MOVING WRITERS FROM THE CENTER T

"Muse It" publishes your responses to THEMES we pose each season. Share ideas, insights, and reflections. We will post your writing, a brief bio, the city or hamlet where you live, and your email address so others can contact you. We're not seeking "literature," per se, in this forum as much as a forum to share & communicate.

The guidelines are simple. Email submissions of 500 words or less focused on our topic of the season to ron@centertopage.com. Clarify which theme you're responding to. Keep submission within email textbox. No attachments except for jpeg photos appropriately sized for web pages. Include a two-sentence bio, email address, and location where you live. We reserve the right to edit for length.

What do you do to remind yourself as a writer or artist to connect to the natural world? How does the natural world inform your creativity even if you spend most of your days in subways and offices? What yoga tools connect you and your creativity to the natural world? Send us your musings, anecdotes, and suggestions. Submit throughout the month.

From Anya Achtenberg, St. Paul, Minnesota

It seems that writing, in many ways, is a direct connection for me to the
natural world -- some of the directness of the connection result from
a kind of laziness, and of forgetting the extraordinary truth and benefit of
a regular yoga practice, but some of it comes from falling directly into
experience through language, into an experience of the senses and the belly,
of the sound of the center of the earth, of the remembrance of the body as
animal.

   Originally from the projects in East New York in Brooklyn, I often
lived in small apartments in Manhattan with airshafts outside the windows,
the dens of pigeons filled with their excrement and their scruffy gray
babies, and, well, this was the natural world for me, but the other great
animal presence was the body, and closing the door of my apartment meant the
return of the body to its animal nature, the shedding of its socialization,
so urgently needed after the list of requirements and the locking away of
the body that makes for the ride through the social planet of a big city.
   In New Mexico, I finally learned sky yoga. Color yoga. Cloud yoga. Shafts
of sunlight from god's eye yoga. Female rain and male rain yoga. Pinon and
cedar breath. The drama of the natural world yoga. This place gave me the
yoga of stopping, of lifting my head up from its stem, finding dignity in
the body of worship, in the lengthening of the spine to adore what holds our
world everywhere, finding the opening of all my eyes to beauty beyond
breath, finding unequivocal gratitude in this yoga of sky, in the open mouth
of coyote, in my own howl, in the scarcity of air and the abundance of
animal lung to expand and breathe in a place higher than any city tower,
although not necessarily more secure. In this yoga, this love of the planet,
this full birth of awe, this true dignity, the sky pulls straight and long
the spine, and releases wild and musical the howl.

   Does it make sense? One who cannot do her homework as she should, but is
sometimes blessed to arrive at the voice of a different kind of yoga.
   So what can I suggest about writing from my idiosyncratic way of yoga? To
go each time you begin to write into the animal body. To allow the leap into
the animal body of your characters. To allow the descent into the waters of
language. To see your own glistening. To go each time to that place of awe
as you stretch the spine into the beauty of whatever sky is your dome and
your mantle and your airy truth, and to lift your head above your glorious
giraffe or turtle or oxen or heron or coyote neck, and howl.

Anya Achtenberg is a fiction writer and poet (her work includes More Than
The Wind, a recently completed novel excerpted in Harvard Review, and The
Stone of Language, her latest book of poetry). She teaches creative writing
workshops, has developed the Writing for Social Change: Re-Dream a Just
World Workshops, and can be found on the web at www.AnyaAchtenberg.com and at anya@anyaachtenberg.com.

from Darlene Rivais, Salt Point, NY

A stone wall signifies the border between my property and beyond. Beyond begins with a pond. I meant to sit on that wall every morning and every dusk, absorbing every sensory impression I could hold. I went a few times, but my presence scares the deer and turkey. Startles squirrels into agitated chatter. Silences birds. My weight on the wall shifts stones, creating havoc on who- knows- what kind of insect colonies, snake nests, clinging mosses and lichen chips. My feet destroy tunnel entrances of subterranean dwellers. Trample tender mushrooms. So, I sit at a different border. One I don’t cross in the rising of dawn or the lowering of dusk. My back porch.

Meditation is a quieting of the mind and body. One-pointed concentration on a form or thought or sound. Candle flame or crocus in snow. Formal mantra or a mourning dove’s coo. Laughter that consumes all other awareness. Sitting on the porch aware of only the scent of pine needles. A peace and oneness that isn’t lost upon return to the “real” world. The opposite of Wordsworth’s powerful emotion recaptured in a moment of tranquility, it’s tranquility recaptured in moments of powerful emotion.

An enormous maple grows into the stone wall and, distinct from all the other trees, I recognize the song of her branches stretching in the wind. Sensitive to temperature and precipitation, the pond shrinks and swells. Hardens into ice or softens into tendrils of mist. Water bug skates to bullfrog’s aria. Coyote howls. Screech owl shrieks. The pungent fragrance of rot melding with life drifts up from the soil. Woodpecker hammers. Jack-in-the-pulpit unfurls. Each attends to their business. Undisturbed.

And I attend to mine.

When a co-worker speaks to me, I hear a voice as distinct and beautiful as the maple’s. When a student challenges my authority, I pause on the porch, leery of my potentially destructive imposition. Throughout the day, I access recollection of calm detachment in moments of chaos and stress. Use it to quiet my mind and allow the stir and snap, hum and caw of an approaching story seeking to be told.

Life is a navigation of known and unknown. Imagination lives in the space between. Untempered and vast in childhood -- education, social expectations, life experience – each encroaches on the creative space, squeezing the wonder from the sponge of imagination. A dry sponge shrinks and hardens. But when wetted, it softens and swells.

Saturate your sponge. Hold it heavy and dripping in your hands. Squeeze it on your head and face. Catch drops like a lover’s sweat on your tongue. Flick your sponge at friends and foes. Fling your arms wide and twirl. Spatter in all directions. Twist it. Wring it. Wrest each drop.

Soak it again.

Darlene Rivais Salt Point,NY drivais61@aol.com

Darlene supports her writing habit teaching at-risk youth and yoga. Seated butt squeezes also help.

from JEN LIGHTY, Block Island, RI

I live on Block Island, an island twelve miles out to sea, so it is hard to forget my connection to the natural world. From most points on the island one can hear the sound of the ocean, its varying moods carried by the wind that rarely stops blowing. Sometimes I wish I could forget my connection to the natural world so that I would be more disciplined with my writing! It is so beautiful here I often think I shall be driven to turn my desk away from the window and pull down the shades so I am not enticed by the play of light on water, or by the mallards bobbing on the surface of the Salt Pond I can see from my bedroom window. I have left my page in the lurch many times to ride my bike against the wind, or to hunt feathers on one of the sheltered trails carved into the island's green heart by kind hands who understand the need of the body and soul to wander.

Over the years I have become adept at omens, both the reading of them and the receiving. I have written extensively about how the natural world began to communicate with me in this way in my first two books of poems, Siren and Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary.

The first omen occurred the summer I found myself without a roof over my head and lived in a tent, surrounded by nameless grasses and milkweed, sleeping on the ground for three months straight, brokenhearted and close to going crazy. I felt so uncomfortable in my skin I itched to leave my body. I thought I was a victim of the housing crunch on Block Island, unable to find a place to live because of the carelessness of the rich and the greed of those who catered to them, but I was wrong.

I was pulled to the ground by a force as ancient as our knowing, a force I discovered I had lain on for many nights--the skin of a snake, shed as I wept to the mosquitoes trying to get in through the flaps--on the ground under my tent when I pulled up the stakes and moved inside for the winter.
I slid under the covers of the bed in my warm house and slowed my breath to dormancy. I allowed myself to shed the ill-fitting skin of alcoholism and depression as that small garter snake had shed hers, outgrown as we slept together the summer the earth began to share its spinning story with me.

Six years later I see the world in an entirely new way, and because of this, I receive direction when I need it from stones, from deer tracks that appear whenever I am in doubt of which fork to travel, from snowy egrets standing on one leg, and from ospreys, who have built a nest in my yard where they patiently wait for their hawklets to tap through their eggs with the instinct bred in their beaks. I watch them snatch fish out of the water and know that I, too, can plunge in and out of my emotions in order to lend depth to my words without drowning.

Yoga, with its emphasis on breath, has helped me learn to navigate the dimensions around and within me, so that with every inhalation and exhalation I also become more natural, wings a little closer to sprouting from my shoulder blades.

Jen Lighty is a poet, performer, activist and teacher devoted to keeping her creative channels open so as to best be of service to all her relations: human, animal, and otherwise.
jenlighty@hotmail.com

On reconnecting to my natural grounding in nature, I take my cue from my daughter Amelie, who is a year and a half.

From the time she was born, nothing soothed her when she was tired and irritable at the end of a day like simply stepping outdoors in my arms, even just to the back porch to sit on the swing or gaze up at the moon. "Moon!" she says now, pointing. "Stahs!" (She can't yet pronounce the letter "r".)

In the daytime she is drawn to flowers like some gigantic humming bird or bee, flapping her arms with excitement to a clump of spring flowers, touching the center of each one as if to pollinate it.

In the streams near our house dwell sirens, calling to Amelie to defy her parents' attempts to keep her from getting wet. Patiently, carefully, she climbs over the underbrush blocking her way to reach the mud beside the burbling flow, where she cries "Wahdah!"

Amelie is my teacher as I am hers. I teach her how to pull off her shoes and socks, to pull on her pants, to tell me what she needs and wants, and all the other machinations of our civilized world. In turn she teaches me to defy the entreaties of my old school writing teachers and get my ass out of my chair and tap into the great cosmic dynamo that powers us all.

--Michael Belfiore is the author of the forthcoming book Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots Is Boldly Privatizing Space. He lives in Woodstock, NY with fellow writer Wendy Kagan and their daughter Amelie. Find him on the Web at www.michaelbelfiore.com.

Tanka

Are these two trees twins,
Or have they grown very close?
One of them now dead -
Woodpecker fodder and rot.
The other live, but weakened.

Tanka

My dog eats the snow
That has fallen on my deck.
Obsessing to finish,
To get it all down his throat
Before the next snow will fall.

Haiku

The streams and rivers
Are deep in conversation.
The fish are weeping.

Haiku

Two great blue herons
glide with such grace over glass.
Better places call.

Haiku

The black creek rises
drinking spring's unyielding thaw.
Become the river.

Alan R. Eliot is an ex-hippie who, after all this time, still feels that he is not from here. He spends much of his spare time wandering the foothills of the Catskills near his home in Esopus, NY. He says he likes living there because it "almost spells 'suppose' backwards".

Activism is an intentional act to bring about social change for the earth and all the beings who inhabit it. I love exploring ways to be a spiritual activist in daily life and have put together some of my favorites.

give graciously: Consider alternative gifts. This year my mother got a goat for the holidays. The goat was purchased to provide milk for a family in Africa.

volunteer: The good vibes associated with volunteering are contagious. Give of your time and energy. The yogic teaching of greedlessness (aparigraha) is embodied when we give freely of our time, resources and goodwill.

veg out: By choosing a vegetarian diet, you can reduce the suffering of other beings and to create a sustainable environment in which all can thrive.

be a good citizen: Share your voice and vote! Stay abreast of what is happening around you. Do your share to contribute to your community. If you have a small patch of grass in front of your city condo, plant pansies or an English boxwood. Pick up trash when you walk past it on the street.

fill a need: Does your office recycle? Gather the information on how to get started and request a meeting with the decision maker to present the data. When you see something missing in your community, why not get the ball rolling as the pioneer of the moment? Let your actions leave a legacy.

practice mindfulness: Start each day by lighting a candle, sitting in meditation, and setting an intention for the day. Listen when people talk to you. Chew your food. End each day with reflection.

go green: Recycle and reduce your household waste by becoming mindful of the resources you consume. according to Patanjali, author of the Yoga-Sutras, we are to cultivate a ‘steady and joyful connection to the earth’ so let’s take steps to reduce our carbon footprint. buy eco-friendly products.

live by example: Be a source of inspiration to others. Let your life be a story that will affect others for years to come.

Being a spiritual activist is a state of mind. Practice it in all situations. Smile at people as you walk by them. say “thank you.” Ask your colleague how she is and mean it. Take a stand. Plant a tree. Choose tofu. Help somebody who looks like they might need assistance. Interact with others in a respectful and reverent way. See local plays. Shop at farmer’s markets and from indie designers. If you own a business or manage a team, encourage your staff to volunteer and compensate them for their time doing so.

Spiritual activism is a way of life and you offer a unique footprint. Do you have visions of joining the peace corps or helping build homes in Haiti? Or is your vision focused more on nurturing a family or planting a small community garden space in the city? Whatever it is, personalize it, ensure it reflects your values, and take action. View your resources as powerful forces for doing good and making a difference. Incorporate this notion every time you step onto the mat by dedicating your yoga practice as a way to serve the world. Recognize the interconnectedness of all beings. notice how your actions affect the world and never take this for granted. Time and money are valuable commodities. Choose wisely. Namaste.

Founder of Tranquil Space Yoga in Washington, D.C. Kimberly Wilson penned Hip Tranquil Chick (Inner Ocean Press). When she's not bookstore browsing, you'll find her designing the eco-luxe TranquiliT lifestyle clothing collection and her chunky gemstone jewelry line, sipping tea, or leading retreats globally. Her work has been featured on Martha Stewart Living Radio and in Daily Candy, Fit Yoga, and Shape. Kimberly founded the Tranquil Space Foundation to assist young girls with finding their inner voice, and she serves on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Yoga Association. www.kimberlywilson.com.

"Muse It" publishes your responses to THEMES we pose each month. Share ideas, insights, and reflections. We will post your writing, a brief bio, the city or hamlet where you live, and your email address so others can contact you. We're not seeking "literature," per se, in this forum as much as a forum to share & communicate.

The guidelines are simple. Email submissions of 500 words or less focused on our topic of the month to ron@centertopage.com. Clarify which theme you're responding to. Keep submission within email textbox. No attachments. Include a two-sentence bio, email address, and location where you live. We reserve the right to edit for length

Center to Page, LLC MOVING WRITERS FROM THE CENTER TO THE PAGE
156 Upper Whitfield Rd.
Accord, NY 12404
845.679.9441
i nfo@centertopage.com
www.centertopage.com