Writing – C.M. Rivers

Pilgrimage

All day long, I see things a painter would paint. What is there to complain about? Even my own pain has been endured by thousands before me, and depicted by master sculptors. Pilgrimage, penance, failure, learning to hold one’s self tenderly, in friendship – all these have relevance to my experience of life. Honoring theContinue reading “Pilgrimage”

A Passage On Writing From Natalie Goldberg

Excerpt from “Thunder and Lightning” by Natalie Goldberg: “I never escaped being a monk! The morning gruel, the frost on the bell, bare feet on frigid floors, all have been mine. Except that my meditation position has been a bent body hovering over a notebook with only my right hand moving across a blank page forContinue reading “A Passage On Writing From Natalie Goldberg”

I Want

I want to ponder the radius of the earth as if it was yet to be discovered. I want to burst through doorways with a clear voice singing, intoxicated with life. I want fistfuls of cloud spilling out of my pockets. A poet is hungry, a poet is very thirsty. A poet dies every day,Continue reading “I Want”

Towards The Fire

When things unravel with such fury, we conclude that something should be held responsible. We look for a place to lay our blame, though the source of our pain often has the power to be a catalyst for growth, a facilitator of movement in stagnant waters. If we can un-stick ourselves from the quicksand ofContinue reading “Towards The Fire”

Reception

Friends, I toss myself aside for you. I become available for you. I eat, drink, mumble, run hands through hair for you, scramble down the gulch for you, carry wood, fold socks, scrub pots, ever-fearless, requiring nothing. These are not the days of time’s inhalation pulling way up under the world’s collarbones, stitching together theContinue reading “Reception”

On Working With The Creative Powers

This is a wonderful excerpt from the book Blue Pastures by Mary Oliver. It is not about an artist’s discipline, that is an entirely different subject. Rather, it’s about making oneself available at all times to one’s ideas and creative powers. “I am absent-minded, reckless, heedless of social obligations. It is as it must be. Continue reading “On Working With The Creative Powers”

Birth of a Poem

Eavesdropping on your observations with transcendental accuracy, the gleam of something half-buried catches your eye. You investigate it as if it were a valuable relic, bring more of it into the light where you can see it, turn it over with a delicate hand. Working carefully, you begin to chisel fragments of it away withContinue reading “Birth of a Poem”