TOOLS WITH HEART NEWSLETTER
AUTUMNAL EQUINOX
As summer comes to a close, I've been ruminating on the influences of the season's longer and intensely warm days.
"This is the season of joy and fruition, when gardens grow lush as the days grow longer. It is a time of movement and activity as the heart opens to receive the season's gifts of warmth, light, companionship, and connection. Fire energy inspires communication so this can be a productive time for projects that emphasize interaction with others. Creativity is also associated with the fire element. Taken together, these qualities make things happen"
~A
Season to Journal
Summer: Season of Expansion
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California just experienced one of its driest summer seasons ever, and some local fires have burned for weeks. As we observe the effects of climate change and other forms of unrest around us, we are reminded of how we, individually feel consumed by burning feelings like anger and rage. Being journal writers, you know that fear, anger and rage are vital emotions that can provide deep wisdom when worked through with dialogues or other writing techniques. Confronting these emotions in your journal gives you the advantage of staying centered within yourself and aware of the source of your feelings. Uncovering the real issues in your anger through dialogue, free intuitive writing, guided imagery or just venting and incinerating will allow you to find your powerful center.
Tools With Heart's Rage Pages are on fire and ready for you to rant, rave, incinerate and burn it all out with bold colors or black markers. Tear them out of your journal or save them to look back on. Anger and other powerful emotions are a great source of creative fuel.
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I've had the pleasure of my first vegetable and herb garden this year. It's an ornamental vegetable garden enclosed within hand-stacked stone walls with raised beds, gravel paths and a large potted water garden in the middle. My husband wanted the beds to be all the same size and rectangular in shape. I wanted to have a mandala and uneven rows. We decided that the garden would have a left-brain side and a right brain side much like our individual stacks of reading books on either side of the bed. Gardens are metaphoric in so many ways and a treasure trove of journal material!
You can fill a garden journal with detailed descriptions and images of your plants from seedlings to harvest and note the seasons and everything that influences their growth. More importantly, observe how you are like your garden, particularly how you tend to yourself as you tend your garden.
Here are a couple of thoughts to inspire you:
"You might find it useful to think of your journal as keeping track of two distinct but deeply interconnected stories - the story of what's going on in your garden, and the story of what's going on in your head when you're beholding your garden or working in it: the outer story and the inner story." Carl H. Klaus
"Write about life - not just your life, the life around you - to fully realize your connection with the earth. There's the gold blossom of an acorn squash that's just begun to wilt and fade. The warmth of summer's first red tomato. You'll cut it into thick slices and lay them on French bread for lunch... You, the garden, the food you eat and what you write are all connected - they're part of a larger whole." Dawn Simonds Ramirez
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From Haiku, Couplets, Senryu, Free Verse, Quatrains, Fragments - by Michael Garofalo
Black figs fattening
in the bright sun
birdless skies.
Dusk finally,
heat drops away -
fading summer day.
Limp hummingbird
held in my hand -
one wing broken.
Their last walks taken
skunks, dogs, opossums, cats:
flat on asphalt.
Snapping
long green beans -
sitting at the red table.
The haiku form of writing, originating from Japan are traditionally written in three lines of 5-7-5 syllables. They may also include a "season word" to indicate the time of year to which the haiku relates. The English language can only go so far in reflecting or emulating the Japanese haiku and individual writers must choose for themselves how closely they adhere to the rules. The senryu is similar in form to the haiku but concerns itself with the human condition rather than nature. You will discover many poems published under the title "haiku" that do not observe these rules . Others might be mis-named as haiku - but acceptable under as a "short poem."
Try this simple yet challenging kind of writing in your journals evocative of the season or your mood. Notice the profound essence of your chosen words.
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Have you thought about how schools today have "almost totally forgone the teaching of legible, cursive handwriting... As early as elementary school, students now do most of their homework and classroom assignments on computer keyboards...Does that matter? Yes. The reality is that some occasions still demand handwriting and that inability to make yourself understood has consequences" - like job rejection for looking poorly educated on the application, like research showing four-points lower scoring on essay tests, like the absence of an "organic flow of emotion from heart to hand to paper...since no instant message or email will ever replace well-composed thank-you notes and love letters written in the sender's own, distinctive penmanship. The demise of handwriting is an unfortunate side-effect of our digital age."
- THIS WEEK
Mar. 9, 07
Practice your distinctive handwriting by sending Personal Notecards.
For a close friend's birthday, I wrote an entry in a brand new journal reflecting my thoughts about her and how special she was to me. I sent her a personal notecard and the journal as a gift.
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We are including excerpts from an entry from a journal writer who responded to the question: "What insight have you gleaned from your past that will affect your future?" We enjoyed the depth and clarity of Monica's response as it shows the transformative power of reflection, observation and expression. Thanks to all of you who responded to that question.
THIRD EYE - by Monica Lopez
Insight is a beautiful word that gives me permission to see with a "third" eye into the memories of my past experiences. I've delved into the depths of these stories and found golden nuggets of truth that continually transform my dignity as a woman and help to more perfectly unite my divine with that of God's and to bring me into communion with the world.
I do not find that I often have time to watch television; yet on a night not long ago, I chose to sit at home and as a way of relaxing I began to flip channels using the convenience of the remote control. As my eyes glazed at the tube with the instant switching of channels, I found myself committed to a sitcom that I knew nothing about. What struck me in the drama that unfolded and to which I would not tear myself from is the authenticity and vulnerability of the character's insight. For a brief moment, I journeyed with a character whose childhood experience shaped the career he had chosen for his life. This moving storyline shook me at my very core and helped me to understand more clearly the path I'm choosing for myself that will transform my life and hopefully those I will encounter. As an adolescent girl in 8th grade, struggling with changing hormones, active emotions and identity crises and discovery, I thoughtfully asked my parents to see a therapist. Being Hispanic, my parents refused my request because they believed that therapy is for "crazy" people. As I look with insight on this incidence in my childhood, I have clarity and understanding around my recent desire to pursue a Masters in Counseling. Without the sitcom, I would not have understood clearly the beauty of the interwoven connection of my past, present and future.
Printed with permission from Monica Lopez of Houston, Texas
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Using the technique of metaphor, "How are you like a garden, a flower, the sea, a favorite animal, a book...you name it."
Send your musings to: felice@toolswithheart.com
All respondents will receive a refill of your choice - Rage Pages, Blue Notes, Worry Lines, Passion Sheets, Summer, Spring, Winter or Autumn Pages.
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