Monday, July 11, 2016

Summer Session Writing Lab - Week #2 - Light

Engaging the Active Imagination: Writing as Activism (Summer Session)

Writing prompt
  • Write what burning you've endured for your light to shine

Do I leave room in my days for radiance? For brilliance? If reality is perception and perception is fantasy then our memories become flashes of light told in story form. Camera obscura means dark room and what's needed is for the light to enter to begin the recording. The camera captures the light in a flash. I remember.

Put your fingers to the flame. You feel the burning, don't you? All night I admired the fire the way my ancestors would. You know they burned the intestines of sacrificed animals in their campfires to discover the prophecies of the events in the lifetimes to come. They didn't burn the brains because they knew any true knowledge came from the heart, from the guts.

As the days go on part of me remains eager for the light switch to click, but then I remember. Have you ever had a bonafide epiphany? I mean, the kind you read about in books. You know, the kind where people would say you've lost it if you ever revealed to them, tried to deliver through language some sort of coherent and comprehensible explanation? Who would ever label the rivers as emotionally unstable? Who would scold the sun to watch its temper? Even the hardened stones at the bottom of the river bed, weathered by years of the river's shifting currents and elongated periods of drought, gleam in the brilliant sunshine.

You emit light. You do. I create space, make room. This room. Yes, I do.

Summer Session Writing Lab - Week #1 - Freedom

Engaging the Active Imagination: Writing as Activism (Summer Session)

Writing prompt

  • Write what stands in your path on the road to freedom

Each morning I rise with my body to move me. My voice carries and commands my physiological needs to my self and to others. My mind arranges the pieces in such a way to harbor joy and manifest knowledge and wisdom. I walk into the room and see mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, yearning for what lies beyond, what seeps beneath, for what has been lost and for what remains. Something more, they cry out, they clamor for. We struggle to remember a life before. Our legs are tired from the race, we wish not to compete with anyone, only to uplift. The old code lives on within the people: ritual, honor of the word, reverence, elation. Adept at adapting to the new code of ambition, accumulation, and satisfaction, we wish to return to the freedom we forgot. What could be crafted? What could be created? It starts with you and I.