I am so much more than I ever thought I was – Sherri Yerkes (speaking from the heart)
So several weeks ago now, Robin Ok called to connect on the upcoming Creative Collaborative Retreat 2015.
http://www.creativecollaborativeretreats.com
I still remember her words, “I signed you up for some things that you can say ‘no’ to these if you want….
How exciting! My heart already was saying a great, big, fat ‘yes’ – before I even heard the list, which ended with a session on poetry!
Oh joy!!! YES!!! Ideas poured in…
The retreat weekend came – 13-15 of this month and it was everything, and more, than expected!
Beautiful, powerful, connecting, art-full, musical, spiritual, abundant, accepting, empowering – on-and-on I can, and will, go. I was overwhelmed with love and joy on many levels, but my greatest bit of on-going-bursting-out-all-over joy is from my poetry session.
New words were framed, created, brought out of heart-hiding into beings of light, onto old inspiring paper and into the hearts reading and listening. We shared our poems at the end of the hour – no one left with dry hearts or eyes.
Poems (words) are living things. They touch us, heal us, bring us joy and create space inside us as we bring forward what was inside and allow new thoughts to be born, creativity always creates anew inside and outside of ourselves. We give to receive and in receiving we give back again.
This magic has taken root in some great and powerful ways, I am so amazed at the beauty, the power, the courage, the immensity of these poets – new and seasoned veterans – all old souls.
I am so grateful to have been able to share this session, which helped connect these amazing, gifted women with their inner, living, beautiful poetry. I believe poetry lives inside each of us. The need for beauty is essential for us to live, discovering, excavating that beauty is our life-long, ever-changing, most-challenging and surprising gift.
Check out Barbara Endel’s new, amazing poetry blog –
https://poetintrainingblog.wordpress.com
🔥
This poem came to me yesterday…kinda summed it all up:
Our poems
Are like the wart-hogs
In the zoo
It’s hard to say
Why there should be such creatures
But once our life gets into them
As sometimes happens
Our poems
Turn into living things
And there’s no arguing
With living things
They are
The way they are
Our poems
May be rough
Or delicate
Little
Or great
But always
They have inside them
A confluence of cries
And secret languages
And always
They are improvident
And free
They keep
A kind of Sabbath
They play
On sooty fire escapes
And window ledges
They wander in and out
Of jails and gardens
They sparkle
In the deep mines
They sing
In breaking waves
And rock like wooden cradles.
💞
Living Things by Anne Porter
Living in astonished and passionate gratitude for each of you. Thank you for allowing me to inspire you…thank you for inspiring me!
If you do nothing Nothing will be done.
Sounds like we should know this,
right?
It’s just fascinating to me to see
the result of a decision to create a newsletter dedicated to good news,
then to commit to creating that publication for one full year.
8 full years later,
as I ended that project,
to make way for new projects,
there were over 135 issues
on a website devoted to that good-news thing.
4 years ago I decided to begin a daily poetry and quotes blog,
I now have almost 2000 blog posts.
December 2012, I committed to a poem a day.
11 months later,
I had over 700 poems written.
It’s crazy cool!
And it has been a huge lesson to me,
Dreams and Ideas are great,
but only the commitment, focus
and actually acting on the idea,
will call it forth into the world.
All those words, ideas and poems would still be inside me somewhere,
if I had not said, yes, to DOING it.
Nothing gets done without the work.
Intention and action go together
in order to build the house,
in order to change the world.
AL
life: acoustic & amplified 
