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Letter Box — Newsletter #34

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For me, 2001 was the actual millennium... The year 2000 was the struggle of the computer world, or you might say, the struggle of the intellect. The year 2001, was a more personal initiation. I decided to enter this new millennium in the dream state. When I awoke the next morning I had the great desire to grab pad and pen. I share with you what came out of the year spent in silence.

Today—January 1, 2001—a New Year, a New Millennium. I shout into the ethers, "Would the real me please stand up." At least a hundred and fifty people of my interior community rise to their feet. No way! I can't possibly be all those people, and yet I am. I am every person I have ever met, I am every tree and every blade of grass, I am every puppy I have ever loved, and every movie I have ever watched.

From the first breath I took until the last breath I exhale I will be the sum total of all my experiences. I am the love I never found, I am the pain that I hide from, I am the hope that never fails, I am the dream that I search for, I am the voice that never speaks, and the ear that never listens. I am judge and jury, prosecutor and defender. I am the greatest friend I have ever known, and my most profound enemy.

I have molded this interior community. I have drawn toward me those that would offer me my greatest struggles, my greatest defeats. I have asked others to put me down so that I might experience the rise of my character. I have denied love, and been denied so that I might experience abandonment and the uselessness of such a journey. When others have not been brave enough to inflict the wounds, I have self inflicted the wound. Cast myself out of Eden, not for self punishment, but to learn what is valuable to the soul when the personality seeks such a path.

Upon my return to Eden I will bring the riches gained in having experienced my own struggle with good and evil. I will add my own story to the tree of life, along with so many others who have journeyed back home through the dark night of the soul. And my soul will be richer and stronger for having made the journey. Upon my return to Eden I will return to my self, all that I myself have denied me. I have learned that without darkness one cannot see the light, and the light would be void of purpose without the dark arena in which to shine forth.

I have learned, that for some strange reason, one never really appreciates what they have until they lose it. I have held death in my arms, I have tasted the bitter anguish of grief and loss, I have deceived and been deceived. I have learned that innocence is not valued, and ignorance too often wins. And with all of this proof contrary to my beliefs, I have learned about faith. When I have not seen it in myself, I have witnessed it in others. And their spirit renews my own.

I have learned that at the very darkest moment in your life a hand reaches out to hold yours. This hand you trust, this hand you recognize as fellow traveler, as friend. For none would willingly enter such darkness if they did not carry the light within. It has been a rich and rewarding journey. I am no longer blinded by the light for I have found my own. I am no longer lost in the darkness, but strengthen by its presence. With all that I have learned, would I be tempted to bite into that apple again? Probably, for there is still so much to learn.

Patricia Ann Doneson

Your recent issue is, as usual, beautiful and true and stimulating... from cover to cover. I would like to say that I am in total agreement with Patricia Ann Doneson of Colorado Springs, Co.

I too have a special relationship to the printed page, one that can never be replaced by the Internet... never, never, never. I do value the Internet but I do not wish to lose the intimacy (ever!) of the printed page; it is truly a lifeline for my mind and sanity, much as food is a lifeline for my body and physical health.

This Fall issue made me contemplate my own feelings about creativity and I realize that, for me, creativity has to do with the courage to feel, to acknowledge my feelings, and to express them, in whatever form I choose (i.e., talking, writing, dancing, singing). The very act of feeling my feelings, whether they are shared and expressed or not, feels creative to me.

I believe that, because I was unable to express my feelings as a child (my parents did not allow them) as well as a large portion of my adult time on this planet (by this time I could no longer access them), just being connected to them feels liberating and creative... and somehow a real privilege as well. My gratitude that they have gradually risen to the surface, that I have become a more feeling person, knows no bounds because, obviously, living my life able to express my feelings openly and honestly has enhanced my life immeasurably. I am still confused at times about what I feel but I suspect that can be said of many of us.

AM I WILLING?

Am I willing to feel my heart
The path of not knowing
Where breath gets short
And fear waits at the ready
To invade
Take captive all the peace
I've ever known
My world turned on its side?

Am I willing to live my days alive
With every sadness known to man
Refuse to court a numbness
Or choose to hide?
Oh yes, my choice is risk
And if I lose I've gained
A life where feelings
Slice my heart in two

With wounds more precious
Than contentment.

THE CREATIVE EDGE

Creativity is, I understand,
A wondrous wondrous thing
But is it bound to what we DO
To what we make and bring???

For me, it is much more than that
Much more than what we do
It deals with what we feel and think
Our acts of kindness too.

It deals, I feel, with honesty
The courage to stay true
To follow what is in my heart
And not what others do.

And that is how I see my pledge
To live on the Creative Edge.

Doree Bart

THE NOTE IN THE BOTTLE

Release waiting
In a bottle full of Merlot
Got it for a bargain.
The depression will be first class
The next day
Clouding my thinking
Magnifying the picture of one who could but won't
Since it is meant for everyone else but me.

Taking care of a family
Life is over at 25 because
Yesterday's bride now carries my child
Responsibilities, taking care of
A life that is just starting.
Health insurance, house insurance
Mortgage payments, malpractice insurance
Life insurance, don't forget life insuranceŅand
Death insurance.

Nobody told me how it would be

The dreams I had
Inspired by Walt Whitman
All gone, since this reality seems to dictate
A life that my father fled when
Divorcing my mother,
Divorcing the responsibility of dealing with
Children who come home with broken bones
Since someone tricked them
And they were dumb enough to follow
Going full force into the wall.

He was gone when I needed him to tell me
That walls are real and not
Just an illusion like I remembered it
From the other side.
This is a physical universe
With bones and flesh and walls and pain and
The reality of money
The biggest illusion of all.

Where is he now? That I am
About to become a father, ending
My life.

Sitting within a circle of redwood trees who
Lending me an eye,
Sway gently in the breeze
Things are so much smaller
When your eyes are as high up as theirs.

Trude Zmoelinig

This poem came in response to a friends question.

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR
INSPIRATION FOR YOUR POETRY?

Your face mostly,
and quietness,
always quietness—
solitude in the morning
and white stones under
moonlight on dark hills.
Thoughtless animals.
The blood that moves them
and the blood that flows
through your hands.
My blood. My longing
for something eternal.
My dark and light being
alternating with the world
like a wave in the sea.
The sea.
The unknowable depths
of the spirit of the world,
and trees.

David Wayne Dunn
® 2000

My coauthored mystery novel, Beyond Bingo, has now been published and is available in local bookstores. Here is another one of my poems.

WATCHING THE SKY

I look out before dawn
into the satin blackness
of a rarely clear sky
and see the upside down moon
the sliver left of it flanked
by a starry Venus, brighter
even than the pale moon.

In time a violent sunrise
burns over the horizon and
a feverish sun sets fire
to the mountains and the sea.
I rejoice in another day's birth
and the promise of comfort and warmth.
All I need for my daily rebirth.

Julie Houy

WHITE SYMPHONY
(Sobranes Point)

Melted ice caps
rise and uneasily roll
over tectonic cracks.

Here elements blur,
pastel and explosive cobalt
rammed against stone
at the roiling edge
of a crumbling world.

Stubborn intentions collide,
roar watery oaths,
pitch ashore weathered granite,
disrupted ellipses of rubbery kelp.

Pale detonations
cough against pebbles and sand.

Furious glaciers from harsher centuries
blast solid shale into quivering portals,
punch crude blowholes
through front lines
of surrendering earth.

Jennifer Lagir

TARA SCREAMS!

A bitter mist glazes the
knife of death
placed in my
sad, pounded,
& bitter heart.
It's there always.
Will it never leave?

Tara O'Reilly

You asked how the Creative Edge fits into our busy lives... It is Shabbat morning and after meditation I get back into bed and read Jewish spiritual writings. This morning, because I have my Creative Edge News, I am starting with it. Creative Edge is part of my sacred reading that I do when possible—woven into my schedule, usually in the morning.

Faye Zimmerman

PRESERVATION AT
SOBERANES CANYON

Save me this day,
this green and restful place,
this narrow foliage-scented gulch,
bramble-crammed meadow,
tapered steep path.

Save me these delicate
pink verbena, graceful
sword ferns, dried fiddlenecks
writhing like colonies
of gray caterpillars.

Save me this cool solitary glen
beside this wandering creek
where a single yellow leaf
takes flight
from an infant maple,
joyrides a ripple downstream,

where white asterisks
peek from clover-leafed sorrel
and toppled redwoods
nourish a wild canyon garden.

Save me this merciful bliss,
this glimmer
of pagan paradise.

WHAT SURVIVES

At the verge of Highway One
prehistoric pelicans glide.
Mythic stone shapes
remain standing.
Colliding waves join forces,
boil over land's dark rocky backbone.

Turbulences seem natural here,
a through-the-looking-glass reverse
of life's inner disorder.

Beneath winter's stunted foliage
a black ant scurries and gathers.
Ocean's muted explosions
parody the canons of war,
relentless
battle of land and breakers
on the front line,

I measure swords with the unknown,
mend torn wings
in the drifting mist,
question what survives
at the juncture of sea
and shore.

Laura Bayless

These poems "arrived" after our recent retreat weekend. Invitation is dedicated to you yourself Donald as the Creative Edge, which keeps on being more keenly honed.

INVITATION

Come play. ally ally in free all,
no need to keep score, just need
to keep on, come into my sand pile
visit my toy box, toss ideas into the air
watch them land on notebooks
sprawl across lines that turn
into pages that turn into flying
paper airplanes never knowing
where they will land.

Splash paint on white canvas
paint white on white knowing
secrets by the prints you make
footprints, hand prints, heart prints
lip prints as tentative voice becomes
song, melody dances around wispy
veils, whistles rival railroad engines,
sighs echo butterfly wings, winds
tell milkweed to multiply, bluebirds
float memories on lost feathers,
walnuts become lunch boxes for
hungry crows.

Jump rope, eesey-eisey-over.
hot pepper under Texas sun
double-dutch before ice cream
red rover, red rover, let everyone
over. hop scotch across the lines
step on cracks touch the chalk
roll down green hills to gather
traces of travel and brush off
prickly grass, braid a rein out
of new mown hay, tie it onto
a Clydesdale, ride over fences
and under rivers, fly quietly
through startling thunder.
Come play. ally ally in free all.

A GESTURE
AGAINST LOSS

a simple nod will do
a silent inward Yes
that moves the head
forward and back
repeated gentle
rocking rhythm
familiar as the womb
and remembered
place of comfort
in mother's warmth
while rocking chair
caresses universal words
spoken in tongues
by people swaying
calls to daily prayer
voices in full song
steadfast drumming
movement itself
speaks clearly Yes
a gesture for life
an unremitting
indelible message
proclaimed out loud
seasoned by tears
a gesture against loss
a gesture admitting loss
a gesture freeing loss
to travel elsewhere.

Illia Thompson

I love getting each issue of The News as it arrives. So many good poems, thoughts, familiar names, workshops. I only wish I were closer so I could participate—Jay O'Callahan, Illia Thompson, all so tempting. As I reach 70, I feel transition, searching within more, letting go of a lot, very few mentors, it's fascinating, and hearing your contributors as they search and observe is always important to me. Poetry still is at the top of my list for sheer pleasure, and birds, a close second, tied with grandchildren.

Anne De Wees

Hi! I echo the sentiments of Ms. Doneson (pg. 8 in NL#33) that I hope you will continue to print and mail the newsletter in the future as in the past. I do enjoy the newsletter when it comes, and wish you continued and enlarged good fortune for this oh so worthwhile endeavor. I will save both the tribute to Dick Criley and Laura Bayless' poems.

Ethel Costagliola

We seem to use the word love to represent very different states of being, very different ways of being in our relationships; friendships, family and marriage. In conversation with some friends online it became clear that they were talking about something very different than I was when we used the word "love" and felt that we needed a new word to differentiate between types of "love." I came up with CONA® representing the intense feelings of: Codependence, 0bsession, Neediness and Addiction!

CONA

CONA controls
LOVE allows

CONA needs the other to be
LOVE is a state of Being

CONA hurts
LOVE heals

CONA manipulates
LOVE nurtures

CONA clings
LOVE frees

CONA demands (often subtly)
LOVE appreciates

CONA takes
LOVE gives AND receives

CONA feels constricting
LOVE feels expansive

CONA retaliates
LOVE respects

CONA punishes
LOVE communicates

CONA needs you to be who the other says you should be
LOVE encourages you to be all of who you are

CONA makes you responsible for their happiness
LOVE accepts responsibility for self's internal state CONA blames other
LOVE accepts other

CONA has an intense edge of excitement.
LOVE has deep comfort

CONA ends with broken hearts when the relationship changes
LOVE remains even when the relationship changes

CONA is conditional
LOVE is unconditional

Lani Hudelson

This is from a Creative Arts Fellowship meditation.

BRASS BOWL

Closing my eyes my thoughts I let quiet.
Myself I set drifting in a calm mist.
Then out of that fog a figure appeared
Holding before her a gleaming brass bowl.

0 shallow it was and covered with runes,
Filled to the surface with water so clear.
Yea it was for scrying, that I did know
The Future was resting in that brass bowl.

I leaned forward to look into the future,
But onto the surface then Time's Daughter blew
To ruffle the water with her breath of Life
Hiding whatever was in the brass bowl.

0 shallow it was and covered with runes,
Filled to the surface with water so clear.
Yea it was for scrying, that I did know
The Future was resting in that brass bowl.

Some of the water poured onto my head
Trapped in a torrent I found myself then
Surrounded by myriad others as well.
Flowing in a river from the brass bowl.

I'm carried along to a great dark sea,
Then swallowed up by some huge ocean beast
There's darkness, then light, then I'm floating above,
Looking down on the earth and the brass bowl.

0 shallow it was and covered with runes,
Filled to the surface with water so clear.
Yea it was for scrying, that I did know
The Future was resting in that brass bowl.

Drank I next from the bowl, a drink without taste.
Trying to swallow the future, I guess ...
Oblivion followed, for there was too much
Too much knowledge for me in that brass bowl.

0 shallow it was and covered with runes,
Filled to the surface with water so clear.
Yea it was for scrying, that I did know
The Future was resting in that brass bowl.

Again stood I before it, what to do now?
I reached out to touch it and was pulled in.
Floating I found me above countryside
Perfect and sterile—dead like the brass bowl.

0 shallow it was and covered with runes,
Filled to the surface with water so clear.
Yea it was for scrying, that I did know
The Future was resting in that brass bowl.

Again was the priestess, the Mistress of Time,
Off'ring the brass bowl for action of mine,
Here was the future all open before me ...
What? What would I now do with that brass bowl?

0 shallow it was and covered with runes,
Filled to the surface with water so clear.
Yea it was for scrying, that I did know
The Future was resting in that brass bowl.

I turned from such knowing; turned my back to it,
Walked into the mist and left it behind.
Swallowed I was by the richness of Life then ...
Enjoying my life without that brass bowl.

0 shallow it was and covered with runes,
Filled to the surface with water so clear.
Yea it was for scrying, that I did know
But I have no need of what's in that brass bowl.

Jeff Hudelson

I invite readers to share their own creative works with a few words about the context of their work for either the new Letter Box On-line or regular hard copy version. I look for work and comments I feel support understanding and encouragement of the creative process, and hence, the process of life.

Submit your name, city and state with your works to Donald@creative-edge.org for publication. I also encourage you to approve adding your E-mail address. Submit images in 72dpi GIF, JPEG or TIFF format.

The Editor

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