Loose Leaf Notes

1. Winter Star-  A light in the dark / saves what is lost / anoints the silent night / when the paths of ages cross / When closed hearts open / and wise ways are taken / alignments are blessed / in the age of Aquarius

2. “We are in a birthing canal and will be throughout 2023 and into 2024 and beyond. The big story, the overarching story, the one that spans not just years or decades, but centuries is the story of “The Age of Aquarius.” We’ve been singing about her for forty years, and at last, she is on the horizon. But she won’t—and can’t—arrive until we birth her.” – Janet Connor astrology 

3. “There is a gravitas in the second half of life, but it is held up by a much deeper lightness or ‘okayness.’ Our mature years are characterized by a kind of bright sadness and a sober happiness, if that makes any sense. There is still suffering in the second half of life—in fact maybe even more. But there is now a changed capacity to hold it creatively and with less anxiety. It is what John of the Cross called ‘luminous darkness,’ and it explains the simultaneous existence of deep suffering and intense joy in the saints and mystics—something that is almost impossible for most of us to imagine. Eastern Orthodoxy believed that if something was authentic religious art, it would always have a bright sadness to it. I think I am saying the same of an authentic life…” Richard Rohr

4. “In the second half of life, one has less and less need or interest in eliminating the negative or fearful, making again those old rash judgments, holding on to old hurts, or feeling any need to punish other people. Our superiority complexes have gradually departed in all directions. We learn to positively ignore and withdraw our energy from evil or stupid things rather than fight them directly. We fight things only when we are directly called and equipped to do so. We all become a well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while, and we lose our inner freedom.  When we are young, we define ourselves by differentiating ourselves from others; now we look for the things we all share in common. We find happiness in alikeness, which has become much more obvious to us now; and we do not need to dwell on the differences between people or exaggerate the problems. Creating dramas has become boring…” Richard Rohr

5. I’m a sucker for things like THIS 

6. And THIS. 

7. Hook up or broke up?

8. Wednesday is the day of the week that most looks like its misspelled. Wendsday makes more sense.

9. Tabs left open on my search bar: How long to quarantine after covid exposure, everything about Sally Hemmings and minimizer bras.

10. I wrote this poem / while on hold for a bureaucrat / with a Lynyrd Skynyrd instrumental / playing in the background / A Simple Man irony / for today’s red tape reality / of phone menu roulette – Read Hold-up in its entirety HERE.

11. “Research has shown that when people get older, they commonly recalibrate their goals; though they might be doing less, they tend to prioritize what they find meaningful and really appreciate it… A decline in openness to experience, then, could reflect someone relishing their routine rather than seeking new thrills; a decline in extroversion could indicate that they’re satisfied spending time with the people they already love.” – From The Curious Personality Changes of Older Age, The Atlantic

12. The Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past HERE.

13. Love Letters to Humanity: A Performance of Conscious Dance Theatre: Radford dance professor, Katie Wells, shares the hardships and triumphs of her spiritual path in a colorful tapestry of dance, words, props and audience interaction. A one woman show. See HERE.

___________Thirteen Thursday

_______Wordless Wednesday_

Katie Wells’s one woman show, Love Letters to Humanity: A Performance of Conscious Dance Theatre, drew sell-out crowds Friday and Saturday at the Floyd Center for the Arts.

It was a fundraiser for InStill Mindfulness, a local non-profit dedicated to cultivating a mindful world for all with kindness, compassion, and caring through education, action.

It’s hard to be human and growth usually comes with discomfort.

“Featured at the International Embodiment Conference, this one-person show weaves Dance Improvisation and Theatre to reveal both the struggle and humor on the search for inner peace in a moving and uplifting performance. Radford dance professor, Katie Wells, shares the hardships and triumphs of her spiritual path in a colorful tapestry of dance, words, props and audience interaction,” the event press release read.

In 2020 I covered Katie’s Love Letters performance for The Floyd Press HERE. The show has a structure but is largely improvisational, so much of it was new to me.

Audience interaction included the weaving together of people with a golden cord, which tied us together but also loosened us up.

I was glued to my seat throughout the show, until it was time for an audience participating ecstatic dance party at the conclusion.  I was so busy dancing with all the scarves that I didn’t get any pictures of that.

The show brought out many emotions, incorporated lots of humor with the peeling of layers and ended on a high note.

I’m such a fan of Katie’s that I will attend any and all of her performances.  She is a beautiful talent. See for yourself.

1. Over the weekend, Joe went camping with a group of inner city kids, and I went to the Taubman Museum to see an immersion art installation. That says a lot about us.

2. The Taubman show exhibit I saw was the work of Caledonia Curry, aka Swoon, a street artist and contemporary of Banksy.

3. Up in smoke?

4. The other thing we did this past weekend is tour the site of the Tuggles Gap mountain wildfire which was deemed a state of emergency by the governor and that was about 2 miles from our house.  We ran into a local forester who explained that the fire was no longer a danger. It had been contained by controlled back burning after digging a fire line road around the fire so as to not give it anything to catch on to. Thanks to the teams from several counties and other states, they didn’t lose any structures.

5. I finally understood the term ‘fight fire with fire.’

6. Magic or miracles? Fairy tales or bibles?

7. The past is an alibi. The future is booked. The present is constant and destiny is the destination.

8. Every rule is excused by some exception and nothing happens without a little friction.

9. “Robert Thurman said that, if we truly understood interdependence, we’d be more afraid of hating than dying. Because hatred travels further than the scope of an individual life. It runs through us like a shock-wave, and if we vibrate along with it, we become it and add our life-force to all kinds of suffering, for generations to come. The vibration of hatred doesn’t care whether you think you’re the oppressor or the oppressed. “Justice” means nothing to it. Once you’re caught in its tremor, you become part of what divides people, blocks empathy, steals hope. This is why the Buddha said we have to make our minds like broken bells, not resonating with the madness around us…” Paul Weinfield

10. “…These days, I’ve really been living in my home. Day after day, I experience all the comforts of home, and more and more, I feel the need to go out less and less. Sometimes even a walk down our long driveway to get the mail can be put off for another day… In a world that tends to define identity by what we do, I’m paring down to my essence. There’s nothing to distract me from the work of being me, allowing the changes, reviewing the sweet nostalgias and exploring the impact of how past traumas have shaped me. It’s work that feels like a luxury… More HERE. 

11.  You said, “Bye honey / I love you” three times / But couldn’t manage / to hang up the phone / “It’s okay / Just pretend I’m sitting / in the chair by the window / You can forget I’m here / and take a nap” – Excerpt from I Put You on Speaker Phone Listen below.

12.  I recorded the Oh Hellos doing Hello My Old Heart at Floydfest 2015 HERE.

13. It’s for you.  

________ Thirteen Thursday

In order to come fully to the encounter with whatever gives ultimate meaning, in order to wrestle with the angel, one must be a free agent, not defined by another, or by cultural imperatives. – Marilyn Sewell, Cries of the Spirit   

These days, I’ve really been living in my home. Day after day, I experience all the comforts of home, and more and more, I feel the need to go out less and less.  Sometimes even a walk down our long driveway to get the mail can be put off for another day.

Recognizing the difference between solitude and isolation, I mark my calendar with things to do, but the markings spread out over each month and are mostly dates to play Scrabble, dates to hear and dance to bands I like, lunch or walks with a friend, health care appointments, and maybe a poetry reading I’ve been scheduled to do. Impromptu activities happen but don’t get written down, time with my grandsons, a conversation or memorable phone call, a bike ride or beach trip with my husband Joe.

Now that the pool swimming, gardening and mowing season has wound down, I find myself cleaning, sewing, reading and writing more. I continue to spend time cooking and eating luscious meals every day, blogging online, following the news, writing poems, watching movies or TV shows I like and soaking up the last of the sunlight on the porch with cup of tea in hand. I do more crossword puzzles, study quantum physics and listen to whole catalogues of music by my favorite songwriters (old or new).

This is so different. After raising two sons, helping to raise two grandsons and providing in-home foster care for a developmentally disabled individual for nine years, I’ve never had so much freedom. It’s a freedom to go from interest to interest and to embody where I live. But for me, this freedom comes with a lessening of interest in some social activities and a lessening of the stamina to attend them.

I miss the part time job I had for 15 years covering local events and writing features for our local paper. I was well suited to it, and it got me out-and-about and meeting people for interviews that I wouldn’t normally meet. I didn’t retire as much as I got “let go” when the paper changed hands, and then the budget was cut in the summer 2021. And now I have time on my  hands.

I remember asking my parents as they were aging, ‘what do you do all day?’ Now I ask myself. I don’t buy into the elder years being the best time of life. It has its pluses but also has loss. Instead of crossing things I want to do off my bucket list, I’m also crossing off things I don’t have to do.  For me, it’s not about living life to its fullest, it’s about living, and that means lots of maintenance, keeping things simple and being present for the small beauties and joys of life.

In a world that tends to define identity by what we do, I’m paring down to my essence. There’s nothing to distract me from the work of being me, allowing the changes, reviewing the sweet nostalgias and exploring the impact of how past traumas have shaped me. It’s work that feels like a luxury.

These past couple of years have been an adjustment, one that hasn’t always been comfortable. But yesterday, I heard myself say, ‘I’m starting to like this.” I have been marveling at my ability to adapt, to slow down, or to stay busy with what I choose to do.

I’ve been hearing my dad’s voice in my head. He was a homebody too, one who liked to say ‘my home is my castle.’  Mine is a cabin on three acres surrounded by woods. We have a pump for well water, a shed full of firewood, a freezer full of venison (thanks to Joe), a large garden and a few chickens.

I used to refer to my home as a humble country abode, but now I’m starting to see it as my castle. I’m rich in privacy. I’m rich in the natural world. I’m rich in all the things that money can’t buy. I’m home, and after living here for 30 years, twice as long as I lived in the house I grew up in, I’m happy to say it’s my favorite place to be.

It takes two

How many are you?

Mirror mirror. There’s a lot of us in here.

Swoon, aka Caledonia Curry, is an artist and an installation exhibit at the Taubman Museum.

Swoon is a printmaker, paper cutter, screen printer, large scale relief creator and street artist with a focus on human connection, social practice and healing trauma. “She was part of a group of artists early 00s, including JR and Banksy, that were committed to pushing the forms and conceptual limits of the Street Art genre.” -Wikipedia

She also works with animation and film, such as with the Sibylant Sisters, an autobiographical fairy tale shown at the exhibit that fascinates and disturbs.

We spent a lot of time listening.

“One of her pieces “Medea,” is a sculpture and sound installation that shares a series of biographical portraits as well as a switchboard with audio clips. The Taubman Museum of Art says the audio clips are gathered from psychology texts and fairy tales. It even included Curry’s dreams and childhood memories.” WFXR.

I can’t think of a more enriching way to spend a day with friends than an art immersion followed by lunch in Roanoke’s Downtown Market.

The show is open till March 10. Don’t miss it!

Moon under my pillow
is a princess’s pea
I cross my heart
and hope to dream

_________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

1. I remember asking my parents as they were aging, ‘what do you do all day?’ Now I ask myself. I don’t buy into the elder years being the best time of life. It has its pluses but also has a lot of loss. Instead of crossing things I want to do off my bucket list, I’m also crossing off things I don’t have to do.  For me, it’s not about living life to its fullest, it’s about living, and that means lots of maintenance, keeping things simple and being present for the small beauties and joys of life.

2. When we were kids we believed / we were angels in training / and the wing bones on our backs were proof / We propelled ourselves in dreams about flying / but let no leg hang over the bed.

3. One day the brown chameleon wakes up blue / but I can only change my clothing / shop for every color of the rainbow / and stuff my closet overfull – HERE. 

4. Everything is a hobby now.

5. “Voting isn’t marriage, it’s public transport. You’re not waiting for “the one” who’s absolutely perfect: you’re getting the bus, and if there isn’t one to your destination, you don’t not travel- you take the one going closest.” – Debbie B. Moon

6. We’ve been living out of kitchen boxes since our cupboards have been being repainted. Now we are living out of boxes and suitcases in our cars in case we have to evacuate because there is a wildfire out of control just a couple of miles away.

7. So, what would you take if you had to leave your home quickly for a fire.  I took my money, my lockbox, my files and photos on a hard drive, my toiletries, my medicine, my life book album, a hot plate and few pans and lots of clothes (a small fraction of what I have) because I’m a hard fit and my favorite clothes would be impossible to replace.

8. That exercise reminded me of these lines of a poem, written for my late sister Kathy…  You wanted to decorate the bedroom we shared / with purple gingham curtains and matching rugs / but our mother said we couldn’t afford that / I hung the laundry and imagined a house fire / The clothes on the line were all I had left – More HERE. 

9. Our language is inadequate to describe quantum reality – The quantum world — and its inherent uncertainty — defies our ability to describe it in words. …First, images we build in our minds when we try to picture light or particles of matter are not appropriate. Language itself struggles to address quantum reality, since it is limited to verbalizations of those mental images… Second, the observer is no longer a passive player in the description of natural phenomena. If light and matter behave as particles or waves depending on how we set up the experiment, then we cannot separate the observer from what is being observed.” – From Our language is inadequate to describe quantum reality 

10. A new study reveals a significant disparity in neural activity during face-to-face conversations compared to Zoom interactions. Using advanced neuroimaging, researchers observed suppressed neural signals during online exchanges. In contrast, in-person discussions presented heightened brain activity, with more coordinated neural responses between participants, emphasizing the richness of live social interactions. “Zoom appears to be an impoverished social communication system relative to in-person conditions,” said Yale neuroscientist Joy Hirsch.

11. Linda Fallon, who was a long-time board president for the Floyd Center for the Arts, had the idea for a poetry tea to benefit the Center after attending a 2018 poetry tea party at Fiddlesticks Farm where Katherine Chantal, Chelsea Adams and I read tea poems wearing our high-tea lady’s hats… When past Floyd resident Carolyn (Kirby) Grace posted on Facebook that she had completed a MFA in creative writing and had a first book of poetry published, Linda suggested that a poetry tea with the three of us would make a good FCA event, and it did. More from Poetry and Tea for Thirty HERE.

12. Hey, where ya going, to a fire? See HERE.

13. Not a flying saucer. Watch a flying helicopter drop water over the Tuggles Gap wildfire.

______Thirteen Thursday

Poets rhyme sugar / with teacup and saucer / They alliterate morning / with mug

Linda Fallon, who was a long-time board president for the Floyd Center for the Arts, had the idea for a poetry tea to benefit the Center after attending a 2018 poetry tea party at Fiddlesticks Farm where Katherine Chantal, Chelsea Adams and I read tea poems while donned in our high-tea lady’s hats (See HERE).

She knew that Katherine and I have several published books and had been on a Soulful Aging Tour poetry reading for the past couple of years, reading from our poetic memoirs back-and-forth in different settings, including The Death Class Reading at Radford University, where we were invited to be featured guests at a grief and loss class for counselors.

When past Floyd resident Carolyn (Kirby) Grace posted on Facebook that she had completed a MFA in creative writing and had a first book of poetry published, Linda suggested that a poetry tea with the three of us would make a good FCA event, and it did.

I first met Carolyn back in 2008 when Floyd Press editor Wanda Combs asked if I’d do a feature story on her, a sixteen-year-old opera singer who was making a name for herself.  I traveled out to her family’s farm for an interview and took a picture of Carolyn, her mother and a family goat on the farmhouse porch, which later graced the paper’s front page (See HERE). Soon after, Carolyn began attending the monthly Spoken Word Night (hosted by the Floyd Writers Group that Katherine and I were members of) at the Café del Sol to read poetry, play guitar and sing.

There we were with freshly brewed tea poured in china cups, some sweet treats and an attentive audience of about thirty to hear our poetry. We read three or four poems each from our books in three alternating sets. Keeping with the tea theme, Katherine read a few poems from her first book, A Tea Poet’s Journey, as attendees sipped tea… We shall experience a most delicious time / of words mingled with savoring / deep brown, earthy elixir / Wisdom and aging, blending quite sagely / Hidden gold in every cup…”   She also read from her books Poetic Memoir of a Nascent Senescent and Streaming from the Inside.

I read three poems from each of my poetry memoirs, Packing a Suitcase For the Afterlife, Objects are Closer Than They Appear, and Poems From the Darkroom.  For me, it was fun for me to take a break from Katherine’s and my depth psychology readings on the inner life and even share a couple of poems that brought laughter. When our eyes become / adjusted to darkness / we call ourselves poets / We wear berets / and quit our jobs / fix our gaze / on the faraway / We wait for poems / that fit like skin / We dream them / from a distance / and write them close in…

Carolyn read from her book of sensual poems and lyric glossaries, Grenadine and Other Love Affairs… I have lost my fear / of being left out at sea. I know / that we are all just following / the curves of the continents / with the soles of our feet with / our souls in our hands…  

We had a surprise guest reader. Normia Vázquez Scales, a poet from North Carolina was in town to lead a workshop at The June Bug Center and shared a couple of her poems. In closing, we passed out cards from my deck of tea poetry and a person from each table read a haiku-like poem out loud.

We had a fantastic audience and appreciated everyone who came. We’d love to see more poetry events at the Floyd Center for the Arts.

Post Note: Katherine and I are currently working on a fourth installment for our Soulful Aging Tour 2024, tentatively titled Fairy Godmother’s Midnight and the Art of Archetype.  Our books are available on Amazon and locally at The Harvest Moon, The Floyd Country Store and Floyd Center for the Arts.

“Poetry and tea different branches, same tree. Ever have they been entwined, both present to a life refined, both eliciting a clear mind.”-  From A Tea Poet’s Journey by Katherine Chantal

 A trio of poets will share their varied writings and enjoy afternoon tea with the public at the Floyd Center for the Arts on Sunday November 5 at 2 p.m. (don’t forget to “fall back” at 2 am early Sunday morning).

Carolyn Grace began writing poetry as a child, and has been completely in love with language ever since. Grace graduated from Berea College with an undergraduate degree in English composition and a minor in music performance. She went on to complete her MFA in creative writing through the Bluegrass Writers Studio at Eastern Kentucky University. Grace, who is a past Floyd County resident, currently lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, Grant, and their dog, Fitzwilliam, who appears to be aware that he is named after literary royalty and acts accordingly. Grenadine and Other Love Affairs is her debut book of poetry that she will be reading from.

“This book is a love story, but probably not the one that you expect,” Carolyn says.  “Read it for the romance, but also for the math, music, and feminism. Read it if you are interested in using art, science, and history as twisty extended metaphor. Read it for rich language, formal and experimental poetic structure, intimate portraiture, fragmented and interwoven imagery, and surprising callbacks. Or just read it, and then tell me where you found what you needed.”

Colleen Redman is a Floyd County blogger who provided news stories, features and photographs for The Floyd Press from 2006 – 2021. Her poetry has most recently been published in Artemis Journal, Floyd County Moonshine, and Poetica Review. In 2017 her poetry collection Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife, was published by Finishing Line Press.  Her follow-up collections are Objects are Closer Than They Appear (2021) and Poems from the Dark Room. (2022). Her 2003 book The Jim and Dan Stories – a memoir about the deaths of her brothers – was used as curriculum in a Radford University grief and loss class for counselors before it went out of print. She has been a featured reader and workshop leader at Floyd’s Little River Poetry Festival.

“I was initially inspired to write poetry by the lyrics of the music of my generation (Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan etc.). While working at a hip boutique in Boston in 1969, I distinctly remember hearing Leonard Cohen singing “Suzanne” on the radio and thinking that I wanted to be a poet. More recently, I’ve described writing poetry as taking my psychic blood pressure. I use the pen to get a diagnosis as well as for the treatment. There’s something satisfying in distilling a feeling or thought down to an essence,” says Redman, who will be reading selected poems from her three collections.

Katherine Chantal has been a writer for many years. Observing people and spirit-filled natural creation inspires her vision and passion to write. Her works appear in various magazines and literary editions, including Floyd County Moonshine, Artemis, and Cinch Mountain Review. She has published five books.  Four of poetry and one, an exploratory treatise on kindness. Her muse is life being lived, fully, deeply, intensely, inquiringly. Her writings stream from arenas of philosophy, depth psychology, meditations, relationships with people, as well as from an interior landscape. All are expressions of a Soul journey in the guise of poetic memoir. She meets her aging days with kindness and curiosity.

“Aging is a stage of Transcendence, a renewable resource to be enjoyed while we are still alive,” says Katherine, who, as a life passage ceremonialist, officiates weddings and memorials. She, who has been a workshop leader and featured poet at Floyd’s Little River Poetry Festival, will be reading from her poetry collections Poetic Memoir Of a Nascent Senescent: Musings from My Sixties, and her latest book, Streaming From the Inside: Navigating Middle Elder.

Notes: There is a $5 suggested donation to benefit the Floyd Center for the Arts.  The above first appeared in The Floyd Press on October 26, 2023.  Read about the event HERE.

1. McCartney said the song goes back to this: “A woman did actually sneak into my house through the bathroom window that was a bit ajar. A fan, apparently – one of a group called the ‘Apple scruffs’. She found a ladder lying outside my house in London. As far as I recall, she stole a picture of my dad. Or robbed me of it. But I got the song in return.”

2. I had a sign on my bathroom window in my first apartment in Quincy Massachusetts that read “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.” 

3. I kind of regret not naming our road Abby Road when Floyd changed from road numbers to names and we were allowed to name our own roads.

4. My husband and eldest son wanted to call our road Shakedown Street, but I knew that song was about a police raid, so I thought it was a bad idea.

5. We settled on another favorite Grateful Dead song, Morning Dew.

6. As for the brick pictured above, I stamped it on one of my son’s Mobile Brick Factory bricks, and it’s now part of The Old Marshall Jail’s community monument wall.

7. I also stamped one that said “Packing a Suitcase for the After Life,” which is the name of one of my three poetry books. Check it out on one of my all-time favorite blog posts HERE.

8. The True Story of Wilson the Volleyball HERE. 

9. I like the song She Came in Through the Bathroom Window in the same way I like Dylan’s Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat. 

10. THIS blogger featured me wearing a leopard skin pillbox hat on his blog, “People Who Wear Hats”

11. The geese in this picture of the French Broad River along downtown Marshall NC (and the Old Marshall Jail) were not interested in bread scraps.

12. Don’t clear cut the rainforest / Don’t sell the farm / Stand up for what’s right / Don’t fall for a cult / and love your neighbor / as yourself… Read Ten Commandments for the 21st Century in its entirety HERE.

13. More Leopard Skin Pillbox Hats HERE. Even Santa wears one.

___________Thirteen Thursday