Creative Wordshops Newsletter May 2022

Stop press: ZenPenYen poetry collection

Orders R150 plus postage R40 – e book will be available plus voiced text

Two Birds
Two birds, inseparable friends, take refuge in the same tree. One eats the sweet fig, the other watches without eating. (the Upanishads)

This letter considers how these bird symbols can enrich, ground and nuance our writing and story-telling. Rumi says, ‘there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.’ There are also hundreds of ways to interpret the connection between the two birds.
During a recent Temenos retreat, ‘Hundreds of Ways: Writing your Spiritual Journey’, I asked the ‘pilgrims’ present what this Vedic text meant to them. Here are some responses:

The two hemispheres of the brain… the doer and the being one in us.  The silent inner witness to our outer speech… A mother breast feeding her baby…  how to live in a world not of either–or, but of both-and… perhaps the two birds interchange roles…