Writing Spaces: Words

 

Words, how I loved you

Then—when I

Was young

And you led me

Out of the dark!

 

How I love you now

Even more,

As the dark approaches.

 

(#14 of 15 parts, Gregory Orr, “Ode to Words”)

 

 

 

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Ashmolean Museum

Writing Spaces: Offerings

 

A ti leaf offering is a sacred package wrapped in ti leaves and placed at a significant location to honor ancestors, loved ones, or scared beings.

 

But for those who are not conversant with what’s appropriate in context, in Native Hawaiian culture,

“The most appropriate offering that any person can make can be made without any tangible item being left behind. The most perfect offering is one’s aloha, ha, and olelo. To love a place, and breathe out that love in the form of a spoken promise to cherish and protect it, that is the most perfect offering.”

(Leilehua Yuen, from “Ho`okupu – Offerings”)

 

Image:  collage by Christie Cochrell 

Writing Spaces - Dragons in Our Rearview Mirror

 

“How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.”

—Rainer Maria Rilke

Books of Hours, books of waning years . . .

 

 

images:

 

. Liber Floridus (“Book of Flowers”), a medieval encyclopedia compiled between 1090 and 1120 by Lambert, Canon of Saint-Omer

. Book of Hours and Prayer Book, Southern Netherlands, c. 1490-1500 (Picryl, Public Domain Image Search)

. Liber Floridus

 

 

Writing Spaces

 

image:  photographer unknown

Writing Spaces (A Journal Page)

 

Writing Spaces

 

"Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate . . . "

(Go, thought, on golden wings)

—Temistocle Solera, for Verdi's Nabucco

image:  Franklin Booth, Giving Wings to Words

Create

 

“In a time of destruction, create something.”

—Maxine Hong Kingston

 

 

 

image:  Christie B. Cochrell

Writing Spaces

 

How I go to the woods

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore 
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds 
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of 
praying, as you no doubt have yours. 

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, 
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.

 

—Mary Oliver

image:  John Stoehrer, Girl Writing Outdoors

Writing Spaces

 

"The Moving Finger writes; 

and, having writ, Moves on . . . "

(Omar Khayyám)

image:  photographer unknown

Writing Spaces

 

"A daydreamer is a writer 

just waiting for pen and paper."

—Richelle E. Goodrich

 

 

 

image:  William Merritt Chase,

             Woman with Crimson Parasol

 

Writing Spaces

 

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window 
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully 
moving a perhaps 
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

e.e. cummings

image:  Daniel F. Gerhartz, Writing Home