Daily Affirmations ©Carolyn

25/06/2020

1. I am enough. ❤👩‍🦰❌🤗🌈

2. I create my own space in which to live and work. ✍🏻📖📚🤗❤🐈🐈❤

3. I deserve people in my life who will uplift and validate me. ❤👩‍🦰❌🌈🤗😷

• 🐲💚Tanka 310💚🐲 – For Tanka Tuesday💚🐲07/04/2026

  #Tanka #Tuesday #poetry #TheDailyHaiku

  April sunshine smiles
  down from a blue sky, white clouds
  slowly float on by
  cherry blossom petals strewn
  like confetti on the ground
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse,  2026

  

• 💜✍️NaPoWriMo – 30 poems in 30 days – April 2026 – Day 6 – Andalucían Mare – A Triolet✍️💜06/04/2026

  #napowrimo #poetry

  And now, to put theory in our practice, here’s our optional prompt! This one takes its inspiration from Yentl van Stokkum’s poem, “It’s the Warmest Summer on Record Babe,” which blends casual, almost blasé phrasing with surreal events like getting advice from a bumblebee. In your poem today, try writing with a breezy, conversational tone, while including at least one thing that could only happen in a dream.
  
  Happy writing!
  
  ANDALUCÍAN MARE - A TRIOLET
  
  I try to live in the here and now
  but often I wonder which now it is.
  Are there parallel universes? But wow,
  I try to live in the here and now.
  Although the question furrows my brow.
  What is time, what is space, but a quiz?
  I try to live in the here and now,
  but often I wonder which now it is.
  
  An Andalucían mare whispers to me 
  not to worry of such scientific things.
  That I should just open my eyes and see,
  an Andalucían mare whispers to me.
  But horse whisperers - how can that be?
  Yet her whispers are a song that sings,
  an Andalucían mare whispers to me 
  not to worry of such scientific things.
  
  So I exchange science for poetic words
  where imagination is allowed to run riot.
  Fire and passion are my watchwords,
  so I exchange science for poetic words.
  Maybe horse whispering is for the birds?
  But as a poet, who am I to deny it?
  So I exchange science for poetic words
  where imagination is allowed to run riot.
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse,  2026

  

• 🐈‍⬛🐈💜CAT’S WORLD 232💜🐈🐈‍⬛06/04/2026

  #catsworld

  

• 🤣Sense of Humour 🤣🤣💙360💙06/04/2026

  #senseofhumour

  

• Weekend Renga🍹🍹03/04/26 – 06/04/26🍹🍹06/04/2026

  #weekend #renga #poetry #japanese

  No. 1
  
  what is my purpose?
  to bring poetry- like light
  to the dark corners
  
  No. 2
  
  iambic pentameter,
  alliteration, other
  poetic devises
  
  No. 3
  
  to re-purpose from
  war to peace, sharing not greed
  exile dictators
  
  No. 4
  mystery of life,
  where do we go when we die?
  energy lives on
  
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• ❤️💃🩵Triolet🩵💃❤️125 – Kerbstone Edge05/04/2026

  #Triolet #poetry #french

  Quiet holidays spent at Kerbstone Edge,
  just me and the cats in zen-like bliss.
  Cats chase squirrels through the hedge,
  Quiet holidays spent at Kerbstone Edge.
  No traffic jams, nerves on a knife's edge
  with whining children you can't dismiss.
  Quiet holidays spent at Kerbstone Edge,
  just me and the cats in zen-like bliss.
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026
  
  **Kerbstone Edge was a Lancashire euphemism for staying at home when asked "Where are you going for your holidays?"**

  

• 🩷🩵The Sunday Whirl – Wordle 751🩵🩷05/04/2026

  #TheSundayWhirl #wordle751

  Wordle Words 751
  
  Ravenous, lurked, shame, space, found, glass, hollow, flicker, rattled, slip, red, crash.
  
  
  SHAME
  
  To my eternal shame
  I let the glass slip and
  crash - and then I became
  apologetic, now banned
  from any delicate task.
  My face went as red
  as my hair and I had to ask
  for pardon, clumsy they said.
  I found myself a hollow space inside,
  rattled by the accusatory jibe.
  It took away all of my pride
  in belonging to the family tribe.
  My flicker of flame almost gone out
  as I lurked outside of the circle
  ravenous for praise, yet with no clout
  no approbation - in an artic circle.
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 💜✍️NaPoWriMo – 30 poems in 30 days – April 2026 – Day 5 – Diatribe✍️💜05/04/2026

  #napowrimo #poetry

  Today's challenge from Catullus' poem 'Odi et amo,' and Darwin's letters write a grumpy poem.
  
  I must confess, the idea of being so grumpy that you have come to hate clover and bees is highly amusing to me. Today, your challenge is to take a page from Catullus and Darwin, and write a poem in which you talk about disliking something – particularly something utterly innocuous, like clover. Be over the top! Be a bit silly and overdramatic.
  
  Happy grumpy writing!
  
  
  DIATRIBE
  
  I hate being old.
  There is no fun
  in this cloak of
  invisibility!
  
  I dislike beetroot
  since early childhood.
  Eating gooseberries
  for dessert, too sour!
  
  Oh my body has
  ceased to work as
  it should - exhaustion
  haunts everyday!
  
  Damn the endless
  rain rattling against
  the window pane.
  I loathe the damp!
  
  My joints ache with
  a persistent pain
  resistent to meds,
  I destest insomnia!
  
  Foods I loved have
  turned against me.
  Now they give me
  Indigestion - heartburn!
  
  I have a box to contain
  my medications delved
  into daily - I think I hear
  them rattling inside me!
  
  Please do not ask me
  how I am - I fear I will
  detain you an hour at
  least with tales of woe.
  
  No, best to leave me
  well alone until I write
  it out of my system, this
  odious dislike and hate!
  
  There, I feel better now,
  but abhor that you should
  read this diatribe - hey hum
  It's better out than in!
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026
   

  

• 🩷🍨💛SenHai Saturday #46 – Devised By Susi Bocks💛🍨🩷04/04/2026

  #SenHai #Saturday #46 #poetry

  Here is this week’s image to get your creative juices flowing! This image of a narrow canyon with a stream flowing through rocks features a variety of colors, including orange, tan, grey, brown, and black.
  Please create one senryu and one haiku to accompany this image prompt. Remember that traditional American haikus and senryus are three lines presented in a 5-7-5 syllabic pattern. The haiku describes nature or a season, and the senryu focuses on human nature .
  
  ©✍️SusiBocks
  
  Senryu #46
  
  surrealism 
  painted loud, nature's canvas
  carved into the rock
  
  
  Haiku #46
  
  rock, gouged out by
  fast moving water, a church
  to Mother Nature
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 💜✍️NaPoWriMo – 30 poems in 30 days – April 2026 – Day 4 – Storms✍️💜04/04/2026

  #napowrimo #poetry

  Today, we’d like to challenge you to craft your own short poem that involves a weather phenomenon and some aspect of the season. Try using rhyme and keeping your lines of roughly even length.
  Happy Writing!
  
  STORMS
  
  Blow, blow, blow Spring wind,
  Bending trees over a grave.
  Wind and heavy rain twinned
  Into forecasters' 'Storm Dave.'
  
  April's pink moon shivers in
  what should be Spring's glow.
  The Artemis rocket will underpin
  Man's quest to always know,
  
  What lies far out beyond earth.
  Further than weather's storm
  Flying round the moon's girth,
  Leaving below war's shitstorm!
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse,  2026

  

• 👨‍👩‍👧💜🌿6 Word Story No. 7🌿💜👨‍👩‍👧04/04/2026

  #six-wordstory #ErnestHemingway

  In the style of the  poignant six-word story attributed to the late, great Ernest Hemingway:
  
  For sale
  baby shoes
  never worn.
  
  💜💚💜💚💜💚💜💚💜💚💜💚💜💚💜
  
  Stand tall,
  be your
  own person.
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 🌍👀✈️You Are Never Too Old For Snoopy 🌍👀✈️03/04/2026

  #youarenevertoooldforsnoopy #senseofhumour

  

• 🐦‍🔥🤎GOOD VIBES 🤎🐦‍🔥- Raising Our Vibration🤎🐦‍🔥03/04/2026

  #goodvibes

  🧡🐦‍🔥Why should we try to raise our vibration? To manifest a better life for ourselves. The higher the vibration, the more positive our lives become.
  
  In this feature, I bring you quotations to do just that. These are positive or thought-provoking in order that you can choose to change your life for the better.
  
  The choice is yours. Choose to be positive!🐦‍🔥🧡
  
  ©✍️CarolynCrossley
  
  http://backfromdarknesstolight.com
  
  WHAT YOU THINK IS WHAT YOU CREATE

  🩵💜💚🩵QUOTATION🩵💚💜🩵

  

• 💖🪷CHALLENGING THE NARRATIVE🪷💖 – Positivity 🪷💖03/04/2026

  #positiveaffirmations

  • I am love and light.
  • I have inner strength.
  • I am courageous.
  • I have creativity.
  • I choose to see the good in people.

  💖🪷What do we mean by 'challenging the narrative'? What are positive affirmations?
  
  Challenging the narrative is calling out the negative that our ego keeps telling us is going on. It is changing each negative thought into a positive one.
  
  When we look for positivity we will find it and stop that nagging ego's voice from catastrophising every thought until we are paralysed by anxiety.
  
  Write down five positive affirmations and then say them aloud to the mirror. Take control of what you are thinking. 
  
  Remember what we think, creates our reality, so let it be positive. Speaking words out loud gives them energy and power. Why not give it a try? 🪷💖
  
  ©✍️CarolynCrossley
  THE VIXEN OF VERSE

  IN THIS HOME WE BELIEVE IN MAGIC

  

• 💛🐝COUNTING OUR BLESSINGS💛🐝 – Gratitude💛🐝03/04/2026

  #gratitude #counting #yourblessings

  • I am grateful for sleep.
  • I appreciate every waking moment.
  • I am thankful for opportunities to learn new things.
  • I am blessed by the light.
  • I am grateful for the small things.

  💛🐝What does "counting your blessings' mean? Why should we bother? 
  
  Counting your blessings is listing 5 things you are grateful for and writing them down daily.
  
  Being grateful for what we have and not constantly hankering for what we haven't got is a good habit to cultivate. 
  
  Having a grateful heart is positivity at work. You put out gratitude into the world and that is what you attract back. Like attracts like. 
  
  Write them in a nice journal or file online. Just write them down and read them aloud! Why not give it a try? It is said that you need to keep doing something for 21 days for it to become a good habit.🐝💛 
  
  ©✍️CarolynCrossley
  
  http://backfromdarknesstolight.com

  ALL IS WELL IN MY WORLD

  

• 🦋🦉AI Haiku Prompt No. 58🦉🦋 Haiku/Senryu🦉🦋03/04/2026

  #AI #Prompts #Haiku #senryu #TheDailyHaiku

  lost in an 
  Ostara reverie
  eggs to paint
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 💛✨️5-7-5 Haiku/Senryu✨️💙No 120💛✨️03/04/2026

  #575 #Haiku #senryu #TheDailyHaiku

  the wind blowing cold
  green buds on the springtime trees,
  the blue tits chirping
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 🧙‍♀️🐈‍⬛Crone’s Corner (24)🐈‍⬛🧙‍♂️03/04/2026

  #crone #corner #eclectic #witchcraft

   🌅 What Ostara Is
  Ostara is the Spring Equinox festival on the Wheel of the Year, celebrated around Easter. It often coincides with the Vernal or Spring equinox but not always (as in this year) It marks the shift from winter’s stillness to spring’s renewal, fertility, and returning light.  
  
  
  For Wiccans, it is one of the eight Sabbats, a moment of equilibrium and awakening — a threshold where the world seems to inhale again.
  
  
  
  🕊️ Historical Roots (What We Actually Know)
  Although spring equinox celebrations are ancient, Ostara as a named festival is modern, popularised in the 20th century by Gerald Gardner when shaping the Wiccan Wheel of the Year.  
  
  
  The name “Ostara” is linked to the Germanic goddess Eostre, mentioned only once by the 8th‑century monk Bede, who wrote that a spring month was named after her and feasts were held in her honour.  
  
  
  No myths survive about her — no temples, no stories — so modern Pagan imagery is lovingly reconstructed from seasonal symbolism and folklore.
  
  
  🌱 Meaning in Wicca
  In Wiccan cosmology, Ostara reflects the Goddess as Maiden and the God as a young, vital Horned God emerging from winter’s dormancy.  
  
  
  - The Goddess embodies youth, possibility, and the first stirrings of life.  
  - The God grows stronger with the lengthening days, his power rising with the sun.  
  - Fertility — of land, animals, creativity, and spirit — begins to quicken.
  
  This energy will peak at Beltane, but Ostara is the first true quickening.
  
  
  
  🥚 Symbols and Their Witchcraft Significance
  
  The Egg
  One of the oldest and most universal symbols of new life.  
  - Represents potential, rebirth, and the cosmic egg found in many creation myths.  
  - In nature, hens begin laying again as daylight increases — a practical and magical sign of returning abundance.  
  
  
  Hares and Rabbits
  Often associated with Eostre in later folklore.  
  - Symbolise fertility, intuition, and liminality — creatures of dawn and dusk.
  
  Seeds and Blossoms
  Perfect for spellwork involving:  
  - New beginnings  
  - Growth  
  - Creativity  
  - Healing  
  - Clearing stagnant energy
  
  Balance
  Because the equinox brings equal day and night, many witches use this time for:  
  - Rebalancing personal energies  
  - Shadow and light integration  
  - Recalibrating habits or intentions
  
  ---
  
  🔮 How Witches and Wiccans Celebrate Ostara
  
  🌼 Seasonal Rituals
  - Dawn meditations or greetings to the rising sun  
  - Decorating altars with spring flowers, eggs, pastel colours  
  - Lighting candles to welcome returning light  
  - Cleansing the home (physical and energetic)
  
  🌿 Nature-Based Practices
  - Planting seeds (literal or symbolic)  
  - Walking in nature to observe the first signs of spring  
  - Offering flowers or water to land spirits
  
  ✨ Spellwork Themes
  - Fertility (creative, emotional, or physical)  
  - Renewal and fresh starts  
  - Balance and harmony  
  - Growth and opportunity  
  - Blessings for gardens, projects, or relationships
  
  🥚 Egg Magic
  - Egg divination (reading patterns after cracking)  
  - Egg charms for protection or prosperity  
  - Painting eggs with sigils or intentions
  
  ---
  
  🌸 Why Ostara Matters Spiritually
  Ostara is a festival of hope, rebirth, and gentle awakening.  
  It invites witches and Wiccans to:  
  - Honour the Earth’s reanimation  
  - Celebrate the return of warmth and possibility  
  - Align personal growth with the natural world  
  - Step through a symbolic doorway into new beginnings
  
  It’s a sabbat that whispers rather than shouts — a soft unfurling, a first blossom, a breath of light after long darkness.
  
  ©✍️CarolynCrossley + CoPilotAI
  
  Sources:
  1.  The Pagan Grimoire
  2.  thepsychicsoul.com
  3.  Celtic Connection

  

• 💜✍️NaPoWriMo – 30 poems in 30 days – April 2026 – Day 3 – Alter Ego✍️💜03/04/2026

  #napowrimo #poetry

  Today, we challenge you to write a poem in which a profession or vocation is described differently than it typically is considered to be. Perhaps your poem will feature a very relaxed brain surgeon, or a farmer that hates vegetables. Or maybe you have a poetical alter-ego of your own, who flies a non-wan, treasure-hunting flag with pride.
  
  Happy writing!
  
  DELPHINIA GOLIGHTLY - Alter Ego
  
  I cobbled her together from
  my memories of every colonel's
  lady I had met during my army
  days - I made her a little risqué!
  
  A very merry widow although
  getting old - she was doing it
  disgracefully, dressed in her
  red hat and red feather boa!
  
  Her poetry was in the form of
  advice to any potential lover.
  She was witty and amusing
  with just a hint of sadness.
  
  She missed her dear colonel
  but realised that life had to
  go on; she was 'dressed to the
  nines,' always ready to party.
  
  I gave her a rather posh voice
  and she performed on 'open
  mics' amusing the audience
  and making them laugh out loud.
  
  One evening after performing
  for a group of blind people a
  lovely man wanted to meet her
  so we were duly introduced.
  
  Imagine his disappointment 
  when I spoke in my own voice!
  I think he was rather taken with
  dear old 'Finnie' Golightly!
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 💜💐Cherita Terbalik – 456💐💜03/04/2026

  #cherita #terbalik #poetry #Japanese #aili

  if politics corrupt,
  poetry cleanses
  if politics divide,
  
  poetry unites us,
  if politics create wars
  
  poetry brings us peace.
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2025

  

• Cherita💜💐45503/04/2026

  #cherita #poetry #aili

  we live in hope
  
  of that one true
  love - soulmates
  
  bound together
  now and in 
  eternity
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 💜✍️NaPoWriMo – 30 poems in 30 days – April 2026 – Day 2 – Childhood Memories✍️💜02/04/2026

  #napowrimo #poetry

  Speaking of things that are unsettling, it’s now time for our daily prompt — optional, as always! In her poem, “Pittsylvania County,” Ellen Bryant Voigt recounts watching her father and brother play catch with sensory detail and a strangely foreboding sense of inevitability. The speaker watches the scene, but is outside of it – cut off. She’s not so much jealous of the interaction between her father and brother, as filled with a pervading sense that she wants something more or different from life than what the moment seems to presage. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem in which you recount a childhood memory. Try to incorporate a sense of how that experience indicated to you, even then, something about the person you’d grow up to be.
  
  Happy writing!
  
  CHILDHOOD MEMORIES 
  
  As a child I could always be found
  Curled up in a corner, reading a book.
  I adored travelling to another world
  in the supreme imagination of my mind.
  
  It helped me write " compositions"
  at school, I learned the art of stories.
  Words danced in and out of my head.
  Forming poems on my blank pages.
  
  Storytelling led on to problem solving,
  having good ideas and the confidence
  to implement them; I loved to read
  throughout my life and to write.
  
  I wrote letters to foreign penpals, to
  friends and family and to my boyfriend
  who became my lover and then spouse.
  It was a shame he was such a louse!
  
  Childhood reading led to a lifelong
  passion for reading and writing which
  has led to me being a published and performance poet in my crone years.
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 💜✍️NaPoWriMo – 30 poems in 30 days – April 2026 – Day 1 – Tanka✍️💜02/04/2026

  #napowrimo #poetry

  Here is our (optional) prompt for 
  the day! The tanka is an ancient Japanese poetic form. In contemporary English versions, it often takes the shape of a five-line poem with a 5 / 7 / 5 / 7 / 7 syllable-count – kind of like a haiku that decided to keep going. 
  
  Some recent examples include L. Lamar Wilson’s “Aubade Tanka,” Tarik Dobbs’s “Commuter Tanka,” and Antoinette Brim-Bell’s “Insomniac Tankas.”   And here’s a sort of parody tanka by Paul Violi, which starts out with the kind of cliché image that you might find in a thousand imitations of classic Japanese poetry, and ends up somewhere very different. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own tanka – or multi-tanka poem. Theme and tone are up to you, but try to maintain the five-line stanza and syllable count.
  
  Happy Writing
  
  TANKA
  
  old trees where cherry
  blossom is white and falls on
  down like confetti,
  memories stirred of a cream
  dress and a pink rose bouquet
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 📚🤸‍♂️Slow Renga (136) Wednesday 🤸‍♂️📚02/04/2026

  #slow #renga #poetry #Japanese

  Fondness/night skies
  
  No. 1
  fondness for
  US cop shows
  escapism
  
  No. 2
  night skies fill
  with moon and stars
  nature's wonders
  
  No. 3
  fondness for those
  forget-me-nots, scattered 
  as a legacy
  
  No. 4
  night skies form
  from the quiet dusk
  orchestra of stars
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 🌿🌻Triolet for Thursday 18 – Spring Sunshine🌻🌿02/04/2026

  triolet #poetry #french

  Spring sunshine in bright blue skies, 
  With fluffy white clouds floating by.
  On TV, the White House Liar and his lies.
  Spring sunshine in bright blue skies,
  Lifts our spirits, yet there are still sighs.
  As oil and gas prices rise sky-high.
  Spring sunshine in bright blue skies, 
  With fluffy white clouds floating by.
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• 🐈‍⬛🐈💜CAT’S WORLD 231💜🐈🐈‍⬛02/04/2026

  #catsworld

  

• 🤣Sense of Humour 🤣🤣💙359💙02/04/2026

  #senseofhumour

  

• 📋Wordy 30📚 145🗂️02/04/2026

  #wordy30 #poetry

  faded sepia photo
  faces smile sadly
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026

  

• Haiga🖼️ No. 17902/04/2026

  #haiga #poetry #japanese

  

• 💕🪞 Nonet No.37🪞💕01/04/2026

  #nonet #Poetry #ThePowerOfNine

  Common sense is not very common
  Anymore, it's non-existant!
  As Highways van gets bogged down
  On a grass verge, and can't
  Be moved. The guys are
  So embarrassed.
  Need to call
  for some
  help.
  
  ©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026
  *Although highways vehicles the men were wearing United Utility Hi-vis jackets.*