NoPoeMo

It's officially NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month...but I'm not participating, as I have no desire to write a novel this year.

Instead, I'm going rogue and doing my own thang with my poetry club. We call it NoPoeMo, or November Poetry Month. We've accepted the challenge to write one poem a day, each day during the month of November. The poems don't have to be good, and we're not allowed to edit them during the month of November. At the end of the month, I should have 30 rough drafts of poems, which sounds pretty flippin' sweet to me.

What creative pursuits have you been pursuing lately? Tell me in the comments!

Self-Inflicted

Some rights reserved by BenSpark

Thorn's post from Wednesday is very timely for me. It has me thinking, not only about how I spend my days and my time, but also about how I talk to myself about it.  She writes,

"Without a sense of compassion, it is much more difficult to risk the mistakes that are necessary to our learning process...We have to come to comprehend that we may cause those around us to experience fear, or even pain. There is a cost to this desiring, but the cost for not pursuing our desires is even greater...Who are you to not step toward your destiny? Who are you to hide from the world?"

I've been noticing that I'm not giving enough time to myself. This noticing is not a calm, "Oh...huh!" kind of noticing; rather, it's a violent, "I hate that I'm always doing things I have to do!!!" and a "How lazy that you don't get up an hour earlier to write!", a noticing that feels like a knife-wielding temper tantrum. I fuss and then berate myself, not only for not taking care of my needs, but for fussing. Dare I say it? I'm violent toward myself. I don't extend compassion toward myself.

I can definitely see how this makes it next to impossible to create, to desire, to manifest authentically. I can see how it is way too risky to just let it flow because, well, later I'm likely to come crashing into my head-space, stomping and wildly thrashing, beating myself up.

Just noticing this, in this moment, is freeing up some of this energy. I can allow it to be real and imperfect and manifested- that is an option. Getting hurt in the process is possible, but it doesn't have to be self-flogging.

Huh.