Moving On

I hope you enjoyed "Moving On" (inspired by a real experience feeding crimson rosellas when I was in the Dandenong Ranges, Australia, in '06) and its daily installments on my Twitter page.

The more I write, the more I realize the healing power of the writing process. In "Poet as Curandera," Pat Mora says writing is a ritual that transforms reality and seeks to heal wounds. Mora writes this within a specific cultural context, of course, and there is much more to "the writer as curandera" within that specific context that I won't detail here. Yet I can't help but carry the idea of curandera into my own approach to the writing process and what writing means to me.

I've always felt a strong drive within me to be a healer and I see writing as a kind of healing instrument--"verbal medicine," if you like. Each time I heal my soul through writing (a recurring and recursive process), those pieces that rise up from the well "move on" to a reader's eye and provides that person a momentary shift in thought, an affirmation, a resonance, an inspiration or a new perspective (at least, that's what I hope).

So here's to healing for all of us and our Earth as we move into the colder months!