I’m joining the Tracking Wonder Vision Quest 2015 for the month of December and stepping midstream into a beautiful group of questers and visionaries delving into hearts and intentions under the compassionate curatorial stewardship of Jeffrey Davis. Loosely, structure revolves around a series of prompts crafted by chosen visionaries we respond to and reveries we share across our sites. If you are intrigued, quest with us by visiting Vision Quest 2015 to sign up. We mine 12 prompts; I’m stepping in at prompt 5 and will likely back post responses to the ones I missed so far.

My impulse to join stems from a desire (as poet, artist, blogger, teacher, mother) to move out of my comfort zone and to step into the next growth ring of collaborative play, visibility, and prosperity. Thanks goes to Suzi Banks Baum for leading by example and directly for the inspiration to join.

I will be resuming the posting of November Butterfly poetry prompts in 2015; for now, visit this link for a list of the eleven poetry prompts available to date for the iconic women gracing Section I of November Butterfly.

Today’s Vision Quest 2015 prompt (Day 5)  is from Charlie Gilkey of Productive Flourishing:

“Pursue knowledge, daily gain. Pursue Tao (wisdom), daily loss.” – Tao Te Ching*

We often think too much about adding new things, when the source of a lot of our growth is eliminating old things.

What do you need to STOP doing in 2015?

And what do you need to do to make that STOPPING more than an intention?

* Attribution: Derek Lin’s translation of the Tao Te Ching

1) In 2015, I need to staunch the habitual hemorrhage of worry about those I love. 

Trust others to flourish…

 “I flash on a drawing my father’s wife shared with me (drawn by her father, Paul Beattie, of her mother. There were five children in the family). When I look at the drawing, I slip straight out of “mother self” and into her father’s point of view: there sits his wife, her eyes averted, gaze perpetually trained a little past his face and over to the kids. See how just over her third eye, he’s penciled in a tiny sketch of her face and upper torso. To see her, he first has to see through the body of swaddled infant.”

Hopeless Carnage: Sisu the Siberian Husky and The Song of Sedna  (Feral Mom, Feral Writer)

...and reinvest the energy of worry in the next project (this year’s book tour, second manuscript, and editing forthcoming poetry anthology for The Fertile Source).

2) In 2015 I need to stop the habit of perfectionism.

Allow the fertile mess…

“Every time I think some kind of artificial boundary exists between my family life and my writing life (as if!), I learn again that they are inextricably braided. Earlier that afternoon, rushing to get my son across the school parking lot, so anxious to get on the road to the airport, I’d stopped in my tracks in front of a tree covered in pale grey curled layers of bark furling back on themselves. A writer’s dream of a tree offering its harvest of scrolls to the human eye.”

—My Chariot, My Bicycle, and The Angel Tree: Writing Despite Chaos (Feral Mom, Feral Writer)

...to inspire questions, new collaborations, new risks in place of the familiar tidy answers.

3) In 2105 I need to stop fearing life itself.

Let the world in…

“Would I keep my children’s lessons from them? Would I withhold my own if I could from the other side? I can’t see far enough. A wing—or veil–over my understanding.”

 —Lost Wings, Hesitations, and Outgrowing the Metronome (Laundry Line Divine)”.

“…on Mother’s Day, as if in psychic attunement to my attempts to reassemble in wholeness, my husband weeded our tiny backyard and stacked the statue’s pieces together. He placed the angel and conch atop torso and feet above wide shell base, filled it with water and served us (and our three children) an omelette on the patio table to the sound of trickling water.  I had no idea the statue was actually a fountain, just as I had no idea Guinevere would say, ‘You can’t write your way home.'”

—Author’s Note, November Butterfly (The Mom Egg)

...and let the dialogue resume.

Which habitual thoughts inhibit your forward motion? If inspired, share in comments. Which actions do you take to live your way free of inhibitions? 

*Photos by Robyn Beattie.