Writing Circles for Healing

Writing Circles for Healing:

words to light our way

Writing Circles for Healing is a writing support group to help heal loss, grief, illness, and life-altering transitions. Writing in a safe, supportive environment allows us to express our deepest feelings. By sharing our stories and listening to each other with empathetic, focused attention, we validate our experiences. Using simple writing techniques, we access our inner healer as we gain fresh perspectives on our lives and find courage and hope.

to find out more: http://www.wendybrownbaez.com/:

all materials: Writing Circles for Healing: words to light our way (c) 2007

prompt from Mid-town Writer's group: maybe there really are only 5 important calls in anyone's life

Marcia was doing laps in the indoor pool after our afternoon writing group. Word Dancers had started to meet at the condo because it was more convenient for me, the one person who didn’t drive, and because we could sit outside in the shaded garden by the pool. Secluded and quiet, it was peaceful to sit there, drinking the iced tea I brought from the house. I don’t remember any arguments amongst us then. We were planning our first poetry reading and we were inspired. For once the five of us were focused on cooperation and accomplishing the task at hand rather than our personal and interpersonal dramas.

My partner was sinking into another fall of depression and I craved sunlight and company as much as I craved silence and solitude. He had worn me out. Behind my back, my friends were praying for the relationship to end. I wasn’t ready to let him go even though he begged me to give him permission. I didn’t believe that we have the right to take our own life at that time. But little did I know how bad it could get.

Marcia was in her 60’s, petite and lithe, with a halo of frizzy gray hair. She was a medical astrologer honoring her creative side. Before we left the sun-dappled tranquility of the garden, I had said to her, “I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave him. I’m waiting for a sign.” Then I gave her the key to the spa and walked slowly down the sidewalk that connected the buildings, dreading the return to the musty smoky apartment where Michael might still be in bed, driven by the chemicals in his brain that controlled his moods.

There was a message on the machine that my piece about the women’s moon lodge had been accepted by Goddessing. I stood there by the phone listening to the message in stunned surprise. I had submitted that piece so long ago, I had forgotten about it. Then the adrenaline kicked in. To get something published and not just in a neighborhood desk-top newsletter! This was big news. I ran back to the pool to tell Marcia.

“Well, there’s your sign,” she said, doing the crawl stroke across the vivid blue surface of the pool.

Yes, but what did it mean? It didn’t tell me whether or nor to leave Michael. It didn’t even tell me that my intuition that he was getting worse instead of better was right. Simply that I had something to say and it was time to say it.

lead: It was icy sitting on the steps

An icy wind blew as they struggled out of the warmth of the café into the warren of streets that meandered through the Arabic section of Jerusalem. She looked over at her traveling companions and realized that Sarai was shivering inside her short jean jacket. “We have to buy her a scarf,” she mumbled to Caren, her own mouth tucked inside the brilliantly striped Mexican rebozo wound around her neck. Caren nodded and they huddled closer together to retain the warmth, Sarai in-between them like a protected nestling. Because she was a teen-ager, she normally would resent the inhibiting closeness but with this biting cold, did not protest.

Fortunately it was one of the days that the shops were open. The intifada had succeeded in shutting the city down for three days, thank goodness, before the cold hit. They had spent the time sight-seeing as pilgrims, taking in the garden tomb, the Church of the Sepulcher, the pools of Bethsaida, and Solomon’s stables. They only had a little money to duck into the warmth of a café for scalding hot, sweetened mint tea. It felt like pure luxury.

When they found a vendor who sold scarves, they let Sarai choose, carefully pooling their shekels from their pockets. They were left with twenty argarot and one shekel, about sixty cents USD. But it was worth it to see the look of gratitude on her face, chapped pink by the cold. Just as they exited the shop, drifts of snowflakes started to fall. Snow in Jerusalem! Unusual although not unheard of. Where would they spend the night? She hadn’t told Caren that when she had gotten up to use the restroom, a man had approached their table and offered to buy her for an afternoon. Or was it Sarai he wanted? This chubby, shy, tag-a-long was terrified of this strange adventure and fortunately she hadn’t been paying attention to the strange man’s broken English or hand gestures.

Although her feet were numb and her hands shoved deep into jean pockets were icy, she was thrilled to be in the holy city of Jerusalem. She remembered that on their way into the city, a man they met on the bus had given her his card. A Christian Arab, Ali repeatedly invited them to stop at his home and meet his family. Impressed that they traveled in the name of Jesus, penniless, adhering to the original Gospel lifestyle, he was respectful. He shook their hands warmly when they parted at the central bus station.

“Let’s call Ali,” she said to Caren, their eyes meeting over the top of Sarai’s blond curls. They had to have a warm place to sleep out of the cold.

“Tomorrow I think we should go north, to the Galilee,“ Caren suggested. “We’re not dressed for this weather.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She was disappointed to be leaving Jerusalem after waiting years to be here. But she would come back. She knew it. To add her prayer to the Wall. To wander the streets in a mystical trance. To find her lost soul crying out for a way to find home.

Things I didn't know I love

Things I didn’t know I love--- prompt for Midtown Writer's group July 7th, 2007

I didn’t know I love air conditioning until I started having hot flashes. I love cool breezes in the middle of the night instead of huddling under a pile of blankets. My room in the basement is my cave of dreams. I incubate secrets into poems and my thrashing about with God becomes a prayer. It is cool and dark—all that I never wanted when I was light and bright and always chilled to the bone every winter.

Or is it the testosterone they say I gain by losing estrogen?

I didn’t know I love to be alone after a lifetime of collecting groups together—and this is not to say I don’t love company. I didn’t know the clarion call of my own soul and my own thoughts would be able to keep me entertained sufficiently to last through the coming sunset years. I always leaped up to make a phone call in the middle of my reveries. I still yearn for the most intimate of human connections—but I also cherish each moment of deepening silence when I let myself go there. Through flood watch and hurricane, through death and the crematorium’s smoky plumes, through celebration of a published poem, a sold painting, a child’s first step, an exchange of vows in an afternoon dappled lawn, yes, I need you there, my family, my tribe, my audience, my beloved, wearing the face of the Divine for me. But then what delight to let you go away so I can have me all to myself.

For this reason, I had to leave every place I fell in love with. For this reason I don’t know where I will end up being able to stay.

MoonSense by Wendy L. Brown

My novel MoonSense is forthcoming form Creatrix Books in spring 2008. Here is a little preview:


MoonSense

Once a long time ago in the Time of the Moon Priestess, a girl child was born and was named Havida. Three dark spiral curls were plastered on her head when she slithered out and the handprint of the Goddess. I know this because I was there: I caught her in my arms and gently laid her on her mother’s breast. Her mother Armonis took her tenderly into the shelter of her warmth and after blessing her silently with the Mother’s Blessing, offered her a breast. The girl baby sucked eagerly and the line of pain across Armonis’ forehead transformed itself into jubilation.

When I saw the sign of the Goddess I immediately sent my hand—maiden Ashirah to bring the flask of Sacred Oil from my medicine pouch. It is customary to anoint a girl child on the eighth day when the Heavenly Beings who attend the birth recede back into the Sky Realm and we prepare the child to enter the First Naming Ceremony and grounding into human life, a great ceremony that all the tribe would attend. And it would be so. But I opened the flask impatiently almost as if in a dream, almost as if impelled. When the fragrance of the sweetened oil was unstoppered, Armonis looked up questioningly from her contemplation of her baby’s features. Although Armonis has the Tongue That Speaks Not, not by choice but by an accident of birth, I could see in her eyes that her Special Eye was opened. She, too, saw the signs: the dark spirals, the Handprint, and the iridescent radiance that surrounded the child.

For those of us who can see with our Special Eye, we see this radiance and its dazzling array of colors around each person. And it was not unusual for a woman to have her Special Eye opened after childbirth. But this light not only was beautiful, it emanated a serenity I have experienced solely in our elders, have only experienced myself recently long after my Second Naming when I became a woman. I was approaching my Third Naming, when I become a crone. For an infant immediately after the birthing to be so serene meant that the child was truly gifted.

As I knelt by Armonis’ side, the three women who had been in attendance on Armonis also knelt in reverence. Mikihah still had tears of joy in her eyes as she stroked Armonis’ dark damp hair back from her forehead and cooed delightedly at the baby. The other friend Rahal, swept away the bloodied sheets that were under Armonis and replaced them with fresh ones, just as she had replaced the other soiled ones through—out the night. Hanoch, her mother, brought Armonis clear cool water and fruit cut into small pieces to quench her mouth. They knelt as soon as they saw me falling to my knees, and breathed quietly in enraptured silence while I poured three small drops of the sweet thick oil on the baby’s wet head, still smeared with the fluids of the birth. I intoned solemnly the words of the ancient Blessing:
Daughter of the Goddess Brought to life out of Light Brought to light out of Life You are our sister
our daughter our mother
Oh, cherished One May you fulfill your Holy Destiny
and may we protect and honor your Divinity.

The women sang the Ahmen with me. Armonis repeated the words silently and we were enfolded in a great sense of peace, as though the Goddess had thrown her arms around us and enfolded us to her.

Then I arose and gathered my warm woolen cloak about me while the women chattered and made the mother and child comfortable. Mikihah and Rahal, breast sisters to Armonis, knew her well since childhood. They would take excellent care of her and I could now announce the arrival of the newest member of our tribe.

As I swung open the heavy doors of the Birthing Temple, the cool freshness of the night wafted through, and refreshed my body and spirit. Stars blazed in the night sky as I pulled the purple banner up the pole. Purple is the color for a girl, as all daughters are spiritually able to become a priestess. Despite the night’s passage toward dawn, people waited about for news. When I took the purple banner up, they cheered and laughed and cups of wine on a golden tray appeared, delivered by hand—maidens of the High Priestess.

Two men stepped forward simultaneously, Armonis’ lovers. One held dried figs, grapes and pears in a basket woven from dough, and a small flask of oil. The other held two golden bracelets, one for a woman and one for a child. He carried a small loaf of bread and flask of oil. I looked at each man and thought how wise Armonis was in her choice of lovers. One could sustain her physically if the need ever came to be, the other could sustain her spirit with poetry and youthful passion. Both of them were beautiful to look upon, burnished dark by the sun with long dark curls, though the second had silver streaks through his. Their dark eyes stared at me, somber with question, yet understanding they could not address me first. I accepted their gifts and bowed, and the solemnity became wide white smiles as they understood that Armonis lived as well as the child.

I went back into the Birthing Temple, closing the door on the sounds of singing beginning to arise through the cool night air, musing to myself if Armonis preferred one of them to the other. The young one certainly smoked with intensity, like a blazing fire. But the other, secure in his position in our tribe because his mother was a deeply respected elder, had an air of intelligence, charm, and grace. Each sat at her table as often as the other, and each spent as much time in her bed, as far as I could tell. I sighed and shook my head as I presented her with the gifts. Lucky woman!

Without signal words used, Armonis knew from the vibration in each gift who was the giver. “How exquisite!” Mikihah exclaimed, as I fastened the bracelet on Armonis’ wrist. The small one I added to the flat basket which would hold more presents from the tribe at the Naming Ceremony. Armonis turned her wrist this way and that to admire the workings on the flat delicate bracelet, then opened her mouth so her mother could pop in a grape.

I could see the jubilation had quickly become exhaustion. The birth had been a long one. I took the sleeping infant, wrapped her in a cotton blanket and handed her to Mikihah. Hanoch asked Armonis in signal language if she needed anything, was comfortable, then kissed her on her forehead and her eyelids, and went to lie down on the smaller bed in the corner of the room. Rahal banked the fire, then came to my side and together we closed the veils around the now drowsing mother. The veils between This World and The Other World also closed, silently, secretly. New life had been born. The Not Yet Born and the Dead went back to their places.