“Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.”  – Lynn Ungar
 
When someone I know had lost a loved one or a dear pet, I felt uncomfortable and uncertain with what to say. But when my brother died a couple months ago, I found the simple “sorry for your loss,” profoundly comforting.

I find this basic truth helpful as we navigate this critical time: Keep it simple. We are connected, and we can help each other in simple but profound ways. 
 
 
PANDEMIC   by Lynn Ungar. 
 
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath--
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now, 
on trying to make the world
different than it is. 
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
 
I hesitated sending out this blog, again confronted with the internal resistance of what to say. Does my share and reach-out really matter? 
 
Well, yes.
 
That’s it for each of us really. Even if only one of you receive this message as helpful, you are worth my time. Reaching out, letting others know you are with them in heart, that’s important. It matters. 
 
Sorry for your loss.
How can I help?
I am here. 
 
Times such as these can bring forth the best within us: our generosity, our humanity and our knowing that we are in this together. We can choose to learn and evolve from such frightening encounters with crisis, or not.  
 
What I understand about this situation is that it’s not whether we get through it but how. And that this health crisis is likely to happen again, in some form or another. There will be losses. But let not the losses be our compassion or connection to one another.
 
I invite you to consider what you can do, to go to that uncomfortable but resilient place of reaching out to neighbors, strangers, and loved ones. I invite you to bring forth the best in yourself and others through simple acts of generosity, connection and service. 
 
On my to do list?:  Purchase a book from my local bookstore. Write uplifting messages on my sidewalk with chalk. Send out this blog. Share poems. Set up a virtual writing circle. (Email me if you want to be part of it.)  Take a virtual yoga class. Write letters to friends and family. Write on my book. Check to see how I may help in my community. Meditate a bit more. Make phone calls. Offer my on-line classes for free to people who can’t afford them.  Check up on the elderly in my life who are confined. Deliver a care package from Amazon to a few people. Contemplate how I might be of help to someone today. Walk my dogs. Get caught up on stuff.  Smile at everyone, from a distance. Write some more. 
 
I am here.
 
How can I help?  
 
“Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)”.   – Lynn Ungar  (Check out and purchase her lovely poetry book!)
 
 
My on-line classes:        Be The Cause of Your Life  
                                                    The Initiated Writer  
 
I am available for phone or ZOOM sessions during this time of confinement. Email to schedule. Julie@julietallardjohnson.com   Fee is based on your ability to pay. 
 
Email me and let me know how you are doing!  Julie@julietallardjohnson.com  
 
 
 
                                                            
 
 
 
    
 

“While memories may not give us the power to change reality, it can at least raise a question in our hearts when a lie comes our way.” Yan Lianke 

Yan Lianke, in a letter to his students: “I hope that each of you, and all of us who’ve experienced the catastrophic COVID-19 will become people who remember.”   Here is is full article (worth the read): lithub.com/yan-lianke-what-happens-after-coronavirus: What Happens After Coronavirus?  On Community Memory and Repeating Our Own Mistakes.

​As writers, may we help raise those question in future hearts "when a lie comes our way."  

​

One of my favorite weeks as your Writing Sherpa is working with writers at Write-by-the-Lake. I have put together all the best of my writing prompts and methods to generate movement for you as a writer. No matter where you are at with your writing -- be it an idea, journals filled with notes, or a first rough draft -- You will leave fully equipped and ready to continue to write about your life experiences, stories, and wisdom.

This dynamic workshop has helped dozens of writers frame their ideas, get their book written and out to publishers. You too will know how to share your wisdom, ideas and stories in a captivating way. Write a narrative that reaches readers and gets publishers’ attention. The magic and skill is in making what is personally meaningful to the writer (you), meaningful and captivating for our readers. 

I use transformational writing prompts that inspire you to write and the reader to be engaged in your stories. We will be writing inside and outside the class, with every day full of writing prompts, explorations, and methods to inspire you to write captivating nonfiction.
​
Extra bonuses from this class will be your ability to write better blogs, articles, or any other creative nonfiction piece. In addition, all my work with writers includes helping them to identify personalized ways to make a living from their writing.


Write‑by‑the‑Lake Writer's Workshop & Retreat
June 15–19
Pyle Center, 702 Langdon Street
University of Wisconsin–Madison 

Early bird pricing ends May 18!  My Write‑by‑the‑Lake workshop is limited to 15 writers and can fill quickly. 

REGISTRATION DETAILS here. 

​

Here is an excerpt from The Zero Point Agreement: How to Be Who You Already Are. A favorite practice of mine. For the graphic of the Mandala  that accompanies this practice  please email me a request and I will send you one. Or find it in The Zero Point Agreement. 
​
The Wish-Fulfilling Mandala 
The wish-fulfilling mandala is a simple tool that allows you to manifest your intention, as you release a pain story. You will experience immediate results through the use of this mandala. It’s a simple practice to transform negative mind-sets and experiences to allow for direct spiritual and creative experience. It facilitates the transformation of pain stories, difficulties, and resistances into a way of living that is inspired by intention. It’s a wish-fulfilling tool. 

Begin with the center circle. In this circle identify a strong assumption or pain story you hold that you know influences your inner and outer landscape. Identify something that you are struggling with. This could be about how you view yourself or the world around you. Consider it as a title to a pain story. Examples are: “I am never enough,” “No one can be trusted,” “I am not appreciated at work,” “I can’t finish what I start.” Typically these will have a history (a historic pain story), which results in them seeming unchangeable. These pain stories prevent you from having direct experience with your true nature and creative intentions. They are at the center of the mandala because they hold a position of authority. They are also the point of transformation. When we name these, when we bring what holds us back out into the open, transformation begins. If you keep the pain story under the radar of your consciousness, you are not likely to transform it. In this case you are doing and thinking things on a daily basis that sustain it. You may want to journal around or review from previous chapters what holds you back or where you feel stuck. We start with a pain story that keeps us from our creative and spiritual realizations and move out from there. 

•The second thin circle is for coloring. Choose a color that you consider uplifting, transformative; a color that symbolically represents the transformation of pain. This color communicates to your brain and mind that movement is taking place around this hindrance. The psychology of color and its influence on us is vast. Color signals action, influences our emotions, and elicits a physiological response. 

•The third circle is made up of agreements that sustain the pain story; that support and endorse the particular assumption about yourself or the world. First write in your journal a list of cognitive and behavioral agreements that you have around this pain story. Cognitive agreements could include beliefs and assumptions. The difference is that there is an added energy around them—agreements are beliefs and assumptions that we invest in. They are like contracts that we have made with ourselves. So for example with the pain story of “I’m never appreciated,” what are some agreements that sustain this core assumption? They might include: “I compare myself to others,” “I don’t believe in myself,” “I think others are always judging me,” “I expect the worst,” “I don’t believe others when they do compliment me.” Notice how these sustain the pain story of “I’m never appreciated.” Now write out some behavioral agreements that sustain your core pain story. For the same example these might include: “I don’t risk signing up for new things,” “I say no to most social invitations,” “I isolate myself at home,” “I get defensive at work a lot,” “I complain to my spouse,” “I take an antidepressant.” After you have written down several agreements that sustain the pain story, write them out in the third circle. Notice how these keep your pain story, a core assumption you hold, active. 

• For the fourth circle, choose two agreements from the third circle, one cognitive one and one behavioral one, and write it out like this: “I no longer agree to . . .” (fill in with the cognitive agreement); “I no longer agree to . . .” (fill in with the behavioral agreement). To continue the above example: “I no longer agree to assume people are judging me” (cognitive); “I no longer agree to complain to my spouse” (behavioral). Choose only two because this keeps it simple and you will soon discover that these two are connected with the others. Success with breaking these agreements helps you break all the agreements that sustain the pain story. Just focus and commit to breaking your agreement with these two. 

Now you have made room for what wants in and for the more creative self to emerge as well as for more possibilities. This dismantling of what holds your authentic and creative self hostage results in room for your intention. This is another reason to start with the pain story and its sustaining agreements—dismantling them makes room for you to fulfill your intentions. 

•In the fifth circle, write in your creative intention. This could easily be the one you already came up with in the “Create an Intention to Live By” exercise (remember, simple is good), or if you like, you could come up with another one. Then write your creative intention out in a favorite color. It may be something like: “I live an active and creative life.” Or, to go with the example above, it may be: “I take an open heart into all situations.” 

•Now, the final outer circle is made up of the two sustaining agreements of your intention. First identify in your journal up to five cognitive and five behavioral agreements that will reinforce your intention. Then choose two of the agreements from the journal entry, one cognitive one and one behavioral one, and write it out like this: “I agree to . . .” (fill in with the cognitive agreement); “I agree to . . .” (fill in with the behavioral agreement). To continue the above example: “I agree to assume more positively of others” (cognitive); “I agree to say yes to invitations to join others” (behavioral). Choose only two here to keep it simple. Again you will be creating the internal and external environment for your intention. As soon as you make this mandala and use it, you will have direct experiences with your intention— guaranteed. 
 
Taken from, The Zero Point Agreement: How to Be Who You Already Are., Julie Tallard Johnson, MSW, LCSW
 
 

There is no primer for how to become who you want to be. No one path to the successful writer's life. No manual on how to be. We must take this explorer's journey and find out for ourselves who we are through our creations and encounters.  This is our life's work. This is the priveldge of a lifetime -- to become ourselves.  To become who we already are. 

We may not be obvious heroes and change agents; we may not seem to be doing much to solve the big problems that face us now, or even change a situation that we are presently in. But we can be a light in the world, bring simple beauty and love to this day. We can choose to make a commitment to something or someone. 

As writers, we can gift the world our poetry, our stories, our remedies, our ideas. The way to live the life you are here to live is to simply keep opening. Opening to what you want; to the conversation with your inner self (soul). Opening to the moment, its darkness and light and the dance between the two. As writers we have the gift of opening on the page. We open to ourselves as we write. Our readers then open to some truth or idea as they read our words. (This is no small exchange.)

​Listen and open to your longings. Then be faithful to your longings.

I know. I know there is such intense loneliness in this world. We all carry this aloneness within us. I know. I know there is loss and division and cruelty. I know there are distractions and addictions. This is why (and where) we must be true to our longings as writers. 

Open. Then commit. Choose to finish the story, write the poem, send the letter or manuscript out. Choose to leave the job that kills your spirit. Choose to join one thing and drop another. Say yes to a friendship. Commit to a circle or class.  Once we commit, our energies are then focused, this choice then opens us up to more possibility. Instead of having our energies dispersed and distracted by too many options, (or from living a life that is not true to our soul), we have made a choice, and as a result everything that is connected to that choice comes into focus. More becomes possible.  When we do not choose, and do not claim our selves as meaning makers, we are bullied around by other's agendas and a myriad of distractions. 

So much comes from a simple choice. Everything really. And once that choice is made our life continues to unfold in simple but miraculous ways.  

Join me and other writers for 4 Saturday mornings in May and June: BEING FAITHFUL TO OUR LONGINGS: Exploration, Recognition, Opening and Commitment to our True Lives (as Writers). SAVE THE DATES:  Saturday May 9th and 23rd; June 13th and 27th. Email me with questions.  Saturday's from 9 till 1:00. Limited to 10.  For more click here. 

After the final no
there comes a Yes
and upon that yes
the future world depends.  –Wallace Stevens

"You have to count on living every single day in a way you believe will make you feel good about your life." –Jane Seymour

For us writers securing a writing time and place to write is part of what makes our life good. Yes? There are so many interferences to writing, which ultimately come down to internal struggles. The outer hindrances to our writing such as work, relationships, illness, loss, other commitments, are, well, just our life. To live the writer's life we must admit that our internal world of emotions (fears), beliefs, ideas, resistances, assumptions, distractions and doubts are what stops us from fully living a writer's life. The life that we can feel good about; a fully lived life for us writers means a time and place to write.

For example, if we don't feel that our writing is of value, we will find it hard to carve out that space in our home or time to write. Writing keeps getting kicked to the side.  

"Your life takes the form of each new day that was given you."  –John O'Donohue 

Each day offers up new possibilities and potentialities. A good preparation for the days to come is to create that inner and outer landscape for your writer's life. Challenge any negativity around writing. I highly recommend Steven Pressfield's book: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.  Reframe and reinvent your writer's life.  Hold a conscious relationship with your writing intentions and goals. Another great read for all writers is The Zero Point Agreement: How to Be Who Who Already Are. 

There is no subject that hasn't been written about, so focus on the personal message and theme, that which only you can write about. (See my Master Class below, offered at the upcoming Writers' Institute). 

Writers build worlds.....Build a writer's world. I recommend that you join up with other writers in circles, readings, and retreats. Join other writers and me at the upcoming Writers' Institute (see below). Create spaces to write.  I have at least 2 writing spaces in my home, separate from my working space. I also enjoy writing in noisy busy places, like Sjolinds in Mount Horeb or Barriques in Fitchburg. (Stay tuned for future dates to join me there!). I have a free (full day) Spring retreat coming up in March too.  It's always good to join up with a writing partner to write.  Just like a good meditation practice, if you can give yourself a few days to a couple weeks away from the routine, go on a writing retreat. 

"Complacency, habit and blindness often prevent you form feeling your life. So much depends on the frame of vision–the window through which we look." –John O'Donohue 

Oh, and I never leave home without a notebook. I may not write on my novel everyday but I am always taking notes. 

Join me and other writers at this years UW Writers' Institute in beautiful downtown Madison, March 26th through the 29th. 

Want to get your message across to readers? Sign up for my master class!: 
 
​Master Class - Soul Writing: Making What’s Meaningful to you (the Writer) Meaningful to Readers –by Julie Tallard Johnson 
This session is for writers that are using their life experiences to write a memoir, the new autobiography, autobiographical fiction, blogs, essays and creative nonfiction.
We will explore and use writing techniques that rely on and develop the autobiographical and personal nature of your story. You will explore and apply writing techniques and approaches that bring forth your most meaningful writing. 
 
 Topics addressed:
*How to write autobiographical pieces that capture universal themes
* Writing soulful (meaningful) pieces
* Understand and explore the universal nature of one’s subject
* Identify and draw out the autobiographical theme of your subject and writing project
* The use and value of symbolic writing, using metaphorical templates, third things, and myth.
* Identify a possible personal myth
* How to follow your theme
* The 5 Elements of Soulful Writing

​

I wasn’t sure what to write for you today. My brother Ricky passed away Saturday and everything is touched now by his absence. I know that sending out this blog, like sending out a letter, poem, book or article is a way to send up a smoke signal: I am here. This is me. Where are you? Who are you? 
 
My brother was a closet-poet and filled journals of his poetry throughout high school. He was a big thinker who lived courageously with schizophrenia his entire adult life. Those poems have long been lost. 
 
I will let my heart continue to break open on the page, and off. I will read poetry and essays that lift my spirit and reveal to me a path through this winter loss. I will take my daily walks and listen.

I will let spring arrive on its own, as it will. 
 
 I am here. This is me. Where are you? Who are you? 
 
 
WINTER GRIEF
 
Let the rest 
in this rested place 
rest for you.
Let the birds sing 
and the geese call
and the sky race
from west to east 
when you cannot raise 
a wing to fly.
 
Let evening
trace your loss 
in the stonework
against a fading sky.
 
So that 
you can give up
and give in
and be given back to,
so that you can let
winter
come and live
fully inside you,
so that
you can
retrace
the loving path
of heartbreak 
that brought you here. 
 
So you can cry alone
and be alone
so you can let 
yourself alone
to be lost,
so you can
let the one 
you have lost
alone, so that
you can let
the one 
you have lost 
have their 
own life 
and even
their own 
death
without you.
 
So the world
and everyone 
who has ever lived 
and ever died
can come and go 
as they please.
 
So you can
let yourself 
not know, what 
not knowing 
means.
 
So that
you can be
even more generous 
in your letting go
than they 
were 
in their leaving.
 
So that you can
let winter 
be winter.
 
So that you can let 
the world alone
to think of spring.
…
WINTER GRIEF
From
THE BELL AND THE BLACKBIRD
Poetry by David Whyte
APRIL 2018 © David Whyte and Many Rivers Press 

“The grief of losing a loved one, the need to walk, to remember, to heal when you cannot heal, to remember what you do not wish to remember. The unconscious call for invisible help, and the not knowing consciously, how, in any way, to ask for it, the way everything refuses to console until we are ready for that consolation. The way winter turns to spring.“  David Whyte 
 

I prefer the word consciousness over intelligence when referring to our emotional awareness because consciousness resides throughout our physical and emotional body. Intelligence implies that our emotional wisdom is located in our mind. Also, an emotional consciousness connects us to the metaphorical and natural world. 
 
Everything we need to know is inside us and is offered to us in our present experiences. We access our inner wisdom by listening deeply, hosting our edges and "lifting the burdensome question of how,” as Rebecca reflects in her poem (below).
 
When we listen to our emotional body, and trust our experiences, the world is ours to explore, engage in and create from. The best life is lived listening to the body. The best stories are written from the body whole. 
 
This is the reason I consistently encourage both my writers and my clients to read David R. Hawkin’s book, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender. “Letting go involves being aware of feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it.” This allows us to be conscious of the emotion while not being reactive. My technique of Hosting The Edge gives us a way to simply listen deeply without being reactive; without being caught up in assumptions, a negative narrative or someone else’s agenda for us. This technique will be in my upcoming book The Red Thread (released this summer, 2020). We host the edge as writers and are able to harvest the entire experience onto the page. We can take the world and turn it into word. 
 
The internal and external edges of our life will forever be present. So, as writers we host our edges and write from this edge, listening deeply from the whole of our body. In our day to day life we do the same and walk more freely and joyfully along, and forward from, our many edges.  
 
With emotional consciousness we become the Cause of our Life rather than the effect. “The rationalizing mind prefers to keep the true causes of emotion out of awareness and utilizes the mechanism of projection to do this. It blames events or other people for “causing” a feeling and views itself as the helpless innocent victim of external causes.”  –Hawkins, David R.. Letting Go 
 
This poem of Rebecca Cecchini speaks to how we live and write from the body. And how this emotional consciousness and faith of being here on this edge, will allow us to live our life forward in meaningful ways. 
 
 
Beginning Begins
 
Thoughts to stop me
cold in my tracks,
pile around in heaps like worn-out rail ties.
 
My legs too, seem of a hard poisoned wood. 
How to bend and walk toward the calling,
beyond the frozen here and now
into blazing who knows what? - to find the next,
the new,
to where beginning begins?
 
I might just stay on the still, frozen ground.
But here’s how, without a word, say the Cranes.  Those pencil-legged champions
of faith, 
show up again, lifting the burdensome question
of how,
in their just go
of migration.
 
They don’t even lift their heads, but say what’s the question?
Just go where you're expected.
The ground will thaw under your steps.

–Rebecca Cecchini,  Wisconsin Poet 
 
 (You will find Rebecca's poems threaded throughout my upcoming book: The Red Thread). 

“It’s pleasing to discover that it isn’t necessary to drive oneself forward; instead, one can simply allow oneself to move forward as blocks are removed. Thus, one becomes attracted by the future rather than propelled by the past.”  –David Hawkins, Power VS Force

FREE WRITING RETREAT coming up Friday January 24th in a friend's beautiful home outside Barneveld. 10 to 4:00. Email me to sign up:  julie@julietallardjohnson.com 

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue,
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
​
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.          

by John O'Donohue (​For Josie, my mother)


Dear Writerly Friends,  I look forward to our work, gatherings and adventures together this coming year. Please know that your time and efforts with crafting  words and writing stories  matters a great deal in this world. "Each day, our tribe of language holds what we call the 'world' together."  –John O'Donohue
​
​Mr Roger’s 10 Precepts -- 
Be Deep and Simple.
Be Kind to Strangers (even the stranger in yourself)
Make a Joyful Noise
Tell the Truth
Connect with Other People Every Way You Can
Love Your Neighbors
Find the Light in the Darkness
Always See the Ver Best in Other People
Accept the Changing Seasons
Share what You’ve Learned (All your Life). ​

We are surrounded by negativity these days.  In my Buddhist practices adversity is understood as the means to practice. What need is there to practice patience, compassion or tolerance when all is puppies and rainbows? Just so, a good read includes villains, obstacles and difficulties.

Part of our responsibility as writers is to reveal how one can move through difficulty. How we can make a Joyful Noise even when events are difficult or even horrific. We can show how to be part of the solution rather than react to the problem. This means we share the drama of our (or our protagonist's) pain and difficulty. The Joyful Noise comes from a wisdom and strength of those of us who can be honest about our own limits and brokenness. Our writing must be written for the shipwrecked, the ones who may be lost and broken but seek wholeness.

We can help write the world into wholeness, reader by reader. We can make a Joyful Noise.

A great read comes from great writing. Great writing comes from a writing journey that is transformative for the writer first. Much like a spiritual journey of purgation, illumination and union (with God) -- a writer goes through a similar process of awakening to reality, or, some experience with reality. The reader then is given a way to process their reality, and even transform their experiences through the reading of our words.

Recall a read that guided you through a difficult time or that was a Joyful Noise. Recall a novel that spoke to you in a way that reached into your soul and transformed how you saw and experienced the world. 

Write from your soul, don't leave the dark bits out. Share your transformative experiences through your narrative and know that your stories will help heal the divide and pain, reader by reader. 

Make a Joyful Noise.    

"These are the only genuine ideas, the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric,  posturing and farce."  –Jose Ortega y Gasset 

​
Mr Roger’s 10 Precepts -- 
Be Deep and Simple.
Be Kind to Strangers (even the stranger in yourself)
Make a Joyful Noise
Tell the Truth
Connect with Other People Every Way You Can
Love Your Neighbors
Find the Light in the Darkness
Always See the Ver Best in Other People
Accept the Changing Seasons
Share what You’ve Learned (All your Life). ​