Entries by Bethany

Courting the Muse

A friend called yesterday and asked if I’d meet her for a late lunch and a writing session. Last I heard, she was taking a personal essay class, and I was eager to hear how it turned out. Fascinating — it resulted in a complete block and NO writing for 2 months! We ate our […]

The Book as Baby

Encouraged by my friend Janet (see her unfortunately neglected but still stellar blog, Deep Grace of Theory), I have been reading Cherishment: A Psychology of the Heart, by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl and Faith Bethelard. After four hours this morning on my own manuscript (and about the same amount of time each morning this week — a record run […]

Of What Use Is Poetry?

  At the Chuckanut Sandstone Reading last week, our moderator, Betty Scott, shared this quotation, along with her thoughts about the usefulness of poetry. I wanted to share this extremely useful quote with you. It’s from Marilyn Sewell and Claiming the Spirit Within, an anthology of spiritual poetry : “To claim a self is to claim the holiness […]