Jacqueline Suskin: Being an Artist for the Earth

January 2, 2024

Jacqueline Suskin: Being an Artist for the Earth

Jacqueline Suskin January 2, 2024

In our modern world, many of us live predominantly out of sync with the rhythms and cycles of nature and the Earth. In her new book, A Year in Practice, Jacqueline Suskin offers readers a wealth of teachings, tools, and rituals to realign with the four seasons and the transitions between them for creative insight and inspiration. 

Take a listen as Tami Simon speaks with the celebrated poet and author about the rewards we reap through a return to harmony with our immediate natural surroundings and our larger planetary home, in this conversation on: following your own creative impulse; letting the experiment be the guide; the shift from creative practice to profession; guesswork and trust; the Earth and the seasons as ever-present muse; the many faces of devotion and meaning-making; remembering our connection to nature on a daily basis; the importance of carefully tending to transitional times; the benefits of cultivating a greater sense of embodiment; balancing hope and hopelessness; the sacred function of the poet; the healing power of intentional rest, and the “medicine of winter” so many of us need; introspection, silence, and solitude; making the “radical return” to nature’s cycles; the poem “Desert Bear” and the metaphor of hibernation; shedding what’s no longer needed; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Jacqueline Suskin has composed over forty thousand poems with her ongoing improvisational writing project, Poem Store. She is the author of six books, including Help in the Dark Season. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Yes! magazine. She lives in Northern California. For more, see jacquelinesuskin.com.

Author photo © James Adam Taylor

600 Podcasts and Counting…

Subscribe to Insights at the Edge to hear all of Tami’s interviews (transcripts available too!), featuring Eckhart Tolle, Caroline Myss, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Adyashanti, and many more.

Meet Your Host: Tami Simon

Founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today's leading teachers. Tami lives with her wife, Julie M. Kramer, and their two spoodles, Rasberry and Bula, in Boulder, Colorado.

Photo © Jason Elias

Also By Author

Winter’s Reminder to Slow Down and Sink into Deep Re...

My constant reminder to myself all winter is to not push too hard. The essence of the season reminds me that I don’t have to document every aha moment that happens in these cold, quiet months. I don’t have to share every discovery or turn every insight into a poem. In the winter, I’m much more inclined to commune with the Divine and let those conversations remain private. This is the influence of winter, the way it teaches me to shift from an overly productive participant’s pace into a person with a battery that needs to plug in and recharge gradually in order to rise up refreshed for the act of creation.

Rest isn’t easy for us, and we have to be intentional about it. How will you ensure that rest is a central part of your winter schedule? A lot can be accomplished in these sleepy months of contemplation, but if you position rest as the central focus of your routine, you’ll emerge from this season with more endurance for the working days ahead of you.

What does an ideal period of rest look like for you?

Unwinding looks different for everyone, and you’ll need to spend some time making a list of ways you can actualize rest in your daily winter life.

Maybe once a week you wake up and immediately take a hot bath. Maybe you watch a movie in the middle of the day. Maybe you get under your electric blanket and read a book for an hour after lunch. Resting usually requires doing (or not doing) something that will break your routine of constant output. How can you convince yourself to pause and be leisurely?

You’ll have to choose activities that will force you to slow down. You’ll have to remind yourself that resting will expand your creative practice in the long run, even if it seems like the opposite is happening in the moment. Experiment with what works best for you.

Prompts from the Planet

What do plants and other animals do in the winter?

They go dormant. Seeds wait, inactive in the dark soil or stored away, safe and dry.

They harden, keep warm, and get slow. Some stop growing. Others sleep and dream.

Below ground, everything works anew, protective and focused on survival.

The plant world pauses its creation and changes its approach, waiting for the sun to return.

Remember, we are part of the same cycle.

Remember to ask yourself: What is the natural world up to right now? How does it include me?

This is an adapted excerpt from A Year in Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression by Jacqueline Suskin.


Jacqueline Suskin has composed over forty thousand poems with her ongoing improvisational writing project, Poem Store. She is the author of six books, including Help in the Dark Season. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Yes! magazine. She lives in Northern California. For more, see jacquelinesuskin.com.

Author photo © James Adam Taylor

A Year in Practice

Learn More

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | Sounds True

Jacqueline Suskin: Being an Artist for the Earth

In our modern world, many of us live predominantly out of sync with the rhythms and cycles of nature and the Earth. In her new book, A Year in Practice, Jacqueline Suskin offers readers a wealth of teachings, tools, and rituals to realign with the four seasons and the transitions between them for creative insight and inspiration. 

Take a listen as Tami Simon speaks with the celebrated poet and author about the rewards we reap through a return to harmony with our immediate natural surroundings and our larger planetary home, in this conversation on: following your own creative impulse; letting the experiment be the guide; the shift from creative practice to profession; guesswork and trust; the Earth and the seasons as ever-present muse; the many faces of devotion and meaning-making; remembering our connection to nature on a daily basis; the importance of carefully tending to transitional times; the benefits of cultivating a greater sense of embodiment; balancing hope and hopelessness; the sacred function of the poet; the healing power of intentional rest, and the “medicine of winter” so many of us need; introspection, silence, and solitude; making the “radical return” to nature’s cycles; the poem “Desert Bear” and the metaphor of hibernation; shedding what’s no longer needed; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Poetic Mindset Tip: Your Awe Can Be Connective

POETIC MINDSET TIP: YOUR AWE CAN BE CONNECTIVE

Try applying a mentality of awe when you’re interacting with someone who lives a life very different from yours. Let your awe be the inspiration for a connection. How did they come to believe something that makes you so uncomfortable? What is the root of their behavior? Maybe this person has a dissimilar political view. Maybe they live in a rural town, and you live in a city. Maybe they grew up practicing a particular religion, and you didn’t. These are the big facts that surround the difference between you, but maybe this contrast can be intriguing instead of off-putting? When I find myself on a disparate page from someone else, I try not to close up. I try to lean in to discovery. It’s frequently these occasions that surprise me the most and give me new insight.

When I let myself stay curious about another person’s point of view instead of shutting down, I’m challenged to see with a new lensand that feels creative. What would I have overlooked if I hadn’t led with a sense of reverential respect? For example, through Poem Store, I developed very unlikely friendships that are still a huge part of my life.

From a familial bond with a timber baron to a deep camaraderie with a wealthy businessman, I found myself open to all kinds of folks I might normally shut out if I weren’t in the mode of poetic openness.

quote

These relationships continue to teach me how to develop compassionate language and an availability for dialogue that focuses on similarities, respect, and humanity, as opposed to difference, disdain, and judgment.

Letting your interest in a person’s inner world outweigh your differences could have unifying results. Awe is often the key to the similarities we all share. It’s our curiosity that links us, and these connections can cause the largest transformations.

poem

Housemates

Pierre Talón lives

in the kitchen,

close to the kettle

with an invisible web.

His brothers and sisters

share the same name.

Long glass-like legs

and dark teardrop bodies.

Penelope is on the front porch,

blending with the potted plant,

her green abdomen longer each day, 

her hind legs like mechanical armor. 

Pierre Talón catches the flies

and Penelope reminds me

to pause, peering between blossoms. 

The spider never leaves, just changes 

corners and sizes, and dodges the steam 

when I make tea. The grasshopper 

greets me for months, until one day

she sheds her skin and leaves me

with a perfect paper version of herself.

This is an excerpt from Every Day Is A Poem: Find Clarity, Feel Relief, and See Beauty in Every Moment by Jacqueline Suskin.

 

 

jacqueline suskinJacqueline Suskin has composed over forty thousand poems with her ongoing improvisational writing project, Poem Store. She is the author of six books, including Help in the Dark Season. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Yes! magazine. She lives in Northern California. For more, see jacquelinesuskin.com.

 

 

 

 

 

book cover

Sounds True | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | Bookshop

 

You Might Also Enjoy

Take Your Inner Child on Playdates

Have you ever been ice-skating before? It sounds like a fun winter activity (especially if you enjoy the cold, like I do), but it can be frustrating and even downright scary if you’re new to it.

Picture this: I took my nephew ice-skating for the first time, full of excitement to see him experience some joy. At twelve years of age, he was already taller than me and had size thirteen feet thanks to his six-foot-eight-inch-tall dad (my brother). The biggest rental skates they had came with worn-out laces rather than the secure plastic bindings all of the other skates had. I could see that they were a little loose around the ankle, but we tied them as best we could and hit the ice.

If you’ve ever seen a newborn deer figuring out how to walk for the first time, you can picture my nephew’s first time on ice skates. His ankles kept knocking in, and he was reaching to hold onto anything for dear life as he wobbled around the perimeter of the rink. It was difficult to watch, not because it was embarrassing, but because I know how hard he is on himself when he’s not immediately good at new things. I wanted to see him having fun, and instead I saw him frustrated and discouraged as all he could do was attempt to remain vertical.

I figured it couldn’t get worse, so I suggested that we trade in his skates for a smaller pair with the more secure plastic buckles to see if that made any difference. He went along with it, probably just to humor me, and we stuffed his feet into some size twelves and made sure his ankle support was good as could be. When I tell you it was a night and day difference, I’m not exaggerating. Suddenly he was speeding around the ice like a pro, lapping past me and his sisters with the biggest smile on his face. He circled the rink over and over again; as his confidence grew, so did his joy, and he even began to try tricks and spins. All he had needed was one little adjustment to his foundation, and he suddenly felt safe enough to have fun.

Here’s the thing: most of us go around in our lives on rickety old skates with worn-out laces. When your only focus is doing your best to remain upright, there’s not much room for joy or play. The big shame in that is that play often is the medicine we most need.

In my experience, the crux of inner child work is reconnecting to the part of you who knows how to play. Sometimes you may first need to make some adjustments that allow you to feel safe enough to play, like practicing nervous system regulation and self-soothing. Once you’ve done that, though, your goal is to invite in as much play as possible. And not adult versions of play that are really just a facade for dissociative behaviors, but real, childlike wonder.

Invite in curiosity and awe and silliness and uninhibited joy. Start by returning to the things you loved to do when you were a kid. Maybe that means setting aside time each weekend for arts and crafts. Maybe it means participating in physical activities that feel like play, such as dancing, swimming, sports, or jumping on a trampoline. Maybe it just means giving yourself permission to skip while you walk or sing while you drive.

The point is, when you bring those younger versions of you into your present-day life, you not only have more fun, but you also experience more healing. We were never meant to lose touch with our inner child. Yes, it’s important to learn how to be self-sufficient and responsible, and aging is inevitable. But it’s equally important not to take yourself too seriously along the way.

Try This

Your homework is to set regular playdates with your inner child. Do things that sound like fun, even if they don’t make logical sense. Allow yourself to be as carefree and openhearted as possible, without judging the things that bring you joy. The sillier it feels, the more on point you likely are. Here are some examples to consider:

  • Take an afternoon off of work and go to an amusement park.
  • Schedule an evening of watching your favorite childhood movies.
  • Spend the weekend out in nature, frolicking with your imagination.
  • Try something brand new, like rock climbing or ice-skating, to tap into that feeling of beginner’s mind.

Play is an important part of our overall well-being. Consistently making time to get into that creative flow state will help you deepen your relationship with your inner child . . . and your adult self. I suggest checking in at least once per month, if not weekly, to see where you can fit more play into your life.

Excerpted from Choose Your Self: How to Embrace Being Single, Heal Core Wounds, and Build a Life You Love.

Megan Sherer


Megan Sherer is a certified somatic therapist and licensed hypnotherapist whose mission is to help others build healthy and fulfilling relationships, starting with self. She hosts the Well, Then podcast and founded the women’s therapy app The Self Care Space. For more, visit megansherer.com.

Choose Your Self

Learn More
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | Sounds True

Rha Goddess: True Ambition: Shine Bright. Stand Tall.

What comes up for you when someone calls you ambitious? Are you offended? Appreciative? A little of both? What about the word “sacrifice”? Whether it’s in your career or your personal life, where do you draw the line when it comes to deferring your own wants, needs, and desires in service of someone else’s agenda? In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with author and entrepreneurial soul coach Rha Goddess about her new book, Intentional Ambition, addressing these life-changing questions. 

Tune in for an inspiring, provocative, and in many ways healing conversation that digs into: a more balanced definition of “success”; wounded ambition and the fear of taking risks; how our resistance to disappointment creates disappointment; the dilemma of “living on halftime”; restoration after a breakdown; distorted determination; sacrifice and suffering; reconnecting with our humanity and building a society where everyone thrives; the “belly full” personality type; the five ways ambition can be wounded—and the five healing “redemptions”; systemic roadblocks and overcoming that which thwarts us on our path; reclaiming—the first step in renegotiation; refusing to buy into the “scare of scarcity”; embracing the truth of our wholeness and worthiness; rewriting your inner narrative; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Megan Sherer: Being Single: An Intentional Experiment

Have you ever found yourself in an intimate relationship that seemed great at first but quickly devolved into something extremely dissatisfying? Maybe you ignored the red flags you saw on that first date or told yourself it’s still better than being alone. Why do we do this to ourselves? How can we break the pattern? In this episode of Insights at the Edge, join Tami Simon in conversation with coach and somatic therapist Megan Sherer, sharing empowering teachings and approaches contained in the new book Choose Your Self: How to Embrace Being Single, Heal Core Wounds, and Build a Life You Love

Give a listen as Tami and Megan discuss: becoming one’s own closest friend; working with shame; overcoming our fear of loneliness; feeling your feelings (instead of intellectualizing); the inherent difficulty of the path of healing and growth; when self-love is really hard; emotional availability; separating your self-worth from your relationship status; trust in life; aligning your values and your choices; the difference between a body and a soul; creativity and purpose; somatic therapy, trauma work, and the human nervous system; the concept of “situationships”; grace in times of transition; establishing healthy boundaries; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

>
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap