Poetry and Inspiration Podcast

Who in your past has influenced you? Do you feel their presence, or are they only in the past?

Here is my Christmas poem for 2013.

Christmas and holiday greeting to you all. Listen to my podcast of a new poem I have written called "Christmas Hymn."

I will be at the White Pine Arts Festival in Stillwater, MN June 17 - 22. It is a fabulous festival of poetry and music in the gorgeous setting of the St. Croix Valley. I have written a book full of poems since I was there last year, and I will be reading them at Belwin Nature Center on Sunday June 22nd at 11am. The poem I read on this podcast is the title poem from that collection. It relates how I used to walk that land until it became a private nature center, and now sometimes I sneak in, and love it even more. The doors will be open that day for you to hear poetry and then to take a nature walk afterwards. Hope to see you there. Click here for the podcast reading of Forgive My Trespassing.

Check out my newest podcast about the latest craze of sudoku, and my poem about it.

Here is a poem I wrote last Christmas about the color red and babies and fresh starts. Hope you enjoy it.

Is your life dominated by unwelcomed stress? Are you exercising, eating right, sleeping well, prioritizing your to-do list? Still too much stress?

Tune into my October podcast and hear me read my poem called "Double Helix Twisting," dedicated to my mother Dorothy Jorgenson and my sister Roxanne Bieber, both breast cancer survivors. It is a long poem about my experience with doctors and waiting and fear of breast cancer. Hope all of you out there check yourselves often for lumps. This is a mostly curable disease if you catch it early. Take care. Cynthia

It is September and the time of year when we enjoy gorgeous leaves, but the joy is oftened lessened because of the thought of the coming winter. This time of year especially reminds us of the cycle of life. I have related that cycle to the death of the leaves, and the waiting of the trees for the nourishment of spring, and the rebirth of life. Hear Dialysis read and talked about on my podcast.

Here is a podcast of me reading two very different poems I have written about tomatoes (Both from Con-Versing With God: Poetry for Pastoral Counseling and Spiritual Direction.) One celebrates the sweet taste of tomatoes and gifts from the garden, and the other talks about tomatoes in cages, and living in a time of war. Enjoy your August tomatoes.

In this podcast I discuss Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and read a poem from my book Con-Versing With God. The poem is a tongue in cheek commentary on our use of lawn chemicals, but it addresses our current situation on this globe we call our mother.

My husband, pediatrician Dr. Ed Gustavson, has worked in the field of child abuse and neglect for years. I have heard the worst horror stories anyone could imagine. As a therapist, I, too, have heard those stories, and they never fail to knock the air out of me. In my children's book, "Fe-Vers", as well as in the "Fe-Vers" book for teens I have a chapter with poems designed to enable children to talk or write about abuse and neglect issues. People ask why there is such an epidemic of this horrendous condition, and I say it has something to do with our isolation. We used to live in extended family groups, or at least in villages. Now we live autonomously in large cities where we don't know our neighbors. There is no one to help us in the middle of the night, and no one who will not judge our behavior. Our family members live 1000 miles away and we think a telephone is adequate to keep in touch with. Isolation. We need to work to develop families in the cities we live in, supportive "families" to call on for help, because we all need help sometimes. In this blog I read a poem from the two "Fe-Vers" books called "Night Secret."

Fibromyalgia In my new podcast I talk a little about fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and chronic pain, and read a poem from my poetry therapy book Re-Versing Your Pain, a poem called Dangling. It’s fishing season and this poem is about the worm on the hook.

Check out the new podcast with the poem I wrote for my daughter’s wedding.

My second podcast is available. It is dedicated to two little girls, Ella Childs, budding radio emcee, and Ella Karmanos, my grand niece. Their generation are being taught to fear strangers. This podcast talks about the difficulties that creates, and ends with my poem, "The Ballad of the Rag Man" from my book Fe-Vers, Feeling Verses for Children. Tune in and be a child once more.

Friends, Please join me for my first podcast. It is the day between Lincoln's birthday and Valentines Day and a good day to reflect on what we need to know before we hitch up with someone, whether in marriage or a long term relationship.

Do you control your holiday, or does it completely take over, and get out of control? Tune in to my podcast, called Quiet Christmas, and hear a poem about my childhood Christmas, and a discussion about how to bring the holidays under control again. Have a wonderful holiday.

Listen to the podcast to hear a discussion about comfort foods, and the use and misuse of food at holidays. What are your comfort foods? Do you control your intake of them, or do they overpower you? What are you thankful for? Do you believe the phrase, "moderation in all things"?

In this podcast I read a poem called Loss, and discuss what loss means to us in our culture, and how we are expected to “get over it.”

What do you think about your own body? Too fat? Too thin? Satisfied? What is healthy for you? Do you have an eating disorder? Listen to my podcast where I read my poem "Image," from my book Re-Versing the Numbers: A Poetry Workbook for Eating Disorders, and discuss the ramifications of body image.

Have you been to the beach this summer? Listen to my podcast and hear my poem called Walking On Sand, and a discussion about people walking on the beach, and how observant they are. Do you see what is going on in the part of the world which is separate from you? Do you care? Do you feel as though you are Top Dog when it comes to all the creatures of this earth? What does that mean, and how can we see the world differently as only one of many of God's creatures?

Listen in to my podcast about driving home to Minnesota in July to be a poet in the White Pine Festival in Stillwater, MN, my home town. How did the home you grew up in form the way you translate your experience? I read my poem, “Prism,” in this podcast.

Tune into my podcast about the wonders of the month of June, and hear me read my new poem, Tiger Lily. Do the lilies really “neither toil nor spin”? Find out about worrying. Is it harmful or helpful?

I read the poem Tomatoes In Cages, from my book Con-Versing With God, on this podcast and discuss the relationship between spring planting and pruning, and the insanity and influence of war.

A special poem for valentine’s day, and a reminder of what it means to love one another.

Hope your holidays were wonderful. I have a new CD out for 2007 called When Love Is Real available at CDBaby.com. On it I sing several of my favorite songs including When Love Is Real which I wrote for my husband when he was in the hospital after an almost fatal car crash. Another song on the CD is Your Love Reaches to Heaven, based on Psalm 36. Listen to a discussion about these songs on my podcast.

This is the time of year when the earth rests under the snow, the tree doesn’t have to perform, and the lilies rest in their bulbs safely underground. Tune into this podcast where I read my poem Snowy Morning in Oklahoma, and discuss the earth’s, and our, cycle of cutting back.