We at Cactus Cancer Society believe that a writer is someone who writes, no matter how much experience you have writing. As part of our ongoing work to keep your creative juices flowing, we offer weekly journal prompts delivered right to your inbox. While our commitment to offering you creative, quality writing prompts remains the same, you’ll be seeing a few new names in your inbox as the authors of these prompts!
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Have you thought of a journal prompt you think our community would love? You can submit an anonymous journal prompt recommendation!
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Self-care does not have to be a big ticket item draining our bank accounts or our precious energy. We can keep it simple. What is your wise intuition telling you? What do you need? At this moment, just for today?
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Check out what’s happening at Cactus Cancer Society this April!
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Are you between the ages of 18 and 25?! Join us for our next Survivorship Series! In case you haven’t heard of it yet, the Survivorship Series is essentially our favorite programs all wrapped up into one!
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Try an experiment with a story you have long held and believe from your past. One that has you frozen in time. Write now with Jean Rowe!
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We’re in a time where things are changing daily. Go on vacation or stay home? Venture again to the grocery store or have meals delivered? Let’s invite some middle ground.
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“The feeling like no matter what I do, I’m going to fall. Something will toss me over the edge. Instead of letting that happen, I make the decision myself. I get to decide when to jump.”
–Rebekah Crane
The Upside of Falling Down
Jumping into water. Jumping into shorts and a tee-shirt. Jumping into the car for a road trip. Jumping at spontaneity. It’s Summer! It’s arrived! How are you jumping into this season?
Things are lightening up. Maybe you’ll still wear a mask if that is what feels good and right, and that is just fine. How does it feel to jump into the luxury of activities like meeting a friend for coffee? Eating in a restaurant? Being around other human beings? Have you jumped into hugs yet? They feel pretty good.
Be a Jumping Explorer this month and catalog your adventures. What is coming up? How does it feel in your body? No judgment or criticism here – get curious!
You get to decide when to jump – isn’t that wonderful? Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!
While from the purpling east departs
The star that led the dawn,
Blithe Flora from her couch upstarts,
For May is on the lawn.–William Wordsworth
Ode Composed on a May Morning
The promise of a bloom, the way the trees fill in with green, the lushness of May is here. Birds return; all manner of winged creatures buzz; the tree frogs sing. It’s this filling in of things that brings hope of new life, fresh air, warmer weather. It’s cyclical rather than linear. It has purpose.
Consider this. How are you filling in? Whether it be interior or external? Big or small? No grand gestures required. What is buzzing through your being? What songs is your mind humming? What feels lush in this present moment? With the longer light, take more breaks, breathe deeply, look around through fresh points of view.
Carry your journal along. On walks around Beaver Lake near where I live, I see blankets strewn, bodies relaxed, books open, pens poised above pages; sometimes a nap.
Wander with this in mind. Capture what surfaces in your pages.
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!
Yes! where Love nestles thou canst teach
The soul to love the more;
Hearts also shall thy lessons reach
That never loved before.
Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything LCSW Jean Rowe has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life to name a few) and sign up to join one today!
April 22nd is Earth Day, and what a glorious time of year to invite ourselves to get reacquainted, reconnected with our roots. This could mean – what is the story of your family? Have you ever charted a genogram (for fun, not school)? This could be a time to pull out colored pencils and highlighters and have some fun. You could make the genogram topic-specific like how many people in your family learned to sew or plant roses or grow tomatoes. You could interview an aunt or uncle about their lives, things you may not already know about them. It could be seeing if Ancestry is something you would like to explore. It could be reading your parents’ letters – something I did a couple of summers ago. They were from the 1950s through the 1970s and brought nostalgia and tugs on my heartstrings.
It could be literally connecting with the earth. Bring the outdoors inside with a pretty potted something where you can see and enjoy it. New to digging in the dirt? Don’t be afraid to engage a master gardener at a place like Ace Hardware to ask questions and get some guidance. Don’t forget about your local library and checking out books on how to grow, what to grow, and knowing your zone (important!). It could be hugging a tree. Don’t laugh! It might actually feel good. It could be going for a walk in a neighborhood where much is in bloom and beautiful to behold.
So. Loving the earth helps love yourself.
To recap:
A genogram of your own making
Interviewing a family member
Family Ancestry
Learning to garden whether it be flowers or vegetables or both
Hugging trees
Walking in the woods
Walking in neighborhoods which you bring you joy
And
How about a bird feeder?
Planting flowers that attract bees and butterflies?
Breathing deeply in your own front yard?
Possibilities abound.
Whatever you decide, try it and then write about it. How’d it go? How did it feel? What did you learn? What is next?
Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!
Away, away from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs,
To the silent wilderness,
Where the soul need not repress its music.
–Percy Bysshe Shelley
