Unexpected Trip Back to Myself

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Heloise Jones

The calendar has turned another year. I’ve had no hesitation writing 2019. It’s been a roller-coaster of highlights & lows the past 7 years. Looking ahead feels good. In no small measure because I took a journey to Kenya in December. A return to travel after nearly 5 yrs. and no ordinary trip. A mix of awe, wonder, beautiful connections, and unexpected challenges, I came back changed.

After a few days adjustment, I slept 9 hrs. a day for days in a row when I returned. No ordinary sleep, tho. I was deep in the ethers and nether realms, with dreams I couldn’t remember. Like I was catching up on years of no sleep. I didn’t return to FB right away, either. Even after a 3 week absence, first time since I started ages ago, I’m still not back full-time. I’m finding new space.

Truth, the entire trip was the final leg of a journey back to myself, only to be seen in hindsight.

I’d been saying all year I was going to Africa, albeit with no answer how or when. Then, an email arrived from a writer friend about a writing contest, 48 hrs. to deadline. I won a partial fellowship to a writing residency.

I was thrilled. I’m intensely interested in culture and how it shows up in both works and a writer’s voice, so the chance to meet Kenyan writers excited me. Plus, we’d reside in the lower rift valley for part of the journey. I was enthralled with the idea I’d be in the place that inspired Karen Blixen to write “Out of Africa.” As time got closer, there was evidence and strong intuition all my surprises may not be pleasant ones. I was too far in, too invested with desire and money to back out, tho. I needed this trip. I needed to unplug, step away from work. To write my own work, again, and talk with other writers about writing. To be inspired by the shifts a new-to-me place brings. I’d been feeling anxious about life for too long. I left ready for something good.

Oh, my. I was not prepared for how deeply I’d feel a connection to the land and people I encountered in the silences. Africa became a part of me as if my DNA changed. Several people have told me since that this is what happens. It’s deep, or not at all. No middle ground.

In a weird kind of way, one of my discomforts turned into a blessing. Most who meet me think I’m an extrovert (or weird) because I’m authentically curious, interested, and expressive. The truth is I spend most of my time in solitude, and typically travel alone. Long periods with people talking in groups feel overwhelming for me. One way I dealt with this was to sit up front in the seat next to the driver on our group drives. I didn’t run, scream ‘shotgun,’ it seemed to evolve. Like the angels watched my back, even in a lucky invitation by the guide when we went on safari! I was happy sitting there quietly where I could see, have questions about what I observed answered. Things like history of the land & people, rhythms of African life & traffic/travel, the city, the country, animals. All the things I was interested in.

My experience on The Maasai-Mara National Reserve was perhaps my biggest surprise. I saw bones gleaming white on the savannah and they captured me. Strings of them behind black-horned skulls, everywhere. Sitting beside our Maasai guide who was educated as an animal and land conservationist, I learned the close cropped, tawny colored grass covering the ground would rise tall and green with the rains in the fall, and the animals would safari (to travel, from the Arabic safara; to journey in Swahili) across the hills from the Serengeti. That the plains would blacken with thousands of animal bodies, and one could see a wildebeest brought down by lions once every hour. And how when the lions were done, the wildebeest fed waves of hyenas and jackals. In the end, beautiful vultures unlike any I’ve ever seen, white-backed and gray-backed, picked the bones clean. What struck me was every skull rested chin forward. I thought an animal in death would lie on its side. Who knows, perhaps the weight of the horns righted the skull after the flesh was gone. I didn’t invite a logical explanation. It was a spiritual experience. The bones talked to me of sacred offerings and the cycles of life.

When we returned to the rural rustic accommodations on the Maasai preserve where we stayed, a poem flowed thru me. The only fresh thing I wrote on the entire residency. When I got home, I edited it, added a dedication to my Maasai ‘teachers,’ community leader Simon Metekai Masago and safari guide Jackson Kayionni Letiol, shared it with them. It’s been accepted for publication this spring in The Wayfarer, a beautiful professional journal with the tagline “Reimagining the Possible – Charting the Way to Change.” Could this be any closer to what happened for me?!

With all the good stuff, I’d be remiss to not admit there were moments of deep challenge on the trip. Things that hurt and couldn’t be fixed. And in the end, I had a choice. I could let them take me back to what I know for sure: Sometimes we can’t fix things in the moment. We gotta own what’s ours, learn and move on, without putting up walls. We all look thru a lens created by our experience. And ultimately, the best we can do is find our way to who we are in our Heart, and BE that. My choice, fierce hearted.

Amazing lyricist (poet) and musician Bruce Cockburn says it best in his song, When You Give It Away. “I’ve got this thing in my heart, I must give you today. It only lives when you Give it away.”

This turning inside me feels like the animals must feel with the promise of fresh grass.

Wishing you All Things Good in 2019.

The photos are O’Hare Airport, Chicago, USA. This is what I saw when I entered the terminal. I swear, after 25 hrs. travel, I didn’t see the affirmation facing me on the globe ’til I got there & looked up.
Africa.

Getting to Wise. A Writer’s Life.

This blog is dedicated to my friend Johnson Mwangi Mathenge, who I sat beside for probably 22 hrs. as we drove thru Kenya. He shared so much about what I saw,
and brought me the best Kenyan tea.

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The Missing Empty Days

Posted on September 25, 2018 by Heloise Jones

“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything whatever.” – May Sarton

I saw these words by May Sarton on Facebook yesterday, and keep going back to them. I know what she’s saying. And they struck me particularly hard because they appeared on the heels of an acute awareness of the lack of dreamtime in my days. My thoughts how I haven’t recovered the rhythms of my life or creativity, yet. That no matter how much I tell myself stick to The List, tasks get added like an army ants on the page. Small things that add up, fill the cracks and crevices in the hours. And squeeze me.

I know the importance of ‘meandering’ days, called ’empty’ by May Sarton. I talk about them in my book, The Writer’s Block Myth. The value of pauses and breaks. I list daydreaming and engaging with our imaginations as one of the seven important things all writers do.

This goes deeper, tho. It hits the heart of who I am. I’m never bored when alone. My imagination runs deep and layered. A psychic once said it had its own aura. Something she’d never seen before. Truth. . .I can sit & look out a window or into the distance for hours, experiencing with my heart and mind something beyond myself. And for me, it’s not unlike when I’m writing and into the work. Useful. If you saw me, you’d think me doing nothing ‘useful’ (an over-rated word).

Consider and imagine what you see when you watch the light. The subtleties of color, shadows, negative spaces. Where that takes you. Or notice tiny details. How dust motes move, reveal the air. How leaves and berries weave, form texture. How the sun feels on each part of your skin. For me, it’s hearing with my inner self, considering the patterns of my life, ideas, and traveling places known & unknown. Stretching who I am so I’m bigger and part of a larger Universe.

True for those who don’t write, too. For anyone, actually.

There’s been too few of these sorts of days for me the past 18 months. The time I lie still in bed after waking that used to be filled with dreams, fun things to look forward to, or the scene I’m writing is now filled with thoughts of what’s got to be done, how to do it and when. A devil on my shoulder co-opts my dreams, constantly chatters To-Do’s, Shoulds, Oughtas. It just won’t sit in the corner and shut-up when I tell it to. My sense of happy peace, creativity, and writing is dangerously affected.

You know know what I mean, right?

I gotta shift this. I desire balance and grace. To wake up with I love my life on my mind. I won’t call finding that sweet spot of relaxation, where peace & creativity dance a challenge. That alone sounds like work and makes my heart hurt. Perhaps a bit of radical self-care scheduled for more than an hour or two. And crossing an entire day off on my calendar as a BE zone. Sticking to it, something I’ve not done in a long time. And traveling, which always takes me out of my routine, and brings me back home brighter, fresher, inspired. If that doesn’t work, I’ll pay closer attention. Listen & watch for the answers to my questions. They always arrive when I’m open. After all, it’s mostly a head thing.

The intention’s set. Failures of the past irrelevant. Now it’s time to give myself permission. Something else I write about in my book. It’s clear the doctor needs her own medicine. The harvest full moon seems a good time to start.

Tell me. . .what takes you out of your mind-chatter and feels like Peace?

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Look for the Stories

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Heloise Jones

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me,
‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
~ Fred Rogers

Seems I see scary things in the news every day. I contribute to organizations (women, environment, children, human rights) that assure me helpers are out there. What I constantly tell myself is Look for the stories. Stories make my world bigger, and more fun. They help me make sense of things. We are made of stories. It’s what we humans have in common. Perhaps it’s because at the heart, stories are connection. And our choice whether they’re destructive or empowering.

Before the sun clears the Sangre de Cristo mountains I see from my living room window, I’m out for a walk most mornings. 7 blocks up, 6 down. A quiet experience, as a rule. This week I got stories.

Walking up, I saw a skinny coyote with big ears ambling down the street, coming my way. It looked flea-bitten, and raggedy. We both stopped, scoped each other out for minutes. It looked more tired than threatening. I wondered if it thought me a threat. I decided to keep walking. S/he moved, then, too. We passed on our own sides of the street, both of us eyeing the other as we did, then both of us checking over our shoulders a few times ’til I rounded the corner. I wondered what the story was with that scraggly coyote walking toward more civilization, seeming to have a destination, which was strange.

Walking down, at the long grassy park by the rose garden, I saw a guy munching crabapples. Aren’t they bitter, I said. Best apples, have one, he replied. I had to jump to pluck one from the tree. I learned his name is Max. He used to be a marine biologist, and had worked up & down the coasts of Central and South America. Now he lives in his truck, works on farms. What do you do in the winter, I asked. Go to beaches where it’s warm, he said. As we walked toward his shoes, he did a little singsong chant walking in the grass is a gas, gas, gas. Immediately I could feel the grass between my toes. I wanted to take off my shoes, but I didn’t. I shared it on Facebook. And the spin from that feel good 60s song sparked folks. Who knew so many remembered! Connection.

Two days later he told me the big tree I visit each morning, the one I say hello to, and look up her trunk as I touch her ‘face,’ that’s bigger than any other tree in the park by a long shot, is a giant sequoia. It’s a baby in sequoia-years, he said when I wondered about its canopy so low. He told me the story.

A man who still lives in Santa Fe planted both it and a redwood. The seeds wouldn’t germinate here, so the man went where they would and brought the saplings back. How do they get water, the ones in CA take it from fog, I said. The spray from the sprinklers in the park. I’m checking out the redwood in another neighborhood this week. Imagine. A giant sequoia in the desert. I’m just wowed. And oh, gosh, what’s the story of the man who went to such lengths to plant trees he’d have to live 500 yrs. to see as adults?!

Indian Market’s a huge event in Santa Fe. If you’re not a collector, Sunday’s a great time to go. No crush of crowds. Space & time to talk with artists. I love seeing work from other parts of the country. I always look at the placard for their tribe, always ask where they live now. When I saw an artist from Standing Rock, a sob caught in my throat. ‘Oh! I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I just get choked up.’ I’m glad, she said. That story we both know in our own way, sharing the feeling.

An artist from an Alaskan tribe caught me with her stunning sculpture of a whale, one of my spirit animals. She got it so gracefully. The eye perfect, with Soul. A woman emerging from its back. Subtle, and yet not. I saw stars in the perfectly placed sprinkling of shiny ‘barnacles’ she included. I marveled at how the bronze looked like stone. She said she knew the stone she wanted, and sent a piece to the person who cast & finished it to match. I looked her up online. She does a lot about women transforming into animals. Stories from her tribe, her site says. I wonder why those particular stories in the far north.

I saw Ledger Art for the first time, something new to me. It emerged in the early days on the Indian reservations when the buffalo hides they typically painted their symbols & visual stories on weren’t available. They gathered paper from discarded ledgers. Preserved their culture in images over the records of their white captors. These stories socked me to the heart, and captured my imagination.

There were lots of stories about turquoise. How rare stones from closed mines came into their hands. The father who worked building roads for the state carrying stones home in his lunch pail. His daughter having trash bags full in her basement. The artist who worked on the rigs, no one believing he was a professional artist like he said. Except for one guy who gave him a small bag of the precious rock.

I shared a rock story of my own. A day I spent in Bisbee, AZ in the early 90s, before it ‘boomed.’ Bisbee turquoise being prized. Few people were there then. A few dusty rock shops, a sweet gift & clothing shop, and a jeweler mainly what I remember. How the jeweler told me to hold my hand straight, palm down, fingers together. And from trays he kept locked away, he lifted precious & valuable gems with tweezers, placed them in the cracks between my fingers where they met my hand. For two hours I felt the energy and light of those stones. It was magical. ‘I could’ve bought Bisbee turquoise for so little,’ I said, ‘and I didn’t.’ But you have a great story, the artist at the market replied. Sharing that story, I saw & felt that day in Bisbee all over again.

Stories are everywhere. They take us down roads we don’t imagine. Help us relive memories. Broaden our thoughts about places, people, and things. They get us to ask the what if, why, and how come of curiosity that feeds our writing. They shift our perspectives & connect us.

Like the guy behind a deli counter this week. His wide open face. His hand shaking, almost imperceptibly. His presence with his task, so earnest. And that brilliance of a smile each time he looked at me. I told him ’Thank you’ when he gave me the small container. Then added, ‘and thank you for your smile. You made my day.’ It was impossible to match his beaming face when I said that. It’s impossible to know his story. I will tell you, tho, a part of my heart healed in that moment, and the story I head in my head about the day changed.

Every July author & artist Mary Anne Radmacher gets a Christmas card from two friends. Because it’s halfway between Christmases, and their story says Christmas is a season that lasts 365 days a year, and 366 every four years. The Story is the Spirit. not the day. Whatever you celebrate. I just love that. Look for the stories.

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because
the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
~ Roald Dahl

Getting to Wise. A Writer’s Life.

Photo: Luis-Alfonso-Orellana

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Today I’m Surfing

Posted on July 10, 2018 by Heloise Jones

I intended to get this blog out early. For over three years it went out 10am every Tues. with me not knowing what I’d say ’til I sat down that morning. Now, so much floods my mind, I collect lists, notes, and excerpts. Half what I write gets cut. Every 10 days feels right.

I seem to be talking more about writing in this writing life lately. And yet, it’s still about the journey and lifehacks – curiosity, observing with awareness, shifting the narrative, inspiration to keep going, editing our mindset so we thrive. Navigating life in the real world so we create. And tho I’ve always said artists and writers are powerful, I’m feeling the floor demands more, whatever we do. Because we’re creative beings with choices. And these times call for creativity.

Last week I saved this by author Richard Bausch. Someone Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler praises with “no writer has a finer insight into the delicate nuances of the human heart.”

“The order and harmony of the waves, here on the coast, rolling in with their strangely, widely-spaced iambic rhythm–and I think of something I read long ago, by Robert Graves I believe, called “The anvil and the oar.” About the rhythms of language and poetry as being influenced by the songs in the world’s clamor. Makes me realize again that much of what we do in the act of writing is visceral, made through the deep urgings and agitations of our nerves, of being-in-the earth’s gravitational pull, heart and lungs pulsing and beating with the same rhythms of the sea. That, again, the intelligence we keep seeking to find is in the nerve-endings, and that the SOUND of it in fact can determine the sense of it. And so it’s good to SAY the thing, read it all aloud and listen to it, for it’s quite probable that the real gift starts with your ear for how it should SOUND.”

My first thought on reading it was oh, gosh, I love this. YesYesYes. I feel the lyric and rhythm when I write. I hear it. It affects the words I choose. And only by reading aloud do the missing beats show up.

And what touched me most were his words about how the intelligence we seek is in the nerve-endings. Nerve endings! That the rhythms of language and poetry are influenced by the songs in the world’s clamor. Not snippets and sound bites, but whole Songs! And this, the Sound of what we’re seeking can determine the sense of it. Think about that one. He’s a writer talking about writing. And more. . .the rhythms in life.

My rhythm started out rough today. I woke raw, vulnerable, cranky. Even knowing how lucky I am to be Me, I was irritated by the energy & time it took to maintain a temp below 84° in this flat-roofed house with no attic or shade. I was impatient watering the flowers in the pots across my portal. The ones I diligently dead-head so to nurture the new blooms, and that draw my eyes from the expansive, ugly, crinkling buffalo grass of a front yard.

I pulled a new window fan from the box & installed it. I felt pleased with the cool air flowing in and how quiet it is, unlike the jet engine of a fan loaned me that’s in another room. Then, something weird. . .when I turned the knob to Off, it kept going. Steady as if it’s on. Confused, I watched. I listened for the windchimes, thinking perhaps a breeze blew the blades. No breeze. I pulled the plug from the wall. It kept going, steady as if on, for minutes. In the opposite direction I’d prefer. Grumbling to the garage for the box, my mind fretted over what wouldn’t get done as I drove across town to return & reorder the thing. I decided to give it another go. Normal. I’ll see what happens tomorrow. For now, I have a day’s reprieve

It came to me how fragile my mood was that I was so easily distracted and pulled from the funk when that cool air blew thru the window. And how easily I let myself slip back into the funk. That somehow those fan blades moving on their own without current or breeze, going in the opposite direction I prefer, were a metaphor.

I thought about the day before when I glanced out to something wonderful & magical in my backyard. A raven high on a wire under my big tree, looking West. And two ravens sitting, snuggling into the mulch. Something I’ve never seen. And THREE magpies! My first ever sighting of the big black & white birds in town being the day before, when a pair flew across the street in front of my house. I was entranced, and felt honored.

Ted Andrews writes in his book Animal Speak, that magpies are about unseen realms. Angels talking thru fan blades moving on their own? And that in some traditions, seeing three magpies signifies a successful journey. I’ll take it.

Then I listened to this. At 11:24 in the video, the tears flowed.

This blog will always be about a writer’s life. I write. That’s my thing. My life in the real world is linked to my creative life, and visa versa. And this blog will always be for people who don’t write. Because it’s about how we stay on our feet, shift our mindset so we create and live the life we want, whatever it looks like. It’s about how we surf thru the waters, the ups and downs. Hear the rhythms. We are meant to be empowered creative beings. Today I’m surfing. What about you?

Another small journey. Getting to wise.
A writer’s life.

Photo: Jeremy Bishop

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A Road to Creativity

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Heloise Jones

I’ve always said I’m not into rituals. It’s not true. I’m out before traffic starts each morning. 6 blocks up, and more than 6 blocks down. It’s a far cry from the 3-1/2 miles I walked for years when I lived in Asheville, NC. And there’s no small group waiting to watch the sunrise with me like I had in St. Pete, FL. It’s OK. I’m letting go of comparisons.

I walk through a park on my route each morning. A grassy expanse two blocks long and more than a half block wide. It’s bordered by tall evergreens and cottonwoods. Some seemingly ancient, their bark thick & deep-grained. One’s missing part of her outer coat on one side, revealing her smooth, hard core. The shape of the outer bark at the opening is draped, gnarly, reminds me of hanging flesh. And is somehow beautiful. Trees that flower each spring are in the mix, too.

At one end of the park is a smallish bed tended by master-gardener volunteers. Irises bloom there now, and it looks like an impressionist painting in the soft morning light. I know later there’ll be bold hollyhocks. Their big, luscious trumpets of frilled edged flowers clustered up thick into straight towers.

‘The Rose Garden’ is at the other end. 4 long tiers of a wide concrete promenade down the middle of hundreds of bushes, a fountain at the bottom. Spots of color teased for weeks. Then almost overnight it was all awash in pinks, reds, corals, and yellows, big and small, begging to be adored. Older residents come in the early hours, snip them with shears for their own private bouquets. When the breeze is right, rose fragrance drifts to the top of the promenade. I’ve put my nose in so many, I know only a few offer this gift. I always stop at the blooms I can count on. One smells like orange sherbet.

The morning walk and this park are my ritual. . . to wake my senses and move my body. To step out of my head and shift the view. To observe with awareness the world around me. Vital for surviving the chaos that reigns across the globe right now. And for writing.

I realized how much it brings me back to center one morning at the top of my Up. The toes in my right foot began to throb so painfully I had to stop. That foot’s had three surgeries. My toes are an ugly mess as a result. Coming so sudden, I thought ‘I’m supposed to pause,” and waited for the Why. I heard the insistent chatter of a male bird working hard for attention of his intended. I watched his dance up and down and fluttering about. I remembered hearing other birds the day before as they chased their hoped for mates. When I stopped at the fountain in the rose garden, I heard each individual drop before the fall of water. The cascade sounding huge in the whisper of breeze thru leaves all around me. At home, I opened my computer to this by author Kim Barnes:

“I am sitting late outside in our yard, which is the forest. To the east, the sound of a night bird I can’t identify–it sounds like a rusty windmill. To the west, a distant neighbor is calling her cat: “Kitty? Kitty?” To the south, a coyote clan is throwing a wild party. A few yards to the north, a gravid doe is stamping and blowing. All around me, beetles and shrews are burrowing beneath the fallen dead needles of winter. The trees are talking, talking, talking. I want to stay out here all night and listen to this dark world.”

Listen.

One day I walked up on a very little bird like a tiny sparrow sitting on the edge of the fountain’s rim, facing the water. Not wanting to disturb it and fearing my shadow might, I stood still for minutes. When it didn’t startle, I took a chance, sat down 3 ft. from its perch. It stayed. The two of us together. Then, slowly, it moved 2 ft further away from me. As I sat, I felt random drops sprinkling my skin, and realized the little bird faced the fountain for the spray like a soft shower. As I watched, it bent forward, scooped water into its beak from the wall of the pool. Again and again, scoop and drink. It was still there when I left ten minutes later.

Be still. Notice. Understand.

Other days I’ve seen small flowers growing in the gutter. The petals soft pink, delicate, tender. I’ve stood besotted over my first glimpse of the soft blush of mauves, cream, lavenders, and faintest hint of green on the fresh blooms of a yucca. I’ve watched a raven as big as a 2 yr. old walk upright across the street, birds twirling in a mating dance high overhead, and I know where the bunnies are. I’ve found roots that broke ground & wore down to look like large foot prints. Observed the white and pink clover spread day by day across the park lawn, and noted the slow addition of plants in a neighbor’s landscape project. I know the visitors, like the hawks that stayed three days.

See the everyday unseen.

I’d not intended to live close to The Rose Garden. I’m 2 blocks away by accident, or perhaps not. Here on my yearly sojourn since moving away, squeezed to find a home in November (read, low inventory), only weeks left before I returned east to pack, I was bent. I know this town, how I live in it. I knew what I wanted and yes, needed. I preferred the north side. It wasn’t looking good when I said, “OK, angels, I’ll take the rose garden.” The next two houses that showed up were right here. I mean, the.next.two.

There’s a bigger plan.

Twyla Tharp’s book, “The Creative Habit” has been on my bookshelf more than 10 yrs. I’m reading it for the first time. She talks about rituals for getting into a creative space. I’ve written about the same in my book “The Writer’s Block Myth.” And yet, her’s opened my eyes to the fullness here.

One day, drawn to walk up the opposite side of the park than the one I usually walk down, I saw for the first time a huge tree rising above the others. The canopy of the giant is full, tall, shaped like a perfect soft-edged cone. The bottom of the canopy’s immensely wide. A van could drive under and never graze a branch or feel a drop of rain. The first day I stood beneath it and looked up I was awed by the thick, stair-step arms of branches that radiated out like rivers. I came back with my camera. In the photos those branches look like giant undulating spider arms. The lower branches off one side below the stair-step, the ones I felt were arms of Grandmothers who came before, didn’t look that way at all. And the shelter of her canopy. . .shattered by light. It was impossible to capture what I saw and felt.

Each morning I walk to that big tree, stand under and look up, up, up. And as I walk back toward home, hunting the sprinkling of clover in the grass with hopes bees find them before the mowers, I wonder what exactly this ritual is about. This relationship with a tree that feels intimate and full of discovery. Perhaps it’s about being alive, connected to the mystery I can touch. Perhaps it’s about cracking open to Creativity. Perhaps all of that. After all, it’s the heart of my work.

What’re your rituals for getting back to center when you feel bent?
What rituals do you have before you begin writing or creative work?
When you’re out & about, what do you notice around you most ?

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