Oh hail superstition! 

I bow to your full grace and glory

For giving me cognition.

I shall not! 

Walk under that ladder 

Which will make me gladder,

Open my umbrella inside 

As the rain is falling cockeyed,

And Hasten once I catch sight  

Of that black cat during the night. 

I shall!

Throw salt across my shoulder

While I Line up 3 leaf clovers,

And I will stay put 

To grab my lucky rabbits' foot.

So until the end is nigh 

I will stay inside 

On this Friday the 13th night. 

Don’t be afraid of your dark thoughts

but don’t give them absolute power either.

Put those dark thoughts in a well-lit room close by

and listen to them from a place of authority and calm.

When they are hungry, give your dark thoughts food grown in clean soil

and water from the clearest streams

because dark thoughts are really just ideas that are afraid.

Treat your dark thoughts like children who need care to become healthy.

Guide them into your art and let the art speak those fears

And when your thoughts are ill, let your art be the medicine and the hospital bed.

You are the doctor and the nurse and the midwife and the priest to them.

Let your art heal those dark thoughts so that they can become

what they are meant to be in the wholeness of you

as an artist

and a friend

and a human

living and breathing and growing all the time.

Don’t be afraid of dark thoughts.