Julie Unplugged

Motherhood, Friendship & Literary Grannies – May We All Have Courage ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay & Elinor Wylie

There is creative fire in friendships, just as there was between Elinor Wylie and Edna St. Vincent Millay

It has taken me longer than I thought to this experience on paper.

Sometimes it works like that for me: I find something too evocative to put into words, so I don’t. I wait for the right words to come. I wait longer. What I have discovered about myself is sometimes I never get to writing them down. I wait and then forget.  

Slowly and meanderingly, the memory and the core feeling it brings up in my belly stops itching like it once did.

It was several weeks ago I sniffed out a place that has haunted me for at least eight years. Since the first time I “got to know” Edna St. Vincent Millay – because she haunted me and wouldn’t let go – I have had a yearning to visit her home at Steepletop.

The Home at Steepletop

In 2008 I wrote of her haunting:

“Someone from history will start tapping on my shoulder and over time I hear the name enough times that it becomes like a familiar song on the radio, the one you didn't know but all of a sudden could sing along quite well without even thinking about it. Edna St. Vincent Millay comes to mind as another woman who haunted me, as did Martha Graham for a time.”

I noted back then there was an artist’s colony there, but no tours of the home or grounds for literary travelers such as I. I tabled the thought, although the idea of an artist’s colony stuck with me. I still haven’t responded to that yearning: an artist’s colony for multi-generations so that parents and/or grandparents and caretakers who are responsible for their children could come and so could the children.

This is how my writing camp idea was initially born and now has been thriving for several years both virtually and in person.

So Lovely! The office across the street from Steepletop.

I also became a fan of Elinor Wylie via my series on Literary Grannies from 2012. I noted her friendship with Millay and I bought her poetry  collection Trivial Breath. I was fascinated by her history as a mother and then, her many children that never came to be. I felt an odd kinship with her as I suppose was her haunting.

I literally stumbled and then tenaciously stalked Steepletop that day in April. I was so close I simply could not leave the Berkshires without a visit.

What I got was better than a visit.

I backtracked after reaching Auesterlitz and couldn’t find my way to Steepletop. I drove back to the hamlet and telephoned, expecting to get an answering machine. Instead, I got the warm voice of Peter Bergman, the Executive Director of the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society, although I didn’t know at the time to whom I was speaking. He gave me simple directions and invited me to tour the grounds “anytime”. With my heart pounding and my passion guiding the car’s forward movement, I found myself able to experience the grandeur and silent wonder of a place I have dreamed of visiting not on my own or with a crowd. I was blessed to experience Millay’s home on a one-on-one tour with the curator. When I found more of Elinor Wylie’s work on the shelves in the store I literally shouted, “Elinor!” as the reality of their friendship wasn’t at the forefront of my mind until I took her book off the shelf.

Millay was the more famous of the two women, but she loved Elinor with a strength beyond what many ever come to know. In the home at Steepletop there is a bottle of wine meant to be shared with Elinor but instead shared by her widowed husband and Millay shortly after Wylie’s death. It has been left empty on the mantel ever since as a forever altar in honor of their friendship.

I cried several times during the tour. There were times my feet seemed to be glued to the floorboards as I didn’t think I could take another step. When we arrived at the doorstep of Millay’s library, I literally thought I couldn’t go inside.

I’m not sure when you are reading this, but I am writing to you on Mother’s Day. It seems fitting I share this poem written by a woman who was never a mother – Millay, and her friend – who left her three-year-old son with his father and only faced stillbirth, miscarriage and infant loss after she left.

Mr. Bergman recited this poem as he stood next to the spot Millay was found dead on October 19, 1950.

“The courage my mother had," by Edna St. Vincent Millay from Collected Poems (Harper Collins). 

The courage that my mother had

The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she'd left to me
The thing she took into the grave!-
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.

Motherhood and friendship, friendship and motherhood weave through the lives of women whether their art form is poetry or mommying or quilting or being a book keeper.

May we all have courage like a rock – to remember our literary grannies and our sisters, mothers and friends of today with a similar passion as these remarkable women shared.

 

* * * * *

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© 2013 Julie Jordan Scott

What Stories Are Your Eyes Trying to Tell Me?

I don't know anything about her but her eyes call to me.

I have no idea who she is or when she lived, where she lived and how she died. All I have is this photo I bought at a Bakersfield antique store. On a shelf there is a big box stuffed with photos: portraits, vacation snapshots, military headshots, babies. Most are in black and white, some are signed, some give me the tiniest hint of who these people were.

Mostly they just give me curiosity.

I never knew going to the antique store could bring me so much writing pleasure as well as creative pleasure since I focus on many of these photos I collect in my mixed media pieces.

“Why did your photo end up for sale for twenty-five cents at an antique store? Where is your family, who should be treasuring your face as least as much as I do?”

I love this gal so much she now has a place beside me on my desk.  

I look into her eyes, and I think she was uncomfortable. Look how her knuckles are, tucked against her chin. She seems to be holding them awfully stiffly. Her tiny, corseted waist, adorned by a large buckle also makes me curious. How long has she been corseted so tightly?

I can’t even estimate her age or when she lived, but she looks an awful lot like a Gibson girl.

I wonder if any of photos of me will wind up for sale for the equivalent of a quarter in an antique store bin very few people peruse?

Why not try it yourself later today or even right now?

Go to google and do an image search of “young woman, 1900’s” and see who pops up.

What are her eyes, fingers and waist speaking to you?

I feel like all of these people, like me, never imagined their faces would be bought by a stranger and then written into something called a blog post. Somehow I feel it is part of my job to keep these people alive and give their stories a chance to surface, even if they are totally fictitious at least they are something more than sitting in a box for decades.

You may see your own eyes in someone’s eyes.

Search and then look. Question and then write.

Let me know how it goes.

 

This post is Number 10 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

I'm so glad you are here!

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

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I is for Isabelle Eberhardt: Our Literary Grannies from A to Z

Isabelle Eberhardt: A Woman Beyond Her Time

Isabelle Eberhardt, today’s literary granny, is one of the most eccentric women in entire roster of twenty six. Actually, I am safe to say she is the most eccentric.

 

What I love about her the most is she is a woman who lived on her terms, not anyone else’s. She followed her heart, she studied a lot and she was absolutely fearless. Just the other day I was sticking up for my friend, Emily Dickinson, saying basically the same thing. “She just lived on her own terms. So she liked staying at home. Big deal! There are times when I don’t want to be bothered with the fluff and funk of everyday life, either.”

Isabelle Eberhardt’s short life was anything but everyday.

What else could describe a French female journalist who masqueraded as a man, was the first European to be admitted as a member of a Sufi brotherhood who died during a flash flood because her clay home basically fell to the ground upon her?

She was born in Geneva, a child conceived outside of marriage. This not only lead to a life of emotional instability, but also financial instability because she could not gain access to her inheritance. She was a very smart woman, multilingual, and enjoyed spiritual study with her father. They poured over the Koran together and had lively discussion about what they read.

Isabelle as Si Mahmoud Essadi

Her choosing to dress as a man started as a young age, primarily because she knew men had more freedom than women. She could move about freely as a man. She could travel alone.  When her brother joined the French Foreign legion and moved to his post in Algeria, Isabelle and her mother joined him. What no one could have known is not only would Isabelle convert to Islam and become a part of a Sufi Brotherhood, she became known as Si Mahmoud Essadi and fought against the foreign legion. She is reported to have used hashish and before her marriage she enjoyed a lusty and fulfilling sex life with a variety of men.

 

Meanwhile, she was reporting back to France via daily newspapers and journals and wrote several books – very near to her life works of fiction – and she even survived an assassination attempt.

Isabelle and the people she traveled with were vagabonds above all whose quest was not so familiar as ours: achievement financially or in business, the arts or perhaps in academia. Her characters in her books and Eberhardt herself chose to live an unstructured life while seeking enlightenment. They experienced poverty and spent time in the “darkest” places.

She wrote of herself, “As a nomad who has no country besides Islam and neither family nor close friends, I shall went my way through life until it is time for everlasting sleep inside the grave.

It is a shame she died so young. I can only imagine who the legendary Isabelle Eberhardt may have become.

 

Tomorrow’s Literary Granny: Judith Sargeant Murray 

This post is a part of my series Our Literary Grannies from A t0 Z which was inspired by the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Find out more about the Challenge by clicking here.

 

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Julie Jordan Scott is available to speak to your group (or in your teleconference) about the creative process, writing and will create a session individually according to your wants and needs. Contact her at 661.444.2735 for more information.

Literary Grannies Speak: Quotes from the Women Who Lived & Wrote Before Us

For an added bonus:  Read over the quotes once, looking for which one or two especially resonate with you. Write that quote or quotes on a piece of paper or index card and tape it above the place you write.

Tomorrow morning, early, take the quote and use it as a writing prompt.

This is one way you will give respect and homage to your Literary Grannies.

###

“Variety is the soul of pleasure.” Aphra Behn – Literary Granny 2013

“The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other extreme evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul.”--Simone Weil

“If you would reflect well and wisely, you would realize that those events you regard as personal misfortunes have served a useful purpose even in this worldly life, and indeed have worked for your betterment.”
Christine de Pizan (Literary Granny 2013)

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

"No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty." --George Eliot (born with the name Mary Ann Evans)

“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” Zora Neale Hurston (Literary Granny 2012)

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.--Katherine Mansfield

Meet Denise Levertov, Poet

“Perhaps this very instant is your time.”  ―Louise Bogan (Literary Granny 2013)

“Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.” Denise Levertov

“Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life.”  Kate Chopin (Literary Granny 2012)

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” May Sarton

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Watch this blog for profiles of Literary Grannies throughout the month of April here at Julie Unplugged. To check out the first few entries of the year, visit here.

  This post is Number 8 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

I'm so glad you are here!

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

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Our Literary Grannies from A to Z: D is for Denise Chavez

I love the energy Denise Chavez exudes. Her eyes look like they know I am writing about how great she is, don't they?

I knew today’s Literary Granny, Denise Chavez, would be a kindred writer in the earliest stages of my research. I read an interview of her and she talks about dancing at a festival with Alice Walker and even through her words I can feel the excitement just like I would feel if I was dancing with Alice Walker at a festival.

 

I would be that excited even if I danced in the same room with Alice Walker.

I would be that excited if I was in the same building as Alice Walker.

She was interviewed about her annual Border Book Festival in Mesilla, New Mexico and said this, “I have to say, it’s probably one of the most gratifying things of my life because I’ve met so many artists. I’ve worked on healing myself. I’ve danced. I’ve laughed. I’ve sung. I remember dancing with Alice Walker at the Rio Grande theater, this theater we have downtown. Singing with Lalo Guerrero, the great father of Chicano music. To be in the presence of a great human being – an artist, a writer, a filmmaker of this magnitude – it changes your life.”

I was attempting to capture the soul energy in these edits. Not sure if it works, but I love the color and feeling of each aspect of this photo. She is so wonderfully normal!

This is how we passionate writers roll: our rock stars are other writers we respect, those writers whose work has somehow gotten into our blood cells and has been pumping through our circulatory system so much we are more intimate with their words than we are with some of our closest friends.

 

Denise Chavez was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico in August, 1948. She is one of our younger Literary Grannies and I don’t even know if she has  actual children or grandchildren.  No matter what age, each woman writer featured has a significant contribution to the writers and readers to come. 

Chavez is an award winning Performance Writer who has written novels, short story collections, plays and poetry usually about women and their growth and discoveries within the backdrop of the Chicano culture of New Mexico.

She was raised among lively storytellers which, when coupled with an introduction to theater in high school, fueled her writing of plays and lively, colorful stories. Her novels include: The Face of An Angel,  The Last of the Menu Girls, and Loving Pedro Infante. In 2012 she was working on a novel (insert name here.)

Her plays include Novitiates, Language of Vision, Women in the State of Grace and The Adobe Rabbit.

In addition to writing she now spearheads the internationally known Border Book Festival, which is where she has the pleasure of meeting (and dancing and socializing with) writers, filmmakers, historians and all around interesting people and change-makers.

What an incredible woman and passionate example for us today. I only wish I had known about the festival earlier. It is only a few weeks away. I’ll aim to attend in 2014. Anyone want to go with me?

This year’s Border Book Festival takes place April 19 – 21 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I’ve linked to it here. Check it out!

The photo at the top of the essay was taken by Vera Marie Badertscher whose blog A Travelers Library is filled with inspiration for writers.

This post is a part of my series Our Literary Grannies from A t0 Z which was inspired by the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Find out more about the Challenge by either clicking here or on the icon.

 

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A is for Aphra Behn: Our Literary Grannies from A to Z

Aphra Behn was an eccentric, wise woman who was well ahead of her times of 17^th Century England. She had quite a sumptuous career before she started writing: she was a spy for England but when King Charles II didn’t pay her for her work in Antwerp, she got sent to debtor’s prison.

Not one to feel victimized and “stuck” in prison, Mrs. Behn (she was married for perhaps a year to Mr. Behn before he died) started writing plays while there. Upon her release she officially became the first professional woman writer in English literature. Some may argue other women wrote before her, but she was the first independent woman to write who actually worked in order to make her living.

Aphra’s first literary success was for the plays she wrote.

Her dream, though was to be remembered for her poetry. Instead, her plays and her novella, Oroonoko, are now considered her most important and influential work. Oroonoko  was a story of an enslaved African prince. It is now considered an important beginning to the development of the English novel.

She had quick success in The Forc'd Marriage in1670. It was an immediate success – well loved and made Behn a financially successful woman as well.  It was followed in 1671 by The Amorous Prince. Five of her plays were produced in the next five years 

Her biggest financial success came next, via The Rover which was produced in 1677. Nell Gwyn, the famed actress and mistress to King Charles II, came out of retirement to play the role of the whore, Angelica Bianca ('white angel').  The Duke of York (he later became King James II) was another fan of the play. 

As Aphra continued to write, her plays became more and more sexual in tone and she was even more gossiped about in the papers and in the circles who tittered and gasped yet somehow continued to support her productions. I wonder if they wore costumes so as not to be seen? Women involved in the theater were also rumored to have a second career in the world’s oldest profession, so she was fighting a battle on several sides.

Playwright Robert Gould wrote of Aphra and other women writers "Punk and Poetess agree so Pat,/ You cannot well be This, and not be That.^”  The pious Alexander Pope said, “The stage how loosely does Astræea tread/ Who fairly puts all characters to bed.^”

I don’t think she cared. She just kept writing.

Her book of poetry, Poems Upon Several Occasions, was published in 1684. She continued to become more and more successful until her death .  She was laid to rest after her death on April 16, 1689 in the Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. I think this would have made the baudy, over the top, fun loving Aphra very, very happy.

Centuries later, Virginia Woolf further eulogized her, writing:

All women together ought to let flowers fall upon
the tomb of Aphra Behn, ...for it was she who earned
them the right to speak their minds.

This post is the first of 26 in a series I will be writing and sharing in April,2013. The challenge is simple and SUCH fun!

Check out the A to Z Challenge here.

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Literary Grannies from A to Z: The Whirlwind Word-Love Adventure -

2013 Literary Grannies - (Aunties, Sisters, etc) with Aphra Behn as our kick off Granny!

I am in the middle of a  life long love affair with words. I wrote before I was literate by “dictating” to my mother, who would write my words on paper and I would then very carefully copy the letters with my crayons onto construction paper.

Read my posts here:

A is for Aphra Behn

B is for Buffalo Bird Woman

C is for Christine de Pizan

D is for Denise Chavez

E is for Ellen Emerson

F is forFredrika Bremer

G is for Gail Hamilton

H is for Hannah Adams

I is for Isabelle Eberhardt

J is for Judith Sargent Murray

 Some might say I was a preschool visionary or others might have said I was stubborn to the highest level. Perhaps I am a combination of both even today.

My first attempt with the A to Z blog challenge was 2011. I jumped in last minute with no plan at all and as often happens, with no plan in place, everything falls apart. I loved the concept and decided I would try it again, fail or no fail.

2012 came with a plan: because I love women’s history and I love 19^th century literature, I decided to marry the two together and came up with Women in Literary History. I didn’t solely cover the 19^th century, but those women were featured regularly because they are so often pushed aside in favor of the massive quantity of men who wrote and published more frequently. Our literary canon is very heavily weighted toward men.

So because I enjoyed the heck out of the 2012 series as well as engaged people in some great discussion about these authors, I wanted to take it for another ride now in 2013 with a new, catchier name "Literary Grannies from A to Z".

Am I a man basher or “hater”? I am not at all. I love men. I have a whole volume of poetry on this topic because so often I have talked to people who think “feminist” = “militant man hater” or “anyone who is stuck on women this and women that is being so exclusive, let me turn her volume down.”

Do you have a mother, sister, daughter, cousin, neighbor, close friend who is a woman?

Perhaps in honor of them, read the very short biographies I will be sharing along with images and fun facts about these women. You may discover someone very cool that until now you didn’t even know existed.

Why  do I choose to use first names as my A to Z?

Our "Z" feature will be award winning Zoe Akins

 

They are the names given to the woman, usually – sometimes the woman has adopted the name or it is the name she is known best as and I wanted to feature her with both names, like Naturalist Buffalo Bird Woman who is also named and known as Maxi'diwiac by her Hidatsa people. I am also featuring a Japanese Poet Ono No Komachi  from the 11^th Century and I was never able to determine which was her given name and which was her family name. I apologize in advance if I mixed up her name. I am thrilled to have found her in my poetry reading and so happy to share her legacy here.

Family names are usually not something thought about, we are just passed the name from one of our ancestors. I love my family name, Jordan, and continue to use it after marriage as well, partnered with the name my children bear, “Scott”. I wouldn’t want to be like Cher or Madonna or even French Writer/Performer Colette who was featured in last year’s series: Julie isn’t a name that stands on its own very well.

I love my other names, but I am most frequently referred to as “Julie,” except, possibly, “Mommy” which is a name I claim with a special pride.

Please write a brief comment, if you are comfortable, after my entries so that I know you were here. Your presence is appreciated more than you may know.

 You still have time to register for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. 

Check it out here - and join the fun. You don't have to prepare but you even still have time for that as well.

 

An Invitation to an Intimate Experience... with a Tree - Greenwoman Literary Garden Blog Tour

This was written to honor an experience with a tree and also as a part of Greenwoman Magazine's Blog Tour. This "Literary Garden" magazine  combines facets of my favorite things: nature, the feminine, gardening and the earth itself.

Below today's essay, there are some reviews of the magazine. You would be wise to check it out. Now please read my experience with a tree that was both difficult to define and divine to experience.

An Invitation to an Intimate Experience... with a Tree

She rested there, on her side, draped on a downy mattress and surrounded by the scent of pure love and rebirth.

I was there merely to take photos and sit. I didn’t realize I would be a witness to this, her final bloom season.  This would be the final time this particular almond tree blossomed into all her glory for the other trees up and down the neat rows of almond trees to see.

It’s a short bloom season but one which makes Bakersfield photographers – professional and amateur alike – sing with joy. Maybe “shoot with joy” is a better term, but for me it is definitely singing. Stepping into a blooming almond orchard is truly akin to stepping into heaven.

It is a separate from the outside world, nearly silent place dappled with darkness and light. The scent is heady, a sort of fragrant lusty sweetness that doesn’t hold language very well in its aroma. I brought my notebook. I brought a camera. I brought some books to read.

My open heart and observant spirit are simply who I am.

This is why I shouldn’t be surprised by the incredibly bittersweet sight of a downed tree, still stubbornly blossoming, still declaring the can bear fruit, even if only her roots are still attached to the ground, refusing to detach from her mother, Earth.

I did something I have done with other trees “in the wild” as in not in my backyard. I got on my back and pushed myself into her depths, face up. It looks sort of like my brothers used to look when they rolled underneath the cars they were working on.

I wanted to sit with her, I wanted to allow her to speak to me, I wanted her see how much I appreciated and valued this unexpected privilege.

Never in my life have I expected to see a fallen tree. I have, in past years, seen entire orchards raised by farmers. They were seen as orchards past their prime, trees no longer yielding a high quality crop. It was time for the land to lie fallow before planting a brand new crop of trees.

I’m nearing menopause these days and sometimes worry that if I were an almond or a peach or a cherry or a plum tree, I would be raised. This tree, though, she was still in her prime years.

I have no idea how she fell. She was in the middle of the orchard, close to its heartbeat. It was quite a distance from the busy road. Wind was unlikely to come whipping through the middle of the orchard. It might hug the orchard, but not push through to slay only one tree in the middle.

What I did know was this tree offered herself to me.

She gave me her blooms, she invited me to become intimate with her and experience her in a way I doubt any other people would experience her. I breathed in her scent, I cried with her. I scribbled some near unintelligible words onto the page, praying I would somehow be able to translate for her later.

The time has yet to come. It may or it may not. I will, however, forever have this unnameable experience, covered in newborn blossoms, a quilt offered to me by a dying almond tree.

 = = =

"Greenwoman Magazine celebrates garden writing in all its forms: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, commentary, biography, art, and comics! 

Daring and fun, Greenwoman is for the hip gardener who loves digging into the world of art and environmental thought that underlies gardening."

 Greenwoman Magazine is a completely independent, one-woman-owned-and-run publication.  (Well, two-women, when Sandra’s daughter Zora, who is the Deputy Editor, has time from her full-time college work).

You may visit Greenwoman's Facebook Page here - (be sure to "like it as well)

Reviews of Greenwoman Magazine (which may be seen and subscribed to  at the link here as well as on the images from Greenwoman.

"I think this magazine will be one of the best gifts 2011 has given humanity and I’m absolutely serious about this. I hope you will check it out. When I did that, I clicked immediately on the subscription button and signed myself up. Now for those of you who know me, you will know this is significant because I have a very strict rule about not purchasing anything over the internet." —Tammi Hartung, author of Homegrown Herbs

 “. . . I realized that this was a periodical loathe to box itself in or stoop to cliché. The topics would be familiar but the twists and turns would be unique because the human experience is unique."—Grace Peterson, "Gardening with Grace" blog                                                                                      

 "Greenwoman is a fresh and hip magazine bringing the spirit of gardening to the forefront . . . It is unlike any other magazine I have read."—Elise Bowan                                                                                                            

“Greenwoman filled the gap in my life that I didn't know existed: a magazine that connected all my interests: the earth, gardening, and a feminine perspective. I couldn't believe my luck upon discovering it! Greenwoman will now replace some of my subscriptions that were only gardening, that ignored earth issues...Viva Greenwoman. —Elisabeth Kinsey, Greenwoman's Sex in the Garden columnist.

 # # #

To see excerpts from the Fourth Issue (now available via subscribption which I heartily recommend) visit Greenwoman's Current Issue online.

Wildly eclectic, the issue includes poetry, comics, fiction, creative non ficti0on interviews and more. Support this woman owned literary adventure now.

 

 

 

 

 

"I think this magazine will be one of the best gifts 2011 has given humanity and I’m absolutely serious about this. I hope you will check it out. When I did that, I clicked immediately on the subscription button and signed myself up. Now for those of you who know me, you will know this is significant because I have a very strict rule about not purchasing anything over the internet." —Tammi Hartung, author of Homegrown Herbs

 

 

“. . . I realized that this was a periodical loathe to box itself in or stoop to cliché. The topics would be familiar but the twists and turns would be unique because the human experience is unique."—Grace Peterson, "Gardening with Grace" blog                                                                                      

 

"Greenwoman is a fresh and hip magazine bringing the spirit of gardening to the forefront . . . It is unlike any other magazine I have read."—Elise Bowan                                                                                                             

 “Greenwoman filled the gap in my life that I didn't know existed: a magazine that connected all my interests: the earth, gardening, and a feminine perspective. I couldn't believe my luck upon discovering it! Greenwoman will now replace some of my subscriptions that were only gardening, that ignored earth issues...Viva Greenwoman. —Elisabeth Kinsey, Greenwoman's Sex in the Garden columnist.

 

 

Motherhood Quotes to Inspire, Delight & Invite Creative Mommying

Collecting quotes on a variety of subjects is a beloved hobby of mine. There is simply nothing better to get my creative juices flowing than a heartfelt collection of words from a variety of sources. This grouping is my gift to you. Read, enjoy, and leap off creatively.

“The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that - a parent's heart bared, beating forever outside its chest.”
― Debra Ginsberg

“Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by humankind.”

― Howard W. Hunter

“I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway...let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves.”
― C. Joybell C.

“The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.”
― Dorothy Parker

“(24/7) once you sign on to be a mother, that's the only shift they offer.”
― Jodi Picoult

“But kids don't stay with you if you do it right. It's the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won't be needed in the long run.”
― Barbara Kingsolver

“A mother knows what her child's gone through, even if she didn't see it herself.”
― Pramoedya Ananta Toer 

 “In a child's eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe.”
― N. K. Jemisin

“She [my mother] was the force around which our world turned. My mother was propelled through the universe by the brute force of reason. She was the judge in all our arguments. One disapproving word from her was enough to send us off to hide in a corner, where we would cry and fantasize our own martyrdom. And yet. One kiss could restore us to princedom. Without her, our lives would dissolve into chaos.”
― Nicole Kraus

“It's come at last", she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.”
― Betty Smith

 

 

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

Join the Walk on Washington, Albany & Straight Into History of Yesterday as well as History Being Made

Women Leaders of the Suffrage Movement, Preparing for Walks on Washington, DC and Albany, NY

For some people this is the last week of February. For me it is the countdown to Women’s History Month followed by the countdown to April’s A to Z blog challenge. It is almost like I get two months of women’s history because I focus on women writers during April.

This year’s Women’s History Month is themed like this: “Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.”

You might have figured out at first glance, I abhorred this theme.

Then I settled down and thought, “Hey – women have passion in all areas. Just because I don’t equate imagination with these “hard side” arenas doesn’t mean… wait. These areas DO inspire and evoke imagination. They also tend to be more highly dominated by men then the soft side of literature and the humanities.

Naturalist Alice Eastwood

Suddenly, my mind shifted as I thought of my beloved women naturalists across time. They were scientists, first and foremost. To use visual arts terminology, nature and natural studies is their medium and their palette. When I sketch in my nature journal I am combining both skill sets: the scientist and the artist, the naturalist and the curious, the imaginative and the completely alive side of me who has become more observant with age, not less observant.

I know women are thought of less in the world of science, mathematics and engineering. I am one who struggles with the math of my sixth grade son from time-to-time and am reteaching myself statistics, elementary algebra and geometry. We certainly didn’t cover all this material in the sixth grade, but today’s students are on an accelerated course of study in these areas.

It makes sense.

In March, then, my personal Women’s History Course of Study will include some of my perennial favorites like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but I will also dive deeply into the areas I don’t normally dive into so that I may learn about a greater spectrum of women always in hopes of educating all people about the contribution so many women have made which so often goes unacknowledged.

What will you do to celebrate Women’s History Month?

Perhaps you have never thought about it before – there is nothing wrong with that at all, you are in the majority.

Just consider the idea of learning something this month, of talking about women’s

Raise our Voices, Words and Support of Women Everywhere

contributions including the traditional womanly gifts.  Each and all is valid. There are no more important or less important.

There are, instead, simply glorious women walking side-by-side throughout the past and into today. Men, too, are taking our hands.

I am grateful you are among us.

 

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Writing at Emily Dickinson's House (see the Yellow Home in the background?

Julie Jordan Scott is a Creative Life Coach, a Poet Performer, a Writer and a Mommy Extraordinaire. Stay in touch with her via twitter or facebook or you may always call or text her at 661.444.2735 to arrange a complimentary coaching session.

Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot  

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott