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Poem: In Africa
In Africa Wanda Waterman The African students gave each other hell For buying things like hair removal gel, Or coffee pods, or cereal bars, or Coke, Or instant rice, or peppermint foot soak. “How ya gonna find that back in … Continue reading Poem: In Africa
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Journal Entry: The Weird Power of Music
Music has the weirdest power to help us really feel what we’re feeling in this moment, to hug our anger, to nurse our broken hearts, to celebrate our joys and mourn our sorrows, to soothe our fears, to heal our … Continue reading Journal Entry: The Weird Power of Music
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Poet Maeve: You Don’t Have to Make Them Feel Bad to Get Them to Change
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Breath Mantra Meme
Breathing in: Beloved Breathing out: Be loved Continue reading Breath Mantra Meme
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Journal Entry: Six Reasons Not to Make Something an Issue
Making an issue out of it won’t change it. Making an issue out of it opens the door to dark forces. Your world is bigger than this. You are bigger than this. The hurtful quality of this situation is only … Continue reading Journal Entry: Six Reasons Not to Make Something an Issue
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Haiku: Sister Tree
I see you praising, Sister Tree, and gladly know That I, too, must praise. Continue reading Haiku: Sister Tree
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Journal Entry: A Love That Must Be Spoken
Why should we believe that the universe was plotted out in the office of a majestic architect, or designed in the workshop of some sublime engineer? Isn’t creation more like a poem that simply writes itself once the poet has … Continue reading Journal Entry: A Love That Must Be Spoken
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Song: Oh, Boldest Star!
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Poet Maeve: Real Art on Tap
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Podcast: Dervish at the Crossroads (excerpt 4)
Dervish at the Crossroads: A Soundquest Through the First Two Decades of the New Millennium is available here and at many other fine establishments. Continue reading Podcast: Dervish at the Crossroads (excerpt 4)
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Journal Entry: What the Beauty Says
John Everett Millais, Ophelia, c. 1851, oil on canvas, Tate Britain, London When we encounter things or people that remind us that the world is still a haven for evil and ugliness, that it bears the smudge of evils of the … Continue reading Journal Entry: What the Beauty Says
(Song) We Two Gypsy Thieves
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Chazz Bravado, Male Feminist: The Four Feminisms
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Podcast: Dervish at the Crossroads (excerpt 3– She’d Been There)
Amazon, USA Amazon, Canada Guernica Editions, Canada Scribd Continue reading Podcast: Dervish at the Crossroads (excerpt 3– She’d Been There)
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Journal Entry: What Good People Do to Show Love
How often are we manipulated into doing things we know are wrong both for us and the other? We compromise our morals by helping someone else … Continue reading Journal Entry: What Good People Do to Show Love
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“St. Louis Blues” (song cover with poetic license) by W.C. Handy
Painting: “St. Louis in 1846,” Henry Lewis (1819–1904) Continue reading “St. Louis Blues” (song cover with poetic license) by W.C. Handy
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Poet Maeve: The Golden Fool
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Podcast: Dervish at the Crossroads (excerpt 2– “Mr. Tambourine Man” in the Year 2000)
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Journal Entry: How Marvelous and Sacred, the Feminine
How marvelous and sacred are all things feminine! How wonderful is my desire to make myself and my abode pretty, clean, healthy, and tranquil! What idiots we are to trivialize nature, art, creativity, beauty, the imagination, to see them all … Continue reading Journal Entry: How Marvelous and Sacred, the Feminine
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Poet Maeve: Covid Agoraphobia
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Podcast: Dervish at the Crossroads (excerpt 1– Story of a Soundquest)
Amazon, USA Amazon, Canada Amazon, UK Guernica Editions, Canada Barnes & Noble, USA Scribd Continue reading Podcast: Dervish at the Crossroads (excerpt 1– Story of a Soundquest)
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The Mindful Bard’s Guide to Writing for Businesses
The first thing you need to know about writing for business is that you should avoid it like the plague. If there’s anything else you could possibly be doing to earn money, such as moonshining or exorcism, do that. Why, … Continue reading The Mindful Bard’s Guide to Writing for Businesses
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To Order a Copy of My Book . . .
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The Mindful Bard’s Top 14 Mindfulness Songs
If you really want to get into the meditation zone, you need, if not complete silence, then meditation music — ambient, world, classical, jazz, or anything that draws you into your own contemplative space. But sometimes you fall off the … Continue reading The Mindful Bard’s Top 14 Mindfulness Songs
“Sunflowers”
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Poet Maeve: The New Abnormal
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A Rose By Any Other Name . . .
Your first names were given you by others, and even your personal identity was formed in part by how others saw you. They most likely didn’t see the real you– the you that’s one with Being itself– and so the … Continue reading A Rose By Any Other Name . . .
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Poet Maeve: Northern Lights
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What is Attachment?
Attachment– a needy clinging to an object of desire–can’t help but become a battleground. Appearing lovely and right at the beginning, attachment inevitably says, “You’ve made … Continue reading What is Attachment?
“Rooftop Angels” (for Rita’s birthday)
My sister Rita passed away in 2017. June 13th was her birthday. She’d often referred to herself as a “Down’s syndrome angel,” and so as I was missing her I imagined Down’s syndrome angels dancing across the flat rooftops just outside my window. I wrote a poem about it, and not much later Reynalds Leroux of Bordeaux, France, sent me a beautiful composition and asked me to write lyrics for it. The music was perfect for the poem. I decided to make a video with a few of Rita’s drawings. She was the most prolific artist I have ever known, … Continue reading “Rooftop Angels” (for Rita’s birthday)
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My Jazz Years
(excerpt from Dervish at the Crossroads) Wanda Waterman Montreal jazz guitarist and university professor Michael Gauthier shared this anecdote, so illustrative of the mysterious quality in music that makes it intrinsic to human experience: Back in the eighties there was … Continue reading My Jazz Years
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The Vulcan’s Guide to Pon Farr
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The Oxymoron of Love Slavery
Sometimes when we long for another to fall in love with us, what we really want is for our presence to render them so unconscious that they become our slaves. This desire is unloving at its root, the product of … Continue reading The Oxymoron of Love Slavery
“Why Don’t You Do Right?” written by McCoy and Morand, 1936
Poet Maeve: Loving the Royals
Love’s Imbalance
One reason why I’ve chosen celibacy is that I’m never less conscious than when I’m in love and I never feel less worthy of love than when I’m unconscious. This creates an imbalance of power which the other, if also unconscious, feels compelled to exploit. Continue reading Love’s Imbalance
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Poet Maeve: Veterans and War Heroes
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Share Your Soundquest!
Whether or not you’ve read Dervish at the Crossroads, if you know what a soundquest is, please share one of your own soundquests in the comments section below! Continue reading Share Your Soundquest!
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The Kevin Keller Interview
Sounds from the Brink of Mortality Kevin Keller’s ambient neo-classical music, using a mix of real and virtual instrumentation, has often been heard in films and on television, but his music is of such a high calibre that it bears … Continue reading The Kevin Keller Interview
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Poet Maeve: Give Up the Poems
About Dervish at the Crossroads
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On a podcast with THAT NIKKI YOU KNOW!
Hashing over love versus capitalism, individualism versus communalism, talking circles, and the importance of solidarity– with the brilliant Nikki! https://godberd.com/m/events/view/S2-E11-Wanda-Waterman-Talking-about-it-makes-it-real?fbclid=IwAR3sgP3c4yBONEdW_BPPow0wUgQAUsLBy-xHgUcOAFM8XdX2rLV9UKRX8So Continue reading On a podcast with THAT NIKKI YOU KNOW!
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Guernica Editions’ Virtual Book Launch, September 7
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Guernica Editions’ Virtual Book Launch, September 1st
Guernica Editions has just begun releasing its September books, and they’re splendid. Editor Dane Swan interviewed on Open Book Celebrating Canadians: In Conversation with Dane Swan, Sennah Yee, and NASRA for Arc Poetry Magazine’s newsletter Continue reading Guernica Editions’ Virtual Book Launch, September 1st
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Poet Maeve: Uncle Stinkweed
Nick Cave on Loss
The paradoxical effect of losing a loved one is that their sudden absence can become a feverish comment on that which remains. That which remains rises in time from the dark with a burning physicality — a luminous super-presence — as we acquaint ourselves with this new and different world. In loss things — both animate and inanimate — take on an added intensity and meaning. ~ Nick Cave Continue reading Nick Cave on Loss
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Kirkus Reviews: Review of Dervish at the Crossroads
A Montreal-based poet digs into our fascination with music and its relation to our search for meaning. Outside of her poetic output, Waterman has collected a diverse collection of essays about creativity on her blog, The Mindful Bard. Many of these … Continue reading Kirkus Reviews: Review of Dervish at the Crossroads
