Blog – Page 31 – TOWARD THE CLEARING by Jean Cassidy

On Art, and Finding a Way Home

I think art of any kind has to do with finding one’s way home, that is, back to oneself perhaps for the first time. Art often helps connect heart and mind, to find the story one is searching for.

Commerce

Posted in ALL POSTS, MY WRITING.

In the third grade I learned what it meant. Intrigued, I began to notice all the stuff for sale in our town. I pictured hordes of cargo planes filling the skies, as they traversed oceans, east to west and back again, to deposit crates full of the...

Flatiron Writers Room

Posted in ALL POSTS, RESOURCES.

Located at 5 Covington Street in West Asheville’s vibrant Haywood Road corridor, the Flatiron Writers Room provides space for writers to learn, teach, read, celebrate and, of course, WRITE. The Flatiron Writers Room is an outgrowth...

Bringing attention to exploited obedience, spiritual abuse in religious communities

Posted in ALL POSTS, CONSIDER THIS.

By Joyce Meyer There has been much written recently about rising incidents of abuse and violence against women, including an important meeting of the U.N. Commission on Women. Through conversations about this, I also learned of...

THE FINE ART OF TEBBE DAVIS

Posted in ARTS, EDUCATION, CULTURE, FRIENDS IN THE ARTS.

We have all been placed in this life to explore and discover our Purpose; our voice, a vision and meaning to life. It’s as if the purpose of life is to discover the purpose of life. Its just that easy. The path to the end, which is NOW! (so...

Gertrude Stein puts the “there” back in Oakland

Posted in ALL POSTS, CONSIDER THIS.

What exactly did renowned U.S. writer and art collector Gertrude Stein mean when she said “there is no there there” about Oakland, California? In honor of Gertrude Stein’s 138th birthday today, we explore the meaning of this oft-quoted phrase. ht...

TOWARD the CLEARING Chapbook and CD

Posted in ALL POSTS, MY WRITING.

EPIGRAPH From the foreground we see the clearing as it emerges at woods edge through the canvas , a lifetime away. Beyond in mist the future is alluring. Rippling water and stepping stones show the way, smooth, strategic at start, but the...

The Role of Raspberry

Posted in ALL POSTS, MY WRITING.

Because edible raspberries have perennial roots,but biennial shoots, the fruit takes longer to show up; it needs a good chilling first. It’s vigorous and invasive andgrows underground, emerging far from where you’d expect. One-hundred and two...

Polio in Chicago, 1946

Posted in ABOUT, ALL POSTS, MY WRITING.

A typical mid-summer morning in the city, the air weighted with swelter late August 1946. My brother is four and on his way to Riverview Amusement Park with our Mom, who is lumbering into the second half of her pregnancy with me. An outing, just...