Woven Meaning, Tumbled Words

March 15, 2010 · by Joanna Paterson · in

I love tumbling. It’s one of the things I really enjoyed getting into when I wasn’t blogging.

As well as being free, simple to set up and easy to use, tumbling is a great way to:

  • Collect resources (quotes, photos, sites) on ideas or projects you’re working on
  • Bookmark material so you can find it easily later
  • Spread the word about treasures you find online (my tumblr site is linked to my twitter stream to give the links I share added legs)
  • Explore and express new and different angles, away from the material you ‘normally’ blog about
  • Generate a good stock of quotes and quotable words

I like the thought that my tumbling will help people find poems, art work, photos and inspired writing on the web, and this is part of why I do it.  But mainly I do it selfishly, because I enjoy looking back at what I’ve gathered, look back for patterns, ideas, trains of thought, threads of new stories.

(Plus they are gorgeous to look at: here’s a peek at mine:)

To give you an idea of how patterns form and meaning gets woven together, here’s a prose-poem that emerged from the most recent lines I’ve shared on my tumblr blog.

Conscious of Treasures

Yes, I hear the words, the tangle of words

The wild calls to action

The demand that I write for

in the writing comes the thread.

Yes.

In the writing comes the thread.

And

In the writing comes your unique voice, your way, your sense-making of the world around you

It’s the call to my morning, a call that I answer, oh me too, I will do,

oh let me keep company

always

with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads

It’s the quest that we share, that search for the why, for knowing the why , knowing what we are bringing into being…is just as important as the bringing it is

It’s the plea to stay open, to allow for engagement, to entertain questions, to do business with people who need what you can offer, to open.

To be fully there

Oh

I hear what the music says: that wild invitation to

Join the dance

Just one step will do,

To take just one step

In the right direction

A step free from form, knowing, as we do, that

to find form, we must divorce ourselves from allegiance to form

Oh it’s the call to dance wildly

To write and to paint

Because

we tell our stories in painterly shades

of blues, red, green

because we take the risk

and

Every time you take the risk to be true to your own soul – whether or not you name your action as heroic – your example helps others to do likewise.

and it’s the only way, really, to live well today and

A life well lived today, is a life well lived, irrespective of how long that life turns out to be

Yes, it’s a morning call to action, to look, to pay attention, to notice

the daily the ordinary the sources of wonder

It’s whispers, it’s poems, it’s paintings, it’s songs

That sing to us over and over again that

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures

And that

There is no enlightenment outside of daily life

~~~

Words in italics are those that I tumbled; with links to the original posts (but not always the original author… the posts are quoting in turn poets, authors and thinkers)

Thank you to all those poets, paintists, artists, writers, bloggers, dreamers whose words have worked their way into mine.

(PS You might see I’ve popped this in a category marked ‘storyweaving’ – it’s an idea I want to explore here over time, how our online words are woven together to tell stories, and how we can influence what kind of stories we’re telling…)