"This work is unlike any other, in its range of rich, conjuring imagery and its dexterity, its smart voice. Carroll-Hackett doesn’t spare us—but doesn’t save us—she draws a blueprint of power and class with her unflinching pivot: matter-of-fact and tender." —Jan Beatty

Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

My New Year’s Wish For You <3 My Hope For Us All

There is an old story of a bear who goes into her den to dream the world into being during the winter. She dreams of deer, and pine, of clear water, sweet berries, and buffalo. She creates the world anew, each being, entire ecosystems, during the course of each winter, with her dreams. When she emerges into the green of spring, trailed by her cubs, she celebrates and is celebrated by all the creatures of the earth.

Centuries ago Aristotle said, “The soul cannot think without pictures. The reasoning mind thinks in the form of images… As the mind determines the objects it should pursue or avoid in terms of these images, even in the absence of sensation, it is stimulated to action when occupied with them.”

More recently, Denis Watley, a noted psychologist, brought attention again to this idea through The Secret.

We too can dream our world into being.

Visualization is similar to daydreaming. In both processes you create mental images; the difference between visualization and daydreaming is intention. Daydreaming allows your mind to wander, but when you visualize and focus on something specific, you are putting intention, all your beautiful power as a sacred soul, behind it.

It is the intention that creates the energy that creates the attraction. The attraction starts the action that produces the manifestation.

Ancient cultures understood this well. The bear, with its ability to seemingly die in winter and remerge in spring with new life, has long symbolized transformation, and the transformative power of dreams. Understanding the bear’s gifts, we have looked to this creature as teacher and guide and healer. These connections held true for ancient cultures around the world – anywhere people and bears lived together.

My New Year’s wish for all of you is that you come to know how beautiful and sacred and powerful you truly are, how powerful your dreams, and that in this coming year, you dream your perfect spring into being, that we all do. May 2016, for everyone, be filled with peace, and joy, and Love–always always Love ❤

xo

Mary

bear dream

Sometimes the Prompt Is Doubtful

Daily Prompt
My son jokes, saying he doesn’t believe in electricity.
Make art inspired by the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as….’
human-lightbulb

 

Daily Prompt Catch-Up :-) Anticipation, Animals, and a Little Bit of Messiah Thrown In

Dec 24

Remembering being a little kid breathlessly waiting for Santa 🙂 Make art about anticipation.

Dec 25

Much of the work I did in papers for my Anthropology degree focused on the origins of Judaism and early Christianity, a lot of it centered around belief in a messiah, in messianic traditions. Many religions have a messiah concept, including the Jewish Messiah (from which the term and meaning originates, from the Hebrew in which the word Messiah is identical to the noun and adjectiveמשיח (mashiach), meaning Anointed One, and comes from the Hebrew verbמשח (mashah), meaning to anoint. Other messianic traditions include the Christian Christ( the Greek translation of the Hebrew root word), the Muslim Mahdi and Isa (one of the Arabic names for Jesus), the Buddhist Maitreya, the Hindu Kalki, the Zoroastrian Saoshyant and He whom God shall make manifest in Bábism (believed to be Bahá’u’lláh by Bahais). The state of the world, in most of these traditions, is seen as hopelessly flawed beyond normal human powers of correction, and divine intervention through a specially selected and supported human is seen as necessary.

Make art about saviors. Make art redefining what it might mean to be a savior. Make art about being your own savior.

Dec 26

Traveling to celebrate with family today. Make art about a family roadtrip.

Dec 27

Watching PBS nature documentaries with my son 🙂  Make art about the candor and ingenuity of animals.

baby bear

Daily Prompt Catch-Up! Gifts & Soup & Conspiracy Theories

Dec 18

Wrapping presents 🙂 I’ve never before managed to have them wrapped this early LOL  Make art about something kept under wraps. 

Dec 19

That bowl of soup—it was dearer than freedom, dearer than life itself, past, present, and future.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn  Made Garden Vegetable Soup for me and my son.

Make art about soup. 

Dec 20 

Read a new story this morning about someone carrying a belief in a conspiracy theory too far. Make art about conspiracy. 

tree with presents

Sometimes the Prompt Is Left Behind For You

Daily Prompt
 
Just drafted a poem called The Words Mama Left Me.
 
Make art about inheritance.
 
inheritance_506x163

Sometimes the Prompt Is A Tender Touch

Daily Prompt

Thinkin of all the loving care my nurse mama and sister gave their patients for decades.

Make art about nurses, about caretakers.

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http://www.hivhereandnow.com/poems/poem-195-%C2%B1-december-14-2015/

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american nurse

Daily Prompt Catch-Up <3 Naming & Healing

12/5/2015

I haven’t put up a Christmas tree since 2011, the year both my husband and brother walked on to the next life. This year, I’m finally putting one up again, and covering it with crazy little angels I’ve been handmaking from clay and fabric for several weeks. I’m calling it my Healing Tree. Make art about healing.

12/6/2015

Quiet Sunday morning with my son.  Make art about quiet.

12/7/2015

“So many names, my mother, I’m never sure what to call you.”~Rudy Make art about names, about naming.

Itty Bitty Angel Tree

Sometimes You Give the Prompt Away

Daily Prompt
It’s Giving Tuesday
Make art about giving, about an act of charity.
GiveTuesday_700x

A Very Special Call For Submissions: HIV Here & Now Project

The HIV Here & Now Project uses poetry and flash prose to advocate for a world without HIV or AIDS.

#hivtest #hivtreat #hivprevent #nohivshame #nohivstigma

Please submit your work to the HIV Here & Now Project!

Details on submission guidelines, as well as suggested prompts, are below.

Please share widely!

Huge thanks and appreciation to Michael H. Broder for his tireless and necessary work with the HIV Here & Now Project!

Poetry and Nonfiction: Visit the website for more details.

Curator Michael Broder writes:

I’m very proud of the variety of poets featured to date on HIV Here & Now Project and grateful to the 180 poets whose work has appeared on the site to date. If you are my friend and a poet, please join them. Write a poem for the site and send it to me via Facebook message, the HIV Here & Now website, or Submittable ( https://indolentbooks.submittable.com/submit)

A lot of my poet friends respond well to prompts.

Here are some to consider:

Write a poem in the voice of an HIV virion (virus)
Write a poem in the voice of a CD4 cell (T-cell) being attacked by an HIV virion
Write a poem about a time you had unprotected sex with a partner whose HIV status you did not know
Write a poem about a time you had sex, protected or unprotected, with someone you knew was HIV-positive and how his or her status affected the experience
Write a poem about someone you know who died of AIDS
Write a poem about someone you know who is HIV-positive
Write a poem in your own voice imagining you were just handed an HIV diagnosis
Write a poem in your own voice imagining your mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew, best friend, beloved teacher, cherished mentor just told you they were HIV-positive

Subscribe and support this project in any way you can, please!

Thanks!

HIV Here & Now Project

http://www.hivhereandnow.com/

Sometimes the Prompt Has Wings

Daily Prompt 

“Angels affect us oft”~John Donne

I’m putting up my first Christmas tree since my husband and brother passed on in 2011. So, I’m a little obsessed right now with making angel ornaments.

Make art about angels.

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