M. Elisabeth Norton (American, active 1890s), The Bookman: March, 1895. Lithograph, Portland Art Museum, Gift of Daniel Bergsvik and Donald Hastler.
March is a month of transition in the Midwest. Snow, sleet, hail, wind. Temperatures at the freezing mark. Temperatures at 40 degrees. Five feet of snow on the ground. Fresh buds on the willow. March can be a time of transition from body to spirit; maybe you have experienced the loss of loved ones in March. Is there anything about March that motivates or inspires you?
I find inspiration for writing through art. I stumbled on the work of M. Elisabeth Norton this morning while researching lithography. She has a bold graphic style common to the advertising of the 1890s. The Bookman was an illustrated monthly literary journal and one of the first to publish what came to be known as the best-seller list, a driving force in shaping discussion around popular literature. Books that appeared on these lists became best sellers because the lists said they were. (Is the same true today?)
It’s March in Minnesota. Astrologically, it’s a powerful month because Pluto is moving into Aquarius (for the first time since 2008 and will be retrograding in and out of Aquarius until 2044). What does March mean to you? How does it smell when you walk. Is it a warm breeze that hits your skin or an arctic blast. Is the sidewalk muddy, snowy, or are you jumping over puddles of rain.
The Writing Topic is March. If you purchase Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down The Bones Deck, you’ll read that she prefers Writing Topic to prompt. Here’s what she says:
I’ve always used the word topic instead of prompt. Prompt is a starting place but topic indicates more the idea of plunging in and immersing. Why write with topics?
- A topic that has at least two levels can open more directions in your writing.
- Sometimes a blunt topic can spring the mind into a full-out sprint.
- Topics can be used as beginning points, for the mind to push off from.
- You can also use a topic to move slantwise into a subject.
- Practicing with topics leads you to your own true writing territory.
–Natalie Goldberg from the Intro to Writing Down the Bones Deck
Dig into March. You can drop your Writing Practice into the comments below. Or jot them into your notebook. Still writing pen to paper? Or is all your practice on the computer. I do both. No matter your style, keep writing.
NOTE FROM QUOINMONKEY: Natalie Goldberg (along with Billy Collins, Sensei Kaz Tanahashi, Roshi Joan Halifax, Dorotea Mendoza, MH Rubin, and Lorraine A. Padden) will be teaching at the haiku workshop The Way of Haiku: Winter at Our Back, Facing the Edge of Spring at Upaya Zen Center this weekend. Liz and I attended the haiku workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico in person at Upaya in early February 2020 (our last travel before the pandemic) and have joined every year since on Zoom. We continue to find inspiration, structure, and guidance in Natalie’s teachings, from her latest book Three Simple Lines, and in the dharma talks at Upaya. To our teachers and mentors, much gratitude.
–related to posts: How Many Days in the Month of March – 30 or 31?, Lithograph Stones
redravine.wordpress.com 
Maybe
Spring is reluctant this year
Not too much fighting
in the Underworld
last winter
She wants a few more days
with the old man
a few more pomegranate seeds
Before the obligatory visit
to Mother. It’s hard to
have responsibilities sometimes
She’s ready with Her
endless fertility, just–
it gets harder every year
what with
The children
trashing the planet,
so much less to rise
Up for
Soon, there will be
nothing to rise up for
at all.
Susy Crandall
3/23/2023
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Thank you for dropping your writing practice here, Susy. Wrote mine this morning. Soon to post.
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Writing Practice — Tell Me About March – 10min handwrite
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Puddles of dirty snow on a walk through the neighborhood. Up to mid-boot on my Tevas. March smells like Earth. Wet. Decay. Before buds emerge on the willow. Mud caked soles. March is the month we drove all night on the 1065-mile trip to Pennsylvania in 2021. I worked all day, stopped at Hy-Vee pharmacy for my second vaccine at 4:45pm. By 9:30pm Liz and I were packed and on the road to visit with my mom who had gone into hospice at my brother’s home three days before. The pandemic was still in full force. We have a large family; Mom wanted to be close to all of us in her last days. Thank goodness for siblings, for extended family. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, bearing witness to my mother’s death.
My brother’s birthday is in March; he died in 2019. Too soon. March is a month of transitions and rebirth. Sunday we will attend a Memorial for Liz’s Bismarck friend, an unexpected death. It has hit us hard; she was only 54. Why do people have to die so young?
I finished the Caribou in the pink cat mug, the same mug we bought to celebrate our move into this apartment seven years ago. And now another move in June, a move cross-country, back to a place I never thought I would live again. My body aches. Not enough exercise since leaving my day job. March inspires me. The future awaits. There are solar flares sparking Northern lights that stretch the length and width of Minnesota. The most profound time for me was viewing Northern lights outside a thin green nylon tent by a midnight fire on the Nahanni River in Canada. I was young, much younger and in better shape on that canoe trip. I haven’t thought of that journey in a very long time.
Debra
WP, March 24th, 2023
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