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Write about a difficult relationship and start with the phrase "It goes wrong in places." Describe everything physically and concretely, in great detail, using all the senses. Perhaps you include a small scene, or you include fragments, details, moments. Make leaps to random ideas or metaphors having to do with loss. Write about how sometimes it's the ordinary moments where the most painful things happen - the moments when we are not prepared, where we don't see it coming. But something feels unsettling. Part of us knows. Perhaps our bodies know.

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Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for listening in for the session on writing, creativity, and healing. I loved your questions and wish I could have seen all of your faces.

Feel free to reach out to me any time. My literary center's email is soulboneliterary@gmail.com.

We have some summer sessions on offer with full scholarships for several slots:. If you wanted to listen in and get the direct link or if you can't afford a workshop without scholarship and the scholarships are taken, just reach out to me. I'd love to have you there: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/soul-bonesm-literary-center-offerings-summer-2023-2369179

I also forgot to mention that if anyone is processing grief or trauma, seeing a therapist and getting professional help of course is the first step. Writing is no substitute for that. But writing is an amazing tool and a lucky way of having a voice in the world. I am so glad you all found yourselves in a writing class. Write your hearts out! And write lots of shitty first drafts and give yourself permission to make an absolute mess. You can't get anywhere great and fluid unless you stretch your muscles and make writing a regular practice in your life.

I also wanted to say: the world is full of big issues from climate to social justice to racism, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, and so much more. You will all be impacted by some or quite a few of these serious issues, and I hope you will write about them honestly and openly. Being vulnerable requires bravery, but it's so important to talk about all the difficult subjects that we too often keep silent about. Only raising your voices and bringing awareness can bring about change. So don't be afraid to write about things you may feel nervous to write about but that matter to you deeply. Start in a journal where no one can see it but you. Then share with friends you trust. Take writing workshops where you feel safe. Learn about craft. Don't listen to anyone telling you to stop. Expand step by step, and you will bring about change in the world. Take your time. And remember your voice matters! Your stories matter.

Thank you all for listening tonight.

In appreciation, Nynke

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Soul Bone℠ Literary Center Offerings, Summer 2023

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Soul Bone℠ intersects writing with creative process, spirituality, social justice, and healing in tiny, winged courses that lift the spirit. Connect with us at soulboneliterary@gmail.com.

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Write about a Magical Relationship with Some Aspect of Nature: an Animal, Place, or Plant or Tree

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Write about a Magical Relationship with Some Aspect of Nature: an Animal, Place, or Plant or Tree

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Write about a relationship you have with some aspect of nature: an animal, place, plant, tree, or anything else you can think of. Describe this element of nature in sensory detail. Describe the bond and closeness, why it matters. Is there a story about the healing that happened when you encountered this animal, were in this place, spent time with this plant or tree? Can be anything, no right or wrong.

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What advice would you give yourself or anyone to console the wounded soul, the wounded heart, the wounded self? Write as if you were talking to your best friend, but address this piece to yourself. Can be a poem or hybrid piece. Write your heart out! Be specific and unexpected.

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Nature is both compassionate and cruel and indifferent. Write about it. What do you find healing? What do you imagine is the language of compassion and healing? Look at life from a wider lens than your own perspective and self, step back, and describe how cruelty and compassion, care and indifference, can coexist in bigger patterns - even if that does not make sense to the human perspective. Use little stories from the news, quotes you read that spoke to you, and perhaps some science in this prompt.

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Write a metaphoric journey to the underworld. What loss or pain have you experienced that took you to another place where you did not feel fully real or where nothing made sense, where you stepped outside of the ordinary and were isolated in a space between - neither fully alive nor dead? Imagine yourself going to the underworld as a mythical journey, then coming back with strength in your veins and the ability to heal from what you experienced. What does that look like? What would give you back your power?

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Use a News or Local Story to Weave through a Memory of Loss

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Use a News or Local Story to Weave through a Memory of Loss

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Choose any story from the news or from your life (a local event, an event you remember from your childhood or any part of your life) and weave it through your own memory of losing something or someone you cared about a great deal - a person, a relationship, an experience, an opportunity, an object, it does not matter what. Describe how you changed from the loss in the end through metaphors. What did you lose and what did you gain? Was there a boon you brought back? How would you like to imagine yourself fully empowered after this experience? Imagine and write that down in concrete images.

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It is common to not be able to say what you wish you'd said when there is a goodbye - especially with important relationships you have to let go of, whether it is a loss of a love or a death or the end of a friendship. Write a letter in which you say everything you wish you'd said to someone but couldn't. Then make it into a poem, send it, or burn it, or use it in your ritual (see previous prompt).

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Make up a ritual to process a loss - any loss - or write about a time you made up or practiced rituals to help you process a loss. It can be a small loss or a big one, the death of a pet or person, the loss of an opportunity or a relationship - anything. If you have never used ritual to process loss or letting go, you might want to make up a ritual for future reference. You can build a shrine in nature, write a letter, create an altar, write out wishes and then burn them, or anything else you can think of. No right and wrong on this one! The loss can also be relative small, no comparisons!

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Write a very short poem, even a haiku or tanka, about grief. Capture it in one image.

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Being in the moment and present to what is going on around you in a sensory way is very healing and grounding. Write about a time that perhaps nothing much happened, but you perceived keenly what was around you. Or go outside, sit in your yard, take a walk, and describe what you see.

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Nynke Salverda Passi is the director of the Soul Bone Literary Center and Festival and MIU's MFA in Creative Writing. She was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her work has been published in CALYX, Gulf Coast, Poetry Breakfast, Life & Legends, and more. Her poetry has been anthologized in Pandemic Puzzle Pieces and River of Earth & Sky (Blue Light Press), Carrying the Branch (Glass Lyre Press), and Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic (River Paw Press). Together with Rustin Larson and Christine Schrum, she edited the poetry collection Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day.

Website here: https://www.nynkepassi.com/

SOUL BONE℠ Literary Center: https://www.soulbone.org/
Email: soulboneliterary@gmail.com

Soul Bone℠ intersects writing with creative process, spirituality, social justice, and healing in tiny, winged courses that lift the spirit.