Light & Shadow (Issue #7) – Page 4

October 3, 2017

Long Journey by Patricia Wellingham-Jones

The river we paddled together,
skirting brushy banks,
avoiding boulders, portaging
around the crashing splendor
of waterfalls, that river
changed character
when you died.

I was becalmed for awhile,
drifting in aimless circles
on a still backwater
until I picked up my paddle,
continued downstream.

The river formed a new channel,
curves and flows more gently now
through grain-filled fields
and lowland woods
with shy browsing deer.

I paddle, one side then the other,
keep the canoe steady, on course,
admire the broad sky,
the herons and kingfishers,
splash of a trout.

About the Author: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Patricia Wellingham-Jones is a widely published former psychology researcher and writer/editor. She has a special interest in healing writing, with poems recently in The Widow’s Handbook (Kent State University Press). Chapbooks include Don’t Turn Away: poems about breast cancer, End-Cycle: poems about caregiving, Apple Blossoms at Eye Level, Voices on the Land and Hormone Stew.

October 2, 2017

All in Its Time by Tamara Palmer

In retrospect, like the best-laid plans, it all worked out great. This past spring I released my novel, Missing Tyler, twenty years after I began the first draft. To the world my launch appeared nuanced and executed with amazing precision. But what I know now, being in the driver’s seat, is that the years building up to the release are what enabled my novel to receive such a tremendous reception. The novel and I grew up together.

I take comfort in the knowledge that the years my novel went unpublished was not wasted time. I often scolded myself for not doing more at various times and society further reinforces that notion for all unpublished authors. But not only was that period not wasted time, it was perfect and necessary. Now that I’ve launched my novel into the world, I can honestly say it was released at just the right time.

I began writing Missing Tyler in the mid-nineties in a writing group in Lafayette, Colorado. At the time I was Tamara Wachtel. I was a few years out of college, bursting with creative energy to finally see a story all the way through to the end – to write a damn novel. Prior to that point, the most I’d written was a fifty-page screenplay as a senior thesis in college. I had various novel starts, all around the same page count. One of my favorites of the unfinished novels featured a main character who mainlined caffeine the way others shoot heroin.

As I matured past my early twenties and moved into a house with my fiancé, it was time to tackle a novel. To completion. One story was screaming for attention over the others. It wanted to be told. Those early drafts of Missing Tyler still exist somewhere on a floppy disk in a box buried in the house I now call home.

As I grew, Missing Tyler grew with me. I matured from girlfriend to fiancée to wife, becoming Tamara Palmer. Then I became a mother. I grew in my day job, carving out a career path from recruiter to manager to director to career coach.

It’s tempting to regret life achievements not having happened sooner but twinges of regret are tempered with understanding that if I had had my daughter when I was younger, my second novel, Finding Lancelot, would never have been written. The freedom I felt to attend a ten-day creative writing retreat in England in the early 2000s likely won’t return for many years to come. And when it does, I’ll be a different woman, post-menopausal, with a lifetime of history to fuel a different story.

According to my original plan, I was supposed to have sold Missing Tyler in 2008. At that time, I had secured a reputable New York agent who was shopping the book around. It was a terrible market though, and while there was some interest, no one was willing to take a stab at a newbie writer tackling death and grief. After my agent accumulated a substantial pile of rejection letters from all the big publishers, she told me she was out of ideas. Being seven months pregnant, I countered that I was out of time. With a baby on the way, I didn’t have time to continue exploring a creative venture.

Besides being immersed in new motherhood, the next group of years found me entrenched in learning the ropes of running a business. I gained exceptional knowledge in marketing and, more importantly, social media marketing. These have been my secret weapons in getting Missing Tyler launched into bestseller status on Amazon and, I hope, will be my ticket to getting Missing Tyler known beyond the confines of my communities.

The years I spent raising my daughter coincided with the burgeoning acceptability of self-publishing. I couldn’t have published Missing Tyler on my own in 2008 and achieved anywhere near the reception I have today. The backbone of social media has been the key to marketing my novel and social media has grown up a lot since my daughter was born.

And while I crave the legitimacy of inclusion in the writing club that a check from Random House confers, with self-publishing I was able to design my book cover exactly as I wanted. I didn’t have to modify my ending or change my title or make myriad other creative adjustments that the establishment likely would have insisted upon. Retaining complete creative control reminds me that this is truly my accomplishment. Even if one day Random House comes calling and offers a check in exchange for my book, I’ll know the offer is rooted in wanting a piece of what the world already loves and that I created on my own.

Also, had I published in 2008, I would not have had the last five years of public-speaking practice, during which I have honed my voice and have come to understand what it is to command a crowd and truly engage an audience. I’ve loved the book signings I’ve had thus far, feeling comfortable speaking to an audience about my journey and the importance of creativity in my life. I am a captivating speaker because I’ve learned what people respond to in my delivery. I look forward to every new speaking event.

And, had I published in 2008, I would not have had the years of maturing that allowed me to fine tune the manuscript. I would not have been able to read my novel through the lens of a mother. I would not have met my critique partner, David, who edited Missing Tyler through the eyes of a father.

They say everything happens in its time. Some say it’s God’s will, some say it’s just the roll of the dice. Whether it was fate, God, or a fluke, I’m grateful that I sit here at 45 reflecting back on a lifetime (to date) of experiences that brought me to this doorway. I crossed the publishing threshold armed with good writing chops, social media savvy, public-speaking ease and comfort, and a twenty-five-year working history of strong connections. Into the proverbial Crockpot they went to bring my novel into the world with force.

No regrets.

About the Author: Tamara Palmer

Tamara Palmer knew she was going to be a writer before she could even write. She would play elaborate dramas out with her Barbies for days, even weeks, on end. As she got older, the stories made their way onto a typewriter. Tamara obtained a BA in English/Creative Writing from Eastern Illinois University, and has had a handful of short stories and essays published online and in print.

Tamara blogs frequently for the career advisement business she founded in 2012, greyzone. “Missing Tyler” is her first novel. She lives just outside Chicago with her husband, daughter, and assortment of pets.

October 1, 2017

Sunday Brunch: Kitchen Table Writing

I have a confession to make: I like to write at the kitchen table.

This may not seem like something worthy of embarrassment, or even the least a bit of sheepishness, but the harsh reality is that when I write at the kitchen table, it means that I’m cheating on the Word Lounge, the blue-walled, soft-carpeted room filled with books and mermaid art, and beachy things and far too many Lt. Commander Data action figures (among others) that is my own special space on the top floor of the house.

That room, with the weight machine I’ve nicknamed Marcy’s Playground because that’s the brand of the apparatus, has a television with a Roku stick attached, because I like to listen to familiar dialogue while I’m working. It also has a giant picture window that looks onto the cozy street where we live, and a glass coffee table that used to live downstairs, but moved upstairs when we changed the living room furniture.

I love being up there when I’m editing audio, or recording an episode of the podcast I swear is not going to only exist in August this year. I love curling up on the ancient faded-denim couch that used to be my mother’s, with a book and a mug of tea or coffee. I love lighting the candle that sits within a wreath of seashells collected from the beaches around La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, where my parents have lived for nearly two decades.

I love it when one of my dogs comes into that space with me and sprawls on that one sun-soaked rectangle of carpet, content to just be near me while I’m puttering or (com)putering.

But for some reason, I end up doing my best writing at the kitchen table. Well, I do a lot of really good writing in bed, a la Mark Twain, as well, but it’s the kitchen table where I feel most like a writer.

At this time of year, especially, the kitchen is my favorite room in my house. It has sliding glass doors that open to the back yard, and in the cool of the morning and evening, I can leave the door open and let the dogs wander in and out. I can look outside and see birds coming to visit the feeder I only fill when I remember. (This is intentional. I read somewhere that keeping a feeder full all the time makes the local birds dependent.)

Most often, the birds I see are grackles, but I actually like those birds, which aren’t jet black, after all, but deep indigo, purple, charcoal grey, and even, sometimes, subtle maroon. Sometimes there are woodpeckers. Often the big obnoxious blue jay with the Batman mask over his eyes comes to visit. I’m no Disney princess. The birds don’t ever clean up my house or create dresses from flowers and twigs, but I like seeing them.

As what passes for fall in Texas deepens into October and November, kitchen table writing increases its appeal. I can’t count the number of words I’ve written while also baking cookies, creating stews, checking on a simmering soup or baking pot pie, or even just nibbling on carrots and hummus, or apples and cheese, or wedges of oranges and endless pots of tea.

Outside, I can see the light change, not just from hour to hour as dawn becomes full daylight, and then fades into nighttime, but season by season – the light starts to thin in August, and by October, there’s a sense of crispness to the afternoon sunlight, even when the thermometer insists it’s really eighty-two degrees outside.

While my kitchen table writing is often the work I’m most connected to, the specific table doesn’t seem to matter. For years I wrote at my mother’s hand-me-down teak dining table from the Copenhagen store in Fresno… or was it San Jose?

Currently, my kitchen table is actually a big old library-type ‘partner’s desk’ with a center drawer in either side. It’s perfect for the breakfast nook, and more than ample for two or four people. Or one person, her laptop, several notebooks, coffee, and a plate of food. I told my husband the other day that when we move (we’re planning to sell our huge house and move to something smaller and all on one floor after the first of the year) I want to replace the corner desk in my office and use this table as the desk in my office.

I can’t explain where it comes from, but I have a feeling that kitchen table writing can happen even if the table is no longer in the kitchen.

The thing about writing for a living is that it’s an incredibly internal vocation. I know I’m not the only writer who spends a significant amount of time living in her own head. I suspect that part of the attraction of writing at the kitchen table is that the kitchen is the heart of any house.

Or at least, it’s been the heart of every house where I’ve ever spent any length of time.

I grew up spending the summers with my grandparents in New Jersey, and the dining table was party central all the time. Whether it was just the family having a simple meal of grilled hamburgers, tomatoes from my grandfather’s garden, and corn on the cob from the farm stand down the road, or a late-night thing where all the adults were playing canasta and drinking syrupy black coffee, that table was the place to be.

When I visit my mother in Mexico, I bring my laptop to her kitchen table and write while everyone else is watching television (I’m really bad at ‘just’ watching television; I have to be doing something.) Last year, when I found that my travel charger would no longer provide my laptop with any power, I usurped my stepfather’s barely-touched laptop and used that, saving everything I did to OneDrive and Dropbox, because I had to write.

There are times, of course, when I don’t want to write at the kitchen table. I often (usually) bring my laptop into the living room, set it up on a snack tray, and write while Fuzzy (my husband) and I watch television. Over last month, recuperating from pneumonia, I’ve returned to writing in bed a lot more, typically with a dog or two sharing the space with me.

But for the most part, the kitchen is my happy place, and one of my favorite memories is from one of my parents’ early visits to my home, where not one, but all four of us had our laptops or tablets on the kitchen table, all of us tapping away between bits of conversation, nibbling on cookies and sipping coffee.

Apparently, kitchen table writing runs in the family.

About the author: Melissa A. Bartell

Melissa is a writer, voice actor, podcaster, itinerant musician, voracious reader, and collector of hats and rescue dogs. She is the author of The Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Holiday Tub. You can learn more about her on her blog, or connect with her on on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

September 29, 2017

Sun Spots and Sunsets by Jeanie Croope

I’ve had a heck of a time figuring out what I wanted to write for this issue’s Light and Shadow theme. It should be so easy. If nothing else I could come up with some art-related post looking at the brilliant chiaroscuro techniques developed by the old masters, like Caravaggio and implemented in so many ways in art since then. The brilliant light of the Impressionists. The gray-and-black shadows of Picasso’s Guernica.

There’s something there, don’t you think?

But I couldn’t make it work.

How about writing on how the light changes as we move into autumn? We see long shadows, earlier twilights. Deeper sunsets find brilliant oranges, purples and pinks contrasted with the shadows of the dark clouds and disappearing light, coming in to rest for the evening. Heaven knows I have enough sunset photos in my bank to illustrate an entire photo essay on the subject.

But the words wouldn’t come.

I think part of the problem in nailing this is that I am a “light” person. I prefer to see the light in a situation instead of the dark, even when the dark is pretty murky. it’s not that I avoid reality, I see it for what it is. But I’ve been around enough to know that in all tragedy or dark times, there is the light that comes from goodness, caring, rebirth.

You can call it Pollyanna. (I sometimes do.) There is little good in hurricanes or earthquakes that decimate entire communities. Yet I also see the helpers who fight so valiantly to rescue the trapped, who leave their comfortable homes to go to another place and work hard to help rebuild.

I think you can see that it is very difficult for me to go into the “shadow” mode. I don’t need to add that to bring me down when something is already swinging on the downside.

But recently, after many months of self-diagnosing (don’t do that), doc visits that offered remedies that worked for a few weeks and then didn’t, I finally went to the dermatologist for a very pesky lip problem. When the biopsy came back it was cancerous.

They told me it was no doubt from too many hours in the sun back in the days of long ago. Before sunscreen became an essential piece of summer outdoor wear. (And do you put sunscreen on your lips? You should.)

I know many readers may have dealt with squamous cell carcinoma. Basically, a skin cancer. It’s about as common as a Hershey bar at a grocery store check-out stand. Rarely are these life threatening unless left too long and metastasized. This is not your deeply concerning liver or stomach, ovarian or breast cancer.

Rick calls cancers like these “candy cancers.” You do the treatment, it works, and off you go to enjoy life. It’s a bit cavalier but in a way it’s spot on. No fun, but you probably won’t die.

But when you hear the C-word, one can’t help but feel a bit of a shadow come over things, even when the doctor has assured me that it was on the surface, hadn’t spread and that the radiation would do the trick. There’s a lot of light there.

And I see that and am immensely grateful. I keep reminding myself of that. See the Light.

But has I’ve tried to wrap my head around the fact that now I, too, am part of a club to which I never wanted to belong, there is a bit of shadow. I remember the mother who died before I was a fully-formed person, the friend who battled her cancer for years and died too young, and so many others who fought valiantly and others who do to this day.

Their cancers, I remind myself, were far more complicated than a little curable candy cancer on the lip. There simply is no comparison.

But as I watch the heron on my lake come to visit during the day and again at twilight, and then fly off into the sunset to rest, I am reminded once again to grab every bit of beauty and joy from life and celebrate it, cherish it. Next time one may not be so lucky.

There is beauty in the light of the sun. Blinding, sometimes searing, sometimes dangerous, but great beauty. And there is also beauty in the sunset, the shadows of evening, the silhouette of a blue heron, winging his way through the sky to meet the light again in the morning.

And I hope to meet that light in the morning for many sunrises to come.

About the Author: Jeanie Croope

After a long career in public broadcasting, Jeanie Croope is now doing all the things she loves — art, photography, writing, cooking, reading wonderful books and discovering a multitude of new creative passions. You can find her blogging about life and all the things she loves at The Marmelade Gypsy.

September 28, 2017

Bringing to Light the Issue of Darkness by Keva Bartnick

We all have a dark side. The spaces that we keep hidden from the light of day. The nooks and crannies of our soul that would appall the stranger that sits beside us on the bus seat. Or our own family. What can be worse, though, is that we decide what that darkness tells us about ourselves…to be truth. We try everything in our power to ignore it or push it down.

We try to cover up our inner darkness, that truth, and pretend it’s not there.

Somewhere along the way of our life, we decided the only way to fix it was to hide it. We believe that this truth defines us, compels us, to put on every costume and mask out of our proverbial closet from a space of fear. Let’s never speak of it, and it will stay hidden…if only that were true. You see, the more this thought is past down from generation to generation the darker the closet gets. How terrifying this all sounds.

The darkest parts of me had to come to the surface in 2015. It began when I realized that in order to save my marriage, it was a necessity that the darkest and scariest parts of my being must be released from within. I had to display the years of masks and what was underneath under the display of the sharpest of lights.

In the desire to save my marriage, the person I was really saving is the person I was to become.

I’ve always been different, a square peg in a round hole. As Marisa McKaye says in her song, “I am colorful girl in a black and white world,” painted the correct picture of me. My darkness had been with me from the beginning.

The cards were against me from birth being a product of first cousins, and of course, everyone had their ideas about how screwed up my parents would make me. Closeness in our genes can cause defects, so how damaged might I be from too much togetherness? A heavy burden for a child to be born with, the gossip and speculation.

Childhood wasn’t fun for me. On the surface it looked normal, or as normal as normal can be in a small Midwest town. There are rules to be followed, of course, and many of those rules didn’t make sense to me. The less questions you had to answer the better. You learn coping mechanisms, and you keep your head down as much as a bright orange duck can in a sea full of hunters.

When you don’t fit, you become the target for bullies. I was too colorful in a world that liked things neat and tidy. And secrets to keep. If you didn’t rock the boat, you were golden (so above all else, don’t rock the boat). And, of course, keep the secrets.

I kept many secrets and that ensured I spent most of my young life wearing a mask and making secret friends with the shadows. I was a victim more than once during my childhood.

Though nothing felt right for a long time and at the core, I hated my life, I learned to hide the pain by building up my armor day after day. A woman loving her intelligence is a saving grace, yet understanding society is more accepting of your beauty than intelligence makes it harder.

Though I hid behind the armor of beauty over intelligence, college opened to the doors to learning about freedom from the shadows and my demons. There were less rules and, as long as you show up for class and I discovered that I could choose to turn being a victim by learning to be a survivor.

My becoming had to start with a full expulsion of said demons from my mind, from my heart, and from body. I had to lay bare the worst parts of myself. Not only did I do it, but I nuked the bridge that was connecting me to that previous life. The field laid bare, not one saved from the pain.

Sometimes you have to unbecome to move forward.

In Glennon Doyle Melton’s memoir, ‘Love Warrior’, she writes about sifting the sand, and getting to the point of realness. Where do you start feeling real? That’s where I had to go. That’s what I had to find.

I can say with exacting certainty that the battles I fought were hard won. I am still a work in progress, but I have found what my soul wants. I now listen to that small voice in my head that guides me forward into the future one moment at a time.

Our demons make us who we are, our challenges are uniquely our own. Bringing these to the light takes courage that only we are capable of performing. Is the road hard? ABSOLUTELY!

Does the battle we fight within ourselves take prisoners? No. Casualties come with the territory unfortunately, it becomes a test of sheer will. Finding out who you are at a soul level takes courage.

I know that I am loved, but learning to love yourself first in sometimes our hardest battle. Knowing that everyone struggles, that we are in good company, and we are not alone. To me there is comfort in that; that I am never alone.

I’ve also loved the saying, “everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about so be kinder than you feel.” It teaches me that I should never assume. That I should take things at face value, trust that little voice in my head when it speaks. To be kinder, softer, and more gentle with everyone that comes into my sphere of being.

Sometimes when you hit the bottom the choice becomes clear. It comes down to one simple question, you or them? It isn’t pretty, it isn’t glamorous, it hurts like hell, and it takes its toll.

Once you find yourself in the rubble you will never want to go back to the way things were before. You are the diamond in the rough! Built to shine under the most enormous pressure of circumstances. You are important and you matter. Your becoming becomes a birthright, a stage to stand on to shine.

It takes fortitude, it takes courage, but I already know that you have that, you have it in spades. My soul sees your soul, and I see you in all your glory.

About the Author: Keva Bartnick

Keva Bartnick is an artist, writer, and lightworker. Happily married mother of three; she’s been inspiring people to be their most courageous selves since 2015.

She can be found at Taleoftwofeathers.com

September 26, 2017

Typical Tuesday with K.C. Tansley

Thank you for inviting me to share my “typical Tuesday” with the readers of Modern Creative Life. Being a writer, promoter, and teacher means that I am switching off between each role during the day. I must confess I was an auditor and management consultant in my previous careers, so I’m all about creating and adhering to a schedule in my daily life.

My alarm goes off at 10 a.m. It’s on the other side of the room to make sure that I actually get up. After I’ve used the bathroom, my first stop is my secretary desk and computer. I’m a grumpy pants during the first hour of every day, which makes me unfit for in-person interaction. Instead, I check email. I flag anything that needs detailed follow-up and delete anything that’s not important. As I go through it, I reply to the easy stuff. I have 9 email accounts so it’s usually 15-30 minutes to check them all.

Then I pop over to Facebook and Twitter and my blog and respond to any mentions or replies or comments. I update Goodreads with my prior night’s reading—I love tracking my progress through a book. This usually takes up another half hour of the morning.

Around 11, my stomach grumbles and I make breakfast and watch some Netflix. Lately it’s been The Originals and Riverdale. Once I get my coffee, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and toast in me, I feel more human and ready to dive into the harder brain work.

This summer has been all about revisions, so I spend 45 minutes editing. With developmental edits, I’ve got overarching things to fix as well as chapter by chapter notes. So I usually reread the notes my editor provided on big picture edits and then the chapter’s notes to make sure I fix everything I need to in those pages. Sometimes I’m going back to fix something 3 chapters earlier because this change ripples backward in the book.

I like to work in chronological order, so I aim to edit 10-30 pages a day. I have 60 days to get my edits finished and polished and back to the publisher, so I try to make the initial pass the slower, more intense pass. Sometimes I need to mull something over and building in extra time in the first pass helps me figure out a solution before I’ve finished the initial pass. I still need to leave enough time for 1-2 more read-throughs to smooth the story out. Anytime you tinker with something, you create a ripple effect, even if you don’t notice it. Trust me it’s there. A change on page 150 can ripple to page 270 and back to page 15, so I need those extra read-throughs to make sure everything still works, and it is a smooth read without an unexpected plot hole popping up.

Mind you, a lot of changes are being worked out in the back of my mind as I do other things like cooking, laundry, and cleaning. I can usually do up to an hour straight of work before I need a break because I start to lose mental focus or physical balance due to vertigo issues. Luckily, it’s the perfect time to take my dogs out and give them a nice bit of exercise for 20 minutes.

Then I’m back to editing. I usually get in another hour or two. When I can’t come up with a fix, I make a note using track changes to either come back and fix the problem later or follow up with my editor for advice.

When 2 p.m. arrives, I do some balance exercises for an hour. The dogs get fed and go out again at 3 p.m. Then I need to prep for my night job. I usually teach two classes two to three nights a week to adults. This summer, Tuesday nights were psychology and office administration classes. Prepping for class involves creating tests, reviewing lecture materials, creating in-class projects, and mapping out the two hours of class time and homework assignments.

Next, I hop in the shower and get dressed because when I work at home I’m in pajamas all day. Now, it’s time for a late lunch and a cup of matcha milk tea.

Then I’m off to teach for four hours. It’s about a twenty-minute commute each way. Teach from 5:45-9:35 p.m. makes it hard to eat at a regular dinner time. I get 4 ten-minute breaks, but I’m usually doing attendance or something class related or, you know, using the bathroom. So there’s no time to eat and digest properly.

I get home around 10, have dinner, and unwind. And by dinner, I mean a few scoops of yogurt or cottage cheese in a bowl and a piece of fruit and some popcorn.

Around 11:15 p.m., I usually check email again and my social media. Sometimes there’s another half hour of work to do. Then I head to bed at 12ish and sneak in half an hour to an hour of reading before I go to sleep.

About the Author: K.C. Tansley

K.C. Tansley lives with her warrior lapdog, Emerson, and two quirky golden retrievers on a hill somewhere in Connecticut. She tends to believe in the unbelievables—spells, ghosts, time travel—and writes about them. Never one to say no to a road trip, she’s climbed the Great Wall twice, hopped on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, and danced the night away in the dunes of Cape Hatteras. She loves the ocean and hates the sun, which makes for interesting beach days.

The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts is her award-winning and bestselling first novel in The Unbelievables series. As Kourtney Heintz, she also writes award winning cross-genre fiction for adults. Find out more about her at her website, KCTansley.com or check out her books on Amazon and iBooks.

September 25, 2017

Pinkness of Rain by Richard King Perkins II

Despite the pinkness of rain
there’s no floating pathway

brittle

for the lover you drag behind you
like waterlogged cherry twist.

Your friends drink fancy wine
and quibble with the moon

while you sing a nimbus of trees
that silently comes to rise around me.

Show me your hideousness
my love, and I will make it lovely

so you’ll release the battlements
of rust

into an uncertain metamorphosis.

About the Author: Richard King Perkins II

Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He lives in Crystal Lake, IL, USA with his wife, Vickie and daughter, Sage. He is a three-time Pushcart, Best of the Net and Best of the Web nominee whose work has appeared in more than a thousand publications.

September 24, 2017

Sunday Salon: The Shadow Side

My cousin called me the other day, checking in as she is often so thoughtful to do. “How are you doing?” she asked. Normally I answer those kinds of inquiries with a “fine,” or “good,” no matter what the real truth of the matter might be.

But that day, I decided to tell the truth.

“I’m just sitting here having a little cry about my dog,” I said. (Our beloved Shih Tzu, Magic, died in July.)

My cousin has a multitude of struggles in her life right now, struggles which were increased by the loss of one of her pair of sheepdogs a couple of months ago. “Aw, I know,” she said. “I still cry about my dog.”

We discussed the trauma associated with that loss, how horrible it seemed in so many ways. “And if one more person says something to me about that stupid Rainbow Bridge I’m gonna slap their face!” she said laughing.

“I agree,” I said, chuckling in spite of myself. “Sometimes I just don’t want to hear those happy little stories.”

A few minutes later we ended our conversation feeling immensely better for having admitted that sometimes we’re not filled with sunshine and light, even though we might pretend to be. We’ve become conditioned to hide our darker emotions – grief, fear, loneliness, anger – because society seems to frown upon them. We’re encouraged to “look on the bright side,” or “find the silver lining.” Our spiritual friends will advise us to “give it all to a higher power” because “it’s in their control.”

And what if we can’t? What if we live in the shadow of our grief, our loneliness, our fear for longer than society deems acceptable? The task of trying to “get over” those feelings becomes overwhelming of itself as we begin to feel inadequate in our life and perhaps our faith.

Later in the day I had lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. “Are you okay?” she asked at one point in the conversation. “Sometimes when I read things you write, it seems as if you’re sad.”

My first impulse was to deny it, to reply quickly, “Sad? No, I’m not sad.” Instead, I answered her truthfully like I had answered my cousin earlier in the day.

“Sometimes I AM sad,” I told her. “I think there is always an undercurrent of sadness within me. It’s been deeper lately because I’ve had some pretty significant losses, but there is always a shadow side to me, one that’s extremely sensitive to pain and injustice and loss and loneliness and fear. Maybe we all have that and some people are more in touch with it than others.”

In her book Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “When I stopped trying to block my sadness and let it move me instead, it led me to a bridge with people on the other side. Every one of them knew sorrow. Some of them even knew how to bear it as an ordinary feature of being human instead of some avoidable curse.”

As artists perhaps we are more often aware of this ambiguity, this tendency to live in more than one emotion, to feel joy and sorrow, irritation and satisfaction, hope and despair, all at the same time. A character in Grace Paley’s short story “A Woman Young and Old,” says: “I’m artistic, and sometimes I hold two views at once.”

There is no profit to denying the shadow side – it exists in our spirit just as it does in the celestial sphere. Sadness and joy dwell simultaneously in us at all times, just as the moon remains in the sky during the 24-hour cycle even as the sun shines brilliantly above it. Honesty about my feelings of sadness yesterday provided a bridge between myself and my cousin – it gave us both an opportunity share feelings with someone else whose own shadow side was predominant, and freed us to move forward into the day feeling connected with another human being who understood. “Sadness does not sink a person,” Brown continues. “It is the energy a person spends trying to avoid sadness that does that.”

Last month the moon totally eclipsed the sun, in one of those rare celestial events that draws a great deal of scientific and popular attention. Nature has much to teach us about the inner workings of our emotional life. There are forces of darkness at work within each of us. We’d likely all be better served if we took time to become aware of them, and learn to live comfortably with them.

About the Author: Becca Rowan

Becca Rowan lives in Northville, Michigan with her husband and their dog, Molly. Her new book, Life Goes On, a book of personal and inspirational essays about women’s experiences with family life, aging, and loss, is available at Amazon in print and on Kindle, as well as on her website. She is also a musician, and performs as a pianist and as a member of Classical Bells, a professional handbell ensemble. If she’s not writing or playing music you’ll likely find her out walking or curled up on the couch reading with a cup of coffee (or glass of wine) close at hand. She loves to connect with readers at her blog, or on Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads.

September 22, 2017

Instrumental: You Are Here by Melissa Cynova

I got a call from a friend who’d had a truly unbearable year. There appeared to be no end in sight, and instead of calling for a tarot reading for her future, she just wanted to know where she was – right now.

Tarot readings don’t always go the way we expect. You can do a reading to see if you should get a divorce, and find that your partner isn’t the only person who created space between the two of you. That allowing the only sex that enters the relationship to happen when you flip each other off while passing in the hall. You could go to the cards asking why you can’t move up in your company, and the cards will tell you that you are in the wrong career.

The question you ask doesn’t always point to the answer, and the answer is often found in fear. Fear of that hard conversation that might put your relationship back on track. Fear that you’ve invested time, money and training in a career that doesn’t work for you.

Instead of looking into the future, it can be more helpful to find out what tools you have in hand, which things are holding you down, and which can lift you up. What is here, right now, to help you deal with getting through the day. Sometimes, you can’t believe the Instagram shininess that encourages you that everything will be ok in the end – but the end isn’t here yet.

Sometimes you just need to know that right now, here and now, you are ok.

You Are Here Spread:

(Cards in a cross – one on top, one left, one right, and one at the bottom)

Card 1 – What can you reach for – right now – that will help lift you up?

Card 2 – What can you release that is making your day more difficult?

Card 3 – What tool is within reach that will help you have a position of strength?

Card 4 – What will hold you up until the light at the end of the tunnel gets closer? What if your main support?

This reading can be repeated as often as you need it. When you want to move forward, you can tuck it in your back pocket for the next time. Remember that often, when you don’t know where to go, the best thing to do is sit down. Gain your strength, and breathe.

About the Author: Melissa Cynova

Melissa Cynova is owner of Little Fox Tarot, and has been reading tarot cards and teaching classes since 1989. She can be found in the St. Louis area, and is available for personal readings, parties and beginner and advanced tarot classes. Her first book, Kitchen Table Tarot, was recently published by Llewellyn Publishing. Melissa lives in St. Louis with her kiddos, her husband, Joe, two cats, two dogs and her tortoise, Phil.

You can reach Melissa at lis@littlefoxtarot.com. She is on Twitter and Instagram under Little Fox Tarot. Go ahead and schedule a reading – she already knows you want one.

Editor’s Note: Tarot Cards are from the “Pagan Otherworlds Tarot” Deck.

September 21, 2017

The Final Test of Canonisation by Robert Beveridge

“When did I become such an undesirable blanket?” –Mary Biddinger, “Beatitudes”

Warnings, even the outdated ones,
are forever spoken in hushed tones.
You walk up the ramp and the man
with the sparse combover and the appropriate
relaxed-bowel sportcoat: “to the right,
please,” he murmurs, just above silent.
“The casket shall remain closed for the duration
of the viewing.” I bite back the obvious.

The room is full, and yet I can see nothing
(what flowers for saints and stuff?) but that
closed box, a refrigerator door meant to preserve—
what?—the nutrients that should return
to the soil, allow us to give back something
so small for all we have taken?

The viewing is what it is, what they all are. Family
members catch up on gossip from pruned branches.
Dinner plans are made, forgotten in trips
to the restroom. The children, unaware
of the purpose of this family reunion, play
in the basement until mischievous, touched
Uncle Michael takes them on a tour
of the morgue. The sandwiches in the back
room have less appeal now then the Hanobska
Chateau Marionette ’95 in the coffee dispenser.

One to four, then six to nine, and the two-
hour interim in which the family flee,
some to a light dinner, some to the local
paid-by-the-hour motel, most to the Linen Lounge,
where the lingerie dancers dress in funeral weeds
and the most popular drink is the zombie.
The director, sportcoat over his shoulder,
steps out for a two-hour chainsmoke and finally,
finally our time is here. We slip the catches
on the drawers, roll ourselves out. This is
our viewing, our private time, and we approach

the casket with reverence, trepidation.
Lift the lid on three, and what we could
not bear to believe lies before us—your body
pristine, untouched by disease, by accident,
by trochar. We slipped our arms beneath you,
where blood would pool, decay begin, and found
what we expected, yet not dared to hope—
the only mark an outrageous hickey, just above
(what is that called?), I put there three
days ago, when you were still alive,
still capable of touching pen to paper.
We had heard Mother Church requires
first photographic evidence, then physical
proof.

We did the only thing we could,
the one most right thing: six pallbearers
lined up, lifted the casket from among
its forest, marched in languorous step
toward the open door of the crematorium.
The fire rumbled, a gut promised
a singular, delectable meal.

About the Author: Robert Beveridge

Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry just outside Cleveland, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Borrowed Solace, Dodging the Rain, and Twyckenham Notes, among others.