Tag Archives: daily practice

after a long silence

Stencil graffiti reading, "Slide the light off you may find some peace"Hello and hello and hello. It’s been such a very long time! It’s begun to snow again where I am this morning — how is the day beginning in your part of the now?

I am thinking this morning about long silences, about the way that silence can grab hold and not let go, about how silence can fill us up, bit by bit, day by day. And about how silence can be a healing timg sometimes, even when it has caused such damage at other times in our lives.

We talk a lot about breaking silences in the world of recovery, particularly around sexual violence and intimate partner violence. This is euphemism and metaphor, and it’s also language that’s quite factual – at times there are stories we don’t tell, things we are kept from speaking about, ways we hold our tongue so deep inside our bodies because we want to be safe or we want to be good, we want to do what’s right, what we have been trained to believe is right, even when what’s been done to us is wrong. these are silences that can be destructive, teaching us that our place is in back, under a box, our lips sewn shut and our bodies open and available.

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zone of peace

graffiti: lotus blossom silhouetteHappy Friday! Good morning good morning — how were your sleeps?

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This morning, Sophie and I met a man during our walk. She was calm when he first saw her, and then she got more excited as we approached him — she was full of puppy energy, jumping up a little and mouthing his hand.

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coming back to center

photo of a crow standing at the edge of a blue/green/white sidewalk-spiralLast night I had a dream that Sophie met another dog, our neighbor dog, and they were fine together — friends. She got some new toys last night, and this morning she’s a little crazy with wanting them. Who can’t understand that?

Happy Thursday morning to you out there. Thanks for being here.

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another chance

graffiti on a concrete, outdoor staircase: at the front of each step is painted the word Try, so it rises up as you climb: Try, Try, Try, Try, Try...This isn’t like that. This might have similar features as that, might look familiar, might hold its head about the same way, but it’s different. It’s right now. It’s new.

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Good morning — this is a new-schedule day. Up for morning pages, then short dog walk, now blog, then feed dog, then get ready for work: all by 7:15 am. I am ready and not ready to go.

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those quiet questions that live underneath all the noise

graffiti of a cuppa coffee -- contains the spray-painted words: "props to soup + soil"

"props to soup + soil" -- love that!

There’s a mourning dove outside my window; I turn off my quiet morning music to listen. It’s mostly just that harmonious throb — whoo, whoo, whoo, in a breathy thrum.

I am thinking about boundaries, about elasticity, self care, and about perfection.

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maintaining

stencil graffiti painted on wood, ornate pattern oovering the surface, with a break in the shape of a flying birdGood morning! I don’t hear the foghorns this morning — does that mean things have cleared up a little bit out there? I’m writing from my newly set-up office; yesterday I decided I wanted my desk to be a place where I could actually work, so I spent the morning tucking away the as-yet-unpacked boxes, filing papers and figuring out where books could go, putting up some artwork (thanks especially to Dorian Katz) — I’ve got the candle going, the good tea, I’m at my own desk.

And what’s next? This morning, I set my alarm early, and I don’t even remember the alarm going off the first time, barely the second. I actually woke up, broke open to consciousness, about 15 or 20 minutes later, and then the voice started going in my head. This one: Get up, Jen, get up! You keep saying you want time to write, and then you fritter it away in bed and then you’re miserable all the rest of the day. So get up–god! Just do it!

It may not be all that surprising that that voice doesn’t really inspire me to get out of bed, to stretch out of tired and could-easily-sleep-more (and might-benefit-from-more-sleep) and move into the cold air outside the covers and sit down in front of the blank page.

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