Jillean took her first writing class in the Spring of 2022 and has been smitten ever since.

Writing has helped me awaken, forgive, accept, love, express, feel more deeply.

How could I not be smitten?

I’ve long been passionate about poetry, creating community, and making brave spaces to share our authentic selves. When I began writing with the magical Dawn Thompson and Portland Women Writers in 2022, I quickly experienced the power of writing and sharing with others.* Writing with Birch Dwyer, Practitioner of Poetic Medicine based in Portland, OR, sealed the deal; I could feel things begin to shift.

In the Fall of 2023, I stumbled onto (in other words had a divine appointment with) Laurie Wagner’s Wild Writing practice, and immediately sensed something move within me. This writing practice brings together those three passions - poetry, community, authenticity. Eureka! I pursued Laurie’s Teacher Training over this past Winter and Spring of 2024, and completed the training in July.

Thank you to the beautiful - and beautifully real - Laurie Wagner of Alameda, CA for sharing Wild Writing with us!

A little background…

I stepped away from Hospice/Hospital Chaplaincy work after the death of my father and when COVID was in its second year. I never dreamed I would not go back to chaplaincy work, but unexpectedly, it stopped calling to me. Sitting at the bedside of a dying woman in Pittsburgh, about to begin Hospice work again, I heard the words “Your work is no longer with the dying.” I knew it was truth - a truth that was hard to accept. Who am I if I am not a chaplain anymore? Similar to the depression I catapulted into after leaving my marriage in 2015, I again felt that despair of being unmoored and groundless. In both instances, I turned to therapy, friends, yoga, dance and writing. All of these things have buoyed me, saved my sanity, and moved me forward on my path.

I am still writing! and I am honored to now lead others in this powerful, magical writing process that invites us to become our whole human selves. I bet you want to join me! Let’s become better at being human together.

*Portland Women Writers has evolved into Words for Healing (www.words-for-healing.com) with Dawn Thompson and Touchstone Retreats (same website).

You

You follow me everywhere. Funny how I think I can outrun you.

Or outmaneuver you.

You, constant companion of the last seven years, lay down your arms.

Lay down your shield, your armor; come into the light.

The summer light and warmth. Let me hold you, savage one.

We are so tired of the battle, the self-flagellation, the wishing life were otherwise.

Lay down your arms.

Let us look at each other with clear, compassionate eyes.

We belong to each other; it is not a separate you and a separate me.

We are parts of a whole. One body, indivisible…even as I try to divide us and shun you.

Yet you - my closet stuffed with savage mementos - you are my constant companion.

Can we call a truce, make a peace treaty?

I am battle weary.

And life is waiting.

Jillean, Spring 2023