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The Liminal Season: New Beginnings

2026-03-21T10:30:00.001-05:00

The Quiet Struggle

Have you experienced an especially harsh season? A stormy spring, a heated summer, a dry fall that makes you question everything. This winter was especially harsh. There were two major snowstorms and days of single digits that hardened the snow into solid mounds of dark, covered ice. The wind was harsh, biting, and relentless. The heat where I worked was on and off, and it seemed the cold was inescapable.

Locking myself away for the winter seemed sensible. I coveted sunny days and any warmth the sun could provide. But things were breaking and dying all around me. My usually hardy pothos plants, which could go without water for days and revive with a good soaking, were withering. The leaves turned yellow and dropped off. Then my recently flowering Christmas cacti drooped and died. I helped them as best I could. Searched for answers, nurtured clippings. It all seemed hopeless until recently, when I was watering them, I found delicate green shoots in the barren places.

The Gray In Between

The season hasn't fully turned yet — the sky is still dull, and the air is still heavy. There is a day of balmy weather, then the chill comes back, with winds that tear at you.

Right now, Earth is approaching the March equinox, which is the precise moment when the planet is not tilted toward or away from the Sun. During this event, day and night are nearly equal across the globe, marking a clear threshold between seasons. Globally, we are in a liminal season — poised at the equinox, where Earth collectively stands between what has been and what is becoming.

We're living in that space where nothing looks different, but something feels different. This mirrors an emotional truth: change often begins long before it becomes visible. Even as the wind howls through available crevices, the anticipation of something new can be felt.

The Small, Unexpected Sign

While doing the same routine you've done for months, you notice it: tiny new growth on the plants you'd quietly written off. The geese flying in V formation, honking out instructions. You hear them before you see them — this is a sure sign of something coming. This is a hinge moment — the shift from resignation to possibility. From ice to warmth, and death to growth.

What That Moment Teaches

Growth doesn't always announce itself. Like seeds buried in the fall, waiting for the moment to push up from the deep to seek light and warmth. It happens in the cold, in the dark, in unseen places. You may have put in your best effort. For such a long time. Only to be thwarted at every turn.

The effort wasn't wasted; it was simply working underground.

I am often surprised. Especially when I couldn't understand why my efforts weren't paying off, why plants were dying. Plans for the future collapsed, and then a small shift — a phone call I waited three years to receive — comes in, and everything shifts. A new place. A new town. People I am unsure I want to meet. Leaving a loved place, with familiar faces, to wander into something different. I am unsure whether this change will meet my needs. Has that happened to you? Have you yearned for love or a new job, only to feel an unexpected terror at the change it will bring?

The Broader Truth About New Beginnings

New beginnings rarely arrive as clean slates. They show up as tiny green shoots in the middle of a gray season, built on the decay of what has gone before. They ask for patience, not perfection, reminding you that life renews itself even when you're tired, even when you're unsure. Even when a dream presents itself, it brings dread — the fear of leaving the known for the unknown. New beginnings ask for bravery.

The Invitation to the Reader

Maybe you, too, are in a season that looks lifeless on the surface. Barren and hopeless. Have you been tending something — a hope, a habit, a healing — with no sign of progress?

Consider this: the universe is tending to things for you. Preparing the way for dreams to come true in an unexpected turn. Maybe this fruition is a stepping stone to something even better.

Are You?

I was sad that my once robust, healthy plants were dying, and I couldn't stop it. I tended to the decay, accepting that everything has its season, only to discover the tiniest fresh growth — the sweetest bright green shoot emerging from what had been dead.

You may still be in the liminal season, expecting something but not there yet.

Anticipation is ripe for the moment.

New beginnings don't wait for perfect conditions. They begin anyway. We start with trepidation and excitement, not knowing if this is the outcome we wanted or just another step on the journey. There is a line from the movie Hamnet where Shakespeare asks his son, "Are you brave?" "Are you brave?" Well, are you?

This essay was originally published at Soulfulliving. Here is a direct link to the article: https://soulfulliving.com/the-liminal-season-new-beginnings/

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2026 Welcome to the writing life: Notes on life, writing, and other things. Creative Vagabond: Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

Love as the Constant by Sandra Lee Schubert

2026-02-16T10:59:00.000-05:00

Ah, Valentine’s Day—how can we avoid it? A holiday that is soft, fuzzy; full of hearts, flowers, candy, and maybe, if we are lucky, something sparkly. It is also the day when you feel unloved if you don’t get any of those things. In the movie “Fatal Attraction”, Alex Forrest sits turning a light on and off after her married lover never shows up for a date. Later, she tells him, “I will not be ignored,” creating chaos after her love turns obsessive and dark. Commercials and greeting cards have us thinking love is neatly tied up in quotes. “Your love wraps twinkle lights around my heart.” “I’d give you all the marshmallows in my cereal.” “You make me all melty.” Is this love? For some people, it is. And it suffices. Love manifests in many forms—from love of nature, music, art, to the sexual love we have for a partner. There is the love between friends, and the love we have for our children. We love our parents, brothers, and sisters. We have divine love for a higher power. We enter love through so many doors, while others remain closed to us.

Love as the Quiet Constant

There are seasons when love feels distant—something we once knew but can no longer touch. Yet beneath the noise, beneath the fear, beneath the stories we tell ourselves about being alone or unworthy, something steadier endures. Brianna Wiest’s reminder echoes here: “sometimes the love that saves you doesn’t feel like love at all until you look back and realize it never left.” Love’s constancy is often invisible in real time. It moves like groundwater—quiet, persistent, shaping us from below.

When Love Disappears from View

There are moments when the world goes dim, when the familiar warmth of connection feels out of reach. In those stretches, it’s easy to believe love has withdrawn. But John O’Donohue speaks of “a quiet light that shines in every heart”, a light that doesn’t extinguish even when our circumstances overwhelm us. This is the kind of love that doesn’t demand recognition. It waits. It breathes with us. It keeps vigil in the dark. And when the light returns, we realize it was never fully gone—only obscured by the weather of our lives.

Without realizing it, we were buoyed by the love we had but may not remember. The soft memory of a mother’s touch on a fevered brow. The friend who brought pizza and companionship after a break-up. The moment in prayer when we are struck by the power of divine love that transcends everything.

The Discipline of Staying

Love is often imagined as a feeling, but in difficult times it becomes a practice. David Whyte names this truth: “sometimes the greatest form of love is simply staying—staying when everything in you wants to flee.” Staying doesn’t always mean remaining physically present; sometimes it means staying with ourselves, refusing to abandon our own hearts when they ache. Sometimes it means staying with the truth, or with the slow work of healing, or with the people who matter even when the path is jagged.

This kind of love is not glamorous. It is a discipline, a devotion, a quiet courage. When we shake off the commercialization of love, we are left with its rawness. As the Bible says: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self‑seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Love Beneath the Rupture

Life has a way of breaking our narratives. Plans dissolve, relationships shift, identities crack open. In those ruptures, love can feel like the first casualty. But Wiest offers another lens: “real love is what remains when the story falls apart.” The collapse of the story is not the collapse of love. In fact, it’s often the moment when love reveals its truest form—not as certainty or comfort, but as the thread that still holds when everything else unravels.

Love becomes the ground we land on, not the structure that failed. The challenge presents itself when institutions shift and falter, when the status quo we depended on lets us down. When the people we thought we knew reveal themselves as something we thought we could never love. The rupture when the life we thought we were living crumbles along with our identity. Who are we? What remains in the midst of destruction?

The Truth of Who We Are

There is a deeper layer still, one that Paul Selig gestures toward: “love is what you are, even when you believe you have been emptied.” This shifts the entire conversation. Love is not something we lose or regain; it is something we forget and remember. Even in exhaustion, even in grief, even in the hollow places where we feel scraped clean, the essence remains.

To live from this truth is to recognize that love is not an external resource but an inner inheritance—one that cannot be taken, only obscured. We are in dire times. There is political chaos, and households fall apart. We are unsure where we will land. Will we even know our future selves? The constant is this inheritance. Our ground of being. We may not feel it, but it moves us forward.

Let Everything Happen

Rilke’s invitation opens the door to acceptance: “let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” Love that endures is not fragile. It does not require perfect conditions. It can hold the full spectrum of human experience without collapsing. This is the love that walks with us through uncertainty, through loss, through the long nights when nothing makes sense. It doesn’t erase the difficulty; it accompanies it. It makes space for the whole of our lives.

We may doomscroll, fret, and worry. It is this internal chaos that reminds us of the love that lives within us. Why would we feel such pain if we didn’t know it?

The Return to Love

What remains, after the upheaval, is a quieter understanding. Love was never absent. It was working underground, reshaping us, steadying us, calling us back to ourselves. The return is not dramatic. It’s a soft recognition—a breath, a loosening, a sense of being met again. Love becomes not a feeling to chase but a presence to trust. It becomes the quiet constant we learn to lean into, again and again, as we continue the work of living with openness, depth, and soul.

We are speaking of something profound. We don’t know it in the everyday, but it is there, carrying us forward.

So, this Valentine’s Day, buy a fuzzy, squishy bear, chocolate—whatever delights you. Get it for yourself or for others. Declare love in any way that seems right. Be brave in love. As John O’Donohue says, “There is a quiet light that shines in every heart.”

Originally published in Love as the Constant – SoulfulLiving.com

Sandra Lee Schubert has spent three decades exploring the intersections of creativity, spirituality, and meaningful work. A published poet, ordained interfaith minister, and former radio host of Wild Woman Network, she brings curiosity and heart to everything she creates. When she is not helping service businesses tell their stories, you’ll find her seeking out quiet moments, tending her creative spirit, and asking the questions that matter. She believes in slowing down, listening deeply, and living with intention.

The Tomb of The Grand and Glorious

2025-01-20T13:22:00.004-05:00

Dear Solicitious,

I remember fondly your fawning and groveling when we last met. It was with the utmost glee I spent time with you and all those whose adoration rained down upon me. I am exceedingly grateful for this opportunity to share with you my hope, my dream and instruction on building the final homage to me when finally and sadly, I depart this world. I do not need to tell you of the opulence required to house my remains.

First the location: I have chosen an area that will be a beacon for all those that view my House of Rest. As you emerge from the Great City of Manhattan into the land of Queens (how appropriate!) you will be on a thoroughfare that will take you from the Elitist Privileged through the dark of the the middle class to the Grandiose playground of the Fabulously Beautiful and Rich. It is on this road that all travel including the meek as well as the powerful. The road itself is dotted with large tasteless and obscenely flashing billboards. They only serve to promote product to those without hope. How pitiful and misguided these fools are to think a mere billboard will satisfy the desires of the masses. Oh, Solicitious, how I suffer in this regard. How best to benefit the downtrodden than the sight of my resting place? Give them a monument to me, and my impressive life. It can only serve to uplift the spirits of those living a dark cankerous life.

Let me continue: the monument should be made of the finest material. To that end, Solicitious, please de-al only with the Grand Stone Master, Christus of Johnson. His skill is world-renowned and his dedication to me is without repute. I would like the lovely onyx that is the altar in one of the Chapels in the Great Cathedral of John the Divine. It is of the sweetest material, not black and depressing like the onyx we are familiar with but translucent, catching light in its very being. Imagine this, a translucent, light-catching monument sitting upon a hill. Surely, that vision outweighs any glittery-grotesque billboard. The monument should be two stories high flanked by columns of granite like sentries guarding the Queen, nothing outlandish, after all I am nothing if not humble. My sarcophagus should be made of the most delicate pink marble, veined in gold. Inside please remember to place the pinkest silk on a bed of the softest down. I do not want my body to suffer any sores in rest. At my head, place the lovely portrait done by the great artist, Mirandiest; she has clearly best represented my transcendent beauty. In the tomb, place my favorite gold and silver pieces. My diamonds and all my jewelry should be in the sarcophagus with me. I realize my family may have wanted my treasures to uplift their meaningless life. Let them regularly visit me in my demise and that should assuage their suffering. I must have manservants entombed with me. After all, a woman with my appetites cannot be expected to rest alone! I have chosen two of my favorites to lie in eternity next to me. Wellington Hungus and Dreamius Boaten have been informed of my decision and both seemed overwhelmed with emotion and joy at this honor.

The land upon which the monument will stand rises up above the landscape giving an unobstructed view of me. The grounds are a wondrous array of green grass, trees, a variety of flowers and a habitat for many exotic birds. Tear it up. I have been besieged by allergies all my life and certainly do not want my corpse wheezing in etemius. Nothing should distract from the central focal point, my tomb. Solicitious, do you think I am being too ostentatious? No, how could I!

I think that finishes it. I know the thought of fulfilling this request tears you apart with grief. Though I leave you nothing after death, placing me finally and comfortably to rest cannot be a chore for you, but a joy.

Finally, above the golden door of my tomb place this final dedication:

“Here Within Lies Sandy -The Grand And Glorious."

From the anthology: Adventures in Writing, 2003 The Wild Angels

Sandra Lee Schubert ©All Rights Reserved, 2025
Welcome to the writing life: Notes on life, writing, and other things.

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Eat a Rainbow

2025-01-11T08:00:00.015-05:00

Eat a rainbow with one hand open
Palm up to the world
Receive this as if water poured from the mouth of God.

Eat a rainbow
Standing with your back to the terror
Letting color and light into the caverns of fear
fill the wounded places
Of mother earth a broken heart
those lost in rubble Of another's hatred

Eat a rainbow
By the side of the road
Look each person who passes you in the eye
The hawkers and the sellers of fate

Dreamers, the mothers and the fathers
say, this soul cannot be sold

Stand in the center
Back to the darkness

Eat a rainbow

Eat a Rainbow (2nd version)

Eat a rainbow
By the side of the road
Look each person who passes you in the eye

Eat a rainbow with one hand open
Palm up to the world
Receive this
As if water poured from the mouth of God

From the anthology: heart, 2002 The Wild Angels

Creative Vagabond: Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

Whimsy of Hope

2025-01-10T11:20:00.006-05:00

A new year, new possibilities. Like many others, I look forward to a fresh start, a reset. In the meantime, I have been revisiting my creative writing past. I am re-engaging with a part of my life once full of poetry and inspiration.

It's not that I am not creative. I create for clients. There are articles and essays I post on various social media sites, including my blogs. However, poetry and prose have languished in my past.

2025 is up for grabs. In the United States, we have a new administration that faced challenges the first time around. The future feels uncertain.

My head is down, looking at the path I'm on and how to make the best of this one life I have been given.

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" from The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Revisiting my creative past reminds me there is the tiniest of embers that I have held safe, waiting for me to bring it back to life. There are no promises. No grand goals to write each day. No word count. There is this whimsy of hope.

Despite what swirls around me, I can activate this one phrase. One word that leads to another. I can read the past to remind me there is the possibility for more creativity to come. Maybe I will write one poem. Or a prose piece. Or I will continue with photography. I will badly draw and then add color. This ember will come to life in its own way.

Let me leave you with a line from an older prose essay I just posted: "So I am just asking, what gets you up in the morning? I mean, when your feet hit the ground, what stops you from rolling back into the bed? What makes you want to continue living?" ~ Bits & Pieces

Join me in making magic.

Sandra Lee Schubert ©All Rights Reserved, 2025
Welcome to the writing life: Notes on life, writing, and other things.

Creative Vagabond: Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

Full Moon Hungry

2025-01-10T07:00:00.001-05:00

Come my love, and slip down beside me
I am full moon hungry and tonight
it is the brightest of the year

Empty of you finally after a long illness
almost took the last breath of my body

I measure each action as victory
marking time by each
day I wake
greet the morning
reluctantly still
after all this time
It is the moon that feeds me, moving
lambently across my breasts,
filling me with its light and grace
I will tell you when I have reclaimed my life.

Moving past the shadow of this illness,
I curl into the smallest shaft of light.
I will drink until I am full.

From the anthology: heart, 2002 The Wild Angels

Creative Vagabond: Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

PhD

2025-01-09T23:16:00.000-05:00

We talked about things, the book. I told you I could not understand what the fuss was all about. I didn't really like her writing anyway. How about the other one? The one who people think is so smart. I said, she is nice and all. But, I had a roommate who was getting her PhD who could not boil an egg or iron a shirt. I taught her all that. It's not the PhD that impresses me it is the ability to love. I said all these things, stupid things to keep talking to keep my brain alive. I've got wild beasts caught in my throat you know. I have to keep talking to let them out. Ever wondered why all those old people talk all the time? Man, we have to keep moving our mouths ... move those beasties aside. I told you before when I go on and on about some petty thing the conversation I am having is not the conversation I am having. I am trying to get to something caught deep inside. If I told you all of it, I would have to start screaming. I would scream so loud and so long. I would throw my head back and scream until the last of the words left my body. I would fall on my hands and knees and beat the ground with my fists until it broke open. Satan himself would wake up to see what all the fuss was about. Instead, I sit here and I tell you PhDs do not impress me; it is the ability to love.

From the anthology: heart, 2002 The Wild Angels

Creative Vagabond: Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

Bits and Pieces

2025-01-07T17:44:00.000-05:00

Bits & Pieces

So what gets you up in the morning? I mean, the alarm clock rings, and some dumb DJ is talking some trash about a starlet or a poor slob that met a bad ending. And you are like “Why should I get up?” You put a leg out and test the air – too cool and you slide back in. You roll over – maybe just a minute more or how about until the digital says 15 after the hour or how about 30 or maybe when the song is done? There you are deciding, deciding, deciding. Finally, you slide out, swinging your feet over the edge. Maybe you slip them into fuzzy slippers or you hit the cold floor like diving into the first swim of the summer before you test the temperature. And then you are hitting the shower or swigging down the first bit of hot coffee and it happens you feel life begin to run through your body. You can see a little more clearly; you even may be humming a tune. Who knows what got you out of the bed really, what inner urging made you decide this is the day to continue living.

News flash: Man Shot In Diner.

The story goes that the man #1 had an argument with man #2 in the hallway of man #1’s apartment. The argument gets a little heated and man #1 knows his wife would be a real bitch if he wakes up the kids one more time because his good-for-nothing buddies get rowdy and don’t know what it is like to respect anybody. So man #1 tries to end this whole deal but man #2 just feels like continuing this fight. In fact, he feels he has earned the right for a good fight. After all he comes all the way from The Bronx to pick up from this guy. He hits the subway and the Queen’s train is running like every twenty minutes and he has to hang out with some stinking drunk immigrants. One guy thinks he is going to take himself a little nap on his shoulder. Well, man #2 is having none of that and kicks him to the other end of the car. When he gets to Queens, man #1 is not opening the door. “Shit, he says, “it’s cold out. Open this damn door!” He starts kicking it and kicking it and the neighbor’s dog starts barking and he hears the peephole opening and he turns just once and gives him his eye. He knows that look scares all the uptight folks and he can move through most of life pretty easy. Man #1 is sleeping he finished his final deal two hours ago. He is in deep into a good dream when man #2 comes banging at his door. The asshole was supposed to be there at midnight. He knows the policy is no business after 1 AM. The banging is waking up his wife who could sleep through anything but if you wake her there is hell to pay for a week. Man #1 sees the beginning of morning creeping through the shade. It is chilly and he doesn’t want his feet hitting the cold floor but the neighbor’s dog is barking so he swings his legs over the side of his bed. He looks back at his wife with her dark hair spilled over her face and her full lips peering through it and he wants to slide right over to her side but he leaves…

The neighbors said man #1 ran like someone who wanted to live. He zigzagged down the block as man #2 kept trying to shoot him, the bullets popping like small firecrackers breaking with the morning sun.

In the diner on the corner, they had just opened with the first coffee already made. The home fries were cooking. The waitress was making a toasted bagel with peanut butter for this guy who had a thing for her and came in every day before he hopped into his cab. The cook was breaking some eggs for an omelet and some scramble for the two guys who had just come off the night shift at the MTA. They heard the screaming. “Help me, help me!” They heard the pop, pop, pop and then man #1 broke through the door. The cook dropped two eggs onto the floor, the crack just like the pop pop from the street. Everyone turned to look at the frightened face of man #1. “Call the police he’s going kill me.” He ran to the back and tried to open the bathroom door. But the door had a key that was at the front register. The busboy looked at him blankly and man #1 turned to see man #2 burst through the door. He had the gun held over his head. He didn’t look at anyone else. Man #1 turned back to face the busboy and he didn’t even feel the shot hit his back or the bullet rip his heart open. He just remembered the way his wife’s hair fell over her face and how her lips parted to kiss him one more time.

The people in the diner never said a word they just watched him fall, dropping through the air. Man #2 ran out the door and across the street to the subway. He was glad to be getting out of Queens.

The neighbors said man #1’s mother watched the whole thing from her window across the street.

A poem: His finger brushed her hip/penetrating to the bone.

Another news flash: 15-Year Girl Dies From A Kiss.

She is ripe. That is what her boyfriend thinks. Ripe, he never thought that before he wasn’t even sure what it meant. But he looks at her and her hair falls in curls over her face. Her lips are bright red and look so good. She looks at him her eyes are just so big, so he wipes the last of the peanut cup from his mouth and he kisses her. Lips so warm and soft and so wet. He slides his tongue all around and she pushed herself against him until her body just stops. She looks at him for a moment trying to figure out what is wrong. She remembers her mother at the window when she left. She was looking after her as she walked down the street. The boyfriend really didn’t know what happened he holds her limp body against his until they pull her away. He can still feel the wetness of her mouth.

The doctors said it can happen that way with allergies. It’s so quick you don’t even have the time to react. So quick, the life goes before you have even a moment to think about it.

Written on a subway wall: Where in my body does God live?

News flash #3: Subway Push Suspect Awaits Arraignment

They had argued all night. Starting at the club. Starting over a girl. They had been friends since the 2nd grade, first learning to read, and then doing drugs together in the back room of his uncle’s Elmhurst apartment. They even learned about sex together, giving it up to the twins who went to their school. The twins were a grade above them but just liked to do it all the time, together, or with boys. The friends never thought a thing about it, they were just content to have the sex thing over with. As young men with drugs and some money in their pockets, they felt really good. But they had not been happy for awhile. Now they were arguing their friendship shredding as the night wore on.

People said they argued on the platform for a long time. It was early, the sky just starting to lighten in the east. The platform was elevated and outdoors and the wind hit them hard and there was no place to get away from it. No place. They screamed and screamed not seeing the train emerging from down the tracks rising with the sun in the horizon. They pushed at each other until one friend pushed so hard that the other just fell back, realizing he was falling into air. The train never had a chance to stop. One friend stood looking at his outstretched hands and before him was a train and not his friend. He remembered when they were eight and had their first cigarette behind the red door of the Catholic school. Neither one of them had an idea what to do with it. It made them cough and then laugh. They ran when they heard someone coming. It was their first and last cigarette together; there were other things to discover.

The reporter was on the scene. She told all the people who were up already, who were making coffee or eating their breakfast that the train would be running as soon as EMS had finished picking up the bits of pieces of the man from the track and the street below. The sun was bright and the body bag was small as they carried it down the stairs.

Another poem found on a subway wall: Fall open like a pear/ split down the middle.

So I am just asking, what gets you up in the morning? I mean when your feet hit the ground what stops you from rolling back into the bed? What makes you want to continue living?

First published in 11-30-05

Slight edits in 1-7-2025

2024-10-22T16:22:00.001-05:00

On the day I was born spring was just a good idea. Not a tree had thought further then to catch a snowflake upon a branch. Mother Nature heaved tears upon a grateful earth that such a creature as me was being born. No, no that is not right. The sky was a slate gray of swollen cumulus clouds. No, that is not right either. I really do not know what the weather was the day I was born. I was too busy contemplating my penis. Yes, I was a girl but convinced the pulsating thing I had grown so fond of in vitro was indeed, my penis. How was I to know it would be the last time I would be so intimately involved with it and my kneecaps. Hanging out in the dark sucking your thumb and pondering the next tum in the womb does not prepare you for life. I was three or was it four when I stood naked waiting for my bath and realized it was gone. Gone!!! I asked my mother where it was and she said, why, it dried up and fell off. Fell off? My trusty companion for nine months, my playmate, the thing I was counting on to wield power in a man infested environment had dried up and fallen off? I tell you nothing prepares you for a shock like that.

Nor does it prepare you for 12 years of Catholic school and the joys of the twisted sisterhood of the religious righteous. My life from grades 1-12 was spent running from the taunts of bullies while hanging on to my socks that were always around my ankles and keeping my pointed speckled glasses from falling into the mud before I did. I was eighteen when I developed hips and could keep my pantyhose around my waist.

On the day I was born God peered into the waiting womb of my mother and shook his head to see this girl baby contemplating her penis. I think he knew right then and there I was trouble. Years later I would grow up to be a wild woman, a wild angel, and crazy about my pet TV, my computer and a boy named George, but that is another story.

I was born with a cleft in my chin. I was told that meant God had put his fingerprint on me. So this is what I think happened, God looked in utero, saw what was going on, and decided action was needed.

He lifted my head back peered into those baby blues and said; Look you goofball! What do you think you are doing? Stop mucking around and get the hell out there. With that, he pushed his finger into my chin and sent me holding on to my penis for dear life down that long tunnel to the light at the other end, his final words ringing in my ears. "You go, girl. Go and fly!!"

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

What women in love do, Haiku version

2024-10-21T16:16:00.004-05:00

what women in love

do: revealing bare shoulders
she slips back her coat

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2024
Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond
Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

What women in love do

2024-10-19T16:09:00.001-05:00

(We) throw off our coats to reveal bare shoulders
(We) dance in front of the mirror, imagining our beloved is there
What women in love do

Become unhinged in subtle and profound ways

(slightly crazy and beside ourselves)
We become different and awkward and out of sorts
When we fall (for married men, mysterious men and holy men)
Forgetting ourselves in the most awful and luscious of ways
Women in love do the most interesting things

Today I am a woman in love(and my heart aches)

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

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A death like this . . . .

2024-10-18T15:57:00.000-05:00

One more time spring has erupted.

I pass by the trees and white petals fall.
A little boy says: "it is snowing momma! It's snowing..."

I kick at the trash and catch a petal on my lips.

The taste is bitter and I am full of it. A season comes around. It's spring, then fall.
Again, I walk down the street.
The tears fall like snow from the sky...
Things go round and round.

Some things stop. Stop.

His friend has died.

I sit with him and feel the heaviness of his heart. I am pulled down into it. He weeps.

A flower tips it head to the ground. I know something is being born.

At this moment my heart flutters and falters. Somewhere my soul is being filled by the Gods. They said she died of heart attack.

I know her heart broke open,

so, full oflove it could no longer be contained.

A friend has died

and a death like this takes away a piece from here and a piece from there.

Until there is this patchwork of things that God has woven back together.

I walk down this street and all around everything has gone green ...

Next week it falls like feathers from angels' wings. I am wrapped by this cycle of life and death.

I am reaching and holding back.

I am looking to scream somewhere... Scream it all back to God.

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

Day Breakers - Haiku

2024-10-17T15:53:00.001-05:00

Haiku Version

The day breakers rise

Separating night from day

I prefer sleep

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

Day Breakers

2024-10-16T15:45:00.001-05:00

There are those who separate night from day.

Greeting dawn with anticipation

They are golden people, light bearers of the world.

I am not one of these ...

I pull night over me, a trusted friend. I am crimson and gold

I am in the company of demons and angels drawn into the center of the dark night (of the soul.) I fall, I reel ... Oh sweet night. .. Oh saving grace

Wild 'angels I call on thee... lift me from this wild imagining Rise, they say, child of God, greet this night,

Do not languish in your mourning bed...

Rise; lift up thine eyes from the burning dark.

Look to the swirling stars, the poetic moon, break it open ... At night, I am crimson and gold,

Embered, a soft glow in the velvet darkness

I will have my churning dreams and tormented heart

Let the day breakers have their brilliant light and Marian blue Give me this sweet night, this tender passage

Wild Angels I call on thee O' my soul,

O' my soul.

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

All the Poems

2024-10-15T15:45:00.000-05:00

I am posting prose and poetry from the anthology series I crafted and curated with Patricia, Patrick, John, and a host of instructors along the way. For ten years I co-facilitated a successful writing program, The Wild Angels Poets and Writers group, at the historic Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. The program ended in May 2010 after we published our tenth anthology and final reading.

"THINGS WITH WINGS" Anthology of their collected works Spring 2001

Edited by Patrick Hammer and Sandra Lee Schubert Cover art by Patricia Miranda

Day Breakers (Haiku Version) A death like this

What women in love do (Haiku Version)

The day I was born

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

Revisiting Poetry

2022-07-27T16:48:00.002-05:00

I am considering breaking this poem in half. Can you guess where?

THE MOURNING OF THE LOSS OF TOWELS

Not a willing early riser, prone to steal extra minutes slipping further under the covers with just a nose to catch the air.

Sometimes I slip deeper, unintentional really, back to a dream that had me entertained before the clock bellows with morning voices and then later the second beep and finally the 3rd alarm stationed in the bathroom making me pull out of a dream a bitter end to a delicious sleep.

Occasionally morning calls to me and I wait in the dark, cold air. I can make out the last of the deer scurrying off into the deep woods, pausing once to look at me the lone watcher on the stone balcony.

Here is the moment when the night sounds die off and the silence is deep and the sky is still black. And then the slow roll of night back over my head as the morning begins her ascension over the horizon even before she crests the birds begin to sing a chorus of the song that builds like the dawn and with the first break of day, the shimmer of light cascades down the mountain to the river and finally lights my perch.

I am reminded of lost things. The towels my mother taught me to fold, not like my aunt- she would have none of that.

First is one fold to the middle and the second fold over that smooth it out, fold the towel in half and in half again. After all these years,

I still fold towels the same way.

But it is my mother’s towels, the ones we folded together,

I miss the most. Their frayed edges with soft middles, the way they wrapped me. And her hands, worn even then, her furrowed brow, brown hair and the faint smell of gardenia that clung to her.

Then I learned about loss and sorrow still to come.

Mourning the loss of towels,

I slip deeper under the covers to grasp one last dream.

Creative Vagabond: Read this first.

A Performance with Jed Luckless and Sandra Lee Schubert

2016-04-15T18:45:00.000-05:00

Thank you to everyone who came out on April 1st listen to us perform both poetry and music.
It was a great time. Watch the video. Like it if you want and subscribe too. Stay tuned for more.

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2016
Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own e-course available by email subscription. Click here for more information and to sign up http://bit.ly/write4life

Poetry and Music - a collaboration

2016-04-05T08:14:00.001-05:00

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2016

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own e-course available by email subscription.Click here for more information and to sign up http://bit.ly/write4life

Poetry and Music

2016-03-25T12:14:00.000-05:00

Join us for Poets on Main in Boonton, NJ.

Friday, April 1st - 7:30 PM

Iconic Images Art Gallery

414 Main St, Boonton, New Jersey 07005

Poets and musicians have inspired each other for generations.
From lyrics to melody the collaboration between the two can
bring about great works of art.

Tonights collaboration will have music joined with words,
and words and music following each other. Part spontaneous
and part planned - we will riff off each other and create
something fun and wonderful.

+Sandra Lee Schubert is a writer, poet and consultant. She is the founder of Wild Woman Network – forums to explore and express creativity and spirituality. She has created a successful e-course, leading a person through building the foundation for a lifetime of writing and creating their life story. She facilitated a popular writing program called the Wild Angels Poets and Writers Group at the historic Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City.

+Jed Luckless is NYC area musician who performs original music and streams his shows online in the virtual world of Secondlife. His improvisational style has earned him the nickname Jammin’ Jed and this spontaneity makes every performance a unique experience for the listener.Jed Luckless - http://jedluckless.com/

Hosted by Dave Pucciarelli
First Friday Late Night: Poets on Main is sponsored by: B&B Design and WDHA FM

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up http://bit.ly/write4life

A Grateful Dead thing...

2016-03-18T19:00:00.000-05:00

The creative process is fraught with details - Here is my newest video for Drums and space -

It is an interpretation based on a conversation with Jed Luckless about the Grateful Dead and drums and space in their concerts. The conversation inspired a poem (only some elements of the conversation are in the poem) I watched the Grateful Dead's Fare Thee Well concert on a big screen and took some photos. I played with a couple of ways of connecting the poem and photos together. Read more on YouTube.

h/t +Jed Luckless for the music and inspiration of this piece.

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2016
Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own e-course available by email subscription.
Click here for more information and to sign up http://bit.ly/write4life

How do you slay dragons?

2016-02-02T16:07:00.000-05:00

Love this from Zen Pencils. He uses his talent as an artist to craft wonderful stories using the words of others and their own stories. So how do you slay the dragons of self-doubt, fear and indecision?
ROBERT F. KENNEDY: A ripple of hope http://zenpencils.tumblr.com/post/95317040951

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up http://bit.ly/write4life

13 Ways to Take a Creative Excursion by Barbara Winter

2014-08-20T15:53:00.001-05:00

13 Ways to Take a Creative Excursion read more... http://ow.ly/AxUZ6

"Julia Cameron calls them Artist’s Dates. Sarah Ban Breathnach calls them Creative Excursions. Whatever you call them, they are worth making a regular event in your life.

“The Artist Date need not be overtly artistic,” says Cameron, “think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play. Since art is about the play of ideas, they feed our creative work by replenishing our inner well of images and inspiration.”

The purpose of such solo events is to take time every week to make a visit to a new place to gather ideas or just feed your imagination. Although it’s easy to find new destinations, it’s equally easy to find excuses not to do so.

When people tell me they have no idea what they want to do with their life, I’m pretty certain that creative excursions have not been on their agenda.

With that in mind, here are a few idea starters to get you thinking about potential excursions of your own."

WTF?

2009-05-25T12:22:00.001-05:00

I am not promising a thing. But, I may add content to this blog.

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own
e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up
http://cli.gs/Uy4Up3

Who am I?

2006-09-12T16:17:00.002-05:00

I have been thinking a lot about identity. What defines a person? Is it our DNA, where we grew up, or is it the family we are born into?

I have written about growing up in Astoria. The rats bigger then cats, the major heroin ring run from a local diner, the porn ring exposed across the street. A Satanist lived upstairs for a bit and a minor league drug dealer lived next door. The local chicken joint was in trouble for using the more voluptuous river rats instead of fowl for deep fry. I was surrounded by factories and lower and middle class families. The apartment building where I grow up was already a hundred years old. It was one of the first apartment buildings built with gardens in the back. Originally it had gas lighting and no bathrooms. The bathrooms were added later and formed columns in the back of the building. There was no insulation to speak of and winters we chipped the ice from inside our windows. In some ways it was like living in the Wild West; rough and untamed. But it also was the place where I grew up. Behind the yards there used to be stables that my father worked in as a boy. Later he would plant a tree there just outside set into the sidewalk was a horseshoe marking the spot

A couple of weeks ago I brought my niece to see the building where her mother and aunt had grown up. Patrick Hammer was there too. He had wanted to see the river rats I written about in the Wild Angels classes. I had heard rumors the place may have been torn down. My old apartment took an active place in my dream life. At times holding all the fear I felt there and other times the memories. Often I would dream of my mother, sick and frail and my first dog Bella, living there alone and forgotten in the back room. In the dream I would live near by and with horror realized I had left them alone. I found them OK but could never get over the horror of forgetting them. The dreams began to change and suddenly this dark and desolate place began to shift and I was living there again. The apartment now nice and livable and my mother and dog finally at rest as they should be. The dreams prepared me for the rumors but the reality did not. We came upon a desolate landscape bordered by plywood walls. Nothing remained of my former home except a couple of scattered rocks. Even the tree my father planted as a child was gone. Not a root was left for me to dig up and take home. We wandered down to the river just a couple blocks away where friends and I would sit on the abandoned docks watching the river rats play and the green and foamy water of the East River slap against the shore. Even here time had moved on and the old pilings mostly demolished to form instead a nice walkway. A park had been constructed and the dock where we sat held equipment. The old Steinway factory building was still there and the familiar factory buildings still dotted the landscape. The memories and stories so anchored to a place were now dug up and rearranged. The flattened landscape was like experiencing the death of my parents all over again. Soon something new will be built on the ruins and other people will come, live and dream and create new memories.

Who am I? Where does the story of who I am live? I thought it resided in the wood and stone of an old building. Now un-tethered I struggle a bit to find my bearings.

I am struck by the question of what is an identity. Who are we without the people, places and things that surround us? Does my name define me, the place I live or the family I come from? Does my country or the planet define me? Who does God say I am? Will that answer suffice when all around me seems changed? Here I am wobbly, questioning and unsure of my place in the world.

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006-2014
Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own
e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up
http://cli.gs/Uy4Up3

Blogs on Parade

2006-07-11T15:32:00.001-05:00

From time to time I will share some writing tools found online or elsewhere.
Roy Peter Clark provides tools for your writing toolbox.
MONDAY, JULY 10, 2006

Go ahead, be particular

I like writing that moves: moves from the abstract to the concrete, moves from showing to telling, moves from the general to the particular. Sometimes this movement goes in one direction, sometimes the other, and sometimes back and forth. But move it must. Move, move, move! Go, man go! . . .

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006