Restarting the Creative Path

Artist's Way

Foto AI Art Cyn Bagley in 2023

It has been dry in the creativity area since the transplant. I forgot that healing takes a lot of energy especially when you do trauma to the body. So much of my energy has been wrapped up in healing that I haven’t even written the little poems that slip into my subonscious. So instead I started to knit again, which has been satisfying in its own way and listen to audio books.

There was even a time when it was too hard to read. Thankfully I’ve gotten past that.

And then a few days ago my sister Kate asked me how to write a haiku.

I’ve been writing haiku since 1999 when I would write them as stress relief from the academic papers I was writing for college. There is something about the strict form of academic writing that tires me. The little poems would refresh my ability to write another “logic” paper.

So when my sister asked this question I had to look up the form (yep google) to refresh my memory. I hadn’t done that in years. I wanted to get it right for her.

So the form is 5-7-5 as in first line is five syllables, second line is seven syllables, and third line is five syllables. I also told her that this Japanese art form should evoke a season with a meaning. It seems an easy form, but after you read Basho, a famous Japanese poet, you realize it is very intricate and tricky.

Then I wrote her a poem right then:

1st line: Clouds boil on the ridge
2nd line: darkening the atmosphere
3rd line: snuggled with my dog

It’s probably not the best haiku I have ever written, but it does contain all of those elements. It was then that I realized that “I have not lost it.”

So I started the “Artist’s Way” by julia Cameron with my writing group.

It is like my healing. I need to take it slowly and it will come.