Copyright 1978-All Rights Reserved
Author's Note: This is an excerpt from my first published writing. The editor asked me to write it for a community magazine when I was living in Evansville, Indiana. All the pieces published on my blog under "The Retrospective Series" are pieces I wrote years ago. You'll be able to tell when by the copyright dates.
Banging Our Own Drum
John W. Vandercook, in his book, Tom-Tom, said: "A race is like a man; until it uses its own talents, takes pride in its own history, loves its own memories, it can never fulfill itself completely."
Black people must explore and keep alive our own cultural heritage. This heritage must be passed on to our children so they, in turn, can pass it on to their children. It's been said that Culture is nothing if it's not communicated. By handing down our cultural traditions, we understand our common desires, values, strengths, fears, and hopes. We discover how much we share--our views about good and evil, what is just and what is unjust, what is sensible and what is ridiculous, what is valuable and must be guarded with care, what is vain or pompous and needs discarding...what moves us to joy or to grief, to laughter, to rage...what leaves us cold and unmoved... what fires us up.
Through our traditions, our cultural legacy, we find the key to our common identity and our humanity. We must pass our heritage on...because it is there that we find the image and reflection of ourselves. It is there that we find our history, our memories--which can lead us to self-love, rather than self-hate. It is there that we can find something denied and lost for so long: pride in being Black.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Writing Series: Fear of Creating/Writing
Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved
Fear of Writing/Creating: Finding Your Footing
"Walking in the dark is like writing. When I first came to Hedgebrook, I was afraid to go out after dark. I feared many things--bogeymen, monsters, some psycho with a grudge against women writers, even the other women who I thought might be psychos in disguise--but mostly, it was just not being able to see that bothered me.
"I wanted to confront my fear so after a while, I ventured out at night, first in a group and then by myself, wielding my flashlight as a weapon against the dark. I didn't go far from my cottage-- to the bathhouse and back again. One night I got very brave and turned off my flashlight. I stumbled at first, but then found my footing. I felt the gravel beneath me and I knew I was on the path. I followed it to the bend by the pond. Then I felt for the softness of grass. If I stepped on a bush, I knew I'd gone wrong, or, I was about to forge a new route home. I realized I'd become too reliant on seeing and less reliant on feeling.
"When I quit panicking, I knew the way. Just like when I'm writing, I have some instinctive sense of where I'm going even if I can't see beyond the blank screen. I've walked this path before. My imagination has gone ahead of me and charted the way. If I pause and listen, i can hear her footsteps on front, guiding me. If I listen even closer, I can hear other footstpes of the writers who have come before me and the writers, like you, who are still to come.
"We are not alone in the woods groping in the dark. We are wlking on paths that have been walked on a thousand times before. We are saying things for the first time that have been said a thousand times before."
from Hedgebrook Waterfall Journal #5, Lynn Dixon
Fear of Writing/Creating: Finding Your Footing
"Walking in the dark is like writing. When I first came to Hedgebrook, I was afraid to go out after dark. I feared many things--bogeymen, monsters, some psycho with a grudge against women writers, even the other women who I thought might be psychos in disguise--but mostly, it was just not being able to see that bothered me.
"I wanted to confront my fear so after a while, I ventured out at night, first in a group and then by myself, wielding my flashlight as a weapon against the dark. I didn't go far from my cottage-- to the bathhouse and back again. One night I got very brave and turned off my flashlight. I stumbled at first, but then found my footing. I felt the gravel beneath me and I knew I was on the path. I followed it to the bend by the pond. Then I felt for the softness of grass. If I stepped on a bush, I knew I'd gone wrong, or, I was about to forge a new route home. I realized I'd become too reliant on seeing and less reliant on feeling.
"When I quit panicking, I knew the way. Just like when I'm writing, I have some instinctive sense of where I'm going even if I can't see beyond the blank screen. I've walked this path before. My imagination has gone ahead of me and charted the way. If I pause and listen, i can hear her footsteps on front, guiding me. If I listen even closer, I can hear other footstpes of the writers who have come before me and the writers, like you, who are still to come.
"We are not alone in the woods groping in the dark. We are wlking on paths that have been walked on a thousand times before. We are saying things for the first time that have been said a thousand times before."
from Hedgebrook Waterfall Journal #5, Lynn Dixon
Writing Series: Thoughts about Writing
Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved
About Writing
"Writing is like going on a journey to find something one dreams of. It is like crossing a mangrove to reach the sea [going through] its entangled roots, its pools of briny water and its many layers of mud. It is like mapping a dark and rebellious land.
by Maryse Conde, a Guadeloupean writer of the African diaspora
"I live in my head a lot. Sometimes, when I'm in bed, I lie there in the dark and when I get a thought, I come into my den and put a few lines into paragraphs and let whatever grows out of that come. Eventually, I will have a page. And then, eventually, two pages. I write every day, as a matter of fact.
by Sidney Poitier, actor, from an interview in AARP magazine, September and October, 2008
"Fiction begins with a crisis, from which future action grows."
by Kathy Krajcous, Lighthouse Writing Tips
"If you allow yourself not to write when you don't want to, the writing will naturally bubble up, all the more powerfully in its own time.... Never force yourself to write. and never force yourself to write one thing when you feel the urge to write something else."
from Waterfall Journal #6, Hedgebrook writer, Susan Kiyo-Ito
About Writing
"Writing is like going on a journey to find something one dreams of. It is like crossing a mangrove to reach the sea [going through] its entangled roots, its pools of briny water and its many layers of mud. It is like mapping a dark and rebellious land.
by Maryse Conde, a Guadeloupean writer of the African diaspora
"I live in my head a lot. Sometimes, when I'm in bed, I lie there in the dark and when I get a thought, I come into my den and put a few lines into paragraphs and let whatever grows out of that come. Eventually, I will have a page. And then, eventually, two pages. I write every day, as a matter of fact.
by Sidney Poitier, actor, from an interview in AARP magazine, September and October, 2008
"Fiction begins with a crisis, from which future action grows."
by Kathy Krajcous, Lighthouse Writing Tips
"If you allow yourself not to write when you don't want to, the writing will naturally bubble up, all the more powerfully in its own time.... Never force yourself to write. and never force yourself to write one thing when you feel the urge to write something else."
from Waterfall Journal #6, Hedgebrook writer, Susan Kiyo-Ito
Journey Series: Affirmations
Positive Affirmations
from the Literature of Co-Dependents Anonymous
Just for today: I will respect my own and others' boundaries.
Just for today: I will be vulnerable with someone I trust.
Just for today: I will take one compliment and hold it in my heart for more than just a fleeting moment. I will let it nurture me.
Just for today: I will act in a way that I would admire in someone else.
I am a child of God.
I am a precious person.
I am a worthwhile person.
I am beautiful, inside and out.
I love myself unconditionally.
I will allow myself ample leisure time without feeling guilty.
I deserve to be loved by myself and others.
I am loved because I deserve love.
I deserve love, peace, prosperity and serenity.
I forgive myself for hurting myself and others.
I forgive myself for letting others hurt me.
I forgive myself for acepting sex when I wanted love.
I am willing to accept love.
I am not alone. I am one with God/Spirit and the universe.
I am whole and good.
I am capable of changing.
I am enough.
The pain that I might feel by remembering can't be any worse than the pain that I feel by knowing and NOT remembering.
from the Literature of Co-Dependents Anonymous
Just for today: I will respect my own and others' boundaries.
Just for today: I will be vulnerable with someone I trust.
Just for today: I will take one compliment and hold it in my heart for more than just a fleeting moment. I will let it nurture me.
Just for today: I will act in a way that I would admire in someone else.
I am a child of God.
I am a precious person.
I am a worthwhile person.
I am beautiful, inside and out.
I love myself unconditionally.
I will allow myself ample leisure time without feeling guilty.
I deserve to be loved by myself and others.
I am loved because I deserve love.
I deserve love, peace, prosperity and serenity.
I forgive myself for hurting myself and others.
I forgive myself for letting others hurt me.
I forgive myself for acepting sex when I wanted love.
I am willing to accept love.
I am not alone. I am one with God/Spirit and the universe.
I am whole and good.
I am capable of changing.
I am enough.
The pain that I might feel by remembering can't be any worse than the pain that I feel by knowing and NOT remembering.
Journey Series: Self-Validation: Declaration
Copyright 1995-All Rights Reserved
Declaration of My Rights
The only moment of life we really "have" is the present.
Today, we can improve on our choices.
Today, we can stand up for our rights.
Today, I know...
What I feel and what I think counts. Carrying shame about who I am is NOT okay.
MY RIGHTS:
I can say No without feeling guilty.
I don't have to take care of your responsibilities or feelings.
I have the right to feel all of my feelings--from love to anger.
I have the right to make my own decisions about what I want & need to do.
I don't have to feel the way you want or tell me to feel.
I have the right to tell you what I need and ask for what I want, knowing you have the right to refuse.
If what you do hurts me or feels wrong, I can walk away and figure out how to take care of myself.
I can and do have the right to stand up for myself.
--Frankie Lennon
Declaration of My Rights
The only moment of life we really "have" is the present.
Today, we can improve on our choices.
Today, we can stand up for our rights.
Today, I know...
What I feel and what I think counts. Carrying shame about who I am is NOT okay.
MY RIGHTS:
I can say No without feeling guilty.
I don't have to take care of your responsibilities or feelings.
I have the right to feel all of my feelings--from love to anger.
I have the right to make my own decisions about what I want & need to do.
I don't have to feel the way you want or tell me to feel.
I have the right to tell you what I need and ask for what I want, knowing you have the right to refuse.
If what you do hurts me or feels wrong, I can walk away and figure out how to take care of myself.
I can and do have the right to stand up for myself.
--Frankie Lennon
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Woman Series: Women Who Run with the Wolves-Part II
Copyright 2009- All Rights Reserved
It is useful to make sure that we understand how the word wild or Wild Woman is used by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her book, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. Wild is not used in negative sense, meaning out of control, but “in original sense of living a natural life, one in which a creature has innate integrity and healthy boundaries.” Wild is defined as: Occurring in a natural state, not cultivated; Uninhabited or uncultivated region, not inhabited; Extravagant; fantastic.
Though we are born with our wildish nature, we women have been “civilized” into rigid roles and that has “muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls.” We are repressed, captured, pushed down, forbidden, cut back, diluted, tortured, weakened, sanitized, unnatural, consumed by others.
Estes tells us: “Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman but she is an endangered species.”
“The Wild Woman,” says Estes, “is the female soul… the source of the feminine…all that is of instinct, of the worlds both seen and hidden… all the instincts and knowings needed for our lives.”
Dr. Estes contends that when we women lose touch with the instinctive soul, we live in a state where we are cut away from our basic source. The purpose of her book of stories is to help women find a way to live their instinctive lives.
She says:
“This is a book of women’s stories, held out as markers along the path. The stories were chosen to embolden you. They are for you to read, contemplate, and follow toward your own natural-won freedom, your caring for self, animals, earth, children sisters, lovers, and men. …the doors to the world of Wild Woman are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
You might ask: What fruit, what flowers, what life nourishment—spiritual, emotional, physical, mental—for body and soul is there in these stories?
One answer is in this quotation from Estes. “If a story is seed, then we [the listeners] are its soil,” says Estes. The stories in the book are “seeds” and women or the listeners are the “soil.” Living things are born in and from the soil. Living things are nourished and nurtured there. Living things are protected and given strength and sustenance there. Hopefully, the fruit or flower that will bloom from the listener’s “soil” is a woman's inner life being set in motion which leads a woman back to her own real life as "knowing wildish women.”
Estes believes that “stories are medicine… with such power that we need only listen” to find remedy, restoration, repair of any lost psychic, soul or spirit drive. Such is her goal in this book of intriguing tales, myths, stories. I urge you to listen to these stories to find your way to healing paths. Listen to them and find your way to the Wild Woman within you.
Wild women live their instinctive lives...their true lives.
Do you?
Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. Publisher-Ballantine Books, 1992.
End
It is useful to make sure that we understand how the word wild or Wild Woman is used by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her book, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. Wild is not used in negative sense, meaning out of control, but “in original sense of living a natural life, one in which a creature has innate integrity and healthy boundaries.” Wild is defined as: Occurring in a natural state, not cultivated; Uninhabited or uncultivated region, not inhabited; Extravagant; fantastic.
Though we are born with our wildish nature, we women have been “civilized” into rigid roles and that has “muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls.” We are repressed, captured, pushed down, forbidden, cut back, diluted, tortured, weakened, sanitized, unnatural, consumed by others.
Estes tells us: “Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman but she is an endangered species.”
“The Wild Woman,” says Estes, “is the female soul… the source of the feminine…all that is of instinct, of the worlds both seen and hidden… all the instincts and knowings needed for our lives.”
Dr. Estes contends that when we women lose touch with the instinctive soul, we live in a state where we are cut away from our basic source. The purpose of her book of stories is to help women find a way to live their instinctive lives.
She says:
“This is a book of women’s stories, held out as markers along the path. The stories were chosen to embolden you. They are for you to read, contemplate, and follow toward your own natural-won freedom, your caring for self, animals, earth, children sisters, lovers, and men. …the doors to the world of Wild Woman are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
You might ask: What fruit, what flowers, what life nourishment—spiritual, emotional, physical, mental—for body and soul is there in these stories?
One answer is in this quotation from Estes. “If a story is seed, then we [the listeners] are its soil,” says Estes. The stories in the book are “seeds” and women or the listeners are the “soil.” Living things are born in and from the soil. Living things are nourished and nurtured there. Living things are protected and given strength and sustenance there. Hopefully, the fruit or flower that will bloom from the listener’s “soil” is a woman's inner life being set in motion which leads a woman back to her own real life as "knowing wildish women.”
Estes believes that “stories are medicine… with such power that we need only listen” to find remedy, restoration, repair of any lost psychic, soul or spirit drive. Such is her goal in this book of intriguing tales, myths, stories. I urge you to listen to these stories to find your way to healing paths. Listen to them and find your way to the Wild Woman within you.
Wild women live their instinctive lives...their true lives.
Do you?
Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. Publisher-Ballantine Books, 1992.
End
Woman Series: Women Who Run with the Wolves-Part I
Copyright 2009- All Rights Reserved
I’ve always loved fairy tales, myths—stories. My mother and father told and read me stories when I was a child. When I learned to read, stories—fairy tales, comic books, movies—were my first love. Although some cultures, those of Latin America, of middle Europe, of Africa, still pass stories along, American culture tends to think of stories as only the stuff of childhood and that these things should be left behind us after we come of age. That is a mistake, I believe.—an attitude that misses the point of stories.
What is it about stories that I love…that people love? Why do they transfix us so? I believe the answer lies in this: Stories are a vessel, a construct, a vehicle that we have deliberately created to transport, through time and space for ourselves and each other, precious and essential information for living—ideas, knowings, wisdom, consciousness, learning, hope, touch and connection, nourishment and warmth, support and encouragement to keep going.
They were meant to give us heart as we pick our way over the paths of life. If we tell them to each other as adults and we listen, they reveal the markers of life’s journeys: growing up, adulthood, growing old, birth and rebirth, trials and ordeals, dangers and safe harbors, loss and endurance, sacrifice and hope, transformation and light.
This is certainly true of the book of stories I have just finished reading called Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I recommend its hope to the defeated, the cynical, the pessimist. I recommend its wisdom to the curious, the sophisticate, the intellectual. I recommend its love and warmth to the isolated, the fearful, the lonely and disconnected. It is a wonderful book: Comforting. Supportive. Encouraging. Challenging.
Using multicultural myths, fairy tales, folk tales, and stories, Dr. Estes’ book helps women reconnect with our buried healthy, instinctual selves and inner lives. The stories that Estes has collected and retells in her book are fascinating; the explanations of what the stories mean are intriguing. They whisper the secrets of a woman’s core being, her spirit, her soul…how to discover, find, reclaim my true feminine nature, how to heal those precious gifts of feminine instinct, knowing, wisdom (“wildness”) that has been mislaid, buried, waylaid, stolen, denied. Her stories console me, reassure me, teach me to rely on and trust my instincts. They gently release me from what has bound me: social convention, cultural roles, childhood wounds, family history, adult injuries, shame, guilt, secrets, betrayals, fears, traps, learned coping behaviors that have turned into strangling vines.
End Part I
I’ve always loved fairy tales, myths—stories. My mother and father told and read me stories when I was a child. When I learned to read, stories—fairy tales, comic books, movies—were my first love. Although some cultures, those of Latin America, of middle Europe, of Africa, still pass stories along, American culture tends to think of stories as only the stuff of childhood and that these things should be left behind us after we come of age. That is a mistake, I believe.—an attitude that misses the point of stories.
What is it about stories that I love…that people love? Why do they transfix us so? I believe the answer lies in this: Stories are a vessel, a construct, a vehicle that we have deliberately created to transport, through time and space for ourselves and each other, precious and essential information for living—ideas, knowings, wisdom, consciousness, learning, hope, touch and connection, nourishment and warmth, support and encouragement to keep going.
They were meant to give us heart as we pick our way over the paths of life. If we tell them to each other as adults and we listen, they reveal the markers of life’s journeys: growing up, adulthood, growing old, birth and rebirth, trials and ordeals, dangers and safe harbors, loss and endurance, sacrifice and hope, transformation and light.
This is certainly true of the book of stories I have just finished reading called Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I recommend its hope to the defeated, the cynical, the pessimist. I recommend its wisdom to the curious, the sophisticate, the intellectual. I recommend its love and warmth to the isolated, the fearful, the lonely and disconnected. It is a wonderful book: Comforting. Supportive. Encouraging. Challenging.
Using multicultural myths, fairy tales, folk tales, and stories, Dr. Estes’ book helps women reconnect with our buried healthy, instinctual selves and inner lives. The stories that Estes has collected and retells in her book are fascinating; the explanations of what the stories mean are intriguing. They whisper the secrets of a woman’s core being, her spirit, her soul…how to discover, find, reclaim my true feminine nature, how to heal those precious gifts of feminine instinct, knowing, wisdom (“wildness”) that has been mislaid, buried, waylaid, stolen, denied. Her stories console me, reassure me, teach me to rely on and trust my instincts. They gently release me from what has bound me: social convention, cultural roles, childhood wounds, family history, adult injuries, shame, guilt, secrets, betrayals, fears, traps, learned coping behaviors that have turned into strangling vines.
End Part I
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