Older women dig holes with love for young girls
The older women of the tribe dig holes, cut out veins of exhausted roots with love making room for the young girls to plant infant roots in their supportive native soil. A hole too deep or too shallow could be fatal. The wise women know roots must also grow horizontal. This is important training: it’s imperative the young girls learn to take up space of breadth. Let her mind be depthful, yes, and also sprawl, reach wide, and thicken. Just as any flight must have wingspan so too must be her reach. Surroundings will surrender, they learn, or prepare to be womanned out of the way. We’ve mastered and passed on too long how to die young in narrow spaces. Nurturing new history, feminine faces own miles and miles of acres. Breathing room for the oxygen she will reproduce, transforming sunlight, rain, and the expiration from her morning meditations. Her bloom matures, stable. Strong winds can't compete. Stomping feet she will defeat. Her longevity is felt through future germinations. An innate richness of knowing her place is an open field. One day, these girls will dig holes part of the ancestral soil a cradle for her baby roots to seed tomorrow.
Write
What would happen if you took up space? Why might this be important to do? Where in your life are you allowing yourself to shrink too much? Why is it scary for you to extend your breadth?
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Notes
On Reading Poetry.
There might be people out there who may exude a sense of poetry reading superiority, but there really isn’t any one way to understand and interpret a poem. Sure, a poet might drop Easter eggs and such (wink) and it is fun to say there is a connection to this or that. But really, there is no right or wrong way to interpret poetry. Words are just that, words. Until you bring meaning to them, they have none.
I like to observe daily life and find the moments that seem to connect or resonate as meaningful, at least to me anyway. I like the puzzle of poetry, stringing together words so they have rhythm. I’m a musician at heart, so it has to read aloud like a song to me. No poem is ever published without having read it aloud to myself over 50 times (probably more).
The advice: try reading the poem aloud and let your connection be the meaning.
Getting words down.
When you write, whether you’re journaling or writing poetry, just get words down. You can always go back and change things up later. Rewrite the same thought over and over if necessary. Thoughts are messy. Writing is a way to organize the mess.
Let it be a slow and meditative process.
Or let it be a hurried, sloppy mess until structure appears.
Whatever your process be, just let it be.
Sometimes I’ll stop in the middle of a sentence and meditate for a minute or two until I feel right about moving forward with more words. Nobody is looking. Nobody has to see unless you want them too. Take the pressure off yourself from being perfect. Just get words down.
On using the “Write” prompt.
A few approaches.
Let the prompt inspire you, but you’re not tied to it. Prompts are there to help inspire getting words on paper. You don’t have to stick it though or answer every question (although you can).
If the prompt doesn’t inspire, then don’t use it. Write whatever you feel like writing about.
Connect the poem and the prompt. The prompt is always connected to the poem in some way. Sometimes I’ll make explicit connections and other times I leave it a little more open. Feel free to use the prompt and poem together to help you write.
Should I be writing Prose? Poetry? Narrative? Fiction? Nonfiction? Bullet points? Draw? The answer is: Yes. Whatever strikes you. If you want to copy my poem and try putting your own spin on it, do it. If you want to write a fictional short story? Do it. If you want to write in bullet points? Do it. People might shrug at my advice to draw, but drawing is still processing information and can lead to words. Draw what you’re thinking. Let yourself be you and whatever form that might take for the day will be great because…it’s you.
Happy Writing!
