Thursday, November 1, 2012

Today's The Day!


This Thursday the 1st of November is the first ever Mindful Writing Day, organised by Kaspa & Fiona at Writing Our Way Home. To join in simply slow down, pay attention to one thing and write it down (making a small stone). Read all about it here. small stones are easy to write, and they will help you connect to the world. Once you've started, you might not want to stop... You can read more about small stones and find out about Lorrie with pea-green eyes in Fiona's free ebook, Write Your Way Home. If you visit Writing Our Way Home on Thursday you'll find out how to download your free kindle copy of the new anthology, 'A Blackbird Sings: a book of short poems'. You can also submit your small stone and see it published on the blog, and be entered into a competition to win one of five paperback copies of the book. There's a Facebook invite here if you'd like to invite your friends, and do feel free to copy this blog onto your own blog. You can tweet this: Connect with the world through mindful writing - join the first Mindful Writing Day on the 1st of November:  #smallstone

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Kaspa & Fiona were kind enough to provide the above text about Mindful Writing Day, and as it is their project, they describe it succinctly and wonderfully.

My day hasn't started terribly mindfully - just a bundle of reactions and emotions. I will endeavor to channel this throughout the day and will update with stones that I find. Wishing all of you blessings and safety and peace. Keep thinking, keep writing.

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8:00 AM:
Torrent of tears and rain on the way to the bus. 
Sending them off with an umbrella for the rain.
Nothing to protect from the tears.
Stretching my heart taut over a fragile wire frame.
Doesn't quite reach far enough.

11:00 AM: 
Inhale, reach up and back. Higher than I think I can.
Exhale. Swoop down, supplicant, gather my courage from around my ankles.
Inhale again. Reaching up, but with focus. Pointing to the sky and pulling it all down to my heart.
Exhale.
Sun Salutation on a day with no sun.

2:00 PM:
I overhear a snatch of conversation as I walk past, busy with my groceries.
He is either saying something racist, or talking about good food.
I will believe it's the food.
I am hungry for humanity.

5:30 PM:
She sits on the kitchen floor with me while dinner cooks.
She asks me to tell her about God and love and a time before she was born.
Math homework is happily forgotten.

9:00 PM:
He fell asleep with a book on his head.
Wrapped in blankets of galaxies and hugging his new tiger tight.
His mouth opened slightly as if to let off the exhaust fumes from his full throttle adventures in his dreams.

11:00 PM:
Adding up the day before I fall asleep.
The columns are out of balance.
There is always profit in finding gratitude.

10 comments:

  1. Ha, I did it (thanks for the reminder I had forgotten!)

    Not sure it is such a small stone as a medium sized pebble but hey, it was fun. I will investigate this more I think. It was hard making every word count!! You may be seeing more of these little pebbles over this month ;-)

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  2. beat beat beat.
    breath breath breath.
    unconscious of it yet,
    we keep on going.

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  3. That first one I have had to read again and again. So heartbreakingly lovely and familiar.

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  4. You paint your day like a portrait. So lovely.

    And, thanks for introducing me to small stones.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Jewels. You are so welcome for the small stones. I am happy to share. It has really helped my writing over the last several months to work on noticing and boiling things to a tasty nugget.

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  5. I love your small stones, as always.

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