Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / (REPLAY) How to Use Writing as a Tool for Emotional Healing with Mari Candela

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(REPLAY) How to Use Writing as a Tool for Emotional Healing with Mari Candela · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story Podcast.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are sharing an older episode.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: As promised, during Pisces season, we're going to be sharing some of our least listened to episodes in our previous year.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And this is because I feel that these messages in these episodes, one, align with the energy that we are in right now with Pisces season.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And two, I feel like they offer some beautiful medicine and wisdom that I would love to share with you.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And to have the opportunity to share it with you again, perhaps maybe allows this message to maybe land in someone's lap that had missed it before.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm resharing an episode with a woman named Mati.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Mati is a local transmutational poet here where I live in Sacramento.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she does many other things as well, much like me, very dynamic, multifaceted, talented, incredible woman.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this conversation is a conversation based around her poetry.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as we are in Pisces season, which is this very intuitive, sort of dreamy, yeah, just very um, what's another one of our words?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, mystical sort of energy.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that Mati's poetry would be just perfectly timed for right now.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Marty reads a few of her poems on the episode, and I have to warn you, these words are so powerful.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And her emotions, I can feel them bubbling up right now, just as I'm recording this intro, are just palpable.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And again, there truly is medicine here in Motty's story, in her words, and all that she brings to this conversation.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I invite you to grab your tissues and to maybe get yourself in a comfortable, cozy space, whether that's alone at home in your own energy or maybe on a long drive somewhere you have over the weekend to really drop in to today's episode.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that you enjoy.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everyone.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to today's episode of the Healing Her Story Podcast.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I am so excited for today's conversation.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We have an incredible guest who I am just deeply honored to be in space with.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I remember the first time I met this woman, it was at an event which we collaborated on together with another dear friend and sister of ours who has been on the show more if you remember her episode.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember listening to this poem that this woman had wrote, and it had moved me to tears and just touched something inside of me so deeply in a way that I had never experienced through poetry before.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And since that moment, this woman has just been on my radar.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've had the chance to collaborate with her a few more times.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And anytime she speaks, anytime I'm in her presence, I am just in awe of the way that this woman is able to craft words and really touch the most tender places inside of ourselves.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Mari is a poet, a healer, a teacher, and organizer.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Transmuting feelings into words, Mari's poetry aims to speak power to your pain, invoke righteousness, rage into action, and tenderly nurture your inner child.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Poetry as a radical act of resistance and a soothing balm for your aching soul.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Please welcome Mari to the podcast, and Mati will be short starting out with a short poem.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Still I am still I need stillness.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: I must be still.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Just be still for a moment.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Can you feel it?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Can you hear it?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's rushing over you.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, don't find it.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Just be still.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Picture yourself scrunched down in the rocks, smooth, dark, soft on your skin.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Cold baptism washing over you.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Let it wash over you.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let it take from you your pain.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let it take from you your fear.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let it take from you your mindless thoughts.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Wash.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Be cleansed of your dark.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Let the fractals of light flow through you in the water and release.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you so much for that.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: As you were reading that, I had tears falling from behind my eyes.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's just quite interesting the timing of it, too, because right before we jumped on, I was recording another episode about the dark moon, which is about stillness and being.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that felt quite um affirming for me to have you start off with those words today.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for that.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like, could you maybe share a little bit about your story, Moddy?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: So um I've been writing poetry since I was a very young girl.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: My sixth grade teacher, shout out Ellie Nyberg, um, you know, in influenced me and inspired me and encouraged me to be a writer.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: For whatever reason, she saw some talent in me in sixth grade.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, she just told me, you know, keep writing, keep writing.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So not only did I keep writing, but then I also chose to pursue education and become a teacher.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I feel very blessed that I've had a long history of very impactful teachers in my life, and I wanted to do the same thing.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I became a teacher and was credentialed in 2015 after teaching abroad in South Korea for two years.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when I came stateside, you know, I had spent seven years away at college and well, six years and two years uh in a foreign country.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so returning home, I was a new version of myself than you know, my family and friends knew.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a really cool experience to let people get to know me in that way.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just starting my career, so I taught for five years.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And in 2018, I suffered um back-to-back car accidents four months apart, um, resulting in a traumatic brain injury.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So uh a mild to moderate TBI.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that personality and that version of myself that I was so excited to share and you know, um also continue to learn with my friends and family, um, was erased.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, part of my prefrontal cortex, so your frontal lobe, which um deals with the executive function and your personality, really, and your self-regulation, self-awareness, um, was damaged pretty significantly.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had to start from ground zero, um, building myself into a person that I had no idea who she was, what she wanted, where she was going.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and just recently I was having a conversation with my friend, and you know, I'm in a very uh like at a crossroads of life change right now, currently, that we can talk about later.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I um I was saying that, you know, up unbrain injury, I was choosing everything that I was doing.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I chose to go to college, I chose to go to Korea, I chose to be a teacher.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then my brain injury happened, and I didn't get to choose anymore.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I had to do what was necessary.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so seven years later, here I am.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, I feel like this moment in time is when I get to choose.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: So there's lots of cool, exciting things happening for me that I am choosing.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm regardless of all the challenges, um, I'm just grateful.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: I just have a lot of gratitude.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I can really hear that in the way you share your story.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And again, finding myself in very pre-mention right now, too, but deeply, deeply moved by your story.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I've known about your traumatic brain injury, but hadn't had the chance to hear about what happened before that and kind of what unfolded out of it.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really lovely to hear that and just really honoring your resilience and your strength to be where you are right now after going through so much.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it really touches my heart too to hear that you had some supportive teachers as well that really encouraged your writing and it makes so much sense to me that you become a teacher and throwing that medicine to generations to come.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, beautiful.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what a wonderful way to start today's conversation.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited to have you on today to talk to us a little bit about your poetry as well as other things as well that will dance around.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious about how poetry became a healing tool for you.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe what did it give you when words or sometimes your memory felt unreliable or fragmented?
• 12:24
  unknown: Yeah.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, this is um this is an emotional question for me.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I will probably get emotional answering it as well.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um growing up, I was uh, well, I am, I'm a double cancer, very sensitive.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I grew up in a family of like fire and air signs, so there was not a lot of space for emotion.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I turned to writing and throughout my adolescence, you know, into adulthood, any pain, adversity, heartbreak, you know, um, I transmuted that into writing.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I call myself a transmutation poet, because um, you know, a lot of times in somatic therapies and modalities, we talk about um suppressed emotions and we talk about, you know, energetic um spaces being kind of congested with grief or anger or disappointment, et cetera, et cetera.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I have historically used um writing as a way to get that stuff out of my body, get it out of my heart.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't want anything resting in my body.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and writing has really helped for that.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, after my brain injury, the part that makes me really emotional is that I wasn't able to write.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it was something that I grieved because um when something that is so natural to you and is such a a w a way to, you know, get these things out of you, and you're in a complete crisis and a complete, you know, traumatic response that goes on for a long time, it was so devastating to me that I couldn't cognitively write.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I just had to grieve that, you know, with a lot of things and just let it go and not try to fixate on it.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember I remember the first time I was able to write a poem after, and it was so it like unlocked something in my brain that felt like liberation, and since then I've been stepping into my power in poetry and doing community events, producing shows, um and sharing because it's so important to share, and there's so much in the world right now, um, you know, through a collective experience that I think there's a there's an amazing amount of people and creatives and healers and artists out here that are doing what they can, you know, to um create and heal and just put that, you know, beautiful healing energy into the world um as a collective response to uh these atrocities.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so poetry for me is uh a form of uh justice seeking.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: It is a form of liberation, it is a form of protest, it is a a form of activism and um and it's a form of of care for myself and for my community.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So um so yeah, I, you know, I took my time, I went slow, and when things came to me, and that's kind of how I write now, um, I'll have dry spells, so to speak.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really believe in writer's block, um, because I think when you're a writer, you know, your flow um is never blocked.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: It just comes when it comes.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And there's times where maybe I'll be driving or, you know, sitting contemplatively and like uh a stanza will come to me or a couple of lines and I'll just write them down really quick.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe I return to them, maybe I don't.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I just try to like allow what is there to flow.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um and yeah, that's that's kind of my approach to my writing and and how it it influences me to act.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: So many amazing things said there.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I love what you said about using poetry as a way to transmute and really using it as a way to process the things that you are going through.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I find that, you know, sometimes if we don't have anywhere we can go, which it sounds like maybe you didn't have a lot of safe spaces to really express yourself, we can go to writing, whether it's through journaling or poetry, and we can create our own little safe space to to work through, yeah, life's challenges.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's really wonderful to hear that you you you started doing that at such a young age, too.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's not what I was doing.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really celebrating your your little one that had this very wise part inside to to really lean into your writing.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's really been powerful.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I yeah, I actually um in my healing um journey from my brain injury, I had to tap into my inner child.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's so beautiful that we met at that inner child healing event.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um because it really was my inner child healing.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: I've written so much poetry, and I think it was that poem, you know, that um that moved you that was dedicated to my inner child.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that poem in itself offered me so much healing to release this um this narrative of how we see and perceive our inner child, and to really bring in and call in like a radical nurturing of that inner child.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um that is like what I mean by like liberation and freedom.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's this freedom from these narratives and these programs that we have that tell us certain things about our childhood and who we were as kids, and that form itself just absolutely released me from those things.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I'll read it to myself sometimes when I need to be reminded of you know who Baby Mary is.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really love that.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And there was another piece you had um shared about not being able to write after your traumatic brain injury, and you had a lot of emotion come up as you were sharing that, and I noticed emotion coming up in myself as to uh in myself as well.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: So just want to take a moment to yeah, acknowledge that and and really welcome that.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel comfortable, I'm I'm so curious about that that space in between not being able to write and then being able to write again.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you're welcome to share as much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing, but how how did you bridge that gap?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that um that time period, um that time period was a very, very dark time.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and in my spiritual practice, um you know I pulled tarot and I channel my ancestors' wisdom and guidance through tarot.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: And for nine months, nine months to almost a year, I would constantly pull the void.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and what my ancestors were telling me was that I just need to sit in the void.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I needed to sit there, and I just needed to be there, and I tried everything I could.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I never go down with a bite or without a fight.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I uh I was fighting and fighting and fighting, and so I would pull the void and then surrender.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I really truly learned what surrender means during that time.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of times people think surrender means to give up, um, to stop fighting.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, you know, that space, um, I had to surrender my control.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I had to surrender my expectations, I had to surrender any plan or thought or idea that I thought that would work, you know.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so that space, you know, though it was absolutely um, I don't have a lot of memory, I have a lot of feeling, but I don't have a lot of memory from that time.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's my memory is really um impacted still as well.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, I just think of that time as the void space.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um once I was able to kind of inch my way and crawl myself out of it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the poems I wrote actually um I dedicated to my girlfriends, and it talks about us being in separate places, but um wanting so deeply to come and you know be in connection with each other.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it talks about being deep down in a well, in an empty well.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then it speaks to you know, filling each other up and being able to rise to the surface.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I I definitely think of the void space as being at the bottom of a well and then just waiting for the water table to rise.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I love that metaphor.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it really helps me to see that so clearly.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the void I find for me is is very much part of our um our sick, our cycles as well, whether it's uh, you know, seasonally or I'm thinking more of like a menstrual cycle, more than like a moon cycle.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: There is this void in between the old cycle that has just passed and the new one that is about to begin.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, thanks for bringing that in.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: It also ties in really nicely with the episode.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's very clear.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's very um, yeah, very Aligned.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's so interesting to hear about how you navigated that and it sounds like terrible, and your ancestors were big layers of support for you, yeah, through that process.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so curious to know what happens when you write, because you've already shared how a couple poems have really liberated you and helped you to feel more free.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: So is there something that's happening somatically as you're kind of going through this process?
• 24:07
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So um I'm sure that there's some sort of fancy academic term for the kind of writing.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think historically I've learned it as like free flow um or stream of consciousness, you know.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: But when I write, I it's I'm usually in a very emotive, somatic place.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: So the feelings are very deeply resonant in my chest and in my um my stomach.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um when I write, it's a releasing of that energy in that space.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it is a purging that also comes with tears.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times, you know, I'll be on my phone and I'm writing and I'm crying and I'm writing, and then I'll be like, and just like breathing it out, you know, and then continue writing.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And interestingly enough, you know, I am an academic, I'm an English teacher, I teach revision, I teach first draft, second draft, final draft, you know.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when I write, it's that's it, it's written.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And only a couple of times will I go back and change, maybe change the tense of a verb, right?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's usually because when I'm reading it, you know, in public or performing it, so to speak, um, I'll just catch it, you know, when I'm reading it out loud.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, I even did that with our with our poem here.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: There was um it said cleaned instead of cleansed.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just adjusted that, you know, and and that happens too sometimes when you're writing, it's like um, you know, your thumbs can only go so fast, and so maybe you'll misspell a word or something like that.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my most recent poem actually, maybe I don't know if we if we want to share it right now or later.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I um I was sitting, I'll paint the picture.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was experiencing deep, deep, deep grief and longing and fear, a lot of fear around, you know, um the unknown, not knowing what was coming next for me, not knowing um what my place in the world was, you know.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I had just had a conversation with one of my dear friends, and um, he shared a hymn with me.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the lyrics is, I don't believe he would have brought me this far just to leave me.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the feeling I had was very much like, okay, I'm where I'm supposed to be.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I'm being guided divinely, I know that I'm being held sacredly, and that experience in the void, you know, it it taught me to surrender.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so just surrendering to that.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next phase of surrender is calling in, you know, um, being able to receive.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I went on a hike and I went to a place I'd never been before, and it brought me to this beautiful oak tree grove with rolling green hills, you know, like that about California.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: We've got the Rolling Green Hills and the oak trees and the registration, and you know, I have an oak tree tattooed right here.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um trees are so sacred to me.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the thing that I love most about them is that, you know, no matter how massive their branches are, they might, you know, they might flat fan out and even touch the ground with their their mass.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're twice that upper ground.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they're they all communicate to each other, you know, through mycelium on like all of the oak trees in our state, and as far as they go.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's so like that is that is the definition of deeply rooted to me.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so I always turned to oak trees for medicine.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up, you know, going and doing this hike, and there was this breathtaking view where you were kind of up on this hill, and it was a little bit more vast, and some of the oak trees were a little bit more behind you, and there was this view of the back of Folsom Lake, and it was just stunning and like picturesque, you know.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Just and in fact, in this poem in my in my phone, I uh I took a picture of it so that I could, you know, put myself there somatically.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the picture.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the poem of me calling in what uh what I was uh ready to receive.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Let Me Be.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be precious, so that I may stand under my divine.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be sacred, so that my wisdom can shine.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be soft, so all my battles can be won.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be gentle, let my work be done.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be loved so that my that all my heartbreak can heal.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be certain so my security can feel.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be quiet so my thoughts stop the world.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be peaceful, let my waves kiss the shore.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be kind so that my demons don't come to light.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be sweet so I don't have to go down with any vibe.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be cherished so that my ancestors' dreams can come true.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be loved.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let my heart start anew.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be without sorrow.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Let me appreciate my grief.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Let me not wish for tomorrow.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let the present bring relief.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be patient.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: May I chase every waterfall.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let me listen openly to the whisperings of it all.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Let my inner voice be confident and surrender my whole trust in you.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Let me love myself completely, so that I may love you, so that I may learn to love you too.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let me love myself completely so that no matter what I do, let me love myself completely, knowing I deserve every treatment.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let me love myself completely.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let me love myself completely so I can rise after each loss.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And let me love myself completely.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let me love all.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Really beautiful.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for sharing.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Just kind of letting that land a little bit in my body.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it really feels like a prayer to me.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And really hearing this undertone of um acceptance.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Was that something that you were experiencing as you were kind of writing that, or maybe even as you were rereading it right now?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, rereading it right now was definitely like a whoo coming over in waves.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yes, let me.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and oftentimes I will.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: I will write poems that um are like prayers or blessings.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have a blessing that I wrote for women, you know, um, that I've read to kind of start events and stuff like that.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: That yeah, they just call in a certain energy, create a container of safe of safety and sacredness.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think oftentimes too, with my poetry, um what sets me apart sometimes is the impact and how it really does like elicit a lot of emotion for people.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, you know, some folks are not used to that.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Some folks are maybe not open to receiving that.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I try to start out the gate like you're gonna feel some stuff, you know, and I'm not shy about it.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, um, and I usually start with I'm a transmutation poet.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, turn feeling into writing, and I'm a double cancer, I'm extra sensitive, you know.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's usually my little opening spiel.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, to set the tone.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because yeah, because yeah, it's it's a blessing to be able to um offer an opportunity for people to experience.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, to feel and to connect with themselves in a deeper way, because you know, what we resonate with in another person is kind of what's being mirrored back to us, at least I find myself.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's something inside of me that is recognizing what you've shared.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes me curious to think about, and I have I've read quite a bit of poetry and I incorporate poetry into my weekly classes that I teach.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I also write a little bit of poetry, but I'm still curious about the emotional response that comes through your poetry.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel like that's something that is common in poetry, or if you feel like there's um, shall we say, maybe an advantage here, maybe an edge that you get to to bring in with all of your cancelling and emotional energy.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts on that?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a great question for teacher body.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I teach poetry, you know, we we learn about the history of poetry and how um, you know, it it kind of came into popularity around a time where people weren't expressing themselves, um, where it was just very real, you know, realistic um, you know, fruits in in bowls and paintings.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know what you're talking about.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then the romantic era came around, and you know, capital R, not romantic as in pissy-kissy, lovey, lovey.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the romantic era opened up an opportunity for artists to not just speak about, you know, lovey-dovey romance as we were kind of used to with um Shakespeare, but it really spoke to our pain as well.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I teach poetry, my students learn that it is a modality of expression.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we use it as a warmup, we use it as a quick write, we use it as an opportunity to practice, you know, writing for yourself.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so oftentimes what I'll do is they'll they'll just have a journal and we'll do, you know, quick writes um that are profit sometimes, sometimes they're open-ended, and um, they just flow, you know, and my kids tell me, like, I really enjoyed and appreciated having the opportunity to just write because I didn't know that I liked writing, or I didn't know that I could write.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of a lot of my kids are like, I didn't know that I could write poetry.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of times people in formal academic settings think of poetry as something formal and and academic, you know, the way that it's structured, the the rhyming sequencing, couplets, yada yada yada, all that uh jargon.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: And really for me, in my studies and my experience is that poetry is meant to elicit emotion.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is meant to express emotion and make calls to action or create a like you were sharing, like a um a moment to feel together, you know, an invitation to um call in or call out, you know, emotions and feelings or thoughts or beliefs that maybe people aren't able to express.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of times when I share my poetry, you know, after a show or something, I'll have folks come up to me and they'll say things like, You put words to things that I've been feeling for a long time and I didn't know how to express it.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know, you know, what what it really was, and you were able to put words to it.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that to me is is poetry.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow, what a gift you have.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I love what you shared about um writing for yourself.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm wondering if if making just that slight shift is something that you feel like allows the poetry to be more impactful because you're not writing in a way where you're trying to um prove something or make something happen, you're just writing from a place of authenticity, really.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: That um, you know, earlier I was talking about I don't believe in writer's block.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you give me an assignment or an obligation to write, that's that's where I'll have writer's block.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really hear that.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it really has to be intuitive.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: I believe.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, it's making me think of my visual arts um projects that I've been working on over the last couple of years in my own studies and how anytime we did have an assignment where it's like, okay, you gotta like do this landscape, those were always the hardest assignments for me because my intuition would not necessarily paint a landscape.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would take a um have a children in art class I was taking where she was teaching us very intuitive things, and we would talk about that a lot, how when we just give people space just to do what feels right and natural to them, that's kind of where um the magic can really start to happen.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'd love that you're teaching that because it's it's important and I don't feel like it's really prioritized in the um you know public school setting or in the education setting.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's switch gears a little bit.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at my questions here, and some of these we've already kind of answered in our conversations, which happens um quite often.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm curious to know, um, and you've already maybe touched on this, but what are some of the themes in your work or where do you find your inspiration from?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um this is actually a really good opportunity to do a little plug, if I may.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: Please.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but in honor of my brain injury, and um, you know, I was in litigation for seven years uh as a result of that, and that has been closed out and finished, and I'm so grateful for to be done and over.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so for the first time in my production, producing history, I'm actually producing a show for me and showcasing my my poetry.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I usually am just a guest or you know, I do collaboration with a lot of artists, and I'll be and I will definitely be collaborating with artists in this um in this show, but it'll be centered around my poetry.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there's gonna be four categories, and these are usually the categories that I write in.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so um again, it's it's a beautiful opportunity.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: The show will be called Um To Behold Our Remembering, and I'm actually collaborating with a um pole dancing studio.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, two of my best friends are pole dancers, and you know, I have this dream and this um, I just had this vision of like reading my poetry and my best friend's pole dancing behind me.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I'm like so excited actually because we're gonna make it happen.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I'll be you know really celebrating my friends that have helped me and supported me and loved me through every version of myself, um, and honoring myself in my journey.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so my journey includes love, all versions of it, uh, grief, power, and let me just forget the fourth one.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: Love, grief, power, and growth, of course.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Love, grief, power, and growth.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's those are those are the normal.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, every once in a while we'll get a little bit of rage, you know.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get we'll get a little bit of we'll get a little bit of um yeah, call to action.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: But the that those really could go in any of those four categories.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love how you have those uh just so clearly articulated.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that that did that kind of just emerge naturally as you were continuing with your writing.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: Did you just kind of like see, like, oh, I'm writing about grief a lot?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually how I started was with the grief, because I've written a lot about grief, and I actually have a poem pulled up that is one of my favorite poems.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I I share it with people that are grieving.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: I share it with, you know, groups and in performances and stuff, because I think grief like laughter and joy and um love is one of the fundamental human characteristics.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's one of the things that make us the most human.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we know that that um animals in a in wild kingdom, they experience grief, um, but that wasn't known before.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was believed that you know only humans experience grief.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: But what a beautiful animalistic uh experience to have um is to share grief.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of people um associate grief with loss.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, what I learned in my brain injury healing journey was that grief can be it can be a sacred place for acceptance.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it doesn't have to be about what you lost, it can be about what is and the process in which to accept what is.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there can be grief in yeah, that's really beautiful.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Such a like small but profound shift in the way we think about grief and the way we approach our grief.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm also really excited about your show, too.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like please just let me know.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, September, September 20th.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'll have to put it on my calendar and make sure I'm available because I think that would just be incredible to witness an entire show of your work.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: You definitely have um, it seems like enough of it and enough enough depth and and impact to really create um a very powerful, yeah, very powerful event.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: Really excited for you.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's see, we're kind of reaching the hour here.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll ask a few more questions um before we start to maybe eventually make our way into some practical tools and tips that people can maybe explore if they are feeling inspired from today's conversation.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'm curious to know, are there any um days when writing is a break and when writing feels like worker?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hard and how do you hold that tension?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I think like what I've already shared has maybe created this understanding and idea of like it is intentional and it is purposeful.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: And depending on how you view work, you know, sometimes people talk about healing and they say doing the work.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um sometimes people hear work and they think capitalism, you know.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um for me, writing is more about doing the work.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: It is um it can be very difficult sometimes.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have written poetry and been angry, and I have written poetry and been pissed that what I wrote is the truth, and what I wrote is my truth, and reflecting back on it, being like that was so hard to put all of that into words, and how beautiful that I was able to do it and to be able to get it out.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I don't, I don't consider it like I said before, like if it's an obligation or an assignment, like I'm not doing it.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: But if it is a natural free flowing three thing, you know, sometimes I'll I'll write a stanza or a couple of stanzas that are in one series of emotions, and then I'll leave it and I'll come back to it.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe I have a different emotion and a different approach.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I have noticed that in my poetry when I do that, it's like um, it's almost like there's a flow or a progression of emotion through the poem, where you know, maybe I start out real angry and rough, and then it comes into compassion, comes to into you know, acceptance, and then maybe it wraps up with kind of like a longing and just looking at like the reflection of that process and being reflective about the duality, you know, and and just holding space for the duality.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say, you know, when I write poetry, it doesn't feel like ease.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't feel like I'm doing it for funsies, you know.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um it feels very meaningful and very purposeful when I write.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, if I'm covering, you know, those the two ends of the spectrum there, um I would say somewhere definitely in the medium, middle range of just purpose, flow, intention, and um what's necessary, what's needed.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um a lot of times through my own healing, I have thought of myself and and had to accept, you know, with that grief art that um, you know, we we talk about generational cycle breaking, and um I have tons of lived experience evidence, you know, and and spiritual practice to believe to have a deep knowing and acknowledgement and acceptance that I am a vessel for my ancestors.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, when you speak to, oh, how how wonderful you have these gifts, I don't claim them as my own.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I believe that it's flowing through me.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, poetry really is a, like I said, it's very transmutative.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's very free-flowing, it's it's there's a purpose to it for me.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can really hear that as you talk about your process.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I love what you said about it being necessary.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost as if like there's, I mean, there is a choice, and it's almost as if there isn't a choice.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you see yourself as a vessel where you are just allowing what wants to come through you to come through you, it's almost, and this is for me because I also practice in this way, it's almost service to those who have come before you, uh, those who are here with you, those who have yet to come by just allowing that divine uh wisdom, beauty, love to just be expressed through you.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really happy to hear that that's the way uh that you practiced your poetry because that's something that I've been taught in the past, I would say a year and a half or so.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: I began working with a singer, songwriter, ailonera, and that was what she would always teach us and still teaches us, is just you just you just open your vessel and just let it come through you.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: How has your relationship to writing changed over time?
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: You've spoke a little bit about uh the portion where you were recovering from your traumatic brain injury, but all of these different uh sort of processes and stuff that you've described, have those always been in place or have those become more refined as as time has gone by?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a really good question.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: I um and I haven't really thought about that until just now, but I think everything I shared about my process is um is post-brain injury or and acceptance.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um before I would almost exclusively write about love.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I'm I'm a little anxious at Thatcher.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes when I fall into feeling, it is a lot, and there's big feelings.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so instead of, you know, telling someone I've known for two weeks, like I love you so much.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um poetry, you know.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so um that was kind of what I was doing before, or um a lot of like just free flow, you know, I would write letters or things like that.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: My poetry wasn't as structured before, actually, interestingly enough.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, it was a little bit more chaotic and um, you know, not with any judgment, but just you know, just with the observation that I am having now.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I think something I I had to do to adapt and also learned to care for myself and my brain um was the the need for structure.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: So having a um a process uh wasn't necessarily something that was structured, you know, the free flowing was was the process, but the way that I was able to organize my thoughts, organize my words, organize my language, that was more structured.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I found that I was paying much more attention to, you know, the theme or the um the intention.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is something that I think has changed for sure.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: Would you say now you have more structure than you did before?
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:17
  unknown: Yeah.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's really beautiful, and it just reminds me of like this need for the balance of like the flow and the structure and the feminine and the masculine, and how it is about really kind of bringing them into a place of harmony so they can support each other.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: And your poetry feels very feminine to me, and then the structures that you have behind the poetry feel very masculine, and they can kind of come in and support the feminine side of your poetry.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's see.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, we're kind of approaching the end of our conversation here, and I'm curious what might be some um simple simple and practical steps to anyone listening today that they can maybe begin taking to use poetry and writing as a next step in their healing process and journey.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think writing is very unique and intuitive to the individual.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have a former student, shout out, Jordan Kaytiku.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or Kayakiku.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: She um is a writer that inspires me because her writing is very um is structureless, you know, it's very um unique to her style and her flow.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um there is a I think there is a difference between writing and speaking your poetry out loud as well.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something for people to keep in mind is that um writing is not always meant to be shared.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not always meant to be verbalized out loud.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so that changes um, I think the structure of writing, it changes the intention or the purpose of writing.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I would just say like tools and tips, just let it flow.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, don't try to box yourself in uh to any expectation of what it should or shouldn't be.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, some folks maybe they want like a practice, they want to begin a practice of writing.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great, five minutes a day.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's things you can do like to inspire prompting.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can um one thing I do with my students is we do like a scavenger hunt where we go outside and you know, there's that kind of mindful-based awareness that you can do as well.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're just the you know, the first three things that catch your eye.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great, write about it.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: Try to incorporate it somehow.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you are feeling not like you're a creative person and you don't know where to start, but you want to start, that's a really good way to get into it, is just use your surroundings, use your environment.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another way that people do it is they can maybe meditate on three feelings that are coming up or that they're holding in their body and then write about it, you know.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it doesn't have to be poetic, it can just be a free-flowing verse, and then you choose and pick and pull from from what you want.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um I also really encouraged myself to write whatever comes to me.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, like I said, I'll be driving, or you know, I'll maybe after a conversation or a mid-conversation, I'll have a thought and it's like, you know, maybe you come back to it, maybe you don't, but um when you're tapped in and you allow yourself to be free from any expectation or you know, boundary around what should or shouldn't be in writing, then it can just come and it can just be, and it's a really beautiful practice of self-acceptance as well.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can really hear that.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like if we just kind of take the pressure off of ourselves around what it should look like or what it should sound like, that's when things can really start to come.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: And would you say these are things that you do regularly with your students?
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've already named kind of a couple of exercises that you've done.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the poetry unit is my favorite unit.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we actually have this game that um is really cool.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if anybody wants to contact me for the resource, I can hook you up.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a dice roll game.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we call it a dice, a dice roll poem.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: And basically there's four columns and four roll uh rows, and um there's topics in each, so it's like a season, a feeling, a location, um, and then something else.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the rows are the the faces of the die.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you if you go to season and you roll the die, maybe a four is summer.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you circle summer, and then you go to the feeling, and then you know, the the um location and etc.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so sometimes what they'll end up getting is just these, you know, four random things like summer, uh love or jealousy, um, the mall, and you know what the weather's like or something, you know, whatever the last one is.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so then they have to come up with this poem.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it's oftentimes it's and it's timed, so they've got this pressure to like just get something out, you know, and see what works.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's my favorite because it's the first time usually I see kids actually like invested and they just jump and they just go for it.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: And usually after that assignment, I get the feedback like, oh wow, that was cool.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I didn't know that I could write.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is something that um I think elicits that joy, that curiosity, that um that motivation to to continue writing.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's kind of kind of making it more kind of um fun and bringing in spontaneity and play and discovery a little bit too.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I could see how it could help lighten the process a little bit.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_00: And before we started today, you had mentioned about uh mentioned something about a transition in your uh career as an educator, and I'm curious if you'd like to speak to that today.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um I am leaving the school that I was employed at um after four years, and there's you know a lot of grief around that.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm sure I'll be writing poetry about it.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it it wasn't by choice, um, which is an interesting thing in my life.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm gonna be 37 at the end of this month, and it feels very um transitionary, it feels very um purposeful, it feels very you have a choice now.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um before we started, I was mentioning how you know I had choices to um make plans for what I wanted my life to be like.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then post-brain injury, I I didn't have a choice, I just did what had to be done.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: And now, seven years later, in this place, losing my job, yeah, having an opportunity to redesign my life is this really beautiful space for me right now to be creative, you know, to be the artist spirit that I am and to see my life as a blank canvas and um and create what's next for me.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so as an artist, stepping into my art um in life as well.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm really excited about that.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like I mentioned, there's gonna be tons of grief, you know, but um it's gonna be it's gonna be beautiful too.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I can really um sense your uh hope.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's you can create something new out of this.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of reminds me of this practice that I have with myself, is about um like life, life is the art.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're always just creating our lives, and and that is the art.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're all artists, you know, we're all creatives at the end of the day when it comes to that.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's a very um, it's a biological like need.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: And every single one of us.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we can forget that.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: And depending on, you know, what we might have been told in our childhood, we might think that it's not important or that um we don't have anything worth sharing.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hope today's conversation can um spark that little sense of creativity in in our listeners today.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wonderful.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Mari, any other closing words before we end today?
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_00: Anything else that you want people to know about poetry, writing, and healing?
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I will I will share a little bit about brain injury just um because yeah, I think um I think for one, there's not a lot of information and there's not a lot of knowledge, especially common knowledge about how common brain injury is.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I just want to say that as an advocate because um when we experience you know a loss of our personhood, our personality, um, some even mild TBIs can just be very disorienting.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it changes your worldview, it changes sometimes your your experience of time and space, you know.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um it can be very jarring and it can be very disorienting, like I said.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people don't understand how deep that goes, and how your nervous system is the one that is in I don't want to say control, but your nervous system is the one that is leading the show.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so we've talked a lot about surrender, we've talked a lot about free flow, we've talked a lot about um just letting things come as they are.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say for anybody that's not familiar with brain injury, has a loved one that has experienced brain injury, or maybe has experienced a mild brain injury themselves and just doesn't know how deeply it's impacted them, um, grace.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: Grace must be given, patients acceptance.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um disgrace, you know, our nervous systems every single day.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you're neurotypical, even if you've lived a cr a plush life, you know, you go on social media or the news, and um your nervous system's not okay.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: So add that with complex trauma, brain injury.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're not okay.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's okay to not be okay, you know, and that's why the work that you're doing and the work that I'm doing, and the way we um combat that to create love, to create compassion, to create empathy and healing.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that is, I think, the true uh magic that our ancestors really wanted from us.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just grateful to be in space with you and grateful for the opportunity to share and grateful for all of it.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm very overwhelmed with gratitude myself and just um yeah, just really feeling just the depth of our conversation and really appreciate you naming what you shared here about traumatic brain injuries because you're right, it's not something in all of my studies of trauma-informed care and psychology.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's like a little chapter on traumatic brain injuries, um, but that's it.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I really appreciate you bringing that into this space today.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe down the road we could do uh another episode more specifically on traumatic brain injuries if you'd be open to that.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would love that.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's so important to me.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, wonderful.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: Marty, how can people get in touch with you if they would like to connect with you?
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um I have a private account on Instagram, but um yeah, but I am always open to connecting with the community.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: My my um my page is very community art and event centered.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so it's Lady Ray, uh, Lady and Ray of Sunshine, you can think of Lady Ray 33.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um that's my that's my greatest source of connection for right now.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_01: I did have a podcast that was Mindful Mahdi, but I um had to step away from that just for capacity's sake.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, Lady Ray 33 is the best way to get to me.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I love a collaboration, I love a community event, um, and I love sharing resources and connecting and um sharing anything that I can.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_00: So wonderful.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll link your um Instagram account in the show notes.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if anyone is else, uh anyone else is inspired by this conversation, uh, you're welcome to reach out to me um directly too.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm happy to connect you with Mati and any of the resources she might want to share.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks so much for your time today, Mati.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: This has been um just a real treat today to really connect with my body and my heart and those deeper layers that we don't always get to feel when we're we're busying around um living your life.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for that.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Riva.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: It has been an absolute honor and pleasure, and I just thank you for seeing me and allowing me to see you and meaning connection and community.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just so grateful.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, me too.