Category Archives: encouragement

I Know That (song version)

May is my month, with my birthday, Mother’s Day and my wedding anniversary. As a 62nd birthday challenge I wanted to get something unstuck: post my first video on YouTube. I’ve had a channel since 2011 and I would almost do it, but pull back. Always some snag. How to do the recording on iMovie? How to load the video? It felt too personal or too exposed, or laryngitis, or not enough time, or the need to wear makeup, or whatever…. Over the last few years, partly through Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir, I became more confident of my ability to do tech stuff. I got a Blue Yeti microphone –which is the coolest– to record VC 3 and VC 4.

My office recording set up

I made the light that Jack Rowland recommended last year. I learned enough of iMovie to submit my video for the last Virtual Choir. Thank you also to Gene Waddle and Elisabeth Smith and “the team” for your encouragement and to the worldwide family that is Virtual Choir.

Thank you to Tom Prasada-Rao and Cary Cooper for their bravery in posting very personal and moving songs. And to Charlotte McDaniel who keeps on learning and posting her lovely video creations. You all inspired me to make the leap.

I’ve had some recent clarity about my job: to deliver the poems that come to me. At first it meant reading in person and in print, then on a CD, and now on video, where the words can reach someone and help to heal, inspire, comfort, give voice to an experience, encourage, support, connect with.

I am very excited to tell you: here is my first video, I Know That (song version). Originally published in my book, As Easy as Breathing, I wrote the poem in the middle of chemotherapy, when losing my hair was imminent, a very big deal. (I also sang this on my CD, Full Blooming.)

I did lose my hair, but not my eyebrows. And I was grateful for that. My aunt (in the song) had just died of breast cancer and my dear Grandma had also just passed away. I had recovered from surgery, then began chemo, with radiation to come, as was the standard of care then. I was trying to not get pulled down by the losses and to stay focused on healing.

So here goes: A New Beginning.

Thanks for being there! What creation have you been putting off? Go to it!

Invite Fear to Tea

Sally Barris, in her lovely concert at WFMT in Chicago last Saturday night, sang a song that reminded me of this poem of mine. I wrote it at a rapidly changing, chaotic time in my life when fear felt particularly dominant. I was considering how to neutralize fear’s hold over me. (The second poem was the very next one I wrote, a vivid description you might recognize.)

How much power do you give up to fear, repressing, denying or pushing it under? What if we could…

5/20/05

Invite Fear to Tea

What would it look like, feel like,
to invite fear to tea,
warily circle, then sit, sipping?
No judgment, no struggle,

only acknowledgment and being with,
not to understand or accommodate
or even talk with,
not to lessen or wrestle with.

Just to sit, sipping tea,
graciously, neutrally,
looking eye into eye,
quite normally.

Invite fear to tea,
sit down naturally,
calmly, not as with an enemy,
engage in social niceties:

Sugar? One lump or two? Milk or lemon?
Glance away thoughtful,
not stare or press for conversation,
not in curiosity, not in capitulation.

If ever I could…

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2005
On my CD, “Full Blooming”

And the next poem:
5/21/05

The Edge

Too much has changed
to find the old balance.
As I try to move back,
spikes shred my tires.

The edge of the cliff
is not where I left it.
Can you wonder why
I keep falling off?

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2005

One of the most powerful ways I currently deal with fear was suggested in a Facebook post I read a few months ago. It is an affirmation: “I am free from…” fill in the blank with whatever is troubling you. So in this case I say (aloud or to myself): “I am free from fear” or “I am free of fear.” Immediately I feel much lighter. A way of stating a fervent intention. It may seem too easy, but it is easy enough to do the experiment. Let me know how it goes.

Sarah Horn Sings with Kristin Chenoweth

I was moved by this powerful and spontaneous performance by young singer and voice teacher, Sarah Horn, on August 23, 2013, who was called up onstage to sing with Kristin Chenoweth. The original duet was posted on the internet and quickly went viral (3.5 million views as of Sept 8), obviously resonating with many people. Watch here. (This version is three videos later edited together). Follow up article.

I intended to post the poem inspired by this back in August, when everyone was paying attention, but life swept me along. In working on my next book I was reviewing past poems, and this poem came back to me. So here it is: An inspiring example of what can happen if we are ready and say yes…to life. And inspiration leads to creation…and on and on…. What has inspired you lately?

8/26/13

Sarah Horn Sings with Kristin Chenoweth
(before 10,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl)

When stars align
and impossible piles on
impossible and then
you are called,

and when you are ready,
if you are brave enough and trust,
you say yes
and step up even

if heart is pounding
and knees give way
a little. You say yes
because you are in

the right place and time
to speak, to sing
for everyone. And
everyone’s heart opens some.

And you are seen
and heard and known
and for that bit at least
you are aligned with the stars

and life shifts
not just for you
but all around

and that is the gift.
What you do with what has been given,
what you do with the possibility of new direction,

what you say to the clamoring,
holding what you love close and releasing,
how you thrive without armor…and sing,

remembering who you are,
that is up to you, dear one
now and evermore.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2013

Mirroring Back to You

In response to my long-overdue Full Blooming News e-newsletter this week, I heard back from some people. Lovely connection!

My friend Charlotte from Georgia, commented that I even wrote my response to her poetically. We were talking about getting frustrated and discouraged sometimes, feeling like giving up. And I told her a realization that had been helpful to me lately, to get out of the impossible traps we set for ourselves. (What does it mean to be successful, anyway?) She took a paragraph of mine, added line breaks and color, and the result is below, which I like it a lot. Thank you!

Charlotte is a multi-talented woman who is a pianist, composer, gardener, photographer, memoirist and makes lovely videos using all these elements. Her latest is here. She inspires me!

What have your friends mirrored back to you lately?

4/2/14

This is what I have come to understand:
my job, should I choose to accept it,
is to deliver the poems.

To get them out in the world
to as many as can be helped.
It is about redefining success
as I had been longing for.

Success is doing my job:
delivering the poems—
to an individual,
to a group,
as best I can.
And that is all.

To do that means
being as healthy
and balanced
and grounded as I can—
every day.

It means listening inside
and paying attention
before I “fall off the cliff.”

If you did not get your copy of the April Full Blooming News, with all kinds of new stuff from the past 6 months, check your spam folder or sign up here. (For those with Gmail, check other folders like “promotion” or “updates” that it might be filed in.) I do not share email addresses with anyone for any reason. Happy Spring!

Belated Happy Easter!

Inspired by and for Corax

Virtual Choir (and Eric Whitacre) has inspired many poems. This is another. VC is a virtual community and a real one too. Many VC members have met in real life, but whether they meet or not they support and encourage each other. And that positive energy spills over into real life. We are all better for it. This poem was inspired by VC member, Corax, aka Jeff. I am grateful for the connection.

1/28/14

On Imperfection
For Corax

On the other side of darkness
the past looks far away,
and if I didn’t know better,
mostly forgotten.

Live in the now,
isn’t that what they say?
I agree mostly and also intend
to remember my lessons:

not to repeat same old mistakes,
not to let the unconscious pilot the course,
to remember to breathe,
to always be kind and

to forgive, every day forgive
imperfection. For here we learn
by being in form, subject to complex patterns
we cannot sense or anticipate.

If we were perfect—
which we are somewhere—
what would be the point of
choosing to go to Earth-school?

As long as we are here—
those numbered precious days,
those rare allotted minutes—
we have work to do.

Get on with it.

To read all my Virtual Choir/ Eric Whitacre inspired poems

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