Tag: healing

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Spiritual Journey Thursday: Rhythm

it takes a rhythm

to create healthy habits

to remain in sync

Ramona is our host this month for Spiritual Journey Thursday (SJT), and she invites us to reflect on rhythm. You can read her post here.

When I think of rhythm, I think of cycles associated with biorhythms, seasons and times, and cycles of nature. This verse from Genesis comes to mind:

Genesis 1:14 ESV

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years….

I think of things having an appointed time in the rhythm of life when I consider the verses in Ecclesiastes that are so iconic to seasons and turning.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 ESV

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

Rhythms and cycles play an important role in balance and harmony of living. Having a rhythm to each day, each week, each month is an important part of life, whether we are working or retired – rhythms are like schedules, habits, and time management. One of the first things I had to do in retirement was create new routines. A new prayer time topped my list, since my prayer chamber used to be my drive in to work and now that I’m not going there anymore, I needed a new designated time that would be consistent. I chose coffee time since there is a rhythm to that regularity and, to some degree, a consistent morning time frame – – and, like coffee, I need prayer at the top of the day. I have discovered in this new routine that I like to see steam rising from my mug as I say prayers, as if what is coming from my lips is swirling in a steam mist upwards to heaven in the quiet, relaxed rhythms of the morning.

HELLO! and HELP!

someone stranded

on a desert island

sends smoke signals

I send prayers

from the porch

fresh from my lips

vapors rising

to heaven

A special thanks to Ramona for hosting this month and inspiring us to think of the rhythms in our spiritual lives.

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November 25 – Healing and Nurturing

Healing and nurturing is the topic today in one of my writing groups. When I saw today’s topic on healing, I immediately thought of taking time to breathe, slowing down, even pausing. And sleeping.

I’ve had to do that this week. Each year, I reserve our favorite campsite one year out for the next year, as I did last year for this year for Thanksgiving (even though we skipped last year to travel in New England following the NCTE Convention). Imagine our disappointment when vertigo, as it does, struck yet again on the day we were to pack and leave. I couldn’t do it. I had to cancel the week for fear that even if I tried to follow through with the plans, I’d have a setback. That has happened more frequently lately. It’s getting downright debilitating, with both the blessing and the curse for this bout being that we are out of school this week. I don’t have to take sick days.

And so I rest. And sit, eyes closed, grateful for the gift of Audiobooks to help pass the time while I stay put because of the dizziness.

I began using magnesium foot cream to help me sleep when I gave up on Melatonin because of the nightmares. Today, I wrote a haiku chain to celebrate the healing of foot cream. I use Wholesome Hippy, but Sweet Bee and other companies make great ones, too. When you need to rest, this works.

need to get to sleep?

this magnesium foot cream

takes me to dream land

if you haven’t heard

all the hype about this cream

let me assure you

it’s every bit true

you can get to sleep and stay

asleep with this rub

…..especially if

you’ve laughed too hard all evening

with your book club gang

eating snacks and sweets

playing two truths and a lie ~

sidesplitting stories!

….and even when you’re

down and out with vertigo

dizziness needs naps!

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What Brought Me Here?

This month, I’m writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. The question of the day is why we write – what brings us to the page each day?

in so many ways

it’s probably the call of

the wild for writers

that’s what brings me here ~

the pull of the scent of wild

words waterfalling

and my feeling the

inner soul need to catch them

and pen them all down

elusively they

babble down the mountain creek

I grab my word net

take off my shoes and

step into the cool waters

where healing happens

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Writing Down the Bones Card #3 of 60 – I’m Looking At…

This month, I’m starting the journey of writing through 60 cards from Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, introduced by my writing group sister Barb Edler of Iowa. Last month, our small group of Stafford Challenge writers (Denise Krebs, Glenda Funk, Barb Edler and I) wrote using one of the cards, and this month – just last night on our Zoom writing call – we wrote using the prompt on another one. Today, the prompt is simply What I’m Looking At. I used those words to get started and let them meet me exactly where I was in that moment.

I’m looking at

the swirl of the birdbath

each drop from the roof

plunking in, rippling the surface

each morning breeze

casting dance shadows

with rain and wind

bringing the promise

of the changing seasons

a respite from the heat

to the cool, healing waters

just feet from where I sit

so close

I can almost touch it

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A Demi Sonnet for Jessie

Jessie 

her servant’s heart embraced their broken hope

 her gentle spirit wielded toughest love 

such prayerful presence resurrecting souls

her intercessions strong on their behalf 

(and even in their healing, they could laugh)

in restoration, re-learned how to cope 

with Jessie‘s guiding wisdom from above 

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VerseLove Day 5 with Bryan Ripley Crandall of Connecticut – Scars

Bryan Ripley Crandall, our host for Day 5 of VerseLove 2025 at http://www.ethicalela.com, lives in Stratford, Connecticut, where he directs the Connecticut Writing Project and is Professor of English Education at Fairfield University.

Bryan offers these directions: “Write about a scar, one that may be physical in nature or one that might be more  emotional.” You can read his full prompt here.

I chose a Pantoum form for this poem and made the decision to keep a staccato rhythm, as if touching a hot stove and getting burned.

Heart Scar Pantoum

my heart is scarred

it opened

it believed

it got stomped

it opened

it trusted

it got stomped

it realized

it trusted

it committed

it realized

it learned

it committed

it believed

it learned

my heart is scarred

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February Open Write Day 3: Healing Hurts

Photo by Min An on Pexels.com

Our host today for the third day of the February Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Britt Decker of Texas. She inspires us to write poems of hurt and healing You can read Britt’s full prompt and the poems of others here. Britt inspires us to write a poem in any form we’d like that considers a moment, object, process, relationship, or anything else, that has simultaneously acted as a healing and hurting agent. 

depths of forgiveness

understood, finally, as

she welcomed her child

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Open Write September Day 5

Barb Edler of Iowa is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the final day of our September Open Write. She encourages us to celebrate our writing group through poetry of any form today. You can read her full prompt here and read the poems of others. On the heels of a celebration of the Labor Day launch of our books Words that Mend and 90 Ways of Community earlier this week, I can’t think of a better way to write today than in thanksgiving and heartfelt gratitude for a group of writers who make a difference in how we live and how we think.

If you don’t have a writing group, I encourage you to find one ~ and you can use this one as a great model for a face to face group in your own corner of the world after spending a few hours looking back at the prompts and the feedback. Get the books, read them, and feel the deep need to fix places you never knew were broken. Too many of us have lost our footing and found ourselves floundering and then discovered the power of writing and what it can do. Today is a day to celebrate the power of the pen and the ways it connects us with others. Anna Roseboro said it best at our celebration: if poetry can do this for us, imagine what it can do for our students. We all need poetry and writing in our lives.

Photo by Thirdman on Pexels.com

Belonging

we step from shadows

into glowing candlelight

from our scars

we discover soothing balm

from mourning and grief

into reassurance there is

reason to go on

we come from loneliness

to take a hand of belonging

from disconnectedness

to welcoming acceptance

we leave our fears

step into the fold of peace

we leave disappointments

find spiritual hope

we feel our hearts

pulled at the words

someone else’s

shadows

scars

mourning

grief

loneliness

disconnectedness

fears

disappointments

are our own moments

our own memories

and we know

we know

we know

this is no ordinary

writing group

these are

our lifelines

our people

our friends

our family

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Recovering Rituals

I’ve had a few surgeries in my lifetime, starting with a tonsillectomy when I was in kindergarten. We lived in our house on Timmons Street on St. Simons Island, Georgia during this time, and I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday. The house was white with a royal blue exterior wall in the carport and a 1970s modern-at-the-time artistic architectural barrier wall of cut-out circles that gave a false notion of privacy between the car and the road.

Since we had just moved to the island back in those days, Dad serving as a new pastor with long hair and sideburns looking a little bit like every picture of Jesus I’d ever seen, the members of the church showered us with things for me to do as I recovered. They stopped by and held my baby brother, and they brought ice cream, popsicles, soups, coloring books and new crayons, and books to read. I got spoiled early on to the ideas of what recovery from surgery meant: all the ice cream I wanted, and fun new stuff.

That’s why I began thinking about the silver linings of surgery before I came to be with my adult daughter as she recovers from a tonsillectomy. This isn’t easy surgery – – the older you get, the rougher the recovery. I was even more certain of this when the surgeon appeared from behind the curtain as we awaited the magical hour.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked her.

She had a far more enthusiastic response than either of us was expecting.

“Well, it’s going to suck,” he warned her. “There. I’ve said it. I had this same surgery at your age, and it’s not easy. But it’s worth it. There are healthier days ahead.”

I am a fan of new, young doctors with all the new technologies like the one I had when I broke my foot in 2022, but I took great comfort that this ENT looked older than I am, and I began saying silent prayers of thanks for his level of experience. The good Lord sent comfort on many levels for this mother’s heart as I watched my child being wheeled out to the operating room.

The silver linings and up-sides of surgery include time together, even though we aren’t running around having all kinds of adventures and fun. We’re sharing the sweetness of flattened Coca-Cola so the carbonation doesn’t sting, and we’re having conversations about hopes and dreams.

We’re also knitting hats. I was thinking back on the days when I was young and someone gave me a weaving loom. I must have made a hundred potholders and loved every single project I finished, carefully sorting the colors into piles and counting the numbers I’d need to be coordinated and not all willy-nilly random about weaving just any old colored loop in there.

Years ago, we made a bunch of hats using round looms. I’d passed the looms on to someone else to enjoy once we’d squeezed all our own joy from them, so I stopped in and got some new ones, along with some yarn for the journey. Together, we watched a refresher YouTube video to re-learn how to cast on and cast off, and we started our handiwork.

Oh, the fun of simple time, talking through the hours, sipping apple juice, and creating something that will bring warmth and all the pride of wearing a handmade item. I knitted a baby cap for a new grandchild, and she worked on a hat for herself for the coming colder days.

Somehow, working with her hands has taken her mind off of her throat and given her a different focus. And watching her work has given me a deep peace that everything will, indeed, be better.

Healing is a process that takes time, but togetherness and family time makes it all more bearable.