Creative Writing Saturday

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Lydia | 2 Comments

Rain days (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

enter rain

And we sat on the porch and chattered into the late afternoon,
bubbly from the run, perhaps, or whatever freedom the summer
had gifted us, the sound on the roof like a permission slip, a tiptoe tune
of ease. I realized how much weight we carry, how we clamber
through our lives heavy as old rock. It’s not our bodies that do it, but the layers
we cloak them with, doubting our own instinct for happiness. I wondered
if, in fact, age could be a molting if I let it, a sloughing off of skepticism, tears
in the stiff fabric of my own mind. The drops intensified, and I surrendered
to a riotous music, and we sat in silence for a while, both attentive and serene.
It’s impossible, of course, to start completely over, but still I felt washed clean.

~Maya Stein

Creative Writing Saturday

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Lydia | Leave a comment

Tender Beauty.. (Photo credit: -Reji)

Remember two words: one is action, another is activity. Action is not activity; activity is not action. Their natures are diametrically opposite. Action is when the situation demands it and you act, you respond. Activity is when the situation doesn’t matter, it is not a response; you are so restless within that the situation is just an excuse to be active.

Action comes out of silent mind–it is the most beautiful thing in the world. Activity comes out of a restless mind–it is the ugliest. Action is when it has relevance; activity is irrelevant. Action is moment to moment, spontaneous; activity is loaded with the past. It is not a response to the present moment, rather, it is pouring your restlessness, which you have been carrying around from the past, into the present. Action is creative. Activity is very destructive–it destroys you, it destroys others.

Try to see the delicate distinction. For example, you are hungry, then you eat–this is action. But you are not hungry, you don’t feel any hunger at all, and still you go on eating–this is activity….

Action is beautiful, action comes as a spontaneous response. Life needs response, every moment you have to act, but the activity comes through the present moment. You are hungry and you seek food, you are thirsty and you go to the well. You are feeling sleepy and you go to sleep. It is out of the total situation that you act. Action is spontaneous and total.

Activity is never spontaneous. It comes from the past. You may have been accumulating it for many years, and then it explodes into the present–it is not relevant. But mind is cunning; the mind will always find realizations for the activity. The mind will always try to prove that this is not activity, this is action; it was needed…. ~ OSHO, Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within For A New Way Of Living

Creative Writing Saturday

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Lydia | Leave a comment

Blue skies (Photo credit: Ennor)

In considering the post for today, I read stories, essays, poems, haiku’s and more, looking for something that is, to me, both meaningful and relevant. As I did so, music played in the background and I could not resist singing along to some of the lyrics–that’s when i hit me. What is more creative than song lyrics written by musical artists and their muses?

Perhaps, I am simply aging myself, but this week, I am posting the lyrics to a song from one of my favorite musical artists of all time, Marvin Gaye. He was an artist long before his time and based on information obtained here on Song Facts, considered himself “a student of Don Juan and Carlos Castaneda.” He published this prophetic song in 1971, but it still holds true 43 years later. I share in his lament and I hope that you will too.

Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology) Lyrics

“Woo ah, mercy mercy me
Ah things ain’t what they used to be, no no
Where did all the blue skies go?
Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east
Woo mercy, mercy me, mercy father
Ah things ain’t what they used to be, no no
Oil wasted on the ocean and upon our seas, fish full of mercury
Ah oh mercy, mercy me
Ah things ain’t what they used to be, no no
Radiation under ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying
Oh mercy, mercy me
Ah things ain’t what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land
How much more abuse from man can she stand?
Oh, na na…
My sweet Lord… No
My Lord… My sweet Lord”

If you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing him sing the song, you might enjoy hearing and watching this video. I urge you to listen to it and tell me what you think. (I apologize in advance for the preceding commercial, but you can skip it in a matter of seconds.)

Creative Writing Saturday

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Lydia | 2 Comments

A photo of the sculpture “Dancer and the dance” by John Safer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dance when you’re broken open.
Dance when you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you’re perfectly free.
Struck, the dancer hears a tambourine inside her,
like a wave that crests into foam at the very top,
Begins.
Maybe you don’t hear that tambourine,
or the tree leaves clapping time.
Close the ears on your head,
that listen mostly to lies and cynical jokes.
There are other things to see, and hear.
Music. Dance.
A brilliant city inside your soul!
~ Rumi

Blessings, Lydia

All Will Be Well, ~ Julian of Norwich