Category Archives: Soul

Can You Feel It

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I was reminded of a word I’ve rarely seen in use, but have known for quite time now Duende.

At its most basic definition, duende is used to describe a mythical, sprite like entity that possesses humans and creates the feeling of awe of one’s surroundings in nature.

“Beautiful doesn’t begin to describe it. A flower is beautiful. But this is beautiful the way that a person is beautiful – terrifying with its jagged edges, yet seductive with its crevices that hide so many secrets.”

The author of the above spoke of the Grand Canyon. Suffice it to say that moment was duende in the traditional sense.

Like most such words duende’s meaning has evolved over time and now mostly refers to the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.

The phrase “work of art” loosely infers painting and sculpture. I would like to expand that definition to also include the use of words – written, spoken or sung. Have even read a poem or a passage in a novel that gave you pause? Heard a song, lyrical or instrumental, that moved you deeply?

Duende.

To those of you who know, and like I cannot resist, the drum solo of Phil Collins “In the Air” that pull you feel in your core
— when you hear those opening notes?
— that make you stop everything and raise your imaginary drum sticks in anticipation?
— and even if it’s only in your mind, that pull you feel before you let loose…?

That’s Duende darlings, in its modern sense.

When you feel it to your core, when it makes you stop…

Stop to look, stop to hear, stop to touch, and if the work of art is food, stop to smell and taste it.  When it makes time, and you, stop – it’s duende.

So I task you with this today, that which moves you, natural or man-made – go find it. Spend a few moments to feel it to your core and just enjoy it.

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Day 30 – the next to the last day of this challenge – let’s see how my fellow slicers are faring through it….

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Slice of Life Writing Challenge Day 30 | Two Writing Teachers

You Like Me!

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Last week was one bummer of a week for me to say the least. Today being Easter Sunday  I was determined to resurrect myself from the understandably maudlin mood . Luckily for me, movie and dinner were already in the works for today and thus went out and enjoyed myself. On my way home from an already enjoyable day, I run into someone I had not seen in years and we reconnected.  And just when I think today couldn’t get any better, I get home log in and find this:

500

 

Yes, there are other bloggers who reached this milestone in a few months, what has taken a few years for me. I realize this only reflects my fellow WordPress bloggers who follow me and does not take into account those of you on Blogger/Blogspot and other blogging sites who pressed that button I labeled Follow me more nearly. (Yes, it and the other button on my sidebar, reference the song “Day By Day” from “Godspell”.) Not going to lie, this made me smile.

Since February 2010 500+ of you thought enough of whatever post you were reading to want to read more. When something I didn’t think I’d do more than a couple of years reached that first 100 follows I was honestly surprised. This has me floored. That the running streams of consciousness from my mind that form commentary, poems, flash fiction and Verbal Diarrhea Diaries connect with a handful of you out there was more than I could ask for. I am so very appreciative that you ask for more it by following.

For that I sincerely thank you all. I hope I can continue to make you laugh, cry, think and overall feel.  As I wrote on my very first post:

I thank you for taking the leap of faith and riding with me.

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Day 27 – we’re in the final stretch –
Let’s see how the other slicers got through this Easter Sunday…

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Day 27 of the 9th Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge – Two Writing Teachers  

The Spirit Believes

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Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
“Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Romans, Countrymen
Sons and daughters of Israel
The spirit believes
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t
The heart sees what the eyes belie
The soul comprehends He is risen

This cannot be, so many claimed
And yet it is, as many others knew
The spirit believes
An absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space
A new calendar of the divine
Marking a new era that time cannot erase

Grand strides began with
Faith the size of a mustard seed
The spirit believes
I begin again with the smallest numbers
Each morning’s new breath, my daily bread
And a nightly prayer before my slumbers

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Today, Mary is our host at dVerse Poets. She introduces us to writer, Naomi Shihab Nye, and challenges us to choose a line from Naomi’s poem “Burning the Old Year” to write a poem of our own. Overachiever that I am I chose an entire stanza to work with in a stylized Glosa.

dVerse ~Poet Pub | Poetics – Choose a Line
dverse

City Gal Country Road

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Won’t deny it, I am mostly a city gal, born and raised and I love my gritty streets.  But in my youth I had me a good taste of some country days and ways. Many summers spent down in semi rural south in Grandma’s house, I learned me some things most city folks know nothing about.

Don’t know why, but there’s something about this time of year, this early spring that takes me back. . The trees are mostly gray, the very first hints of spring raising  from aground, yet that nip of winter making an appearance in the late nights. Yet I know summer’s not too long from coming.

And I’m reminded of being in the middle of a bench seat of pickup truck as a child. Or riding shotgun on a back road as a young teen. Riding hard somewhere that has never known the feel of asphalt with the spray of mud and gravel flying from beneath the tires. Oh and dappled sunlight filtered through a canopy of leaves, my hand out the window surfing the wind.

Yeah, sometimes this city girl craves a country road.

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Let’s see how others are slicing through what’s left of the weekend…

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Slice of Life Story Challenge – Day 6 | Two Writing Teachers

Questions

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How does 
      a kiss stop being just a touch of lips
      polite in greeting, but emotionally fleeting?

Where do 
      the contents of two souls 
      start to slowly collect and then spontaneously connect?

Why now 
      in this new friendship 
      still learning ours feats and flaws, something gives pause?

What has 
      shifted in our core 
      and lay bare that which now has us both hopeful yet scared?

Who are 
      we to question 
      the stars and the moon that such an epiphany could happen so soon?

When does 
      a kiss stop 
      being just a kiss, turning some magic corner and becomes this?

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Open Link Night : Week 154

Hello

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A man smiled at me while I sat at an open café
My usual first response: to turn away
To see which woman the smile was directed to
And I think to myself “It couldn’t be you!”
For too long I’ve worn a badge of pity
Not feeling loved, needed, wanted, pretty

In the beginning my spirit was his to inhale
in the end his spirit I couldn’t exhale

My ex’s house cleaning included the parts of my self
from the years I put my own needs on the shelf
then left my empty cupboards open for all to see
Exposing validation of the unworthiness of me
I finished the job he started on my own
And turned a heart made for sharing, abandoned and alone

So ingrained was his scent in the breaths I take
I had to relearn to breathe for my own sake

Taking fresh stock of what I wanted, but not needed to be there
I surprised myself to find my pantry no longer bare
No longer blinding myself to what I needed to see
I rethink to myself “why not me?”
A fresh breath, a fresh step, a fresh peace, a fresh start
Each breath osmosis; restoring soul to the heart

I take the shades from my eyes to let them show
Turn back to my admirer and breath. “Hello”

I’m Done!

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The last vestiges of cabin fever or seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or the winter doldrums or whatever one wants to call it have exerted themselves in my psyche. My soul is clearly done with this tiny bit that is left of Winter 2014 and has officially balked.  I’m done.

I should have known this was coming – last week it was  snowing, still I bought iced drinks from Starbucks – twice.  I’m done.

I decided I am done with anything and everything down. My oh god it’s freezing long down coat, my shorter heavy wool coat, my heavier hats, all sent to the cleaners or the laundry. That final step before being put away for the season.  I’m done.

Yesterday, I went without a hat. I did not even have one stuffed in my pocket just in case. I’m done.

Today has an expected high of 50 degrees and I am planning on doing something that has not happened in months – wear a dress. Do you hear me? I’m done.

I have five living plants on my desk at work – that is not enough. I am buying a bouquet of flowers because I need the sight of flora near me, I need it now.  I’m done.

I normally do not get into such a tizzy like this until mid-April and if it snows again, which is still quite possible, I am going to be mightily ticked-off, mightily, but right now I don’t care. I feel the longer I keep holding on to my winter gear the longer Ol’ Man Winter keeps his grips in my mental space and he just needs to GO! I’m done.

So you hear me Persephone? We’re sick of your mama Demeter taking her yearly seasonal affective disorder out on us poor mortals. Dionysus must have had her seriously lapping up the vino this season. Have you seen what she did to Boston?!  Girlfriend, I know Hades is your boo and all, but it’s just time honey. Time for you to get off the man’s hot pocket and bring your hot seat back surface side so your mama can can start warming some stuff up around here, like now. We’re done.

Oh yeah, when I start kvetching with the Olympians you know what’s up? Yeah, you guessed it – I’m done!

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Come see how others are facing this 11th day of the challenge:

8th-annualc2a0slice-of-life-story-challenge-invite

Unspoken

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Hello darkness, my old friend
In twisted linen wound
My sweated girth

I’ve come to talk with you again,
In screams and wails without sound
Gossamer baggage weighting me to the earth

Because a vision softly creeping,
While the sun was upward bound
Turning this soul to flameless hearth

Left its seeds while I was sleeping
Taking from my flesh its pound
For all it’s worth

And the vision that was planted in my brain
The tick- tock of my own ‘gator run aground
Mocking me in a Cheshire mirth

Still remains
In the ever-growing mound
Of compassion’s dearth

Within the sound of silence
To seethe and confound
The truth never given birth
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Abhra is hosting at the Poetics bar here at dVerse Poets Pub today, challenging us to talk about secrets without actually revealing any.

Using the ever familiar lyrics of Simon & Garfunkle’s “Sound of Silence”  in a modified combination of Glosa and Trireme Sonnet forms.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Poetics : What is your secret

Or Does It Explode?

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I can see my personal quest for inner calm is in direct defiance of my continual reading of news regarding the lack of a grand jury indictment in Ferguson, MO.

When I first read about the verdict I literally threw up my hands in frustration. That action immediately put to mind the classic Marvin Gaye song “Inner City Blues” which I posted to my Facebook.

ferguson

I wake up this morning to the snippets of the evidence presented at trial all over the news and social media. If what has thus far ben released to the public as a way to substantiate the grand jury’s correctness in their decision, it has backfired greatly my eyes.

I’ve seen some of the photo evidence of Office Wilson’s “injuries”. They range from what looks like razor burn or heat rash to a simple scratch. I’ve marred myself more popping a pimple.

And as I angrily posted this morning upon seeing the above picture:

ferguson2

That was his personal evidence? THAT was worth someone’s life? NO!

I know. I KNOW, I was not at the trial. I have not perused all the evidence that was presented to the grand jury – now released to the public. I have seen several snippets that have thus far been posted to news and social media. Those alone, at least to me, make it worthy of a trial.

All I can think right now is: Has the value of black lives, which were always of questionable value in this country historically once we stopped being chattel in the country anyway, lowered so far down the scale that the death of one in such fashion is not even worth a damn trial?

Last night’s outbreaks of violence in the aftermath of the verdict, reminds me very much of what happened after Rodney King. And to be honest, while I understood the anger that drove it, I did not understand the point of the LA riots in 1992 any more than I understand these outbreaks in Ferguson now. Being afraid to step foot in or out of the door of your local business because your own neighbor may have a Molotov at the ready, does nothing to help the situation. I’ve lived just long enough to see that while the details change, it still all feels a harsh ring of deja vu with history repeating itself.

Here we Americans stand some two hundred and thirty plus years of freedom from England. We blacks stand some one hundred and fifty years free from slavery, but sometimes I feel like we’re still bound. The Civil Rights Movement has done much for the outer trappings, yet we are still such a long way from the inner heart of the dream of Rev. Dr. King. And it seems every generation or so, a match gets lit to a powder keg to remind of us of just how far we have left to go before that dream comes true. In the interim, it still remains a dream deferred and Langston Hughes best explained the possible ramifications of such…

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

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It’s a pretty pissed off Raivenne slicing here – come see how others are slicing it up today:

Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

Slice of Life Weekly Writing Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

No Apologies

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So Linda Kelsey posted an article on the Daily Mail, a UK publication. In the article the self-proclaimed “unapologetic fattist”

Oh Linda Kelsey honey, let me begin with these wonderful words from the incomparable Mary J. Bligh:

So I like what I see, when I’m looking at me,
When I’m walking past the mirror

And yes it’s a full length mirror, showing all of me from my cankles, through my “bulging bellies and billowing pillows of back and shoulder stuffing, punctured by flabby arms and lardy legs” to my massive mess of curly hair. And I adore every ounce of it!

I am not going to go through the various fallacies in your pseudo medical proclamations solely equating fat with a litany of potentially fate medical conditions. We’ve all been on that not-so-merry-go-round and rather leave that to those who are better versed in that debate handle it. My focus is on your inability to understand how women of a certain size can dare to be happy. I do not know about you, but the source of my happiness is not attached to the size of my waistline.

You don’t like fat on yourself, that’s fine. You don’t like fat on other people, that’s equally fine. You are entitled to your opinion on both counts. However, your issues with the fat body are not mine. And certainly are not the Happiness Police. My happiness is not reliant upon your opinion -there’s that word again- of my fatness. My happiness cannot be validated or unvalidated by anyone but the crazy woman I face in that full length mirror each day.

I suppose a part of me is somewhat grateful that unapologetic fattists such as yourself at least recognize that not all of us fat chicks are miserable beings, hiding ourselves from the world, crying into a (insert fatty foods of choice here – I don’t want mention specifics and accidentally trigger anyone). After all we fatties are clearly so sensitive with no self control that even mentioning food could set us off on a feeding frenzy <– that was SARCASM in case you missed it. I am not grateful that you and your fellow unapologetic fattists feel that we should be just that though, hiding behind our own for walls until we shrink down to a size the lot of you deem no longer a blight and acceptable for public viewing.

Not gonna happen chica. You want to call me a fat girl, oh please do because guess what? I am fat and that’s that.

Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers
Slice of Life Challenge: Two Writing Teachers