Category: Linda Mitchell

Spiritual Journey Thursday and Poetry Friday, Week 30: Turning

8/3/2023

I read Linda’s post for Spiritual Journey Thursday. I was filled with gratitude that she used the song "Tis A Gift To Be Simple" by Joseph Brackett. It’s one of my favorites.

Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading is hosting Poetry Friday and sharing a beautiful textile piece along with a poem. She has been reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and I am reminded that book needs to come with me on a roadtrip.
I’ve just returned from four days at the coast with daughter, grandgirl, husband, and husband’s former wife. A tradition that is almost twenty years old.

Some of the questions that the 18 YO was asking made me think of ‘turning’; the turning of the seasons, the turning of our lives. Oldest grand has graduated and I am watching her enter adulthood with curiosity. She wanted to know about the “family member “cut off date” (translated how long everyone had lived) and whether she’d have access to the house we have rented all her life when we are no longer able to rent it. These questions show me the importance to her of traditions. It delights me that as the pages are turning in her life story (as are they in ours), that she holds some things close to her soul.

I am into writing Golden Shovels for the summer poetry swap this year and thus I took a line from "Tis A Gift To Be Simple".

To turn, turn, turn will be our delight.
Tis A Gift To Be Simple by Joseph Brackett

Criss-cross logs ready to
light the match to turn
the stack into fiery flames. The sun turns
a page by slipping below the horizon. We turn
marshmallows on a stick, they’re gooey, golden s'mores. Will
we ever be
too old, roasting marshmallows on the beach. Our
answer is in the moon, full of delight.

©Jone Rush MacCulloch

The Sealey Challenge
August 1: field notes poems of the lost and found by Melissa Madenski
August 2: Twenty Love Poems and One Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
August 3: Recover by Allison Joseph

Poetry Friday, Week 27: Photo Haiku

7/13/2023

Linda at A Word Edgewise is hosting Poetry Friday this week. She has a new thought about poetry this week: "cluster poems." They are based on a visit to a museum with college friends.

Today I have another photo haiku from my recent trip to SoCal. This was a rock at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden.

Poetry Friday, Week 25: A Few Poems for This Week's Solstice

6/22/2023

Linda at A Word Edgewise is hosting Poetry Friday this Friday. She is featuring some clunker lines for people to see how they can use them and invite us to leave a clunker line.

Wednesday was summer Solstice. I have two poems for the return of summer. One was written last summer when I was at the Hill of Tara in Ireland, It was magnificent to be there on Solstice. After I took the photo on Wednesday, I saw the shape of a heart in the trees and branches. Can you see it?

Hill of Tara, Ireland June 21, 2022

Happy Valley, OR June 21, 2023

Poetry Friday, Week 50: Collaborating with Linda Mitchell

12/15/2022

Graphic by Amber Fleek

Welcome to Poetry Friday. Only Two more Fridays after today in 2022. Karen at Karen Edmisten*.
Today I have a collaboration with Linda Mitchell. We shared pieces with one another for S park 53.

Dreams In Between mixed media by Linda Mitchell

Dreams In Between
By Jone Rush MacCulloch
Letters are small angels flying in between — Anne Wynne, from “Letters are Small Angels”
The queen dreams of letters,
written by cardinals in deep winter. Are
words written by the divine lost? Small
messages from everyday angels
found tucked in each envelope. I am flying
in the alleyways, a queen in
rainbow wings, delivering letters and dreams in between.

Last Call for 2023 New Year Postcards

Won't you join us? We have about 9 of us exchanging postcards. Sign up for the 2023 New Year Postcard Exchange. Send five, send ten or send to all. Did you know there are 17 days until 2022 ends? Woohoo! Let's celebrate the New Year with a New Year Postcard? In Japan, it’s called Nengajo, a Japanese custom of ushering in the new year.How It Works:

Choose to send five, ten postcards.
Create a postcard: you can buy a postcard and write a poem on the other side or you can create one postcard to send to everyone (I use Walgreens or Zazzle)
Once you get the names, send by February 1, 2023 (during the Chinese New Years)
If you choose, you can work in the Chinese animal for 2023: The year of the Water Rabbitt. It is not required.

Poetry Friday, Week 32: Poetry Swap Star

8/12/2022

Head over to Margaret at Reflections on the Teche and wish her a happy birthday. She's hosting today. She was greeted with a rainbow for her birthday and has a poem from William Wordsworth.

Summer is for Poetry Swaps

When I returned from my travels, this swap was waiting for me. Linda Mitchell outdid herself with this "Junk Journal" which is more like a piece of art. and for me, a mentor example to create my own junk journal about Scotland.

an old book
for starry dream doodles
of wonder

© jone rush macculloch

New Blog Post Alert!

I'm adding "Monday Musings" to my blog. Here is the link for this past Monday.

Poetry Friday, Week 24: Collaborating for Spark 51 with Linda Mitchell

6/16/2022

Welcome from across the pond. I am currently in Ireland but planned this post in advance. I will most likely be on hiatus until July.
Michelle at Michelle Kogan is hosting us today. I love Michelle's work. And I am tempted to take an online class from her.

This week I am sharing the second of inspiration pieces that Linda Mitchell sent me. It is a poem, "Coda". It's fitting that next week we will move into summer and so this is our final "spring' Friday.

Coda
Noun MUSIC

the concluding passage of a piece or movement, typically forming an addition to the basic structure.

Now green, these trees are winter-wise
scarred by ice, snow and wind.

Scarred by ice, snow and wind
red bud waves fuchsia with survival pride.

Red bud bears notes from our sun
Written in invisible ink.

invisible ink revealed by rain
Wintertime is done let us turn toward spring

Spring reveals herself in rain soaked woods
singing to herself.

From woods to shore bluebells hum
a rising chorus to answer Spring

Spring responds – waits a beat for the trees
Now green, these trees are winter wise.

© 2022 Linda Mitchell
inspiration piece

Poetry Friday, Week 23: Art and Poems Creating with Linda.

6/9/2022

Buffy at Buffy Silverman is hosting Poetry Friday today. I was excited to see beautiful lady slipper s on her blog and notice of her new book this fall. How exciting.

I recently had the fun opportunity to participate in Spark 51. I asked Linda Mitchell to partner with me on the project. Since we both wanted to send each other an art inspiration piece and a poem inspiration piece, we ended up with four projects. LOL! Today I'm sharing my response to Linda's art inspiration piece. It provided me with the opportunity to delve into Amanda Gorman's Call Us What We Carry for a cento poem.

A cento, a poem created of lines and phrases from other previously written poems like a collage. Like a collage, perfect for the mixed media collage that Linda sent me.

Penning a Letter

Penning a letter to the world as a daughter of it
We are walking beside our ancestors

Every time we fall heart-first into the news,
Life is not what is promised

The heart chambered by grief
Life, a page, we are only legible when opened to another

We rebuild, reconcile, and recover
We cannot possess hope without practicing it

Reading children’s books, dancing alone to a DJ music
We shall only learn when we let this loss, like us sing on & on ~

Call us what we carry
If only we’re brave enough to be it

©jone rush macculloch, 2022

The lines are from Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman, 2021:
1. “Ship’s Manifest
2. ”School’s Out”
3. “Fugue”
4. “Life”
5. “Lighthouse”
6. “Compass”
7. “The Hill We Climb”
8. “Every Day We are Learning”
9. “The Miracle of Morning”
10. “Surviving”
11. “Call Up”
12. “The Hill We Climb”