Our prompt for this session was:ย โWrite about studying someone.โย
More details on this session will be posted, so check back!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Please join us for our next session Friday December 20th at 6pm EST. This will be our last virtual group session of 2021! We will be taking a holiday break to give our volunteer facilitators time off for celebration, rest and time with family. We will be resuming virtual group sessions on January 10th, 2022at 6pm EST, with more times to be listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.
Someone Is Studying Einsteinโs Brainby Miles Solstice
When the next great
dies
will their emails
be packaged
and published
revealing
their motivation
for everything
they ever wrote
enlightening researchers
satisfying curious readers?
Thereโs more written down
now
than ever
and none of it
is written down.
Ten
thousand
elephants
sway
in the breeze.
Blades
of grass
conspire
against
a dandelion.
An albatross flies five
hundred miles
without flapping
migrates
pole to pole.
The price
of a one hundred
trillion dollar bill.
Have you ever
sat next to a
campfire
until your shoes
began to melt?
And what
of the toes
in that case?
Our prompt for this session was:ย โWhat is better left entangled?โย
More details on this session will be posted, so check back!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Entangle by Tony Hoagland
Sometimes I prefer not to untangle it.
I prefer it to remain disorganized,
because it is richer that way
like a certain shrubbery I pass each day on Reba Street
in an unimpressive yard, in front of a house that seems unoccupied:
a chest-high, spreading shrub with large white waxy blossomsโ
whose stalks are climbed and woven through simultaneously
by a different kind of vine with small magenta flowers
that appear and disappear inside the maze of leaves
like tiny purple stitches.
The white and purple combination of these species,
one seeming to possibly strangle the other,
one possibly lifting the other up โ it would take both
a botanist and a psychologist to figure it all out,
โbut I prefer not to disentangle it,
because it is more accurate.
My ferocious love, and how it repeatedly is trapped
inside my fear of being sentimental;
my need to control even the kindness of the world,
rejecting gifts for which I am not prepared;
my apparently inextinguishable notion
that I am moving toward a destination
โI could probably untangle it
yet I prefer to walk down Reba Street instead
in the sunlight and the wind, with no mastery
of my feelings or my thoughts,
purple and ivory and green, not understanding what I am
and yet in certain moments remembering, and bursting into tears,
somewhat confused as the vines run through me
and flower unexpectedly.
Our prompt for this session was:ย โWrite about a place called home.โย
More details on this session will be posted, so check back!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Joyful mystery, the birth of our Lord...
This night our Lady and St. Joseph was going up to get registered and, um,
They were going down the road and they met this man and he said,
"Have you any room?" and he said, "No, but there's an old stable over there that I owned, if yous want to go into it."
And they went over and the Lord came down from the heaven at twelve o'clock and loads of beautiful angels was with them, and when they were walkin'...
I walk the streets of Dublin town, it's eighteen forty-two
It's snowing on this Christmas Eve, think I'll beg another bob or two
I'll huddle in this doorway here
'Til someone comes along
If the lamp lighter comes real soon
Maybe I'll go home with him
Maybe I can find a place I can call my home
Maybe I can find a home I can call my own
These three wise kings, um, they were all from different countries.
And they always used to look up at the sky and they looked up this night and saw this beautiful star up in the sky.
And when they were going they all meeted together and they had to pass King Herod's, not that we much care for him.
And they went in and he said, "Where ye goin' with yer best stitches on ye?"
The horses on the cobbled stones go by, think I'll get one, one fine day
And ride into the countryside and very far away
But now as the daylight disappears
I best find a place to sleep
Think I'll slip into the bell tower
In the church just down the street
Maybe I can find a place I can call my home
Maybe I can find a home I can call my own
And they said, "Did you not hear the news?" and say he says, "What news?" He says, "This day the Savior is born."
And he says to them, "When you find him come back and tell me 'cause I want to go and adore him too."
And he was only coddin' them. He wanted to kill him and when they were going, they stopped and they said,
"Surely not this old stable that our King is born in. We were expecting a palace."
Maybe on the way I'll find the dog I saw the other night
And tuck him underneath my jacket
So we'll stay warm through the night
And as we lie in the bell tower high
And dream of days to come
The bells o'er head will call the hours
The day we will find a home
Maybe I can find a place I can call my home
Maybe I can find a home I can call my own
Maybe I can find a place I can call my home
Maybe I can find a home I can call my own
There was these shepherds and shepherds are fellas that mind
The foals and cows and sheeps and little lambs and all and, um,
They hears this beautiful music up in the sky and they were wondering what was so fun.
An angel disappated them and he said, "I was wonderin' what was so fun"
And he said ye, and he said, "The savior is born. If yous want to go see him, follow that star up in the sky, " and it was a beautiful star.
Our prompt for this session was:ย โWrite about light meeting dark.โย
More details on this session will be posted, so check back!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Please join us for our next session Monday December 13th at 6pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.
Evening
By Rainer Maria Rilke
The sky puts on the dark blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;
and leave you, not at home either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises:
and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternately stone in you and star.
Our prompt for this session was a choice between:ย โWrite about what we don’t know.โ or “Write about something bigger than us.”
More details on this session will be posted, so check back!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Humility should not only be considered in terms of our inabilities. Countless times in my life I have been humbled by human ingenuity, kindness, selflessness, knowledge, and community. Especially in difficult, frightening, and alienating times, we must keep these assurances in mind.
I am humbled by the healthcare workers who have sacrificed so much. I am humbled by the scientists who are rushing to develop treatments and vaccines for the coronavirus. I am humbled by all those who are endeavoring to try to make the world better, to ease suffering and comfort the afflicted. And I am humbled by all of you who have joined in the community we are building.
I know we face grave challenges. And I know that pride and hubris seem ascendant. We are inundated with chest pounding, gaslighting, and caustic overconfidence. Humility can and should be an appropriate rejoinder. It is not in its essence inherently hopeful, but it can be a source of hope.
We can find solace in recognizing that there is only so much we can control and predict. There is only so much that we can know and fix. But if our mind is open to accepting the winds of change that power nature, we can recognize that change is a force for creation as well as destruction. We can find ways to regroup and rebuild, together, with humility.
More details on this session will be posted, so check back!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Soulwork byย Tracy K. Smith
Oneโs is to feed. Oneโs is to cleave.
Oneโs to be doubled over under greed.
Oneโs is strife. Oneโs to be strangled by life.
Oneโs to be called and to rise.
Oneโs to stare fire in the eye.
Oneโs is bondage to pleasure.
Oneโs to be held captive by power.
Oneโs to drive a nation to its naked knees
in war. Oneโs is the rapture of stolen hours.
Oneโs to be called yet cower.
Oneโs is to defend the dead.
Oneโs to suffer until ego is shed.
Oneโs is to dribble the nectar of evil.
Oneโs but to roll a stone up a hill.
Oneโs to crouch low
over damp kindling in deep snow
coaxing the thin plume
of cautious smoke.
Oneโs is only to shiver.
Oneโs is only to blow.
Copyright ยฉ 2021 by Tracy K. Smith.
Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 8, 2021,
by the Academy of American Poets.
Our prompt for this session was:ย โThe strongest memory.โ
More details on this session will be posted, so check back!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Smoke in Our Hair by Ofelia Zepeda
The scent of burning wood holds
the strongest memory.
Mesquite, cedar, piรฑon, juniper,
all are distinct.
Mesquite is dry desert air and mild winter.
Cedar and piรฑon are colder places.
Winter air in our hair is pulled away,
and scent of smoke settles in its place.
We walk around the rest of the day
with the aroma resting on our shoulders.
The sweet smell holds the strongest memory.
We stand around the fire.
The sound of the crackle of wood and spark
is ephemeral.
Smoke, like memories, permeates our hair,
our clothing, our layers of skin.
The smoke travels deep
to the seat of memory.
We walk away from the fire;
no matter how far we walk,
we carry this scent with us.
New York City, France, Germanyโ
we catch the scent of burning wood;
we are brought home.
Ofelia Zepeda, โSmoke in Our Hairโ from Where Clouds Are Formed.
Copyright ยฉ 2008 by Ofelia Zepeda.
Our prompt for this session was: โDraw (with words) a map to a next world.โ
More details on this session will be posted, so check back!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
A Map to the Next World by Joy Harjo
for Desiray Kierra Chee
In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for
those who would climb through the hole in the sky.
My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged
from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens.
For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.
The map must be of sand and canโt be read by ordinary light. It
must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit.
In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it
was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it.
Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the
altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace.
Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our
children while we sleep.
Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born
there of nuclear anger.
Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to
disappear.
We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to
them by their personal names.
Once we knew everything in this lush promise.
What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the
map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leav-
ing a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood.
An imperfect map will have to do, little one.
The place of entry is the sea of your motherโs blood, your fatherโs
small death as he longs to know himself in another.
There is no exit.
The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestineโa
spiral on the road of knowledge.
You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking
from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh
deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.
They have never left us; we abandoned them for science.
And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world
there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry.
You will have to navigate by your motherโs voice, renew the song
she is singing.
Fresh courage glimmers from planets.
And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you
will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.
When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they
entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.
You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder.
A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the
destruction.
Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our
tribal grounds.
We were never perfect.
Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was
once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.
We might make them again, she said.
Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.
You must make your own map.
Nos reunimos 6 personas, desde California, Nueva York, Alabama, y Espaรฑa (Islas Canarias).
Trabajamos sobre una coreografรญa, The Atletes ofย The Gesture, de Sadeck Waff, con mรบsica de Woodkid. Creada para la ceremonia de clausura de los Juegos Paraolรญmpicos de Tokio como presentaciรณn de los siguientes juegos en Paris.
Por cuestiones tรฉcnicas lo vimos primero sin mรบsica y luego con mรบsica que nos ayudo a tener una experiencia diferente. Uno de los participantes destacรณ que nos fijamos primero en lo que no podemos hacer y no en lo que podemos hacer. Y que el vรญdeo se centra en lo que se puede hacer. Nos inspirรณ a mirar el cuerpo humano con ojos frescos. Para alguien supueso por primera vez mirar los brazos de una manera nueva.
Aparecieron las ideas de colaboraciรณn y comunidad. El camino de un deportista consiste en hacerse uno mismo pero depende tambiรฉn de otros. Todo se une para crear algo e inspirar algo. Da que pensar en la necesidad de comunidad que tenemos, del apoyo que necesitamos. Hay un director, un coreรณgrafo, pero se necesita a todos y cada uno de los participantes para hacer el todo, para crear el dibujo completo. A alguien le molesto que el coreรณgrafo ocupara todo el escenario, como si fuera el mรกs importante de todo y los otros quedan detrรกs.
Llamaba la atenciรณn que solo se ven los brazos. Que las personas desaparecen. Se ve el contraste entre lo que debe ser visto y lo que no debe ser visto. Hay cosas que no nos dejan identificar. La discapacidad no se visualiza. Solemos esperar que las cosas sean de una manera. No somos conscientes de la debilidad. Un participante se pregunto si el coreรณgrafo forma parte de la historia. Alguien noto que parecen pรกjaros en vuelo, parece que van a volar.
La propuesta de escritura ha sido, โSoy รบnico pero con los otros.โ Escribimos sobre lo que no estรก, sobre el dolor, sobre el dialogo entre ser o no ser parte de todo. Sobre ser รบnico o no. Sobre la necesidad de tener una identidad valorada. Sobre el sentimiento de ser parte de una comunidad. Los textos nos mostraron el diรกlogo entre el yo รบnico y el yo en comunidad. Ser uno y ser/no ser con los otros.
Aquรญ, ahora alentamos a los participantes que si asรญ lo desean, compartan lo que escribieron a continuaciรณn. Deja tu respuesta aquรญ, si deseas continuar la conversaciรณn sobre las imรกgenes de Luci Gutiรฉrrez. Pero antes, les recomendamos tener en cuenta que el blog es un espacio pรบblico donde, por supuesto, no se garantiza la confidencialidad.
Our prompt for this session was: โWe do not believe…โ
More details on this session will be posted, so check back!
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (โLeave a Replyโ), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if youโre able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Forsaken Sea by Sekou SundiataAlways go in low tide, high tide comes
Always go in low tide, high tide comes
We always go it seems, we always go to the ocean
We always go to the ocean at low tide
We could walk, we could walk deep
We could walk deep into the sea and never be
in over our heads
We do not believe, we do not believe, we do not believe that
drowning is for us
High tide comes out of the water the same way
for the last billion years.
There is nothing new
We know when to swim, and when to wait
We know when to swim, and when to wait
The waves come in and go back out
For the last billion years
The ocean still emotional, singing in our ears
Always go in, always go in low tide, high tide comes
Always go in low tide, high tide comes
High tide comes out of the water the same way for the
last billion years. There is nothing new
We know when to swim and when to wait
In the car, in the car the road
In the car the road murmurs beneath the wheels
The ocean, so emotional, in our ears
We seek without looking
The smallest token, passes and settles
into what music is about, music is about
You could say
You could say we are dancing
And from this one thing we know 10 things
From this one thing we know 10 things
We always go in low tide when high tide comes
We always go to the ocean
We always go to the ocean at low tide
We see without looking at the music the water makes
We know when to swim and we know when to wait
We always go in low tide, high tide comes
Always go at low tide, high tide comes
We do not believe
We do not believe
We do not believe
That drowning is for us
High tide comes out of the water
The same way for the last billion years
Yes, you could say, you could say we are dancing
And from this one thing, we know 10 things
We always go in low tide
High tide comes
Connections in Narrative Medicine 