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LOVE… The sound of the word conjures up a host of possibilities – a slew of connotations. Passion, desire, infatuation, courtly love, free love, maternal or paternal love, compassionate or spiritual love, sacrificial love, conditional or unconditional love, obsessive love, unrequited love, forbidden love, falling in love?

With love on the line, the stakes soar. In the romantic quests portrayed in such enduring tales as Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre the ante reaches its pinnacle – death by love, madness by love, haunting by love.  Read More »

As we venture into a new year, we imagine unlimited possibilities. The mystery of creativity dwells just beyond logic’s reach. You can’t calculate it, will it, order it online. Beware the great inhibitors of creativity with official disclaimers such as writer’s block, lack of inspiration, just need to do a little more research, still working on a plan… Meanwhile doubt creeps in and strangles you in your sleep.

As we venture into a new year, it may also be timely to address your creative fears. Instead of allowing the unknown to plunge you into a state of paralysis, tune into frightening feelings. Primal and instinctual, fear raises the stakes, forces you to pay attention. Read More »

Under cover of darkness lies a timeless fascination. Inspired by the imagery in the poems of Walt Whitman, Van Gogh painted Starry Night (1889) while in an Asylum at Saint-Remy. Perhaps his relationship with night illuminated the clarity and depth of his self-awareness for he sees “under the great starlit vault of heaven… eternity in its place above the world.” In Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888) the stars appear surrounded by their own orb of light and reflected in patterns in the water. Read More »

Some say you don’t know what you have until its gone. The real truth? You knew what you had – you just didn’t think you would ever lose it. It’s not like there wasn’t an undertone or overture of warning. But all my good intentions blown like fine dust caught in a gale, strewn about by the winds, rendered worthless, are no longer negotiable. Read More »

In this first year of blogging, I looked backwards and forwards – looking up, looking down, looking in, looking out, looking for patterns, and even looking in mirrors. I found wisdom in paradox and truth in strange places. I proposed using less in the achievement of more, I merged art with life, and loved being off balance. I honored great writers, and visions, and fighters of freedom. I championed courage and passion, and studied reflections. I invited discovery. I endeavored to challenge. Read More »

I have long imagined travelling to South Africa, inspired by the life of Nelson Mandela and his Long Walk to Freedom, the courage of Steve Biko (Cry Freedom), and the novels of Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer, “the facts are always less than what really happened.” So, after much imagining, on August 28 I found myself standing atop Cap Point in the wind and rain watching the waves crash over the remains of a shipwreck far below. In 1488, when the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa, he aptly named it the Cape of Storms, later renamed the Cape of Good Hope. Who could have imagined the existence of a sea route to India and the East? Read More »

25 years ago, I hovered in the narrow opening of the Door of No Return gazing out to sea. I tried to imagine the horrors that lay ahead for shiploads of Africans bound for the New World. Situated on Goree Island, just 3 km off the coast of Dakar, Senegal, The Maison des Esclaves served as the point of final transport for the Atlantic Slave Trade. With President Obama’s visit to the House of Slaves in June, Goree Island has once again come to the attention of the world. When I stood in that doorway on my first trip to Africa, I never dreamed that one day we would have a black President in the U.S, that one day I would have a biracial son, or that one day I would have the honor of teaching the work of Toni Morrison. Morrison’s haunting novel Beloved dedicated to “sixty million and more,” has given the world a more profound sense of the atrocities of slavery than most history books could ever convey. Read More »

Why is it that we hang on to the idea of certainty – that we continually search for safe haven? Do we believe this will bring us joy, peace, and ultimate fulfillment? When I consider those things I know for certain, they bring me more stress than not.

What I know for certain is most of you like me, will one day need a root canal or at least a filling or a crown. You will see the price of gas rise and still need to fill up your car, you will have taxes to pay and familial or civic duties to fulfill. The population of the world will continue to expand more quickly than resources will renew, and with some certainty during your lifetime, you will require ultrasound detection, an echocardiogram to track blood flow, or an exotic potion to cure a broken heart. Read More »

The act of creation involves many incarnations. Its genesis may be driven by energy and insight, or you may struggle just to get words down, draw a line, dab some paint. For the first draft, whatever strikes at the moment of inception will suffice – censoring has no place in this round. You will discover ideas or images show up you never dreamed of, or maybe because you dreamed them. Accept these intrusions as gifts – allow them to guide you. They may be more valuable than the original vision. In the process, you may devise clever turns of phrase, include an abundance of adjectives you believe will enhance each noun, or fall prey to “ly” adverbs convinced they will sharpen and emphasize. If drawing or painting, you may oversaturate, add excess lines, or paint or imagery. Read More »

You might ask what a French born female writer of erotica, a Canadian hockey star named the greatest hockey player ever, and the literary creation of an American self-made man who reinvents himself for love, have in common.

As we spring forward into the season of renewal and rebirth, I wander the recesses of my mind in search of signs of future visions. Instead, moments from the past emerge from craggy corners, floating up to the surface. I try to grab and hold these lingering images as they replay again and again – wispy illusions that reconfigure and reinvent. Read More »