As of January 16, that word is on its third iteration and here's why. I lost my husband of 40 years in May 2023. and then my longest friend (74 years) June 2024 from ALS. Who I am has been stood on it's ear. My first word was transmutation, a complete change, and then I realized I like the artist/writer in me and didn't want a complete change, so I moved to "shed" as in shed all that I've been carrying in grief, inhabit a new and shiny skin and see what happens. What happened is, having finished my MFA Oct 2024 and casting about for what's next, I am participating in a course on dreams at Atlantic University in VA (online) and the word I got from dreaming is curiosity. So there you go, my word is curious, and like Alice, I am the most curious of all to see what I do next.
thank you so much for sharing your story Tammy! what a journey you've been on. Love that you are treating all this uncertainty with curiosity... and would love to know more about the Dream course!
The course requires meditation (and I'm finding that my art journal and writing journal, as I suspected, are great meditations. When I do them, practicing mindfulness meditation is noisey. If I skip them, then meditation comes through with something. Now, we are practicing dream journals - not new for me. I've done it for decades but didn't know how to deal with all the material I get. We leanred a process and part of the process is naming dreams. Naming dreams gives me poetry/essay titles - something neither anticipated by me (I'm terrible with titles) nor a part of the class (I'm not even half way through yet). Dreams are great for poetry. I have another strategy, learned in a class with Coleman Stevenson, that I plan to use with the poems I get and exlpect to get essays out of that. Lovely process. THEN I just got accepted to a 10 month writing, hybrid, workshop, and the leader also practices mindfulness meditation and sees that and writing as partners. Synchronicity. I think I'm on the right path for now.
As of January 16, that word is on its third iteration and here's why. I lost my husband of 40 years in May 2023. and then my longest friend (74 years) June 2024 from ALS. Who I am has been stood on it's ear. My first word was transmutation, a complete change, and then I realized I like the artist/writer in me and didn't want a complete change, so I moved to "shed" as in shed all that I've been carrying in grief, inhabit a new and shiny skin and see what happens. What happened is, having finished my MFA Oct 2024 and casting about for what's next, I am participating in a course on dreams at Atlantic University in VA (online) and the word I got from dreaming is curiosity. So there you go, my word is curious, and like Alice, I am the most curious of all to see what I do next.
thank you so much for sharing your story Tammy! what a journey you've been on. Love that you are treating all this uncertainty with curiosity... and would love to know more about the Dream course!
The course requires meditation (and I'm finding that my art journal and writing journal, as I suspected, are great meditations. When I do them, practicing mindfulness meditation is noisey. If I skip them, then meditation comes through with something. Now, we are practicing dream journals - not new for me. I've done it for decades but didn't know how to deal with all the material I get. We leanred a process and part of the process is naming dreams. Naming dreams gives me poetry/essay titles - something neither anticipated by me (I'm terrible with titles) nor a part of the class (I'm not even half way through yet). Dreams are great for poetry. I have another strategy, learned in a class with Coleman Stevenson, that I plan to use with the poems I get and exlpect to get essays out of that. Lovely process. THEN I just got accepted to a 10 month writing, hybrid, workshop, and the leader also practices mindfulness meditation and sees that and writing as partners. Synchronicity. I think I'm on the right path for now.