#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Read this Birch Book
If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning.... The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living.
Marion Woodman
Waking in a new place. I know the lake is being lit by the morning sun just outside. I am early awake and will walk and see what this road is like. Then, I will go into the lake. I am the first and only one up in the quiet house. The doors to outside are locked. Confusing and confounding locks! Well, am I locked in? I try more doors and find my way out into the morning. The pines are tall, huge, towering above me. I walk the paved road of this lovely neighborhood of lake houses. Air is fresh and clean. I meet the little deer whom I saw in a neighbor’s yard eating some leaves when we arrived yesterday. She hops off into the woods. I listen to a podcast I am so excited to find. A week or two ago I was thinking about the Jungian analyst Marion Woodman, and wanting to reconnect with her writing. I hadn’t had a chance. Then, in my podcast feed, I find a podcast I subscribe to is focusing for this whole month on the work of Marion Woodman. I listen to the first installment, an interview with David Clark, Jung in the World | Marion Woodman Month 1 | The Transformative Power of Uncertainty with David Clark, and I find myself wholly alive and sparked up and juiced up by his talk about Marion and how she influenced him as a Jungian and a teacher. I am still walking when it’s over. So, I listen again. Then, it is time for breakfast, and talk with friends, and then to run my Ukrainian support group. Very very moving, as usual. Then, to the lake. This massive lake! I take my swim, and the current is strong. It’s choppy, a challenging, satisfying swim into the cove and. back. A hearty swim. These final days of summer before Labor Day, which we will spend at home, are such a bonus. In the afternoon, we take a kayak on the choppy water, and this has been a very full and active day. I pass a lovely birch tree on my walk this morning. A papery piece of bark has pulled it self open like the pages of a book. I stop and read the birch book. It’s a book of presence, awareness, observation, poetry.
