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Yellow Celosia of Hope Revisted

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October was as full as its Harvest Moon as it always is in our part of the world after the heat breaks.

I have missed my interaction with friends and readers at Poet Voice, but I am back!

Some of my time was devoted to the 8th Annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival, held every year around the late Pat Conroy’s birthday.  I was fortunate this year to take part in a Poets Panel with the amazing sister and fellow poets, Ellen Malphrus, Jennifer Bartell Boykin, and Tim Conroy.  What an honor!

I read from Rainbow Warrior, keeping my new book of poems alive and visible, as I vowed to do in my Vision Plan (check out my post on that process here).

Though I was away from Poet Voice for a bit, I also vowed to keep hope alive in my own way with a poem, proving that “poetry matters,” the topic of the poets panel I referred to above.

Over time, my most popular blog post was in April during the poem-a-day challenge in honor of National Poetry Month.  I wrote and posted “Yellow Celosia of Hope” which was chosen by Maureen Thorson as featured poem of the day on April 27, 2023. (There are many ways to participate in the annual Poem-a-day Challenge; I have been enjoying the camaraderie and prompts on NaPoWriMo, founded by Maureen.

On the April day that I wrote the poem, I did plant a yellow Celosia with “golden feathers,/hope waving from my garden.”

Alas, the hottest summer ever was hard on the beautiful yellow feathery thing!  And now, the world over, we need hope more than ever, so I planted two yellow celosias in my fall garden.  They are annuals, but in warmer climates may act like a perennial.  I will nurture them and replace the symbol of hope as needed. Here again, is the poem:

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,

hope waving from my garden.

Jacquelyn Markham

Dear readers and friends, what ways do  you keep hope alive in your lives?

Can we all envision peace together and make a difference as Baba Jolie suggests in her 11/11 portal pick-a card-short video?

Baba Jolie speaks of envisioning peace together

And poets, if you believe as poet Denise Levertov (1923-1997) wrote in her poem, “Making Peace,” that “poets must give us imagination of peace,” then please fire up your imaginations like this Flamma Golden Celosia and let it burn with hope for world peace and harmony in our everyday lives.

Five Steps to Your Creative Vision Plan

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photo by the poet

And I/like the moth orchid/

open my petals to the moon

tides swell in me/I wax/I wane

She gives birth/The orchid blooms

My child-self takes form/Ink flows like blood

“Full Moon” by Jacquelyn Markham, from Rainbow Warrior (2023 Finishing Line Press, reprinted with permission)

The waxing moon is in Capricorn until around midnight, July 31, ET (NY) and slides into Aquarius on August 1, Lunar Lammas, a super full moon, the first of two August supermoons! So, wow! lunar energy in abundance as we wind down the summer in full Leo season (in the western hemisphere.)

A new moon rises in Leo on August 16, great energy for focusing on implementing your vision for yourself.

Before we spin around August and enter the moon in Aquarius though, we have a little time to finalize tasks of the Capricorn moon, including setting clear short-term goals (astrological guidance from the We’Moon calendar, learn more here: We’Moon). So, how about a plan for yourself and your creativity?

Does this sound dreary to you creatives out there? Does the phrase Strategic Plan make your eyes glaze over? I understand, but it’s really more rewarding & creative than you might think.  Some years ago as an arts consultant for Kentucky Peer Advisory Network (KPAN), I traveled to arts organizations large and small and assisted them with grants, board development, marketing, and yes, strategic planning! That was a great gig except for the driving on mountain roads without guard rails and the long roads to western Kentucky (I was living in Lexington at the time). But, I digress. As an arts consultant, however, I did learn the importance of having a plan to focus your creativity.

My way of making this process of creating a Strategic Plan more fun is to think of it as a *Vision* for my creative life. So, still in the middle of moon in Capricorn, I set about to work on my Vision Plan and finished the details as the clock slipped into today, July 31, while the moon is still in Capricorn.

What about  you, dear readers? Want to give it a try? I focused my plan on short term goals from now until December 2023. Here’s the step-by-step process:

Step 1: Write your vision statement. Your vision statement is futuristic and should inspire you. Mine is only three sentences long and I’ve written it in gold ink at the top of a new page in my journal.

Step 2: Next, write your mission statement which differs from but grows out of your vision statement. There are many resources on this process of writing a mission statement (search Strategic Plan) but think simply. What is it you do or want to do everyday? Focus on the present. Keep it brief.

Step 3: Now, short term goals that fit within your vision and your mission. I settled on five, but worked through several pages of writing to see the difference in the goals and the tasks it would take to accomplish them. You could focus on three (a nice number) or more if you are energetic, but I suggest no more than seven. Can some of the short term goals be moved to long term goals, for example?

Step 4: The details, the tasks, the baby steps! What tasks will be needed to meet these goals? (You can break up tasks to smaller baby steps, too.)

Step 5:  Create a timeline and in January 2024, review and revise for the new year!

Now that  you have carved out the details of your Vision Plan, enjoy the three lunations of August and start to collaborate and network while the moon is full in Aquarius.  And always, always, celebrate the fullness and beauty of the full moon and your own accomplishments coming to fruition. 

            And remember to celebrate your vision plan for the creativity in your life!

How a Spiral Garden Changed My Life

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credit: returntoitnow.net

This story is a response to a question from Jeff Brown who on the SC Writers Association Facebook feed asked about our favorite piece of writing. I responded:

“I have never thought of having a “favorite piece” of my writing. I write it and it has a life of its own. But, I suppose it would have to be “Story Circle,” a little known and unpublished feminist choreopoem I wrote while at Wolfpen Writers Colony in Prostpect, Kentucky.”

That residency was a month long stay awarded by the Kentucky Women’s Foundation who continues to support women, for example, with the Sallie Bingham Award. That month at Wolf Pen literally changed my life.

So, while I was busy musing on Jeff’s first question, he asked how that experience changed my life. Now, that sent me down another spiral path and here is my musing on that question.

So, other than the obvious—a month away from responsibilities and camaraderie with other writers– it was a combination of cosmic experiences that changed me. Under the dark skies of Kentucky, bonfires throughout the night, a studio far from the living quarters (where my room overlooked a spiral garden), and a library of stimulating material all played a part.

The library belonged to Sallie Bingham, the founder of Ky Women’s Foundation and an amazing writer herself. All these experiences were catalysts for the choreopoem, “Story Circle,” in the vein of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.”

“Story Circle,” my original chorepoem, is about healing & transformation, so the writing of it was healing. Though I had been an advocate for women since the 70s, I began to focus on healing and empowerment in my life, writing, and advocacy.

Poet leading a healing chant in the 1990’s

So when I returned to Athens where I taught at The University of Georgia for 12 years, I was driving down the road when the words “Spiral Dynamics” came to me even though I didn’t know what they meant at the time.  Shortly, I founded Spiral Dynamics Women’s Resource and Cultural Exchange. In the 90s women’s studies programs were struggling to be born. Of course, I was on the steering committee for Women’s Studies courses at UGA, but wheels turn slowly in academia and I was impatient, so I founded Spiral Dynamics to promote women’s endeavors–in writing, art, music, and business.  Spiral Dynamics never technically become a nonprofit but I simply did whatever I wanted to do, for example, raising money to bring the powerful Luisah Teish, Yoruban priestess to town. It was a memorable time to those who attended with Teish (as she likes to be called) leading us in healing and ceremony.

Spiral Dynamics was quite dynamic for years until it was time to transform the energy into something new. I was hired to implement an SBA grant for a women’s business center, coming full circle since the job was back in Kentucky! I was not an MBA; I was a poet and a professor, but by virtue of my work with women’s businesses through Spiral Dynamics, I was hired. I cut my ties with Georgia and headed into a completely different chapter of my life all from the vision of the spiral garden under my window at the Hopscotch House (Wolf Pen Writers Colony).

And that’s the short story! To be continued in my memoir.

Feed the Creative Mind with Emotional Energy of Venus Retrograde

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Venus (credit: NASA)

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.

Moonflower Mentoring

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Moonflower may be your

creative rescue remedy!

Do you need to jumpstart your creativity?

Creativity Guide & Writing Mentor

Jacquelyn Markham, author of Rainbow Warrior & other titles,

former professor & workshop leader

offers services as

Creativity Guide & Writing Mentor.

If you need inspiration to spark

your creativity and writing,

consider Moonflower Mentoring:

Nurture Creativity
Foster Writing Practice
Inspire New Material
Guide Current Projects
Review Mentee’s Work

Dr. Markham uses a variety of approaches to suit each person’s creative process:

one-on-one, workshops, and/or intensive programs.

In person and virtual options available. To learn more about Moonflower Mentoring:

Email: Moonflower Mentoring at jacquiepoet3@gmail.com

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