Colleen Alles

Now and forevermore I will require a donkey break while writing; I need to touch the soft muzzles of sweetly adorable creatures, so perfect in their contentment of themselves. To be so perfect, to be so present. Thank you to everyone for being so nice to me at my first SwampFire gathering.

Dawn Burns

August 4, 2024, 2:55 PM

I sit on the dock behind H House looking out at Comstock Creek the day after the big SwampFire gathering when all but five of us have gone home, and I wait for Bonnie to come by later when I will go walking in the creek with my $5 water shoes.

I’m watching honeybees gather nectar from purple loosestrife and feeling a breeze. Every so often a small fish darts by, heading towards the clear moving stream. In the still and shaded shallows, water striders oar themselves across the surface, two front legs together then back when they want to go straight, one leg at a time when they want to turn, the way I used to row a green rowboat across Bluhm’s pond in Hanna two hours south of here.

Until I see a water strider hop, I didn’t know one could, but now it hops again, up and forward to catch a smaller bug, each creature, no matter how tiny, doing its own thing. I watch dragonflies swoop and dip, then let my eyes follow a cluster of white moths on the other side of the creek until they disappear, then wait until they show themselves again.

Pay attention.

A leaf, small and tan, drifts from a tree branch down to the water, floats downstream towards the pond into which the creek empties.

A small fly lands on my hand, its body striated gold and green, rests a minute. A monarch flits along the outer edge of woods, orange body not yet camouflaged by leaves which will not show their true colors until their summer work has ended, and today all the trees are working double-time to make chlorophyll, still bursting forth everywhere with green around me and I can hardly stand how beautiful it all is, right down to the waterslider that looks like two watersliders now, its reflection as real as the bug itself, a Narcissus shadow that it cannot drown inside.

The water slider hops again, a good six inches forward, or so I, who has no real inborn sense of measurement, of proportion, guess. Concentric circles ripple out from its landing, one perfect circle intersecting others like Venn diagrams written on water that always fade, always return, sometimes overlap, but never meant to stay. 

Before today, I didn’t have the words to write anything, didn’t have the confidence either, or maybe not confidence but something like breath, the words and voices of others being the ones to which I paid attention, the image of a Medieval saint buried beneath a dishwasher still firmly in my mind.

And I can love all of it—that saint, my tribe, the water striders and dragonflies, the ripples in the water, the butterflies, the heron that minutes ago flew over my head and landed in the far distance near the waving cattails.

I have loved all the talk and rich conversation, but this is perhaps the moment I love the most, here on the dock, in the middle of the natural world so wild and beautiful, full of magic and danger no less so than me.

I think I’ll go walking now.

Dawn's website

 

Bonnie Jo Campbell

What a joy to see and hear writers enjoying the H House as it was meant to be enjoyed. Thank you all, especially Dawn, for celebrating creativity and community with this amazing group of women (not that men aren’t welcome, too!). And the food was magnificent and nourishing. I am so inspired by this beautiful coming together!

 

 

 

Zee the Goblin

“In the SwampFire”

Here I am again, for the first time
returning and new at once
every writer pouring words out
over each other in a rushing,
crashing tide

I recently sat in Lake Michigan—Michigama was her old name—while her waves slapped me upside the head, in the chest, throwing me bodily over rocks. Michigama can be gentle, but she wasn’t that day—cold, pressing powerful water smashing into sinuses, into ears, across and through me.

You all are like this. Almost drowning in your intensity.

When all your voices fill up the room at once
Fill me to bursting
I become so
PRESENT
As “in the moment” as being slapped upside the head with the ferocity of an ancient power.

Don’t mistake me—there is nothing more soul-fueling as being one hundred present here.

Last time I was here, I was afraid of being seen, let alone heard. This time my voice is in the tide with all of your rushing in the joy to song-bird-sing all the words in us to join the cacophonous symphony.

I’ll bring my paintings next time.
Thank you for weaving me into your web.

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Catherine Harper

SwampFire gets better and better. The writers and artists are so supportive of each other . .  and the writing and art are wonderful. Each person’s style is so individual, so uniquely beautiful. How privileged I am to be in this group.

 

 

 

To all who’ve helped light the SwampFire,
thank you for . . .
. . . dropping me down that well where blue pulls me through
. . . Birdie, their own mythical creature
. . . a new way to experience Psalms
. . . naming the rhythm we all must come to know
. . . the courage to “scrape old flesh from my wings”
. . . someone who’s unafraid to touch someone else’s hair
. . . saying hard truths about our planet’s woes and the effect on koalas
. . . making room in the house of love for healthy anger
. . . describing writing as working “clay on the wheel”
. . . reminding me of Medieval saint bones

Mary Catherine's website

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michelle Marshall

My heart is wounded
Shadow
show mercy
be
tender
 

Grateful for space to share the journey together in our creativity. So glad to meet new creatives and hear parts of their gifts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joyce Meier

Such a special place—thank you Dawn for making this possible and to you and Mary Catherine’s leadership. What a lovely day this has been! Wonderful conversation, helpful critiques, supportive responses. It’s been fantastic!
Love, Joyce

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bex Miller

The space here, the atmosphere created, full of the freedom to exist as we are, permits the pulsing energy within the earth to hum around and through all of us fierce women.
 
The vibes fill me with hope and stoke the fires of optimism inside. I wrote. I shared. I connected. I was present. I am present.
I love SwampFire and all of the beautiful souls who come together for it every year. 
Love, Bex

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ilse Schweitzer

My second SwampFire and I want to come back again and again. This setting, among the pawpaws and kingfishers, in a beautiful rustic old house, with donkeys and chickens watching over us, has been so restorative and supportive. Thank you so much to Dawn, MC, and the full group for listening, talking, and sharing.

I need to figure out what my buried medieval saint means, and I look forward to finding out with you all as companions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tracie Swiecki

Sharing stories
is crocheting hearts together
into a winter scarf.
I am eternally grateful
for my SwampFire scarf.
It is timeless, fashionable, and soft.
I will cherish it always
and keep it safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cait West

Another SwampFire in the books! I’m struck again by the connection I feel among everyone here, and how we can show up as ourselves with our creations. Thank you for the reminder that art is worth it. That living into our voices can change the world because it changes us. And as MC says, “You are hot shit.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amy Wise

As I was packing up this morning, I was checking for socks under the bed or stray water bottle caps and missing hairbrushes and I kept thinking of the words my son learned in boy scouts to “leave no trace, leave no trace.” I wanted to make sure my presence—the fact that I had lived here for just a couple of days—was invisible—that I left my room as I had found it.

And yet . . .

How impossible to come to SwampFire and leave no trace. I have left so many laughs here. I have cried at this table, I have been hugged in that chair, had my heart touched relentlessly by the company of strong, glorious women around a table full of berries and nuts and wine and water.

How amazing are women? Each of us so unique and so large and small on our own but also so fierce and yes, mythical together!

I have collected the socks and water bottle caps, re-made the bed, erased the signs of me living here. But I will never be able to erase the fact that I did live here. I was here!

I don’t want to take these traces with me. Next year I hope to be back but if I am not, I want another person to read my words and know it is ok to take SwampFire with you when you go; in fact, I recommend it.

But leave a trace, too. Know that everyone here will remember something about you and be different, hopefully, because you put a part of you out here.

SwampFire, you have touched my soul. Thank you every single one of you.