TO UPSET THE ORDINARY

That was our challenge today while we sat in a circle in a beautiful home on Surfside Beach...13 ordinary human beings were challenged to upset the ordinary and risk becoming poets. We laughed! Last year, we wrote poems describing a bromilead...this year? This time we were thrown into the deep end, and our writing assignments were designed to challenge us and to stretch us enough to allow our unformed wings to unfurl. Richard gave us a couple of exercises. One was called, Secret Identity--we had two minutes to write about our secret identity...

My secret identity is...
I am an eagle soaring...
How high?
How wide is the sky?

Richard, our teacher and mentor graced us with "safe space" and a bag full of tools to aid us in our writing journey. As the afternoon wound down, Richard gave us all a small stone, then shared these words from Adalia Prado with us:

Once in a while God takes poetry away from me.
I look at a stone. I see a stone.

Richard challenged us to see beyond our stones and write what we saw and heard.



I wrote:

Story of a Stone
(raise up a child in the way he should go…)

The teacher explains the difference between rock and stone:
a rock is something we pick up that’s been touched only by nature;
a stone is something fashioned into use by man.

So, who decides the greater value?
What makes one decide the rock has something to offer?

A rock left to nature alone is always and only a rock.
But a rock chosen
then chiseled and tumbled until rough edges are smoothed
becomes a stone—

if we’re lucky and skilled,
a precious stone.

Perhaps value lies in what’s seen with the Unusual Eye.

We were gifted in wonderful ways this beautiful October day. We were given the joy of words and tools to use that grace our words. We were held in a safe place to spread our wings and fly, to begin living our lives as the poets we are.



Thank you Richard for coming and sharing with us. Thank you Andy for nurturing the poet in us. Thank you Sweet Spirit for flowing through us--every single one of us. Today was gift.