Prompted to Excel

The temptation to quit is one we must continually push away if we are to become the people we are meant to be. We do not have the luxury of taking our eyes off our objectives if we wish to be the best of who we can be. Some things seem to us good, but we are after better and best. We cannot settle for less.

Run well, be blessed, follow your dreams with your whole heart.

Restraint?

You do not know much
About who you sit beside
Unless you inquire,
What makes them face every day
What they hide within their heart.

So careful, easy,
With those words, you loose to say,
Hurt is hard to undo,
Violence it may to souls convey,
Guilt, pain never goes away.

If you must judging
Speak, avoid the “I would never,”
And, “I don’t see how,”
Sometimes life serves up lessons
No one would ever freely choose.

We each walk strangers
In this shadowed valley with
Our complement of sorrow,
Definitives we better leave alone
Black and white turn to ash gray.

Judgment is a cruel game
That often turns its teeth to bite
Those who hold its leash,
It is not kind, nor has justice
As its governor, it merely hates.

Caution you, caution me,
It is much better to be generous
To exhibit kindness
Than let rancor have its destructive way,
Because vengeance lays to waste every day.

All we are should answer
To the name of love, understanding,
Every question belongs
Between the individual and God
Or whoever to which we may turn.

Recipe for Creating More

This is not meant to be definitive. The hope is to present some ideas. There is some background to draw upon.

As much as possible, put your internal critic in the dungeon, a nice one if you like. You can liberate the rascal when you begin to edit, and absence makes the findings sharper.
If you are stuck, do something else; a different style, media, genre, voice.
Do Morning Pages as instructed by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way.
Use a different method; notebooks and a variety of pens, computer, tablet, phone; acrylics, oils, watercolors, pencil, colored pencil, pen & ink, canvas, paper, wood, sculpture; color, monochrome, macro, zoom, panorama, varied lenses, day, night, indoor, outdoor.
Take a break and read something inspiring, or if you are more audio-visual, watch some how-to’s on YouTube or find some podcasts. Use music when you can, it can ease tension and promote imagination.
Work in a different location: Go to a cafe or restaurant, a picnic table in a park, a bench or table in a high traffic shopping center, a library, a ball game, a parade.
Give yourself permission to be an amateur. Everything does not have to be perfect. Even if something you do does not get glowing praise, it was an experiment in which you gain knowledge. There is no such thing as perfection. What you do at the moment is perfect in that it is an expression of yourself and was done courageously by you. Work, and in time you shall gain mastery.

This is brought to you by my son, Alex, saying he was having a hard time working on his novel. I thought it might be a topic worth my exploring since I consider myself a creativity expert.

Best Unknown

the things we sweep aside
burying horror deep inside
in the cursed ebony hours
when we beg for mercy, sleep;
for ourselves the secrets
becoming hungry ghouls feasting
upon our weakened minds
the guilty hauntings we cannot keep
can consume our nights
disturb our days, smuggle peace away,
yet we know we like other persons
must fight our way into the light
make a plea to God for help to win
our lives back from that which would
steal our breath, leaving us inert, end
disspirited and dead, a corpse alone
the past is tome we must place upon
a disused shelf and let it fade
not reopening it to inquire what
now we miss because there is nothing
it holds that can invade today
unless we give it power, let it stray
from the position, it has earned
retired, obsolete, bridges burned
some memory we may desire
but much is sheer agony, anger, pain
from such we well do to refrain.

Everything has its place. Those things that torture us, we should endeavor to expunge from our thought. At least, never linger over them. Our guilt and shame provide no benefit to us presently or going toward the future.

I cannot tell you where this poem came from. It just, as most do, took over my thoughts.

Be well. Express gratitude. Leave life better than you found it.

BETTER

The light of better
Can appear at any time,
But there must be space
Welcoming its existence;
Prepared for motion and change.

If locks are on gates,
Bolts securing every door,
Better goes elsewhere
Finding hearts, lives, minds open
Ready for advances it brings.

Better rewards those
With courage to dare, become
The vision, the dream,
Who chase freedom like treasure;
Risk it all, give everything.

Another set of conjoined tanka. I had to catch the inspiration while the fickle fairy was here, cause when I dawdle, I lose the words, mine to say.