soap

                      rescue

      maniacal

              cry

                      force

Cara Moulds is a fine-art photographer specializing in zen interior design for home, office and commercial spaces. Her gallery at StillPointe Photography features spa-inspired florals, meditative rock stacks, and peaceful landscapes. Her work is known to infuse environments with source energy that inspires stillness, alignment, and inner peace in all who experience it. She writes on The StillPointe about incorporating spiritual practices into daily life for alignment and expansion.

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves — slowly, evenly, and without rushing toward the future. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Today, write as if you were drinking tea — slowly, evenly, and without rushing. Do not worry about getting to the next line or the end of your page; savor the thought that you are capturing and write with present reverence.

When you are finished, read your words with the same focus you had while writing them. What do you notice that might be different from earlier entries?

Rus VanWestervelt is a writer, photographer, owner of Ravenwater Press, and Teacher-Consultant with the National Writing Project. He is the founder and editor of Maryland Voices, a creative nonfiction journal for high school writers and educators. Rus has published hundreds of articles locally and nationally, and nearly all of them relate to writing and living an inspired life. His latest work of fiction, Cold Rock, was released December 9, 2011 and can be ordered at Amazon or at ravenwater.com. For more information about Rus and his work with writers, you can visit his website here.

Place: the pyramids in Egypt
Character: a night watchman
Object: a glowing orb
Weather: a breeze from the west

Cara Moulds is a writer and photographer. Her fine art photography is online here and on permanent exhibit at the Claudia Mayer Cancer Resource Center in Columbia, MD and has been included in the Howard County Council of the Arts Juried Silent Auction for several years. Limited prints for sale are here.  As a writing and career coach with National Board Certification in English and an MLA from Johns Hopkins University, she inspires others to dream big and achieve their goals. She also writes on her own website here.

I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities. ~Whoopi Goldberg

Regardless of how busy your upcoming weekend might be, focus on you in your writing this morning and consider all that might be possible in the days ahead.

At first, those possibilities might seem quite limited. After all, there’s work to be done around the house, right? And children and family members need to be taken to their respective events. Let’s not forget shopping, too. We are masters at scheduling many things in just two days, and usually none of those things has much to do with us at all.

Make this weekend a little different. Write about the endless possibilities for you — day trips, walks, a movie, whatever you need to refresh your life and provide the space you need for new opportunities.

Write, and then follow through. The time you take for yourself is just as important as any other errand or event that might already be on the calendar!

Rus VanWestervelt is a writer, photographer, owner of Ravenwater Press, and Teacher-Consultant with the National Writing Project. He is the founder and editor of Maryland Voices, a creative nonfiction journal for high school writers and educators. Rus has published hundreds of articles locally and nationally, and nearly all of them relate to writing and living an inspired life. His latest work of fiction, Cold Rock, was released December 9, 2011 and can be ordered at Amazon or at ravenwater.com. For more information about Rus and his work with writers, you can visit his website here.

In a most unusual place, you find a force field that changes people when they go through it.

Cara Moulds is a fine-art photographer specializing in zen interior design for home, office and commercial spaces. Her gallery at StillPointe Photography features spa-inspired florals, meditative rock stacks, and peaceful landscapes. Her work is known to infuse environments with source energy that inspires stillness, alignment, and inner peace in all who experience it. She writes on The StillPointe about incorporating spiritual practices into daily life for alignment and expansion.

Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow. ~Henry David Thoreau

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way and 30 other books, believes passionately that each of us should live practicing three non-negotiables: write three pages every morning (known as “morning pages”), take an “artist’s date” every week, and take a walk every day.

Take a short walk today and compose lines in your head along the way. Transform the scenes in front of you into moving poetry. When you return home, or to a resting-place, open your daybook and let those words and images flow on to the page uninhibitedly.

What words did you compose while walking today?

Rus VanWestervelt is a writer, photographer, owner of Ravenwater Press, and Teacher-Consultant with the National Writing Project. He is the founder and editor of Maryland Voices, a creative nonfiction journal for high school writers and educators. Rus has published hundreds of articles locally and nationally, and nearly all of them relate to writing and living an inspired life. His latest work of fiction, Cold Rock, was released December 9, 2011 and can be ordered at Amazon or at ravenwater.com. For more information about Rus and his work with writers, you can visit his website here.

           milk

team

                     country

              value

        line

Cara Moulds is a fine-art photographer specializing in zen interior design for home, office and commercial spaces. Her gallery at StillPointe Photography features spa-inspired florals, meditative rock stacks, and peaceful landscapes. Her work is known to infuse environments with source energy that inspires stillness, alignment, and inner peace in all who experience it. She writes on The StillPointe about incorporating spiritual practices into daily life for alignment and expansion.

Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me. ~Walt Whitman

On this Presidents’ Day, many of us have the day off to spend more time with our families, catch up on some cleaning, or simply cherish the solitude of this extra time off.

Seize the opportunity to venture outdoors for yourself, if but for a few moments. Capture those rare moments of solitude and take to that open road,”healthy, free” as Whitman suggests.

If you choose to leave your journal at home, be sure to write — or sketch — the experience soon thereafter.

What new opportunities arose in those cherished moments along that open road?

Rus VanWestervelt is a writer, photographer, owner of Ravenwater Press, and Teacher-Consultant with the National Writing Project. He is the founder and editor of Maryland Voices, a creative nonfiction journal for high school writers and educators. Rus has published hundreds of articles locally and nationally, and nearly all of them relate to writing and living an inspired life. His latest work of fiction, Cold Rock, was released December 9, 2011 and can be ordered at Amazon or at ravenwater.com. For more information about Rus and his work with writers, you can visit his website here.

Place: a public storage center
Character: a fairy godmother
Object: one dozen bagels
Time/Date:  summer 1980

Cara Moulds is a writer and photographer. Her fine art photography is online here and on permanent exhibit at the Claudia Mayer Cancer Resource Center in Columbia, MD and has been included in the Howard County Council of the Arts Juried Silent Auction for several years. Limited prints for sale are here.  As a writing and career coach with National Board Certification in English and an MLA from Johns Hopkins University, she inspires others to dream big and achieve their goals. She also writes on her own website here.

There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. ~Anton Chekhov

In this age of immediacy and virtual living, how sincere have our human relations become? Write today about the sincerity of your relationships. Are they more or less sincere than the relationships you had ten years ago?

Does it matter to you? To others?

Rus VanWestervelt is a writer, photographer, owner of Ravenwater Press, and Teacher-Consultant with the National Writing Project. He is the founder and editor of Maryland Voices, a creative nonfiction journal for high school writers and educators. Rus has published hundreds of articles locally and nationally, and nearly all of them relate to writing and living an inspired life. His latest work of fiction, Cold Rock, was released December 9, 2011 and can be ordered at Amazon or at ravenwater.com. For more information about Rus and his work with writers, you can visit his website here.