If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

Next Read-Around is 10/5/23 at 5:00 PM PST

How It Works:

  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

  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

My Thoughts

There’s always that possibility that you could wake up to a “sudden” transformation that has been a lifetime in the making, sprouting from the seeds of a thriving that slowly grew toward a becoming you did not know was happening. So much of our presence in the world is generated by the unknown in us. We have that same life force that is present in all living things and that has, for millions of years, guided countless beings to thrive despite hostile circumstances. Nikita Gill brilliantly illustrates this transformational awakening in her poem, The Forest. A forest is a living system made up of living systems and, despite what may seem wild and chaotic on the surface, is interconnected and interdependent in profound and mysterious ways. When Gill personifies the Self as a forest that includes a host of wild creatures and beautiful birds, she is inviting us to a wider embrace ourselves that includes all our stories and memories and gives them a place in our ecosystem. To think of ourselves as a forest, a “self-sustaining thing of epic proportions'“ takes the weight off of the ego to manage it all. Perhaps then we can learn to trust our roots, to rely on our forest to “take all the negativity and turn it into oxygen for easy breathing.”

The Forest

One day, when you wake up,
you will find that you’ve become a forest.

You’ve grown roots and found strength in them
that no one thought you had.

You have become stronger
and full of life-giving qualities.

You’ve learned to take all the negativity around you
and turn it into oxygen for easy breathing.

A host of wild creatures live inside you
and you call them stories.

A variety of beautiful birds nest inside your mind
and you call them memories.

You have become an incredible
self-sustaining thing of epic proportions.

And you should be so proud of yourself,
of how far you have come from the seeds of who you used to be.

  —Nikita Gill
https://www.instagram.com/nikita_gill/

Prompt Ideas

  1. Have you become like a forest as Gill descibes? In what way are you like that forest? In what way does your forest differ fromthat description? Use the prompt: I am a forest… or As a forest, I…

  2. What other ecosystems might you use to describe your life? Grassland, Tundra, Desert, Freshwater, Marine? Etc.

  3. What roots have you grown over time. Describe them and how they strengthen you.

  4. Journal or write a poem about how you deal with the negativity of the world, especially given all the chaos and world trouble now.

  5. Consider a story you tell about yourself and your ife. How does that story fit into the ecosystem of yourself? What other story might provide a counterpoint or balance to that story?

  6. How doe In what way are memories like birds? Journal or write the variety of memories expressed in different species or types of birds. (E.G.: how do hawk memories differ from owl memories?)

  7. What type of forest do you think best represents you? Tropic? Temperate,? Boreal? Rainforest? Old Growth? Etc.

  8. Looking back over the past 10 years (or whatever timeframe you choose), Journal or write a poem about how your present life sprouted from the seeds of who you used to be?

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