Write as the World Turns

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Heloise Jones

“From most points of the universe you can’t see stars. You may vaguely see a few smudges of a few galaxies. Thus our Earth vantage point is rare and very friendly and
sparkly compared to the loneliness of most of the universe.”
~ Catalogue of the Universe

I’ve always had a dream to go into space. To see Earth from where stars dwell. I once read every astronaut felt changed inside once s/he saw Earth from space. Something deeply spiritual blossomed inside them, a reverence, whether they stated it in religious terms or not. None felt smaller. All felt more one with the Universe.

I feel that way when I look up at the stars. And when I look at nature. Knowing I can never comprehend the vast worlds that exist in either sky or this planet.

Many years ago my husband and I visited Oregon. Landed in Portland, drove thru the Columbia River Gorge, then down the coast, returning to Portland up thru the Willamette Valley. Every moment of every.single.day looked like a picture postcard. I stood at tidepools with rainbows stretched over me. Gazed out onto the most beautiful valley patchworked with flowering herbs. Rode across Crater Lake, the bluest of blue water. And the crown jewel was the Columbia River Gorge. It left a lifetime impression on both of us. Pictures are pretty, and there’s no way to convey the slightest inkling of the majesty. Now the gorge burns. Nearly 40,000 acres scorched to tinders with 7% contained after a week.

We smell smoke here in Santa Fe. One morning the mountains on the western horizon were indistinguishable, covered by a brown haze. Montana’s burning, too, so could be from anywhere, I thought.

I planned a trip to Oregon in October for an speaking workshop. I looked up smoke reports. NASA has pictures. Smoke obscures the entire Pacific NW, goes east to St. Louis, streams across the US on the jet stream. I imagine it sailing across oceans, like dust from the Sahara in Africa does to South America.

I’ve been thru this before. Arizona and too much of New Mexico burned all around me one summer. The sky turning yellow, the sun blood red. My body’s reaction to chemicals and smoke extreme. I won’t go to Portland.

Here’s the thing. . .the fire at the gorge was started by teens flipping firecrackers into a ravine. Their response when someone called them on it was smart-mouthed and flippant. They live where undeveloped nature is their backyard. What got lost on them?

As I drove out the other day, I thought how we humans may be the only species who willingly, consciously despoil our beds, this planet we call Home. And perhaps the only species who will self-extinct. Harsh, unpopular thought? Perhaps. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s time for major shifts.

Nature’s all around us, even in cities without parks. A flower can’t help but grow in the crack of a sidewalk if let alone. A bug will find a plant in a pot. The wind and birds care nothing of buildings in the way.

We start now, teach the kids everyday to look and see the world as a place of fascination. Because when they’re taught natural sciences, are taken out to observe the natural world with a guide, they appreciate it and become protective. They turn into monitors and stewards of creatures and the land. Creeks restored, prairie lands nurtured, habitats protected. And they’re not afraid to speak up to grown-ups in defense.

We re-teach ourselves. Writers observe with awareness. I say let’s sit ten minutes somewhere close to the ground. Write what we see and feel and hear. Make it part of our writing practice.

How does the air feel on our skin.
What does the light look like thru a leaf or blade of grass, or off rough bark.
What do we notice about a bee on the sweat of cheese in the sun, or the path of a small ant.
What happens when a cloud passes over.
What’s the sound of the rhythm of wings overhead.
What’s our heart doing.

The Columbia River Gorge will not recover in my lifetime, or even my grandson’s. I say, let’s come Home. Tonight, turn off the porch lights. Look up to the friendly, sparkly Universe above. In the aftermath of the hurricane’s rage, when no city lights pollute the sky, look up. After all, we are stardust.

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One last thought for those where the natural world’s crazy, turned you sideways. . .

Please be aware forest animals are fleeing the flooding, hurricanes, & fires, and may show up in our yards. The forestry dept. urges us to bring our animals in at night. Let the wild ones pass thru. Put out buckets of water for them. They are scared, exhausted, have lost their homes, and need to refuel to find new ones. Just like us.

We are All Storytellers

Posted on September 3, 2017 by Heloise Jones

I have a small window in my shower, the opening positioned right at my upper body. It looks out to the backyard and western sky. I’ve taken to opening it as I bathe. The air outside feels delicious. A cool crispness on my skin within the hot shower. Reminds me of outdoor showers in Hawaii. Last week I saw from my window little birds splashing in the low-sitting platform of a birdbath. Birds taking a bath while I take mine, I thought. Do they know? Today I smelled sweetness & bread baking thru the window from the bakery-cafe a block down the street. I put my face to the screen, drank the aroma. Thought how I often smell bacon & omelets when I’m outside.

Walking across a parking lot the other day, I thought ‘fall has officially arrived.’ The sunrise comes in on a stroll now. Far later than it did two weeks ago. Night no longer waits for 9pm. I noticed the quality of the air appears thinner. The shadows have sharper edges. That I now expect each breeze to be a cool glide like a sheath thru the middle of the 85° heat. I even started thinking my stories of fall in NM – the far-flung studio tours, the smells of chiles roasting in big caged drums and pinon fires, the first snow, different rhythm of my life.

All tiny events. All triggering stories.

I edited two poems almost back to their original rough form this week. Both were free writes in workshops. Each got a ‘wow’ from the teacher. I put back what I’d clipped in my edits on the computer. Slipped back into rhythm that felt right. Told the gut story, trusting the reader, even if cleaned up a bit. I did it with red pen on paper. My body in the writing. Like stories are in our bodies.

I entered the poems in a contest. The journal required a short bio. I didn’t know what to put. The usual Authorly bio didn’t feel right. So I wrote poetry is medicine for me. Both poems are about loss. One as a daughter and woman looking back at her childhood. The other as a mother. I didn’t mention I received a Pushcart Prize nomination for a poem. In that moment as I hit send, recognitions didn’t seem part of the story. I didn’t think about other stories of loss, either. Including my own heritage.

I’m half-Armenian. Food is my only remembrance of my first nine years when I knew being Armenian. Those years when I heard Armenian spoken, the house filled with smells of special foods being prepared for weeks during holidays and funerals. When people shared the ways we were related by heart or blood. We moved when I was nine and all that was lost. What I learned firsthand, before I ever read it as a scholar, is that food and language hold a culture. Even more, how food’s prepared and the words spoken. Their meanings. They hold our stories. Even the blends of everything we are.

I saw an article about a most amazing theatrical production called Oh My Sweet Land. A play ‘about a woman of Syrian-German descent whose search for a lost lover takes her from a sheltered life in Paris to the refugee camps of Lebanon and Jordan and finally into Syria, to confront the smoldering remains of her cultural inheritance.‘ The story unfolds entirely in a kitchen, the actress preparing an actual meal. The genius is each performance occurs in a private home kitchen donated by local citizens, and the actress doesn’t visit the ‘set’ until 30 minutes before she starts. She enters each performance as the character she portrays – displaced, forced to navigate unfamiliar surroundings. Food her anchor as she recounts refugee stories. Other’s stories. Some so unimaginable as reality I can’t even hold them.

The word Ally recently entered my consciousness. I’m co-creating a retreat with artist Kendall Sarah Scott for March 2018 called Madonna: Contemporary Ally. I put the words ‘I am a Writer’s Ally’ on my website. Yesterday a woman I like a lot mentioned looking for allies. I thought how the word like-minded became Tribe in our current lexicon. Tribe a word that goes beyond like-minded to associations on many levels. I looked up Ally online. The first definitions are about war, WWI & II to be specific. As if that was the first use of the word. I wondered if collaborators and supporters could become Allies in our minds. Ally implies a commitment, and perhaps a story behind the relationship, too.

The subtleties of language and story, so powerful.

Many years ago I heard a saying that said volumes to me – “If you want another perspective, stand on your head.”

We are made of stories. And we are all storytellers. Every minute of every day. In the tiny moments, and in the grand arenas. Textures and gorgeous color palettes of humanity & majestic nature wrapped up together. In my world, it’s time for different perspectives. For myself, and for that broad space beyond my dot on the planet.

Notice the stories.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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Do the Good Work

Posted on August 19, 2017 by Heloise Jones

As I slowed down things became brilliant. Grass growing through a cement crack, a stop sign …suddenly mattered, because I saw them.
~ Natalie Goldberg (from Living Color – A Writer Paints Her World)

On the way to the hair salon, I pass the gourmet creamery that makes small batches of yummy ice cream. It’s impossible not to peek, see what’s on the board. The elevated sidewalk in front of the short row of small businesses is narrow.

This is herb season, so the day’s special flavors are tumeric, black cardamon, and ginger. I chose ginger, surprised cardamon didn’t woo me. I also got a taste of what’s next, but not ready to serve: rose-green tea, and thyme-lemongrass. We can tell a lot about a person by the flavors he creates, I thought.

As I sat eating what seemed too small a taste of sweetness for this heavy heart, I looked at the pristine sky. Listened to the sound of leaves in the trees fluttered and rifled by the wind. I thought about a line I just read in a new book by Sheila Blanchette. How her character described the sound of oak leaves in the wind as like silk rustling. I thought of the morning I believed I heard water running, and looked for the source. Only learned on my way back it was two tall trees shimmering in the breeze. I couldn’t think what the sound resembled that particular day I ate ice cream. Only that it was all around me, that I was surrounded by trees. And how we can go in our minds to where we’re nourished if we let ourselves.

I’ve been very quiet inside for days. Some of the time feeling I’m in a semi-fog. I thought eclipse energy, or the fullness of my new Monday night writer’s group where they show up open, sharing, and bringing their best, even on their bad days. Perhaps it’s me simply needing space inside so I can write stories and poems, I thought. What worked before – writing with others to prompts – hasn’t worked. I was stepping back to a quieter space and it felt like goofing off. My thinking mind wondered what might be falling thru the cracks. And strangely, something else inside me said this pause was completely necessary.

Then Charlottesville. The sounds of division and hate. In counter, the intellectual conversations, points of helpless and hopeless. None of it OK.

I am not neutral on this.

What is the whole of our existence but the sound of an appalling love!
~ Louise Erdrich (from The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse)

I’ve been here before, sorta. It rolls in like big ocean waves. I talked here about the hard truths of differences. How I’m the liberal my sister despises and my efforts to understand the thinking. I’ve shared here my stance on immigration, refugees, and value of difference. I’ve shared here what I care about as a heart-filled person. And here what I call my shame points that some call badges of honor. I talked about how loving oneself can feel so hard. And my hopes we turn to the better angels of our natures. My belief we all cast ripples, that it’s our choice what ripples we cast. Neale Donald Walsh puts it this way in ‘Conversations with God:’

“Your life is about everyone whose life you touch.

‘It is about how you touch them,’ God told me. ‘How you touch them determines how you experience your Self–and how you experience your Self determines how happy you are.’

In this sense, my life was about me…but in a *reverse English* kind of way.

I was to pay attention to myself by paying attention to others.
I was to help myself evolve by helping others evolve.
The fastest way for me to be happy was for me to make other people happy.”

The first day of my Monday night group was August 7. We introduced ourselves. I told them they could read my website for the regular stuff. I wanted to share what matters to me in the work I do.

My goal, I told them, is to contribute in creating great reading and writing so people are exposed to something beyond themselves, or their experience, or what they think they know. So they can find, see, and hear fresh perspectives. Can experience the both/and of Life. Meaning the good/bad, and the shades of gray of differences that live side by side. For me, this means using my genius to free writers’ Voices, so they can release their stories. Because the power of connection for us humans is in stories.

Sharing those words, I realized this work I do empowering artists’ and writers’ Voices is my Resistance to division and hate in the world. To the two H’s, hopeless and helpless, too. It’s my contribution that stretches beyond my dot on the planet. Because writers and artists can be powerful. Their influence so strong they’re executed in some countries.

Author Barbara Kingslover says it this way:

“A newspaper could tell you that one hundred people, say in an airplane, or in Israel, or Iraq, have died today. And you would think to yourself, “How very sad,” then turn the page and see how the Wildcats fared. But a novel could take just one of those hundred lives and show you exactly how it felt to be that person rising from bed in the morning, watching the desert light on the tile of her doorway and on the curve of her daughter’s cheek. You could taste that person’s breakfast, and love her family, and sort through her worries as your own, and know that a death in that household will be the end of the only life that someone will ever have. As important as yours. As important as mine.”

And then Charlottesville.

I am not neutral on this.

Over the past month I created collaborative relationships with two artists in Santa Fe with the intention to co-host workshop & retreat immersions that combine writing and art. One on Sept. 22, a nature immersion. The other March 1-4, 2018 called ‘Madonna: Contemporary Ally,’ an immersion into all aspects of this powerful icon for today’s time. Once solidified, I wondered how the heck this fit my goals. I considered my inexplicable love of nature. The need for something grounded beyond Wonder Woman. And it came to me. . .this is how we go home to Life that sustains our humanity. This is my activism in counter to hate and division in a way that uses my genius. Nature (think, forest bathing in Japan), and the strength of a steadfast teacher centered in principles of nurturing life.

There’s a weekly column called Free Will Astrology. Friday it said I have a cosmic pass to ‘loiter and goof off…to put off making hard decisions.’ That I’m in a time one might call the equivalent of pushing the reset button, re-establishing default settings. Yes, I am.

“Alone, we are defenseless. Collected, we are sacred.

We will march by the millions. . .
We will be courageous with our love. . .”
~ Sherman Alexie (from his poem Hymn)

Many of us won’t march or join rallies, petition representatives, canvas door to door, wait for an audience outside a closed congressional door, lick envelopes, or stand in freezing weather to protect our beautiful planet & its creatures. Many of us can, do, and will use our genius in ways to do the good work beyond loving those who look like us, think like us. Beyond supporting our own comforts or profit. Beyond railing against others with the same hate we don’t want. We do the good work to sustain the expansion of life, not the contraction. The hard conversations, the listening, the advocacy, the feet on the ground. I know. I’ve done it before. And I know we can.

Look to the better angels.

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”In my dream, the angel shrugged & said, if we fail this time, it will be a failure of imagination & then she placed the world gently in the palm of my hand.”
 ~ Brian Andreas

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Photo by Marc-Antoine Dépelteau

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Radical Self-Care

Posted on August 12, 2017 by Heloise Jones

“Something inside you is always telling a story. I believe every single thing you see and hear is talking to you. The bottom line with all of this. . .is Love. We want to show ourselves and have that be accepted. I love being alive, and the art is the evidence of that.”
~ Jim Carrey, actor & artist, in a wonderfully magical video

I start each blog by asking What’s it about today? Self-care came thru loud & clear. In the shower, my thinking mind jumped to radical self-care.

I logged onto emails. Webinar-podcast whiz Amy Porterfield’s message was self-care. On Facebook Anne Lamotte spoke to radical self-love, which includes self-care.

Sitting at the computer, what I felt is how little space I feel inside. I write and teach about the importance of space inside us for the creative process. How expansion is what the creative process is about. That engaging with creativity is a dance. What we want is to focus on possibilities that come with a Yes inside, and expand the dance floor.

Then I glanced at my tea mug beside my computer. Felt the big No in my chest from breaking a promise to myself months ago I’d enjoy my fine tea. Taste it vs. have it be a beginning ritual for work. I don’t want the computer today, I thought. I rescheduled this blog to Saturday morning. Radical. I’m committed to you here.

At a friend’s later, I said I have to go after we’d talked 2-12 hours, the time feeling like minutes. Just two more things, she said. After that I said ‘just one more.’ We kept on as I signed a book she bought for an author friend of hers. An entire hour passed before I got in my car, glad I let the connection continue. I decided to do ‘nothing’ the rest of the day.

I lingered in the market. At home, I turned off the computer, leisurely thumbed through a fav weekly. It’d been ages since I did this with leisure, or on the day it came out. I cooked food, ate it at the small high top counter of a table in the kitchen while listening to the rain. Not at my desk where I usually eat. I watched episodes of ‘The Crown’ on Netflix before exhaustion stole my mind. I saw two episodes before I fell asleep. Simple, little things that may not sound radical, and for me, they’re Big. Because it’s the little things that trip us up. The day-to-day that slides into habit.

I’ve shared my desire & efforts to get back to the joy of writing fiction and poetry. I’ve tried to do it like I used to, writing with others to prompts, and confess it hasn’t worked. Now I believe it’s because I didn’t fully surrender to the creative process, allowed space inside me. Because it’s clear the challenge is not the time allocated. + I’ve done this before, with heavy trials. And I heard characters and stories and the full breath of a poem then. I edit my Facebook posts like tiny poems. I can expand the dance floor.

The other day I stepped away from the computer, went outside. I couldn’t believe how glorious the day was. The air, the sky, the birds on a wire. So like Heaven I felt myself breathing deeply. And I was missing it! Still, I pulled myself away, returned to work. What would have happened had I stayed ten minutes more?

Travel has always given me space inside. Put me in a state of awe & wonder. I return a different person. One with expanded boundaries of thought and Being. I haven’t been able to travel in a few years. Today I decide I’ll travel another way until I can board an airplaine.

I’ll follow awe and wonder in nature and thru art. Researchers at UC Berkeley say it’s a very good thing to do. In a study they found awe, wonder and beauty signal the immune system to work harder and may lower inflammation & extend our lives! I’ll buy that. Their suggestions for getting this direct influence on health and life expectancy are where awe and wonder reside for me–walks in nature, losing oneself in music, beholding art. I can travel this way. This is not new to me.

I look up often at my desk, gaze out a window across the room at trees. Behind me, above my desk, is the eastern sky framed in two small windows. I’m going to turn, look out at the sky more often. Perhaps the next rainbow I catch won’t be fading.

Step away, even for ten minutes, from people and things that constrict your insides. Look at the sky, or peer at the minute details in a leaf or blade of grass.
Consider what radical self-care is for you. Make a list. Do one thing this week. Schedule one thing next week. Note how you feel inside after you do.
Collect some stickers:

Sticker by Jeremy Nguyen

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How Life Sings Like Poetry

Posted on August 4, 2017 by Heloise Jones

“In an ideal world, our poets would sing our stories back to us, connecting us through language that’s memorable, moving, often disturbing: our poets would through their poems urge us to awaken and look around us, fall in love again and again with the things of this world.”
~ Kathryn Stripling Byer, poet

I’m a sky watcher. I’m constantly gazing up, marveling at the light & color. Noting when the clouds shift. Marvel when they look like shredded cloth or as if they’re painted on up there. With said, it’s been a while since I spent time with the night sky. This week, 4:45am, opening the blinds without my glasses on, I thought iI saw a reflection of a lightbulb in the window. But I had no lights on inside. I like my day to gently lighten with the dawn. I stepped outside, stood in the cool air, gazed at Venus, big as a streetlight. A comet bright as a low flying jet streaked past. And then, brief and high, another. I thought how I’ll fill my life with more of this sort of love and wonder. Relearn to do it.

Someone said recently I should work with children, that I have a gift with them. I don’t know how she got that except perhaps from blogs I’ve written, such as here & here. It’s true I like talking to kids. Love the art they make. I’ll talk to any kid around me.

My 7-yr. old grandson lives in Taiwan. We see each other every two years. In late 2015, he started sending me postcards. We now write each other. I have his cards stacked close to my desk where I see them. It’s quite magical how his printing’s changed. The last one so perfect, I thought his mother wrote it. A small way to see him grow, and real.

Recently we started Friday night conversations. There’s a 12-hr. difference, so he rises before his parents, signs into Skype. If he can’t get thru, he’ll call on his dad’s cell. ‘Skype is weird,’ he’ll say. We can only do this on weekends, he says, and we’ll do it all summer he’s out of school.

Here’s the thing. I think this little guy’s in my life so I can have something I never had growing up. We were born the same hour & minute, 5:47 am for me, 5:47 pm for him. What’s the chances of that! + A year ago, the last time they were here, he wanted to spend every night with me long before they arrived. Cried when he thought he couldn’t. He brought me so much joy, I cried when he didn’t.

The magic is simple. It’s not about being a grandmother. It’s about being in awe with him. He’s like me in so many ways. An artist, high achiever, dreamer. Full of wonder about the world and loves learning. We give to each other.

My favorite postcard. Look at that happy goat facing the sun. And that happy bluebird & turtle.

I met 24 yr. old Alex weeks ago when I knocked to ask if she was my new neighbor, could she please not leave her lights (plural) on all night. I’d covered a bedroom window with black plastic, which blocked the fresh air. The walls in my whole house stayed lit. I waited 5 nights to ask. It was already 10:30. She was so sweet. She asked what I’d do when new neighbors arrived, which she wasn’t. Same thing, I told her, and invited her outside to look up the street. All but one of the houses were dark. One dim streetlight for every 2 blocks.

When she looked up, saw the stars, she was amazed to see them so close to town. We talked a very long time, there in the dark late at night.

I learned she had a very bad past, had gotten in trouble. And she turned it around. She listens to podcasts of inspirational speakers, is studying Buddhism, adores her fiancee. She has aspirations to study forensic medicine, be a doctor. She supports herself with her business of rental properties.

She was there to clean and fix her grandmother’s house to sell. Her grandmother having passed at 98, right before I moved in. She invited me to pick the pink roses from her grandmother’s bush any time I want.

Another day I stopped by to tell her about the Buddhist center in the neighborhood. She’d just googled the closest meditation center too, too far away. She showed me what she’d done in the house on a small $500 budget. Her grandmother didn’t believe in traditional medicine, she said, and showed me the back room where her grandmother grew plants in pots for medicinal purposes. The yard had them, too, along with veggies, and greenbeans draped on the front chain-linked fence. A woman I would’ve liked.

Days later, asleep on the sofa with a movie playing away, I woke to my name called thru the screened door. It was Alex with a vase of roses.

She was leaving the next morning, and wanted to thank me for being so kind (her words). She said she felt lucky to meet me. I loved her by then, and wished she wasn’t leaving.

I talk about how writing can sing when it comes together just right. As a writer, there’s no greater feeling for me. I talk about how poetry sings. I realize this feeling of connection with my grandson and Alex is the same song. A song of life that’s brought alive, so I sing inside. It’s called Love.

In Santa Fe, Sikhs held a 4 hr event on the plaza. Dressed all in white & turbans, singing and chants with beautiful melodies. Accompanied by tabla drums, viola, guitars, keyboard, mandolin. Incredible musicians. Yoga, East Indian dancing. Free iced Yogi brand tea, and organic popcorn with the fixin’s. They’re all about feeding people. Even walked around, offered bottles of water. Tables with info on living healthy, their guru on a banner. Love, Peace, Kindness their message. No conversion, just Gratitude expressed for being here, thriving since 1971.

Love, giving, gratitude, sharing. Like my grandson and Alex and me together. All of us so different, and yet so alike. Hearts opening. Imagine that.

Another Small Journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what sparks wonder and love in you?

(I dried the roses Alex gave me. They’re in the picture at the top.)

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