December 29, 2020, my son Nathanael emailed to say he was planning to go offline and take some downtime to close out this crazy year. I sent him this haiku, and he replied: GOOD MEDICINE. I used it as the title.
Good Medicine Haiku
Trust inner feelings Let go; settle in silence Honor your essence
So if you’re wanting to forget 2020 ever happened and are looking to refresh for 2021, think of this Good Medicine Haiku as a prescription to take a much-needed, guilt-free time-out. Try a digital diet, meditate, go within—take quality time for yourself. We owe it to ourselves. Peace out.
Laughter is the best gift we can give each other during these stressful times. A friend sent out several humorous videos with holiday wishes. One, to me, was the funniest. It reminded me of earlier times around the family dinner table. Maybe not as extreme, but that’s where the humor lies, by making us laugh at ourselves through exaggeration.
Here’s the hilarious short video CBC Comedy posted from 22 Minutes: How to deal with dietary restrictions at Christmas dinner. Catering Christmas dinner to everyone’s diet can be a difficult task these days. Luckily, there are some easy solutions.
Cartoons that make us laugh at ourselves are the funniest and wisest. Here’s one I found that caught me by surprise. As soon as I read the second line of the quote below the image I could not stop laughing. Even now, when I think of it, I chuckle to myself. It says a lot!
It was posted on Narrative Magazine‘s Instagram page. The signature at the bottom suggested Sipress. I searched on Instagram and found David Sipress. He’s another cartoonist published in The New Yorker cartoons. I’d seen his work before and think he is a brilliant commentator on life, pointing out the crazy humor in current affairs.
A Case For Pencils interviewed him about his work. They include a link to an audio of him talking about cartoons while taking a yoga class. They also embed a video of a lecture he gave at Williams College Alumni Reunion 2008: Illustrator and cartoonist David Sipress, Class of 1968, discusses the art of cartooning and The New Yorker.
The cartoon at the top of this post on my favorite romantic movies is where we go to keep learning our life’s lessons. Towards the bottom of that same post I inserted a related New Yorker cartoon by Roz Chast that perfectly reminds me of Bill Murray waking up each morning in the brilliant little film, Ground Hog Day, but with a twist!
Rick Hotton, creator of the award-winning cartoon Holy Molé, opens our hearts and minds with insightful humor. Speaking of interfacing with reality through computers instead of our own eyes, this cartoon make us laugh realizing there’s more to life when we’re truly present.
Here’s a little backgrounder on this poem, which I wrote around 20 years ago while on a course at Heavenly Mountain in Boone, North Carolina. The first part was originally just a haiku. It was a fun way to point out the need to increase awareness as a preparation to write. Years later, an idea presented itself extending the metaphor to its logical conclusion. The phrase, taken literally, was an unexpected surprise, along with the irresistible pun. I added them as a hoku, completing the poem, transforming it into a tanka on writing. Enjoy reading “Preparing to Write.”
We often hear about the the benefits of being in nature. I remembered an experience I had with a tree when I went for a winter walk with a friend on the University Endowment Lands in Vancouver during the mid-1990s. I’ve now updated that blog post with what had happened and how a poem came to be written around 25 years ago. The post contains links to other poems written about trees, and advice from Mary Oliver.
We often hear about the the benefits of being in nature. I remembered an experience I had with a tree when I went for a winter walk with a friend on the University Endowment Lands in Vancouver during the mid-1990s.
I stopped in front of a particular tree to admire its intricate bark structure up close. I felt a ray of loving attention come from the tree into my heart-mind with these words: “the realness of natural things, the nearness of you.” It was an unexpected intimate experience and I quickly wrote the words down for further exploration. The next morning, I rewrote them as a two-line stanza, and then sequential stanzas naturally unfolded sharing its wisdom. It was as if I had been given a creative seed and it sprouted into a poem.
This gift from the tree was much appreciated. The experience reiterated what Mary Oliver described in…
The Uncarved Blog 