Taken the Northern Lights in Connecticut as an Omen for a Wonderful Year of @WriteOutConnect with the @writingproject

Last night, Tanya Baker and I got a glimpse of poet Jermaine Thompson's work as #Poetry4ThePlanet kicks off thematically for this years #WriteOut. The conversation between Dr. Richard Novack and him is a wonderful celebration of each October's spirit. I couldn't share my outside view during the recording, but a neighbor texted me to look up and see the ballet of the sky. Purples, pinks, and greens were spreading fingers across black. Beautiful. The Great Whatever offered a light show for the Write Time Studio.

It was the first time I've seen such a performance during my life in the northeast.

Rich asked numerous questions about place, and I loved the idea that place has so much history, and that history transcends the moment an individuals, such as me, occupies it. Its story goes on, and I was thinking about this from my front porch as the evening sky changed its color. Others have lived in my home. The neighborhood is always changing, as people move in and out. The place stays where it is with its own tales to tell.

I'm lucky. I was in this space and place at at time where I could be witness to Jermaine Thompson's talents as a writer, and a wonderful conversation of teaching poetry, all while colorful images waltzed as they did from window. The stars, too, seemed to love bathing in the opportunity to experience such a sight.

Write Out '24 is celebrated October 13 - 27, with numerous opportunities to applaud our opportunities with a natural world - one that will flourish, struggle, adapt, and move on despite the numerous ways we disrupt it. Yesterday, October 10th, however, is when #Poetry4ThePlanet kicked off for me.

In some ways, Prince's purple presence offered visual music as a background for Jermaine and Rich's conversation. 

Here's to the National Writing Project. Here's to teachers who write, and writers who teach. Here's to learning from one another. And here's to better mutuality with Maude, the fusion of Mother Nature and God.