A Small Anatomy of Change

Have you ever noticed how during times of great change, a swell of energy comes into our lives? Much of the energy appears to work "against" the change but the effort it takes to overcome the negations that work to push us through into the next part of our lives.

This past week I have worked harder than I've ever worked. Several deadlines for writing pieces for various publications--one local, one statewide, one regional (still ramping up to the national I guess)--struck at once. To meet them, I had to write hard-well-fast. It's my daughter's last week of school so there's been "splash day" and today's Kindergarten awards day. The Wednesday Night Odyssey class took me to a deep level of teaching and planning, and of course the fair at the mall opened. All of this in addition to my job for which I marketed five books all week, rather successfully. All of this the week after I rent an office and step into the community of healers.

In a turn-of-the-century alchemy book published by some ballsy masons, the authors write of how a pull of negative forces precede a positive leap forward. It's an observation of change, and I'm going to search through the Tao te Ching today to find its correlation. At other times, I've felt pushed to my absolute limits to fill the voids that arise just before some great launch to another level. There are moments when I really feel I could just crumple in the face of it all. But then I work. And from the work comes this peculiar illumination, a sense that I'm being helped from the other side--this helper is bending time, this helper is making my sentences, this helper is making the lines short at the fair--and I realize that the stress is a lesson in letting go, and through being stressed to the max I'm being taught I am not alone. This is a prelude to what's to come, the next great jump of a further into-me becoming.

I imagine this crumpling feeling, the sense that I can't do it, is the human equivalent for the nothingness the caterpillar goes to, the reduction to merely the base of the antennae, before the regeneration begins. And we have to go through this again and again.

A Room of Her Own

Virginia Woolf says in her famous essay that in order to be a writer, a woman needs 500 pounds a year (cash) and a room of her own. For the low-low price of just under 500 dollars a month, I got a room of my own today. Aside from my house, in which I share several rooms of my own with my daughter, I now have this.

It is a small room. It is part of the Women's Wellness and Education Center. It is immense to me because it represents my movement, as poet, into several new realms. The first of these is my own "private practice" as writing teacher, editor and creativity coach. I have been moving toward this through a series of fits and starts--and peculiarly strong signals from the universe--that it's time. But the other realm is that of medicine. Women's Wellness and Education Center is a women-run holistic care center for women who are pregnant, women who want to be pregnant and women who have little interest in pregnancy but love a great massage and yoga or pilates class.

Way, way back, I was born into a family of doctors on my father's side (going back three generations) and teachers on my mother's (going back also three generations). As a kid, I expected that I would become a doctor. But by the time college began, it was very clear, and my freshman year chemistry 101 teacher would vouch, medicine was not my path. At least not, I see now, Western medicine. I signed on for literature and never looked back. That is, not until my masters thesis semester of grad school. With only one month left to write a brilliant essay on poetry and three reams of rough draft with no solid thesis anywhere in the mix, I called my father and told him I was dropping out of poetry school and becoming a doctor. I said, "To be a doctor all you have to do is memorize things people already have names for. In poetry, you have to name things no one else has been able to." My father argued against my decision. I couldn't believe my ears. "Don't do it, honey," he said. "Poetry is the better means to finding the truth."

So, here I am taking an office in a wellness center, returning to the roots of two family trees. And little has ever made more sense to me.

Looking back through this blog and all the exploration of alchemy and poetry and how they relate to my deafness and my healing, I see this new part of my life interlace perfectly with all that has come before. I am stepping into myself as poet and healer.

I envision this as a beginning of something wonderful. Perhaps soon, all holistic healing centers will include a poet/memoirist among their staff. We will begin then to heal our minds while we heal our bodies and our spirits.

So, Virginia, and others who find me here musing. . . come by my office at 24 Arlington just off of Charlotte St. Or call for an appointment: 242-7372. It's a beautiful day to begin a new chapter.

Asheville WordFest April 30-May 3

I think the really important thing to convey about Wordfest is that it is product of many years of Asheville poets' legacy-building. From the early nineties until now, there's been a strong poetry community. (I see it as a healing of what happened to poor Thomas Wolfe whose words won him exile from his city.) James Nave, Glenis Redmond, Bob Falls, Allan Wolf, Keith Flynn and more recently Graham Hackett, Sebastian Matthews, Jeff Davis, and many more too many list, have stoked the fires for a free poetry festival for this town. Back in the early 90's there was a poetry event every weekend evening, in some crazy location, ranging from the Green Door to the Diana Wortham, which back then, like the Green Door, allowed local performers to use the mainstage (!) for a mere 20% of the door. The town came out for these events.

Wordfest was dreamed up at a table at Malaprops, where I think all of us have read at one time or another. James Nave, Jeff Davis, Glenis Redmond and I sat around after a broadcast of Wordplay and up it bubbled. It's interesting that three of us are rooted in the performance scene--we've always had that drive to make poetry public, to literally give it away. That's the spirit of creativity, so we keep that at the heart of Wordfest. Lewis Hyde's book *The Gift* is one of the most important books in my world. In that book, the poet explores the creative economy, one based on circulating energy, rather than trapping it in place. For Whitman, poetry was currency. He spent it generously and in return he received it generously. He devoted hours to writing letters for wounded soldiers. For him, there was no difference between service and poetry. Hyde also studies ancient economies and folktales, revealing that cultures have survived quite well on this circular economy. It's interesting to me that we're witnessing the end of the linear economy (however many bailouts we attempt in order to put off the inevitable). It's a perfect time for creativity to rise, for people to give things away for free, such as a poetry festival, and enjoy seeing how it comes back to them in other forms.

So, it's about much more than poetry for me. It's about restoring things to a more natural economy.We invite local businesses and groups to sponsor poets as way of integrating poetry into the marketplace. For the amount it costs to buy a paper ad in one issue of a magazine, a business or group can actually pay for the poet's airfare and (part of) a reading fee and give much more life to the money, and reach many more people (through our website, press and the actuall event itself) in a much more human way. Also, WordFest presents poetry as Citizens Journalism. This is simply an emergence from my experience of watching Dr. Maya Angelou on Nightline on September 11. She was talking about how we need to "feel" what has happened, how we need to grieve, and Ted Koppel said, "Well, thank you for that poetic reflection, Dr. Angelou. And now for a more realistic perspective." And gone was the poet and up came a general or colonel. That was it. Neither of those perspectives is more realistic than the other. There are two realities--the active and the reflective.

Asheville Wordfest, by presenting poetry as Citizens Journalism, explores this.We are funded by the North Carolina Arts Council and the North Humanities Council, two amazing examples of circular economy in the way they return taxpayers money to the taxpayer in a higher form, that of art. My own company, The Healing Seed, picks up the rest of the tab along with Amy Mandel, Shiner Antiorio, Katina Rodis, Laurie Masterton, Grateful Steps Press, Maggie Wynne and many other members of our community. As the years continue, I envision more businesses and friends will "sponsor-a-poet" by donating money. It can happen, We can change the economy into a creative one, and see how everyone benefits. Asheville Wordfest is one model for doing this.

The English Major and the Apocalypse

In Chicago a couple of weeks ago, I attended a talk by Art Spiegelman, the author/artist of the groundbreaking (oh, I'm so tired of that word but Spiegelman deserves it) MAUS. His talk was in the Roosevelt Theater of Roosevelt College, just off Michigan Ave. I sat in a private box, not because I am special or had paid any extra. Just no one else was sitting there. And from there in my little velvet cave I heard something stunning. Spiegelman was just getting warmed up for his presentation on the logic of the cartoon when he said, "I just attended my grand-daughter's graduation from Yale. She got her degree in English. I'm so glad she got a degree in something useful, not something useless like Finance."

I've been reading the posts on dabagirls.com, the blog for young women who have been cashing in on Wall St. dating practices such as being given a Saks credit card by an FBF (financial guy boyfriend--the "g" is silent, they explain in the glossary). That is, up until the recession. There are two time period for the DABA (dating a banker anonymous)--BR, before recession and AR, after. Naturally, the blog has links to other blogs. I visit them. I see similar takes on the ending era--finance is over. It doesn't make sense. Lehman Brothers employees are having to work-out because their fat bonuses just won't be there to draw the babes.

So, I think of Art Spiegelman's statement.

I lied to my father when I was in college. I told him I was taking business classes for my freshman year. Of course, he caught on and warned me against my English degree, which I pursued, or more aptly merrily walked into merely by doing what I loved best--reading and writing.

Now, the world is changing. Boutique banks are taking counter deposits from anyone who walks in, and the people who have focused their lives on financial compensation--openly doing so, with no qualms for not really being concerned for social causes--are suffering, for real. And I can't see their loss as any less tragic than other kinds because I know that any loss forces us to dig incredibly deep in order to move through the change it inflicts. These people are experiencing an apocalypse.

But I'd be dishonest not to feel somewhat vindicated for having pursued a degree in English, as well as for my remarkable aversion to all things focused entirely on money. Maybe I'm gloating. I think of a professor of Education who, upon looking at my transcript, said of my Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, "Wow, I'm sure that's useful." The piece of paper she was looking at is the most important piece of paper in my life. I just live in another world, have always lived in another world, from the one where education translated into immediate financial gain. And I think this world I've been inhabiting is going to be the "next world" more people step into. The mere number of blogs--beautifully written blogs, I might add--by ex-finance men and women--suggests that creativity is going to carry people through this, that it is an instinct, not a luxury. A necessity and not a waste of time. . .

YouSendIt - Send large files - transfer delivery - FTP Replacement

YouSendIt - Send large files - transfer delivery - FTP Replacement

YouSendIt - Send large files - transfer delivery - FTP Replacement

YouSendIt - Send large files - transfer delivery - FTP Replacement

YouSendIt - Send large files - transfer delivery - FTP Replacement

YouSendIt - Send large files - transfer delivery - FTP Replacement

The Secret of Poetry

Click to Play

Join poet Laura Hope-Gill as she explores the relevance of Eastern and Western alchemy to poetry.

The Secret of Poetry

Click to Play

Join poet Laura Hope-Gill as she explores the relevance of Eastern and Western alchemy to poetry.

Revelations

Click to Play

The Poet's Alchemy

Click to Play

Beyond Yin and Yang

Click to Play

The Language of Change

Click to Play

From Mind Into Spirit

Click to Play

God Chemistry

Click to Play

The Two Worlds

Click to Play

The Secret of Poetry

Click to Play

The Alchemical Process

Click to Play

The Quiet Mind

Click to Play

The Healing Seed

Click to Play

Sitting with the Negative

Click to Play

Join poet Laura Hope-Gill (www.thehealingseed.com) on her exploration of poetry, sacred texts, life and alchemy.

Zoe the Dog

On Tuesday morning at 7:15, just a little bit before my daughter's school bus comes to pick her up, Zoe and I said good-bye to each other, ending our 13 year partnership in this world. Her death ended a three month battle of me against her death. I fought like crazy, turning my back on two suggestions by her vet that we "do it now" and compiling an array of medicines, holistic and non-. Antioxidants, vitamins, drops, iron, vitamin E, prednisone, nausea pills, painkillers. . . and I was feeding her "dogsure" with a syringe. Death has been living in my house, pacing. And now it's gone.

The way she died mystifies me. I was holding her as I have done so many times, my arms wrapped around her neck (by now so skinny) and my face buried in her fur. I had never visualized how she would go. I only feared it and wept for it since the vet told me in November he'd found cancer in her liver. But when the moment came, when her breathing changed, I talked her through it. I did it unconsciously--and my voice was calm and strong. I was saying all her favorite sentences and words--ride in the car, go to the cottage, get in the boat, go for a walk, have a treat. . . and her breathing grew heavier, and for the first time in her life she growled as she released her last breath.

And then I brushed my daughter's hair, zipped up her coat and walked with her to the end of the driveway where bus 181 picked her up and took her to school.

OLD
--for Michele and Barack Obama


He has grown into an old man,
Even older than Mandela did who also did
The remarkable thing simply by doing the only

Thing he could do. Be.
His hair is longer now, not fully gray.
It is as though he has stopped time the same way

Anyone who changes the course of history holds a power over time.

He stands tall, still,
Dressed, as always in his best
Because that is what his grand-mother taught him.

He remembers every single one
Of her lessons because she gave them in the
Soft language she knew could shape a man from the inside.

His wife is old now, too, and she
Still holds him to her every word and to his
Word and to the words of the world. She is his weaver

And he is her web. Their love forms
A constellation of stars all the places they walk. It lights the path.
Two presidencies down, they still talk mostly of their daughters who are

Grown and do not recall
A time when either a woman or a person with dark
Skin could not make a home of the White House or any other house

For that matter. The years
Have been good to them. The nation, grateful.
They have served and they continue to serve, traveling.

They always hold hands. They still have
That smile for each other they’ve kept going
Since college. It has been a good life for both of them.

They have lived a long time.