Poetic Update - March 2024
Teetering on the edge.
Hello everyone. Hello middle of March. Hello beginning of spring.
Oooof. That’s my simple and honest word to begin this month’s newsletter, just oooof.
I’m overwhelmed. I’m maxed out, wiped out, and working harder than I’ve ever worked in my life. Between teaching at four different locations around Detroit, helping lead 5th grade and middle school students through the process of writing two separate anthologies of nature poetry in a very short time frame, and balancing the rest of my career with editing sessions, curriculum management, workshop/retreat creation, all while continuing to promote my books and work on our house…well, let’s just say I can hardly find a moment to think straight, let alone write anything new. I won’t even get into the struggle of maintaining relationships amidst everything else!
My creative self feels a bit severed and confused. My body feels neglected. I’ve been teetering on the edge of depression for a while now. It often seems like I’m short circuiting or verging on a tantrum. I didn’t get a winter this year! My beloved January rest period never happened and I hit the ground running without a recharge. I know this mood is seasonal, connected to the frantic rise of spring, and it’s also linked to this season of my life, year 39, the big climb over the hill is upon me. I know that this depression is collective, too. There’s huge rage mixed into it and deep sorrow. I’d have to be delusional and completely detached from reality to not feel the heavy weight of the human world right now.
I definitely don’t feel very inspired and that makes teaching and writing extremely hard. There are tools out there that will enable me to be a better teacher, I know how to get myself into the flow of writing at the drop of a hat, but I have to somehow find the energy and the time to use those tools and reunite with that flow. When? How? I’m managing to keep my equilibrium, but just barely.
I imagine I’m not the only one in this tailspin.
This time of year is glorious, the flowers are just starting to dazzle us, but it snowed yesterday and this season definitely whips us with its special version of wacky chaos. I need to revisit the spring chapter of A Year in Practice to see if I can remind myself how to stay balanced. One thing that really helped me the other night was connecting with new friends, sharing a meal, getting deep in creative conversation, finding humor and love together. It was a moment of true relief and a reminder that joy can rise between us, even when we’re hurting. That kind of obvious magic comes in and out of my everyday life, but it’s been harder than usual to hold on to the glow in a steady way.
As an eternal enthusiast, no matter how low I’m feeling, I can usually find the bright spark of my ecstatic nature. I’m alive! What a fascinating experience! This spark might be incredibly small right now, but it’s there burning in my center, and it urges me to remember that I have some offerings for you that I’m genuinely excited about.
Omega Institute Workshop: The Power of Radical Imagination May 24–26, 2024
Please join me along with the magical Valerie June Hockett, Ayesha Ophelia, and Sarah Walko as we lean into the world of radical imagination, deepening our relationship with nature and each other in order to cultivate positive change in the world. This is such a special opportunity to be in community as we nurture creativity and build our collective bond. I’ve never done anything like this before and I know it’s going to be one for the books.
Here’s an overview of the workshop offering from Valerie & Omega:
From rainbows to clouds, the sun, moon, and stars, we are connected to nature as children through our superpowers of dreams, wonder, and imagination. At any age, the same tools of radical imagination encourage us to claim stories of joy, hope, and beauty.
Join creative artists Valerie June, Ayesha Ophelia, Jacqueline Suskin, and Sarah Walko who embody practices that strengthen our collective gifts and deepen our relationship with nature.
Through music, poetry, art, and mindfulness, we’ll focus on themes of planetary healing with conversations, prompts, and exercises that enrich interconnectivity through the lens of creativity, wonder, and dreams.
Throughout history, dreamers have opened the door for positive changes that reshape the world. Our dreams and the stories we tell ourselves have the power to attract individual prosperity and success. When used collectively, each person carries a light that can uplift and cultivate a more harmonious planet.
**************************** Treat yourself and sign up today! ********************************
Throughout the process of ushering A Year in Practice into the world, I did numerous podcast interviews over Zoom. They each held their own delight, but this episode of Tub Talks that I recorded in person, in a bathtub in Topanga Canyon with my dear friend Geneviève Medow-Jenkins, is my probably favorite. To be relaxed in warm water, talking with a beloved friend under sunny January skies, well that brings out some particular zing! I’m excited to share it with you.
Another podcast to check out is Episode 446 of Let It Out, which offers a conversation with creative host Katie Dalebout who once lived in Michigan and now lives in Los Angeles. We discuss the difference between living in a place like Detroit, with its specific pace and definite seasons, and place like LA that has a year-round quickness and very subtle seasons.
Last weekend, I participated in the InsideOut Poetry Con. This was a wonderful day-long conference for teen poets that included various workshops and panel discussions. After my group of teens gave their amazing workshop called “The Poetic Language of Science,” I sat in on one of the panels and it was so refreshing to listen to my contemporaries discuss their process, challenges and dreams. I imagine that’s a bit what it’s like listening to these podcasts. I’m talking with people I know, or people who enjoy my work, and the better they are at asking questions, the deeper I get into exploring the core of what I do.
Another dear Topanga Canyon soul-friend just released a brilliant project that I’m excited to share with you. Infinite Crescendo is a platform like no other, an open portal for journeying through healing sound and creative guidance. Everything Carly Jo Carson creates is a profound gift and I’m honored to be one of the first few artists (including Laraaji and Josephine Foster) to create a micro-journey for this new world. Keep an eye out for my upcoming podcast episode, sign up and dive in to explore awe-inspiring music, breathwork, conversations and more. Sitting in any kind of ceremony with Carly Jo is life changing. Highly recommended!
I’m currently working on my first piece for Personal Poetics, my new paid subscription offering. It’s been writing itself in my head for a while and it seems like the theme is “work.” Stay tuned for that! Somehow I’ll find a moment to write it down.
I’ll wrap up with this poem that a customer commissioned a few weeks ago. They wanted a verse about a specific type of devastation relating to growing old alone. This is what came out, a balance of hope and hopelessness, the place I continue to return to, the place I deem most appropriate in our current of endless expansion. It hurts to be alive, it wears us down, but with practice I continue to find that knot of delight, a small seed of possibility, and a careful list of beauty that never stops building.
I’m grateful for it all. I’m grateful for you.
With infinite love and appreciation,
Jacqueline