Posted on

The Nine of Wands — The Vigil of Wild Patience

The Tarot Primer (12)
NINE of WANDS

Written for Monday 31st October – Sunday 6th November (and shared here for the mirror week of six month ago, including  Samhain here in the Southern Hemisphere)

The Fifth Spirit Tarot, by Charlie Claire Burgess

✉️ The Nine as Missive

🕯 As we pause for Samhain (juxtaposed with Beltane in the Northern Hemisphere) the 9 is an invitation to consider who or what you are lighting a candle for.

🔋 9 is the energy to mourn and remember, as well as dream and manifest. Both call something to us.

🙏🏻 The 9 explores what it means to hold a vigil — literally what you are holding onto and tending in reverence.

🔦 It casts a light in the dark as to who or what you are keeping close. It calls into question, and concurrently amplifies, your call to the other side.

🔬 It asks us to qualify and clarify what “the other side is” for us, on the everyday plane, as well as a higher spiritual.

⏳The 9 beckons and whispers to you: tell me who or what you are waiting for? How long has it been?

☠️ It gently and without judgement observes the candles you have lit. The ones doggedly tended. The ones you’ve been careless with. The ones that went out.

🧚‍♀️ The 9 reminds us, waiting and patience are not the same thing. They tap different timelines. Different congruencies. But as children we are told to wait; be patience and our restless spirits take this as punishment. It’s not.

🔥 In the element of fire, patience is wild.

👞 Hypervigilance is a heightened state of anticipation. Of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe it was once adaptive. Is it now?

😬The 9 suggests modern life makes us worry what is coming at us. Makes us worry we are alone. Makes as though we are alone and unprotected.

🛡 We worry so much, we are perpetually prepared, carrying our armour everywhere. We miss the caress of the gentleness of life. Kindness. The afternoon breeze. We sleep in it and wonder why we wake unrested.

♀️ The nine makes room beside it and offers you a chance to light a candle for yourself.

📖 Journal Prompts

🕰 Who or what are you willing to wait for?

⏰ Who or what are you not willing to do this for?

🍽 Who is making you wait?

🦁 Where does fierceness and courage intersect patience?

❤️ What is your relationship with patience?

🪷If you could define wild patience for yourself, what would it look/sound/feel/taste/smell like?

🍂 What have you incepted and not tended?

🗡 What keeps you awake at night?

✨ What is the glorious other side of your biggest challenge right now? Describe it in detail.

🧨 How does trying to do it alone sabotage your best efforts?

Thank you so much for your patience. It’s good to be back. See you tomorrow.

🎯 9 of Wands in Action: The Quasi List Poem

I first came across the term “wild patience” in Women Who Run With the Wolves in 2016. The phrase was shaped by feminist and poet Adrienne Rich. It immediately seized my imagination.

What could wild patience be?

My then-boyfriend and I texted back and forth across an evening, what wild patience might be. It is one of my happiest memories of our time together.

So let’s write a list poem together….

(If you have a friend you can do this with, do it. If it’s just you and your notes app or journal that’s fine too.)

You start with the phrase:

Wild patience is…   and you fill that in.

If words are not your jam, cap it at 3. Let it be a process of moving through.

If words are a happy playground aim for a higher number of iterations.

Hold this lightly. Have fun.

🪶 The 9 of Wands in Poetry

Wild patience is…

…tending a grieving heart knowing it will once-again be whole and love again.

…the anticipation of a summer storm building on the horizon (before there were weather apps)

…your soul choosing time-consuming creativity paths when your impetuous humanness needs spontaneity and immediacy down the trauma-bahn.

…festina lente: make haste slowly

…threading daisy chains, winding pom poms and constructing paper chains.

…cyclic stability and it’s ever-constant shifts and changes hardwired into the wax and wane, ebb and flow, growth and decay.

…how the people who love you hold space so you can to tend yourself in your perfect timing, not theirs.

🪞 The 9 in Reflection

I know the Primer rarely delivers messages I want. But they’re always the ones I need. This week was no different.

It’s the second week of mourning the loss of someone who meant everything to me. And it’s a warped grief tangled in an exceptionally non-conventional relationship that defied possibility. I find myself trying to work out how to hold space to honour the past, be present with myself now and continue to tend to the future when the “rules”/assumptions/expectations don’t m necessarily apply here.

🕯 Thanks to Christina I was able to light a candle on the Samhain/Beltane axis to: contradictions and the wholehearted devastation of being human. The unseasonal gusting wind blew it out before it got going. But I was able to let it burn out the following night.

Who are we to say what perfect timing is? The intersection of wild patience and time is probably our capacity to let go, let be and trust in the unfolding.

Also thank you to Anna Bellissimo who reminded me that if you search for evidence of magick you will find it. (And you know — for your amusement… as I was typing that the Cure’s “Close to Me” was playing and out the corner of my eye I spied a hand-sized spider crawl up the pillar beside where I was sitting. I don’t need to be that close. Thank you!!!)

Thoughts that popped up this week, the first is mine. The next two belong to astrologer Alice Sparkly Kat:

💭 It is not just identifying who or what, it’s about knowing how you tend the memories, when and where you do, and why. But of course all of that is meaningless unless you know the what or who.

💭 (Detectives) might be extra vigilant types who don’t know how to describe the things that only they see to someone else. They might (embody) and hold the important archetype of truth.

💭 The word remember is a bit of a misnomer. We never remember things. We always reconstruct memories. Memories are just stories.

📻 Signal Boost

✨Anna Bellissima

✨Alice Sparkly Cat

✨David Whyte’s The Well of Grief

✨Isabel Abbott‘s “salt + honey”

✨Adrianna Michelle — The Death Alchemist

🪩 The 9 of wands Outro

My son tells a great story of being woken in the middle of the night to me belting this out, earphones in, hidden within the dark.

Without further ado, please dance yourself into the weekend with Blondie’s “The Tide is High”

I’ve shared for entry as the mirror week of six months ago — the middle week of the eclipse portal and to honour Samhain here in the Southern Hemisphere. 

The Tarot Primer is a text-based, espresso-strength infusion of tarot, channeled wisdom, journal prompts, poetry, life hacks and music delivered straight to your phone via Signal four times a week. The Primer returns Monday, 1st May.

Join here

 

 

Posted on

Using Mercury Retrograde to Time You Re-Reads

 

I’m not sure exactly when I started to use Mercury Retrograde to return to the books I love. It probably was when I decided to more closely align with what Mercury Rx was excellent for to mitigate what it gets a bad rap for (miscommunication, travel disruptions, tech meltdowns, delays of all kinds). It worked. I found that as I fell down rabbit holes of favourite books, music and films, there were fewer disruptions and problems.

I hadn’t thought much about the old habit until Rus asked Adam and I last year ago if we’d read any book six times or more.

I have. (Have you?)

It’s entirely likely I’ve read The Book Thief and The Time Traveller’s Wife that many times. I’ve read more than three times The Passion and The Red Tent. In the past 18 months I’ve read The Idea of You four times, and I’m certain I’ll read it many more times.

For me, there is something special about returning to old stories, old friends and reliving their journeys again.

The second time I read The Time Traveller’s Wife it was like I was reading a totally different book. First time, I was so wrapped up in the tragedy of the love story, I missed the darker elements. They were unmissable the second time round.

What is Mercury Retrograde?

Mercury Retrograde happens three times a year (sometimes four). While Mercury doesn’t really go backward, it is an illusion from here, astrologically it is considered a disruption to Mercury’s modus operandi for three odd weeks (delays in communication, technology and travel to name a few things). But it’s a perfect time to stop and reflect (or many of the other ‘re’ words). Of which re-reading is a perfect fit.

Why would anyone re-read a book when so many books will go unread before we die?

The Return

 

” Re-reading can help form new perspectives and better self-understanding – much like talking to new people.”

Populus Omnibus Survey, 2021

In 2021, The Reading Agency (who run World Book Night) in conjunction with SpecSavers ran a survey on re-reading, which they released for World Book Night.

They found in the last 12 months:

      • 53% of people had re-read a book
      • 61% in the 18-14 age group had
      • 46%  aged over 65 had

This reflects research that people seek familiar and predictable enjoyment in activities durinng times of change.

The reasons people returned to books included:

      •     for comfort
      •     to relax
      •     escaping reality
      •     discovering aspects they hadn’t noticed before, and
      •     re-reading feeling familiar

The most popular genres were:

      • crime
      • sci-fi (men)
      • romance (women) and
      • memoir

Good-bye, Hello!

I looked forward to my Mercury Rx re-reading schedule for years; of taking my favourite old reads down and making them new. It appears as people returned to old literary loves, I did the opposite.

I am determined to make the most of this transit – even if I only manage one re-read (because someone bought a massive pile of books home from the library last week!) Mercury Rx through Taurus is a call to return to pleasure pursuits and there is nothing more pleasurable that finding myself lost in a good book.

There are worse ways to spend April 24th – May 15th.

Perhaps it’s time to pick up an old book love? Or your favourite movie, music, game or any other kind of pop culture (which also has strong Mercury ties).

Drop a comment and let me know what you plan to rediscover this Mercury Rx.

Image: Cosmic Couch by Me

PS: From lived experience, I know editing is super-powered during Mercury and I’ll be embarking on rewrites of a secret project I’ve been working on with Rus and Adam since 2017 as well as finally compiling a collection of my previously published short fiction.

Posted on

The Hierophant Tarot Card — Your Inner Librarian

The Tarot Primer is a text-based, espresso-strength infusion of tarot, channeled wisdom, journal prompts, poetry, life hacks and music delivered straight to your phone via Signal four times a week.

Join here

 

Tarot Primer (23)
THE HIGH PRIESTESS

Written Monday 30 January – Sunday 5 February 2023 (shared here for the eclipse / mercury rx week of 17/04-23/04/230

The Fifth Spirit (1st edition) , Charlie Clare Burgess

✉️ The Hierophant as Missive

🔨 The Hierophant is a committed dismantler of isms and ologies.

🙋🏻‍♀️ They are a questioner of the traditions that give foundations to systems and structures, and invite you to instead seek your own meaning maker.

❤️ They ask: is this meaningful to you? If not, why do you continue?

🧐 While the High Priestess invites you into a higher knowing, the Hierophant invites you into what you already know.

🏛️The Hierophant is your inner librarian. The trusted guardian and guide of all the knowledge you have amassed in this life time (and life times before). A gateway to your wisdom. Here everything you know has been catalogued and carefully tended, waiting for you to return.

🧬The wisdom of your lived experience. The wisdom carried in your body. The wisdom of eons encoded in your DNA. The sacred wisdom of your heart. And yes, the wisdom you have sought in books and in conventional (and unconventional) learning.

🪜 The Inner Librarian encourages you to honour your knowing. To step through the stacks and be awed and amazed at just what is there.

🛑 The Hierophant asks you to question any one need you to give away your power to sit at their feet. Whose wisdom seeks to override your own. They caution against anyone who refuses to enter into the synergy of knowledge as anything other than collaboration and wonder.

🏚️ For a truly wise soul will never ask you to abandon yourself to be with them. They will always offer their insights with humbleness and non-absoluteness. They will never insist they know they truth.

👉🏼 They point out all those you who position themselves as an Expert on You. They remind you, you are, and will always be, the Expert of You and your experience.

🚪 The Hierophant gestures to the massive doors you are standing at. They offer you keys to the Library of You, stepping aside so you might open the doors. Welcome, they say and you step inside.

 

📖 Journal Prompts

✍🏻 Describe your Inner Library, in as much or as little detail.
✍🏻 How do access your deeper knowing?
✍🏻 How would you define “tradition”? (If you didn’t have to think hard “intellectually” about it?
✍🏻What traditions do you in engage because they’re meaningful and resonant?
✍🏻What ones do you go along with to make other people happy?
✍🏻What is the cost of that to you?
✍🏻Which ism or ology feels most relevant/pressing in your life now? How does it show up in your life?
✍🏻What do you believe in that brings joy, perspective, understanding, anchoring and meaning to your life?
✍🏻 How do you create meaningful action from that place of belief?
✍🏻How will you honour your knowing this week?

 

🎯 The Hierophant in Action

This week I’m inviting you to observe your Inner Librarian. To see how she moves. What she does. And most of all, what frees her to do her job with ease.

🪶 The Hierophant in Poetry

From Shades of Paradox (2019)

 

🪞 The Hierophant in Reflection

The locus of “knowing” has been really interesting to explore this week.

The week started with a sense that my Inner Librarian needs movement. I felt her walking the stacks with her finger trailing along the spines of books, or getting around in a converted golf cart in a warehouse sized repository.

The weather hasn’t been great for walking in the afternoon, so I didn’t get a chance to test drive this further. To see if what drops into my head when I’m out walking, is actually an info dump from the Inner Librarian. Like she’s arrived with a pile of books and boom – down on the counter they go.

Then two days ago I got a “slam into a brick wall” kind of knowing that didn’t drop from above. It came from deep inside me as I observed the outer world and I saw it had shifted. My body, heart and soul were in total coherence, while my mind tried to bargain with the deeper truth. (It’s still trying to strike bargains the other three simply won’t underwrite!)

I know what it’s like to ask a question and get a High Priestess answer, and what happened on that footpath was not her sending down missives. This was pattern recognition at an intrinsic level of awareness.

I have a new (and humbled) appreciation of my Inner Librarian and her gifts. As well as the magickal knowing which resides in my body and heart, when my mind doesn’t scream down the house with its version of the house. (Even when I don’t like what that knowing tells me — and believe me, there’s been plenty of inner tantrumming!)

In the future, I want to cultivate more deeper knowing rather than defaulting to higher knowing. To source my wisdom rather than outsource it.

There was also this comment from Simone Seol on IG which fell within the parameters of The Hierophant as system whistleblower.

⁉️Were you able to tap into your Inner Librarian this week? I’d love to know what’s unpacked or revealed itself to you since Monday.

 

📻 Signal Boost

A repeat broadcast this week for Christina Hira and her 2023 Patreon.

She’s the dearest of my dear hearts, my fellow explorer of soul and shadows spaces plus my poetic bestie. Her depth year reflections blew me away. They helped me understand the changes I was undergoing.

We are embarking on a Year of Uncertainty together and her essays will be a must. Please consider diving in with your spare change (pun intended!) on the Uncertainty Essays tier.

 

🪩 The Hierophant as Outro

This week I offer you a little Paul Dempsey. I’m sure there were possibly better songs out there but there is something Hey History (Don’t Go Changin’) that nagged for inclusion.

(Maybe it’s been the week, maybe my Inner Librarian also has a wee crush on Mr Dempsey!)

So without further ado, a quiet jam to watch the sun go down (or come up) on this Saturday.

I’ve shared for Eclipse week / Mercury stationing direct 17/04-23/04/23

The Tarot Primer returns Monday 1st May. Join here so you don’t miss a moment.

Posted on

Happy Day of the Horizon

 

Happy Day of the Horizon — my latest nerd iteration of the plethora of new year variants.

Over the weekend, I commented to a friend who I met through astrological circles, that I was fascinated by the fact that I was literally running a week behind with everything. Deadlines I had set for the previous weekend, were finalising this weekend. I spent most of the week feeling disheartened, running a failure narrative, at my inability to finish everything I wanted to complete before the equinox.

You know, if I’d just tried harder. Been more focused.

If the energy of the equinox portal had fucked me up so completely.

And dozens of other opportunistic bullshit.

A few minutes later, my friend messaged to say the transiting sun wouldn’t hit my first house for a few days… and boom! I checked in with my chart and saw that the sun would cross the threshold of my first house on Tuesday (yes, exactly a week after equinox!)

I wasn’t running behind schedule at all.

I was powering along in perfect alignment with my own intrinsic energy, cycles and timing. Yet again I’d worked hard to undo myself with an arbitrary date (one of the fixations and self sabotaging behaviours I’ve ben unpicking since January).

And Breathe

The most remarkable thing happened next — the shifting of my timeline suddenly freed up all the stuck, shitty energy I’d been caught in. I mean, we never completely wipe clean the slate, but I was clear about the energetic ties I wanted to cut moving into this new year. And gifted a moment of insight, I received a powerful reframe (and you know, an extra 36 hours grace!)

I could breathe. I could move. My world suddenly bloomed with possibilities.

I relaxed into the final moments of finishing a two year ghost editing project with Leah.

I turned up with excitement for the final few poems of a poetry project with Christina (not un-ironically called “Thresholds”)… and just generally enjoyed the feeling of what I wanted: a new year that felt like it had a clean slate.

Happy New Year

Just before 5am today, the sun kissed my horizon and my new year begun.

I don’t think it’s a “thing” (not like solar return charts are) but I cast a chart to see what the moment of “emergence” offers for the coming year, and there is plenty there to excite me professionally and creatively.

Especially in a year where my debut solo novel comes out.

My client books are shut this week. I’m not doing the Poetry Primer.

I’m giving all of me, to me.

I also postponed the beginning of The Poetry of You to open the necessary space to download the shape and nuance of it (which I knew had been patiently lingering in the wings waiting for everything else to finish).

The Coming Week, Prelude to the Underworld

Over the next few days I will share more specific details of what The Poetry of You will have in terms of shape, concept, context and content as it comes through.

I downloaded several exciting pieces swimming this morning.

What I can say at this point, there will be strong elements of Underworld mythology via Inanna (who, if you’ve read Postmarked Pipers’ Reach, you’ll know Ella-Louise was obsessed her), Persephone (who is on the wall of the room I get network chiropractic) and Psyche (who is my current obsession — what’s not to love about a woman who takes the back door into the underworld with cake to fed the hell hound!).

These stories are symbolically rich.

Ripe for retellings that strip away the patriarchal bullshit (where women only excel at beauty — or running away, only to be turned into trees).

These stories are also gentle and empowering structures to write our stories within. I’m excited to use them as spaces reorientation for (re)discovering our selves past-present-future.

If this sounds like something you’re in for now … sign up here.

Or join me here this week, as it unfolds for both of us in real(ish) time.

My Favourite Superpower

Opening doors for people and helping them step across the threshold is my favourite superpower as a depth worker.

In the process of doing this with myself right now, as I kiss the horizon and face al the fears, as I prepare to descend, I’m readying myself to be the best companion for you on your journey into the depths.

 

PS: *deep breath* I am experimenting with writing more and holding less tightly to it … freeing my time from the constraints of perfectionism (which is the antithesis of what being a writer is often — but perhaps more attuned with the energy of a word witch?) Closer to “clean skin” wines … this is a one-and-done and beautifully imperfect. All grammatical and spelling errors are on me and this crazy first-pass effort.

Posted on

PINP23 Collection Available for Download

 

With great delight, we send random | eloquence, the Post-It Note Poetry Collection for 2023, out into the world.

Download the PINP23 Collection here

 

This year, I’m letting Christina have the final word (as I am currently all out of words!)

Thank you so much to all who joined in PINP, whether online or offline and to those who contributed their poems to this year’s collection!

I know for Jodi and myself this year really cemented the importance of daily creativity for us, and especially the way in which poetry holds us through a lot of the daily ups and downs.

Our theme this year was random | eloquence.

In his book Consolations, David Whyte says:

“Beauty is the harvest of presence… beauty is the conversation between what we think is happening outside in the world and what is just about to occur far inside us”.

Taking what randomly lands in front of us and curiously putting words around it is the beauty of poetry. It was so wonderful to see everyone do this in their own way over February.

This year’s collection showcases 13 poets across 79 pages.

We look forward to returning in 2024 for another month of poetry in February.

Download the PINP23 Collection here 

(Collection is best viewed in 2-page mode in programs like Preview)

Posted on

The Kitchen Table Sessions

Yesterday was a day where wisdom hit from a multitude of directions. As I got out of bed, two friend messaged for help and as that settled, I received the business guidance I’d called in more than a week ago. (Forget that you have any true control of the timing of things!)

It was a tempestuous first 90 minutes as the past and future called. (I don’t do caffeine — so mornings are their own special kind of crazy for me!)

It was hard to stay anchored in the present, but I’m always delighted and awed at how guidance and support arrives.

What sparks an epiphany. How I get a powerful reframe. What arrives to give me a tiny boost of confidence to take the next step.

Especially since so much of this is brand new for me.

✨ Knowing clearly what I desire and holding myself accountable to move toward it.

✨ Building a business congruent with my values and my multi-passionate nature.

✨ Turning to face the sun and breathing into a bigger space (that often feels uncomfortable).

✨ Listening closely when I receive guidance. Leaning into my support systems when I wobble (especially if and when it feels like I’m losing my bearings).

After a whirlwind start to the day, I got to step out of the mental melee and spend a few slow nourishing hours with one of my favourite humans. Over a delicious home-cooked lunch we talked about the spaces we are dreaming into being for our work. We ended up in a conversation about our mutual love of kitchen tables.

Later, sitting in the library while my son was at work, when the trainer wheels of my authentic direction wobbled, Christina peppered me with questions to bring me back to centre .. and here I am to invite you to my kitchen table.

The Kitchen Table Sessions

My desire for my Winter Year (starting on the equinox) is for six slow, deep  months of personal and creative work, and for that to be reflected in my client work. I want to work with a small group over an extended period.

I also want as many people as possible to experience my unique blend of tarot, intuitive downloads, story telling and coaching before I ask anyone to consider working me across 6 months.

From Saturday 18th – Sunday 26th (over the Equinox portal) I’m offering the Kitchen Table Sessions.

The A$23 pass will get you access to seven (7) Zoom calls.

THE KITCHEN TABLE SESSIONS ARE NOW FREE!!

Each call I’ll pull a card for everyone present, then I’ll ask some questions and give everyone space to talk to their experience. I’ll offer intuitive guidance and a practical way to action what we’ve unveiled together.

It’s Depth Work meets Pass-The-Parcel: Every call we’ll each be unfolded a little.

You’ll get to spend time with me, my “method” and gauge whether it is something you’d like more of. Plus, you’ll have a chance to move through the energetic passing and opening with access to support and guidance.

The pass allows you to attend as many sessions as you want. (And yes, I have one scheduled for Equinox).

And because I am a firm believer in word-of-mouth, when you purchase an Equinox Pass you can bring a friend (or many friends if you attend multiple sessions!)Each session is ~90 mins (depending on the number of people on the call)

GET Your Kitchen Sessions Pass (click and select your sessions)

Decompress the End of the Astrological Year

Saturday 18th 8am (hour of Mars)
Sunday 19th 3pm (hour of Mercury)
Monday 20th 11am (hour of Venus)

Welcome the New Astrological Energy

Tuesday 21st 12pm (hour of Jupiter)
Thursday 23rd 7pm (hour of Saturn)
Saturday 25th 9am (hour of the Sun)
Sunday 26th 4pm (hour of the Moon)

I’m excited-terrified to take my depth work into this expanded space.

I love the group energetic experience with my Network Chiropractor and my heart belongs to collective sharing/learning and circle work. So I guess it’s time.

The Kitchen Table Sessions will be empowered stepping stones across the Equinox Portal and into the slow, depths of The Poetry of You (if you choose to continue on) which begins Tuesday 28th of March.

Get Your Kitchen Sessions Pass — one-stop via Acuity

Where This All Leads…

On the weekend I sent emails about my slow, deep work for the Winter The Poetry of You. 

The journey below the surface looks different for everyone one. There’s no prescriptive “how to” and that’s what makes it both exhilarating and trepidatious. With a flexible structure and myself as SCUBA buddy, wise woman and fellow traveller, we dare to go deep together.

Learn more.

 

Posted on

An (Imperfect) Retrospective: Post-It Note Poetry 2013-2022

Christina, bless her heart, invited people to share their Post-It Note Poetry journeys in a post this morning on IG. As the creator of the event, it is a long look back on the history of PINP  and my emergence as a poet. (Thank goodness for finally working out IG’s search function!)

The Start

If you remember, Adam and I began this in 2013 as a dare.

In 2012 I had spent February composing very bad haiku as a form of creative rehabilitation (because I had no emotional investment in it, compared with writing fiction) and in 2013 I was willing in inflict bad poetry on my writing partner. He upped the ante daring it to all happen in the space of a post-it note.

We posted our intial efforts to Facebook (back in the days when people’s posts actually appeared in your timeline!) and friends joined in. We set up a Facebook to curate what had gone from a dare to an event.

Fast forward 11 years, here we are ready to go around the block again.

With A Little Help From My Friends

No retrospective would complete without a tip of the hat to my past curators — first Adam Byatt who shared “parenting duties” with me for the first two or three years.

Sean (S.B) Wright also helped out in the early years (especially in 2014 when I decided to take a few weeks digital sabbatical in the early weeks of the February). When I look back, the future of Post-It Note Poetry probably sat on the shoulders of Sean until it really baked itself into my soul.

I became aware as the calendar clicked into a new decade that I might not do this forever; at someone point I might need to hand it over to continue. So either consciously (or unconsciously, probably a bit of both) I let go a little and started asking for help.

In 2020, I invited eight new(ish) and foundation PINP poets to be Ambassadors to help me promote the event. My thanks go to: Sean, Christina, Rob Cook, Kim Bannerman, Maria (M.X.) Kelly, Denise Sparrow, Jude Smith and Marion Taffe. Each of these posts has a collection of wisdom on how to navigate the month from people who’ve been there.

And in 2021 I asked my Poetic Bestie if she’d come play with me in an official capacity. Thank fuck Christina said yes!

Three years in, Post-It Note Poetry is in the best shape it’s ever been. Doing anything is always much more fun if you are doing it with someone you love and who loves what you create together as much as you do.

(It is worth nothing — Post-It Note Poetry pre-dates “instagram challenges”. It flowed through to that platform in 2016 or so, really getting traction in 2017. Prior to that it was very much a Facebook thing which I very imperfectly resurrected and nurtured each year.)

My Retrospective

I am still absolutely floored this continues and I continue on with it.

If I ever try to tell myself I am not patient, that I lack follow through, that I am incapable of committing, I just need to return to this post!

Here is my poetic journey with PINP, from February 1st, 2013 to February 28th 2022

2013

These are the first words committed to Post-It Note Poetry — before anyone but Adam and I were doing it.

And the last words. As you can see by the end of the month I was already bending the parameters of what constituted “a post-it note”.

2014

This was the first year playing around with more intentional forms of multi-media. Probably inspired by Maria Kelly? Here are the first and last for the month (technically the 24th — no idea what happened to the final four poems that year?)

 

2015

I believe I still have all these poems, pasted away in a journal. That journal is currently AWOL though.

They got weird that year!

2016

This was my first year, experimenting with cut-up poetry in a committed way. These were all pasted onto wee origami squares. I don’t remember now what I cut-up. Possibly Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino. These were sent across the world to anyone who wanted them. I believe my friend Kris still has hers somewhere.

2017

“Get In Trouble” was my first themed month. I combined an exploration of Zentangle with cut-up poetry; words taken from Kelly Link’s collection of short stories of the same name. The intention was to use these for a postcard project to encourage people to write and send postcards. The combination of black paper, sparkly pencils, plus black and white print made these impossible to reproduce.

2017 was the year #pinp17 hit critical mass on Instagram (back before the algorithm fucked it for community). Someone of these poems have more than 50 likes — something that would be impossible for me now.

2018

It was an odd year. I failed PINP dismally, creating fewer than a week’s worth of poems before disappearing. This is the first of the handful of poems I did.

It’s the year that PINP could possibly have died but I was determined to come back bigger and stronger the following year.

However, these few shitty poems created a foundation. They were my first digital effort, which allowed so much else to happened as the year progressed. It  was my biggest year for poetry — doing two big projects (including one that was 121 consecutive days of poetry) that eventually opened the way for The Daily Breath the following year (which remains my most prolific and profitable year of poetry ever).

2019

I decided to create a paper quilt in 2019. I used fragments from a plethora of baggies of off-cut text and returned to origami squares as the canvas.

And, the finished quilt…

2020

I started here cutting up John Berger’s G …

…but I felt these were too raw and personal to share publicly, so pivoted on day 5 back to handwritten poems. It felt like a necessary shove out of my comfort zone, back to free-form. Across the month I combined it with a tarot pull.

It ended up here, in the true to 2020’s chaotic style, with a digital poem.

2021

It was the call back to cut-up, this time to a favourite, Tim Winton short story collection The Turning (and my beloved British Paint Squares).

I’ve used this collection of poems, on and off, with clients as a kind of keepsake oracle. (And yes, last year, when I wasn’t sure exactly what I was experiencing, a random pull from these poems firmly cleared up what was and wasn’t happening!) At least one friend has a poem from this collection sitting next to their computer.

2022

It was our first year of a Post-It Note with a theme.

We went with forbidden | pleasure and I went with a morning set of poems and an evening set.

The mornings were entitled Small Notes to a Non-Corporeal Lover. I used Taubman’s paint swatches  left over from painting our house in 2013/4 (They’re different dimensions to the British Paint ones.) I cut text from Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry.

The collection ends with not one, but two poems. I could never decide which one was the “true end”.

These poems now live with Cristina Rombi in her Italian mountain home.

And then there were the evening editions, remixed from Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1748) by John Cleland.

In 2022, I built/composed 92 poems in a kind of Herculean effort that I will never need to return to, for out-performing, in future years.

Thanks for being here, and following all the way to the end.

You can find more about Post-It Note Poetry in 2023 here.

Jodi xxx

Posted on

POETRY CHALLENGE CELEBRATES THE RANDOM ELOQUENCE OF A TENTH ANNIVERSARY

Post-It Note Poetry (PINP) celebrates its 10th anniversary in February 2023. The original 2013 challenge between writing partners Adam Byatt and Jodi Cleghorn was to write bad poetry on post-it notes for 28 days. It quickly caught the quirk and imagination of poets and non-poets alike.

“If someone had told me in 2013 a silly dare could inspire people to come together and write poetry on sticky notes for 11 consecutive years, I wouldn’t have believed them,” said Jodi, a multi-passionate word witch who uses poetry as one of her four professional pillars. “But here we are in 2023!”

As a much-anticipated community event, PINP unites seasoned and fledgling poets in the joy of words that breathe outside the lines. In the past three years the challenge has evolved to include Christina Hira as a co-curator, introduced themes and offered participants the opportunity for publication in a digital collection each March.

In 2023 the Hira-Cleghorn duo offer the theme random | eloquence for participants to explore.

“I love the invitation to playfulness that comes each year with PINP. To show up as many days as possible with whatever weird and chaotic words is its own beautiful eloquence” said Christina, a messy human who finds home in making spaces for art and poetry on Patreon. “I can’t wait to stir up the beautiful community of poets on IG once again.”

“The last 11 years have taken me from someone writing terrible haiku to finding a powerful voice through cut-up poetry,” Jodi said. “And through cut-up poetry I first connected with Christina. I feel as though our partnership is the epitome of random eloquence.”

The 10th anniversary also marks the shift of the event solely to Instagram, leaving behind roots at Facebook.

Hashtag for this year’s event is #pinp23

The new addition we have this year, in order to foster more community, is to bookend PINP with zoom events.

We will host a PINP opening party on 1st Feb at 11am NZST and a closing party on the 28th Feb at 11am NZST.

Opening Party: Bring along your questions, your excitement and your process to share

Closing Party: Bring along your favourite poem of the month to share together

The link for both zooms will be the same

Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 849 3948 2573

Passcode: 143490

Find your local number

For more information contact:

Jodi Cleghorn @jodicleghorn

Christina Hira  @wild.dark.magic

 

ABOUT POST-IT NOTE POETRY

Post-It Note Poetry’s mission is simple:

    1. To encourage people of all skill sets and persuasions to explore and have fun with poetry – whether they are seasoned poets or curious souls attempting poetry for the first time.
    1. To create within a confined physical space (the size of a post-it note) as a positive exploration of limitation. It is also a way of making poetry composition possible for 28 consecutive days.
    1. To come together once a year as a community to write, read, share and amplify the joy of poetry.

Check out 2021 and 2022′s poetry collections.

 

THE “RULES”

The rules are simple for those who’d like to play along at home (at work, on the bus or in any of those in between places perfect for scribbling poetic words on small squares of sticky paper).

      • Write/build/create a poem every day of February*.
      • Poems must fit on a post-it note (or be an equivalent sized poem – ie. no more than 8 lines on a larger backing).
      • Poems must adhere to the original light-hearted spirit of permission to write badly – in which poems can tackle serious content, but internal editors/critics all get a break over February.
      • Post poems to social media with the hashtag #PINP23
      • Follow the hashtag , comment and enjoy what others are creating.

 

*or as many days as feels comfortable and capable for you.

Posted on

The Ten of Pentacles and Mercury Postcards

I wanted to cultivate a closer relationship with Mercury (and myself) this year and I set out to create a set of postcards that I could write and mail to myself, as kind of markers for how the year unfolded.

Covid in June disrupted a lot of things I had ticking away with clockwork precision and among the things which fell after June were my monthly tarot journal and with it, the Mercury postcards I’d committed to making and sending.

This week, in the Tarot Primer, we’re working with the 10 of Pentacles and the “In Action” part of the download for this week is to write out the aspects of the year that made it possible, with the option to write and send yourself a postcard of celebration.

Maybe it’s something you’d like to try also?

Or maybe on the other side of the festive season, you’d like to reach out and connect with people as one year flows into the other. Postcards are a time efficient way to say hello; I was thinking of you.

Below is a repository of downloadable postcard templates. All you need once you’ve printed off the template is some cardboard, scissors and glue. They take less than five minutes to complete.

Download The Mercury Postcard Repository

 

Posted on

Changing My Relationship With the Passing Year

I’ll be honest, my 40’s have been far from ecstatic.

They have been hard. Fucking hard. All manner of rough comings out — from polyamory to being psychic. Reinventing myself as a writer. Revisioning then rebuilding the kind of experience I wanted in publishing (and I’m still so so so far away from it, but that’s okay.) Fumbling through what it means to be multi-passionate and how to do business when you’re not flying just one kite.

There was the navigation of high school with a chronically ill son, then making my own way through years of chronic illness born from more than a decade of chronic stress and isolation.

For so many years I felt as though I was slow-falling through any sense of solidity or certainty. I tumbled down an endless Alice abyss.

And I hated it.

I railed.
I fought.
And I fucking resented everything.
Endlessly.

I couldn’t wait to get beyond each fucked up year and get a fresh start. The thing was, I never did. It was like stepping in dog shit and treading it from one year to another.

I wanted to stop feeling trapped and tortured by my years.

That liberation began with changing the relationship I had with the passing year.

Four Quick Hacks I Embraced

1. I quit shitting on the year that had shat on me. 

I stopped labelling years bad and just let them be neutral. I mean, you’ve heard it, or even said it yourself:

“Can’t wait for this year to be finished.”

“Shit year!”

“This year can fuck off.”

Three years of a pandemic has had us collectively saying some version of “Twenty-Fucking-Twenty…”

While this might provide short term rapport with all the other people also pissing on the year, the thing is, if you do this, you take the resentment, animosity, grief, disappointment and whatever else the year stirred up … you take into the new year.

You repeat patterns.
You miss a fresh start.

2. I honoured all of the year by getting curious.

This let me see if there was something, anything, beneath what was going on. Especially the hard-as-shit stuff. Attempting to see if, then how,  I was changing: growing and adapting in positive ways to the challenges.

It let me gentler in how I perceived the hardships I’d gone through. It let me make conscious, specific choices about what I wanted to leave behind.

In the beginning it was hard to see them. As the years have gone one they are more apparent.

3. I  got discerning

This meant celebrating the peak experiences alongside the obstacles, dead ends, frustrations, the heart breaks and unexpected failures. It allowed me to rehabilitate my focus away from  obsessing on everything hard or not going my way.

I started to acknowledge it was like that some of the time, but not all the time.

4. I let my years be multi-faceted.

I embraced gloriously imperfect years which lead me out of two-dimensional monochromatic shit storms of misery that could be summed up in one or two catchy words.

Few years are all good or all bad.

Even the worst years have a few shiny spots in them if we’re open to search for them.

A Clean Start

Few people can simply wake up with a clean slate by sheer force of will and 8 hours of sleep between Dec 31 and Jan 1.

Spending time with my year, holding it lightly and honouring all parts, let me cut the passing year away cleanly. Itt was a huge relief to enter a new year without the other one hissing and spitting at my heels.

Best of all, I stopped dragging the old year into the new as the forever compare-and-contrast. The new year got to be bold, beautiful and full of potential on its own terms.

The Thresholds Tarot Readings

In 2021, I created the Thresholds Tarot Readings out of this practice.

I wanted to provide a space for clients to intentionally review the passing year with an open-heart and mind. Through the cards, questions arise to give clients a unique journey through (and perspective on) their year.

These 90-minute readings are super-charged and provide insights into the themes, peak experiences and growth points of ‘22, with guidance and suggestions for celebrating and cutting lose the year that was.

Places are limited.

Bookings are recommended sooner rather than later to get the best date for the farewell you and your year deserve.

Schedule Appointment