Yearly Archives: 2011

Poetry As A Spiritual Practice – Shadowed By Fear

What a great adventure I had for almost 5 months from August to December 2011 when I took Peggy Rosenthal’s on-line course sponsored by Image journal – Poetry as a Spiritual […]

Sit. Feast On Your Life; and Derek Walcott.

Were there a significant non-consumer surprise for each of us each and every Christmas, what a joy that might be! This Christmas I received a non-consumer surprise, not surprisingly, from […]

Poetry As Spiritual Practice – Rosenthal Course – Still I Pray

Peggy Rosental inspired my first explorations into Poetry As Prayer. When I saw she was offering an on-course on Poetry As Spirtual Practice through Image, the wonderful Arts journal out of […]

The Evolution of Addiction Treatment

JOIN RICHARD THIS DECEMBER AT: The Evolution of Addiction Treatment A Different Kind of Substance Abuse and Addiction Treatment Conference Click HERE for the link to the Conference FRIDAY DECEMBER […]

No Ordinary Luminary – Dorianne Laux

The American poet Dorianne Laux (1952 – ) was unknown to me when I first met her at the Skagit River Poetry Festival in La Conner, Washington in 2002. But […]

Spells Against Loneliness – Part One

Spring has been a missing person these past few weeks. And in its place the damp chill weather here on Vancouver Island has invited loneliness. The image that captures this […]

The Trouble A Poet Is

The American poet, Gregory Orr, shot and killed his brother when he was twelve. It was an accident. In his book called Poetry as Survival he says: “Unbearable word, this […]

Three Poets On Suffering

Many years ago I was confronted by this quote attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky: “There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” As I searched […]

Kathleen Raine – Poetry and the Sacred

As 2010 ended and 2011 begins I have been preoccupied with thoughts of the poet, memoirist and scholar, Kathleen Raine, who died in 2003 aged 95. Ruthlessly honest, she pulled […]