Your whole life you are two with one taken

away. The inadequate air and fire,

the inadequate joy, the darkness

of the room so gathered at the window

as to fly, wing on wing on wing open

against the glass, opening and closing,

bone, blood and wrist. But nothing happens but

exhaustion and evidence of the eyes,

the red-gold cloud-breath morning beginning

with the objects that floated in the dark

draining back to the source, floating back to

the surface tension of things, those objects

struck the way the first light starts suddenly,

then slowly in relief across the room,

the window’s shadow garden come back one

last time once more from the leaves. Waking now,

the door half-open, open, the doorway’s

blindness or blackness silence to be filled.

….Stanley Plumly

we have never been here before….this canvas is so clean, so white, so barren….maybe this is the fear of light, of fire, of freedom, of big life……no-good consequences cannot move us from sheltered holes to wide open spaces…..we live from the wild heart…..

Discoveries, insights, and changes occur through the complex of imagination, which integrates and sometimes makes use of unlikely sources. Creative imagination is a very real energy of the body and spirit, passing from one place to another via inspiration; it can sweep through a group like a pulsating musical rhythm.The transmission of imagination cannot be encapsulated in the planned outcomes of linear causes and effects. I am convinced that the deepest forms of healing will emerge from the creation of these environments, but only if we have the ability to let go and open to the unpredictable workings of imagination…..Shaun McNiff

candles & fire

I know what the answer is; it is to give up,

to relinquish, to surrender, so

that our little hearts may beat

in unison with the great heart

of the world.

…Henry Miller