Poetic Medicine: Humility and Power

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That is what poetry does. -Allen Ginsberg
PODCAST: 'These Days' by John Fox

Poems stir us, encourage us to wake, breathe deeply and experience life! Poems are alive. They hold energy. You can discover this life and energy in your words, in the cadence of your voice, and the feeling inside your body upon reading a poem. There are indeed hints inside of poems that become available to you as you write and hear them.

What poems offer relates not only to the present moment, but may come as messengers from the past and clues important for your future messages for you and for humanity. Poetry joins the personal with the universal.

Writing allows us to discover how vulnerabilities and strengths can co-exist, even thrive together. Poems can reveal deep insight and compassion. They can give voice to what is raw and wounded in your life and that honesty, creatively expressed and explored, can bolster and guide you through rough times.

And sometimes, your writing can transform you at profound levels. -John Fox -Founder, Institute for Poetic Medicine

The Dreamer
Pour my eternity into the chalice of today
Let me drink, drink, drink my journeys down
and travel the night on three white horses
I with a rose dangling from my mouth
a star in each eye
a sun in my heart
and the moon to give my crossroads light.

-Sherry Reiter from Finding What You Didn't Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity Through Poem-Making

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment. --John Fitzgerald Kennedy October 26, 1963, Amherst College

Learn More:
Travel with John Fox and understand how you can:

1. create a place for us to listen to one another.

2. affect positive change in the practice of religion and spirituality, medicine, health care, psychology, education, the reclaiming of indigenous traditions, community life, politics, social action, justice, environmental protection, peacemaking.

3. Understand how poem-making and the encouragement of the creative spirit helps people to discover, consider and integrate new and more useful ways of expression for their respective institutions and fields of concern -while still honoring the labor and wisdom that is the legacy of those institutions and concerns.

Related Links:
Saving Starfish: Johnathan Falk's Poetic Philanthropy
My First Philanthropic Travel Experience
Understanding Philanthropic Travel
Personal Openings and World Travel
For My Culture
The Fable of Stone Soup
Cindi's Story
Giving while Living: The Deeper News About the New Philanthropy
Affluent Parents Dedicated to Instilling Philanthropic Values in their Children
Why Exquisite Safaris?