1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Awakening

Knowing I like to ease into the day world
Mother Nature unapologetically
yanked the covers off 

Perhaps I had slept too long
or had become too willing to stay comfortable
too familiar with the snooze button
too tightly cocooned to see the unraveling

Still, in my liminal state,
I was angered by the disruption
I did not recall
prearranging any of this with the concierge

If I summoned this crash course in awakening
I am not sure why I chose this hour
to learn every element can simultaneously
sustain and destroy life

To learn water 
supports existence and erodes structure
fire warms and scorches
air 
is essential and toxic

To learn in one breath, in one moment
we can lose it all
over and over again

Each time left to decide
how to answer
our wake-up calling

Dawn Orosco

Please join Writing From The Inside Out by attending the read-around sessions on Friday afternoons. It’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional. If you have not registered, click the button below; and if you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

Next Read Around is Nov 12, 2021 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

“Liminality” is the psychologial process of crossing a threshold.

A good portion of stories in the Buddhist tradition are about awakening. The stories often end with the protagonist being enlightened. This end-point is the spiritual equivalent of the classic western story ending, “they lived happily ever after.” Enlightenment, like happiness, is not a thing you achieve: not a trophy on the mantle, not a completion certified with a seal, not something on your bucket list you check off once and it’s done. It is a continuing journey.

Prompt Menu

  1. Journal or write a poem about how you “act the drama as if you were alone.” How and when do you isolate yourself?

  2. Journalor write a poem about a time when you felt abandoned, or about the experience of abandonment. Consider what you must claim and what you must deny to feel abandoned.

  3. Journal or write a poem about what it dislike to be in, or feel, the intimacy of your surroundings.You can use the prompt, “In the intimacy of my surroundeings, I…”

  4. Write about a time when the chorus around you, literally or metaphorically, crowded out your solo voice.

  5. If alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity, what other hidden disciplines might you name? What is the hidden discipline of exploration? Of conversation? Of intimacy?

  6. In what way do window latches grant you freedom? How do doors frighten you and invite you? What things in your home, like the soapdish in the poem, enable you and in what way?

  7. Journal or write a poem about the weight of aloneness. What happpens when you put aloneness on a scale? What is it measured against? How many units of aloneness do you need and how many are too much?

  8. Ease into conversation with something around you and share what transpires.

  9. As usual, write about anything else from the poem or life that inspires you