Let’s hear it for energy

Photo & writing by me (Instagram @audreyleopard), words paraphrased from one of my favorite Anne Frank quotes, rock from the woods in the Catskills, Upstate New York

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief. – Kahlil Gibran

Unbelievably, it’s fall again. I’m thankful for everything this past year has taught me, both the beauty and the ache.. Thankful as well for wonderful experiences, new friends, arts of all sorts, and of course words, words, words!

– My mom’s energy healing event
– “world as notebook” photo series
– First BK reading at Renegade Reading Series
– Fun at PARACHUTE: the Coney Island Performance Festival
– In Bloom Collective’s Astoria Art Fest coming up
– My unforgettable Emerson encounter

– First of all, my amazing mom (who is also named Audrey) is an energy healer/channel, and she had her very first energy healing/channeling/light language event last Friday at the A.R.E. of NY Edgar Cayce Center. It was AMAZING and overwhelming to behold. Thank you so much to everyone who attended and all my friends who took the time to come out and experience it. It meant the world. If you’ve ever been curious about energy healing and how it can help you, please check out my mom’s site! This is a time of great change for many reasons.. Let’s come back into the power we have all forgotten! More details here and on her Facebook.

– In between doing the poetry stickers for my Compass Project, another endeavor came to fruition quite randomly on a walk home from work – a series of photos I took in which I took a sharpie to the city. I call it the “world as notebook” series. Take a look here!

– I was lucky enough to do my first reading in Brooklyn two weeks ago at the fantastic Renegade Reading Series at LaunchPad in Crown Heights! Really varied, amazing talent and a hilarious, natural hostess (thanks Caitlin!). I read a few pieces from my book as well as a brand new one for the forthcoming collection. If she does another event before leaving the USA (boo!), PLEASE go check it out!

Photo by Amanda Deutch

– I was also lucky enough to perform and volunteer with PARACHUTE: the Coney Island Performance Festival this month! Aside from my Queens neighborhood and the Catskill Mountains, Coney Island holds the next closest place in my heart, so I was overjoyed to be a part of it (big love to Amanda and Becca!). I attended the wonderful Patricia Spears Jones‘ writing workshop, helped to recite a portion of Coney-themed text from Muriel Rukeyser’s “Houdini” musical with some amazing new friends, and finished the night watching poetic talents like Sheila Maldonado and Martin Espada read their work in front of the JELLYFISH TANKS in the NY Aquarium during after-hours! Really amazing experience.. Come out next year and keep a lookout for more PARACHUTE events in the meantime!

Click here to read the three poems I wrote during the workshop – loved it!

– Exciting news back in my own ‘hood now – the arts group I’m part of, In Bloom Collective, is throwing the first ever ASTORIA ART FEST next month, November 9th-11th! We saw a GREAT response to our open call from local artists, and we are furiously working to finish setting up amazing exhibitions and parties in some of Astoria’s most popular venues – initial details are now available. CAN’T WAIT! Here’s the website and Facebook for more.

– And finally.. Last month I had an indescribably special literary moment in Concord, MA – one I will never forget for the rest of my life. I visited the grave and the home of my greatest writing inspiration, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and got to see his reconstructed study and possessions in the Concord Museum. Thank you with all my heart to J who made this possible. It reminded me again just how powerful the art of expression really is – to feel these words reach through time to touch you.. Even though centuries separate you, the power of words resonates, infinitely. Being there to enjoy the beauty of Concord and walk in the steps Emerson himself must have taken meant more to me than I can say. I will end this post with words of his that have resonated with me since I first heard them:

“But the heart refuses to be imprisoned; in its first and narrowest pulses, it already tends outward with a vast force, and to immense and innumerable expansions.”