COLLECTIVE BREATH – Episode: 42
Week of Sunday, April 25th, 2021
Number of people attending Facebook (personal portion):
Number of people attending Zoom Meet (group portion):
Introduction:
“I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.”
— Chaim Potok, The Chosen
A transcript of this segment and each subsequent session will be posted (for anyone interested) at http://www.sidewayseight.co which is my main outlet for personal poetry and photography: Sideways Eight Projects.
“We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.”
— Leonora Carrington
As we sit at the dawn of a new week, contemplating the silence we are given, learning from what it has to offer, we have the opportunity to come together again, breathing new life into each other, building community, loving the day, learning from the night, focusing on the light we find guiding us in the darkness of the desert.
Hello fantastic people! My name is Jesse James Ziegler. I am the current Poet in Residence for the Bruka Theatre of the Sierra in Reno, Nevada. I’m a member of the Sierra Literary Cooperative and the spoken word/poetry contributor to Reno Arts News. I am an active poet, special event MC, principle photographer, special event series host, and now weekly wellness writing workshop host in collaboration with Spoken Views Collective of which I am also a Board Member.
This Weeks Writing Prompt:
Co-created with this week’s special guest, Tahoe’s own spoken word artist and musician, Victor Uriz.
Respond to the question ‘What do you think about feeling and filling the SILENCE?
I want for this podcast style personal portion to contain information about famous writers and their quotes as well as, today, a local guest to this program who will help everyone involved gain a diversity of perspective and positively impact our individual creative processes.
Quote(s) of the Week:(4)
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
— Rumi
“Your silence will not protect you.”
— Audre Lorde
“We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.”
— Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
“The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”
— Albert Einstein
I’m hoping this sharing and vulnerability I’m demonstrating will encourage others who love creative writing as well to open up, by sharing from their innermost, related to the topic provided. I’m hoping we all gain perspective, compassion, hope, and discipline through such organized sharing.
Piece(s) of the Week: (2)
Always There
A bridge over a barren river bed
Guest Interview – Victor Uriz
1. Who are some of your most influential/inspirational writers? (Can include songwriters)
A: My influences include Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and Shane Koyzan. These guys had their own unique style. They had their own authentic voice. They didn’t care what the critic’s said or what the current trend in “literature” might have been. They took risks and preserved their artistic integrity.
2. What are some of your favorite/most influential/ most inspirational pieces? (Individual songs, poems, short stories, novels, etc.)
A: What I respect in these writers is how they were able to take the same old stories-lines and give them a new and fresh treatment. These writers were willing to go beyond the perfunctory, or pedestrian and break ground on a new way to telling a stories. They explore the emotions and frailties that come with being a flawed human.
I’ll share with you a short quote by Kerouac that illustrates his style of writing.
“[…]the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
That’s all one long sentence. He created prose that resemble jazz solos. He’s known for utilizing a style of writing that incorporated the method known as stream of consciousness. It’s spontaneous writing just like a jazz solo is spontaneous. His writing has tempo, dynamic’s and a musical phrasing similar to the improvisation of a tenor sax solo.
Bukowski is a raw, and unfiltered writer. His style is stark and has a street wisdom. He was a drunk, but a genus drunk. To get a feel for his style of writing let me read one of his more famous quotes.
We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
Two of his most famous quote is “Find what you love and let it kill you.” ——-And——-“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”
My third most influential writers is Shan Koyczan. He performs spoken word projects. He’s best known for a piece entitled “To This Day”. A Piece about being bullied. It’s played in schools to create conversations about the effects of bullying on students. If you haven’t already, I strongly recommend you listen to the piece on youtube.
3. What are your creative goals for the next five years or so in this region?
A: I have no specific goals other than to keep evolving and growing and refining my writing style.
4.Why and how did you choose this week’s writing prompt?
A: (Paired discussion of the co-created prompt.)
5. What sorts or thoughts or ideas first come to mind for you when you read/see/hear the writing prompt?
A: (Victor’s authentic responses on an impromptu level)
For further personal reading/listening/viewing
Victor Uriz – Crossed Roads
https://soundcloud.com/user-561765411-961052485/02-crossed-roads
Victor Uriz – Briar Lane
https://soundcloud.com/user-561765411-961052485/briar-lane
Victor Uriz – Second to Silence
https://soundcloud.com/user-561765411-961052485/emastered-second-to-silence-wav
Victor graduated from Sacramento State with a degree in Psychology and did graduate work at Cal Poly San Louis Obispo. He’s been playing and writing music for as long as he can remember. His music projects are available at victoruriz.hearnow.com and his spoken word projects are available at victoruriz.hearnow.com/jazzoretry. He has a blog at captsabino.com.
Next Week’s Writing Prompt:
Which will also be posted across Collective Breath and Bruka Theatre’s social media platforms: Taking shots at someone versus taking shots with someone
Shout Outs
ASSAULT
Thursday, April 29th, 2021
Spoken Views Collective
benefitting Safe Embrace
#nationalpoetrymonth
#sexualassaultawareness
fb://event/?id=948582799244862
Closing Sentiments and an Invitation
“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”
That’s it for my personal portion. If this is where you get off this train of thought, because you checked in to listen, thank you for tuning in and absorbing. I appreciate your time and consideration. If you are here for the Weekly Wellness Writing Workshop group portion via Zoom Meeting, please transition to that application now using the link provided in the details/description section of the Bruka Theatre Facebook Event Page for ‘Collective Breath’. The link to watch previous episodes is in the bio section of the Collective Breath Instagram page @biggestlittlecollectivebreath
“Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
Be present with each other this week. See through the restlessness in silence to the root of what’s really going on. Address the issues that need to be addressed and fight the battles that need to be fought. Try to let the rest go.
‘Keep’ (my frictionless benediction)
Keep writing. Keep your heart open and your mind aware. Keep coming back for more. Keep going. Keep giving. Keep doing. Keep daring to believe in a better way of living. Keep loving and creating. Keep each other safe and sound. Keep it real, and keep the faith. I love you. Goodbye for now.
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.
#collectivebreath #collectivebreathreno #biggestlittlecollectivebreath #spokenword #spokenwordartist #sidewayseightprojects #brukapoetry #sidewayseightpoetry #spokenviewscollective #brukatheatre #brukatheatre28 #believe #community #reno #renonv #weekly #wellness #writing #workshop #creativewriting #writingprompts #writer #writers #poet #poetry #quotes #artists #guests #event #hope
COLLECTIVE BREATH – Episode: 41
Week of Sunday, April 18th, 2021
Number of people attending Facebook (personal portion):
Number of people attending Zoom Meet (group portion):
Introduction:
“Home is where one starts from.” –T.S. Eliot
Most Sundays, I’m literally broadcasting from my own home. Other Sundays I’m broadcasting from a place, in some way shape or form which imbues me with a sense of home.
A transcript of this segment and each subsequent session will be posted (for anyone interested) at http://www.sidewayseight.co which is my main outlet for personal poetry and photography: Sideways Eight Projects.
“At the end of the day, it isn’t where I came from. Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never have been before.”
— Warsan Shire
Hello fantastic people! My name is Jesse James Ziegler. I am the current Poet in Residence for the Bruka Theatre of the Sierra in Reno, Nevada. I am an active poet, special event MC, principle photographer, special event series host, and now weekly wellness writing workshop host in collaboration with Spoken Views Collective of which I am also a Board Member.
This Weeks Writing Prompt:
This week’s Prompt : Write about someone or somewhere that feels like home to you.
I want for this podcast style personal portion to contain information about famous writers and their quotes as well as, futuristically speaking, local guests to this program who help everyone involved gain a diversity of perspective and positively impact our individual process.
Quote(s) of the Week:(2)
“For the two of us, home isn’t a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.”
— Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1)
“So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
— Herman Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte
I’m hoping this sharing and vulnerability I’m demonstrating will encourage others who love creative writing as well to open up, by sharing from their innermost, related to the topic provided. I’m hoping we all gain perspective, compassion, hope, and discipline through such organized sharing.
Piece or Pieces of the Week: (3)
Missing You
Layers
Believe
For further personal reading/listening/viewing
Quotes About Home
https://www.shutterfly.com/ideas/quotes-about-home/amp/
Next Week’s Writing Prompt:
For episode 42 I will be having a second guest to Collective Breath. Victor Uriz, a local musician and spoken word artist will be discussing and sharing in regards to the co-created writing prompt…
Which will also be posted across Collective Breath and Bruka Theatre’s social media platforms:
Write in response to the following question:
What do you think about feeling and filling the silence?
Shout Outs
Later today I’ll be hosting the Spoken Views Collective event ‘Kindling’ which is an intimate gathering of artists across various medium right here in the Biggest Little City.
fb://event/?id=162706959079442
Next Wednesday, April 21st, Spoken Views Collective is collaborating with the Washoe County Library system for the event ‘From Pen to Performance: Exploring Spoken Word Poetry with Spoken Views Collective’
fb://event/?id=2326011004208976
At the end of the month, Thursday April 29th, 2021 Spoken Views Collective is honoring April as both National Poetry month and Sexual Assault Awareness month with the crossover event ‘Assault’
fb://event/?id=948582799244862
Closing Sentiments and an Invitation
I hope you are feeling at home on this beautiful Sunday. I hope these segments give you a feeling of home as well.
That’s it for my personal portion. If this is where you get off this train of thought, because you checked in to listen, thank you for tuning in and absorbing. I appreciate your time and consideration. If you are here for the Weekly Wellness Writing Workshop group portion via Zoom Meeting, please transition to that application now using the link provided in the details/description section of the Bruka Theatre Facebook Event Page for ‘Collective Breath’. The link to watch previous episodes is in the bio section of the Collective Breath Instagram page @biggestlittlecollectivebreath
‘Keep’ (my frictionless benediction)
Keep writing. Keep your heart open and your mind aware. Keep coming back for more. Keep going. Keep giving. Keep doing. Keep daring to believe in a better way of living. Keep loving and creating. Keep each other safe and sound. Keep it real, and keep the faith. I love you. Goodbye for now.
.
.
.
.
.
#collectivebreath #collectivebreathreno #biggestlittlecollectivebreath #spokenword #spokenwordartist #sidewayseightprojects #brukapoetry #sidewayseightpoetry #spokenviewscollective #brukatheatre #brukatheatre28 #believe #community #reno #renonv #weekly #wellness #writing #workshop #creativewriting #writingprompts #writer #writers #poet #poetry #quotes #artists #guests #event #hope
COLLECTIVE BREATH – Episode: 40
Week of Sunday, April 11th, 2021
Number of people attending Facebook (personal portion):
Number of people attending Zoom Meet (group portion):
Introduction:
“Who has not known a journey to be over and done before the traveler returns? The reverse is also true: many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.”
— John Steinbeck Travels with Charley
A transcript of this segment and each subsequent session will be posted (for anyone interested) at http://www.sidewayseight.co which is my main outlet for personal poetry and photography: Sideways Eight Projects.
“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? — It’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
— Jack Kerouac ‘On the Road’
Hello fantastic people! My name is Jesse James Ziegler. I am the current Poet in Residence for the Bruka Theatre of the Sierra in Reno, Nevada. I am an active poet, special event MC, principle photographer, special event series host, and now weekly wellness writing workshop host in collaboration with Spoken Views Collective of which I am also a Board Member.
This Weeks Writing Prompt:
This week’s Prompt : Write about an adventure you had while traveling in your home state or country.
I want for this podcast style personal portion to contain information about famous writers and their quotes as well as, futuristically speaking, local guests to this program who help everyone involved gain a diversity of perspective and positively impact our individual process.
Quote(s) of the Week:(1)
“Each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time.”
— Frederick Jackson Turner
I’m hoping this sharing and vulnerability I’m demonstrating will encourage others who love creative writing as well to open up, by sharing from their innermost, related to the topic provided. I’m hoping we all gain perspective, compassion, hope, and discipline through such organized sharing.
Piece or Pieces of the Week: (2)
High Beams at night
Sifting Through
For further personal reading
Hundred Plus Adventure Quotes
50 Epic Adventure Quotes To Kick You Off Your Couch
More adventure quotes
https://globalcastaway.com/adventure-quotes/
Travel in the Silver State
Discover Your Nevada
Expert Tips from Lonely Planet
Top Ten Travel Writing Books
https://www.travel-writers-exchange.com/tools-tips/top-10-travel-writing-books/
Next Week’s Writing Prompt:
Which will also be posted across Collective Breath and Bruka Theatre’s social media platforms: Write about someone or somewhere that feels like home to you.
Shout Outs
To Spoken Views Collective, Up in the Mix Podcast, KWNK Radio, The Holland Project, Sierra Arts Foundation, the Reno Arts and Culture Commission, Black Wall Street, UNR Creative Writing Program, Wolf Speaks, The Potentialist, and of course, Bruka Theatre of the Sierra right here in the Biggest Little City in the World.
Closing Sentiments and an Invitation
“I have read my books by many lights, hoarding their beauty, their wit or wisdom against the dark days when I would have no book, nor a place to read. I have known hunger of the belly kind many times over, but I have known a worse hunger: the need to know and to learn.”
— Louis L’Amour, Education of a Wandering Man
That’s it for my personal portion. If this is where you get off this train of thought, because you checked in to listen, thank you for tuning in and absorbing. I appreciate your time and consideration. If you are here for the Weekly Wellness Writing Workshop group portion via Zoom Meeting, please transition to that application now using the link provided in the details/description section of the Bruka Theatre Facebook Event Page for ‘Collective Breath’. The link to watch previous episodes is in the bio section of the Collective Breath Instagram page @biggestlittlecollectivebreath
‘Keep’ (my frictionless benediction)
Keep writing. Keep your heart open and your mind aware. Keep coming back for more. Keep going. Keep giving. Keep doing. Keep daring to believe in a better way of living. Keep loving and creating. Keep each other safe and sound. Keep it real, and keep the faith. I love you. Goodbye for now.
.
.
.
.
.
#collectivebreath #collectivebreathreno #biggestlittlecollectivebreath #spokenword #spokenwordartist #sidewayseightprojects #brukapoetry #sidewayseightpoetry #spokenviewscollective #brukatheatre #brukatheatre28 #believe #community #reno #renonv #weekly #wellness #writing #workshop #creativewriting #writingprompts #writer #writers #poet #poetry #quotes #artists #guests #event #hope
COLLECTIVE BREATH – Episode 39
Week of Sunday, April 4th, 2021
(Easter Sunday)
Number of people attending Facebook (personal portion):
Number of people attending Zoom Meet (group portion):
Introduction:
Happy 4th day of National Poetry Month!
Happy Easter! Happy Sunday!
When I was a child hunting for plastic egg vessels carrying the cargo of milk chocolate and jelly beans, I’d try to envision the fastest route to cover the most territory in my search field. Likewise, a man made canal imagines the most direct route of seafaring cargo for the sake of commerce through waters of inequity and turbulence.
“There was a pleasant party of barge people round the fire. You might not have thought it pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk. This is the real secret of pleasant society.”
— E. Nesbit, The Railway Children
A transcript of this segment and each subsequent session will be posted (for anyone interested) at http://www.sidewayseight.co which is my main outlet for personal poetry and photography: Sideways Eight Projects.
“Since 1849 I have studied incessantly, under all its aspects, a question which was already in my mind since 1832. I confess that my scheme is still a mere dream, and I do not shut my eyes to the fact that so long as I alone believe it to be possible, it is virtually impossible. … The scheme in question is the cutting of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez. This has been thought of from the earliest historical times, and for that very reason is looked upon as impracticable. Geographical dictionaries inform us indeed that the project would have been executed long ago but for insurmountable obstacles. [On his inspiration for the Suez Canal.]”
— Ferdinand de Lesseps
Hello fantastic people! My name is Jesse James Ziegler. I am the current Poet in Residence for the Bruka Theatre of the Sierra in Reno, Nevada. I am an active poet, special event MC, principle photographer, special event series host, and now weekly wellness writing workshop host in collaboration with Spoken Views Collective of which I am also a Board Member.
This Weeks Writing Prompt:
This week’s Prompt :
Which was posted across Collective Breath and Bruka Theatre’s social media platforms: Write in response to the following picture…

The large container ship Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal, causing a traffic jam for cargo vessels.
PHOTO: KHALED ELFIQI/SHUTTERSTOCK
When I managed a commercial greenhouse in Virginia, I worked inside a building which had previously been a poultry barn measuring 50 feet wide by 400 feet long. 20,000 square feet. If each square foot of floor space from that place of commerce was converted into a full sized cargo/shipping container, that’s how many boxes can be held upon the ‘Ever Green’ barge which had gotten stuck in the strip connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. Wrap your brain around that.
I want for this podcast style personal portion to contain information about famous writers (and other artists) and their quotes as well as, futuristically speaking, local guests to this program who help everyone involved gain a diversity of perspective and positively impact our individual process.
Quote(s) of the Week:(4)
I was inspired this week to look for quotes regarding or in reference to various canals.
“Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”
“The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.”
“People generally have more feeling for canals and roads than education. However, I hope we can advance them with equal pace.”
“Venice is ever the fragile labyrinth at the edge of the sea and it reminds us how brief and perilous the journeys of our lives are; perhaps that is why we love it so. City of plagues and brief liaisons, city of lingering deaths and incendiary loves, city of chimeras, nightmares, pigeons, bells. You are the only city in the world whose dialect has a word for the shimmer of canal water reflected on the ceiling of a room.”
I’m hoping this sharing and vulnerability I’m demonstrating will encourage others who love creative writing as well to open up, by sharing from their innermost, related to the topic provided. I’m hoping we all gain perspective, compassion, hope, and discipline through such organized sharing.
Piece or Pieces of the Week: (2)
Sam Soul
We are in the Business
For further personal reading
Two books about canals which are closer to home as well as a piece on psychology.
winner of the National Book Award
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
by David McCullough
Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation
The Elephant in the Brain
Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
By: Kevin Simler, Robin Hanson
Next Week’s Writing Prompt:
Next week, Sunday, April 11th, 2021, the show will air at 11am as per usual. However, it will be PRE-RECORDED and set to AIR AT 11AM out of necessity. I will neither have cell service or internet access at that time. As such, next week there will be NO GROUP PORTION VIA ZOOM MEETING at 11:15am. We will pick up the following week (Sunday April 18th) with our group workshop and cover two weeks worth of topics and material relating to those topics in a shared setting at that time. The writing prompt capitalizes on that promise.
Next week’s writing prompt, Which will also be posted across Collective Breath and Bruka Theatre’s social media platforms: Write about an adventure you had while traveling in your home state or country.
Shout Outs
Since we are in the midst of National Poetry Month I have a few shout outs for friends who are building great ongoing projects of their own as well.
Stay tuned this evening (Sundays in general) at 5pm for the Spoken Views Radio Hour hosted by my friend and colleague from the Spoken Views Collective Griffin Peralta. Sundays at 5pm
on 97.7 fm KWNK Radio. Also streaming online for those out of antenna range from the broadcast booth.
http://www.KWNK.org and http://www.spokenviews.org
@kwnk97.7 @spoken_views_reno
for more details
Stay tuned Wednesdays at 11am for Stephanie Lynn’s program ‘Poetry With Me’ on IGTV
Stephanie is also planning a larger event for the end of the month, Thursday April 29th, entitled ‘Assault’ bridging April as National Poetry Month and Sexual Assault Awareness month in collaboration with the Potentialist Workshop and Safe Embrace. I have the honor of helping her with said event.
@stephmystic and http://www.spokenviews.org for more details
Closing Sentiments and an Invitation
That’s it for my personal portion. If this is where you get off this train of thought, because you checked in to listen, thank you for tuning in and absorbing. I appreciate your time and consideration. If you are here for the Weekly Wellness Writing Workshop group portion via Zoom Meeting, please transition to that application now using the link provided in the details/description section of the Bruka Theatre Facebook Event Page for ‘Collective Breath’. The link to watch previous episodes is in the bio section of the Collective Breath Instagram page @biggestlittlecollectivebreath
‘Keep’ (my frictionless benediction)
Keep writing. Keep your heart open and your mind aware. Keep coming back for more. Keep going. Keep giving. Keep doing. Keep daring to believe in a better way of living. Keep loving and creating. Keep each other safe and sound. Keep it real, and keep the faith. I love you. Goodbye for now.
.
.
.
.
.
#collectivebreath #collectivebreathreno #biggestlittlecollectivebreath #spokenword #spokenwordartist #sidewayseightprojects #brukapoetry #sidewayseightpoetry #spokenviewscollective #brukatheatre #brukatheatre28 #believe #community #reno #renonv #weekly #wellness #writing #workshop #creativewriting #writingprompts #writer #writers #poet #poetry #quotes #artists #guests #event #hope
