Week 5 ✹ Sunday Sciences
Slip into the gentle melt of the final day of the week.
In asking myself, what words I could possibly contribute this week, I stumbled upon a draft of this week’s poem that I wrote three years ago in a workshop series with the lovely Jess Janz.
Recently, I slipped back into the student seat to hone my craft. I feel a sense of urgency to say it truer. To say it louder. To say it in a way that is both accessible and transformative. In a humorous scene from Come See Me in the Good Light, Andrea Gibson says:
“Why write a poem that goes over somebody's head, let alone somebody's heart?”
At a recent open mic, a woman told me she had a love/hate relationship with my poetry. In three minutes, I inspired her to raise her standards in romantic relationships…and she felt lovingly attacked.
Poetry drops us into tiny moments and sensory details, yet somehow expresses humanity’s widest extremes—love and hate, grief and joy, fear and courage.
We have so much more wisdom and strength within us than we realize.
Sometimes we just need a teacher, an elder, even a mentor not too far off from our own footing.
Learning is so rarely about acquiring the facts. It’s about carving out the space and being ready for someone to reveal where to plug two disparate parts of the brain together to turn the power on—for good. In my drawing class, I literally feel the plugs flying into sockets as electricity fires up in my brain. This is the Match Theory in action.
Rewind to Jess’s workshop in early 2023. This is when it clicked that I could plug poetry into spirituality. My vast knowledge of both lit up like a switchboard and a new genre of poems poured out of me, poems including “My Acupuncturist Says I’m Widening,” a fan favorite from my book.
May today’s poem be a soft place to land before whatever comes next.
Happy Full Moon in Leo. 🌕
Poem of the week
Sunday Sciences
Wake up without an alarm.
Laundry day, shopping day, make something
special for breakfast. Turn the sad berries into jam.
Throw a Fridge Salad™ together. Water the plants.
Start or finish a book, or both.
On the coffee table,
two books become bookmarks.
Imagine the laugh the poet and scientist could have
about their words in edgy embrace,
their inky whispers hanging
on the edge of each other’s words
like those plastic barrel monkeys.
Picture the authors face-to-face,
ordering their eggs over easy,
swirling two percent into their coffees,
spreading cool butter and strawberry preserves
over the crunchy pores of hot, house bread.
You can almost hear it:
the edge of the knife gentle on the melt.
A pause in the liminal
the tongue believes it can taste.
A sound like the crunch of leaves or snow
under the soles of intrepid boots.
A quiet that leaves a legacy.
Maybe, the poet and the scientist
have the same favorite day of the week.
Sundays:
a palpable sweet,
both an end and beginning.
Fill the closet,
the fridge,
the home
back up to the brim.
Resume or reset,
seed the start of something new.
Everything clean, fresh, ready
for the cycle to begin again:
new leaves, old clothing folded
and piled in.
You can’t pause time, but you can pause
at the bottom of a relaxed breath
and feel your seconds expand;
Time is continuous
breath.
But bendy, like the world
atop a Ferris wheel.
Unload your exhale,
your wilted worries,
the psychic promise of tomorrow’s pace.
Leavening is the reminder: that life is here
now and there is no need
to rush this cycle;
No matter how hard you try
you are always the entire world
inside a germinating seed. ✹
Looking back on this poem, I can’t help but see the resemblance between the closing lines and Zora Neale Hurston’s quote:
“The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.”
I wrote these lines years before reading this quote, but she’s one of my all-time favorite authors and I would love nothing more than to pay respect to her words floating in our collective consciousness.
She said it better, and I’m just honored to have conjured a similar image in my poem.
Catch up on recent issues
Week 4 ✹ A Wheel of Fortune Year
Lessons from my own Wheel of Fortune year as we voyage through this collective one together.
A short and sweet poem for the doers who can't see the way.
Upcoming events in San Diego
Register for Love & Spice: Meditation & Writing Workshop coming up on Monday, February 16th @ 7pm in Normal Heights, my only in person event for the season.
Picture this: you sip on a delicious cup of heart-opening cacao, gather in a circle of tender-hearted, playful artists, I guide you through gentle guided meditation to begin envisioning your definition of intimacy and connection, we free write through game-like prompts, and write into your desires, choosing your own spice level.
You leave with a clear vision of what love and intimacy mean to you, plus a love or spicy poem of your own to share (or keep to yourself) to remind you of your heart and body’s wants.
Book a solo Tarot + Talk session for February.
Picture this: your beverage of choice in hand, sunny skies, and a walk around the park where you can pour your heart out. Then we settle in to the earth, meditate, and pull cards for your next year, piecing together what your soul most wants you to know to move forward with a confident, trusting ease.
⋆˙⟡ If you’re enjoying Tiny Suns please leave a ♡, comment, or share on your social media of choice. You can also shop my prints, book a 1:1 reading, or buy my book.
⋆˙⟡ Wishing you a week of fiery connections and slow exhales. Thank you for being here. See you next Sunday.