Feed the Creative Mind with Emotional Energy of Venus Retrograde

July 19, 2023July 21, 2023 Poet VoiceLeave a comment

Bonjour, dear readers!

How is your Circling coming along? (See yesterday’s blog post – 7/18.) We have only just begun!

I had an interesting outcome from my Circle activity as I learned my sadness had sprung from my joy and I had lost sight of that joy due to isolation from the heat wave and an attitude that needed adjustment! Ah, a worthy morning of writing, for sure!

This technique of Circling has helped me and many of the people in my workshops to gather together the scattered parts of our lives. Whatever your creative outlet, you can use Circling. Today, add another approach. Draw a larger circle and write around it the names of people, places, or things important to your life. From this simple activity, you may begin to see themes and continuity. In the meantime, you are excavating and collecting a pile of raw material to work from as you dig for the gold!

Only five minutes to devote to creativity at the moment? Add to your Circle. Ten minutes? Choose one of your people, places or things (or joys and sorrows from yesterday) and write continuously for 5 or 6 minutes. Are you ready to devote a few hours? Keep going and repeat the process until as poet Denise Levertov said, “the feeling warms the intellect.” At this point in your process, a poem, story, or painting may appear.

Today we enter the shadow of Venus Retrograde. There are many wonderful and knowledgeable astrologers available to us (as well as books and resources) one of whom is Leah Whitehorse. I learned so much from her interpretation of this planetary event. Venus has been associated with love for centuries, but Venus means so much more than romantic love–love of self, universal love, and all things we value and hold dear. On another day, we will touch on other aspects of the goddess Venus. We have a few months until the planet stations direct and exits the shadow zone!

Venus & Cupid, painted by Artemisia Gentileschi in 1625. The Italian artist depicts sleeping Venus who is wearing nothing except a thin wisp of transparent linen around her thigh. This painting can be viewed at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, US.

At the same time that Venus enters the shadow zone, the moon in Leo increases urging us to express ourselves and share. (Learn more here from We’Moon)

And planet Earth is doing its part to influence our creativity! Rebelling against mistreatment and neglect, extremes of weather, like heat waves, fires, smoke, and drought impact us as climate change escalates. Our environment, too, permeates our psyche as we create. You may be moved to create a Circle of the Natural World and elaborate on some of it. What moves you to respond: water, birds, trees, mountains, icebergs, polar bears, pileated woodpeckers, the rainforest—Which of these natural phenomena moves you to write, paint, sing, play music for/about?

In my latest book, Rainbow Warrior, available from Finishing Line Press, I both lament the “last Imperial Woodpecker,” extinct from logging (last seen in Mexico in 1956) and celebrate “a rare sighting of Flickers that grace my world./Crescent breast like new moon rising crimson. . .” (“Flicker Montage”).

Spirit Daughter (Jill Wintersteen) is another popular astrologer you may want to check out. She tells us “Where Mercury Retrograde tends to disrupt and confuse mental energy, Venus Retrograde tends to disrupt and confuse emotional energy.” I recommend Spirit Daughter’s analysis too!

In your creative process, try to explore emotions that may surface or those that may stay submerged in confusion during Venus Retrograde (affecting us through October 7). We can also benefit from the increase of creative and physical energy brought on by the moon waxing to full.

Try out the Circling technique from my original journal method as you tune in to moon stars, earth, and self. As I write this and the temperature soars as does our air quality index, I want to return to my Circle of Nourishment and nourish myself as well as extend nourishment to others. I hope you will do the same.

Creatively yours, Jacquelyn

author of Rainbow Warrior, Reclaiming Yourself: A Journal Keeping Approach to the Goddess Within (c1991), & other titles.

Creative Guidance from Moonflower Mentoring!

July 17, 2023July 18, 2023 Poet Voice6 Comments

Aligning creativity with New Moon in Cancer

Aloha dear readers!

It is officially the new moon here in Eastern time in the US of A. I have a question for you that I pose to myself each day: how can I spark my creativity in alignment with the earth, the moon and the planets?

Today, July 17, the new moon is in Cancer and the wonderful We’Moon calendar published by Mother Tongue Ink (an essential part of my daily life for more than three decades) notes that during the Moon in Cancer, we reconnect with our emotions. We can get “defensive” or “nourish ourselves,” the 2023 We’Moon continues (p. 203).

As I sat at my writing desk, my neighbor decided it was a good time to use a loud leaf blower so close to my window I thought he was working in my yard! Oooohhh! I shall not get defensive, I thought! I will nourish myself. So, I turned my music up loud and fixed a lovely meal and glass of iced mint sun tea! Yum. And guess what? Now there is sweet silence as I put my musings together, in hopes of sparking your creativity as well as mine!

A lovely meal while the leaf blower passes. . .

The Circle technique, part of my original journal method, moves us away from linear thinking. So begin by drawing some circles on your journal page (or a blank piece of paper). Label three to work with the energy of the new moon in Cancer: Circles of nourishment, circles of sadness, circles of joy (see image).

Next, write around the circles, thoughts, images, ideas. Circle one, circle of nourishment, ways you could nourish yourself. Circle two, circle of sadness, some emotions of sadness you are feeling. Circle three, circle of joy, what gives you joy?

images by Timmi M. Weingartz, created for *Reclaiming Yourself: A Journal Keeping Approach to the Goddess Within* by Jacquelyn Markham, c. 1991

Next, do it! Nourish yourself with some of the lovely things you could do for yourself. Is it calling a friend? Fixing a yummy salad and enjoying it? Taking a well-deserved nap or walk if your weather permits? Just, do it!

Now, you move on to your circle of sadness and circle of joy. Select one sad feeling and one joyful feeling. Write for five minutes on each feeling in an automatic writing fashion (sometimes called freewriting). Most importantly, don’t stop, just write (set your timer). If your mind goes blank, simply repeat your name, colors, birds, flowers or the last word you wrote. It’s that easy!

After this circling, you may want to circle more or circle back to one of your other feelings or move forward with a poem, a painting, a reflection, or simply be satisfied that you have begun the process of creating in synch with the moon. You may create something–a poem, a story, creative prose, art–from these early musings or may you may circle back around to pick up the threads.

As of midnight eastern time on Tuesday the 18th, the moon moves into Leo and that gives us about 2 ½ days to “let our light shine” (We’Moon, p. 203). Signing off to elaborate on my circles of sadness & joy and to continue to nourish myself.

Creatively yours, Jacquelyn (Moonflower Mentoring)

Moonflower Mentoring

July 1, 2023June 17, 2024 Poet Voice3 Comments

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creativity, mentoring, poet voice

Aftermath of PAD 2023

May 2, 2023May 2, 2023 Poet VoiceLeave a comment

*Siren Song, watercolor by poet, c. J. Markham, 2023*

Hello loyal readers,

In the aftermath of the poem-a-day challenge, I want to add a few poems that slipped by with the fast pace of my literary life since my book Rainbow Warrior was released!

On Day 10 of the poem-a-day challenge, I was uninspired to write a “shanty” poem although many of my poet friends were loving it. No, it was not coming to me!

This was the prompt from Maureen at NaPoWrimo: “I’m playing to my own strengths here, but I challenge you to write a sea shanty (or shantey, or chanty, or chantey — there’s a good deal of disagreement regarding the spelling!) Anyway, these are poems in the forms of songs, strongly rhymed and rhythmic, that sailors might sing while hauling on ropes and performing other sea-going labors.”

Although some of my kindred poets were writing away, I just couldn’t imagine a poem/song to be sung while loading or unloading a ship, etc., so I slipped to day eleven and continued.

Now, I’ve decided to use a poem to the sea from an earlier time to make up my day 10 challenge! Below is the poem: “Offering to Yemanya.” Shout out to Ed Madden, in whose workshop I wrote this poem some years ago (sponsored by the Poetry Society of South Carolina).

Offering to Yemanya

Sometimes the river beckons me

to pipe an offering.

I push my breath through my silver flute.

Sun sparks my notes to Yemanya,

acrobats on the river blue,

somersaults to St. Helena Sound,

gold melodies crest to the sea.

Jacquelyn Markham

Day 30 “The Return of Love: A palinode” PAD 2023

April 30, 2023 Poet Voice5 Comments

*“Painting my heart out”–acrylic painting by the poet*

My poem for Day 30, the final poem of poem-a-day challenge, reflects a retraction of my position on disappointment in love put forward in many poems, including “Hyena,” (day 5); “Sonnet on Love,” (day 9); “Affairs of the Heart: Claims & Warnings,” (Day 16); and “somewhere i travelled beyond good sense,” (Day 25). As I retract my position on love, instead of bitterness and disappointment, I will reverse some of the lines from these poems. Why am I doing changing my tune? I am responding to the prompt below and writing a “palinode.”

Maureen’s prompt: “write a palinode – a poem in which you retract a view or sentiment expressed in an earlier poem. For example, you might pick a poem you drafted earlier in the month and write a poem that contradicts or troubles it. This could be an interesting way to start working on a series of related poems. Alternatively, you could play around with the idea of a palinode by writing a poem in which the speaker says something like “I take it back” or otherwise abandons a prior position within the single poem.”

The Return of Love: a palinode

I waved goodbye from the closed car window,

laughing like a hyena, louder than the wheels

humming on the highway. Then,

the highway turns toward home & you.

Words don’t fit like a puzzle, but

drop like a stone & your once warm

embrace turns chill until sun slips from

behind the cloud & it’s all bright gold.

I asked a fortune teller if I should

continue this time. She predicted

an affair of endless love.

I must retract my earlier bitter words!

My sword-pierced heart flip flops. So, i

send him these words that e.e. shared

“your slightest look easily will unclose me

though I have closed myself as fingers.”

I whisper “rose is a rose is a rose” & shout

“How do I love thee, let me count the ways?”

Jacquelyn Markham (4/30/2023)

Day 29 Pierogi Speaks to Babcia PAD 2023

April 29, 2023August 17, 2023 Poet VoiceLeave a comment

*Pierogi image courtesy of Kingarthurbaking.com*

The prompt: “Start by reading Alberto Rios’s poem “Perfect for Any Occasion.” Now, write your own two-part poem that focuses on a food or type of meal. At some point in the poem, describe the food or meal as if it were a specific kind of person. Give the food/meal at least one line of spoken dialogue.”

In 2022, I was pleased to be featured by Maureen and Napowrimo with my poem “Kielbasa Speaks to the Vegetarian of Polish Descent,” so for this food poem, I wanted to stay with the Polish theme and Pierogis came to mind. Here’s what came out of my meditation on Pierogis! I wish I had some sizzling in butter right now!

Poem removed by Poet Voice for revision and publication elsewhere.

Day 28 Index poem PAD 2023

April 28, 2023 Poet Voice3 Comments

Before we delve into day 28, I want to say that I am so excited to have been selected as featured poet for Day 27 by Maureen, the matrixmind of the Napowrimo site for my “Yellow Celosia of Hope” poem. Thank you Maureen! So happy I have persevered and wrote the poem as well as planted my Celosia in the garden yesterday (I really did!)!

Now, I’ve written a slightly playful, fairly esoteric poem in response to day 28 prompt. I used the interesting index in my old poetry handbook from a time when books still had an extensive index, copyright 1940! For those who would like a definition of the term consonance, here’s one from the poetry foundation. I include one snippet from my index that inspired me.

A consonance to death

Did the Daemon Lover have dactyl words and feet?

Oh, no, he was just a daffy-down-dilly!

Villon’s Des Dames du Tempts Jardis would

not have a thing to do with that dilly!

“I can understand that,” said the

Daughter of the North as she danced away

to “Danty Baby Danty”!

No worries, the Earth Turn South

by morning, if we can make it

through the night despite Eidolons

lurking over the bed. Eidolons—

Eidolons? Eidolons! Is there

an echo in here? No, it’s only

the baby’s Echolalia.

Yes, a baby, no death,

perhaps a consonance to death

will do, bath, myth, broth

or sleuth will suffice!

No death, just truth, after all,

it’s the end of a perfect day!

Jacquelyn Markham (4/28/2023)

Day 27 Yellow Celosia of Hope PAD 2023

April 27, 2023May 2, 2023 Poet Voice16 Comments

Update: I was so pleased that Maureen & NaPoWriMo selected “Yellow Celosia of Hope” as the featured poem of the day! Thank you, Maureen! It was an honor!

So close to the end of this challenge, we need hope, so hope is the topic of my poem today. And here is the prompt from Napowrimo, day 27: “Today, begin by reading Bernadette Mayer’s poem “The Lobelias of Fear.” Now write your own poem titled “The ________ of ________,” where the first blank is a very particular kind of plant or animal, and the second blank is an abstract noun. The poem should contain at least one simile that plays on double meanings or otherwise doesn’t quite make “sense,” and describe things or beings from very different times or places as co-existing in the same space.”

Yellow Celosia of Hope

I lose hope when the world

loses compassion.

I lose hope when I lose myself or

a belief in the invisible.

I lose hope when I don’t see

love, a solution, or an end.

When I lose hope,

I listen for my heartbeat.

I listen for the wren

announcing dawn.

I look for pinpoints of light

sparkling on the river,

galaxies in the dark sky.

When I lose hope,

I listen to music—loud.

I read the poets, I eat, I drink,

I pace, I cry, I imagine

hope returning.

I cook rice.

I bake biscuits.

I sweep the floor.

I plant Yellow Celosias,

golden feathers of hope,

waving from my garden.

Jacquelyn Markham (4/27/2023)

Day 25 somewhere i travelled beyond good sense PAD 2023

April 25, 2023 Poet Voice2 Comments

This poem, of all love poems, brought back a not so fine memory. Here’s the prompt and the e.e. cummings poem is below my original day 25 poem!

Napowrimo Prompt for day 25: “Begin by reading e e cummings’ poem [somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond]. This is a pretty classic love poem, so well-known that it has spawned at least one silly meme. Today’s prompt challenges you to also write a love poem, one that names at least one flower, contains one parenthetical statement, and in which at least some lines break in unusual places.”

somewhere i travelled beyond good sense

that rose like the “eyes deeper than all roses”

turned to a garlic or maybe worse,

a chestnut tree in bloom (have you ever smelled it?)

in my naivete, i sent him–the scoundrel–these

lines in a letter, (little did i know):

“your slightest look

easily will unclose me/ though i have

closed myself as fingers”/i, too easily opened,

the experience, a rose turned garlic. Truly,

i cast e.e.cummings’ words before

swine. i apologize e.e. i didn’t know!

Jacquelyn Markham (4/25/2023)

link to this poem: https://poets.org/poem/somewhere-i-have-never-travelledgladly-beyond

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

E. E. Cummings – 1894-1962

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

2 responses to “Day 25 somewhere i travelled beyond good sense PAD 2023”

ghallapicella

April 28, 2023

Love e.e.cummings and love your take on his poem. I used to say eec’s last line to my kids.

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1. Poet Voice
  
  April 28, 2023
  
  Thanks so much! Love that you quoted e.e.cummings to your kids!
  
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Aligning creativity with New Moon in Cancer

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Moonflower may be your

creative rescue remedy!

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Social Justice & Art

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Offering to Yemanya

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The Return of Love: a palinode

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A consonance to death

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Yellow Celosia of Hope

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somewhere i travelled beyond good sense

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