[Thespiritexpress] Fwd: October Third Thursday Poetry & Jazz featuring poet Tonijean Bernbaum

Wed Oct 15 14:34:30 PDT 2025

Hello Dear Ones…..I thought I had sent this out earlier but we were just asked for the details so it is .  I know its a bit of a trek to Point Arena and I didn’t expect anyone to make the trip unless
of course, you are die hard poet and will come to read some of your work, as well!
Also I want to thank Blake for the l o n g bio……something she must have put together over the years….
.and also, if you happen get to the bottom of the poem at the 
end……the last line is missing. Ha.  So if you get that far…..

then please, please
let me be courageous in my terror
and remember

I am not my fear.

Just sayin……..with only love, T

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: blake more <blake at snakelyone.com>
> Subject: October Third Thursday Poetry & Jazz featuring poet Tonijean Bernbaum
> Date: October 8, 2025 at 4:59:36 AM PDT
> To: <tonijean at mcn.org>
> Reply-To: blake more <blake at snakelyone.com>
> 
> View this email in your browser <https://mailchi.mp/a5be4c5d17ed/fdaifc1j23-21064148?e=4a822a1792>
> 
> Point Arena Third Thursday Poetry & Jazz 
> Featuring 
> Fort Bragg Poet
> Tonijean Bernbaum
> 
> 7pm, October 16, 2025
> 
> The Record
> 265 Main Street
> Downtown Point Arena, CA 
> 
> 
> Come hungry and thirsty because the Record serves food and drinks!  We have a stage and a public venue.  So grateful for Paul and Kim for inviting Third Thursday Poetry & Jazz into their community gathering pub!
> 
> Click the link below to Join us on Facebook
> 
>  <https://facebook.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a8a66e224163c00a3f99a2d28&id=1f7aa8b016&e=4a822a1792>
>  
> 
> FORT BRAGG POET TONIJEAN BERNBAUM
> TO FEATURE AT 
> THIRD THURSDAY POETRY & JAZZ IN OCTOBER 2025
> On Thursday, October 16 at 7pm The Third Thursday Poetry & Jazz Reading Series will feature Fort Bragg poet Tonijean Bernbaum. The reading will take place at The Record at 255 Main Street in downtown Point Arena. The reading begins with live improv jazz, followed by a featured reading with the musicians accompanying Menefee, then an open mic with jazz improv, and finally the reading concludes with more live improv jazz. Poets, storytellers and musicians welcome. 
> 
> Tonijean began writing poetry and riding horses during her adolescence in the land of suburbia outside of Motown in Michigan.  She embraces the blessing of being born with a poet’s soul and the opportunity to run wild in the meadows of her youth.   Without a writing degree or teaching credit,  a long list of publications, not even a chapbook, she tributes her tenacity to keep writing to her desire to discover, understand and express the complexities of life.  Through quiet reflection, paired with the willingness of a scribe and her love for language, she engages in the irresistible call to tackle the challenge of listening more deeply to what is longing  to be accepted,  resolved or released through the gift of composing a poem.
> 
> Disappearing for an afternoon into the lines of a poem are her greatest joy…..when she is not offering Tarot consultations, facilitating healing groups, digging in the garden, creating collage art, or cooking up soup for groups and tending to the many responsibilities at Spirit House Center for Attitudinal Healing, a non-profit she co- founded with her life partner, Ron Nadeau, in 2007 where they live, in Fort Bragg.
> 
> She has been fortunate, over the years, to experience ways of honoring the muse in workshops with Martin Prechtel,  Dorianne Laux, Joe Millar, Ellen Bass, Stephanie Marlis and Marie Howe.  She has seen her words on the pages of an obscure journal in North Carolina; a Shamanic publication, Sacred Reflections, no longer in print and once had a poem published in the online New Millennium Writings that garnered her an honorable mention.  Her work has also been presented by actors performing in the northern california traveling poetry show, " Rumi’s Caravan. “  Her latest publication  of her poem “Prayer” was requested by the on-line Prayer Project.  She has had a poem or two circulated on Larry Robinson’s "Poem a Day” email publication and will have a poem published in the upcoming collection “Spirit of Place” featuring women poets of Mendocino County.   
> 
> She writes with grit and transparency about love and loss, the challenge of parenting and dysfunctional families, women’s issues, and the dilemma of being a “spirit in a spacesuit.” (crediting Sean O’Laoire with that term) Her writing is appreciated for its accessibility, vulnerability  and humor.   
> 
> Tonijean has been a featured reader at poetry events in Mendocino and Point Arena and has also appeared at the Marin Shakespeare venue in San Rafael reading her original work.  She especially enjoys offering her poems at a yearly event, Kaleidoscope, a music and poetry offering, held at Spirit House, in the spring.  
>  
> Third Thursday Poetry & Jazz is supported by The Third Thursday Poetry Group, anonymous supporters, and Poets & Writers, Inc. 
> Learn more about Theresa
>  <https://facebook.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a8a66e224163c00a3f99a2d28&id=c3ce35f9d0&e=4a822a1792>
> Shadow in the Sun
>         (written after reading “The Sun”  by David Whyte.)
>  
> I’ve stared too long at the sun. 
> Everything forgotten in the burn of retina -
> the shadow of terror rises like noon without prohibition,
> darkens my shape against the pavement.
>  
> I run like a spider
> beneath the foot of fear coming down,
> I have no courage in the wake of threats
> to my loved ones, the horrors of war,
> the consequence of deprivation,
> the brutal suffering of unconscious life.
>  
> It's coming for me now, I see it riding 
> the pendulum, feel its arc swinging over the brick wall,
> having lept the moat and deployed the alarm,
> it’s sneaking through the back door of my pelvis, 
> slinking up the stairs of my spine,  midnight skull cap
> over its head, 
> long bony fingers stretch toward my neck, nails curling 
> into my scalp,
> dropping its dark, heavy, coat over my head -
>  
> onto my knees on ice trembling 
> and bending, 
> begging,  lord have mercy -
>  
> it’s bony arm slides
> around my waist and escorts me to the door.
>  
> And if the hand of God slaps it’s knee again,
> astonished at what we humans believe
> over and over. And if I forget, and slip
> into the swirl of doubt that loops and lies
> and swallows my mind
> so  the sun goes out,
> and I believe I am separate, 
> helpless and alone …. 
>  
> …then, please, please, let me  
> be courageous in my terror 
> and remember…
> 
> Tonijean Bernbaum
> 
>  
>  <https://facebook.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a8a66e224163c00a3f99a2d28&id=5796bce494&e=4a822a1792>
>  <mailto:blake at snakelyone.com>
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> 215 Main Street
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> 
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