Mindful Writing Day Small Stones!

Waking up to Mindful Writing Day, I found my first small stone before I was even out of bed!
 

A ripe new day ahead
expectant with small stones...
Each moment offering itself
for birth into words.
See, it begins already!
My eyes still opening,
the curtains not yet drawn.
 

Then approaching the very end of the day, coming home from work, I found a second...


A rubbish bin turned over,
I cycle my tyres carefully through this beautiful minefield,
shards of glass glinting like fallen stars
scattering a galaxy across the road.

 

 

A Month To Get Ready! ~ Mindful Writing Day ~ November 1st!

Today in the park...

Feathers ruffled, all shades of black,
dark eye shining directly into mine.
Paws rooted, nose quivering 
to catch subtle delicacies in the wind.
Being still, waiting for one of us to move
we are part human, part crow, part dog.

I haven't been writing small stones very regularly and I miss it! I'm not sure why it seems so difficult to write down a few words describing a carefully observed, fully felt moment in my day. They're the antithesis to the rushing, roller-coasting, list-driven, worrying-about-things ways in which I tend to spend too much of my time. This is why they can be such a helpful way to *pause* and slow down, just for a moment, and imprint that moment more indelibly in my memory. Even if they are born right out of the heart of the rush or the list or the worry!

So I'll be joining the Mindful Writing Day on November 1st and maybe that'll begin gearing me up for the annual January month-long Small Stones challenge!

Join the event on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/writingourwayhome#!/events/374292422646744/

All of the following is copied from the 'Writing Our way Home' blog: http://www.writingourwayhome.com/p/mindful-writing-day-on-1st-of-november.html?spref=fb

Mindful Writing Day on the 1st of November. Join us?

Join us for the first ever Mindful Writing Day on November 1st. Write a small stone.

How? Pay proper attention to one thing and write it down.

Why? Because writing small stones will stitch you to the world, one word at a time. They will point you towards the deep pink frilly roses in next door's front garden, and the swooshing sound of trains in the distance. They will help you to fall hopelessly in love with the world.

You don't have to have any experience of writing to write small stones. You just have to find three minutes, open your ears, eyes, nose, mouth, fingers and mind, and then write down what you notice. You can read examples of small stones at our blogzine, a handful of stones.

People all over the world will be joining us on the 1st of November and posting their small stones on their blogs or Facebook or Twitter (using #smallstone) or G+, or emailing them to their friends, or writing them in their journals. If they live by the sea, they might draw them in the sand with a big stick.

Get your friends to join you by inviting them to our Facebook event or pointing them towards this page. You could make a little local anthology if you get enough of you together...

We'll be publishing all your small stones here on our blog (if you want us too), and we'll be giving away five paperback copies of A Blackbird Sings, our second small stone anthology, to our favourite five (wherever in the world the authors live). We'll also be making A Blackbird sings free on Kindle on the day as a special gift to you all.

Our Mindful Writing Day will also give you a chance to decide if you'd like to join our third annual January Challenge, where people all over the world write a small stone every day during January.

Out looking for a meteor shower,
my eyes were opened wide
by a different kind of star
almost beneath my feet,
shuffling her pregnant body slowly
along the pavement towards the park.
Stopping to sniff and peer at me
through the night and street light,
vulnerable and curious,
spectacular as any shining
trail of comet dust above.

Happy :-)

                                                                                                   
                                                                                                    

This happiness ~
Sitting in the forest with friends,
warm sun through branches, birdsong.
Breathing fresh forest air,
Glenn's homemade truffles
melting on our tongues.

Winter

                                 
Trees stripped back
to who they barely are.
Dead wood stacked
like a pile of bones.
The path white like
bone showing through yet 
soft and wet underfoot.
For a moment I am like this.
Earth and wood and ice
with nowhere to hide.
Raw, down to the bone,
exposed, holding my spine
up straight to the wind.
A soft sad heart beating
somewhere underfoot.  

Frost

Blades of grass turned to sparkly white pipe-cleaners,
we touch them to bend and mould
but they crumble, seeming both soft and crisp,
becoming powdery on our gloves,
leaving the grass naked and green.

Biology, explaining ovulation.
His downcast eyes,
"They could have been
my brothers and sisters".

And  a moment did cry out yesterday in my head while I was invigilating, but it never made it to the computer. Here it is:

Invigilators

We stand spaced apart

like the points of a starfish,

180 children between us

heads bent in concentration

but one, staring ahead, just staring,

pen untouched on the desk.