We writers and artists have taken on, at a soul level, a gargantuan task.
To grasp the ephemeral and etheric and make it stick – make it stay – so that we as a human species can live, create, storytell, and evolve through our depictions. So to stumble upon a call for submissions with the theme of patience at its center and choose to give life to the mere word is a sophisticated ambition worthy of applause for the intention alone.
As most elements of the Wellspringwords platform do, the theme of patience arrived to my consciousness through oracular means. There is a continuum of experience we humans move through as we are alive on this planet. And as women, as womb-bearers and menstruating beings, our experiences are even more so complex, multilayered, and ripe with paradoxes that both haunt and inspire us. Issue 1 of this publication is titled “The Descent…” where we asked writers to share their heart-led exploration of the sinking, or “The Descent…” into their personal experiences of Self.
After we descend down into ourselves, after we have come home to a particular knowing of who we are, what happens when we have landed? Have we fully landed and taken the chance to be still, or are we still moving? Is this where patience comes into play in this grand continuum of experience? I was asking Spirit, and Spirit was asking me right back.
So what did I do? I channeled this inquiry into the Wellspringwords Universe with the company of our esteemed Editorial Team members. As life would have it, introducing the theme of patience to our sacred literary community was in true alignment for this Autumn/Winter season. Many women who submitted their writing and visual art remarked that the theme met them right where they needed to be met; that they’d been pondering on the essence of patience in their lives for some time; that they were currently in a season of waiting, so the call for submissions felt like a Divine call to lean in. Those who submitted their works to this publication have an innate sense of themselves, the intricate movement of life on its own continuum of quick to still. It is this sensuous nature that keeps this Literary Anthology imbued with the very alive, beautiful complexities we navigate as women (of color).
As my editorial counterparts have so eloquently expressed, patience has many faces, plays many roles, has many catalysts, and even more outcomes. But Issue 2 in its fullness, as I trust you will come to experience, is an exquisite tapestry of visceral emotion, somatic resonance, layered memory, and dreams that one only dreams when they have experienced their own creative liberation.
These works all have in common that it is the use of language (not just the words themselves) that takes us to these rich inner-world experiences — words are the vehicle to experiencing another’s story and soul. Words do not cover-up the truer, deeper experience of the writer. Rather, they invite us forward and in and down.
Likewise, the visual art brings us directly into the imaginal realm to place patience as an element of significance in our life-journeys – because we are figurative beings, stillness, who take physical shape in life, even when we feel amorphous, movement. We are the art, and we carry our stories through how we visually present ourselves to the world.
Hold this softly in your palm as you peruse Issue 2 of our Anthology: what questions are you now asking life that you weren’t asking before?
Thank you, as always, for being here.
Blessings and Be Well,
—Nkem Chukwumerije, Founder & Steward of Wellspringwords
Nkem is the Founder of Wellspringwords and has been a teacher of writing for 12+ years. She is a heartist devoted to creating spaces for humans, especially women of color, to journey inward and align with their unique creative wisdom. She uses her passion for and expertise in writing, embodiment, and energy cultivation to create portals for internal transformation and authentic external creative expression. She is inspired by the soul-to-human experience, the wisdom of nature, and the magic of intention and belief. She is here to guide and empower through the sacred Self experience.
Nkem is the author of the poetry collection Poetry and the immediate: A collection of sensed spaces, loves to dance, cook, enjoy warm creamy drinks in the morning, and take long walks to connect with Gaia.
