Lift Up Your Voice
Today is Martin Luther King Day. If you’re a government worker, you probably have off today. People are gathering in their local communities to celebrate this civil rights icon who changed the heart of America by speaking truth to power in loving and inspirational ways, only to be brutally murdered at the hands of an assassin. It took years for our government to honor him as he deserved, but today we remember a man who embodied suffering and hope.
Yesterday in church, our closing hymn helped define the civil rights era. Lift every voice and sing, ‘till earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of liberty. My body relaxed into the music and my eyes shed tears for the lyrics. Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, felt in the days when hope unborn had died. I was in high school when the country was singing this song, and I remember MLK in my youth. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far on the way. I never had a voice back then, but I had a heart. Out from the gloomy past, ‘til now we stand at last where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. Yesterday in church, my voice and heart came together, as it has at other times in my adult Lyn’s life, and I collapsed in the pew and cried.
My identification with Martin Luther King, Jr. is what I call “surrogate justice”. I cannot seek justice in any meaningful way for the crimes of my suffering so, unconsciously as well as consciously, I project that need for justice onto people and causes that touch me, have meaning for me, or trigger me. I care about others because, in doing so, I am caring about myself. I work to relieve others’ suffering because, in some mysterious way, it helps to relieve my suffering too. Surrogate justice will never replace the losses in my life, but picking up a shovel to join the fight helps make the world a better place.
I think we do that for each other in our Dissociative Writers workshops. We are picking up a shovel when we write our truth. We are picking up a shovel when we listen to someone else’s writing. We are picking up a shovel when we give affirmations and feedback to a writer who has claimed their voice. We may have been silenced years ago, but today we pick up that shovel, claim our voices, and speak our truth aloud.
It’s sunny in Las Cruces with a high of 65*. I hear it’s bitter cold and blizzardy elsewhere in the country. Wherever you are, I hope you can pay homage to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to yourself. Lift up your voice and sing!
Healing Together Friday Night DW Dinner
Are you attending An Infinite Mind's 2024 Healing Together Conference on February 16-18 in Orlando, Florida? If you are, please email Lyn here so we can invite you to our Friday Night Dissociative Writers Dinner at the Laguna Restaurant. Gabby, Sharri, Kim, Suirtaplus, Gymmie, and Lyn will be presenting this year. Click here for more information about the conference. we hope to see you there!
2024 Healing Together Anthology
Dissociative Writers is happy to rollout the third edition of Creative Healing 2024! Once again, you have wowed us with the beauty of your prose and poetry that represents the depths of your healing journeys.The picture on the cover of this year's anthology shows a ceramic bowl repaired with gold. This Japanese art form is called kintsugi, which makes something new from a broken pot, transformed to possess a different sort of beauty. "The imperfection, the golden cracks, are what make the new object unique. They are there every time you look at it and they welcome contemplation of the object’s past and of the moment of “failure” that it and its owner has overcome."* What a wonderful representation of our transformation as we move from survivor to thriver, from wounded to healed, from broken to beautiful! Click here to get your copy of the 2024 Anthology.
Focused Writing Group
We’re sorry to say that we were unable to schedule the focused writing group as we had hoped. We are looking into other options and hope to offer you that workshop in the near future. Click here to let us know if you are interested.
January Events
Tuesday, January 16, 1 pm Eastern: Traditional Workshop
Wednesday, January 17, 2 pm Eastern: Social Hangout
Wednesday, January 17, 8:00 pm Eastern: Evening Writing-in-Place Workshop
Tuesday, January 23, 1:00 pm Eastern: Writing-in-Place Workshop
Tuesday, January 30, 1:00 pm Eastern: Traditional Workshop
Wednesday, January 31, 8:00 pm Eastern: Evening Writing-in-Place Workshop
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Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.