How We Long for a Stay

(Last Immersion Journal)

I can't believe the semester's about over – I think I said that in my last immersion journal. I have a small story I want to share – words that I found while intensely distracted. Words that have to be true to the core, because I barely thought of what I was saying before I spoke. In my interview on how my chapbook was being put together, I was asked if the fact that I don't get credit for this assignment meant that it was less important to me than my other work. 

I answered by saying it's never been about college credits or grades. It's all for the poetry. It's about learning as I go. It's about the challenge. It is me doing what I love – writing poetry.

College credit isn't an incentive to do well and finish the project strong – the incentive needs to come from the subject matter. If I am invested, then I am invested regardless of credits – and conversely, if I am not invested the result is less interest in the class as a whole. I think that's a commentary on me – rereading that, it sort of seems that I am kind of a terrible student in some aspects, but still present in order to learn. That's the goal, anyway. I guess if I don't feel I'm learning anything worthwhile, I simply act like a terrible student. 

But that's beside the point. The point is, it's a moment I realized I really am a writer. Who cares if I have money? Who cares if I have college credits? And that whole extra year in school? Not a problem. As long as I write, for whatever reason, it'll all be okay. Maybe I'm tearing up a bit focusing on this. Maybe it's kind of astonishing that my brain thought of this as I really concentrated on drawing out the letters of my poem with a quill pen. Maybe it didn't matter how uncomfortable and difficult that actual process is... it's always been about writing. It's interesting how much self-doubt I carry subconsciously as a person, despite mantras of positivity. It's interesting how often you have to tell yourself that you are good enough. But you find out what really matters in moments like this. I guess this is why some people need to be reminded before they speak – because sometimes what really matters to your mind isn't tactful to say out loud. 

I want to conclude this immersion journal with one more rhapsodomancy reading.

I ask this time – what is essential that I should know right now in order to move forward?

“This flowing which is in us

is us – hear

how it rasps, sings,

even, not with

but towards its own kind

of staying: and this, and

this, and this

it whispers.

How we long for a stay.” (Pardi pg. 23. Poem: Two Hands)

Poetry, essentially, will tell us everything we need to know, the more we delve into it. It is used in divination, and so it becomes a tool to connect to our intuition. I have journeyed quite a bit on this path, and I have tried my best to convey that which defines me over the course of this semester. So this time I ask you – what is this poem trying to say? What is your interpretation for me?

If You Want Something Enough, Magic Works.

I'm marveling at how little time we all have left for this semester. Granted, part of me is wishing it was already over. My brain, once overwhelmed, tends to do that. It's harder to want to do my other work... I've enjoyed the poetry and the fiction so much that I'm trying to pretend the other classes don't exist. I mean... it's not a good plan. But I've done so much in such a short span of time that the synapses don't even care to fire in ways that will make me pay attention. Maybe that was a little bit of an exaggeration, but only just so.

So, as for my chapbook – revision is daunting. It always is. It's a task I'm always up for – but I'm never sure when the poems are 'good enough.' I was talking to a friend and we discussed that sometimes it's good to give your brain space and work on other things. Maybe let the project ideas steep for a while. But college seems, thus far, to be set up in a way where there is simply no time to work on other things without feeling guilty for using the time better spent completing assignments. (I hate that. Oh, do I hate that.) In a way, it feels counterproductive – and … if I may be so bold … countercreative, too.

Back to the chapbook – I look forward to writing out everything. I can't explain why, but I love the old fashioned ink pens. I also love the kind of paper I am using for the book – and while it's not as “authentic looking” as writing on parchment, the ink will absorb better and make less of a mess. And, since I'm nerd about this, I couldn't be happier. I use the pen and ink to make sigils (like the signature sigil on the front and back cover of my chapbook) for my witchcraft, and have acquired a basic amount of skill in using them. Writing, apparently, was much more difficult back in the day. I can't yet do fancy calligraphy. The gods know my day-to-day handwriting is atrocious enough as it is, so it's incredibly difficult to steady my hand enough to do the fancy, artistic lettering. I'll do my best, though. Last time, with my other book Mythopoeia, it took a tremendous amount of effort to write out the book with regular pens. But I know I can do this. I want the look of an old fashioned pen being used, and so I'm going to go for it. It's all coming along quite nicely, I think. Once it's done, I'm going to try and scan in all the pages and make a digital copy of this one. I tried recording myself reading some of the poems out of Mythopoeia...but in a dorm, silence is only an abstract term used to describe the lighter din at 3-4am – recordings, then, are peppered with background noises and echoes.

I want to eventually make this chapbook something that could possibly be considered for publication. Which means more than 10 poems. And I think I already do have more than 10, but maybe not enough to make a “whole” chapbook with. One of the poems got published in the GLR this semester. Even though I love it, and they accepted it as-is – I almost want to cry that I didn't see ways to revise it before I sent it in to them. But I think revision of previously published pieces for a whole book is almost required. It has to be the best representation of your poetic self there is. I don't tend to separate my identity into smaller compartments – I am simultaneously a witch, a poet, a pagan, a student, a psychic, a writer, a reader, a thinker, a Pisces – it's all part of being a Katie Morton, you see. So, if the poems aren't the best representation they can be of my poetic self, they're also not the best representation they can be of me as a whole. And it's daunting. It really is. But we learn as we go, I suppose. I don't know what it means to have a literary agent or to be published outside of the GLR. But one day I'll figure that out. And I'll get back to you. And I'll have more to say and more wisdom to share.

I know from experience that if you want something enough, magic works. If I wanted nothing else in the entire world but this, to be a writer wholly and completely is it. I don't know what I'm getting into entirely. I mean, even I can't see every consequence to every step and action along the path. I will make progress though. Of that, at least, I can be sure.

At No Time is Change a Moment

(Immersion Journal ~)

In class last Thursday, I talked about Anne Carson's foreshadowing in “Autobiography of Red,” specifically the chapter “Ideas.” So why exactly did Herakles kill Geryon? Of course the answer is never simple, and each time I read this book, there's something new to be found – and new piece of the puzzle, a new answer. The truth is, no matter what we want to believe, there are so many different interpretations to the same questions. And the Powers that Be will let you interpret them wrong just to make a point and help you learn a lesson, right? (Maybe that's a bit off topic & not just about the book.)

My chapbook is entitled Hint of a Spark which is inspired by a small, incredibly and unfortunately relevant lyric of a song that I once sang to the other person. So far I've completed the pages – which are much larger than my chapbook last year, and aged by burning and this time with coffee. The covers are painted, and the lace ribbon has been bought for the stab-binding process. I've yet to write out the poetry – I need to go through workshop still – but when I do get to it, it'll be written with an old fashioned pen. Maybe if I'm lucky, my roommate will let me borrow her feather quill pen that she uses to write in her witch notebook – her “Book of Shadows & Paper Magic” as she calls it.

The artwork itself is refreshing – it's been a long time, and it feels like standing up and stretching after sleeping when I go paint again. That's not the challenge. What challenge I face now in constructing the book relates to what I started this journal entry with. Why did Herakles kill Geryon? Well, in one sense it's heartbreak, right? Or, as Geryon answers in the chapter “Ideas” – just violent.

 Which drives home my point – It's so difficult to write about bad things that hurt you without writing dramatically. Nobody wants to read a poem that's so soused in emotion that all the concrete details smear and become abstractions. At least I don't. I marvel at poets who can subtly tell their stories and then make us cry without outwardly screaming, “HEY EVERYONE! HEART'S BROKEN. YEAH. PAY ATTENTION TO ME.” It's honestly a difficult task and I don't know yet if I'm doing well.

 The good thing is that the writing is healing me. And now, as I proceed and as we study Carson's work a bit – I want to inject a bit of a story arc. I don't want it to be Author and X specifically – I want to give the speaker in the poem (even though she's me) more characterization and morph the X, the other, the heartbreaker – into a character too. He starts out like a monster – Just Violent. But later on, as the speaker grows into life on the other side of a relationship, what is he then? Does he get his name back? Or does he fade into the background? Either way, the speaker will stand on her own again. I want the story to kind of flow in a way that makes the reader care about the characters and what happens to them. It's going to take some amount of revision.

For Rhapsodomancy – divination via poetry – let's ask: “How will the above-mentioned revision ideas affect my writing process?”

“Look, look, look, he said, there it is, the moment is

changed, but at no time is change a moment. It slips in

between, a star seen best when you look to one side.” (Pardi pg. 37. Poem: God's Shins)

Ah, so it's what I am bracing myself for – the much needed push in the quite-possibly-right direction. It's going to be difficult. But I'll start revising some that I've written outside of class and report back on how I feel about the work next week.

I'm Silent Except on Impact

(Another Immersion Journal!)

The thing I have the most trouble with in fiction class is to not ramble. I don't understand where that comes from – and I suppose that's the reason I'm taking that class. To learn why this is my tendency. I feel that, when I write fiction, I try way too hard to get my character and story on the page and sometimes it falls short. Actually – so often it falls short. And it takes so much time to redraft a story once. I can redraft a poem ten times (and still not be done with it) in the amount of time it takes to redraft a short story once. How is it that I can tell a story in the span of a poem, but I need more than 12 double spaced paged to tell a story in a different genre? In Nonfiction I managed to keep it short and simple. I wrote one recently that told the whole story in three and a half pages. (Of course it always could do with revision – but such is the way of writing.)

At first I never thought poetry would be my “thing.” But of course, quickly it is turning out to be so. I'm not concerned what that means for my future. The definite thing is that I will be writing poetry – and the rest of it us uncertain at best. But it's okay. For me, it's not about how many times I get published or how much money I'm going to make. It's always about the art – and so I'm a poet. It's a nice place to be. 

Maybe I'll never change the world or peoples' minds about what poetry can do for a reader. Maybe I won't shift the world back to a time when reading was the thing to do. But I will get published. Be it a few poems in a few abstract journals or a few chapbooks (I mean the chapbook thing is my ultimate goal. I'll make it happen.) And hopefully I can learn enough so that I can be a good fiction writer, too.

Last week, my rhapsodomancy did indeed point out a challenge or two that I would face. And I covered it in my interpretation – and that's exactly what happened. I won't bore with the details – because it's the same each time I feel “not good enough,” and the same steps taken to recover and keep progressing. 

This week, I'll ask a general question: “How will my week go?”

“Each day (I say,

you see) a fall from Earth

to Earth, tiny

collisions giving me voice.

Like a twig

that drops

I'm silent

except on impact.” (Pardi pg. 76. Poem: Seventeen Wings)

It's interesting that this same poem was subject to the rhapsodomancy this week. You know what's coming up this week? As per usual, so much school work. I have a 10-12 page essay due on Thursday where pen has yet to fall to paper. I have ideas though, but if I don't get a move on, they'll clog up my schedule and I'll feel overwhelmed again. And I won't ask for help, even to ask my roommate to take out the trash or to take care of the coffee filter somewhere other than the room trashcan. I'll do it all myself, and try to make it to class anyway on short nights of not-so-great sleep. It's the daily grind for those of us in college. I've the urge to pretend Monday doesn't exist, but I have to work and I should go to class, even though I don't want to. 

Silent, except on impact for this week means I won't be in the business of complaining and telling stories that make my life seem more difficult that it really is – except, of course, when (and this is speculation as well as intuition) someone makes another comment about how Creative Writing majors have it easy. That would be the impact. I will not be silent then. I am getting fed up with peoples' perspective. Because writing is not easy. It's soul shredding – you have to really understand the futility of the path before you, and be humble about it – otherwise you're...you're... Stephenie Meyer...and well... really nobody wants to be her in terms of ideas. (They just want the fame and fortune, if they're even a little bit serious about writing. Maybe that's just my skewed and biased opinion though. I wanted to be an editor once and still can't fathom how she's made it so big.) Even when things seem incredibly against the odds – you just have to keep writing anyway. 

Another word from family or peer and I'll give them a what-for. I won't be silent then. I suppose that's been bugging me more than it ought to. But that goes back to last week's reading, too – that feeling of not being enough. Sometimes on paths as difficult as this one, the words of others crawl under your skin. It's easy to let them affect you, and hard to realize when it'll do more good to let it go. I'm getting better at being Zen as my friends called it – breathe, meditate, and let the negative go. No use trying to heft around the negativity on purpose. But what has stuck with me, even if I try to completely be rid of it, shows as sudden irritation at comments stabbing at what I do for schoolwork. It's not easy. I don't sleep much and my work is never ending. The Creative Writing part does not invalidate my degree. My path might even be more difficult, because it's a thing I love to do, in spite of the challenges that face me after college is over. I'm tired. Not just because of lack of sleep. But because people are so focused on one frame of mind... “Oh she writes. So obviously her life is much easier than mine. I don't need a degree to prove I can write a story...” 

We'll see then – one day there will be a choice between doing what they love and making money – they've already started along the path for simply making money. We'll see who's actually living as opposed to existing when all is said and done.

The Wrists Will Work To Break Your Fall

(Another Poetry Class Immersion Entry.)

Katie Morton

CRW 405

Immersion Journal #5 part II

Sometimes it's incredibly difficult to write about an actual meditation in poetic form, but many of Pardi's poems are reminiscent of stream-of-consciousness stories – and one is even titled “Three Meditations.” It would be safe to say that taking the word 'meditation' not as an actual zen-Buddhism-type practice, but as a deep thought on one particular subject, all poetry can be considered meditation. It is a focus on images, scenes that replay themselves in memory – and I find that to be fascinating. Pardi combines both aspects of the word very well in my opinion, and I find myself wishing that I could do the same without sounding overly abstract. I think it comes down to the actual meditation – how is it perceived with the senses? It's one thing to metaphysically understand a thought, event – even omens – but it's quite another to, as I often do, remember the sound. Or, sight, smell, feel – and so on. The meditation is philosophizing as to why this memory is and the poetry comes from that. It's just so difficult to remember the concrete details when meditation is, in and of itself, mysterious and intangible. Life is so strange sometimes, especially for people like me – born with the third eye open, as they say...to say the least, indeed. There is no concreteness in metaphysics. Hence the term. But all of it – everything I experience in those terms – funnels into my poetry in one way or another. Maybe I'll never be as great at turning meditations into concrete (or at least less vehemently abstract) poems – but I can try. And I will continue to try.
Last week, I tempted fate by asking how my guest teaching experience would go. My Grandma always said that one should never ask questions that they don't want answered. Part of me really didn't want to know – but the nervous part of me asked for peace of mind. I'm happy to report that the experience went well – though it was daunting. I was, at first, scared to death of what was to come. Of if I was good enough at putting to practice what I have learned so that I might help these kids. Turns out I was. After much internal deliberation, I took one of the most helpful yet most difficult activities I had experienced in Fiction II and walked these kids through it. We wrote character bios and then, in pairs, answered interview questions while acting like our characters.

I have to say, I hated this activity in Fiction II this semester. Loathed it. Even skipped the 6-hour Saturday version of this with the guest speaker, Paul Rajeckas. I never liked being center stage. I like to be the person listening – a faux-therapist, the one with advice. It is strange for me to be the person in need of understanding. And as much as I hated the others getting to know my creative process via this activity, I loved being understood for the moment. I would never have admitted that to myself if I hadn't really meditated on what would help me relay what I know about characterization. I would have sat in stubborn silence but for the grating of my teeth pretending that I already knew best.

Truth is I don't. I haven't a clue what needs to happen for me to progress. Pretending that I do and trying to stay in my comfort zone is what brought me face to face with Necessary Chaos to begin with. If Chaos is cutting the tether, then so be it. I will do my best, as I did for this lesson. And oh, I can sense that a wave of changes is about to occur. And I also know that there is no way I can possibly prepare for it in its entirety. I've just got to go with the flow, and let it be as it will be.

My strength, will, determination, and whatnot – qualities that made Chaos smile at me and nod a head in approval before becoming part of my life – must be enough to make it through. Otherwise, where would I be? Probably a cashier in the local grocery store, quiet as I used to be, not progressing a nanometer.

The lesson went well. It taught me a great many things, and when all is said and done, I affected people. I am a memory, and what I said became a lesson that I can only hope one day leads to a success – great or small – for those who use it. In this aspect, I am enough. And this is the first step of a great many. I will reach my goal – but I will not reach them in a linear fashion. Along the way, I must learn – really learn – that nothing is or ever will be as it seems.

This week, I ask: What challenge presents itself to me in the coming week?

“Think of slender hands

for catching, of how hard

the wrists will work to break your fall.

Don't think of being born into flight.

Think, if you can, of grace

and hunger

as the arc of falling

not from but into.” (Pardi pg. 69. Poem: Seventeen Wings)

And again I am forced to admit something I would rather fiercely and steadfastly deny... for this challenge is ever present and something I fight with constantly. It is internal. It is two things. Two things that are not so unrelated as I might think.

The first – speaking up. A fear not of who else will judge me but of me judging me; a nagging thought in the back of my head that says, “What if you're wrong? You may not be enough right now. You possibly may never be enough to speak of this.”
That voice? I have spent so long trying to convince it that it has spoken its piece. It has said enough. I still find my inner monologue so diluted with these grey worries and I work to change them. Every day I work to break the old habits and speak up. It's not easy. But I have come so far since even Freshman year here at college. Since even last semester. I still have to fight because it's still the most difficult of any challenge I've yet faced.

The second – this heartbreak which is the inspiration for my chapbook. As much as poetry helps me to progress through it, I have days where memories of the past refuse to turn themselves into poems. They stick in front of my eyes like I'm watching a movie.

The last time I saw him, we watched “The Hobbit” together. It was dinner and a movie. Call it what you will. But, my parents bought the movie on Bluray this past week and asked me to watch it again with them. And that's how it goes. Memories are triggered and I have to spend time meditating and letting them go. Because my stories, too, are heavy. And I cannot carry them and still expect to progress in my life. This challenge, too, will rise to meet me. It will nod, and smile just as Chaos does. It will prove to me what I am capable of. It always seems daunting. But in this, too – I have come a long way. I am not the late December version of me who wrapped up in her blanket and cried as the radio played relevantly sad songs. I am the one facing my challenges. While there is still love, and thus still heartbreak – there is poetry. There is a certain odd beauty in such madness. There is inspiration in such sorrow. And, there is the want to live and move forward as opposed to exist and stay stuck in old memories. Now those challenges? They are what I fall in to. Being born into flight is expecting something to be exactly as I imagined it. The arc of falling is the realization that life is hardly so simple. The grace is knowing that nothing worth doing or learning is ever easy. The hunger is fighting anyway, impervious to the odds. My wrists will work just as hard as they ever have to break my fall, but regardless I will fall. I have to. It's all part of living and learning.

A Wind That Seems to Aim for It Alone

(Writing Class Immersion Journal!)

I always marvel at Pardi's version of prose poetry. It seems so foreign to process because line breaks are pretty natural to me, and I try to break a line where it sounds best. I don't yet know how to accurately describe how it sounds best – it just does. The sound of a semi colon is different than the sound of a dash – see what I mean? I learned that from reading Jane Hirshfield's work; it's been invaluable, to say the least. People notice sometimes – one of my dear friends commented that even on Facebook chat, I use the dash. I definitely picked up the habit in writing a ten-and-some-page paper on Hirshfield's work last time I was in Poetry III class. I quoted (and thus typed out) whole poems to prove whatever point I was trying to make, and with each dash I copied out of The October Palace, I understood better how punctuation sounds. Crazy, right?

So back to Pardi's prose poetry – I have to say that I admire the ability to craft in such a way. It still feels like a poem, but also like a short story – flash fiction or something of the sort. Line breaks are basically thrown out of the window in favor of the asterisk. Stanzas are replaced by the common paragraph, and yet – it's still so poetic. It bothers me to no end in my own writing when a line break sounds wrong to me. I have yet to write a prose poem I was happy with. I feel I ramble.
Last week, being very stressed out with school, I asked of a Rhapsodomancy reading if I would continue to experience high levels of such stress. It told me, in not so many words, that of course I would. As if it were ever a question... And for the most part, it turned out to be so. I have worked so hard over break thus far, and it is only Monday in the early afternoon. I'm still sitting around in pajamas, sipping coffee – but I have painting supplies out and book covers to finish. Granted, I am not so stressed now that I can sleep a little later and don't have to spend hours in classes. I still have homework, of course – but I am relaxing a bit. And I don't have to worry about affording food right now, which is always good. (A thank you to the Parents...) Financial stress is one step worse than college stress, in my opinion. (I'm trying so hard to get money together to move from Port Jervis to Oswego and pay June's Rent. I think I'm at $150 out of a $600 minimum goal.) I canceled my weekly “Saturday Divination” in which I read cards or runes for some friends who read my Tumblr blog, four or five on Saturday – and then I type up the interpretations and provide a photo of the cards. I pushed those back to the weekend after spring break in hopes it would reduce stress. Funny story – everything got worse. I got assigned a few more things to pile on top of everything I already have. For my English class, I am looked at with the notion that I alone can actually read half a book in a week and understand what's going on well enough to write a whole essay. For my Anthropology classes, I now have to find a few more hours to read closely, because weekly quizzes are becoming commonplace where they weren't earlier in the semester. I was able to skim the readings and converse in class before – and no longer. Of course it has to do with my mind frame – my metaphysical studies must always come first. Once they don't, the world starts to fall down over my shoulders. But I might compare myself to Atlas just for now – just for a little while – if it helps me get through it.

For this week's reading, I ask: “How will my guest teaching experience go this week?”

“grackles twirling like kites

but without the strings

to untangle afterwards

and the boy cutting each one loose

save his favorite, which he fastens

to a park bench, leaves aloft,

into the night, with a wind

that seems to aim for it alone – how

like a tree after emptying

the world then seems – between risen

and fallen

what, in place, remains.” (Pardi pg. 24. Poem: Two Hands)

What a strange reading, and a strange interpretation I have... to be sure the experience will be daunting, and just like at every presentation, I will be internally frightened – perhaps like said grackle caught on a string. I'm understanding that these events are necessary chaos. Did I mention Loki ever before? On my path previously, I tended to play it safe and not project my voice. I didn't want to speak. I was all for reading and writing, and not being noticed too much. Perhaps a part of me once believed that I had nothing worth saying. I took difficult situations and tried to make sense of them based on things that were already tried and true – by the book, academically. Of course, in Metaphysical Studies, none of what is by-the-book is ever going to work for every single person. So, long story short, Necessary Chaos decided to find His way onto my path very recently. Maybe it's helped. Maybe it's just craziness. He would probably be the boy cutting loose grackles – except for the one attached that needs a dose of change. Is the wind that chaotic to a bird? Yes. And also No. And I think that's the lesson that I need to be paying attention to as I try something radically new this week. I'll report back in Part II (Yes, a second #5 journal) after returning to campus on Sunday.

The Part of You That Fails To Notice Birds are Watching

(A continuation of the Immersion Journal assignment)

How is it that I interact with poetry? Everything that I experience is sort of encoded into a sound. That's how I remember, for the most part. Tell me “Katie: Remember X” and I'll do my best to remember it. Write it down and pass me the sheet of paper, though, and I find myself less likely to be able to parrot it back after a somewhat extended period of time. In reading books, I envision the sound of the narrator's voice, often differently than my own voice reading aloud. That said, when I read poems, I first look for elements of sound as I read that I love. After the initial read, I go back and find elements of narrative, which usually links back to the sound elements that I admire most. If I really like the content and the sound, I'll reread the poem several times. We were told for this journal entry to read Lucie Brock-Broido's poetry first– and I will read it, but today is not that day. I want to focus on what I mentioned about sound and memory –

The poem, out of all that I've read for this class and others, that sticks out to me best in these terms was “Leaving Angelo.” I loved reading that one out loud the last time I took Poetry III – and to be honest, it was probably the first experience I had where I felt comfortable (as in, not as incredibly nervous) to speak/read in class. The way the words and repetition were used to create sound that related to content was masterful. It was with this poem that I decided I would have to focus more on how sound is an essential building block for poetry. It wasn't long after this that I fell in love with slant and near rhymes – and, as they say, a monster was created. 

I wouldn't trade it for the world though. To be honest, before Poetry II, I wouldn't have thought myself much of a poet. I didn't read poetry. I didn't write it with the intent that it would be read by anyone. I didn't think that one day, two poems that I wrote would be published in the school's literary journal. I certainly didn't think that on the same day, I would then read one of them in River's End Bookstore. In front of everyone, hands shaking, curls escaping from my hair tie, but feet flat on the ground, feigning confidence. I was terrified, but according to the video that was captured of me by a dear friend, my voice was – for once – steady. 

So, all of this – this adds to how and why I approach poetry. I read it because, like me, these authors started somewhere. They may have felt small, maybe felt nervous. Maybe at first thought there was no possible way that they could ever consider themselves poets. So I read. Not just because I must, but because that's how their voice is heard. In the way they write, in what they choose to publish. Word choice and the sound those words make in my mind either stick, or they don't. But the point is, the author was trying to tell me something – maybe in hopes I'd learn. Maybe in hopes their efforts were never in vain. I keep telling myself that one day, I'll be in their shoes. I keep reading, hoping that one day there will be an equivocation, and my work will never have been in vain. That my words are heard in the mind of some struggling college student, and mean something. 

Last week's Rhapsodomancy reading consisted of quite a number of stanzas and quite a revelation for me. Looking back at what I've written in the past week – poetry wise, of course, midterm-panic-mode aside, have indeed been inspired by heartbreak and moving past it. I don't think I'm at a level where my poetry can be considered serious. I leave too many of my own emotions on the page so that sometimes, if I figure a way to read objectively, it feels awash with drama and needs to be toned down a bit. But I'm trying and am constantly inspired to keep trying. 

The first poem I wrote on this subject matter was on the train home from Maine. Once I hit Penn Station in New York City, I was in the sort of emotional mode where the heart-breaker is the villain and all you want to do is curse them and their entire lineage for their absurdly stupid and obviously shortsighted and shallow behavior. For Yule, he had given me a little moleskine notebook with artwork from Tolkien's “The Hobbit.” As I flip back through the pages, I see the drama seeping out of the words until the poems are more about moving forward, than being hurt and angry. It won't be perfect, because a poem isn't ever really “finished.” But I'm trying to drain the dramatic language and pick words that are intense, but not so overwhelming – and this correlates to my own way of viewing the situation at hand, anyway. I'm not one to depend on anyone, especially not when it comes to my own peace and happiness. Just like Sarah in the movie Labyrinth, all I need to move forward is that one line that's sometimes so hard to remember: “You have no power over me.” That in and of itself may or may not have just sparked another poem.

For this week's Rhapsodomancy, I'm asking: Will I continue to be overwhelmed by school work, and how might I overcome such stress in the coming week?

“Let me tell you about the ego, they say: imagine

pages, loose and scattered, the reader stepping

from one to the next, at times over a great distance,

cobbling together a sequence, the wind revealing

flipsides with graphs or maps, page numbers

in cuneiform.

The ego is the part of you that fails to notice

birds

are watching.” (Pardi Pg. 45. Poem: Three Meditations)

I was extremely happy to get this reading, because intuition flooded from the verse up to my mind and told me that A.) Of course you will be overwhelmed, this is college for crying out loud. – and B.) Remember that you are human. You fail to see that each page – nay – each word is a stepping stone for your future in moments of stress and anxiety. If you think for one moment that the universe revolves around you, it will remind you quickly enough how it is that things work around here. Birds are watching, after all.

So I would interpret the ego as such: My stress. In moments of being overwhelmed, stress is inevitable. I've been teaching myself to let it go the best I can, because stress is heavy. And as the reading goes, it also very much clouds your judgment – to the point where understanding why things are happening becomes such a challenge (great distance) that we fail to learn anything and have to learn the same life lesson over again until we figure out how to deal with such stress. That's life. Birds here? Well. Birds could be many things – but I'd think that, especially with how my intuitive self picked up this reading – they could symbolize fate or Gods, always watching each step made on the path. Some would call it crazy, but all the things that have happened to me in ten years of Paganism and Witchcraft made it so there's no need to believe in what others call “higher power” or “magic.” I don't need to believe because I know. And while my proof wouldn't count for others, there's no use in trying to convince another. I walk my path, and am allowed mistakes because elsewise there'd not be much to learn in life. This week, due to being overwhelmed, I pushed back my Saturday Divination (Free Tarot, etc readings for folks who follow my Tumblr blog.) At the moment, my main concern is practicing psychic things, and understanding divinatory tools is a big part of that – and so perhaps this decision was made while “failing to notice birds are watching.”

I will reflect on how things go this next coming week – mid-term panic will be over, and maybe then I can give a more cohesive example of how stress affected me and how I may have overcame it – instead of just theorizing.