It Begins with a Door

Letter one {Seeds of Poetry}

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door. If you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés

*Hinges Creak Open*

Welcome! Whether you’ve been with me for a while or just slipped in quietly through the side gate, I’m so glad you’re here. This space, Seeds of Poetry, isn’t a class in the traditional sense. It’s more like a greenhouse, or a campfire at the edge of spring; a candlelit room in a corner of your mind you’d almost forgotten about. This will be a space where we tend not only to words, but to the selves that need those words. I hope it will be a place for transformation, reflection, experimentation, and joy.

Each week on Saturday morning, I’ll send a letter like this one, full of poetry, thoughts, prompts, and images, to hopefully spark something alive in you. You can take them slowly, or all at once; however your rhythm allows. There will also be a space to share your writing (if you want), and four live gatherings on Zoom for those who’ve chosen to join as paid subscribers. But mostly, these weeks are about cultivating a regular, intimate practice of creating as we make our way from April to May.

We begin, as so many stories do, with a door.

Thresholds & Doorways

Hermit Season

Doorways are powerful things in our minds. This is why we so often forget what we came into a room for, or why you can write the most beautiful poems while driving, but the moment you open the car door, it is gone. This happens on our phones now, too! You close an app on your phone and can’t remember for the life of you what it was you were about to do?

Psychologists call this the doorway effect: when you walk through a physical door, your brain tends to forget what came before it. It’s as if the act of passing from one space to another creates a neurological clearing; a fresh place for something new to arrive.

In this way, a doorway is not just an entrance but a spell: a threshold where memory softens, and other ways of knowing emerge.

Portals portals everywhere! A path in NY taken last fall by me

What if we could use that effect deliberately?

What if each time we sit down to write, we imagine ourselves stepping through a door,
not into forgetting,
but into re-membering?

A room of our own.
A soft-bellied temple.
A place where the dream-thoughts live, and where poetry and intuition hum just on the other side, waiting for us to notice them.

Creativity exists in the balancing of inward and outward worlds. In spring, we tend to need to move toward that outward door, let the light and warmth inside. Move our physical bodies into the world again.

Imagine you are opening doors at either end of a hallway or large room, allowing a cross-breeze to sweep out the cobwebs, stiffness, and stuffiness of your internal home.

Crossing the Threshold

When I think of the threshold I am perched at, I imagine myself in a beautiful meadow with a small rushing river in the middle of it. I stand at it’s edge and look behind me. I see a beautiful and lengthy integration period (7 years!), a time of self-accompaniment. Hermit seasoning.

I see a time in which I got sober and became a poet, not just in my soul but in my actions. I see a woman who unlearned people-pleasing and healed many of her early childhood wounds to the point where she can name them, and has resources and capacity to move through her triggers far more often and easily. I see a woman who needfully isolated herself a bit from social pressures and engagements (both for health and because she didn’t know herself very well without the voices of others dictating her path). I see a time of deep and meaningful healing and rest.

The Wild Unknown Archetypes deck is an all-time favorite of mine!

I send this version of myself all my love. I am beyond grateful to her, to myself.

And I’m ready to cross the river into a new time of life - one I am calling Reconnection & Reemergence. I am ready to re-enter the world. I am lifting weights and walking in the woods, I am making food for myself, I am showing up to poetry readings and making new friends. I am here, on Substack, being seen, allowing my full self to emerge from her much-needed cave and put her pale face to the sun.

I am here.
I am safe.
And I am connected.

This week’s journal prompt:

What threshold are you standing at?
What do you see when you look behind you? What do you feel when you gaze ahead?
You might want to name each identity like you would a chapter of a book.

Poetry Prompts

Begin a poem with “It begins with a door…”

Let your writing this week be a doorway.
A cross-breeze.
A declaration of arrival, and maybe even a soft goodbye.

With joy and spring breezes,

Alix

I would love to read your doorway poems! Please feel free to share them in the comments or in the private group chat!

Paid subscribers will receive a separate email with a Zoom link for our live writing call this afternoon! If you haven’t gotten the email by Noon today (Saturday, April 5th), please message me so I can send it to you directly! I will also post the link in the private chat for ease!

Not a paid subscriber yet? There’s still time to join us! https://alixklingenberg.substack.com/subscribe

(if you’re on the app, you will need to copy/paste this link into your browser to upgrade as there is no way to do that in the app yet).