"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

Posts tagged ‘children’

Daily Prompt <3 On Mothers and Making Home

7 June 2016

My sweet daughter Lia, a brand new mother to an amazing baby boy Max–I call him Little Star–is beautifully maneuvering her way with Love and tenderness through the new dance of parenting, and marriage as a parent, and her own professional work.

Another sweet young mother I know, one of the daughters of my heart, is in the process of making a new home for her two little ones, having made the courageous decision to leave a marriage that wasn’t working or healthy, for her or her babies.

So I watch them in awe, as my own son used to say, “like we were just us, a crew on our own little pirate ship!”when his brother and sister and he and I were in the same place, me a mom making a home for us 🙂

How these young women astound and inspire me 🙂 how I admire them ❤ 

Make art about mothers, or about the daily rituals that go into making a home. 

loveeverafter-2

Art by Katie m. Berggren

 

 

 

 

Category:

2016 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Dreams, Family, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Daily Prompt <3 What I Wish For You

4 June 2016

It’s a John Denver morning. 

“If I had a wish that I could wish for you, I’d make a wish for sunshine all the while.” 

Make art about what you wish for someone else. 

Category:

2016 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Dreams, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, Music, Nature, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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A Dream, A Meditation, and A Prompt: Ecosystems

 

I dreamt my husband and mama, both gone now for years, having walked on to the next life, were helping me in the garden, setting up two new raised beds, working the dark rich soil with rakes and with our hands. I was planting turnips, the seeds so small, so many shades of purple, lavender, violet, plum, deep purply rose. “Plant cabbage with them,” Mama said, “Good companions.” John nodded, “Or spinach, or peas.” He grinned. “They like each other.”

I woke up thinking about companion planting, about ecosystems.

Ecology is all about interconnection and eternal change, creating patterns, connection, cause and effect, that shape every organism and phenomenon. Our own minds work this way, but, I wonder, Can we step back and recognize that? Can we extend that eco-understanding beyond our needs, thinking like an ecosystem”? Recognizing, developing, and honoring our “eco-mind”?

Wouldn’t an eco-mind also able to see that the survival of our own species, our own existence, our own desire to thrive, is connected to our consciously creating the context needed for that thriving, and that it is inextrcably tied to the well-being, the continuation, of other species and the health of our wider ecology.

Can we learn to see that we don’t exist above or beyond the ecosystem? That those turnip seeds, in their tiny purple majesty, are as essential as the bees that come to the comfrey, the deer who watch from the shaded wood, the cardinal that sings from the Guardian Oak, the groundhog who thinks I don’t see her in the tall grass at the edge of the yard, to the spider silent in the rain-silvered web at the side of the garage, are as essential to our own survival as they are to ours?

Make art about interconnections, about ecosystems

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Category:

2016 Prompts, animals, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Dreams, Family, fiction, Gratitude, Love, Nature, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Sometimes the Day Is the Poem <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMywa7ZBw38

 

“The Times They Are a-Changin'”
as performed by Richie Havens

Come gather ’round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

Come writers and critics who prophecise with your pen
And keep your eyes wide the chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don’t criticize what you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agein’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

Come senators, and congressmen please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block the hall
For he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it’s ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
The first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

For the times they are a-changin’
For the times they are a-changin’
For the times they are a-changin’

Category:

Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Dreams, Family, freedom, Gratitude, Love, Music, Nature, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing

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Daily Prompt <3 On Liberty

30 May 2016

Make art about Liberty, about its costs, about the quest for it, about the privilege and fragility of it. 

quote-the-shallow-consider-liberty-a-release-from-all-law-from-every-constraint-the-wise-man-sees-in-walt-whitman-197609

Category:

2016 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Dreams, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Daily Prompt <3 Looking for a Leader?

27 May 2016

So much talk this week in my summer school class on Activism, on how to create real world change, on how to lead, on what makes a leader.  And such a lack of real leadership in any of the people running for president, it hurts my heart. 

Make art about leaders, about leadership. 

leaders

 

Category:

2016 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Dreams, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Daily Prompt <3 Remembering Your Magic

24 May 2016

Sometimes we forget how powerful we are. 

Make art about remembering your own magic. 

butterfly-woman-s-hand-motion-concept-isolated-39769656

Category:

2016 Prompts, animals, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Dreams, Family, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, Nature, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Daily Prompt Catch-Up!

21 May 2016

Road trip to visit family today in northern Virginia, backroads and crossroads 🙂

Make art about intersections.

intersection

22 May 2016

Spent this precious day with my grandson and his beautiful mama 🙂 my daughter. Max, my grandperson 🙂 I call him Noquisi, which means Star 🙂 is already very vocal LOL a family trait 😀 I kept thinking about how, right now, at just over a month old, he has the physical capacity for learning every language on the planet. I kept listening to his wildly varied baby sounds, and thinking about how I wish we could retain—and fulfill–that potential, wishing we could all—all people—speak to and universally understand each other.

Make art about the power of language.
lia and max talking

 

23 May 2016

I stopped on the way home yesterday, caught by an intriguing historical sign, marking The Church of the Blind Preacher.

Make art inspired by a historical marker, or by an intriguing historical character.
14598495681_54c5d7d227_b

Category:

2016 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Dreams, Family, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Daily Prompt <3 Healing the Divide

20 May 2016

Make art about healing what divides us. 

quote-the-time-for-the-healing-of-the-wounds-has-come-the-moment-to-bridge-the-chasms-that-nelson-mandela-65-89-71

 

Category:

2016 Prompts, Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Dreams, Family, fiction, freedom, Gratitude, Love, nonfiction, One Love, poetry, Writing, Writing Coaching & Workshops, Writing Prompts

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Some Much Needed Wisdom

from my beautiful late husband ❤ John Little Bear Eaton ❤

John tribes meme

Category:

Art, Artists, Bless the Day, Creativity, Dreams, Family, Gratitude, Love, One Love, Writing

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