Thank you for these prompts, Kaitlin! It's been such a fun week and a half of writing poems and appreciating what others come up with. For anyone else who has been enjoying this experience of writing with a community as much as I have, I want to let you know that I'm launching a Substack at 100poems.substack.com. My personal intention for the year is to write 100+ poems, and rather than doing that alone, I've decided to share and invite others to join me. If you subscribe (it's free), you'll receive a poem from me twice per week, but the real magic will (I hope) take place in the comments section, where all subscribers are invited to share their own poems and offer encouragement to one another. Since this is a brand new idea for me, there may be some shifts as the year goes on, but my plan for now is to offer a prompt one day per week and leave the other day open. I hope to see your lovely virtual faces there!
I love this Liz! I like the way you wrap your identity as therapist into the larger whole of you. I am glad you are out there for folks. I have appreciated every single bit of wisdom you have shared. Thank you!
This is wonderful Lisa! You seem to so easily integrate pieces of your life and the world. You are especially adept at bringing nature and the wild places right to my consciousness and into focus so clearly. I appreciate you and your writing. You have truly inspired me! Thank you!
As a fellow bird and word nerd, I love and appreciate your introductory lines of starlings integrating and disintegrating, spreading like a wing across the sky.
Thank you so much, Heidi! I sat down to write, and they just appeared right outside my window. It's nice when the universe makes things easy on you like that!
My practice for the past 2 Aprils has been to write and post a poem a day on Instagram,, in honor of National Poetry Month.
Check them out @wakemanwords!
I don't have a Substack (yet!).
Do you like using this platform? It seems a great way to connect with fellow like minded peeps, around words, ideas, etc. and also another digital rabbit hole!
Heidi I created a substack but haven't done anything with it. I have a blog at Wordpress ( https://themarvelousandthemundane.com/) but the only people that see it usually are my family and friends when I cross post on FB, mostly because my hubby set it up and he has it locked down pretty tight security wise. :)
Kaitlin, thank you sincerely for the creation of this space. What a beautiful 10 days. The Liminality Journal and the gracious wisdom of your words and the compassion of the space you hold and create is beyond measure.
Thank you all who have participated in this tender 10 day journey. An integration has begun.
Deepest gratgitide to all fo those who have offered a poem or more, who have shared reflections, wonderings and wisdom,and have written such affirming, kind and encouraging notes to erach other. Some of you all I have encountered before in this virtual realm, and I am ecstatic to find you again. Some of you all are new to me, and what gifts you are. The world holds countless wisdomkeepers and dreamers throughout the ages, and knowing you all are out there in tbhis one inspires me with even greater hope.
You all have even inspired me to finally do something with that Substack I created in May during the month of poetry. For me, it sometimes takes a season, or in this case three, to get there.
Over the years I have done the same. Inviting winter in, instead of resisting, It has been a process. But I truly am loving the slow and quiet. The dark and moody. Having a fire when I am cold...
This is delightful, Heidi! Thank you for lifting us from the binary and dualistic thinking. This is such an easy trap to fall into, or such a simple way of seeing the world. But it does not do us or the word justice, as you so beautifully put. We can love both and more, flowing through the ever changing rhythms of life like the seasons flow through and around us. I love this, "holding out my tongue to taste the dusty flakes, Winter has won me over..." That is lovely. I loved watching my children and friends do this very thing--and it always made me want to do the same. I have reallly appreciated your poems and words here, Heidi. Thank you so much! Blessings to you and your beloveds!
This is splendid, Kathryn. You are a gifted word weraver--"fragements once scattered find solace in harmony". Wow, that is a touching and delightful line.
I have been away the last few days so was not able to share my poems but did write them - thank you again Kaitlin for this space and the inspiration to create.
Thank you for this wonderful poem of wisdom, Jane. Integration does sound easy, and I find it so challenging. Thank you for naming that. I like your nod to community and solidarity and how we need the we and the me! Great work!
I love this, we can bring the out lying parts of us home and still know that we are already whole. Both exist together. Blessings on your new year A! May it inspire you in unimaginable ways!
I have been meaning to dig into it more! I understand the basic concept (which I mostly learned here on Substack) but haven't gone much beyond that. It was definitely in my mind while I was writing today! I'm glad you connected with it.
What a wonderfully creative poem, A. I love the way you weave through here, starting with pieces of yourself into that realization you have been whole all along! Inded you have and you are! Ashe! You are a wholistic wonderful being!
I'm so glad you've chosen to join us here, Chuck. Your poems are so raw and have a tendency to surprise me with unexpected humour, grief, delight, or - like today - kindness. I am always learning from your rough edges.
I love your images, Chuck - “yard sale flyer amidst a stack of heart melting love letters!” This poem feels every bit like a love letter, though . . . just a delightfully unconventional one. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Chuck! What a wonderful and gracious poem. I love "a scribbler among scribes..." I, too, reallly appreciate the space where all of us disparate, divergent and unique beings can come together united by poetry and many other wonderful things! I am grateful and glad you and I have been through three of these together now. Let's keep it up!
I too grew up hearing integration spoken of as if it were an offensive concept (70s/80s so post civil rights era but in a tumultuous part of Arkansas regarding racial relations). So it is the first place my mind flies when I hear the word. You expounded on it nicely as a process rather than a singular act. Lovely words.
Please wander all your want! Love this Larry, what a humble honest share here. And I totally agree, integration is a process. Life is continually unfolding and in this way integration travels along side it.
Thanks again Kaitlin for this amazing space to write, share and read poetry. Appreciated all your guidance. Blessings to you as you enter the New Year!
AN INSPIRATION OF INTEGRATION
Drawing abreast all the various parts of me,
joining with the numerous elements of existence.
A jigsaw puzzle of life, individual pieces adding to the landscape.
Each facet, an essential part of the gem.
Every ingredient necessary for the meal.
Hand in hand we link alongside one another.
Interlocking rows of threads weaving the web of life,
one by one we are the building blocks.
All of us the coherence of the heart, a symphony of instruments.
None of this is about conformity, nor based on domestication.
But an amazing collaboration of diversity.
Souls attuning together, interdependence within relationship.
This is so beautiful, Julie. You are truly an integrative thinker! And an inspiration to me! I have seen a couple of references to puzzles in reagrds to the word integration, and I smile. I am terrible at puzzles, and recall going through recovery for post concussion syndrome several years ago. I had a splendid OT among other great health and wellness practitioners, and she had me work on puzzles. Early on, she said, "this seems hard for you." I smiled and said, "it's aleays been hard for me!" Seeing puzzles as integration helps me look at the dang jigsaw puzzles differently
I appreciate you and your splendid writing and wisdom.
Thank you Larry, I appreciate your writing as well. Full of love and grace! Blessings for your new year, may it be filled with family, community and warm embraces.
This feels so resonant. I’ve definitely tried the whole locking-memories-into-their-respective caches thing! You manage to describe both that impulse and it’s impossibility/counter productivity so well.
This is piercing and stunning, Karri. I wonder if we are hard wired to compartmentalize and not want to mix experiences, and that an essential part of the journey is recalibrating and seeing and feeling the world holistically? I don’t know. I do know your poetry makes me think, ponder, reflect and review. Thank you for your writing, sharing and luminous presence.
Thank you for these prompts, Kaitlin! It's been such a fun week and a half of writing poems and appreciating what others come up with. For anyone else who has been enjoying this experience of writing with a community as much as I have, I want to let you know that I'm launching a Substack at 100poems.substack.com. My personal intention for the year is to write 100+ poems, and rather than doing that alone, I've decided to share and invite others to join me. If you subscribe (it's free), you'll receive a poem from me twice per week, but the real magic will (I hope) take place in the comments section, where all subscribers are invited to share their own poems and offer encouragement to one another. Since this is a brand new idea for me, there may be some shifts as the year goes on, but my plan for now is to offer a prompt one day per week and leave the other day open. I hope to see your lovely virtual faces there!
I'm on board too!
Yay and welcome!
can I bring my chainsaw?
Absolutely! As long as you use it for peaceful purposes.
🙂
I'm in too!
I’m so glad!!
These communal writing opportunities are so inspiring and encouraging for me. I can't wait to join you!
I feel the same way and am so glad you’re joining in!
Thank you Lisa! This is a wonderful idea! Count me in!
Yay! I'm so glad you'll be there.
I have not commented a lot but have kept up with the prompts and enjoyed my 2nd of your poetry series!
Sometimes I ask myself,
Which came first,
Me or the therapist?
Was I drawn to this work,
Because of my personality?
Or did it shape me?
Maybe there is not separation,
But instead an integration,
Making my self whole
I love the spirit you bring to your work, Liz! Your clients are lucky to have you.
I love this Liz! I like the way you wrap your identity as therapist into the larger whole of you. I am glad you are out there for folks. I have appreciated every single bit of wisdom you have shared. Thank you!
Also a therapist, and a question I've s also wrestled with over and over.
The starlings integrate
then disintegrate.
They spread like a wing across the sky
then break apart
in a thousand flutterings.
They peck at the ground,
draw up what they need,
then lift again,
pulsing like a single heart.
I too am a bird lover and watcher. And murmurations, they truly are wonderful.
Plus it’s such a fun word to say! Murmuration.
Funny, yes it truly is!
This is wonderful Lisa! You seem to so easily integrate pieces of your life and the world. You are especially adept at bringing nature and the wild places right to my consciousness and into focus so clearly. I appreciate you and your writing. You have truly inspired me! Thank you!
As a fellow bird and word nerd, I love and appreciate your introductory lines of starlings integrating and disintegrating, spreading like a wing across the sky.
Gorrrrrrrgeous!
Thank you so much, Heidi! I sat down to write, and they just appeared right outside my window. It's nice when the universe makes things easy on you like that!
I am looking forward to your 100 Poems!
My practice for the past 2 Aprils has been to write and post a poem a day on Instagram,, in honor of National Poetry Month.
Check them out @wakemanwords!
I don't have a Substack (yet!).
Do you like using this platform? It seems a great way to connect with fellow like minded peeps, around words, ideas, etc. and also another digital rabbit hole!
Heidi I created a substack but haven't done anything with it. I have a blog at Wordpress ( https://themarvelousandthemundane.com/) but the only people that see it usually are my family and friends when I cross post on FB, mostly because my hubby set it up and he has it locked down pretty tight security wise. :)
Kaitlin, thank you sincerely for the creation of this space. What a beautiful 10 days. The Liminality Journal and the gracious wisdom of your words and the compassion of the space you hold and create is beyond measure.
Thank you all who have participated in this tender 10 day journey. An integration has begun.
Deepest gratgitide to all fo those who have offered a poem or more, who have shared reflections, wonderings and wisdom,and have written such affirming, kind and encouraging notes to erach other. Some of you all I have encountered before in this virtual realm, and I am ecstatic to find you again. Some of you all are new to me, and what gifts you are. The world holds countless wisdomkeepers and dreamers throughout the ages, and knowing you all are out there in tbhis one inspires me with even greater hope.
You all have even inspired me to finally do something with that Substack I created in May during the month of poetry. For me, it sometimes takes a season, or in this case three, to get there.
Blessings to you all! Happy New Year!
Oh I am excited to see what creative love writings come out of this! Blessings on this new endeavor.
Oh, I can't wait to see more from you, Larry! Thank you for always showing up with such kindness and seeing the best in each of us.
I am so grateful to have encountered you in here, A. last May! What a delight!
Winter was never my favorite season
I lived for the summer: the freedom, the feeling of
Sun and sand, sweet tomatoes, cool lemonade, gentle mornings of just enough warmth
Before the day's heat
Relishing the pleasure of her brevity and bittersweet end in August
But
Being in the first snow of December, or January
Holding out my tongue to taste the dusty flakes
Winter has won me over
I can love both
Becoming whole, denying the binary of
If I love being warm, I hate the cold or
If I love summer, I must not love winter
Ice in the reservoir speaks to me in a language I am just learning
To appreciate and integrate into
A life of many seasons
Over the years I have done the same. Inviting winter in, instead of resisting, It has been a process. But I truly am loving the slow and quiet. The dark and moody. Having a fire when I am cold...
Heidi, this is so beautiful! The ending - a life of many seasons - really speaks to me.
I'm just now learning to love winter, too. It's wonderful, isn't it? I love "ice in the reservoir speaks to me in a language I am just learning"
This is delightful, Heidi! Thank you for lifting us from the binary and dualistic thinking. This is such an easy trap to fall into, or such a simple way of seeing the world. But it does not do us or the word justice, as you so beautifully put. We can love both and more, flowing through the ever changing rhythms of life like the seasons flow through and around us. I love this, "holding out my tongue to taste the dusty flakes, Winter has won me over..." That is lovely. I loved watching my children and friends do this very thing--and it always made me want to do the same. I have reallly appreciated your poems and words here, Heidi. Thank you so much! Blessings to you and your beloveds!
I love this - it doesn't have to be either/or
Creating a synthesis from disparate components
An alchemy of existence woven into the tapestry of life
Disparate threads entwining
Like the twilight sky, a convergence of contrasts
Fragments once scattered find solace in harmony
Shadows and light dance,
Each chord of discord finds its cadence
Integration of all parts to create more than their sum alone
I love this, Kathryn! Especially "convergence of contrasts" and "each chord of discord finds its cadence." The way you play with words is beautiful.
This is splendid, Kathryn. You are a gifted word weraver--"fragements once scattered find solace in harmony". Wow, that is a touching and delightful line.
💙💙💙
I have been away the last few days so was not able to share my poems but did write them - thank you again Kaitlin for this space and the inspiration to create.
Integration
Integration sounds easy
smooth, efficient, quickly accomplished.
Yet integration
means finding a way
to fit the pieces together
acknowledging our differences
our diversity
our fears
as we work for inclusion
with compassion
and care
Integration is not as simple as
2+1=3
you + me = we
It is weaving together, over time and with love
Acknowledging that I alone may not be enough
Beautiful - love, "Acknowledging that I alone may not be enough."
Happy to see you here again on this last day, Jane!
Thank you for this wonderful poem of wisdom, Jane. Integration does sound easy, and I find it so challenging. Thank you for naming that. I like your nod to community and solidarity and how we need the we and the me! Great work!
I keep finding pieces of
myself, shifting things
around and tucking
them gently into place,
parts into a whole;
parts I didn't know
I was missing at all,
until I found them.
But the parts haven't
made me whole,
just helped me grow.
I've finally realized
that I have been
whole all along.
I love this, we can bring the out lying parts of us home and still know that we are already whole. Both exist together. Blessings on your new year A! May it inspire you in unimaginable ways!
Thank you Julie! I hope the same for you!
Beautiful! I’m a big fan of IFS/parts work, so I’m really digging this poem.
I have been meaning to dig into it more! I understand the basic concept (which I mostly learned here on Substack) but haven't gone much beyond that. It was definitely in my mind while I was writing today! I'm glad you connected with it.
What a wonderfully creative poem, A. I love the way you weave through here, starting with pieces of yourself into that realization you have been whole all along! Inded you have and you are! Ashe! You are a wholistic wonderful being!
Thank you, my friend.
What a nice identity to hold, your friend!
You're always saying that others are a blessing. I hope you know that you are one as well!
Thank you A. I always need a kind reminder!
Like wordsmithing with a chainsaw,
a scribbler among scribes,
a yard sale flyer amidst a stack of heart melting love letters,
I integrate myself into a fine gaggle of most excellent..
Gracious..
Patient..
Encouraging..
and most powerful & energetic word crafters.
I thank you each one.
and kaitlin for her excellent sandbox.
amen.
I'm so glad you've chosen to join us here, Chuck. Your poems are so raw and have a tendency to surprise me with unexpected humour, grief, delight, or - like today - kindness. I am always learning from your rough edges.
I love your images, Chuck - “yard sale flyer amidst a stack of heart melting love letters!” This poem feels every bit like a love letter, though . . . just a delightfully unconventional one. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Chuck! What a wonderful and gracious poem. I love "a scribbler among scribes..." I, too, reallly appreciate the space where all of us disparate, divergent and unique beings can come together united by poetry and many other wonderful things! I am grateful and glad you and I have been through three of these together now. Let's keep it up!
I always start out with the intention to go short--alas, I tend to wander.
Integration
Integration! Seeing the word I rushed right to…
Google! And was graced with
definitions by trade, professions, association and fields;
Four types of integrations in a geometric plane;
Lots of synonyms and anagrams,
even the way math wonders use the term,
Trigger warning included.
I feel enlightened, but no more able
to craft a wise, witty or wonderful poem.
This young boy turned teenager heard it many times,
in my southern state that fought so long and hard,
against a word and process intended to bring equity, justice and harmony.
As the walls tumbled down, or were torn down by the inevitable
flow towards justice,
I came to understand that integration is not simply an action.
It is a process.
An alchemy of law, intention, spirit, soul, heart and mind.
Where word and action dance and debate,
and countless tender hearts can be harmed
along the way.
When it is done with compassion and kindness
it heals like Earth’s greatest wonders.
Now, at the other end of life’s luscious meadow,
I am still grappling with integration.
How to welcome in the shadows with the light,
The annoying or dysfunctional with the endearing,
the hoped for self with the reality.
It is a process, this integration.
With love and grace, it will be done.
I too grew up hearing integration spoken of as if it were an offensive concept (70s/80s so post civil rights era but in a tumultuous part of Arkansas regarding racial relations). So it is the first place my mind flies when I hear the word. You expounded on it nicely as a process rather than a singular act. Lovely words.
Thank you for sharing, Karri. Integration in a human rights context is truly a process and a long time coming. Happy New Year!
Please wander all your want! Love this Larry, what a humble honest share here. And I totally agree, integration is a process. Life is continually unfolding and in this way integration travels along side it.
“How to welcome in the shadows in the light” . . . beautiful . . . and that’s very much a thing I’m still learning, too!
Thank you Lisa. It feels like a lifetime lesson for me.
"With love and grace, it will be done," indeed ❤️
Thanks again Kaitlin for this amazing space to write, share and read poetry. Appreciated all your guidance. Blessings to you as you enter the New Year!
AN INSPIRATION OF INTEGRATION
Drawing abreast all the various parts of me,
joining with the numerous elements of existence.
A jigsaw puzzle of life, individual pieces adding to the landscape.
Each facet, an essential part of the gem.
Every ingredient necessary for the meal.
Hand in hand we link alongside one another.
Interlocking rows of threads weaving the web of life,
one by one we are the building blocks.
All of us the coherence of the heart, a symphony of instruments.
None of this is about conformity, nor based on domestication.
But an amazing collaboration of diversity.
Souls attuning together, interdependence within relationship.
We are more than the sum of the parts.
This prompt was made for you, Julie. You're a wonder at integration.
This is so beautiful, Julie. You are truly an integrative thinker! And an inspiration to me! I have seen a couple of references to puzzles in reagrds to the word integration, and I smile. I am terrible at puzzles, and recall going through recovery for post concussion syndrome several years ago. I had a splendid OT among other great health and wellness practitioners, and she had me work on puzzles. Early on, she said, "this seems hard for you." I smiled and said, "it's aleays been hard for me!" Seeing puzzles as integration helps me look at the dang jigsaw puzzles differently
I appreciate you and your splendid writing and wisdom.
Thank you Larry, I appreciate your writing as well. Full of love and grace! Blessings for your new year, may it be filled with family, community and warm embraces.
I keep my memories carefully separated.
Segregated if you will.
One from another.
I don’t want the good times intermingling with the bad.
Those were sad years, let’s keep them away from those wonderful days.
And oh those months of mediocrity?
Well they are just best left in that pile over there.
But as much as I try to keep my memories in their respective caches.
I realize they cross over and intermingle.
One with the other.
The integration of all of my experiences essential to who I have become.
-Karri Temple Brackett
12/30/23
This feels so resonant. I’ve definitely tried the whole locking-memories-into-their-respective caches thing! You manage to describe both that impulse and it’s impossibility/counter productivity so well.
This is piercing and stunning, Karri. I wonder if we are hard wired to compartmentalize and not want to mix experiences, and that an essential part of the journey is recalibrating and seeing and feeling the world holistically? I don’t know. I do know your poetry makes me think, ponder, reflect and review. Thank you for your writing, sharing and luminous presence.
Beautiful!