Heal Thyself

I will guide a new, half-day workshop November 5 in “Writing Haiku for Healing and Hope” at beautiful Mercy by the Sea Retreat and Conference Center in Madison, Connecticut.

The program will see a unique treatment of this Japanese poetic form, which dates back more than a millennium. We will look at how haiku – typically three lines of seventeen syllables – provide fertile ground for healing and enduring hope.

I’ll show how haiku offer comfort, connection, and illumination to alleviate emotional trauma of all kinds, including:

•      Grief

•      Estrangement

•      Life-limiting illness

•      PTSD 

•      Loss of hope 

Haiku have had decades-long application in stress reduction therapy. They are often used, for example, in clinical settings for veterans and survivors of domestic abuse because writing a brief haiku provides an immediate sense of completion and mastery. For someone who feels their life is out of control, the act of writing a poem is an act of self-sufficiency that puts them on the path to taking back their life.

Writing or reading haiku also acts as a micro-meditation, grounding the nervous system in the present and quieting psychological distress.

In essence, writing haiku offers a manageable, non-challenging way to deal with emotional trauma, engage our innate creativity, express quiet observations, and maintain a sense of agency and quality of life.

In a supportive, no-pressure, no-critique, contemplative space, “Writing Haiku for Healing and Hope” is intended to show participants not how to write better, but how to feel better. Writing healing haiku is not about finding the perfect words, but giving yourself permission to write imperfect ones.

In a three-hour morning session followed by a full lunch, I will guide participants in getting familiar with the ins and outs of both the classic traditions of haiku as well as its treatment by modern poets.  There will be several periods of writing and discussion, with the focus on haiku that are relevant to emotional trauma. 

Among the topics we’ll cover:

·      Controlling Your Life

·      What Haiku Is and Ain’t

·      How to Write Healing Haiku

·      How Haiku Heal

·      Haiku as Hope

Think of “Haiku for Healing and Hope” as an oasis in your day – one that promises to be uplifting, contemplative, and fun.

Attendance is limited to twenty-one participants. Registration opens September 4 at www.mercybythesea.org or by calling Guest Services at 203.245.0401. 

For those of you who don’t know me, I began my career as a newspaperman in New York City and went on to head communications for business units of IBM and Siemens. I launched and operated for two decades a corporate communications agency partnering primarily with hi-tech Silicon Valley firms. I’ve had a novel published along with four non-fiction books, write poetry that appears in numerous literary magazines, and since 2013 have posted a weekly blog without missing a single week. I’ve taught college writing classes and now volunteer with the American Cancer Society in teaching patients and caregivers to write poetry to help ease the emotional trauma of the disease. I also guide healing poetry retreats and workshops in person and via Zoom, and bring comforting poetry to hospice patients and their families.