WHY WRITING IS GOOD FOR YOU (top 4 reasons)

Katie Kay

Hello, my wonderful readers! I wish you an incredible Friday and an even more incredible weekend.

As I’m writing this, there is a stray thunderstorm booming above my house, but it is acting as the perfect backdrop to my introverted, homebody personality today. Since I haven’t shared anything in a while, I thought it would be perfect to share my favorite reasons for why writing is good for you–in terms of your health, emotional well-being, and overall satisfaction!

To begin, I think it is important to remember that there are various types of writing, and various types of writers. There are novelists, who write books; poets, who pen poetry; journalists, who are supposed to report on facts; short story writers; essayists and diarists; and bloggers, probably like you!

No one type of writing is better than the next, and that is important. Also, if you enjoy writing poetry, it isn’t…

View original post 979 more words

Open letter to all Leaders – Time’s up

Incorrectly reblogged from another source, I stand corrected and bring you to Anna’s own blog. If you haven’t been here before, it is time! It is truly a favorite.

Annas Art - FärgaregårdsAnna

If you wanna spread this letter, you are welcome to share it worldwide. Tag it with #timesup if you want. If you want to make a translation of the text to other languages and share it, do it. We all have to help out saving our planet. This is one way among millions to help.

The image is free to share.

Anna

View original post

Endings, beginnings …

For those of you who have not yet met Carly Jay, meet the most courageous person I have ever known.

Aristotle´s Nichomachean Ethics: “Three Types of Friendship” (Based on Utility, Pleasure and Goodness).-

What does our chosen mode of friendship say about us?

⚡️La Audacia de Aquiles⚡️

♠Aristotle´s Nichomachean Ethics: “Three Types of Friendship”

(Based on Utility, Pleasure and Goodness):

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

In Book VIII of “The Nichomachean Ethics”, Aristotle makes reference to three kinds of friendship.

1) The first is friendship based on utility, where both people derive some benefit from each other.

Aristotle describes a friendship of utility as shallow, “easily dissolved” or for the old. He views them as such because this type of friendship is easily broken and based on something that is brought to the relationship by the other person. Aristotle uses the example of trade and argues that friendships of utility are often between opposite people, in order to maximize this trade

2) The second is friendship based on pleasure, where both people are drawn to the other’s wit, good looks, or other pleasant qualities. Aristotle says that riendship of pleasure is normally built between the young as passions and pleasures are…

View original post 762 more words

bonté

“Always be a little kinder than necessary.”  – J.M. Barrie

“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.”  -Kahlil Gibran

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”  – Mark Twain

     *

bonté

kindness is genuine

it cannot be measured

always freely given

from a heart

with intimate knowledge

of life’s joy,

sorrow and pain

        *

pain leaves scars

just because you

cannot see

don’t repudiate

their existence

built on a foundation

of ignorance or denial

           *

those who enslave

insist on your ignorance

yet the first to deny

responsibility

scars became malignant

conscience decomposed

replaced by anger

its appetite insatiable

           *

striking out

injures the innocent

the guilty take umbrage

constipated cognition

toxic input, toxic

as it strikes

a predatory response

       *

bonté

can be contagious

spread it around

perhaps slowly with some

glaciers can melt

in the presence of

sustained warmth

unless the heart is stone

             *

bisous,

léa

Tempest Tamer

“Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.” – Mark Twain

*

Tempest Tamer

Twain said it – I believe it

Experience as a therapist

Proves it over and over

Again

 

And again in the bar

The party of elite

Voices rising takes me

Back

 

In graduate school

Stressing the importance

Conflict resolution

The angriest client speaks

First

 

Survival skills honed in

Infancy – an excellent listener

Often called on to diffuse the

Tempest

 

There was one storm

Where failure was

Abysmal – one does not choose

Parents

 

*

Bisous,

Léa

Putting pen or keyboard to page…

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”   – Ernest Hemingway

 

“If you do not breath through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture as no use for it.”   – Anais Nin

 

“You fail only if you stop writing.”   – Ray Bradbury

 ***

 

Putting pen or keyboard to page…

It isn’t as though

I like to write

Though the pleasure

Of having written

Can be sweet

*

At times

Writing is

The air and

One cannot stop

Its involuntary flow

*

At other times

It is the life

Blood

Dripping, flowing

From an open wound

*

There were years

We parted company

One needs a safe place

To put their words

There was none

*

Even the memory

Lost in harm’s way

Those stories and poems

Long purged from possession

To painful to recall

*

Today we are united

In France

LIBERATION

Words find voice

They write of beauty

And finally of JOY

***

Bisous,

Léa

…To the left

Despite the fact that I first published this here over three years ago, it seems imperative to reblog it now given current events in Virginia and elsewhere. 

“This is the biggest cemetery for Jews, Poles, Roma and Sinti. It must tell us that we have to come back here again and again. We must keep the memory of the worst crime in human history alive for those who were born later.”   –  Horst Koehler, Germany President

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”    –  Martin Niemöller 

This post is dedicated to the memories of Claire Magnani (who wanted it read but couldn’t hear it anymore), Manya and Meyer Korenblit, Chaim Nagelstein and too many others.

*

…To the left

Naked they cling to each other

Husband and wife parent to child

Lovers embrace

O mother, with infant at your breast

You must be cleansed

To the side of the large stone building

Lay the belongings

Of those who are to be cleansed

You who wear a yellow star

You shall be cleansed

Soldiers rummage through mounds of clothing

Items are catalogued

By the hundreds

They line up for the showers

Men, women, children

With paralyzing fear

They are herded through large doors

A small boy of five

With piercing brown eyes

Clutches his mother’s arm

As the gas permeates the room

Amid the screams

Comes the cry

“Hush mien kindelein hashem is with us”

And they are cleansed

And Germany is cleansed

And the ovens are cleansed

Made ready for those who will follow

Skeletal remnants of men

Must remove the remains

Of their brothers and sisters

Must pry the gold from their mouths

Must fill German coffers

Must kindle the fires with the bones

Of those they love

Germany must be

Cleansed

Purify

Pile another corpse into the ovens

Those hollow cheeks the vacant stares

Fire will purify

Cold grey ashes will not tell

Of what has been done

Thick black smoke fills the nostrils

With deaths stench

And violates the skies of Europe

Rich German soil harbors mass graves

And Germany will not be cleansed

*

NEVER AGAIN!

Bisous,

Léa

precipice – let the memoirs commence

“All the fear has left me. I’m not frightened anymore. It’s my heart that pounds beneath my chest, it’s my mouth that pushes out this breath and if I shed a tear I won’t cage it. I won’t fear love and if I feel rage I won’t deny it. I won’t fear love.”   –  Sarah McLachlan

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”   –  Maya Angelou

“Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial either.”   –  Marcus Tullius Cicero 

“God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there’s no turning back.”   –   Gloria Steinem

*

precipice – let the memoirs commence

witness

on the edge

posed for the plunge

knowing the horrors

lurking in wait

my purpose far from benevolent

the past etched in stone

imbedded in scar tissue and bone

trails of crumbs strewn along

neural pathways

certain sounds and smells

like fingernails dragged across the chalkboard

like a battering ram – I shall

break down doors

dragging ghosts and skeletons

from hiding

those who hid from reality

those quashed for what they knew

i shall warm their bones

giving them, at last, a voice

writing it down

testimony

silence and terror

an arsenal generations old

sins of fathers

sins of mothers

this is not a trial

just an airing

of long entombed

evidence

no declarations in anger

a survivor’s memoir

one who is guilty

breaking the silence

bisous,

léa

bredouille

“ Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”   –  Carl Jung

 

 

“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.”   – Audrey Hepburn

 

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”    –  Marcel Proust

 

*

bredouille

mais oui

my hands empty

on arrival

en France

yet my palms

open as

mon coeur

armed with smiles

eyes wide open

sincère mais espiègle

an invitation to all

magnétique

for some

six ans plus tard

ces mains

mon coeur

seem to overflow

yet yielding to welcome

each new friend

je gagne

perhaps it was the mischief

dans mes yeux?

*

bisous,

léa