Tag Archives: poetry
Steven Handel, in his article, “The Power of Dark Humor: The Healing Effects of Joking About Death, Illness, and Depression,” makes this observation: “One big aspect of mental health is that we must give ourselves permission to be negative every now and then, and learning to channel our dark side in a healthy way is important for becoming a fully developed human being.”1 The focus of the article, as the title suggests, is how allowing trauma’s darkness to be expressed…..
…it is really the vision of the artist that gives life to the expression, whatever form that expression takes.
I am sure that we all have daydreamed or reminisced about events from our past or our current attitudes towards current events and situations. At such time, I often wander through the dimly lit hallways, attics, and cellars of my mind, poking at crumpled piles of refuse on the floor, opening long abandoned closets and crawl spaces, and leafing through stacks of weathered books and documents. What I find sometimes uncovers pleasant memories, and sometimes not-so pleasant ones. Past events…..
While there is nothing wrong with silence, and silence in fact can be a useful strategy to diffuse a tense situation, allowing cooler heads to prevail, the silent treatment is often employed specifically to punish or force a reaction from the other person.
The idea of living in the present is timeless and wise. At my place of employment, I was given a small, plastic sign that had the words, “Be here now,” emblazoned on it to place on my desk, reminding me to stay focused on the task at hand, thereby reducing errors. Other great thinkers have said it more eloquently (1): “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future,…..
“’What is truth?’ Pilate retorted.” (John18:38) This in response to Jesus’s assertion that he had come to testify to the truth and that those on the side of the truth listens to him. Having found no basis for the charges leveled against the Nazarene, Pilot’s question led him between a rock and a hard place: do what he knew to be the right thing and release the man, or succumb to the demands of the frenzied mob, all the while…..
Roger Kemenetz in his piece, “Dreams and the Poetic Imagination,” wrote that Wordsworth, one of literature’s great poets, found value in “restorative images” for healing the “impaired imagination” through contemplation of historical dramatic events that Wordsworth referred to as “spots of time.”1 What Wordsworth learned was born out, I believe, through a study conducted at the University of Birmingham that demonstrated that intentionally recalling memories can lead to forgetting other experiences. In other words, the study suggested that the recall…..
Words have the power to hurt or to heal. This is a truth acknowledged by philosophers, psychologists, religious figures, and the common man or woman throughout the world since the beginning of time. The Buddha is quoted as saying, “Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change the world.” Contemporary Christian music artist Toby Mac in his song, “Speak Life,” says, “Mountains crumble with every syllable, hope can…..
I think its fair to say that humankind has always had a yearning to connect with its origin. There are any number of ways in which we have, or are, taking that journey. I may reach for the stars studying the cosmos or delve into the secrets of subatomic particles. I could pour over religious texts while living on an isolated mountaintop in a perpetual meditative state. Perhaps taking up philosophy or ethics would be my chosen path to understanding. …..
When I was growing up in SW Pennsylvania, poetry was nursery rhymes, children’s songs, and crude limericks told around the playground or in the hallway at school. In middle school and high school, I became acquainted with Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, and Emily Dickenson. My eleventh grade English teachers even went so far as to teach us about meter and forced us to memorize several of the classics. I thought Edgar Allen Poe was worthy of my consideration, maybe because…..