KERRY J HECKMAN, LICSW
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Rewrites: April 2024

4/30/2024

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Each month I post an update called Rewrites on what I'm up to and content I would like to share with you. Most of the links on this post are informational, but a few are affiliate links to help maintain this website.

Publications: 
  • 1 of my haiku was published in Otoroshi Journal, Volume 3, Issue 2, Autumn/Winter 2024.

glass eye
grandma watches over me
​after the cremation

  • 1 of my haiku received 3rd Honorable Mention is the 2024 Sharpening the Green Pencil Haiku Contest. 

wishing
there was a duolingo--
morning birdsong 

  • 1 of my haiku was published in Kingfisher #9. 

late anyway--
two more angels 
in the snow

  • 1 of my haiku was published in the The Haiku Foundation Haiku Dialogue, April 24th, 2024.

after the flood...
the highway 
to nowhere                  
                 
Picture
Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility, Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Books I Finished in This Month: 
My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies  by Resmaa Menakem 
Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: 50 Poems for 50 Years by Joy Harjo
Writer in a Life Vest: Essays from the Salish Sea by Iris Graville 

Attended:
  • I did not attend any writing or reading events this month.  ​
Picture
Eagle Harbor, Bainbridge Island, Washington.

​Haiku: 

how irritating!
the wild geese freely
call their friends

​Issa


Poem: 

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost 

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Picture
Writer in a Life Vest: Essays From the Salish Sea by Iris Graville

Encouragement: 

In difficult times, turn to writing. It will show up for you again and again. 

Quote:
"You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it." - Octavia E. Butler 
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Tuning In: April 2024

4/1/2024

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Each month I post an update called Tuning In on what I'm up to and content I would like to share with you. Most of the links on this post are informational, but a few are affiliate links to help maintain this website.

Our story is the most powerful tool we have to heal ourselves and others. Don't be ashamed of any of the chapters in your story. Even the dark times are what made you who you are today. Tell your story, the whole story, and watch how it helps others develop the courage to tell their own. 

Picture
Great Blue Heron at Lake Union in Seattle

Upcoming Events:
  • ​The Total Solar Eclipse is April 8th 
  • Tax Day is April 15th 
  • International Haiku Poetry Day is April 17th 
  • Earth Day is April 22nd 
 
Facilitating: 
  • Center for Chronic Illness - Living with Rare Chronic Illness  Support Group, Monday April 2nd, 2024 at 4pm PST
  • Center for Chronic Illness - Living with Thyroid Eye Disease Support Group, Monday April 2nd, 2024 at 6pm PST
  • Center for Chronic Illness - Living with Cystinosis Support Group, Tuesday April 16th at 4pm PST​
  • Center for Chronic Illness - Supporting Loved Ones of Those Living with Thyroid Eye Disease Web-Based Support Group, Tuesday April 16th, 2024 at 6pm PST​​​

Attending:
  • ​Somatic Transformation Book Club on April 7th
Picture
Rain over Puget Sound from Lincoln Park in West Seattle

Somatic Transformation Book Club: Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth by Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows) & Darcia Narvaez 

"Indigenous worldviews, and the knowledge they confer, are critical for human survival and the wellbeing of future generations. Editors Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows) and Darcia Narvaez present 28 powerful excerpted passages from Indigenous leaders, including Mourning Dove, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Winona LaDuke, and Xiuhtezcatl Martinez. Accompanied by the editors’ own analyses, each chapter reflects the wisdom of Indigenous worldview precepts like:

  • Egalitarian rule versus hierarchical governance
  • A fearless trust in the universe, instead of a fear-based culture
  • The life-sustaining role of ceremony
  • Emphasizing generosity and the greater good instead of pursuing selfish goals and for personal gain
  • The laws of nature as the highest rules for living" 

Book Club: The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden
​

"Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of…"


​(I'm a proud member of the sloth reading club, so what I'm reading will not always change monthly) 

Vintage Art: 
​
Picture

​Encouragement: What magnificent piece of you are you hiding from the world? Have the courage to let it out.  

​Quote: "We must take adventures in order to know where we truly belong." - Unknown 
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Rewrites: March 2024

3/31/2024

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Each month I post an update called Rewrites on what I'm up to and content I would like to share with you. Most of the links on this post are informational, but a few are affiliate links to help maintain this website.

​Publications: 
  • 1 of my senryu was published in Prune Juice, Issue 42 on 3/31/2024. 

inching toward 
middle-age 
still a caterpillar 
​
  • 1 of my haiku was published in The Heron's Nest, Volume XXVI, Number 1, March, 2024

the rock the heron stands on motionless 

  • 3 of my haiku were published in Akitsu Quarterly, Spring/Summer 2024

chopping firewood
the raised ax 
splits the moon

only firelight...

the shadow of a silkmoth 
flickering 

the morning after

all the petals that couldn't
hold on in the storm 

  • 1 of my haiku was published in Cold Moon Journal on 3/20/2024. 

in front of the fire cracking open a new book 
​
Picture
Seattle from the Walla Walla ferry.

Books I Finished in This Month: 
Blue Horses by Mary Oliver 
Come & Get It by Kiley Reid 
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (audiobook) 
Toward Antarctica by Elizabeth Bradfield 

Attended:
  • I did not attend any writing or reading events this month.  ​
Picture
Lincoln Park, West Seattle

​Haiku: 
this world
is a dewdrop world
yes... but...
Issa

Poem: 

Song of Myself, 51
by Walt Whitman 

The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

Book Cover: 
Picture
Toward Antarctica by Elizabeth Bradfield

​Writing Encouragement:
People with anxiety are naturally creative individuals, but problems occur when that creativity is channeled in ways that aren't helpful. Instead of envisioning elaborate "worst case scenarios," write,  draw, craft, take photographs, or any number of ways to divert that creative energy. 

Quote From a Writer: 

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart." - William Wordsworth
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    Welcome

    I'm Kerry (She/Her/Hers) and I am a licensed therapist, group facilitator, poet, writer, & speaker. This is a place to acknowledge and validate our suffering and trauma, while also learning how to turn toward aliveness and spaciousness. 

    Kerry J Heckman

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