About
My interest in writing and healing began, as such things often do, when I experienced it personally. I began writing every day during medical school as a way to try and maintain my sanity, and I’ve been exploring connections between writing and healing ever since. In the fall of 2009, I left my medical practice to work as a high school English teacher. I’ve had the good fortune to land at an Early College in North Carolina, where I now teach high school sophomores and juniors and am learning a lot about writing and the teaching of writing and also about how to create spaces in which fruitful writing can happen. I’ve stayed with this whole writing and healing project—letting it get dormant for a while and then coming back to it again, over and over—because it still seems relevant to me—and unfinished—as if there’s more to be done with it—as if it’s a subject that I’m not yet finished with. I invite you to join me in continuing to grow this project. I welcome your comments, your feedback, and your suggestions here or simply via email: diane.s.morrow@gmail.com. I thank all who have contributed to this work–in a myriad of ways–and I hope that, perhaps in some small way, this work will be of benefit for you and for all who come across this site. All best, Diane...
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Because I’m a physician, I need to say, for your protection as well as my own, that the information on this site, including that in any links, is intended only for the purposes of education and discussion. No information here is intended to substitute for medical care. Participating with the healing library—whether through reading, writing, or e-mail communication—does not constitute establishing a doctor-patient relationship with me. Thus, though I hope you’ll find this site of benefit, and though I welcome your feedback, you are urged in each and every case to take up specific health issues and questions with your own physician or health care provider....
read moreDisclaimer
Information on this site, including that in any links, is intended only for the purposes of education and discussion. No information here is intended to substitute for medical care. (Of course.) Participating with the healing library—whether through reading, writing, or e-mail communication—does not constitute establishing a doctor-patient relationship with me. Thus, though I hope you’ll find this site of benefit, and though I welcome your feedback, you are urged in each and every case to take up specific health issues and questions with your own physician or health care provider....
read moreA Summer Day by Mary Oliver
A Poem [full text available on-line] She begins—the first six lines: Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean– the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand . . . The shift between the third and the fourth lines is what first snags my attention here—from the grasshopper to this grasshopper. The one eating sugar out of her hand. Who does that? Puts sugar in their hand to feed grasshoppers? Did she really do that? Does she really do that? Maybe it was accidental. Maybe she’d just been eating a pixy stick. But I like to think she—the speaker in the poem—put sugar in her hand with some intent. Like St. Francis. Or the guy in San Francisco, Mark Bittner, who put out sunflower seeds for the wild parrots and then stood very very still and paid close attention, and then, one by one, they agreed to eat out of his hand. (Mary Oliver reminds me a bit of Mark Bittner. That same—-something. An absence of self-consciousness? A stillness? A sense of contemplation in the midst of creatures?) The poem continues. A defense of such contemplations. Keeping company with grasshoppers. Kneeling in the grass. Solitary walks. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? And then, finally, opening up and out, like that shift in her poem about the wild geese, the wild entering the poem—–the question with which she leaves us—— Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? ______________________________________________ See also: The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill by Mark...
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I started this site, One Year of Writing and Healing (OYWH) in 2006 over at Typepad and then in 2011 started a second site, Writing and Healing at WordPress, and now, only recently, in spring of 2015, I’m merging and redesigning the sites. Hopefully, this will make things more cohesive and easier to navigate. Here’s a bit about me, the author. (If you’d rather get an overview of the site itself you may want to look at my invitation page.) My interest in writing and healing began, as such things often do, when I experienced it personally. I began writing every day during medical school as a way to try and maintain my sanity, and I’ve been exploring connections between writing and healing ever since. I practiced medicine for many years, beginning in family medicine and then eventually transitioning to mind-body medicine which I practiced for ten years, counseling patients with a range of chronic and stress-related conditions. I’ve also taught writing in diverse settings – college classrooms, homeless shelters, a center for addiction recovery, a local Cancer Services, and to patients in my office. In the last few years of my medical practice I began to realize I felt more resonance with an educational model (teach a person to fish and they’ll eat for a lifetime) than I did with the traditional medical model. In the fall of 2009, I left my medical practice to work as a high school English teacher. I’ve had the good fortune to land at an Early College in North Carolina, where I feel like I’ve begun a whole new chapter in learning – about writing and the teaching of writing and also about how to create spaces in which writing and learning can happen. I’ve stayed with this whole writing and healing project—letting it get dormant for a while and then coming back to it again, over and over—because it still seems relevant to me—and unfinished—as if there’s more to be done with it—as if it’s a subject that I’m not yet finished with. I invite you to join me in continuing to grow this project. I welcome your comments, your feedback, and your suggestions here. I thank all who have contributed to this work–in a myriad of ways–and I hope that, perhaps in some small way, this work will be of benefit for you and for all who come across this site. All best, Diane Morrow...
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