Winter's Soul Food

Winter's Soul Food Back Story

We all need recovery from time to time. For each of us, our recovery will require something different. Some will meditate daily to stay grounded. Some will paint to express their emotions. Others will pray and still others may run, with only the sound of the wind in their ears. Knowing what you need for completeness is the secret to recovery. This is finding your SOUL FOOD. TO ME SOUL FOOD is having found whatever you need for spiritual survival or recovery.

My SOUL FOOD is to write and at times the words seem to be in my head before I even know I'm ready to write. None of this happens unless I find time to be alone. Time to think, pray, worship and most of all listen to what my spirit is telling me.

When I first worked on this piece of writing, it had been just a few weeks since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC. In need of recovery had a whole new meaning. The entire country was in need of recovery and it would not come quickly. For those who knew what they required, the healing time may have been shorter. At the point I started writing this, I couldn't tell for sure what I would need. I did know that I would choose to create time for stillness and alone time. I knew that I needed to write and I did exactly that. This page is part of my recovery and hopefully can assist you when you need the same.

The poem, Winter Soul Food was written by me after I came upon notes I had written while on a frozen Washington beach at sundown. I had taken my mother to the ocean for a week. Her Alzheimer disease was getting much worst and I was her touch stone. When I left the house for even a short time, she looked scared and in a panic. She was always afraid I would not come back. My Mamma, my hero, my model for living with purpose. All through her life she made things better for children, adults, her family, and her church. A week of just the two of us alone at the beach meant safety for her and for me a mixture of joy and anxiety for the future. I am seldom at the ocean when sheets of ice cover the sand. As we followed the boardwalk through the dunes to get there, we found grasses and brush full of ice, puddles frozen over and stepped on to leave boot tracks.

When we got to the beach, just the two of us and Coco the Chocolate Lab, the view was amazing. I can still feel the magic of that pastel world that seemed to even hush the sounds of the waves with it's awesome beauty. I truly felt I could inhale power and peacefulness. As I wrote this I realized the gift of this poem for me is the hope of being able to take that powerfully peaceful image with me anywhere and anytime. This peace will bring healing and hope to my heart in times of fear. May it do the same for you.