Non-Fiction by Vicki Milewski
My writing is another expression of abstract experientialism--I take experiences and abstract them. As a published non fiction writer, I have been moving further into creative non fiction. Creative non-fiction allows me to have fun with some of the profound experiences I write about and bring more readers to these pieces.
by
Vicki Milewski
TELL
by
Vicki Milewski
TELL
A fascinating story of cross-cultural collaboration between people who dreamt of each other and then found one another; continuing dream exploration finding the most sacred ceremony is living one’s life.
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A simple story of three people dreaming of one another, finding one another, learning from one another.
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An exceptional movement forward for what has been called the New Age Movement. A connection point between spiritual seekers, environmentalist, conservationists, nationalists and globalists as we move ever closer to a universal perception of life.
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In this fascinating work of creative non-fiction, the missing piece of rituals and ceremonies is offered through stories, experiences and narrative that show the importance of intent and connection to spirit when choosing to enact the most sacred ceremony of living one’s life. Materialism, surface-oriented relationships and the ruts compacting our inability to participate in our own ceremonies are shown as the facades that can be transmuted if we first learn to disarm ourselves of our fears. It is not transcendence or a radical departure from our day to day lives which is examined; instead, it is a full embrace of who we are in the lives we are living right now.
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Combining Einstein, Joseph Campbell, Nag Hamadi texts and first hand experiences into a new comparative mythology which accepts the current myths we all write about our lives as valuable and indispensible as the book of Genesis, Milewski exposes her memories, dreams and experiences to create a revolution of self. Songs, illustrations, photos, paintings and layout choices belie the artist in Milewski and her award-winning art and artist book works
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An excerpt from TELL:
She needed stars in new constellations to study.
Joe continues thoughtfully, “Joseph Campbell said that ‘every moment of time bursts free from the fetters of the moment before’ which is true to a point since each moment is linked through our memories, through our experience, like links in a chain we can be fettered to the past if we do not move fully into the present. But it is also more an awakening to those linkages that breaks the fetters of being asleep to our life and to the time we spend living it. To live in the present is to also break those fetters of the past and the future since both can hold us fast to an illusion of what was and what could be instead of living what is.
“But you cannot slay your past self just as you cannot slay your future self since all are you. The past, if remembered accurately and through the lens of the present, is the instructor; the future is the instruction learned which makes the present the act of learning, dissolving any illusion of time revolving with myriad choices seen as outcomes and forever in a state of change.
“You and I have embarked on such a path; it may be lonely since no one has yet to walk this path. But once we clear the way many will come to know it and then have to find their own unmarked trail, their undestined outcome.”
Gems
Beneath Our Feet
by
Vicki Milewski
Gems Beneath Our Feet
by
Vicki Milewski
In Progress
Simply put Gems Beneath Our Feet is a sequel of sorts to TELL. The story begins on Mt Shasta and moves forward from there. The title comes from a moment standing in a gravel parking lot that had crushed rubies, sapphires and quartz showing me beauty and value are everywhere.
Essays, Articles,
Academic Works
by Vicki Milewski
TELL
by
Vicki Milewski
Red Blood
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Teaching High School
at the
Turn of the
21st Century
by
Vicki Milewski
Red Blood Blue Souls:
Teaching High School at the Turn
of the 21st Century
by
by Vicki Milewski
Blue Souls
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Teaching High School
at the
Turn of the
21st Century
by
Vicki Milewski
At its heart Red Blood Blue Souls: Teaching in an Urban School at the Turn of the 21st Century is about what schools are for.
10 students from Vicki Milewski's Communications School (Originally the Radio & Television Broadcasting School) are introduced including their information from school, DCFS and arrest records combined with Milewski's personal experiences with these 10 students and their families, friends and community in order to make sense of what works and what does not. Readers are given snapshots of these 10 students that may cover one day or four years. Each student adds to the answer of what schools are for.
Red Blood Blue Souls captures the moment before Chicago's notorious Robert Taylor Homes Housing Projects were demolished. The 28 buildings 16 stories high across the street from Milewski's school were filled with gangs, single mothers, violence but also loving families, aspiring children and communities. These disparities are what the 10 highlighted students of Red Blood Blue Souls have to navigate in order to make their way toward their own futures.
This is the moment before charter schools and welfare reform and yet the same problems that created space for those events still remain.
Red Blood Blue Souls is an ideal read for parents and students and individuals interested in education, teaching, school reform and the system which surrounds students.
The book is in two parts. RED is the cover (and yes it is red in color) and the subtitle on the facing page is RED blood
The first chapters of when I first started teaching are found in the front part of the book.
Then on the back of the cover is BLUE (and yes it is blue in color) BLUE is written upside down to the way RED is written and this part of the book is all written upside-down to the front part. BLUE can read as a stand alone book from front to middle where it intersects with RED. The Chapter about Blue, the student, begins the BLUE section. On the facing page is the subtitle BLUE souls.
The way the two books meet is one page upside-down the other is right-side up in the middle of the book.
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Summer Jobs Program run by Vicki Milewski's Communications School
by Vicki Milewski
There's Only One
There's Only One
by
Vicki Milewski
There's Only One: Coastal Plain is an homage about why a Wisconsinite works to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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Through the retelling of experiences Milewski has had in dreaming about the Refuge, lobbying for protection of the coastal plain in the Refuge and explaining to others why such protection matters; Milewski weaves together a new way to approach conservationism while making a good case for the 1002 area--the coastal plain of the Refuge to be protected as a wilderness area.
Essays, Articles, Academic Works
by Vicki Milewski
I have many essays, articles and other shorter non-fiction works that have been published. Please visit vickimilewski.academia.edu/ for a glance at some of these and others.
You can also read one of my pieces concerning the state of wilderness designated areas during this Age of Man or Anthropocene Era inspired by architect Vito Acconici and called The Little Green Housing Project: 21st Century Wilderness Architecture