Éanlaí Cronin offered a session called Writing the Soul Awake on May 24.
Éanlaí Cronin’s writing has appeared in String Poet, Peregrine, Sinister Wisdom, The Courage to Heal, and The Magic of Memoir.
A Pat Schneider Poetry Contest Honorable Mention winner; long listed in the National Poetry Competition United Kingdom in 2017; a Winner of the Eastern Iowa Review’s Lyric Essay Contest in 2018; a Top Ten Finalist in the Fish Short Memoir Prize contest in 2018, Éanlai has spent many years refining her teaching and her writing craft to help those, like her, who have spent years in silence, separated from their voices.
She currently leads writing workshops in San Francisco, California, and via Zoom for those in search of their forgotten and unspoken stories. Her AWA workshops have been described as “clear, wild water for the soul.”
We thank Éanlaí for her leadership and these writers for sharing their work with us!
The Ways of Guilt
by Lisa Rigge
If there were a way I could eradicate guilt from the inner of my inner most being, I would. I’ve learned that guilt is not something one grows out of. It’s like a parasite which never kills its host, but instead is symbiotically attached to it for life.
I once told my Methodist friends that the Catholic belief (or “conviction” to some) was, that as a little girl, each time I sinned, a black mark was put on my soul. I visualized my soul as a big communion wafer, and the sins added blacks circles inside it. They were aghast! I was surprised by their reaction – this concept was worse than I originally thought it was.
Which brings me to the guilt of origin sin – to think we were born sinners! My worldly paradigm shifted when I learned, as an adult, that many were born and lauded for being Original Blessings, not original sinners.
And so the guilt-complex has me tongue-tied, finger-tied, stomach-tied and I once wrote an essay about untied shoelaces and that’s what I most desire now – untied shoelaces so I can fling off my shoes and run barefoot through the grass and pebbles, laughing into sunshine, drying my long, dark hair under the sun. I want to feel my naked body as clean and blessed as each breath of air that I inhale. I want to take my guilt and toss it to the heavens. I want to be born again into the world where I am a blessing. Where you are a blessing. Where laughter and fun are free gifts for the spirit – and when our pain arises, our suffering, our loss, is not a result of guilt, but rather a result of life.
And what is it I truly want to say? We now have reached beyond the stars, our spirits my spirit yearns to soar out among those stars. I want to tell all those who grew the guilt in my soul to take it back, tase the sourness, but don’t swallow it. Don’t believe it. Don’t trust it. And imagine the parasite inside you dying, dying, dying, giving you the space – to be you.
The Shoebox
by Valeria Basso
The sorrows have me trapped in a box. It’s a shoebox. Not my size.
It’s tight. Dark. Musty. It’s hard to breathe in there. It’s so tight, and I’ve been in there for so long, my limbs have grown weak. Atrophied. Petrified.
There’s nowhere to go, nothing to do but stay in the box, fixated on the pain.
I carved holes in the box, tiny promises of freedom. Never quite big enough to escape, yet big enough to make the aches of the sorrows even sharper. From the holes, I see the dripping honey of a liberated life, just inches from my face. I see the free ones splurging in its sweetness with wild abandon.
But all I taste is cardboard.
I feel the heat of the sun, strong enough to dry up any well of tears. But I’m here, in the dampy shade of my sorrows’ box.
When did I forget how to burst these walls open? When did the lid get sealed so tight?
My prison taught me a lot.
I learned I can spend years submerged in my tears, holding my breath to the edge of reason. I learned I can shrink into a space 100 times smaller than my size. I learned my imagination can isolate me further, in its fake respite. I learned I can survive without food or drink or sleep.
I learned that sometimes the box is truly the only place where I want to be.
I learned that the buzzing of the bees and the gooey drip of the honey can be at once lifeline and further death. I learned you shouldn’t punch a hole in your roof if you don’t know how to seal it shut again when the storm hits the hardest. I learned the ones on the outside never notice an old, closed shoebox. They don’t hear the screams coming from inside it. They don’t see the floods that come and drown it.
I learned you can adapt to any circumstance but the lenience that comes with it is the very thing that keeps you trapped.
Sometimes the prisoner is so busy holding on to the bars, she doesn’t notice the door to the cell was never properly locked.
Thank you for joining us to Write Around the World!
For the rest of the summer, watch our blog! We are sharing writing from AWA’s yearly marathon fundraiser, which happened this year all-online throughout the month of May.
We offer this series in appreciation for the incredible community of writers and workshop leaders that sustain us. If you’re inspired and would like to be part of the fundraiser, please donate!