Your Flashlight
Spring is with us and the days are brighter. This makes me think of a poem that I recently wrote called “Your Flashlight”. I performed it at the Spiral Café in Victoria, and you can check it out on You Tube if you like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL_FqK0zIDc I am thrilled to announce that I have been writing with Island Woman Magazine for nearly two years now. Whenever I meet a new audience, I begin in a safe and easygoing manner, and then I begin to unleash myself more and more. It occurred to me, a few weeks ago, that I have yet to fully unleash, or even step it up a...
Read MoreWhat If ?
When I ponder the many directions I could take this article, I feel compelled to talk about our upcoming “Pink Day”, on February 24. Pink Day is the international day against bullying, discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, and transmisogyny across the world. This is a topic that has been speaking to me loud and clear for the last number of months. I have many poems that would fit well here, one is a new one, hot off the press but yet to be fully processed. I have also created a YouTube video show called “Tea with Carlie” and my first topic is called “Self-love: A Radical...
Read MoreNew Today
As a new year comes to pass, I am filled with great vision and inspiration. Our world is becoming new before our eyes and we have the chance to co-create in this amazing time of shifting. It may feel turbulent and uncomfortable, but I hope that you will find empowerment in knowing that as you change, you change our world. What if your new year’s focus was to love yourself? Can you step toward better self-compassion and self-nurture? We are taught about taking care of others – service, good will and charity – but very little is mentioned about how to care deeply for ourselves....
Read MoreGifts I Want
The holiday season is with us and it is my passionate desire to share with you a poem that I wrote at this time last year. The holiday season has not always been easy for me. I find myself overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle, the downtown driving and parking, the commercial focus of gift giving frenzy, and the overall assumption that everybody is happy and well prepared for Christmas. Not everybody celebrates Christmas and not everybody feels merry in December, and this is perfectly alright if you ask me. I prefer the things that are much more simple and wholesome, like kindness, presence...
Read MoreHandcrafted Masterpiece
Autumn Greetings Island Women! This is my favorite time of year. I love the colors, the leaves, the crisp air, warm sweaters, toques and most certainly, I adore a warm mug of tea. Autumn brings an invitation to dig deep if we choose to, and investigate aspects of our journeys that we might need to let go of. As the trees shed their leaves, letting go of old in preparation to receive new birth in spring, we too can see our lives this way. I encourage you to consider what you are ready to release. What can you let go of now? How might this surrender feel? I assure you that this process is not...
Read MoreHave A Good Day
The summer fun has swept me away and it suddenly occurs to me that September is just around the corner. This can be a challenging time of the year with school starting up and the very sudden and stark change of weather that comes with the onset of fall. This happens to be my favorite season as it is full of new beginnings, rest, cozy sweaters and warm beverages. Welcome fall! I must admit that I have a favorite little experiment that I often engage in. As my days unfold, I try to catch people with direct eye contact, even just for a second, and offer them a smile. It is amazing how this...
Read MoreRemoving My Suit
Hello Island Women! I am excited to be sharing with you again. I truly love this exchange of heart and soul, and I hope you do too. When I ask my intuition what I should write about, a recent poem called “My Suit” comes to mind. I was with some friends not too long ago and we talked about how we tend to cover ourselves in layers of insulation, as protection from a world that can feel harsh and frightening. A man, who is the new partner of a friend of mine, looked at me with desperate eyes, and confessed that he was exhausted from wearing this “suit” and that he was no longer able to...
Read MoreThe Best Infection
Hello Island Woman! Here we meet again. As I ponder how I want to share with you this time, a few poems jump to my mind as if they are saying: “Pick me!” The one that speaks the loudest, recently written, is called “Infection” and so I allow it to come to the surface at this time. I will warn you that this might be one of the grossest poems I have written. As someone recovering from germophobia, I can understand that the words in this poem may make some itch and squirm a little. I urge you to hold your seat and stick with it. The message is powerful and well worth some...
Read MoreMy Time Of Spring
Spring is with us and I am always uplifted when the flowers bloom, the birds sing, and the sweet air warms. It seems to bring a renewed joy to most people and as the days grow longer and brighter, smiles grow. As this spring takes wings, it comes to me that I am in my own life’s time of spring. I believe that our lives follow their own cycles and they aren’t necessarily related to the physical changing of seasons each year. More on a metaphoric level, we move through times of birth, death, release, growth and much more. I love the image of a tree, and our trees are looking lovely and...
Read MoreYour Words
And so we meet again Island women. It is once again my pure delight to share with you. I want to offer another poem and this one came after a writing drought. I have been taking great strides in preparing to launch my own spoken word show called “Spoken Love with Carlie Kilduff” and I can assure you that, behind the scenes of any artist baring their soul, are some shaking knees and tender hearts. As I move forward, I constantly nurture the voice that tries to encourage me to keep going, rather the one that says I should just pack it in and keep my passion hidden. There is a part in all of...
Read MoreDear Consumer
I am a spoken word artist and I have been performing in open mic nights at local coffee shops over the past five months. When I started, I had eight poems and a timid heart. Now, I am happy to say that I have over seventy poems and my heart soars more and more as I share. People offer their encouragement as I step into my calling. In the upcoming year, I have plans to begin my own show that I am calling “Spoken Love with Carlie”. I will share this at coffee shops along with some musician friends who may join me and make a spoken word and musical sandwich, which happens to be very...
Read MoreMuch To Learn
I have much to learn. Shouldn’t learning come naturally to a teacher? After all, I put myself through seven years of university after my thirteen years of public education. But alas no, I am only recently experimenting with how to learn through the hard places when one might otherwise want to shut down, point a finger, or run away. I am learning that this is where we can learn the best of gems. I am recently using the word ‘artist’ to describe myself. With many other words of suitable definition, this is a new one. I was always an artist … drawing, coloring, crafting and writing,...
Read MoreSinging United
Greetings from one Island Woman to another! My name is Carlie Kilduff and I am pleased to be a guest writer for Island Woman. I live in Victoria, BC with my wonderful husband and my energetic and amazing boys who are five and two years old. Previously a high school teacher, I am following a new direction as a writer, speaker, intuitive, and visionary. How I went from there to here is another story and you will have to trust me that it is great. I am writing my first book all about it! I am passionate about spreading messages of hope, love, compassion, self value, and peace. As a mother, I...
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