brilliance shine through.

Sometimes understated, sometimes over the top entertaining. That clear, haunting, passionate voice, that core of self-belief and keen sense of what he wants to do, where he wants to go and who he wants to connect with – it comes out in everything he does.

My teenage daughter sings, writes and acts. Some Idol performances get her ranting or raving, others leave her indifferent. But Adam Lambert’s performance of ‘Mad World’ – a song that she herself sings – stunned her, left us all transfixed.

We felt we’d had a glimpse of genius. The pain, the passion and the experiences he distilled into every syllable connected straight to that part of the soul where empathy lives. He made an already beautiful song his own. He made it an anthem.

He sang like a part of his very soul would die if he didn’t. I wish more people would aim to do that in their writing.

Some days I feel myself wanting to scream at fellow writers that it’s not all about the money, the fame and the glory. When you’re hard-working, passionate, driven to hone your talent, your gift, your life’s work, till it’s gem-bright and brilliant, the money follows.

Make people cry. Make them smile as they sit alone reading your words. Stun them into silence. Make them say Wow! with wide open eyes and gaping mouths. Don’t settle for mediocrity or pander to the people who pay. Be brilliant. Be yourself. Be your best self.

Any comments...?

Still Loving Fleet Foxes

by janice on April 16, 2010

I had big dreams, when I created this blog, of filling it with music for you to discover and enjoy. As I’m still enjoying the blog-birthday indulgence of rediscovering my archives, I wanted to share his post with you. It’s the second musical post I did. The first was Falling Slowly, but I hid that one in the archives. I haven’t become technically adept enough to install a jukebox in our wee café bistro yet, but please explore the links in this post if you weren’t around this time last year. If you were, please bear with me, or join me on a meander through memory lane! I still adore ‘Fleet Foxes’.

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Fleet Foxes

I have a strange, intense relationship with music. It affects me so much that there are periods where I choose not to listen to any at all.

Some music from my past is so special that I deliberately avoid it; I don’t want the potency of the memories eroded by constant exposure.

Other albums, tracks and voices can unlock memories so dangerous and painful that I prefer them to stay locked up in deep, dark, distant caverns, never to be visited again.

If I listen to new music during moments of intense emotion, it will be coloured forever by that moment. So I like to be alone, to choose where I am and what I’m doing the first time I listen to a new CD.

I enjoy music on the radio because the playlists are out of my control. Music comes and goes as the charts change. I take the good with the bad and the DJ banter. But sometimes, I hear a track that makes me want to rush out and buy the whole album.

That happened with the single ‘Mykonos’ by Seattle band, Fleet Foxes. I now own the CD, the eponymous ‘Fleet Foxes’.

‘Mykonos’ is haunting. It made my ears prick up the first time I heard it; so unusual, so uncommercial, refreshing and different. It had a unique haunting ’sound’ of its own, a distinct colour that had nothing to do with the lyrics. To be honest, I didn’t even register the lyrics. The harmonies and travelling rhythms made it a soundtrack for a ‘road trip’ movie yet to be made!

The CD hasn’t disappointed me either. More weird, unusual, difficult to define tracks that connect straight to the soul and bypass the brain. Guitar pieces reminiscent of early Leonard Cohen; a whisper of pan pipes; effortless, vibrant vocals and harmonies that reminded me of Gregorian chants, church spirituals, Neil Young, Aztec Two Step, Blue Grass music, British folk, the Beach Boys and something poignantly late 60’s early 70’s. Folk rock, bluesy ballads, a bizarrely timeless and eclectic yet somehow contemporary symphony.

Some of the sunny, soaring choirboy vocals and harmonies feel like they have…halos!

What can I say. It’s the first time in months that I’ve been moved to blurt to my husband “I’m going to get their album!” before even listening to sample tracks. He bought me it to celebrate my blog launch.

Maybe I’m way behind everyone else here, but I just wanted to share it with you in case it’s new for you too.

Please give it a try. You can listen to sample tracks from the Fleet Foxes album or download it on MP3 here You can also download ‘Mykonos’ for free here. Just scroll down to the ‘listen to samples’ section.) I’d love to hear what you think.

I’d also love to know what your last spontaneous ‘must have’ music buy was!

Any comments...?

Light at Winter’s End

by janice on April 12, 2010

The kids are still off school on Easter break, so I’m taking some more time away from the blog to enjoy them and explore the world a bit, like we did on our staycation last summer. They’re growing up so fast it’s terrifying.

In the meantime, there’s a piece called Track of Light over at my Kitchen Table Space that you might enjoy if you have time. I hope you’ll pop over for a read and leave a comment, even though I won’t be checking in till after my cyber-break. The photo below is one I took on the day that inspired the post.

Have a great week! If I do log on this week, feel free to shout “Log off, you addict! Go sit outside and get a sunkissed nose!” If I learn how to work the schedule function, I may schedule a few older posts from the archives before I log off, but if not, see you soon. ~ Janice

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Some Insights on Editing…

by janice on April 6, 2010

In this post, from April 5th 2009, I explore what editing – and editors – mean to me, as a wife, columnist and life coach. I also offer some tips on writing – and editing – with authenticity.

A Faithful Hand

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor to measure words but to pour them all out, just as it is, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away. ~ George Eliot

These words smiled up at me when I first discovered them, slipped a hand in mine, waiting to be taken home and shared with my husband.

I rarely write about him; I often refer to him, and to incidents in our family life, but to write about my love for him would be to go too deeply for comfort into the depths of my own being. After decades of devotion, it would damage something precious to try and unpick and examine the threads of the tapestry our life has become. Sometimes, words don’t go far enough.

Imagine the holy place that speaks to your soul in sacred silence, the sun, the sky, the sea, the earth, the breath of inspiration beneath your wings, a parent’s unconditional love, a child’s smiling eyes full of unquestioning faith and devotion, the way your best friend feels like home. The precious details of your day that make you rejoice to be alive. Anything that gives you a glimpse of God and can only be expressed in a prayer of gratitude.

That’ll give you some idea of how blessed I feel.

Is there anything or anyone you feel you can’t do justice to with words?

My favourite editor…

It’s no concidence that my husband is the first person I trust if I need the pre-submission draft of a longer piece checked. There are no ceilings when it comes to his belief in me. I could get a million negative comments from others, but as long as I liked a piece and he liked it, I wouldn’t wobble and crash.

He’s more well read than I am, and devours books on every topic without prejudice. He has a sharp eye, a longing for clarity and an ear that appreciates writing that flows effortlessly, regardless of sentence length. He likes authenticity and originality, passion and purpose.

One thing he does hate is pretentiousness. To hear him say “It’s good. You write well.” makes me feel like I’ve come home, and if he doesn’t like a word or a phrase, I just say, OK, and go to work on changing it. No fuss, no pain, no ego.

My Child Writer…

I write now like I did when I was a child. I have no cruel inner critic when it comes to my writing. I get the same pleasure when I edit as I do when I’m spring cleaning, redecorating a room, gardening or packing essentials into the smallest bag possible, ready for the simple pleasures of a beach holiday. I edit my own work like a child joyfully knocking down sandcastles, knowing the sand and the sea will still be there tomorrow. And when a piece is done, my heart knows it like a child does when a colourful crayoned picture is finished and handed over, and a sweet voice says this is for you.

My problems begin when someone else wants to edit my work.

What I need from an editor…

I can only work with editors who have talent but no egos, people who are so comfy in their own skins that they don’t need to get any gratification or power trips from suggesting changes to another person’s work. I like editors who edit for the same reason I write – because they care, and would find it impossible not to. Coaches want to see a person become the best they can be; good editors feel the same about a piece of writing.

But that’s where personal opinions make editing a minefield for me. In most cases, if you have an editor, it means they have the power to choose whether or not one of your pieces gets published. If your main aim is to be published, then you have to accept that they’ll be superimposing their own paradigm of “the best it can be” over your work, using their preferences and their criteria.

That’s OK if they love the bulk of your work, expect even more from you and agree with you about what you consider to be the best you’ve done so far.

What works for me…

I’ve had four editors in VOICE, the coaching newsletter I write for. Three have brought their coaching talents to editing, which has both raised my game and spoiled me for other editorial styles.

As editors, they’ve had important things in common: they share their praise and support easily, they have all accepted that I hate tracking, that I freak out if they write their own suggestions all over my work and that the first thing I need to have before I’ll start re-editing a piece is their gut feeling about it. If they don’t love an article, it’s much, much easier for me to create a new one from scratch; I hate having to make so many changes to a piece that it no longer feels like it’s mine. I’ve been lucky enough to receive a lot of editorial emails beginning with “I love it! There are only one or two things I was wondering if you could maybe consider changing.”

The editor who ‘fired’ me, a coach whose own edgy, sarcastic writing I didn’t enjoy, loved writing her ‘improvements’ all over my pieces with tracking, but didn’t like lyricism, long pieces, Scottish spelling or me. One of my favourite pieces, Birdsong, was published intact because I’d got to the stage where I said to her “Take it or leave it but don’t dare change a comma or a word.”

My favourite editors have discovered how I operate best. They’ve learned that I will edit happily for days for the fun and the dialogue, but that I don’t respond well to blunt criticism of my work or changes I haven’t made myself; I react like a fiercely protective parent and the stunned, hurt child whose crayon drawing has had red pen corrections scribbled all over it.

This is why I’ll probably never be able to be a copywriter, a ghost writer or a freelancer. I know this attitude may make me look like a primadonna, but please believe me, I’m not. I love hacking my drafts to bits and trying to polish them to perfection but I stop when it’s no longer fun or when I feel like I’m ripping the heart, authenticity and spontaneity out of a piece. I know all novelists and freelancers need good editors but I think a special kind of editing is necessary when the writing is deeply personal as well as creative self expression.

That’s why I would happily adhere to a blogger’s requests for me to change something in a commissioned guest post. As a blogger, you are your site’s creative parent; you’re reponsible for whatever goes out on your site, and I respect that.

Be your own editor…

Before you send a piece anywhere, be your own editor, your own supportive coach who asks good questions. Editing is writing, an inextricable part of it, so find your own metaphor for helping you love it. Imagine chipping away at a sculpture like Michaelangelo, trying to reveal the work of art you know is within. Imagine it’s like gardening, or packing a small suitcase for a holiday or spring cleaning your house from basement to attic. Before we pack or garden or declutter, we need to know why we’re doing it, and what we hope to reveal or achieve.
Who are you? Clean up your own personal stuff. The hidden you, the real you, will be revealed through your writing, whether you want it to happen or not. Is this a person you’re happy for the world to meet? Ask What does this piece say about me? every time you write, even when the piece is based on the needs of your reader. Remember that everything you write on the internet will be visible for all time. Write something that your grandchildren won’t cringe at.
Ask yourself if your writing is a vehicle for passing on useful information or if visitors enjoy the experience of being with you and your work as much as the information they take away. If it’s the latter, don’t be too quick to edit your quirks, personality and passions out of your presentation.
Learn where your own lines are drawn and how far you’re willing to cross them to have a piece appear in print. Integrity is priceless.
Imagine that everything you write forms part of your resumé. It’s OK to see proofreading as part of your editing, but fresh eyes and ears and leaving some time and space before proofreading is vital. I find it helps to print a piece off then go through it with a pen, pretending that it’s not my work.
Be clear about who your reader is; honour the bond you create with each and every individual who takes the time to read your words.
Love and respect yourself with the same unconditional devotion you give your loved ones. A piece of the divine universe is trying to recreate itself through you and your writing. Scrub up and let it shine through.

How do you feel about editing and being edited?

(This was supposed to be a birthday ‘card’ for my husband, a simple quote, but as often happens, something flooded in and overflowed. He didn’t mind, though…he’s my very own Colonel Brandon.

The current IAC VOICE editor is Linda Dessau, a writer, creativity coach and expert on music therapy. My previous VOICE editors were Angela Spaxman, IAC President and leadership coach, and Barbra Sundquist, a respected coach certification mentor coach.)

Any comments...?

Easter Flowers, Greek Feasts, Seaside Candles and Poetry…

by janice on April 4, 2010

easter bouquet 2

Your job, then, should you choose to accept it, is to keep searching for the metaphors, rituals and teachers that will help you move ever closer to divinity. The Yogic scriptures say that God responds to the sacred prayers and efforts of human beings in any way whatsoever that mortals choose to worship — just so long as those prayers are sincere. As one line from the Upanishads sugests: “People follow different paths, straight or crooked, according to their temperament, depending on which they consider best, or most apropriate — and all reach You, just as rivers enter the ocean.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Happy Easter! (…or Happy Easter week if you took a break and are reading this a few days after Easter!)

While I was out shopping for ingredients for a special feast – Easter day and a family birthday – I saw those flowers above and melted. I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully for the most part, to cut down on caffeine and wine, so flowers have been my replacement drug of choice. Oh how I wish you could stick your face in these and smell the jonquils; they’re so heady it’s like drinking in fragrance and they make you raise your shoulders with breathing them in then you sigh out pure bliss…

It’s been a funny old Easter this year. When Greek Orthodox Easter and western Easter fall on the same day, it means that my kids’ candles and presents, sent by godparents in Greece, arrive at the same time as their chocolate Easter eggs from grandparents here. We normally have to have two celebrations. Today’s also a family member’s birthday, yet one of my kids is away on a special county-level music course, an honour and experience we were loathe to ruin by insisting on an Easter weekend spent together. I think God would smile at the sound of children celebrating the resurrection with choral harmonies, triumphant brass bands and soaring strings.

0904100002 We have a feast on Easter day, with red boiled eggs, traditionally dyed and decorated on the Thursday before Easter, and all kinds of salads and a roast. I miss being in Greece on the Friday before Easter as that’s when church bells toll mournfully, the whole day long, on every island and in every village, town and city. I also miss being part of Anástasi – the Resurrection – on the Saturday night.

At midnight, the first few candles in each church are lit from the holy flame then one worshipper ignites a neighbour’s candle with love and chanted blessings – Christ is risen, truly risen – until everyone’s taper is lit. Happy crowds carrying flickering candles walk home from church, like rivers of light winding through the darkness while fireworks explode into dazzling bouquets above their heads in a vast black velvet sky. It’s good luck if you manage to keep a candle lit all the way home then mark the sign of the cross with smoke on the lintel above the front door as a blessing to last the whole year.

pink seaside Easter candle My kids’ godmothers – who live in different seaside towns and have no contact with each other – both sent them beautiful seaside themed candles that match their rooms.

I’d like to leave you today with one of my favourite poems in the whole world, ee cummings’ i thank you God…

As I said in my post on April 12th last year, “I love the way ee cummings’s mind moves. I love the way he makes me explore the possibilities of my own language, searching for meanings in what’s not there and the why and the where of what is there. I love his delight in words, letters, syntax, symbols and sound and the way he expresses life and love.”

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Janice

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I’m celebrating my blog birthday by reminiscing!

This time last year, I posted….

Any comments...?

Some Haiku How to’s

by janice on March 31, 2010

robin eating

Last year, I wrote a spontaneous post called Haiku: Sharing Essence, Shedding Skins, which I loved. Last week, in Why Haiku? we looked at why writing haiku is a good idea. We also looked briefly at the content they cover and their effects on the reader and writer. (Haiku is both a plural word and a singular, by the way.)

Today, I’ll be giving you some brief guidelines on how to write haiku. Why brief? Firstly, there are plenty of specialist haiku sites out there, and haiku experts and authors. Secondly, I suspect no poet enjoys being told what’s ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, and I believe the most important thing is the pleasure you get from writing.

Striving to write haiku, within the traditional guidelines, has given me a great deal of pleasure and repays the effort, even though most of my poems rarely make it into the realms of ‘proper’ haiku. That’s why my posts about haiku have been informative as well as personal; I’d like you to discover that joy, too, if you haven’t already.

So, here are a few tips.

get used to carrying a notebook and jotting down life-sketches
contemplate nature and objects so you can describe them objectively
immerse yourself and stay centered in the NOW, the present
become one with nature and empathise
recollect your thoughts and recreate them in silence and solitude
don’t attribute human qualities to nature; describe it as it is. (Tricky, this one, as vivid verbs and participles often wander into anthropomorphosis – see, I just did it!)
if you use adjectives and adverbs, make sure they vivify
make every word and syllable work hard
use verbs in the present tense
suggest the emotional reaction you had during your haiku moment
use normal, common language; try and get your English as natural and ‘unpoetic’ as possible
avoid end rhyme
life is the essence of haiku; it doesn’t have to be beautiful
don’t be obscure; avoid personal symbolism and intellectual allusions (there’s a lot of debate about this last one, because of how much homage goes on)
avoid poeticism and figurative language if you can; haiku are immediate
work on each poem till you’re sure the reader will feel what you felt
haiku aren’t about you being clever; be as ‘invisible’ as you can so there’s nothing to detract from the experience you’re recreating
the best haiku are written by those folk whose minds are contemplative, serene and calm; they are the people whose capacity for mental stillness is best able to recreate the experience
use words which indicate the elements or the seasons (kigo); they give universal breadth and depth. The Japanese have plants, animals and elements that indicate the seasons and special times of the year. For example, the phrase kaze no kaori, ‘wind scent’, is a season word representing (Japanese) summer – May, June and July. There’s an extensive list at the back of William Higginson’s book, The Haiku Handbook -25th Anniversary Edition: How to Write, Teach, and Appreciate Haiku

Haiku Form

Ah, …eventually, you sigh…here we go…

Haiku don’t have to be in three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively. Folk did this originally, thinking it was the best way to represent Japanese syllables, or onji, which are shorter and more stable in their length than English syllables; English syllables vary in the length of time it takes to pronounce them. (Compare ‘ease’ with the ‘ed’ at the end of ’started’.)

Personally, I love the 5-7-5 structure; I enjoy trying to corral my thoughts into a restriction that makes my tapping fingers feel like accomplices. And I suspect hundreds of thousands of non-Japanese folk feel the same. Cor van den Heuvel, a respected expert and haiku poet, says this in The Haiku Anthology

Though a few poets still write in the 5-7-5 syllable form, this form is now mostly written by schoolchildren as an exercise to learn how to count syllables, by beginners who know little about the true essence of haiku, or by those who just like to have a strict form with which to practice.

I guess that puts me in his third category. However, having taught haiku both in classrooms full of children, and to foreign adults learning English, I must admit I find their enthusiasm and beginners’ minds – and often their results – more full of haiku essence than the work of some élitist, haiku experts.

English haiku often have 7 accented syllables with a syllable total - including unaccented syllables – of about 12. Most experts agree that haiku shouldn’t have more than 17 syllables.

You don’t even need to have three lines…

at dusk hot water from the hose ~ Marlene Mountain

…although many haiku do have a structure of three lines with a 2 -3 – 2 sequence of stressed syllables.

On néaring the súrf,
évery fóotprint becómes
thát of the séa… ~ James W. Hackett

What you do need are two rhythmically balanced sections and a cutting word (kireji) or some kind of punctuation or natural break between them. Higginson suggests that if you leave a major grammatical pause between the 2nd and 3rd stressed syllables or between the 5th and 6th stressed syllables, it provides the sense of division created by the Japanese kireji.

In these examples, can you feel that break, that pause that heralds the moment of altered perception, or signals that there’s a universal message or deeper truth in the emotion conveyed by the juxtaposition of the images?

The names of the dead
sinking deeper and deeper
into the red leaves ~ Eric Amann

a bike in the grass
one wheel slowly turning -
summer afternoon ~ Lee Gurga

The Gurga poem makes me feel the essence of summer heat and fields and childhood and wide open spaces. I feel the presence of someone, maybe a child, who has tossed down the bike and just left the shot, maybe in pursuit of the next pleasure, as we pan in on the still spinning wheel; it suggests to me how childhood is gone in an instant, how that wheel spins and then slowly comes to a halt and how precious it is to take it all in and savour it while we have the chance. But that’s just my gut feeling.

I hope this mini-series has heightened the pleasure you get from reading and writing haiku. If you’re inspired to write haiku or any kind of haiku inspired short poems over the spring break, you know you’re always welcome to share them with us here.

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I’m celebrating my blog birthday by reminiscing!

This week last year, I posted….

31: Why Do You Write?
29: Meet my New Baby Bloggling!
29: Quote-Hunting: How to Improve your Writing and your Life.
28: Coach for Humanity
26: Falling Slowly
25: Everything is Fuel for Writers
23: How to Beat the Blogging Blues

Any comments...?

A Patchwork Post: Quote-hunting, My Bloggling’s Birthday…and Cake!

by janice on March 29, 2010

cake (laptop shaped)

I logged on to post my final haiku instalment, then suddenly realised what the date was. It’s been a year exactly since the official launch of Sharing the Journey! And yes, that is a photo of a REAL cake, by someone called Zhanna in St Petersburg.

I’ve had a rich, gratifying year full of connection, friendship, learning and inspiration. Curiously, though, my stats declare that in some ways, it’s all been downhill since that first day; because I launched with a simultaneous guest post over at Write to Done, Zen Habits’ sister blog, I got hundreds of hits in a few hours, and have never had that many since! That was probably my first lesson in blogging – don’t get obsessed with statistics or you’ll get depressed and fry your brain!

Since then, I’ve learned that I am what I call a “deciduous blogger”. I need periods of dormancy so I can grow and blossom. I also need frequent integrity checks, as there are aspects of the blogging world that don’t sit well with me. Here’s how I expressed it in my post Guest House:

Writing helps the soul breathe, but blogging is a different beast. It makes me feel like a madwoman most days, swinging between highs of connection, learning, new friendships and self expression and lows of paranoia, frustration, exhaustion and queasiness at the underlying hypocrisy and unmentioned stalking and plunder that goes on in the shadows.

Some days I gush, full of the overflowing inspiration I feel the need to share, grateful for the gift of every single page view or subscription; some days I long to lash out and rant.

I relish our humanity – mine, yours and that blogger over there’s, the one who bugs us both. But I know, from living every detail of my journey, that I’m not positive every day, that I’ve needed my darkness to make me reach out for better days, like a plant craving the sun’s embrace. The huge discrepancy between my subscriber numbers and the comments boxes makes me wonder if I’ll ever learn enough in the silence between the comments to know what you want to read, what you’d like me to share.

One thing I do know, I appreciate you, for taking the time to come here and read. It’s all a writer really needs, that one-to one connection. Everything else is a bonus. I’ve cut and saved the rest of this draft to post later – it started to sound embarrassingly like a weepy, grateful Oscar acceptance speech – but for now, here’s the piece that marked the beginning of my journey.

Quote-Hunting: How to Improve your Writing and your Life

Big claim. How on earth can capturing quotes in a notebook improve our lives? I’m guessing you’re a book lover as well as a wordsmith. Or an avid reader of other people’s blogs? If we use our skills as quote-hunters with integrity, we can sharpen our writing and invite presence, openness, connection, focus and inspiration into everything we do.

Being open to inspiration and guidance

As a writer, you should have a sticky soul; the act of continually taking things in should be as much a part of you as your hair color. ~ Elizabeth Berg

I never go out without a pen, a notebook and a book to read. When I read a book with a ‘quotebook’ and a pen handy, it’s a signal I send to myself and to the universe. It says “I’m open. I expect nothing, but I’m prepared to be moved, enlightened or entertained. I’m a student, ready and willing to learn from the lives and the wisdom of others.” In my Filofax, stuck on the fridge, pinned to my pinboard and incorporated into my art work, albums and blog, quotes serve as flashes of inspiration, mini mission statements and signposts to keep me on track. Dead poets become heroes, strangers become mentors.

Right in the middle of Barack Obama’s inauguration speech, I jotted down the words that became the header quote for a multi-threaded article I’d written about school decisions, coaching, my daughter and the new president, called Sharing the Journey. I’d been hunting for the right quote for hours and I felt like he was speaking to me directly when he said, “It is…the parent willing to nurture a child that will decide our fate.” It brought the whole piece together and set the tone.

Focus and attention

“You see, what catches our attention might be more than a coincidence – it might also be a potential incident of inspiration.” ~ Wayne Dyer

Using a quote by someone else can add freshness and a different perspective to what you’re expressing, like a photo used to illustrate a blog post. At the beginning of a piece, it can stimulate curiosity and provide a taste of
buttons what’s to come or it can highlight an important concept. In the middle of a piece, it can link sections or bind ideas like a ribbon around a bouquet.

Finding the perfect quote that illustrates several sentiments or pulls together a complex train of thought is similar to recognising one of life’s Aha! moments. It’s synchronicity’s way of helping us focus and pay attention. Highlighting sections of your own writing, either as a header or in a text box, can help clarify your aims, intensify your intention or mirror your message. We all have different ways of processing the world; it’s a sign of respect to others if we try and find a way to repackage what we’re saying in ways that resonate.

Connection, magical moments and collages

“Cling to simplicity, sincerity and the power of truth.” ~ from the I Ching

Our first instincts are often the ones that bypass our censors and cruel inner critics which is why many quotes become deeply personal and precious to us. They’re like messages sent from our own souls.

Every time you choose a quote that resonates with you, don’t stop to ask why; just write it down and keep it safe. Quotes are like photographs, snapshots of who you are, who you were. They’re music that moves you, lyrics that leave you scarred. They’re memories of a moment when you came upon someone else’s words and felt connected, not only to another human being, but to the moment, the thought and the feeling that overflowed from them and cried out to be heard. The ‘Me too!!’ or ‘That’s it exactly!!’ moment.

As writers, isn’t that what we want to achieve in our own work?

Being open to connecting with others in this way makes us more grateful and humble, more open as human beings, more able to create this kind of connection in our own writing. It’s our unique life experience and how we channel, choose and arrange the moments, the music and the words that makes us writers, creating collages that turn our lives into works of art – living, breathing works of art that we want to share with others.

(This piece appeared as a guest post in Write to Done . It was was adapted from my Coaching Moments article Treasure Hunting, which was edited by Linda Dessau and appeared in the March 2009 issue of VOICE.)