Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

How Will You Look Back at “Times Like These?”

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There are a lot of people who are writing poetry during National Poetry Month. This is something I do – and while I am not keeping up with producing a poem a day – it is more like a torrent of poems every few days – my reading of poetry is what is fueling me quite intensely as of late.

A tree listens in the image as does the quote from Adrienne Rich says, "Because in times like these to have you listen at all, it's necessary to talk about trees." Who is listening to you with sacred, heart opened ears?

In bringing you into my poetry sanctuary – in quarantine times especially I feel more than a bit vulnerable. Speaking that aloud first makes me feel slightly more open to share with you this unfurling process this week as you may choose to step into it, too, to gain an understanding of both yourself, your loved ones and your world.

So far this morning I livestreamed Adrienne Rich’s poem, “What Kind of Times are These” twice, on Instagram and Periscope. Each time I read this poem aloud more turns of phrase and meaning slowly or not-so-slowly rise up to greet me.

Now, it is time to consider how the words of Adrienne Rich and the prompts I am providing may rise up to greet you in your creativity, in your contemplation and in your conversations.

Consider:

Where is your sacred space to listen and to be heard?

Where is your sacred space to listen during this time of quarantine?

Who are the people who will listen to you from their own place of sacred listening?

You may contemplate these questions, discuss them with your friends or on the pages of your notebook or journal. You may also watch the replay of the livestream video on twitter:

Now, a writing prompt to take on your way, without concern for what poet Adrienne Rich had to say or not.

Consider and then reflectively write, free flowing style – to the prompt –

What kind of times are these? and/or

These are the times when…..

If you are not in the space to write, have a conversation with a friend or spend some time in contemplation.

In the future, these time will be a memory you will be asked to remember and talk about with others. These are the times you may still shape these next few weeks.

What will you do to shape these times with hope, light and inspiration?

Woman writing on the front porch of a brick home,
Write wherever you find yourself.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife. She inspires people to live their life as an artform and take action towards their best results. During the 2020 Pandemic she is also leading daily Virtual Coffee Dates, Facilitating Intentional Conversation so people will feel less isolated during this time of social and physical distancing. Join the conversation by registering for free by clicking this link.

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Word Lovers, Unite!

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Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is in her Bakersfield, California living room wishing you word-love. She invites you to participate in this week of creative writing and joy. A full book shelf is behind her and she holds a notebook in her hands.

Word-love! Two words I blended together a few years ago to express how much I love words, love their sounds, their meanings and the deep connection they create between us and among us. I write prose, most often non-fiction essays and how-to’s along with the occasional advice. I have written plays and less often I write fiction.

Many people know me as a writing teacher and a writing coach.

Julie JordanScott writing poetry at a downtown Bakersfield flower shop.

One of my favorite and most active form of writing is poetry.

I am a poet who loves to surround herself in poetry.

April is National Poetry Month.  As I often do, I find new ways to share poetry. This year I am livestreaming poetry almost daily via periscope and more often than not on Instagram Live. Usually the poems are picked in the moment as my time to broadcast arrives and I grab a poetry collection and turn to a page and read.

I have found some incredible rich poems this way from poets known and unknown to me that somehow seem to blend into an array of words that addresses exactly with what we are going through.

Yesterday I visited the Poetry Foundation website and found six different poems for next week. I decided I wanted to highlight the online home of Poetry Magazine, where people may read every single issue published since its founding in 1912.

This is poetry abundance at its best, isn’t it?

Again, the poems selected were a mix of synchronistic finds and others very intentional. Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” was a definite yes. I tried to pick a poem that refused to be copied so I went deeper and discovered a new-to-me poets, Emily Jungmin Yoon and Joanne Klink.

This week in my blog I will take a line from each poem I share that day and write an essay from it. I will post prompts for you to use to write, make or share in creative conversations with your friends or family or with yourself in your journal.

A pink circle surrounded by starts contains the words of Emily Dickinson, "The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."

My hope is you may fall in love or deeper in love with words. If you have not been a poetry fan, maybe you will open yourself to the beauty and love of poetry – it isn’t something to be misunderstood or understood like one of your teachers might have told you.

It is something to be loved, to be enjoyed, to be experienced like a fine glass of wine or a sunset or a long remembered and cherished birthday party.

Whether or not you visit here in the coming week, I invite you to experience this coming week as a time of joy, regardless of what is swirling around you.

A notebook on a table with an art journal with a variety of small paper works of art. One is a queenly figure, another is a triangle with a square that reads, "You are essential joy" from a poem by Hildegard de Bingen

As Hildegard de Bingen told us in a poem hundreds of years ago, “You are essential joy.” It is our choice to live those words even when we may not feel them initially.

Thank you for reading.

Julie JordanScott creates content to inspire creative people to lead more satisfying lives even during this pandemic. Walking and sitting at the Panorama Bluffs helps her feel centered.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife. She inspires people to live their life as an artform and take action towards their best results. During the 2020 Pandemic she is also leading daily Virtual Coffee Dates, Facilitating Intentional Conversation so people will feel less isolated during this time of social and physical distancing. Join the conversation by registering for free by clicking this link.

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Feelings: Over Around and Upside Down Getting Through the Covid19 Pandemic

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Weekends for me tend to be busier than weekdays and during these days of quarantine, it is not different. I stay where I am and I have the meetings I would have had out and about. I leave my home to write haiku and I come home and I have more meetings.

Earlier today I was so tired I really wanted to opt out of my later-in-the-day meeting but I didn’t. I was actually energized afterwards. Yay me for showing up anyway?

I did some decluttering and purposeful television watching (Little Fires Everywhere) and now, I give myself the gift of a touch of writing before I either make a video or do some decluttering or both.

I look back up and see the graphic I made earlier in the week,a quote. “A word after a word after a word is power,” and I think “She’s right. Margaret Atwood is right.”

What I was feeling before I sat down to write was anger.

I saw a writing prompt and it made me mad.

But I pushed that mad away and pretended it hadn’t existed and allowed the distraction to take center court and then again, “A word after a word after a word is power” so here I am.

I am angry. This unknown is stretching out in front of us with no end in sight is starting to get on my nerves. I can pretend it doesn’t bother me and get all into spiritual mode, but I am afraid to go into grocery stores and I am out of cranberry juice and that makes me feel angry, which highlights my privilege and makes me feel ashamed for getting upset about something like not having cranberry juice when lives are being lost.

Someone is texting me as I write and my phone buzzes. I more than likely don’t want to talk to them (or text with them.) Right now I would like chocolate. I am angry that my default is still chocolate. I am angry I have had a chocolate addiction for almost my entire.

My spiritual better half is whispering in my ear to practice self-forgiveness but my mad as hell and I’m not taking it anymore side is escalating. Clackety clackety clackety up the roller coaster mountain my anger goes…no relief in sight. No relief in sight.

I put my head against the back of the chair and watched videos of my trip to the river this morning. I allowed myself to feel whatever was gurgling up. I stopped feeling angry and remembered I am in control of what I do with my anger.

There may not be the relief I would like to have and there is relief in knowing I have tools like writing, meditation, daily virtual Coffee Date Conversations, music, 27 fling boogies, art journaling, all of it will get me closer to feeling better even if these circumstances continue longer than I might want or like.

“A Word after a word after a word is power,” says Margaret Atwood.

My words, “I have the ability to process. I gain strength daily. I have the resources I need to get through this just like I’ve gotten through many other setbacks along the way.”

Grace flows because my heart knows – a word after a word after a word is power.

AFFIRMATION TO USE:

“Grace flows because my heart knows “A word after a word after a word is power.”

Writing prompt:

Right now I feel…… (write without editing or judgement. End your writing with 5 gratitudes and the affirmation, “Grace flows because my heart knows – a word after a word after a word is power.”

Women holding mugs of coffee, tea, mocha to represent a "virtual coffee date" held virtually during the 2020 pandemic.
Join us for our Virtual Coffee Date on Zoom, every day at 1:30 PDT. Click this link to register for free. Yes, even on weekends!

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife. She inspires people to live their life as an artform and then take action towards their best results. Her specialty is writing – her easiest way to express what she does is this: She Coaches. You Write. Your Readers Win! During the 2020 Pandemic she is also leading daily Virtual Coffee Dates, Facilitating Intentional Conversation so people will feel less isolated during this time of social and physical distancing.

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One Step at a Time: Open the Door, Find the Light

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This morning I attempted to write an inspirational essay prompted by Emily Dickinson’s quote about the soul standing ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.

Normally this fits my passionate process quite well and I am able to flip a less constructive mood quickly. This morning, my sour mood wasn’t going anywhere.  I sat in my writing corner digesting the previous night’s emotional turmoil which had turned into an emotional hangover larger than my usual.

I am a tender soul. A tender human. I am sensitive and I seem to fall down and skin my spirit like as a child I skinned my knees when I tripped and fell and skid across the playground,

Emily Dickinson's ecstatic soul ajar lesson isn't always immediately accurate

I vacillate between “can’t wait for the next thing I’m doing it is the be-all-end-all and I am being magnetized toward it…” and then something happens and my face is close to the pavement, again.

Last night when my emotional skid happened it was after my son sent me a scathing text: a long one, based on one of his ongoing gripes with me about something that happened years ago.

He doesn’t tap dance around my history of fear in regards to his life. He goes for the jugular, knowing or unknowing the guilt I haven’t effectively let go yet. My response to his anger is to stand there and take it.

When he was a little boy and couldn’t put his frustration into words, I would stand still when he pummeled me with his fists. I have never forbid him to channel his anger, though now I think a boundary is overdue.

I responded to his text with something like this, like I have said and texted many times in the past:

“I did what I thought was best. I let fear guide me too many times. You are right, I could have chosen differently.”

I am wondering how much he wants to hear about his autism diagnosis and why what happened early in his educational experience caused a wall to be built between me and many educrats, teachers and administrators.

His anger at me isn’t about the totality of me, it is about how I interfered in helping him pursue his vision and continues to impact him now.

What I noted today that I hadn’t ever before is how much this guilt I continue to harbor also builds walls against my creative process. It burrows into my softness, my tender heart, my sensitive soul and I end up pushing away the keyboard.

Yes, I was almost always afraid for my son. He went through hell when he was little and then when he was not so little and even in the months before he graduated we had yet another crisis to navigate.

Sylvia Plath wrote, “It is the hate, the paralyzing fear, that gets in my way and stops me.” In Plath’s case it stopped her from writing the short literary fiction she longed to write at the time and for me, my work flow dries up. I spent much of the day in silence, not even reading or jotting notes.

I went to Toastmasters and gave a quality evaluation and then was worthless until about ninety-minutes ago.

Writing Prompt related to Emily Dickinson's quote that invites personal reflection before ecstacy.

Like my son, after taking time to process – I felt better.

Sometimes when the soul is ajar, it doesn’t go fast forward into ecstasy, as Emily Dickinson suggests. I like to think she knew her fair share of waiting for ecstasy with a side of bits of grief and struggle and “not quite ready” yet moments.

Emily Dickinson quote image with stars and a circle, "The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."
Portrait of Julie Jordan Scott, Creativity Coach and Creative Life Midwife

This post is a part of the Women’s History Month Writing Quotes & Prompts series from Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, and her Word-Love Writing Community you may join for free on Facebook. During March, there will be daily discussions on the quotes and prompts we present here, too. Join the conversation and improve your writing at the same time!

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What Joy Will You Share Today? Prompts & Inspiration for Your Journey

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Writing prompts, or prompts for creative reflection, make a big difference for people.,. These are about describing joyful moments. Try one!

This Anne Sexton quote reminds me of the gratitude quotes I cherish, the wise quotes which serve as reminders of how important it is to share what we are grateful for… which is something I think I mostly have down.

Mostly.

Gratitude and joy have the same “positive” root, yes, and I see gratitude as a state of being that is quiet and reflective – in my mind’s eye and my heart’s embrace I feel my friend Maria’s energy. Joy, on the other hand – is more like character in the movie, “Inside/Out”

Writing prompts may be used for creativity, converstion or contemplation. Describing joyful moments helps us remember and create new ones, for example.

Joy is a bit rambunctious and loud, definitely a physically energetic jubilant sort of space. JOY is me when I jump up and down and clap my hands because I do, actually, jump up and down and clap my hands.

It is not something I plan to do, it is something I do spontaneously.

What is your perspective?

PROMPT: Write for 5 minutes about a recent joyful moment.

Write for 5 minutes about a long ago joyful moment.

Write for 5 minutes about a future joyful moment –

Woman with brown hair and glasses sitting in a park, enjoying the blue sky and trees before she gives an inspiring talk.

This post is a part of the Women’s History Month Writing Quotes & Prompts series from Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, and her Word-Love Writing Community you may join for free on Facebook. During March, there will be daily discussions on the quotes and prompts we present here, too. Join the conversation and improve your writing at the same time!

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Stories are Waiting to Be Heard: Are You Listening?

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What makes us better story tellers?

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved listening to stories. As I grew older, I fell in love with telling stories, both written and spoken. There is something sacred especially in telling about a moment in time in your life when something happened – something clicked and you knew… something you hadn’t known a moment before. It is in that knowing something new, that a-ha or epiphany moment that compels us to share whatever it was because we know, we just know, this may be a contribution to someone else.

It isn’t always easy to find a place to share our stories: with grown children there isn’t shared mealtime anymore and my friends are often busy with their own thing so when we are together we are sitting in a dark movie theater or seeing a play or talking about minutia rather than what matters.

As I wrote these words, I realized there is an a-ha within this situation itself. On those occasions when my stories are heard by others who value what I am saying, I feel my most alive. I feel valued, I feel worthy, I feel grateful to have people taking me and my message seriously.

I am a member of toastmasters so I have a regular, formal outlet for sharing curated stories which are then evaluated and assessed by my peers. This is helpful and heart opening and it isn’t necessarily the same as sitting around a circle for hours, speaking and listening with laughter and sometimes tears punctuating the vulnerable connections made because we are listening and speaking with our hearts.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we spent more time listening and speaking for no reason except for the joy of it?

Prompt for Writing, Creating, Conversation or Contemplation:

“When people listen to my stories, I feel…”

“When I listen to other people’s stories, I feel….”

5 Minute Writing Prompt: I remember the time last Fall when…. write about anything at all for five minutes without stopping, using shopping, Thanksgiving, Halloween or an unexpected surprise as your topic.

Julie JordanScott looks to heaven as she takes a pause in her writing.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife. A writer, speaker, life coach and multi-creative who “walks her talk” she provides the world fuel for creativity, intentional connection and purposeful passion in order to eradicate loneliness and the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

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Writers: Think First of Your Readers – Wisdom from Adrienne Rich

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Poet Adrienne Rich's quote is within a pink circle which is surrounded by starts. The quote says, "I know you are reading this poem in a room where too much has happened for you to bear."

I collected quotes for Women’s History Month looking mostly for women writers I admire, I trust for their quality, and the quotes I offer are not “overdone” – seen constantly and shared constantly and overdone.

This quote from Adrienne Rich was chosen, graphic was made but I didn’t give myself space to listen to it or allow it to get close to me until it was time to add it into a post. It was then its power slayed me.

A writer standing at a white board looks down at her notepad, listening to the advice "Writers, speak to your readers." She smiles in understanding.

One of the first things I learned as a writer seeking publication was to write with my audience in mind.

In the writing workshops I facilitate I sometimes lead a visualization where the participants imagine a stadium filled with readers of their future book. In our mind’s eye, we drop into the stadium and float around watching the faces of the readers as each person reads the works-in-progress which in our imagination has now become a thoroughly enjoyed book.

It is a sort of holy silence in the stadium, eyes steadily scanning the pages at slightly different points in the story since we all read at a different pace.

I never took that exercise into where people might actually be reading our books, except for me with “Dear Autism Mom” I imagined a mom at the park, holding onto the book and reading it as she sits on a bench and her children play independently.

Perhaps this is because I remember being a younger mom, reading books while my children played, enjoying the respite except for when the needed my help to get momentum going on the swings.

In “Dedication” by Adrienne Rich, we are greeted, each person who reads her words, in a line of the poem. She speaks to the reader directly – and for me, the line “I know you are reading this in a room where too much has happened for you to bear,” reached out and pulled me close. It was like looking at myself, nose to nose, only it wasn’t me. This meant someone else was listening.

Someone else was listening to me and recognizing what I was saying as sacred.

Someone else was understanding me, someone felt compassion for what I was going through.

When we do our jobs as writers, our readers feel as if they are not alone. They sense they are a part of something bigger than themselves. They expand to become a part of the world you created with them, in a collaborative process from writer to reader and back again.

Prompt:

Take a moment to read “Dedication” by Adrienne Rich. In the link there is a recording available as well as the written poem.

Note the intricate, individualized awareness Rich has toward her readers.

Now it is your turn.

Write a list of qualities of your reader.

Bring them to life through description, description that uses multiple senses and where possible, use a setting as well. Take five minutes and write a short essay, story or poem in which you “break the fourth wall” and speak directly to the reader you describe thoroughly.

Julie JordanScott typing a love poem on the edge of a foothill of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Julie JordanScott typing a love poem on the edge of a foothill of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

This post is a part of the Women’s History Month Writing Quotes & Prompts series from Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, and her Word-Love Writing Community you may join for free on Facebook. During March, there will be daily discussions on the quotes and prompts we present here, too. Join the conversation and improve your writing at the same time!

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Writers: Let’s Fall in Love with Revision Using the Wisdom of May Sarton

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Just reading this makes me feel better about revision. So much of my creative life gets stuck in revision and editing.

Writer sitting at a typewriter revising her writing.

I am highly practiced at creating different versions of the same piece of content and ruthlessly cutting and shaping for different purposes – in fact, I make this into something of a game to share social media posts made up of earlier blog posts or book chapters.

For my current work-in-progress, I am choosing to address the final revisions and edits from this new perspective. There is no universal rule saying I can’t have a variety of versions for different purposes, especially in this time of using more content for social media posts.

I can feel the weight coming off my shoulders.

What do you think about revisions and edits?

.Prompt: When I think about editing and revising, I feel…

The idea of taking one piece of writing and using it for multiple purposes (social media posts, blogging, public speaking) is…

Julie JordanScott writing poetry at a downtown Bakersfield flower shop.

This post is a part of the Women’s History Month Writing Quotes & Prompts series from Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, and her Word-Love Writing Community you may join for free on Facebook. During March, there will be daily discussions on the quotes and prompts we present here, too. Join the conversation and improve your writing at the same time!

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The Magic of Letting Go of the Handsome Prince Rescuer

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Each day during Women’s History Month we will be sharing a quote, a short essay and a prompt from a woman writer. Enjoy!

I must confess: I have not felt like a very good administrator of self-rescue lately. I have been distracted.

It doesn’t matter how, or why and I realize as I write this morning, it isn’t like my distraction is a permanent situation. My distraction has happened before and it may happen again.

The thing is, as my own “administrator” or Chief Courage Officer and Leader Transformational Specialist, it is within my domain to pick myself up and set myself back on the route to reunion with my best self.

So far this year has been exceptional with many breakthroughs. Just a few more will take me to my next remarkable new beginning.

Sometimes I long for a “handsome royal person” to swoop me up and out of my challenges and yet I also know what I would enjoy even more is a partner or team with whom I could work to bring my vision to life.

No sooner do those words come off the tips of my fingers I realize I have that, too, within me.

Once again, I am grateful how just a few minutes of writing brings me to an entirely different perspective. Incredible how easily it happens.

That’s how it is when we are the administrator of our own rescue! Thank you, Elizabeth Gilbert, for the flashlight!

Prompts: When I take on the role of “life administrator” it feels like….

When I consider being rescued by a (handsome) prince, my natural response is…… and in the future, I would prefer to intentionally respond….

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Messages of Mystery and Wonder: Start Your Creative Flow Here

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Last night I went through the drive-thru at Panera Bread. I thought a green smoothie would be a wise choice before going to bed and didn’t have the energy to make my own, even though my own are quite a bit more satisfying.

I have been known to have conversations with lamp posts if they will answer back in a satisfying way – and last night the young man serving me at Panera was a much better conversationalist than that. We found out we both had experienced unsatisfying sleeps the night before. I told him I was attempting to stay up late enough that I wouldn’t have a middle-of-the-night wakening again.

As I was ready to drive away he said, “Have sweet dreams tonight!”
Sweet dreams.

This is my before bedtime catch phrase. When I attended my aunt’s funeral and shared a room with my cousin, we discovered our mother’s both said “sweet dreams” which mean chances are our grandmother said it, also.
“Sweet dreams” – something I don’t often hear from others but was exactly the best pre-sleep message I could receive, like a gift from an invisible loved one, whispering into this young man’s ear.

Perhaps it is just a coincidence. Perhaps he is a long-lost distant relative who shares the same tradition.

Whatever the circumstance, I left with a smile and I am still smiling the next day.

Anonymous angels: mysterious and wonder-filled. Gifts from the universe or the holy spirit or from love… I allow the memory to wash over me, much like I allow poetry to float over me when I read or hear it. I don’t worry myself with understanding fully just like I don’t need to understand how the inner workings of my car engine function.

What I do know for certain is when I show up with my heart open, it is easier for others with wide open hearts to tune in and offer those simple yet meaningful gifts of mystery.

Prompt: Write of a story of a simple mystery from your life. If you are stuck, start a list or even two.

One list may be “mysteries” and one list may be “wonder filled moments.”
Then chose one that seems most inviting and allow yourself five minutes to write, simply allowing your pencil to float across the page effortlessly and with the energy of infinite love and gratitude.

Tonight, before you go to bed, share the message of sweet dreams. You don’t know who might be waiting to hear those simple yet deeply loving words.

Writing prompt quote from poet Lucille Clifton: Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing"


This post is a part of the Women’s History Month Writing Quotes & Prompts series from Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, and her Word-Love Writing Community you may join for free on Facebook. During March, there will be daily discussions on the quotes and prompts we present here, too. Join the conversation and improve your writing at the same time!

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