A selection of poems that offer company and encouragement and inspiration for writing.
Welcome to One Year of Writing and Healing, a site designed to explore connections between writing and healing.
Rumi says, this being human is a guest house, every day a new arrival. The 50+ writing and healing prompts gathered here can help one navigate those arrivals.
So many healing books! So much housekeeping to be done in the library. Meanwhile, here are links to a few of the books I’ve written about. The Cure by Andrea Barrett. A short story, complete with a cure cottage, set in the Adirondacks. The Magic Land by Julie Moir Messervy. A small and different kind of guidebook for […]
I’m one of those people who’s been interested in meditation for a long time. But I’ve been mostly interested from a distance–because I also find it really, really hard. I find it hard to hold a thought—or my breath—in my mind, to concentrate on that thought, or to try and work with it. I’m one […]
Discovering and writing about and creating healing places can become a powerful way to ground the process of writing and healing.
Discovering and writing about and creating healing places can become a powerful way to ground the process of writing and healing.
A new story can change everything. One way to find one’s way to this new story is to explore others’ stories and then begin to write one’s own.
Writing can be a way to map out where one has been and where one would like to go. It can be used to discover a sense of purpose and set goals.
There are 3-4 books in particular that have been enormously helpful to me in growing my own habit of writing: Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg Writing without Teachers and Writing with Power by Peter Elbow You may also find it useful to use writing prompts to grow […]
This is a task I didn’t have in the original framework of One Year of Writing and Healing, but as I’ve been working on revision I’ve come to think it’s important—finding ways to grow the habit of writing and make it part of one’s practice. Thus, I’ve given this its own room—and not just one […]
As with the previous task, developing the habit of writing, listening for the voice(s) of the body is a relatively new task I’ve added to the framework of one year of writing and healing. At the core of this task is using a process of writing and imagery to listen more closely to the voice […]
A collection of resources for using poetry and writing and stories to navigate grief
The title for this month springs from an essay, “The Good Part,” written by Dennis Covington and found in the anthology, The Healing Circle. Covington’s essay is such a good essay, funny and sharp. It asks and re-asks what I think are terribly relevant questions to writing and healing: What’s the good part? Have you […]
The idea for these months springs from an essay, “The Good Part,” written by Dennis Covington and found in the anthology, The Healing Circle. Covington’s essay is such a good essay, funny and sharp. It asks and re-asks what I think are terribly relevant questions to writing and healing: What’s the good part? Have you […]
If we’re going to engage in the process of healing for longer than a weekend—or longer than week—or a month—we’re going to need resources. There are so many possibilities here, and this too is a room I have intentions to expand. But meanwhile, here are some places to begin. Words as a resource for […]
In the fall of 2010, for one week, I made a point of tracking searches to One Year of Writing and Healing recording some of these. During this particular week in early November, a little over 200 people visited the site. Someone in Hanoi got there by searching for the Yeats’s poem, “The Lake Isle […]
Here are the first twelve lines: This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, Some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, Who violently sweep your house Empty of its furniture, Still, treat […]