seven-minute workout for the soul

Greetings, friends, and do you see this? "THE  ONLY 7-MINUTE WORKOUT YOU NEED"? 

 It took the pandemic for me to finally understand that body, mind and soul are one. I was brought up to believe that I was 85% brain and that God was in charge of the spiritual rest. (Many aspects of this hypothesis have been reconsidered if not totally debunked.) Lately I've been doing my best to regain the exercise habits I had in those strange days--walking, biking, stretching, and this 7-minute whirlwind (being creative with #11 because lord have mercy). 

I've learned, however, in THESE strange days, that every day is a workout for the soul. We know that to keep standing up for Liberty and Justice for All As Advertised, we have to be tough and persistent, strident when necessary, but also generous and forgiving, compassionate, but also mighty and clever and steadfast and resilient. And I don't know about you, but my resilience muscle is a little weary. Many times a day, I'm ticking along with my strong joyful resilientheart, and then I catch wind of the next outrageous headline, and I'm knocked back, flattened by the senseless cruelty that 30% of us chose. It's like this, right?

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A post shared by Caitlin Murray (@bigtimeadulting)

So today I'm just going to share seven little things that I've been using as "featherweight barbells for the soul," which work as sturdy handgrips, footholds and boost-ups for when I have to haul my heart off the floor AGAIN and keep swimming, unsunk by poisonous thoughts. If these things just seem like good news to you, that works--enjoy and move on. But do think about the 7 things keeping your soul spunky and righteous, the delights that are keeping you fit for this challenge. Lie there for a minute to catch your breath, but don't lie there too long. I need you.

#1. Casual group singing.  I'm doing some and I'm watching some. Shouting "HEY HO X MUST GO" at protests is wearing a little thin for me, true as it may be. Check out DC Singalong (comes with kazoos, could be more colorful), Gaia Music Collective (my daughter sang in this one), and Pub Choir, now selling tickets for an American tour.

#2. You could give away ALLLL your money to all the good causes, so we're more planful these days and one of my regular recipients is Our Children's Trust, which supports legal challenges by youth on climate policy. This week they had a big win in Utah!

We’ve just received an opinion from the Utah Supreme Court in Natalie v. State of Utah. There are three big takeaways from the opinion:

First, the Court delivered a major win in interpreting the state’s energy policy. The ruling confirms that Utah’s energy laws do not require the state to continue to rubber stamp fossil fuel projects. The government agencies in charge of regulating fossil fuel development have full authority to deny permits and phase out fossil fuel development because of climate change to protect the health of Utah’s citizens.

Second, in the wake of our lawsuit, Utah’s legislature amended Utah’s energy policy statute in 2024 to remove the mandate for the government to promote fossil fuels. This means the case has already led to significant policy reform, with the Court ruling that the amendments mean the State can stop permitting fossil fuel development and start making energy decisions that protect the air and climate youth depend upon.

And third, the decision leaves the door open for the youth to continue their case by reworking it to challenge specific state fossil fuel activities. The Court ruled that the lower court was wrong to dismiss the case “with prejudice,” and that the Natalie plaintiffs can amend their complaint.

 

#3.  Spring keeps on springing, dammit, and everything is not white nor male nor wealthy, nor even green! Here's a quote from Nia Eshu Robinson that I found in the great book EMERGENT STRATEGY by Adrienne Maree Brown.

"If Mama Nature teaches us nothing else, she teaches us that diversity is absolutely necessary for survival. Now, she doesn’t mean some surface diversity, but a system where every single being is doing their part, pulling their weight. A homogenous, ‘gentrified’ eco-system would quickly die. If we are committed to organizing sustainable and liberating social movements, they must be diverse, pulling especially from those who are the most impacted instead of suppressing their voices or using them as props." — Nia Eshu Robinson

 

#4. strawberries; grace & forgiveness

#5. Children. I know some of you think you're not early childhood people; I know some adults think they are not children people at all. But think about how spending all your time with other knowing adults carrying all kinds of weight on their shoulders just amplifies yours. Now think how it might feel to collect and arrange some pretty nature objects with a 5-year-old who knows NONE OF THIS is going on, and then collaborate play your way to describing that arrangement as a "walnut pyramid/pinecone experiment/wonderful mandala masterpiece"! It aches when you take a step back, but while you're leaning in close, the feathers of joy are flapping wildly and you can't see or hear the devastation for a minute--and also you remember why you have to pick yourself up.

#6. Genius+patience.

#7. (you knew it was going to be) Poetry. I'm writing a poem a day for the Stafford Challenge and focusing on short forms of 1-6 lines* this month, and it turns out there is a one-line, 17-syllable form that Allen Ginsberg adapted from haiku. He called it the "American Sentence." As you can see, the one I wrote on March 7 is a lie and also the truth.

Thank you to Rose Capelli at Imagine the Possibilities, who is welcoming spring for us today with some classics for the season, for hosting. Let's go get sweaty.

*American Sentence

Walt Whitman's Couplet

haiku

monotetra

elfchen

cherita

a house for hermit crab + a bonus "if"

Greetings from a rather howling March evening! (Lion first, crab second.) It's the First Friday of the month and thus the Inklings  are busying ourselves again (again so soon) with a challenge from Molly Hogan:

Write a hermit crab poem–a poem that takes the structure of an existing text like a recipe, job application, multiple choice quiz, script, or whatever! Here's an explanation of the form and a wide variety of ideas and examples. Have fun! 

 https://jmwwblog.wordpress.com/2022/10/18/its-an-experiment-hybrid-how-tos-with-arden-hunter-hermit-crabs-part-1-of-2/ 

I briefly considered attempting to write a poem using the directions from my colonoscopy prep kit, but you'll be happy to know I found something better. Each of us probably knows a federal employee who received (and may still be receiving) the now infamous DOGE-generated "What did you do last week?" email; where I live in Silver Spring, MD, we know numerous families where BOTH adults are feds and fed up. Me too.

In the spirit of resistance and gumming up the works, perhaps you'd like (federal employee or not) to share in approx. 5 bullets what YOU did last week. If* so, try this handy online generator; I like "Salty Mode".  I put in Teacher as my Occupation and it spat out 5 satisfyingly snide comments.

Thanks to our own Margaret Simon of Reflections on the Teche for hosting today; don't forget sign up for the April Progressive Poem party and to read the hermit crab poems of the other Inklings below!

Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading 

Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core, if it's our lucky day

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise

Also sending congratulations to so many of our Poetry Friday family on new anthologies recently or imminently published! One is A UNIVERSE OF RAINBOWS selected by Matt Forrest Esenwine and the other is IF I COULD CHOOSE A BEST DAY, selected by Irene Latham & Charles Waters.  I'll take this opportunity to share a poem that NEARLY made it into this If* anthology, and then didn't. I'm still proud of it, and it will be published elsewhere soon...

And now, finally, your crab, having a bright idea:

Smithsonian Magazine

and the density of history:

Flower Power by Bernie Boston, 1967

sounds in a basement

Greetings, Poetry Friends! No, this post is not about my likely peptic ulcer, which came with a 2-week headache and has now thankfully calmed down, UNLIKE just about everything in my immediate environs here in Maryland, just 7 miles from the White House. 

No, this post might also be titled "Why I Do the Work I Do" and I hope you'll never get tired of me sharing raw poetry by kids in the wild, uncut gems shaken loose by 30 minutes of reading, playing and writing in a WHISPERshout Workshop.

This residency is with 2nd graders and is focused on Valentine's Day-adjacent themes of friendship, inclusion and social-emotional learning, with a hefty dose of figurative language to move us past "I like Allison. She is my best friend. We play together," if possible. (For a few 2nd graders, writing these 3 sentences is what's possible. No shade.)  So we read poems that use straightforward examples of this, like "A Purple Place" from my book SQUEEZE, and we play with describing emotions using this little guide:

Then off they go to write, and some kids need a reminder to pick up their pencil, and some kids need to show me their 60 words about chocolate chip cookies after three minutes ("I'm done!") and some kids don't say boo, and then I get home and find a poem by Zeke titled "sounds in a basement." If you know 2nd grade boys, you'll understand my "oh geez here it comes jump scare horror movie poem"--and then I read this:

sounds in a basement

are clicks and dings for games,

people talking on tv,

people talking in real life,

people doing workouts.

there are lots of sounds 

in a basement. but there 

is one that is the best,

love moving from person

to person.

Go on, shut down all the medical research, fire all the scientists at the NIH.* I know the cure for peptic ulcers, for plenty of other ailments: Take one poem--one raw, uncut gem of a 2nd grade poem--and be healed.

******

Thanks to Laura Purdie Salas and her beautiful new board books for hosting us today! And now that you're feeling, I hope, a bit restored and determined, here are a couple of ways to act on that, because *no, don't!

5Calls app: easily contact your reps with prepared scripts on your choice of issues

iPhone

Android   

INDIVISIBLE'S Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink

and next Friday...

 

full moon rabbit's laundry advice

Greetings, Poetry Patriots--here we are pledging allegiance to the power of poetry to get us through tough times, one way or another. LFG!

Today I'm "sowing two seeds with one throw," which is of course the woke version of killing two birds, with an Instadraft™ for both the Inklings' monthly challenge and today's prompt from Laura Shovan's February Poetry Project, which has as its theme this year SPACE.

Mary Lee asked us Inklings to  Type a color into the search bar of public domain image archive and choose an image to write from. Hoo boy, I had not known what riches I was missing! I explored quite a bit (although frustrated that when I typed in my favorite the best color, turquoise, NOTHING came up) and then cheated, in the sense that I knew that the other prompt I was trying to meet would best be served by the color white. That prompt was

How do astronauts do laundry? Hint- they don't. NASA is working on it but maybe you can think of a way to help NASA, or what sparks your most memorable laundry day?https://www.mentalfloss.com/do-astronauts-do-laundry-in...  

So here you go, a 2-for-1 at the low, low price of my writing hour this morning!

Thanks to all who take the trouble to provide thoughtful, whimsical, wide-open, gently demanding impeti (I'm sure that's the plural of impetus) for writing, and to all who meet our responses with generosity. Can you tell that I'm leaning into community this week, as an antidote to the rank selfishness that's ordering and executing cruelty and uncertainty across the globe? Thanks for letting me lean on you.

Don't forget to see what the other Inklings have come up with, below, and thanks to Carol at Beyond Literacy Link for collecting and protecting our tender heartnotes today.

Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading 

Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core, who also has a moon poem!

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

WHISPERshout Magazine Issue 1.25 out now! poems to light the dark nights

 

https://bit.ly/WHISPERshoutMag-CurrentIssue

This month’s issue features poems by 4th graders, all from the same class in a Title I school in Sacramento, CA. Each poem explores one or more kinds of light we humans use to light the dark, especially during the time of year when days are short and nights are long. In the Northern Hemisphere, that’s December.

Now that we’re halfway between the Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year) and the Spring Equinox (when daylight hours equal nightdark hours) it’s nice to think that it’s getting brighter outside—even if it’s still cold! Enjoy....

(4th grade) poems to light the darkest nights

Greetings, Poetry People, from the squirmy seat of our nation's government. I left the first sessions of my Winter afterschool poetry workshops this week to find--hallelujah!--that it was not dark yet, and this tiny fact alone unleashed a bubble of optimism. Today I want to share a little story and some poems from a Teaching Artist project I did in December that, while related to those very longest, darkest nights of the year, is going to bring a bubble of optimistic light into your life right when you may be needing it the most!

Here's our poetry friend Patricia Franz and her niece, Anna Harris. (They look fancy and beautiful because they were at a family wedding last summer.) Anna is also Mrs. Harris, 4th grade teacher at a Title I school in Sacramento, CA. She was interested in doing more poetry with her students, and her Aunt Pat asked if I would be willing to talk with Anna. (As you know, Patricia is an accomplished poet herself, but wasn't sure about teaching poetry to kids. I believe she would have been QUITE helpful!)  I was willing, and in fact my first conversation with Anna turned into a whole 3-session workshop with Mrs. Harris and her class--my first over Zoom since I taught PreK on Zoom during the pandemic. (Yes, I was nervous; yes, there were glitches, and yes, we made it work across time zones.)

Anna's lovely, lively class of 20 kids includes many EMLs* and a number of kids still working towards 4th grade literacy skills, as you'd expect in a community challenged by low incomes. They were learning about winter holidays in many cultures and the role of lights, and to support their imagery, language and concept development, I asked Anna to prep for our sessions by having the kids make a related artwork of some kind. They did watercolor paintings featuring holiday lights, wintry weather (not necessarily Sacramento winter!) and night skies.

I brought in a collage and matching poem by me to establish that a poem is an artwork made of words; then we read bilingual poems by Francisco X. Alarcón to review how sensory details give a poem energy. We used Van Gogh's "Starry Night" for a collaborative writing warm-up, and as the workshop progressed, there was reading and sharing and acting out and a fire drill (all the classroom teachers say "OF COURSE!") and laughter and awkward breakout room tech and lightbulbs popping overhead and some magical moments like this one that Patricia described:  "I wish I had captured Ella’s DELIGHT when you read her poem. Her eyes were DANCING. She held her hands to her mouth as if in disbelief that this song coming from your mouth could be hers."

Oh, wait--did I mention that although Patricia does not live in Sacramento, she was actually THERE in Anna's classroom for one of the sessions? Yes! Aunt Pat visited her niece Mrs. Harris during the workshop week in December! It was just one of the many special things about this Teaching Artist project. I'm so grateful to Patricia, to Anna (whose own skilled art as a teacher was abundantly evident), and as always to the children, for being the reason I can muster resilience in a world that often feels too tough for tender me. All my bravery is on their behalf.

And without further ado...some poems and paintings by Mrs. Harris's 4th graders! (All will be featured in a WHISPERshout Magazine issue next week.)

Our host today is Tabatha the Brave, Tabatha the Broad, Tabatha the Deep, who shares her collection of poems by us about bravery for and in 2025. I'm always so grateful for her presence here and in the world. I didn't get my poem from a few years ago sent off in time, so I'll include it below and hope that's okay with everyone.  Be well and be bright!

*Emergent Multilingual Learners

tossing them out like confetti

Greetings, poetry people. Here's today's poem. I'm not holding myself to a new poem every single day--my one great wisdom as a writer over time has been understanding that, as an all-or-nothing type of person, demanding of myself that I do anything Every Single Day would lead eventually and directly to doing it not at all (including brushing my teeth; do not judge; I still have them all).    

Back to the poems, which I have been writing almost every day and posting--nay, tossing out like confetti onto the internet, usually on Instagram, sometimes on Facebook and sometimes on Bluesky (I left TwittX some time ago).  There's a certain madness in this--if I want to publish any of these in a journal, they are now "used goods" and not usually eligible for submission, but I've decided I don't care.  I'm sharing my wealth and celebrating with (biodegradable) confetti, like at a wedding, the marriage of my creative impulse and this day, neither of which are special or spectacular but which are what I have, what I am and what I can.  And since Nov. 6 in particular, I have trying to live according to this mashed-up advice from a reknowned UU minister and the tennis great Arthur Ashe:

~ love what you have, be who you are, do what you can ~

So here you go: have today's poem, in response to the Day 27 prompt from the MoSt New Year's Poetry Challenge which has been going on since mid-December. Coincidentally it is entitled "Purpose".

Do you follow me on IG? https://www.instagram.com/heidi_mordhorst_whispershout/

Are we friends on Facebook? https://www.facebook.com/heidi.mordhorst

Have you flown over to Bluesky? https://bsky.app/profile/heidimordhorst.bsky.social

And have you clicked to the right to follow me on Blogger after all these years? 🌞

Thanks to Kat Apel (well, hey there, friend!) for rounding us up today, and here's one last note of deep gratitude to the great Jimmy Carter, who with dignity and foresight chose the perfect moment to depart this mortal coil, reminding us all what public service in politics can look like.

age, trial, experience

Guys, I am really leaning into this "being enough" thing.

You can tell because I am the prompter of the Inklings monthly challenge again this January (we really should change that up), and I am recycling my prompt from last January! In some ways it's fair: I gave a choice of TWELVE prompts and most of us used just one, leaving plenty-eleven to choose from this year.

I myself, in keeping with this "being enough" thing, have selected the prompt that goes with our Yuletide gift of the human spirit for December 30, wisdom. We light the 10th candle, dark blue, and say, "Midnight blue is for wisdom, the understanding that comes with age, trial and experience."

I've gone for a golden shovel, and I guess I'm hoping that Himself won't read the blog this week. (If you do, DD, forgive me as I forgive you for making me the person I am today. **hugs!**)

Aging in Place


Long after midnight 

flashing red burns blaring over his blue. 

This is panic, not peace; it is 

no substitute for 

wisdom. 

His edges are blurred but not soft. The 

lengthy predawn texts bring understanding: 

that 

for some, more of the same comes 

with 

age, 

that what was always a trial is still a trial, 

and 

that some of us--bless--can't learn much from experience.

draft (c) HM 2025

Thanks to Mary Lee Hahn @ A(nother) Year of Reading for hosting us today, and go see what other gifts of the human spirit might be celebrated by our fellow Inklings this month!

Catherine Flynn @ Reading to the Core, who needs a bye this month 

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

AND TO ALL A