Joy Is, Joy Is Not, BlackBerry Shots, Minneapolis,
Minnesota, December 2010, photo © 2010 by
QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
The days are dark, the nights long. Five days until Winter Solstice. Holidays draw us to friends and family, gift giving, service work. I want to go inside. Reflective heat, ambient light. Darkroom blues. I have spent hours under red safelights in black and white darkrooms. What color is Joy?
At times when there is the least light, we need to find ways to tap more joy. I look to the small things. Sunrise, Tuesday morning. Snowstorm, Friday night. Digging out. Digging deep. An old recipe. A new flame. Joy takes many forms. Clay dangling from red string. One new liver. Two hibernating black bears. Three things I am grateful for.
Some are afraid to feel the full strength of Joy. The intensity makes them fearful. What if Joy leaves in the middle of the night. How will I fill the hole.
What brings you joy?
Joy is a giant taproot of swirling lava at the center of the Earth. Joy is a burning ember in the middle of an indigo night. Behind every Black Dog, Joy sits like the mountain.
Write I feel joy at the top of your Writing Practice notebook. Or sink into the underbelly — I don’t feel joy.
Joy is, Joy is not. Ten minutes, Go!
-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, December 15th, 2010
When I was a kid I tried pissing my name in the snow. I got pretty good at it, but it was usually ‘Gunna’.
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Now I bet that was something that brought you a lot of joy. 8) Would have been much harder for me and a bit too chilly.
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I feel joy at the prospect of this writing practice, especially since I woke up feeling sad. Witnessed a tender yellow light coming up behind a deep blue mountain on my way into work this morning. I felt both the joy and the sadness of the moment, and was grateful my heart was able to hold both.
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I love this! You write so beautifully 🙂
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Teresa, I’ve been feeling a bit that way the last month or so. Needing to hold joy and sadness on a larger than usual scale. It’s a gift to know that the tide will turn; that I won’t get stuck in one or the other. I don’t think we can sustain holding high intensity emotions on either extreme very long without feeling the stress. A tender sunrise or sunset can absolutely turn my day.
Jaclyn Rae, thank you so much. Hope you will visit again. I’m looking forward to this Writing Practice. I feel joy sometimes when I write about joy. Noticing the things I’m grateful for also helps me to feel joy. Today I feel tired. But another swig of Joy is just around the corner. 8)
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What is joy for me? Guess I need to do the writing practice to find out.
Good write, QM.
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Bob, thank you. And thanks for stopping by. Always love to hear from you. ybonesy and I are doing our Writing Practices this weekend for the Topic of Joy. Feel free to join us. Send it along if you like. Liz and I will be celebrating Winter Solstice this evening with friends. It’s a good time to let go and tap a little joy from what is to come. It gives me Hope!
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