Category Archives: healing

Inspiration

It has been very hot here, thus the refreshing fountain, which also applies to today’s topic.

I read two poems last Friday at the open mic at RHINO Reads at Brothers K coffeehouse in Evanston, IL. About ten of us read (roughly 4 minutes each), followed by the two featured poets.

I am intrigued by how creativity inspires or “primes the pump” for further creative endeavors. Like writing or art or dance or architecture, etc.… opening a door to a new poem or photograph for me.

The origin of first poem is self-explanatory. Ralph Hamilton is a great guy who MCs the monthly readings. A bit of a risk reading a poem for someone who was there. But I gave him a heads up when I sent him an earlier version of the poem last week. Bravely, (or kindly) he did not discourage me from reading it.

The second poem is a reflection on the healing power of art inspired by Woman Made Gallery in Chicago. Beate Minkovski is the co-founder and executive director. I have been a member there for years and I never leave without feeling energized.

What inspires you?

6/9/11

In Response to Ralph Hamilton

(inspired by a Rhino blog entry on what he looks for in poetry)

Let me gently read aloud
your razor words back to you
so you will hear and see and feel what I do
what is true and not true.

So you can step outside
the mind creating
and be immersed in creation,
be swept away swimming.

You are unworthy you say
self-absorbed, lonely, even lazy.
Yet what you dared to write
sings louder to me than words.

Be kind, outside the familiar
voice of harsh critical judging,
reflecting on how far from
the intent is the attempt.

Be generous, as if you were someone else,
believe your words bravely written
have something essential to say to someone,
open long-closed channels, move immovable mountains,

expose exquisite unique facets.
Poetry is big enough you say
for differences to grate or soothe or rouse.
There is no success or failing,

there is no measuring up to
what might have been, if only…
There is only this:
life, full, repressed, expressed.

And a container, hopeful bowl of cherries,
even pitted, may still contain pits.
Risk a bruised or broken tooth
for the tart sweetness and abundant juice.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011

(These two evocative photos were taken at Eyes Wide Open, Beyond Fear–Towards Hope: An Exhibition on the Human Cost of the Iraq War in Grant Park, Chicago, IL, May, 2007

2/27/07

Thinking of Beate

Sometimes art heals
by soothing, sometimes
by lancing the boil, or
by opening the eyes
to fresh possibilities.

Sometimes it closes a door
to a room filled with stale air,
sometimes screams
from a dark bottomless pit,
sometimes presents
wonder on a silver platter.

Sometimes art compels to look,
sometimes can barely look;
the healing subtle
or heart pounding,

one fully present moment
resounding over the ages.
All I am telling you is this:
there is no doubt art heals.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2007

Let Us Remember


More natural disasters have come since the huge earthquake in Japan, so this poem could also apply, for example, to those in Joplin, Missouri, who suffered a huge tornado last week that wiped out most of their city  (50,000 people), winds over 200 mph and many dead, wounded, or missing. Their Medical Center looks like a bomb hit it. So this poem below is for them too. On this Memorial weekend of remembering soldiers (and their families) who sacrificed, let us remember all the lost. And do what we can. We are all connected.

4/14/11

Remember Japan

post-earthquake

Now is the time to help
those who have been forgotten
whose earth swallowed
their homes and
whose sea washed their bodies away

And now who are off the front page
out of public consciousness
reduced to silence except for
radiation upgrades and occasional aftershocks
and back page human interest

Yet starving in masses, scanning rubble
that had been neighborhoods for anything familiar
Painful to imagine
But the stories, if any, buried where
few might read and be moved to action

Now is the time to help
put out a hand, a prayer, a dollar, a kindness
Anything…
Everything matters
to those who have nothing

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011

Review of As Easy as Breathing (and Full Blooming CD)

By Pramod Uday
Spiritual being, teacher and speaker from India
https://pramod.podomatic.com


Let me begin by telling you that I really love the title. On many occasions, when I was upset or worried, just looking at this book sitting neatly on my reading table brought me just enough relief to “point me downstream”. I feel Margaret heals more through this work than any other anthology.

Writing in her open, sensitive and yet detached vein as always, the poet impresses on the reader the need to get unstuck and flow with life. What one cannot but marvel at is how her poems create both the impression of having flowed smoothly through a wide conduit of inspiration and yet seem to have been subjected to the meticulous chisel of a finicky craftsmen. One can sense this palpable tension of sorts quite clearly, for example, in the piece entitled To Dance is To Be, where you find a very dynamic and lively snapshot of gracious dance movements. Let me be clear here – this conflict only adds to the merit of the poems as it provides another glimpse into Margaret’s loving care for words.

The poems address a wide variety of topics ranging from healing to allowing, filial love to finding your purpose and much more.


I highly recommend this book. However, if you want to completely relish the sweetness of Margaret’s poetry, I really think you should listen to them in her own voice as found on the CD Full Blooming, which is a reading of selected poems from the book. The enchanting quality of Margaret’s voice is so full of that rare elusive quality, what one might dub muliebrity. Margaret’s poetry itself is autobiographical. But when you listen to them in her own voice, the full sincerity and warmth of her words easily seep into the cockles of your heart.  Suffice it to say that listening to this CD is like a deep relaxing session of meditation. You will find that your fatigue and stress has been removed and that your soul has been nourished and replenished from within.

Thank you, Pramod, for your generosity and thoughtful reviews. I am most grateful!
Check out  As Easy as Breathing and Full Blooming CD to see for yourself.

Dad’s Birthday

Today was my Dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad! No one alive knows any more the truth or myth of the family story that his mom tried to hold off his delivery until after April Fools Day, 1925. But babies come when they are ready and even a very stubborn German lady might not be able to pull that off!

He died in 1985, (when my son was just shy of one year old). He was 60, the age I am very aware of approaching. And very aware of how young that was, how much I have left I want to do. In 2009 I posted some poems for his birthday. Here are a few more.

10/5/08

Watermelon Reminds Me of Michigan

My strapping Dad buying
a couple big, unsplit,

possibly ripe, whole ones
for the extended family reunions.

Chill and wrap in layers of newspaper
to keep cool in summer heat.

Slippery wet black seeds
could be pinched between thumb

and forefinger,
shooting some distance

into park crabgrass
or spit, with juice

running down the chin,
face a satisfied grin.

Yes, that watermelon,
sometimes salted half-moon slices

or quarters for the youngest
(don’t eat below the pink part!)

treats in the hot season,
limited availability then.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2008

7/18/10

Sitting With It

My uncle died last week,
my Dad’s only brother,

I was not that close to him
so the intensity of my grieving

ambushed me.
But he represented my father,

gone these 25 years,
and he represented my past, my childhood,

my tribe, my clan (all that expectation).
All the memories wrapped up in one man.

He represented all the aunts and uncles beginning to pass on
and my mother, waiting in line.

I am from Michigan people who gathered
and stayed together, supported each other.

And I left them to find myself—
the gain in that decision

greater than the loss, but there was loss nevertheless,
any connection to them from a distance.

Any relationship of my children to them,
more fragile and tenuous.

(My children did not grow up with
extended family at every important occasion.)

And now that my Dad’s brother is gone…
no more chances for understanding.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

My father was a complex man and we had our troubles growing up, but I am grateful for many things, the lessons I continue to learn from him. This poem was written as part of body-mind-emotion-spirit energy healing work I did with Tricia Eldridge (founder of Energy Touch School for Advanced Healing in Michigan) to deal with recurring abdominal weakness and other persistent health issues.

12/1/09

Old Wounds Healed

My Dad came this time,
invited to participate,

to undo what had been done,
to take back what had been said,

lodged in my gut but rightfully
belonged to him.

She said he struggled with it,
but kept on until the dark mass,

that chain and ball or anchor?
who knows, not mine,

but his, and now returned to him,
leaving me lighter, healing.

He died 24 years ago,
I have worked hard

over and over to heal and forgive.
Last week he showed up

clearer than ever—in a good way—
sitting at our old Formica kitchen table,

cutting giblets and celery for stuffing
the Thanksgiving turkey.

Was that his ethereal gold form
standing last night in my room?

Did he choose to come help
or did I call him…or both…or neither?

Just the right timing,
you know how this works:

what is ready to be healed
come up to the surface.

However painful, allowing the feeling
releases the hold.

Still true,
still true.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2009