A Poet’s Nanaimo

The title of Julia Cameron’s new book, Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2022) resonates with me as I lead women’s writing circles called Writing Life; we write from life and create writing lives for ourselves. And I’ve written a book I consider a writing companion and guide called Writing Home: A Whole Life Practice. I see writing as a (whole) life practice and as Julia Cameron does, I consider writing a spiritual practice.

Julia Cameron’s Write for Life is called “A 6-Week Artist’s Way Program” as it relates to Julia’s The Artist’s Way published in 1992. I so appreciated that book and have read several of her books since in the Artist’s Way series as well as other books she has published on the theme of creativity.

I still have my original copy of The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Perigee Books, 1992) and enjoyed seeing what I had written in pencil all those years ago in answer to the questions posed. I had marked in pen the portion at the end of the book entitled “The Sacred Circle.”

Julia wrote: “Drawing a Sacred Circle creates a sphere of safety and a center of attraction for our good. By filling this form faithfully, we draw to us the best. We draw the people we need. We attract the gifts we could best employ.”

I didn’t begin women’s writing circles in 1992 but I did gather with other writers regularly to write and share our work. I attended writing workshops when I could including a two-week retreat in North Vancouver called West Word IX. It was a women’s  writing retreat, the last one in the series as it turned […]

Dr. Sharon Blackie wrote about menopause in her latest book book Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life (New World Library, 2022), and described it as “a time between stories, when the old story fades and a new story is waiting to emerge.” (See my last blog about the book.)

As a young woman in my late thirties, I had a hysterectomy which meant I didn’t go through the “time between stories” as Dr. Blackie refers to that particular time in a woman’s life, at least not in the way she is referring to it. I had though, definitely embarked on a new story.

At this time, more than thirty years later, I’m reflecting on the final chapter of Hagitude: “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.” Dr. Blackie says she had never been “particularly preoccupied by death. Not until now.”

Dr. Blackie was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma – “one of the most aggressive hematological cancers, centered on lymphocytes: infection-fighting cells in the immune system.”  She wasn’t frightened by the “life threatening nature of the illness itself” but by the toxic chemicals her body would have to endure for six months. She immersed herself in the lessons the illness had to teach her, seeing the lump on her neck not as an “evile alien invader” but as part of herself.

I can relate as I had a lump that was on my shin that I thought odd but not alien. It was diagnosed in the summer of 2015 as Spindle Cell Sarcoma. Although my body had to undergo CT scans, MRIs and the like, I didn’t have chemotherapy but rather radiation followed by surgery.

“The Guest House” by Sufi poet Rumi is a poem that Dr. Blackie includes in the […]

Eric Maisel who has written over 50 books on writing, creativity and such topics as establishing your own daily practice, and Lynda Monk, writer and director of the International Association for Journal Writing (IAJW), have gathered an exciting array of contributors for The Great Book of Journaling offering a myriad of innovative approaches to a personal writing practice.

Both Eric and Lynda have contributed chapters to the book. Eric’s is “From Journal to Memoir” which will interest many readers as they think about what to do with their accumulation of journals.

Lynda’s is “The Reflective Journal” in which she outlines “The 5 Steps of Life Source Writing” which she created for “self-care, self-discovery, creativity, and wellness.” Lynda regularly teaches, speaks, and writes on the healing power of personal writing.

The sub-title of the book is “How Journal Writing Can Support a Life of Wellness, Creativity, Meaning and Purpose.” A tall order and I believe the book fulfills its intent. Published by Mango this summer, The Great Book of Journaling features essays by forty of the top journal experts in the world including SARK, Kathleen Adams, Judy Reeves, and Lucia Capacchione.

Those are names you may well recognize as their books have inspired many for years, including me. I feel very honoured to be included in this compendium on journaling, one of my everyday practices. Journaling is the foundation for everything I do.

SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy) invites readers into “Juicy Journaling” in her chapter which encourages writing that “contains all the parts of you – not just the easiest or most attractive parts.”

Everything SARK does is approached through her MicroMOVEment Miracle Method including publishing eighteen bestselling books. She designed the “ignition system” because she “figured I could do […]