Poem Journals

"Outside of ideas of right doing and wrong doing there is a field. I'll meet you
there."_Rumi

I love this quote from one of our worlds greatest poets. In other
words, there is no right or wrong. This was really good for me to hear
for I had a tendency to be tough on myself. Granted I'm no Rumi,
however I have written my fair share of poetry. It has been my
experience that poetry flows out of us in times of joy and sorrow, as
did with Rumi. You can dedicate an entire journal to poetry, or perhaps
like me you will weave some personal entries along with your poems. By
doing this you will be reminded of the exact things that were taking
place in your life at the time of your writings.
In this particular journal, I was doing some rather deep work and
was in a place of sorrow. My journal started out with the first few
pages marking the death of two mother-in-laws that died within a few
days of each other. I wrote about lessons I learned from them, and
secrets that were kept. I remember, I spent a lot of time writing and
drawing where I expressed deep sadness around some difficult times. I
also wrote some upbeat poems which I think help us move through the
pain.

Believe

I believe when you see, you can
achieve
I believe when you hear, you can draw
others near
I believe when you feel, you can sense when
things are real
I believe when you think things through clearing the
mind, you can seek, then find
I believe when you are spiritual, you are
less fearful
I believe when you do believe, you will
be relieved
I believe.

Writing about your pain is healing. I've had the honor of watching
and listening to so many people express deep pain and sadness. I don't
think anyone needs to suffer alone. And yet, there are people that like
to work independently. If you are one of those people, I highly
recommend you get yourself a journal and pen, go sit and write. Write
til you feel the emptiness. Write from dawn til light. Write, write,
write with all of your might. Perhaps, poetry will pour forth from your
soul. It doesn't have to be impressive, simply expressive. And at any
point you feel you just can't write because it's too painful...STOP.

I'm going to close with another quote from Rumi that I love: "When you
do things from your soul, you feel a river moving through you, a joy."
I write for this reason and the hope my writing evokes something in
others,today. There was a time I wrote to write myself right .