1.
A bird is in my
freezer (dead, of course) until
I want to draw it.
2.
A train sounds the night.
The typist’s keys clatter;
her carriage returns.
3.
Bush trimmed to globe, laced
in lights gold blue green. Red leaves
Blown off, forget them.
4.
Gutted spruce thicket–
through bowels’ blue understorey
these bright gems trickling.
5.
Down the dead bower
And across the broken stones
Comes a chickadee.
Three members of our Digital Literacy/ Storytelling group were among the participants in the two-part Zoom writing workshop “Breathing into Creativity” hosted by the Atwater Library on the consecutive Thursdays, Nov. 26 and Dec. 3, 2020 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. Organized and facilitated by Elise Moser in conjunction with AWE (the Atwater Writers Exhibition project), and offered free through the generous support of the Canadian Cultural Action Fund of Canadian Heritage, the two workshops were led by poet, artist, and educator har leen, coordinator of the South Asian Youth (SAY) collective of the South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC).
Har leen was a proverbial breath of fresh air–gentle, sensitive, attentive, enthusiastic, encouraging, and dynamic in the moment. “A storm called har leen.”
In spring and summer, it is in the wake of a storm that atmospheric conditions permit the emergence of butterflies from their chrysalides.
After inviting us to share our personal introductions and a glimpse of our creative projects–ranging from a novel in progress to a final-edit podcast to self-supportive journaling–har leen led us through a series of prompted timed writings grounded in Julia Cameron’s “getting it on the page,” Natalie Goldberg’s continous free-write practice, and some visualization and visionary magic all her own.
Har leen asked us to consider the extraordinary reality that many of us are, in fact, fortunate to be living at this difficult time–confinement to an often drearily mundane existence in the midst of a worldwide event of uncharted and super-mundane proportions. Day by day, how might we breathe meaning into our story, reimagine intimacy, and find an expressive voice for our feelings, senses and instincts in this nebulous mix of insular routine, vast virtual community, and intangible crisis? Let’s begin…
Har-leen: Tell us the most mundane fact about you, now!
Our Story trio, for example, responded:
Marlene: What’s most mundane about me? I sleep a lot.
Karin: Well, the most unusual mundane thing about me, that I can think of: I always write with a pencil, not a pen.
Donna: If I were left on a desert island with only three foods, one of them would have to be oatmeal. I could live on oatmeal.
So then a brief timed freewrite began with our immediate, mundane, be-here-now afternoon. No right or wrong way to do this, har leen reminded us. We could write anything, with only Goldberg’s one “rule” in mind: Don’t lift your pen or pencil from the paper until time’s up–“even if you think you have nothing left to write except, ‘I’ve got nothing left to write,” ten times over!”
Har leen then led us carefully and mindfully into a visualization exercise. “I know some people really don’t like visualizations..they find them boring, they’re impatient…Maybe you just don’t get much out of them. But today I’d like us to try to join and share in listening. Relax, stay with the experience, be open to whatever comes to you. And then we’ll write.”
I’m one of those people who really don’t like (HATE) visualization exercises. But I–We–all choose to trust.
Har-leen takes our hand, begins with us as we are. Our space, our bodies…where we stand…or sit..on this chair…
Do things feel hard, tense, achy, soft, cozy? Listening…are there sounds in your environment…natural like birdsong, or traffic, just noise..other voices…music? Tune them in and out, up, down…Now inside the body, the rhythms of breathing, heatbeat. What about the temperature…maybe it’s cold in your room…or maybe you feel warmth, comfort…Are there smells around you…maybe someone’s baking…soap, laundry, animals? Feel your feet, touching the floor, its texture…does it soften against your toes?…the colours around you…are they changing..? Maybe you can sense the daylight fading or glowing.
Little by little, har leen’s measured words and pauses guide me in a subtle transformation. Resistance gives way to a slow, dreaming earth-magic. But can this liminal fairy-telling take me on a journey from the space of a dull old mind in a dull old apartment in this–this–this–awe-full 2020?
Now we’ll write, har leen says, as we emerge. During the visualization, what were you feeling? Were you just bored…were you sad, lonely…maybe you’re feeling lost, or there’s been sorrow, grief. But maybe you’re feeling joy. Maybe there’s a new baby in your family, you’re all excited about the baby. Maybe you’re angry, frustrated..but then, maybe you’re grateful, too, for the quiet time, and looking forward to the new year, waiting…hoping. Try to write about the feelings that came up for you in the visualization, whether they surprised you…and how they changed, or came and went…
We write continuously. Pages are filled, swiftly.
Har leen presses pause.
Now she smiles radiantly and says, “I’ve always been fascinated by space…and all the messages that we’ve sent from earth into space. Like the sounds and rhythms of our planet, the whales, the birds, the ocean.” (She gazes upward, longingly, and we just know the stars are out there.) “Or music–how they sent the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe” out into space on the 25th anniversary of its release. I think that’s so amazing. What would someone feel, light years away, hearing that message? And all the time capsules over the years. Is anyone receiving them? Just imagine, are other civilizations out there listening? It’s so exciting!”
A quest through space: Har-leen in her NASA sweater…countdown, 3, 2, 1…
“What if you sent a message to the universe today, right now? What would you want to tell them about this moment on earth? What would you ask the universe in 2020?”
“Go back over what you’ve written–circle the words, maybe a whole phrase or sentence, that stand out for you, really speak to you. Then take these and see if you can make them into a poem–a super-mundane poem, your special message from Earth to Universe in December 2020.”
We write again–not for long. With spontaneity. With urgency. A shout out, a plea, a birthing cry to the warm ear of the universe.
And when har leen invites us to choose immediately a few lines, and read them aloud, suddenly there emerges a group poem, a chorus rising to the universe. Oh, super-mundane. Oh…Oh! From porridge, pencils, and power naps…we have travelled a long, long way…together. Wow. Listen.
Three members of our Digital Literacy/Storytelling group were among the participants in the two-part Zoom writing workshop “Breathing into Creativity,” an AWE (Atwater Writers Exhibition) event hosted by the Atwater Library on the consecutive Thursdays, Nov. 26 and Dec. 3, 2020 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. Organized and facilitated by Elise Moser, and offered free through the generous support of the Canadian Cultural Action Fund of Canadian Heritage, the workshops were led by poet, artist, and educator har leen, coordinator of the South Asian Youth (SAY) collective of the South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC). You will find the complete AWE workshop description, including a detailed profile of har leen, and listings of more upcoming and past events, here: http://awe.atwaterlibrary.ca/activities/events-listings/
For South Asian Youth:
https://www.sawcc-ccfsa.ca/EN/sayjsa/
And har-leen’s website and social media links:
https://stormcalledharleen.com/
http:www.facebook.com/stormcalledharleen
Instagram:@stormcalledharleen
I found har leen to be a proverbial breath of fresh air–gentle, sensitive, attentive, enthusiastic, en-couraging, and dynamic in the moment. As I have recounted from a personal perspective in a companion blog post, har leen led us through an evocative series of individual prompts and free-writes to the community creation of a group poem–a poem conceived as our message from the pandemonium of our planet in 2020, a message sent out into the vastness of universal space.
Above: Har-leen in her NASA shirt: Aim for the stars!
Below is the second, more recent version of this group poem, compiled and carefully edited by participant Wanda Potrykus of AWE, who generously volunteered her time and skill to the project. (Wanda, with professional transparency, has also privately documented the in-progress versions and arrangements, with notes on her editorial decisions, for the contributors.) Wanda was also the unsung hero in encouraging and empowering the workshop writers to let their voices be published here.
I’m posting the poem now with the kind permission of Brian, Donna, Karin, Lynn, Marlene, Susi, and Wanda, as well as that of coordinator Elise Moser on behalf of the Atwater Library and AWE.
The order of appearance of poets will, in keeping with our spirit of spontaneous community, remain anonymous in this post. However, with the exception of section I. “Buried alive…,” which Wanda, with permission, chose to use as a repeating and closing refrain, each numbered passage represents a complete submission as composed by an individual poet. We also acknowledge the in-spiriting presence and voices of the workshop participants whose contribution is not manifest in the text.
Buried Alive II
I.
Buried alive…
II.
Hello, are you there?
Are you there?
Can you give us a sign
that you’re listening?
This is the sound
of a bullfrog. Our last
bullfrog. We are wondering
if you have bullfrogs there —
and whether you could spare
us a few. Also we are short
of blue girls — the ones
who stand tall in the water
III.
I’m a slouching feeling, scaly skinned.
The beings I desire are beacons, statuesque.
I am a crag among crags.
Surely this isn’t unique: surely
There is a match for me.
IV.
Immobilized by my enduring nature,
Longing for the familiar.
How did I get here?
Have I nowhere else to be?
Buried alive…
V.
Extinction. Extinction.
The nipple taken away.
I cry in the night, inconsolable.
Here in the Great Extinction
The darkness gathers
All the dead ones
All the victims
The darkness gathers the song.
In the presence of mine enemies
The lost helpful animals
Return for the others
Who remain with a leg in the trap
Till the sun explodes as a nova
And melts our chains.
VI.
Fresh rain beckons us
Painting everything alive
Dancing to sunshine.
VII.
What am I seeing?
I’m coming into being
Re-engineering what was there before
Disappearing, fleeing from my unconsciousness,
The door is opening
I am metamorphosing
Parts of me are decomposing,
Oh, what is this wonder that I see?
It’s me…I have been reborn,
Reformed as a fragile, seedling tree.
No longer buried…still alive
I thrive.
Wanda has offered her suggestions and insights to both our poets and others, as individuals and in community, to take the opportunity for further creative exploration and reflection:
“Whether a neophyte or an experienced writer, from time to time we all need encouragement, thus compilation of this poem is inspired by a previous event commemorated on the AWE website:”
Rapid-Fire Readings, Ricochet Writing: Montreal Authors Write Before Your Very Eyes!
“On April 30, 2015, twenty-four contemporary Montreal authors from across the impressive range of our literary scene offered rapid-fire readings from their work. They also created a brand-new literary jewel by adding a line each to a collective text. At the end of this fast-moving happening the final product was read aloud with panache and brilliant comic timing by playwright Colleen Curran. The Quebec Writers’ Federation and the Atwater Library co-hosted this exciting event.” Source: AWE website: https://awe.atwaterlibrary.ca
“So have some fun with our group poem. Feel free to play around with the verses, and reorder the sequence of the verses as you wish and in terms of what makes sense to you. There’s no right or wrong way…Add your own lines to this text, even if you don’t choose to share them with the rest of us. You might surprise yourself at how well yours fit in. I like to read poetry aloud so I can play with alternative intonations along the way. The choice of title too is up to you. Enjoy! As Paul Valéry, (French poet and philosopher), once rightly said, ‘A poem is never finished, only abandoned.’ Keep on putting pen to paper! One never knows quite what poetic jewel may appear.”
May we all go bravely forward in the Plague Years, playing, despite all, with optimistic abandon and joy!
The earliest memory that I have retained of a dream (more properly termed a recurring, unsettling nightmare in my case) can be attributed to the third segment in Walt Disney’s Fantasia known as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. I viewed it for the first time in childhood. Fantasia was the first commercial film shown in stereo and a precursor to ‘surround sound’. It has been reissued multiple times since 1942. The part that repeats like a gif in my mind is where the young apprentice of the sorcerer Yen Sid, Mickey Mouse, loses control over the broom that he magically brings to life. The broom is commanded to empty buckets of water into a cauldron that eventually overflows. Chaos ensues. The orchestral music originally composed by Paul Dukas based on Goethe’s 1797 poem ‘Der Zauberlehring’ and iconic animation of Walt Disney Studios combine to haunt me even today, especially during this relentless, uncontrolled pandemic of 2020.
The stuff of dreams is mind-boggling. The historical schism between Sigmund Freud and the father of depth psychology, Carl Jung, was over dreams and their interpretation. For Freud, dreams were expressions of ‘wish fulfillment’. Jung’s The Red Book of hand calligraphy and illuminations in the style of a medieval manuscript is considered to be a window on his dreams and the collective unconscious:
Detail of an illustration of a solar barge on page 55 of Carl Jung’s The Red Book. Translated, the complete text on the page reads: “One word that was never spoken. / One light that was never lit up. / An unparalleled confusion. / And a road without end.” According to translator Sonu Shamdasani, the solar barge “was seen as the typical means of movement of the sun” in ancient Egypt. “The Sun God protected the barge against the monster Aphophis, who attempted to swallow the solar barge as it traveled across the heavens.” Foundation of the Works of C.G. Jung
Based on a survey of over 9,000 dreams about COVID-19, the author of the recently published book, Pandemic Dreams, Deirdre Barrett claims that most coronavirus dreams provoke anxiety and exhibit patterns similar to other crises she has researched such as 9/11.
Barrett has had her own coronavirus-related dreams. This digitally manipulated photo-collage was inspired by her dream in which she was “trying to put a hood over my cat Morpheus’s head to protect him from something toxic in the air.” Illustration by Deirdre Barrett
“I was in the library of a home that felt centuries old. It was cozy and safe in the library but I knew that outside, a terrible plague was ravaging the world. It felt much more like Europe during the Black Plague than modern COVID-19 times,” said Barrett who used the image of a plague doctor wandering a landscape of COVID-19 particles to represent her dream. Illustration by Deirdre Barrett
It does not take long to fall into the rabbit hole of dreams. Did you know there is even an online guide to dream interpretation?
Sources for information and artwork of Harvard Medical School psychologist, Deirdre Barrett:
The Harvard Gazette
Further reading by author Deirdre Barrett
Pandemic Dreams (2020)
The Committee of Dreams: How Artists, Scientists, and Athletes Use Their Dreams for Problem Solving and How You Can Too (2010)
Trauma and Dreams (2001)
As I work through the creation of my first podcast, I’ve been paying attention to the process which finds me starting, stopping, and then procrastinating before getting back to it. What are these internal and external barriers that catch me up and hold me in place, not doing what I need to do?
Andrea Klein – Chemist turned Interior Designer, Westmount resident, born Cartierville, of French mother and Belgian father. Grew up in a multi-lingual household, although her mother was a unilingual francophone. Second husband grew up in Westmount on Murray Hill. Retrained as as an accountant at 50.
Terry McGimpsey – grew up on Selby Street (now disappeared) in Westmount, now lives on Hillside, residential housing complex built by Westmount to house those evicted from Selby Street when the AR 720 was being built in the 1960s. (more…)