Archive for the 'writing' 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.

Dedicated to The Week of Love

Published on February 13, 2012 in Author Blog, Creative Nonfiction, Letter Writing, Memoir, Memory, Valentine's Day and writer blog.

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Whether you believe in Hallmark Card Days like Valentine’s Day or not, this week would be a good time to think of someone you love, either alive or passed. In the journaling classes I teach, I often suggest writing a love letter or poem to someone. Whether you send it or not is not important, the important thing is that you express what is in your heart. My dad passed away twenty-one years ago, and I always use this day to write him and tell him how much I miss him and what is going on in my life.

Lately, for my doctoral studies, I have been reading a great deal of the Sufi poet, Rumi and I am blown away by his words and sentiments. There are numerous translations of Rumi’s work, but have found the translations by Coleman Barks to be the post powerful and compelling. As Barks says in his introduction to The Essential Rumi, his poems, “are food and drink, nourishment for the part that is hungry for what they give. Call it soul,” (p. xv). Barks goes on to say that his poems help us feel what living in “the ruins feels like…heartbroken, wandering, wordless, lost, and ecstatic for no reason. It’s the psychic space his poems inhabit” (p. xvi). All these feelings are what we all feel now and then and that’s why his poems have resonated with me and so many others over the years. They just fill us up when we are empty and illuminate all that is good when we feel good.

It’s not easy choosing one of my favorite Rumi love poems … I simply adore all of them … but to me, this one is a keeper to be read over and over again.

Buoyancy
by Rumi

Love has taken away my practices
and filled me with poetry.

I tried to keep quietly repeating,
No strength but yours,
but I couldn’t.

I had to clap and sing.
I used to be respectable and chaste and stable,
but who can stand in this strong wind
and remember those things?

A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.
That’s how I hold your voice.

I am scrap wood thrown in your fire,
and quickly reduced to smoke.

I saw you and became empty.
This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,
it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,
existence thrives and creates more existence!

The sky is blue. The world is a blind man
squatting on the road.

But whoever sees your emptiness
sees beyond blue and beyond the blind man.

A great soul hides like Muhammad, or Jesus,
moving through a crowd in a city
where no one knows him.

To praise is to praise
how one surrenders
to the emptiness.

To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.
Praise, the ocean. What we say, a little ship.

So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where!
Just to be held by the ocean is the best of luck
we could have. It’s a total waking up!

Why should we grieve that we’ve been sleeping?
It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been unconscious.

We’re groggy, but let the guilt go.
Feel the motions of tenderness
around you, the buoyancy.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S WEEK TO ALL MY READERS!

Namaste,
Diana

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

Tribute to John Lennon — 31 years later …

Published on December 12, 2011 in Author Blog, Baby Boomers, inspiration, Journaling, Journals, writer blog and writing.

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(October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980)

Last week celebrated the 31st anniversary of John Lennon’s death. As a hippie of the 1960s, who danced and made love to his music all day and night, my memories of his essence and songs will live with me forever. Like the rest of America, I remember seeing him first appear as part of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1965. There was something about the music, which resonated with everyone, and the proof is that The Beatles were one of the most successful commercial groups in the history of popular music. What is even more interesting is how the lyrics can continue to resonate in your head even this many years later. Lennon had an edge to him and perhaps it was his rebellious nature, politically, socially and musically which really resonated with many of us. Rolling Stone Magazine rated him the 5th greatest singer of all time. As what you might expect from a man with five sisters, he really understood women and his relationship with Yoko Ono is one, which many of us admired.

I just finished a few pages in my journal dedicated to Lennon and the powerful influence he had in my life. In addition to loving his music, I have another connection with Lennon. My last boyfriend, before getting married lived in the Dakota, and I know exactly where he got shot by Mark David Chapman. But that’s another story…
Check out this You-Tube of Lennon and one of my favorite songs of his: IMAGINE…

Here are the lyrics:

IMAGINE
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

Serendipity, Synchronicity and Stanilav Grof

Published on December 5, 2011 in Author Blog, Baby Boomers, Creativity, Psychology, Spirituality, writer blog and writing.

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Serendipity and synchronicity are two words that I always get mixed up, yet I am fascinated by them both. As a writer I decided I should use make a more gallant attempt to use the words appropriately, so in the past week I have done some reading. Here’s what I learned. Serendipity refers to happy events which occur by chance, such as when you meet the love of your life at the most opportune time. It is a form of luck in someone’s life. Synchronicity refers to a series of thoughts or events that seem to be related but their connections are not overtly obvious. It is a coincidence that can be accompanied by a feeling that there is a reason or purpose behind occurrences, such as when you keep seeing the same person over and over in different places and think, “ok we should introduce ourselves, there’s a reason we keep running into one another.” These occurrences are usually difficult to explain as was something which happened to me last week.
Every Tuesday night some local writers gather for drinks at a local bar here in Santa Barbara. It’s casual and everyone attends when they can. We all have a great time when we are all together, as if no time passed in between. Due to travel and work load I had not been in about two months, but something compelled me to attend last week. I arrived late and there were no seats left around the table for ten. Two gracious male writers hunted down a chair for me and put it beside the only person I did not know at the table. Her name was Melodie Sullivan. We introduced ourselves to one another. On the table in front of her was a children’s book. “Melody has a new book,” another writer told me from the other side of the table. “That’s awesome,” I said picking it up. There was a beautiful illustration of a caterpillar on the cover and in the lower right corner Melody’s name as the writer and beneath it was “Stanilov Grof, illustrator.” Grof was the keynote speaker at my first seminar at The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in September where I am doing my doctorate. I had written a blog about him on his fascinating research September 5th, 2011.
I wish I could have seen my face at that moment when I saw his name on the cover of a children’s book, the last place I thought I would see the name of a man who has researched non-ordinary states of consciousness for healing and who has researched the effect of LSD on the psyche!
“How do you know him?” I asked. She sighed and said, “Now that’s a long story.” In short she took one of his breath work seminars. In talking to him she learned that he was an illustrator and when she decided to write a book about one of her dreams, she solicited his illustrations. She told me that his passion in his younger years was to be an illustrator and by some fluke (another interesting story) he ended up studying psychology. I glanced at the bio note on the back flap and there was nothing mentioned about his psychology background. We joked and I said, “I noticed they didn’t mention anything about his work with LSD.
“Ha,” she added, “We decided that would not be something to add to a children’s book and my publicist said that the mention that he was a therapist might, in fact, hurt book sales!”
We laughed together, however, I returned home and thought that was not very comforting for me, the writer who is studying to be a psychologist, but so be it!
I walked away in awe and at home watched a video of Grof reading this fabulous book. If you are in need of a children’s book for a holiday gift, this would be a great option — and might be in line with your studies. Here it is:

Tribute to James Hillman

Published on November 14, 2011 in Author Blog, Creative Nonfiction, Creativity, Psychology and writing.

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(April 12, 1926 – October 27, 2011)

As a new student in psychology the first book we were asked to read in my doctorate program at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology was The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling. This book had a huge impact on me. First, as someone who has numerous degrees from health administration to journalism, to creative nonfiction and now transpersonal psychology, I feel that my soul is still calling me and steering me.

In this book Hillman professes that we are “born with a character; it given; a gift, as the old stories say, from the guardians upon your birth.” His ideas characterize what has been known as the “acorn theory,” whereby it is said that we all hold potential unique characteristics similar to the pattern of an oak tree. In a psychologically healthy life, these unique characteristics are manifested throughout a person’s lifespan, and will be manifested in what is known as their “calling,” or what I prefer to call, “one’s true passion.” The Romans called it “your genius,” and the Greeks called it “your daimon.” Others might call it “your destiny.” Whatever term you are comfortable with works just fine. This concept goes beyond the nature nurture tenet we most often hear about. The acorn theory goes much deeper into the soul or person’s psyche. Sometimes people know their calling early in life and they become possessed by it. This is often seen amongst creative individuals, such as writers, artists and inventors.

My forthcoming book, Writers on the Edge (Modern History Press, February 2012) is a collection of essays written by well-published writers who have not only used writing to help them navigate through tenuous times, but also writers who knew quite early in their lives that they were destined to be writers. Many had turbulent childhoods that resulted in expressing their frustrations creatively through writing. Interestingly, in terms of general success, Hillman says, “According to biographers, the source of success appears to lie in a mother’s doting—or in her neglectful selfishness, which forces an offspring out on its own.”

Hillman passed away on October 27, 2011 at the age of 85. He was a psychologist, scholar, lecturer and author of more than twenty books. He’s considered a Jungian analyst originated the post-Jungian “archetypical psychology.” This branch of psychology identifies with fantasies and myths (gods, goddesses, demigods, mortals and animals), which he claimed, shape and are shaped by our psychological lives. Hillman taught in numerous academic and professional institutions including, Yale University, Syracuse University, the University of Chicago and others. He passed away in his home in Connecticut.