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My next Journal to the Self workshop session is Scheduled!

I was hoping to have one in January to help everyone whose New Year’s resolutions included “START JOURNALING.”  But the next available weekend at the Cacapon State Park in Berkeley Springs, WV is March 13-15, 2015.  I’m going to try and find another location for a January date, so watch this space!  In the meantime, if you’d like to register for the March session, go to the Journaling Workshop tab and pay using PayPal.

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Before the Holidays Arrive


With fall arriving September 22nd, it will be “the holiday season” before we know it.  Plenty of words have been written about not letting the holidays turn into stressful events that we can’t wait to be over.  Words about coping with grief when family and friends aren’t around to celebrate, or disappointment when expectations for a happy occasion aren’t met.  Reading all these words can be helpful, but WRITING about it all can help even more!

Here’s where journaling comes in.  There are journal techniques that will help you plan your time to make the holiday season go more smoothly.  Using others, you’ll gain the freedom to express some of those emotions that you’d rather not share with others.  At least one of the 18 different methods you’ll learn will help you understand a little better why you feel the way you do when those first turkey and pilgrim hat decorations begin showing up at the grocery store.

Sign up for a weekend-long Journal to the Self retreat at Cacapon State Park in Berkeley Springs, WV November 14-16.  Located at the base of Cacapon Mountain, the highest mountain in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, the State Park is offering discounted accommodations for the 12-hour workshop.  For more information and to register, click here.

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On the passing of Maya Angelou

The woman poet who read at President Obama’s first inauguration has written a beautiful obituary that appears in today’s New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/arts/in-a-commanding-literary-voice-singing-out-to-the-world.html?hp&_r=0

But who can say it better than the poet and fighter for justice herself?  Thanks to the Poetry Foundation for sending this as their “Poem of the Day” in an email this morning.

 

Phenomenal Woman

by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say,

It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I’m a woman

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

 

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It’s the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I’m a woman

 

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

 

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can’t touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them,

They say they still can’t see.

I say,

It’s in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I’m a woman

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

 

Now you understand

Just why my head’s not bowed.

I don’t shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing,

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It’s in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need for my care.

‘Cause I’m a woman

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.