Conferences!

So much has happened since my last blog entry!

The anthology in which my essay resides (My Wandering Freedom) was published and is available and on Amazon.  It's titled, My Wandering Uterus. I remain in awe.  Many of you kindly purchased the book and gave me feedback, which was lovely.  Apparently I made many of you cry.  My work here is done! Well, not really.  I am thankful my words are in print, and that I got to share my journeys to Ireland with you. I tend to be a very private person, so to share something so intensely personal was quite a journey in and of itself for me. You've made it a bit less painful. Many thanks!

I attended the Sacred Space conference in Maryland a few weeks ago. and presented my workshop on Building Community Among Solitary Practitioners.  I have presented this workshop before, tailoring it to the communities I was presenting it to, in different settings. I was actually happy my workshop was scheduled for the last day, as it gave me time to really experience the conference and soak it in.  First rule of Community Building?  Have a great conference.  And it was, full stop. One of my passions has always been community building.  I have always been a steady networker, because I find people fascinating, and love connecting those with similar interests together.  This workshop builds upon that concept, with ways to get us all connected, even if someone prefers to remain introverted and non-social (I have those days myself).

The attendees of the workshop were lovely, contributing and brainstorming about ways to connect with community.  What I heard was, "life is busy!" but underneath, a true longing for connection.  Happy to say that several people there connected, with plans to meet up again in the future.

A few weeks later, I was pleased to learn this workshop was also accepted for the Mystic South conference in July. Not sure where this road is leading me, except to spreading the word about community building, and how we an do that among our groups.  There are solitary practitioners in all areas of life, no matter the practice, so it's a joy for me to help in building community with some ideas and tips to further that along.

If you had asked me a year ago about giving workshops, I probably would have laughed.  Yet I am thankful for the opportunities afforded me, and look forward to more in my future.

Full Circle on my Wandering Uterus

I am sure the title of this post gave you pause.  Why is my uterus wandering?  How did it come full circle?  Why did it come full circle? What does this have to do with writing or even bon mots?

Let me reveal all.

A bit over a year ago, I received an invitation from my local celebrity friend Byron Ballard.  She asked me to submit my writing for an anthology called My Wandering Uterus.  She had commented on an article about the Victorian idea that a woman's uterus "wandered", which caused her to act "hysterical", or any code word used to describe non cookie-cutter behavior.  From that, she mused about a travel anthology called My Wandering Uterus.  I watched her develop this project with her friend Kate Laity from afar, and was honored that Byron had thought of me to submit something.

But wait. Me? Write?  I have been writing since I was about five years old.  I wrote throughout childhood, listed it as my hobby, and as an adult, dabbled here and there, mostly in journals, a few articles published sporadically.  Never had I submitted something to be published, or worked consistently to finish a writing project.  That seemed like a dream in the future.  Yet, little did Byron and Kate know that I had manifested a desire to write earlier that year.  Not just write, but meet deadlines.  My practical self thought I should start out slowly.  Just meet deadlines.  That sounded easy enough.  And so it began.

The word count daunted me, but I had a great topic. Surely I could expound on that.  I recently came back from my second trip to Ireland within a year, and my journey there had taught me much about myself. As I began to write, I began to weave my story, backtracking to my childhood, my earliest Irish memories.  I had grown up in an Irish neighborhood for a time, was dubbed "Honorary Irish" by my friends, but had never been to that country before my recent trips  How then, did a woman with a German/Portuguese background feel so connected to the Emerald Isle?

Read my essay in the book to find out.  I discovered the threads that tied my journeys all together, from childhood, to adulthood, through love and back to my heritage.  Woven throughout is my passion for freedom and how that ties in as well.  I am honored and excited that my submission was selected. In the meantime, I've begun writing more, and along with my other work (workshops, etc.), I've grouped them all together under the umbrella of the words "bon mots".  Good words in French.

I look forward to sharing my essay when the book is available.  A band of us wandering women pooled our writing to form an anthology, edited by Kate Laity, with a foreword by Byron Ballard.  What an amazing project, a great subject, and such a variety of experiences contained in this book. Details soon to follow!