Poetry & poinsettias: joy + grief + creativity in December

An end-of-year love letter for all readers of The Joy Rise

Hello dear readers,

I chose a barely-there, low key, totally subtle Christmas Day aesthetic this year. Ha.

Six years ago, in the sweltering Queensland summer of 2018, I sat at Mum’s kitchen table on Yugambeh Country and made this poinsettia crown from some fake flowers and a headband I bought at our local dollar shop. As I cut and wound each wiry stem, I noticed how shaky I was with joy and grief about the approaching Christmas, and all that it stirred up in me.

I didn’t intend for the poinsettia crown to become a ‘dopamine-dressing’ festive season tradition. And yet I’ve adorned myself with it on every Christmas Day since (+ stolen five minutes to myself in the bathroom every year to take a photo of it on my noggin - latest 2024 edition pictured above). This financially-worthless crown has become an invaluable, deeply familiar, and comforting object to me. A piece of beloved floral armour that I wear at the end of each year to connect passing and emerging versions of myself, and to honour every crumb of joy and wave of grief in my life. Most of all, to practise accompanying myself, instead of abandoning myself. So that I can give myself care and grace, and offer care and grace to others.

It’s also become symbolic of my gratitude for the resilience I’ve clawed into my heart over my lifetime of Decembers. Gratitude is my duty and delight, as

Nadia Bolz-Weber

wrote recently. ‘The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the opposite of gratitude isn’t ingratitude, it’s entitlement. So I am spending the day looking at my life in complete astonishment.’ This December, when I took my crown out of its box and noticed how I felt when I put it on, I was astonished and humbled by remembering one of the most potent and powerful truths I’ve experienced since I wrote the first draft of my debut novel, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, a decade ago – that the act of creating for joy, gratitude, resilience and beauty, is an act that can simultaneously give grief a home, somewhere to belong.

You might not wear a poinsettia crown, but maybe you have your own tradition to honour joy, grief, resilience, and gratitude at this time of year? Please feel welcome to share in the comments, I’d love to read about your Decembers.

The act of creating for joy is an act that can simultaneously give grief a home.

As also happens every holiday season, my favourite Mary Oliver poem is constantly looping through my mind:

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.
What a time they have, these two
housed as they are in the same body.
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— ‘We Shake With Joy’, Mary Oliver

This December, for the first time, Mary’s words have company in my mind:

Resist loss of the miraculous
by lowering your standards
for what constitutes a miracle.
It is all a fucking miracle.

– excerpt from ‘Advice to Myself #2: Resistance’, Louise Erdich⠀

My heart is gathered with anyone else finding these December days miraculous / hard / weird / wonderful / sore / promising / difficult / joyous / complicated / melancholic / dreamy / nostalgic. It can be so bottomless. I’m holding a lit candle in this space with you.

Here’s to the all the fucking miracles. The hugs had and the hugs grieved. First Decembers together. Last Decembers together. The rain that filled the water tanks. The fleeting pink light at sunset. Phone calls and text messages from near and far, and those that never come. Homemade plates of food on the table. Secret-recipe trifle. The kookaburras, curlews, cockatoos and thick summer storm clouds. The memories whispering through the gum leaves. The longing. The longing. The inextricable mess, and magic.

To joy and grief.
To all we love and have loved.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Wishing you safety and peace in these final, turning days of 2024, dear readers.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
With poetry, poinsettias, and a light left on,

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Coming in the next issue for paid subscribers:

The second instalment of my three-part This Writer’s Life series, on the main ways I’m prepping to start the writing phase of my new novel in the new year!

Part Two explores RITUALS and the ways I practise them to bring the world and stories of my novels to life as vividly as I can. I hope that each of these three essays can accompany your imagination like a friend, and stoke the ideas simmering / boiling in your creative heart.

Plus, regular segments like Dog of the Month, and more!

A snapshot from one of my rituals while writing my second novel, The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding.

Catch up on Part One here:

#7 Before I Begin: Nerves, Excitement, Anxiety + Writing

If you have a question you’d like to ask me about creativity or writing, my website is always open.

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The Joy Rise Community Chat

Part of what I offer The Joy Rise paid subscriber community is a closed group message thread in Chat. Where I pop in every other week to share what I call, One Single Spark, and invite you to share what you’re noticing is igniting your imagination too.

Whatever that may be.

Something grand, enormous, life-changing, sure. But equally and perhaps more likely for us all, something small that you notice purely because it catches fire in your heart and, in the chaotic blur and churn of our days, asks us to stop and pay attention.

You are welcome to share your spark any time - the message thread is always open.

Reading the wholesome responses and connections about our sparks has become one of my favourite things about launching The Joy Rise - our creativity shared is a collective sustenance.

Or in these words of William Blake, which I love: we become what we behold.