Due out spring 2026

My creative non-fiction essay / memoir, "Lessons from Neither Here nor There" is included in this anthology.

 

The 30 Journeys Anthology

    Except for one intensive magazine article for Spirituality & Health, I haven't written much this spring. Sent out a lot. The rejections may all be back. I don't keep track of them or even read them. That's the way this writer copes. I'd promised to write an essay for a collection by women nomads but since it isn't paid, I forgot about it until the last minute. I knocked out a 3-part story in a couple days and sent it off. So it was a nice surprise to get this feedback from the editor:

"We are thrilled to let you know that your story, Lessons from Neither Here nor There, has been officially accepted for inclusion in The 30 Journeys anthology. We greatly enjoyed reading it.Your story stood out for its wry wisdom, vivid character portraits, and the emotional truth of a life lived on the road. You’ve created something layered, resonant, and quietly powerful—and we are honored to share it with the world."

The author and her "vardo" home, a handmade truck camper, at the 

  Women's Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. Jan. 2024, Quartzsite, Arizona.

Synesthesia

A "drabble" is prose that's exactly 100 words. This one came from an online challenge where we were assigned a different theme daily. One day, it was The Body, so sex was a fairly natural first thought. But this little non-fiction pillow talk piece turned out not to be about that at all. It's about neurodiverse vs neurotypical perception. Having synesthesia isn't problematic brain wiring. I kinda like it. Especially when I found out I'm not alone in thinking of the number 7 as yellow-green and gendered male. Weird, huh? 

  

Synesthesia

Our kisses are a green apple. We fall into a rippling pool of sheets, laughing.

“What do you see when I touch you?” I ask.

“Nothing. The room is dark.”

“No. When you close your eyes - what do you see?”

“Nothing. I just feel your skin.”

“That’s all?”

“Of course. That’s all there is.”

His finger draws a trail of flickering turquoise flames the length of my arm; his legs wrap mine and aureate sparks blossom gold against the blackness; each hair is a match, tipped with carnelian, waiting to be struck.

“Oh… I’m so sorry you can’t see this.”

Illustration copyright W. Ross 2017

#synesthesia #drabble #surrealism

The next little big project...

Maybe making a rough cover for my next collection will get me going on the re-writes? Sometimes you just have to put stuff in a drawer (ie, a computer file) for a year. 8-Sided Drum is hybrid and intended as a chapbook. I've limited it to eight pieces and keep changing my mind about what fits and what doesn't. Since anything goes with hybrid, the choices and order are a challenge. The title came about as I worked on repairing my octagonal drum, which was coming apart at the frame. Everything's a metaphor.

#chapbook #hybridwriting #bibliophile

Recipe for a New Year's Ritual

This ceremony was enacted for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Alamosa, Colorado and the article appeared on the blog, "Postcards from Shamans", January 2019.

    The word “ceremony” in its original Latin form is “awe”. Repeated behaviors related to reverence and awe, with a sense of connecting to powers greater than us – this is Ritual. 

In its true form, ritual is one of the most meaningful channels for our awe and sense of worship. A ritual can be defined as a symbolic behavior consciously performed. It is a physical act that affirms the practitioner's intention and represents a change in inner attitude.

    Robert Johnson, a Jungian therapist, writes about working with Active Imagination in Inner Work. He tells us that to cement our intention, the body, feelings, and intellect must be simultaneously involved. In other words, to manifest, our thoughts must enter into the emotions, muscles, and cells of the body. To bring our thoughts into material form we can start with the metaphor of ritual.

    Rituals and ceremonies, in general, are ways of using small symbolic acts to set up a connection between the conscious mind and the unconscious. They provide us a way of taking principles from the unconscious and impressing them vividly on the conscious mind. But rituals also have an effect on the unconscious. A meaningful ritual sends a powerful message back to the unconscious, causing changes to take place at that deeper level where our attitudes and values originate.

                            Here is a step-by-step recipe for a New Year's ritual:

1. Place candles on the floor in a circle. Colored candles mark the cardinal points and the elements (use a compass if necessary) north/earth/white; east/air/yellow or green; south/fire/red; west/water/ blue or black. 

2. Place a black bucket, vase, or cauldron filled with water in the center of the circle.

 

3. Pass around small stones to everyone in the group. If there is a child or children in the group, give them this role. Each person takes two stones. 

 

4. The facilitator then points out the basic archetypal elements of earth-based ritual: In the group, there may be people who symbolize the dualities of male and female, young and old, so we act as priests and priestesses. We have the cardinal directions. We have a circle of power. We have the elements: water, fire (candles), earth (stones), and air (our breath). 

5. One stone is held in the left hand, one in the right. To change the idea of the left always symbolizing negative, dark, and feminine, the right as being right, bright, and male, think of placing the stone of the past in your least dominant hand, the stone of the future in your dominant hand.

6. Think, not in the abstract, but with words you can hear in your head, or pictures you can see, the things of the past year that you want to let go of, realizing that to make space for the new, you are letting some things go. You should focus on one thing, that way your INTENT will be stronger. If you feel comfortable whispering or saying it out loud please do, because the closer we get from a thought to a physical action, the more powerful the act. 

7.When you are ready, blow those things, whether a habit, toxic relationships, belongings taking up space, or whatever you want to release from your life...into the stone you hold in your least dominant hand: the stone of the Past. 

8. Then toss the stone into the caldron of black water. It's ok to make a little splash. Watch the stone and your negative things disappear into the darkness.

9. Say aloud as a group chant: “It is done. It is done. It is done.” Three times is fine. 

10. With the stone of the Future, think of, or say, what you want to manifest in this new year. It doesn't have to be logically connected in any way to what you're leaving behind, because all things are intrinsically connected. Psychic space has been made for the new to enter. Blow that thing into the stone.

11. Chant: “It has come. It is come. It is come.” 

12. Put the stone in your pocket and handle it often. This will remind you that the next step is an actual manifestation through your own small actions toward those goals. Feeling the stone will also remind you to give gratitude for the future manifestation and have faith that it will be accomplished.

Hugs all around and wish each other a "Happy New Year!"

~ Blessed Be ~

Photo Credit: Rajesh Ram, Unsplash

Silencio

Poems and stories can arise from the oddest prompts. This one came by way of a call from a women's publication (The Ethel) for an essay on "My Favorite Thing".  Immediately picturing a scene from "The Sound of Music", I knew I couldn't produce anything so corny, but I did start thinking about one of my favorite things: Silence. I performed it at the Mesa Verde Writers Conference last summer.    

                                                                 Silencio

Silencio. Seduction whispered in Spanish

Silencio. The seconds separating lightning from thunder 

Oh-dark-hundred in the pre-dawn desert 

Streets muffled with snow

Sand dunes mute in starlight

A cenote’s cerulean depth

The sun eclipsed.

Silencio. After the baby finally falls asleep

Silencio. Between a flutist’s inhale and the note

The breath you hold as your daughter raises the flute to her lips

The theater’s hollow hush when rehearsal ends

Smoke from the last cigarette 

Spilled wine, blood-bright, seeping into a linen tablecloth

A brush about to touch canvas, the painting titled, “Still Life with Stopped Clock.”

Silencio. A legend about insanity should you linger in the quietest room ever built 

Silencio. The E.R. with no patients at 3 a.m. 

Old cemeteries; empty cathedrals; sitting Zazen 

Your dying mother opening her eyes and smiling 

Night so deadened you hear your own heartbeat 

Yet, Silence is impossible to know… 

The inner ear’s white noise a song that will never abandon you

Photo credit: Michael Frye Photography

 We all remember our first love. It's been decades since mine left me behind. But three months ago, he showed up in a dream so intense, I had to respond. Hence this poem. I just heard he's recently passed on...

                                                  You Are Still Seventeen

                You are still seventeen

                When you slide into the pool of my dream

                Bare-chested, smooth-faced

                Dark hair slicked to one side

                You reach across the water

                I am still fifteen

                When you lace long fingers through mine

                A surgeon’s hands, I say

                You read my palm

                An artist’s hands, you say

                You would be seventy-five today

                Why have you swum out to visit me at 3am

                The last morning of September?

                To say you’re sorry? To say goodbye?

                I will always love you

                    photo credit: Darran Shen, Unsplash