I wish I knew who said this so I could give them credit, but it is true that when you draw a bow across a well-tuned violin string, the other strings resonate and harmonize to the clear tone played on the one string. A response to clear voice, perhaps, true pitch, and the way one true thing resonates more true things; a harmonic convergence, an explosion of light, a collective yes!  I think this is an apt metaphor for what happens in a WWF(a)C Writing Circle.

I know from some experience that it takes time to learn to create a clear tone on a string. It takes keen listening and awareness.  I say this because for any of you who feel frustrated that your words might not yet ring true, it’s vital to know that it’s like anything we aim to do well; practice makes… if not perfect, at least something that is nearly so. (I’d invite you to lean in to the idea of the perfection of imperfect things right now!)  This is not to dis dissonance either.  You all know, through most any process, the confrontation of our own inner dissonance on the page and in our lives is also key. Things get messy before we can clean up.  Sometimes we move to resolution, sometimes we don’t. There’s a story — and learning — there either way.

Most often, I experience the gift of resonance in our class community weekly.  I discover this again — and on ever deeper levels as time goes on.  What a delicious prospect to explore a practice together, to “play our music”, to touch the poignant and joyful places that connect us, and to vibrate accordingly.

I raise my glass to the choices we make and the validity of them; our child-free or child-full days, to poetry in the trees, the trailer park, the lonely bedroom. I say yes to the ways we fall and fly, the twist of our days as we make our awkward way forward and back to ourselves.  I will remember the stories I hear in this writing community — of guppies, and teacups and crystal balls… of dreadlocks, early rising, of slowing down in a hurried world, biscuits, briefcases, and boxes of buttons.

My hope is always that we might each carry some light out into the world from this circle; that the