Ode to Transformation
“Rest in the knowledge that you are held in loving kindness like a lotus rising pure from muddy waters.”
—Quan Yin, Buddhist goddess of compassion
Finally, the last stone wall collapses.
All hiding places forsake their secrets,
free now to become wings and dust.
Time to rest in being-held
and receive a new way of living within the well.
So, let us enter stillness—
become trusting and liquid as cats bathing
in sun puddles on a January day—
the sky now everywhere visible
through stark branches of trees.
Oh, flowing river of sorrow and struggle—
find your way through limestone
and wash through us gently
clearing, cleansing
until we are so brimming, rinsed and ripe
that seeds harboring dreams
gain deep root,
then ready stem
and rise, rise, rise
through rippling darkness
toward distant light
surfacing, surfacing
into wild bloom.
Cyra Sweet Dumitru
Purpose
To offer writing circles, readings and publications that provide nourishing, creative, kind and supportive spaces for people to process complicated life experiences and uplift their spirit—enhancing their courage, resilience, trust and joy. To generate radiant ripples that move inwardly through body and soul, and outwardly into the community.
Start with a Phrase
by “In the Shelter of Poetry” Community
Follow your heart
like a compass.
Bring forth your voice and speak.
Start with a phrase.
Let it have light
and dignity; dream
what it could be.
Philosophy
Poetry writing cultivates the imagination, amplifies the soul’s voice into our body’s hearing, provides safe space for all feelings, mirrors joy and deep truth, offers playful ways to shape very serious content, cultivates trust in our innate wholeness and instinct for healing, helps us discover and claim who we most want to be, and can be shared as a way of speaking fully and rebuilding trust with the larger world.
Contact
For poetry medicine circles or presentations on poetry as medicine.
For more information about poetry medicine and healing opportunities offered by The Institute for Poetic Medicine, founded by John Fox, please visit poeticmedicine.org.
HOW POETRY SERVES AS MEDICINE
Poetry is the natural voice of the human soul; it lives within each of us
“Poetry is a natural medicine . . . Poetry helps us to feel our lives rather than be numb. The page, touched with our poem, becomes a place for painful feelings to be held, explored and transformed. Writing and reading poems is a way of seeing and naming where we have been, where we are and where we are going with our lives.”
John Fox, Certified Poetry Therapist, Poetic Medicine
“Poetry Circle is like a deep tissue massage for the mind and soul. You can feel the contracted tension you have kept for so long in your body slowly fade away. Once it is all over, there is almost this euphoric high, and you notice that even breathing has become easier.”
D. Garcia, participant of “In the Shelter of Poetry” Circle for 3 years
Poem-making engages our creative mind & spirit.
It can provide:
Catharsis: Creative release of unspoken yet deeply lodged feelings & images.
Insight: The poem becomes a way for the deeply lodged inner life—that otherwise might feel hidden, confused, silenced—to emerge and become more visible. The poem helps the poet feel more real, clarified.
Here is my poem: here is my voice: here is my truth: recognize it.
Personal Growth & Empowerment: Writing & shaping poems creates deeply personal meaning. It is a process that allows us to define what our life experiences mean. While we can’t change what happened to us, we can change our relationship to that experience. Gradually, we can integrate painful experiences into a larger sense of self, and decide how we want to move forward.
We can read & reread a healing poem, absorbing more & more of its healing wisdom; return to it for strength, solace, perspective, encouragement.
We as poets/clients can choose to share our poems with trusted others. Poems can say things we can’t otherwise speak. In this way, a poem can serve as a bridge for communicating. Poems can reduce our sense of isolation & build connection with ourselves, and with other people.
Complex realities are often most deeply communicated through metaphor. Metaphors are landscapes of feelings, perceptions, beliefs that can teach and transform when mindfully explored. As we write, metaphors often arise spontaneously within the poem. Awareness of them can change how we live.
Poem-making is a creative, spiritual practice which empowers a personality when sustained over time. This practice cultivates deep self-knowledge and self-trust, an open heart, an open mind, resilience, empathy, patience.
The Role of the Poetry Medicine Practitioner
Acts as midwife: assisting & supporting other people as they use writing to birth meaning within their core selves. Supports each person’s unique process of inward listening, realization, discernment, creation, and change.
Serves as compassionate witness. Listens. Notices. Recognizes. Affirms.
Uses carefully selected poems/stories as a starting point/catalyst for people to engage intimately with themselves; facilitates the exploration of feelings, memories, and identity within a safe, welcoming, nonjudgmental space.
Assists individuals and groups to find their own meaning and to experience their own feelings as they engage with the imagery, metaphors, and narrative details of a poem: both their own poems, and poems written by others.
Enables individuals to interact with their own poems as a means of deepening self-discovery, and comprehending their own feelings and insight.
Makes poetry approachable, invitational, within reach. Offers prompts that invite others to write honestly, even if they have no experience with poetry.
Selects poems that will meet people where they are: poems that speak to their life circumstances honestly, with some nuance, and degree of hopefulness.
Helps others feel empowered psychologically and spiritually through their engagement with the wisdom and truth of poetry—poems written by other people as well as their own poems.