Archive for the 'Writing for healing' Category

Love Poems and Love Poets

Published on April 23, 2012 in Author Blog, Poetry, writer blog and Writing for healing.

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There could never be enough love in the world. At the same time there can never be enough love poems. The writing and reading of love poetry feels good for the poet and good for the reader. For the poet, it is a way to get in touch with your deepest feelings and sensibilities. It is a way to get down to your real emotional truth, whether you are writing it out of love, loss or despair.

Everyone can write love poems as a way of rejoicing and healing and I have my own share accumulated on the pages of my journals.

For me the first line of a poem sets the mood, stage and tone for the rest of the poem. First lines are often what we remember and also the lines that inspire us to read on.

Here are some first lines from some of my favorite love poems:

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“Love one another, but make not a bond of love” – Khalil Gibran
“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” – William Shakespeare
“Wild nights – wild nights” – Emily Dickinson
“I am not yours, not lost in you” Sara Teasdale
“What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest” – Rumi
“When you are old and grey and full of sleep” – W.B. Yeats
“In silence the heart raves” – Robert Penn Warren
“Lay your sleeping head, my love” – W.H. Auden
“How many years I must have yearned for someone’s lips against mine” – Stephen Dunn
“Love has taken away my practices and filled me with poetry”- Rumi

When people ask who my favorite poet is, I smile and say, “it is the poet I am reading at the time.” Lately, I have been reading a lot of Neruda, so he is my favorite now I can claim him to be my favorite. Most of my readers know that he has written many, many love poems. In most of the translated collections I have, English is on the right page, and Spanish is on the left. I wish I understood Spanish so I can read in both languages.

Here is one of my favorites:

If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda

Poetry and Medicine

Published on April 16, 2012 in Aging, Alternative Medicine, Author Blog, National Poetry Month, Poetry, writer blog, writing and Writing for healing.

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In honor of National Poetry Month, I would like to talk about the link between physicians and poetry. During the course of history there have been many physicians who practiced medicine and were poets. William Carlos Williams is typically the doctor who comes to mind as someone who wrote poems between patients on the prescription pad he kept in his pocket. One of my favorite quotations of his is: “It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.”

Other physician-poets include John Keats, Chekhov, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. In my view, the connection is quite clear. Poets tend to be in touch with their deepest emotions and the best physicians are those who are also able to tap into the deepest part of the psyche. In other words, they have the innate ability to connect emotionally with themselves and their patients. Taking this one step further we can use the analogy of the rhythm of a poem being a metaphor for the rhythm of a breath and/or a heartbeat.

Poetry has been incorporated into a number of medical school programs, including Yale and Harvard Schools of Medicine. In a recent article in the New York Times called, “The Doctor as Poet,” (December 1, 2011), by Pauline Chen, M.D. explains how poetry can help physicians empathize and understand what a patient is going through. This can be done by both the reading and writing of poetry. Dr. Rafeael Campo of Harvard Medial school, who is also an award-winning poet, talks about Marilyn Hacker’s “Cancer Winter” which helps her colleagues understand a patient receiving a cancer diagnosis.

In his fabulous book, the Call of Stories, writer and physician Robert Coles, talks about how over the centuries poets who became ill were also inspired to share their experience through poetry. He says, “It prompted them to look not only inward but also backward and forward–to ask the most important and searching questions about life’s meaning.” Coles is an advocate of all narratives and in his book he accentuates the power of poetry and how he admires poets and the merging of poetry and medicine. “Like patients,” he says, “poets are probably holding on for dear life to some words.”

Here is one of William Carlos Williams’ poems, most probably inspired by one of his patients:

Complaint

They call me and I go.
It is a frozen road
past midnight, a dust
of snow caught
in the rigid wheeltracks.
The door opens.
I smile, enter and
shake off the cold.
Here is a great woman
on her side in the bed.
She is sick,
perhaps vomiting,
perhaps laboring
to give birth to
a tenth child. Joy! Joy!
Night is a room
darkened for lovers,
through the jalousies the sun
has sent one golden needle!
I pick the hair from her eyes
and watch her misery
with compassion.

Happy National Poetry Month !

Published on April 2, 2012 in Author Blog, National Poetry Month, Poetry, writer blog, writing, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

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April is National Poetry month, which has been in existence since 1996. In honor of the month-long celebration, I would like to mention my new collection of poems released this month, LISTENING TO AFRICA (Antrim House).

This book was inspired by a family trip to Africa in 2008. It was my first, but probably not my last trip to Africa, and in more ways than one, it was a life-changing experience. We were there for three weeks and visited Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

During my travels, I typically keep a journal, and this trip was no exception. By the end of the safari, I had accumulated 62 pages of typed text, which also included an array of poems. After returning home, I transformed some text into poems and thus the birth of a new poetry collection.

First I would like to share some tidbits about the African continent that I learned before our departure:
• Africa is the second largest and second most populated continent.
• Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas.
• The climate ranges from tropical to sub arctic.
• The northern part is mainly dessert; central and southern areas consist of savannas and very dense jungles or rainforests.
• Animals found in Africa consist of both herbivores (deer, antelope, giraffes, buffalo) and carnivores (lions, cheetah, hyenas) and omnivores.
• Africa is one of the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped continents mainly because of tropical diseases, corrupt governments and international trade regimes.
• There are more than 1000 languages spoken in Africa.

Here is information from the back cover of LISTENING TO AFRICA:

In her quest for health of mind and body, Diana Raab travels to the heart of Africa with her family, experiencing the beauty of another world and the distress but also the delight and dignity of those, both human and animal, living in difficult conditions. She has recorded her observations in Listening to Africa, a collection of poems welcomed gratefully by early readers.
Susan Wooldridge, the author of poemcrazy: freeing your life with words, has written that “Diana M. Raab makes a pilgrimage from the ‘familiar neon of home’ in America to Africa, bringing her family, her passion and her pen. Her moving words carry us with her in narrative poems replete with vision, humor and irony. In her inner and outer journey, the poet transforms fear and sadness into beauty and love as her heart opens ‘in this place which will remind you of your reason for living.’

And finally, a sample poem:

48-Hour Travel

Should you decide
to take a safari here

you might want to consider
packing some meager comforts of home,

even though they will do little
to protect you from

its haunting newness.
But still, take a two-day supply of patience,

ear plugs, sleeping pills, a few good books,
a thick journal and a pound of prevention,

the comprehensive pill bag
with compartments for each ail.

If you plan on foreign intimacy,
don’t rely on public bathrooms

to supply your protection—
be prepared with your own custom size.

For game rides, snatch volumes
of insect repellant and sunscreen

and a wrinkled ribbed hat,
to shield your neck

from the last blow
of the jungle’s sunset.
____________________________

You can order the book from the publisher, http://antrimhousebooks.com/raab.html

OR

from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Listening-Africa-Diana-M-Raab/dp/1936482185

In either case if you email me I would be happy to send you a personalized book plate.

Happy reading!
Diana

Writing Is Cheaper Than Therapy

Published on March 26, 2012 in 1960s, Anais Nin, Author Blog, cathartic writing, Creativity, Depression, Health and Wellness, New York Times, writer blog, writing and Writing for healing.

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My colleagues and I would not be the first writers who write to dissipate pain. For example, D.H. Lawrence sat at his mother’s bedside and while she was dying, he wrote poems about her, and an early draft of Sons and Lovers, his novel which explored their complicated, loving, painful and close relationship. Marcel Proust wrote Remembrance of Things Past while sick in bed with asthma. Flannery O’Connor wrote some of her best stories while dying from lupus.

May Sarton and Anaïs Nin wrote in their diaries to pull them through difficult times. In her book, Recovering, May Sarton chronicles her battles with depression and cancer. Anaïs Nin used her journals to address her deranged father who left the family when she was young. Nin’s journal entries became a four-volume collection of published books.

James Pennebaker, the author of Writing to Heal says “Writing dissolves some of the barriers between you and others. If you write, it’s easier to communicate with others.” Pennebaker believes that there’s a certain type of writing which erupts when we’re faced with loss, death, abuse, depression and trauma. He does have one rule that he calls, “the flip out rule,” which proclaims that if you get too upset when writing, then it’s probably best to stop.
Whether affected by change, loss or pain, finding the time and courage to write can support the healing process. Some people prefer to write nonfiction, while others may choose fiction or poetic modalities to help them express their thoughts and feelings. Each writer must choose the genre most compatible with their stories, sensibilities and personalities, choosing what liberates and empowers them. In the end, this is what healing is all about.

A writer friend (thanks KB!) who is an avid reader of this blog, just forwarded me an article from the magazine section of the New York Times (March 23, 2012), called, “Why Talk Therapy is on the Wane and Writing Workshops Are on the Rise,” by Steve Almond. Coincidentally, I met Steve at AWP a number of years ago, where he was on a panel and I remember him not only because his talk was compelling, but because he stood at the side of the podium giving away copies of his newly-release book, an unusual gesture for writers. As the son of two therapists, he truly knows what he is talking about. In this article, he defends writing as a cure, particularly in this boom of memoir and biography and the idea, as he states, that “artists should be forged by the fires of ‘real life.’” Almond is teaching a workshop for those in their 50s and 60s (yes, my age group) and admits that it does not really matter whether they become published writers or not. The important thing is that the students “have found a way to face the toughest truths within themselves, to begin to make sense of them, and maybe even beauty. In a world that feels increasingly impersonal and atomized, I can’t think of a more thrilling mission,” he concludes.

Addicted to Writing

Published on January 30, 2012 in Creative Nonfiction, Healing With Words, Health, Uncategorized and Writing for healing.

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Dear Readers:

My new book WRITERS ON THE EDGE: 22 Writers Speak About Addiction and Dependence (Modern History Press) http://www.LHPress.com/writers, is being released on Wednesday, February 1st … Read about it and the idea of writers also being addicted to writing in my latest Huffington Post Post below:

Also, if you live in the greater Los Angeles area, come to the big book launch on February 25th at 4pm. Refreshments served. Surprise guests also!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-m-raab/the-need-to-write_b_1234878.html

Have a great week!

Diana

Telling Personal Stories

Published on January 9, 2012 in Author Blog, Baby Boomers, Creative Nonfiction, Depression, Huffington Post, Memoir, writer blog, writing, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

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When I was in grade school I wanted to be a writer and one of the first things my English teacher told me was that to be a good writer you must be a good reader. Since that day, I have been a lover of books and have some ever-lasting visual memories of my mother taking me to the library and coming home with a stack of books piled all the way up to my chin.

My preference has always been to read real stories written by real people doing real things. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “No matter where you begin, read anything for five hours a day and you will soon be knowing.” My parents used to tell me that “knowledge is power,” and after having survived World War II and having lost most of their possessions as a result, they believed that knowledge was something that could not be taken away from you.

While growing up and through my teen years, I devoured biographies. I enjoyed compelling stories about spiritual journeys and also about other teens adjusting to the trials and tribulations of adolescence. Later, when my daughter got mixed up in a bad crowd, I sought stories written by other parents to help me cope with raising a strong-minded and rebellious adolescent. I even wrote a few of my own stories on the subject. When faced with cancer, I read cancer survivor stories. All these stories helped me navigate difficult times. Reading and learning about people in similar situations helped me realize that I was not alone in my journey.
The ringing in of a new year is a good time to come to grips with what might have plagued us in the previous year.

Journaling is a good way to do this, and another way is to read and hear the voices of others who have been in similar difficult situations. This was my impetus for compiling with co-editor, Jim Brown, my forthcoming anthology, Writers on The Edge: 22 Writers Discuss Dependency and Depression. As renowned author Jerry Stahl states in the foreword, “Open to any piece in this collection, and the scalding, unflinching, overwhelming truths within will shine light on places most people never look.” In fact these are the places many people want to visit – the dark places which are the most difficult to face. Many of us have experienced or at least been exposed to someone with an addiction or depression and the writers in this collection share their stories with honesty and candor. Some write as a cathartic exercise, while at the same time helping others through their own tenuous times. These short essays, confessions, or mini-memoirs share the author’s emotional truth about their addiction. The stories offer hope and ideas and all have a positive slant discussing addictions such as drugs, alcohol, food, sex, love, and gambling.

Poet Chase Twichell in her essay, “Toys in the Attic,” says, “A poem is a portrait of consciousness. It’s a recording of the motions of a mind in time, a mind communicating to others the experience of its own consciousness. When I read or write a poem, I’m trying to open a window between my mind and the minds of others. Poetry is written for others. But it’s also a study of the self, which is a private kind of work.”
In discussing memoir, William Zinnser in his classic book, Inventing the Truth, says, “Memoir is how we make sense of who we are, who we once were, and what values and heritage shaped us.” In another book, Writing About Your Life, he beautifully states, “We come from a tribe of fallible people, prisoners of our own destructiveness, and we have endured to tell the story without judgment and to get on with our lives.” The authors in Writers on the Edge do just that, whether they were involved in a twelve-step program or used writing as a healing modality—they have all succeeded despite their demons, and lead productive lives.

Reading the stories of others can help you learn about yourself. Discoveries are made, memories are revealed and wisdom is shared. Memoir writers courageously face the issues of their pasts and they can serve as role models for all of us. Their stories can provide an understanding of the inner workings of different types of people. Sometimes hearing someone else’s transformative story can inspire you to write your own, keeping in mind that the best writers allow the reader to formulate their own conclusion about the dark places that they or loved ones visit.

Please make your comments here and on where this article was originally published:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-m-raab/the-power-of-personal-sto_b_1187170.html

Have a super week!
Diana

Thank You Cancer ….

Published on October 23, 2011 in Author Blog, breast cancer, Healing With Words, Huffington Post, Journaling, writer blog and Writing for healing.

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Dear Readers

There is no cancer in my family, no cancer of any kind, except for mine. I am now 57 and it’s been 10 years since my diagnosis and I have never felt better.

Read more on my latest blog entry in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, on The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/red-room/breast-cancer-surgery-_b_967025.html

Here’s to your health ..

Namaste,
Diana

Writers and Their Dark Places

Published on October 17, 2011 in 1960s, Author Blog, Blog, cathartic writing, Healing With Words, Huffington Post, writer blog and Writing for healing.

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When I was ten years old my grandmother and caretaker committed suicide in her bedroom beside mine. It was Labor Day weekend and I knocked on her bedroom door to see if I could swim in a friend’s pool. With a child’s intuition, I knew something was seriously wrong and phoned my mother at work. Within minutes, an ambulance arrived at the front door. They took my grandmother away on a stretcher and I never saw her again. The emotions and visuals from that experience left me with an indelible wound which writing helped me heal.

It was the 1960s, a time when children were not typically welcome at funerals. Instead, my mother bought me a gold-embossed Khalil Gibran journal with sayings on the top of each page. She left me with a babysitter and told me to write down my feelings on the pages of my new journal.

To read more … check out my blog post in THE HUFFINGTON POST..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-m-raab/writers-and-their-dark-pl_b_994138.html


Have a good week !

Namaste,
Diana

The Magic of Number Ten

Published on August 22, 2011 in Author Blog, Creative Nonfiction, Creativity, General Information, Healing With Words, Health, Health and Wellness, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

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I believe in and have a high regard for the number ten. In many ways, it’s regarded as the perfect number. Today, I have even more reason to believe in this number as I celebrate the 10th anniversary of my breast cancer survival. In my self-help memoir, Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey, you can read about my journey. Also, at the end of each chapter there are writing prompts for you to do your own writing, whether about cancer or other life-changing events.

While we are on the ten-year-thing, here are some other reasons why I believe 10 is an important number:

• The number 10 implies a sense of completeness and full cycle
• A scale of 1 to 10 is used for ranking things
• There are 10 pins in a bowling lane
• There are 10 official inkblots in the Rorschach inkblot test
• The Snellen chart uses 10 different letters
• We have 10 digits on both our hands and feet
• Ten plagues were inflicted on Egypt in Exodus
• There are 10 Commandments – the cornerstone of Christianity and Judaism
• Jews observe 10 days of Repentance from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur
• There are 10 provinces in Canada
• In the Torah, Jews give 1/10 the of their produce to the poor
• The number 10 is the base of our number system
• In numerology the number 10 brings all sorts of new changes in your life

And finally Verse 10 in Jack Kerouac’s Sutra (Scripture of the Golden Eternity, 1960) says this:

“Kindness and sympathy, understanding and encouragement, these give; they are better than just presents and gifts: no reason in the world why not.”
~ Jack Kerouac

Wake Up Calls

Published on July 25, 2011 in Author Blog, Creativity, Healing With Words, Health and Wellness, Journals, July, Musings, Spirituality, writer blog, Writing for healing and Writing, journaling.

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At one point in your life, you will have what is commonly known as a “wake up call,” or an “ah-ha moment” chances are you will be happier when a health problem causes you to wake up and pay attention to yourself and your body. A wake-up call is a cause for action. In fact, having a wake-up call can save your life. You never know when this might happen or how many wake up calls you might encounter in your lifetime, but in addition to taxes and death, these events are sure to arrive.

I have been blessed with numerous wake-up calls. I say blessed because they have all served me as inspiration and material for my life as a writer. As a result, my philosophy has been to embrace any difficulties or tumultuous times by trying to turn a negative experience into a positive one. In essence, it’s easier to understand and appreciate the light after we have experienced the dark.

Much of the key to happiness is making the most of a wake-up call. Recently, I picked up a book called, The Way of The Happy Woman by Sara Avant Stover which reminded me of the importance of tapping into these moments. The author suggests illuminating our compassion, beauty, sensuality, nurturing, creativity and receptivity – all attributes which remind us of who we are.

Although the book is written for women—the principles really apply to both sexes. It reminds us to embrace who we are and to honor self-love as a key to happiness and continued good health.

According to Stover, “Love is the essence of who we are. She says, and I agree, that at the end of our lives what really matters is “How well we loved.”

The basic tenet of the book is to simply slow down. As the Buddhists advocate—live in the moment. Stover says that the Chinese character for busyness translates as ‘heart killing.’

Summer is a fabulous time to slow down, watch the flowers grow and children play. Summer is also a good time to crack open a new journal. I was delighted that in the book’s first chapter, Stover had an extensive section on how to do this. She discussed the power of journaling and how over the course of her lifetime, journals have been her best friend and were there for her as she chronicled various milestones. She provides many similar journaling tips as I do in my own classes. For example:

• visit your favorite book or stationary store and choose a journal which resonates with you
• write your name and the date on the top of the page
• make a list of what’s on your mind at this moment and/or something you have not been able to talk to anyone about
• from your list choose the one you most want to explore in your journal
• list three of your strongest emotions about the situation and where you feel them in your body
• write three ways you can support yourself during difficult times (i.e. deep breathing, walking, exercising, meditating, gratitude journaling)

This book offers many tips, but I think the most pertinent one is that journaling will help you with self-expression which is also important when it comes to your connection with others, and saying what is on your mind, and helping your figure out what brings you pleasure.

So whether you have had a recent wake-up call or not, try this: Tomorrow morning, wake up and say, “Today I choose happiness.”