Heartwork with Dale Biron–Poems For Heart and Soul

Perhaps we need to be a bit more humble, more careful, before we declare that we've won or lost. In this cast, the west. Turns out winning and losing may have everything to do with our timeframe, and that these binary categories we so often use, may not be up to the task. Here's a poem that muses on this very subject...

Your true story is important. I don’t know its contents and contours, but I’m certain it exists. It reflects the world, and your uniquely entangled and wondrous place within it. Your true story lies deep within your body, at a kind of soul level, we might say. It has something to do with what gives you joy, satisfaction, and clarity, combined paradoxically, with what, over the years, has also scar...

Let's start a small, but significant political revolution with poetry. When someone asks you for your money and support, first give your heartfelt ideas, feelings, and opinions about what is right and wrong with politics. If they listen and respond well, then consider your support and money.

Write your own special declaration to Mother Earth and to the sanctity of your own interior self, meaning your heart and imagination...

For all those who are hurting, upset, and dismayed after the election...

A Paradox After the Election It is 7:27 PM, Wednesday, November 6th, and I am tired, even of hope. Or maybe it is hope, that’s grown old, and now helplessly tired of me. I long for a place of equanimity, where nothing can easily attach itself to what feels like permanently me. Choosing “now,” is likely all there is. And suspecting that at least half of this feels like some kind of paradox,  I must...

Could it be we do not trust some things that we should, and do trust other things that we should not?

To scapegoat. To play fast and loose with the truth and especially with blame. To add insult to injury. To ignore any and all logical and systemic connections between cause and effect. To refuse any chance for deep, just, and real solutions. These are the dangerous moves of the demagogue...

To "know about" something is largely an intelectual endevor. It's helpful, but incomplete. To actually "know" something deep in our bones, we must "feel" it more fully, which invites both the head and the heart to the party. This merging of our intellect with our emotions provides the possibility of wisdom. Poetry can help.

The world is made of stories. You are a story. Everyone you know and love is a story. Let's not accept stories about ourselves, others, or the world that are old, tattered, and no longer work...

Does Mother Earth need a restraining order? This is one of several questions we tackle in this edition of the Dale Biron On Poetry Podcast. We also want to know the relationship between probability and possibility? Hint, living in possibility is pretty important...

Once you've extracted as much learning as you can from your past mishaps, mistakes, and misfortunes, it’s best to simply let it all go…

Courage is to "know" our heart, and to "follow" it. In times of great turmoil and difficulty, it becomes even more important to do so. As in these times...

Once we are part of this mysterious, unfathomable, undefinable, condition we call life, we are in (and within) the universal club of kindness.

Can a poem explain the power of anger? Yes, the right poem, and the right kind of anger... Righteous anger.

There will be times when you can place your body into the natural world, to walk, see, feel, hear and touch. And there will be times when you can’t. But you can still seek  healing solace. 

Might there be a poem equal to a cat video? Can a critter help cure our  sadness, even our subtle but irreversible sadness?

Here's how to read poems for optimum inspiration, joy, and impact. (Relax. Renew. Repeat...)

War is necessary, needed, and natural… Wait, is this actually so? Powerful poems can help us push up against our cultural beliefs and expectations, especially the ones that are no longer serving us.  This is one of my favorites mind and heart decolonization tools. A poem by Pablo Neruda, that says let’s just be quiet for a time...

Our worst grudge is the one we hold, often unwittingly, against ourselves. It's the one that does the greatest damage. Time for forgiveness...

Sometimes increasing our peace of mind becomes our highest priority. This poem may help...

How might a poem help us with difficult decisions in these dark times?

A simple poem about a beautiful, flawed, and precious thing...

New stories, powerful metaphors, and compelling images, are arriving now daily. And not a moment too soon, because the old narratives have lost virtually all of their credibility, and certainly all of their magic. It's new cultural "pickle juice" we need, now more than ever...

We are social beings. We make, consume and live by the stories we share with others. Stories that help us see and feel, think and navigate the world and our place in it. Stories that eventually define what passes for what we call our common sense....