Xianna Michaels's Blog, page 4

And Simply Drinks

We all experience difficulty in our lives. I wrote this Xoem® as part of The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® process in the midst of pain. It reminded me that there is always another way of seeing things. And though I may not be able to change the pain itself, I can change my experience of it. And that can make all the difference.

And Simply Drinks

Flowers bow

Beneath the driving rain,

But one looks up and simply drinks.

This, too, is for the good, she thinks.

She’s not immune to pain

But thrives, somehow.

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Protected: A Xoem® A Day to Help Light the Way

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Happy National Poetry Month!

April is National Poetry Month, which to me is wonderful because it brings the joys of poetry into more people’s awareness and experience. For me reading as well as writing poetry has been a daily lifelong practice. From the time I wrote my first poem at the age of eight, poetry has been my primary medium for recording and processing my life. Others kept diaries; I wrote poems. Eventually, it became a way of healing and connecting with G-d.

And somewhere along the way, without even realizing I was doing it, I created a seven-step process that uses poetic constraints and the technique of drawing with the non-dominant hand to create poem-mandalas that yield unexpected insights and spiritual connection. I began teaching the process and wrote my new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to Your Personal Gold, to share it with a wider audience.

I use it as a daily meditative practice and try to write a poem a day. As the title implies, the process is based on an alchemical model. It is metaphorical, spiritual alchemy. It’s about transformation. Writing these poems has, indeed, proved transformational for me as well as for many of my students. But there is also the element of sheer delight. And that is what I think National Poetry Month is about: the sheer delight of writing and reading poetry.

We can write our own poems and smile broadly when one finally clicks into place. All the words fit; some unexpected insight emerges, a deeper layer of meaning, a new way of looking at something. In the same way we can read favorite poems over and over and find that each time there is some new image to be found, some new metaphor to ponder. Or we can discover new poets and poems we have never encountered before. Each one has nuggets of gold to be mined. And of course, in The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® process, we create our own Personal Gold, allowing it to emerge out of whatever we define as the lead in our lives.

Reading and writing poetry can be an adventure, a spiritual journey, a delightful respite from our otherwise hectic, demanding lives. Happy National Poetry Month!

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“A World to Light:” Pointilla’s song from Mindel and the Misfit Dragons

On Sunday March 26th I had the pleasure of hearing the LA Valley Girls’ Choir sing the song “A World to Light” for which I wrote the lyrics, adapted from my book Mindel and the Misfit Dragons. It comes from the plea of the dragoness Pointilla to her parents that she must leave home now because she wants to light the world with her fire, and knows she will find a place for herself to do just that.

Diana Warshawsky composed the gorgeous music and Marilyn Kay directed the choir and also produced a beautiful album, “Nishmas,” in which this song appears. It was an incredible experience for me to listen to these wonderful young girls sing their hearts out and bring my words to life! “Nishmas” features the Shireynu Women’s Choir singing original songs by LA Valley composers and lyricists.

I also wrote the lyrics for another song on the album, “If I Forget.” Diana again wrote the music and the first time I heard it I was so humbled by the added dimension and richness that the music brought to what before had been mere words on paper. I want to thank Marilyn and Diana so much for including me in this wonderful project of “Nishmas.”

You can listen to excerpts of these songs at www.MarilynKayProductions.com where you can also purchase the album.

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Lily of the Valley is a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist!

I have some very special news to share: My book, Lily of the Valley—An American Jewish Journey, has been named a finalist for the Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award in the Religious (Adult Fiction) category for 2016!

As many of you know, this story touches something deep inside of me, and it is very gratifying to know that others have been touched by it as well. From the time the very first Lily began whispering her story to me many years ago, I felt a tremendous responsibility to bring her words out into the world. I am humbled as much as excited by this honor, and most of all, if it brings Lily’s story to the attention of more readers, then I will be ever grateful.

You can check out Foreword’s review of Lily of the Valley here.

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Lily’s First Anniversary

 

This month, March 2017, marks the first anniversary of the publication of my verse novella, Lily of the Valley—An American Jewish Journey. This, as many of you know, is the story of five generations of American Jewish women and the resilience, faith and American Dream they all share.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have been so supportive, who have bought books, who have been part of the wonderful gatherings, audiences and classes where I have been privileged to share Lily’s story. Those occasions have always resulted in such lively and deeply moving question-and-answer sessions at the end. One of the most frequently asked questions is one that I address in the Preface to the book: who was Lily, the very first Lily, to me?

My answer is always the same. I do not know. This book is not autobiographical. It is officially categorized as a work of fiction. But is it? I do not know. As I say in the Preface, Lily began whispering her story to me in snippets of rhymed, metered poetry many years ago on my morning walk. She was very insistent that I tell her story, which I did as a requested performance at a banquet for Chabad of the Valley many years ago. And when I returned to the story more than a decade later to prepare it for publication, Lily began whispering to me again, fleshing out her tale beyond what could fit into a fifteen minute reading at the banquet. So who was Lily to me? I do not know, but she was someone, and she is very real to me. She is lodged somewhere deep inside my soul.

This answer often leads to an intriguing follow-up question, usually asked by people who themselves want to write: does Lily still talk to me? At first the question caught me off guard. I really had to think about it. Had I heard from Lily since I brought the book out into the world? And the answer, I realized, is yes, she does come to me occasionally. But now she is no longer telling me her story. Instead she is encouraging me to listen to other voices trying to break through, to other people with stories they wish me to tell. As I have always told my creative writing students, the first task of a storyteller is to be receptive, to quiet your everyday mind-chatter enough to listen to who or what is coming to you.

So are there other voices trying to break through to me? Very much so, from long ago times and faraway places that I know little about. But I am listening.

 

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Introducing the Xoem®

What exactly is a Xoem®? I wrote a pamphlet called, “A Xoem a Day Keeps the Spirit in Play”, and I do try to write one a day. It’s a unique, six-line, circular-shaped verse form which I developed and love to use as part of my intuitive morning writing process. It can be composed on its own or along with a mandala drawing. I’ll be introducing the Xoem in my new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®, which will be published in June, 2017.

Xoem® is pronounced “zō-ĕm,” has eighteen accented syllables and rhymes abccba. It’s fun and challenging to write, and has a habit of yielding unexpected insights and surprising conclusions.

Here’s an example of one I wrote in a peaceful moment one morning in my garden. I thought I would just be writing about the pleasure to be found beneath my palm trees. Instead the Xoem reminded me that life will always bring surprises, some not so pleasant. A touch of whimsy helps, as does acceptance.

Oasis

The palm trees sway.

A welcome breeze comes through.

I sit nearby and let them shade me

And feel a sense of peace pervade me.

Rats like palm trees, too,

Or so they say.

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Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

The author of The Cat in the Hat and so many other beloved children’s books was born on March 2nd, 1904 and died on September 24th, 1991. His full name was Theodor Seuss Geisel, but he adopted Dr. Seuss as his pen name because it was his mother’s maiden name and apparently she had wanted him to become a doctor!

I feel an especial affinity for Dr. Seuss not only because I read him as a child—Yertle the Turtle was my favorite—and read him to my children and now read him to my grandchildren; and not only because he loved rhyme so much, as do I. No, in addition to all this, I feel a connection to him because of the story behind his most iconic book, The Cat in the Hat, and what it has to do with my upcoming new book, The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to your Personal Gold.

As you might infer from the above title, my new book is neither fiction nor a children’s book. It is, in fact, a non-fiction book about the mystical, magical poetry process which I invented and which I teach. So what on earth, you might well ask, does that have to do with Thing One and Thing Two?

The story, as I recount in my book, goes back to 1955, when an article called, “Why Johnny Can’t Read” by John Hershey, was published. It talked about how boring the early Dick and Jane readers—that all those of us of a certain age had to slog through—actually were. So Dr. Seuss’s publisher gave him a list of a little over 200 words considered at first grade level and asked him to write and illustrate a book using only those words. The result was The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957. It was an instant success and spawned the entire “I Can Read” book genre. Reviewers at the time commented that the limited vocabulary made him a more disciplined and successful poet, using phrases like “wild restraint” and “extravagant unity” to describe his work.

Today this concept of constraint actually stimulating, rather than limiting, creativity is being written about more and more. And although structured, rhymed, metered poetry has been out of vogue in the literary world for a very long time, it is central to The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry® process. It is through constraint, both in writing and drawing, that the process yields up its magic.

More about my new book in the coming months, but for now, suffice it to say that I am one Baby Boomer raised on Dr. Seuss who ranks him as one of her poetic inspirations. Robert Frost and Ogden Nash are two of my favorite 20th Century poets. Both were masters of structured poetry. But truly, only one genius could have written:

Socks on Knox

And Knox in box.

Fox in socks

On box on Knox….

and have it actually make sense!

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The Angel of Santa Monica

Back in September I began a series of stories expressing my gratitude to people I knew only briefly but who in retrospect had a tremendous influence on my life. Today I write about a third, whom I met only once and whose name I never knew. My encounter with him was wholly unexpected and even to this day seems uncanny. After he left I hardly knew what had hit me, but as his words reverberated through me, my lifelong habit of note-taking kicked in, and I wrote down what he said. So though it has now been many years, I do not write solely from memory. I have his words right in the margins of the pages I was working on at the time.

It was rather long ago, when the traffic on the 405 Freeway in LA was still bearable. Sometimes when the kids were in school I would drive down to Santa Monica to sit at the beach and write. Something about the air, the sound of the ocean, the view, made it very conducive to creative work for me. It sounds incongruous—I love the beach but I’ve never been a great fan of sand or sun. So instead I would take my notebook and fountain pen to one of the lovely gazebos that dotted the grassy area a little set back from the actual beach. There I found benches to sit on, shade, and though people came and went, enough solitude that I was able to go into my own world and write.

I was working on a medieval verse fairytale. It was a story for young adult readers, but though I hadn’t planned it that way, I knew it was also becoming a spiritual allegory for adults as well. It wasn’t the first I had done, and I already had notes for future stories. I was never sure exactly where these stories came from, only that the characters spoke to me, almost through me, and I had to tell their tales. I did not doubt the words that were coming, but I was concerned about what I would eventually do with the book. My late agent had not been a fan of the verse form of storytelling—she proclaimed it too out of sync with the modern world. I knew that I was telling ancient tales in the ancient way, and that I had to continue, but I had no idea how I would bring this work out into the world, or when. And that caused me no small amount of concern.

Such was my inner state that day I sat in the gazebo in Santa Monica, and so began probably the most inexplicable encounter I have ever had.

First there was the man in the wheelchair. He had long hair in dreadlocks. Another man wheeled him up into the gazebo. They were obviously good friends and were carrying on a lively conversation. They were speaking in what pop culture called “jive” at the time. When I was studying linguistics they would have called this a colloquial dialect of English. I didn’t understand a good part of what they said, which was fine with me—I was trying to write, not eavesdrop. They glanced at me a few times but otherwise ignored me. Then came the man with the boom box. For those of you too young to remember, a boom box was a device about the size of two shoeboxes that could fit comfortably wedged on a man’s shoulder. It got its name from the fact that it had big speakers out of which music from the radio or compact disks boomed. Later on, as history will record, this device was replaced by a thin slice of glass and metal that fit into the palm of the hand and could play virtually any music ever recorded. But I digress. This was the 90’s and the boom box ruled.

The man with the boom box on his shoulder was playing very loud music indeed, and dancing as he walked. He also had dreadlocks and came bounding into the gazebo, greeting the other too men with exuberant high-fives. They all seemed to know each other well and carried on their conversation in jive accompanied by the loud music. They continued to ignore me and I had no trouble concentrating on my work. I should explain that for many people, noise or tumult in the background is not necessarily a deterrent to focused work, if the tumult is “out there” and doesn’t involve the writer. In fact, it may actually be an aid for concentration for some people. This explains, by the way, why so many people seem to be able to work for hours in Starbucks, oblivious of all the shouting about Venti half-calf no whip Macchiatos.

So there I was with my fountain pen and notebook, writing verse after verse of my medieval story, with the very modern music and fairly incomprehensible conversation not twelve feet away. It was a beautiful sunny day. I was happy to be writing. And then the man in the wheel chair and his companion left. Only the boom box guy remained, sitting all the way on the other side of the gazebo. He turned off the music. My head was down, bent over my notebook.

“What are you writing?” came a voice which could have come from your average college professor. I looked up, around. Had he said that? Was he talking to me? As if he’d read my mind he said, “Yes, I’m talking to you. I’m asking what it is you’re writing.” His voice was gentle, polite, inquiring.

“Oh,” I said, “I’m writing a medieval verse fairytale.”

“What’s it about?” he asked.

“Uh… well, it’s about a kingdom that’s cursed and the aging king who is determined to undo the curse before he dies.” I figured he’d lose interest and I would go back to work. But that’s not what happened.

“Read me some of it,” he said.

Now I was really bewildered. “You want me to read some of my work?” I rather foolishly repeated. “But… it’s poetry!” Why would he want to hear this?

“Yes, I know it’s poetry. Pick a section and just read. Go ahead,” he motioned with his hand.

I had actually been working on the climactic scene. I was getting near the end. The story had taken on a life of its own and had a mystical quality I had not consciously planned. So I went back a fistful of pages and started reading. I looked up after the first page and he said to keep going. Every time I stopped he would tell me to keep reading. He had his eyes closed and a soft smile on his face. I read right up to where I had finished writing so far, at least fifteen pages in all.

And then he opened his eyes and spoke, and the whole episode became positively otherworldly.

“You know exactly what you’re doing,” he said, “and you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to do. You just keep going.” I must have looked stunned. How on earth could he know I’d been having doubts?

But he wasn’t finished. “You’ve hit the bulls-eye,” he went on. “The way your words flow. Your voice. You are not a neophyte. This is sophisticated. You hit the nail on the head. You are self-confident. You know yourself. I could fall asleep listening to this.”

His words brought tears to my eyes. Who was he? Could I dare believe him? No one had ever said such things to me before. I could barely speak. “Thank you,” I managed.

“Thank you for your beautiful words.”

“You just keep going,” he repeated. Then he stood, picked up his boom box, gave a little wave, and was gone.

I never saw him again.

I do not know who he was. We had not exchanged names. There was no email to exchange. But as the weeks became months, and then years, I was very glad I had written his words down. They sustained me as I finished the manuscript, not knowing how I would bring it out into the world. They are part of what sustained me as family circumstances had me putting aside my fairytales and beginning to write healing sonnets and eventually to develop my own intuitive process of drawing and writing poetry for self-transformation. The book about that process, entitled The Alchemy of Illuminated Poetry®—Seven Steps to Your Personal Gold, will be published in June 2017. It will be my third book published by Alcabal Press®, the publishing company I founded. Those words spoken in a gazebo at the beach helped to give me the confidence and strength to do so, and to keep going, to keep writing what I knew I needed to write.

And what, you might ask, ever became of the medieval verse fairytale about the kingdom cursed? It is actually alive and well and sitting on my desk right now. I am polishing it up a bit, illustrating it and preparing it for publication. It will be my fourth book for Alcabal Press®, coming in the near future.

I long ago stopped thinking of that man in the gazebo as “the guy with the boom box.” Instead I have always thought of him as “the angel from Santa Monica.” He came and he went, never to appear again, at least to me. Yet his words never left me. I did thank him at the time, but I could hardly process his words then, let alone comprehend how much they would mean to me. I don’t know that I’ve always “hit the bull’s eye” and I certainly don’t think I always know exactly what I’m doing. But I want to thank him now, again, almost two decades later, for the extraordinary things he said.

I want to thank him for making a profound difference in my life. And I would like him to know, whoever he was, wherever he is, that I did keep going. And I will never stop.

 

Check out my earlier gratitude posts “Nine Words that Made All the Difference” and “Teachers Words Matter” here and here.

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