Thanks to Addie Evans for sharing this piece she wrote in the last Succulent Words workshop and published on her blog!
http://livelogiclove.com/2014/07/26/transformation-to-bridezilla/
Transformation to Bridezilla
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Author Archives: Deborah Steinberg
Life After Life
A piece from a Succulent Words workshop participant on the theme of “coming back as something else after this life.”
LIFE AFTER LIFE
When I had an abortion at 19 years old I thought it was the end. The end of my first pregnancy and hiding it. The end of worry and the end of that first dose of wonder at my magical woman’s body. Throughout the years I thought of that extricated cluster of joined but undefined cells from time to time—not so much with sadness and never with regret, but with curiosity at what those cells would have added up to. When I thought of them, they always felt male and that added to the mystery that a different sex than mine could—literally—emerge from my female sex. When I was pregnant years later, it also felt male. And when, bathed in dawn’s pink and feminine rays he emerged from my womanness onto our bedroom sheets, I put him on my chest against my bulging breast and whispered, “Thanks for coming back and not holding that first attempt against me.”
– Sabriga Turgon
Yo Future Creatures
A poem from a Succulent Words participant on the theme of “What would you tell the creatures who inherit earth after humans are extinct?”
Yo Future Creatures
Do you notice
the waste
the excess
the single point of focus
the gluttony
the remains of our mistakes?
Or
can you see
the kindness
the ways we tried to stretch ourselves
the struggle to be aware
and take care
of this spinning sphere that holds you now?
– Pati Boyle
Sleep
Here is another piece of writing by a participant in the 3-week Succulent Words workshop at Succulence. The exercise was to imagine burying elements from the past year in the ground so that they can be transformed and grow into something new.
SLEEP
Deep, dark, dank
Moist, barren
Bad tooth
Decay!
Fetus: anger’s bait and switch
Wilted foliage
Abandoned garden
Untended life
Breathing into another form
Zippered words and strength
Stay down!
I shall speak again.
Dirty (not so) old men-
Out!
of my house
Bury… alone
Separate hole.
Alone, alone.
Lost in the woods
?
You are never lost,
Never cold,
Never hungry
You are tired!
Seal a cap on my toil
Bring it to a boil!
Bury the pain first.
Natalie Hopner
The Garden of My Life
Here is a piece by a participant from the 3-week Succulent Words Writing Workshop. The writing exercise this came from was to imagine yourself as a tree, and to write about your community in that light.
The Garden of My Life
In the Garden of My life I am one of those city cherry blossoms that you gaze as you walk around Hayes Valley, trees that were freshly planted but were never new. Like those trees, I always felt like I had different lives and in different settings. Trees that are supported by manly created wooden structures, not so organic as other lets admit it, but so freaking eager to get grounded and to give love to those around them.
Because I mean those trees are being planted to give beauty and love to those who dare to be disrupted by the present moment, maybe in a very urban and ironic way. But hey! They are landscaping and when you, human beings, feel quite lost in the cold, grey & constant changing weather of San Francisco, if you are aware enough to find one of those middle sized, pretty handicapped trees, you would smile.
I feel supported mechanically, a little by my own invention, a little by the creation of the cosmos. I look up to other trees that have deep roots that go as deep as to the earth´s center. But I am not one of them, and its Ok. I am one more like a Boddhistava, renounced to that level of comfort and drifted away from home – to find another home every once in a while – and maybe someday will fly away.
Writing is Healing at Succulent Words Workshop
Read about one participant’s great experience at the last Heal Write workshop at Succulence, as well as an example of the types of writing we generate in the workshops, on her blog. Register for the upcoming three-week Succulent Words workshop to do some healing writing of your own!
“I am floral
fruity
with hard and soft pieces…”– from ‘Myself, The Jungle’ by Addie E.
From Myself, The Jungle, written by a participant in last week’s Succulent Words writing workshop at Succulence, inspired by the prompt: “If you were a place, today, where would you be?” Read the whole piece on her blog, and share your own place in the comments.
New research on the healing power of writing
Seniors who engaged in expressive writing healed from physical wounds faster than their non-writing counterparts!
Stroke recovery through playwriting
In this great personal essay, Bay Area playwright and director Michaela Goldhaber describes how writing and directing plays helped her recover from a stroke.
Coming soon…
The Heal Write blog will feature writing by Heal Write workshop participants, as well as links to interesting articles and websites about writing and healing. If you have a piece of writing that was inspired by a Heal Write workshop that you’d like to share with the community, please send it to me and I will post it to the blog.
healwrite.com 