A burst pipe (circa 1930) in the basement necessitates the removal of 40 some years of accumulated stuff buried in a storage closet we fondly refer to as “the scary room.” There’s a bunch of shit in there, we know, that needs to go, stuff that’s doing no one any good. Now that we’ve hadContinue reading “Stuff, Stuff, Stuff; the Excavation and Removal (?) of Stuff; Holding On To or Letting Go of the Record of Me”
Category Archives: Self Reflection
Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: June 12, 2018
Please excuse my absence. After 30 poems over the 30 days of April, one needs a little rest. But on top of all that, I’ve been having a transformative experience. On Sunday, May 20, I came down from the mountaintop. My hair turned white and now looks blown back by a great force of energyContinue reading “Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: June 12, 2018”
#292: Two Sides (a Dialogue with Self)
Recently, I was thinking about self talk, or, literally, the act of talking out loud to oneself, and decided finally, even though I suspected it all along, that it is a necessary and healthful behavior. I mean, what’s the signature feature of Shakespeare’s soliloquies? To me, the key feature of a Shakespeare soliloquy, beyond theContinue reading “#292: Two Sides (a Dialogue with Self)”
#285: A Poem Against Nothing
During meditation practice today I wrote some words and phrases on two notecards in response to the following three meditative prompts: Nothing, Form, and Intention. As a writer, I live in the world of specificity, concrete detail, or in ideas expressed explicitly and with clarity. Sometimes I struggle with some of the more esoteric aspectsContinue reading “#285: A Poem Against Nothing”
If I Am Not My Body and I Am Not My Mind, Who Am I?
Sometimes I have difficulty with the more woo woo aspects of mindfulness practice. I tend to think about my meditation, for example, in pretty straight forward terms. I sit. I close my eyes. I breathe. I pay attention to the breath. If my mind wanders, I notice that, and then I try to bring myContinue reading “If I Am Not My Body and I Am Not My Mind, Who Am I?”
Mindfulness in 2017: A Reflection
Here’s the new year’s resolution I made two years ago for 2016: I resolve in 2016 to be more mindful, to find opportunities daily for meditation practice, and to seek out a community, some companionship on the journey. This resolution was a resounding success. I found myself a community that still meets two years laterContinue reading “Mindfulness in 2017: A Reflection”
Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: October 20, 2017
October 11th of last week was Oregon’s official teacher in-service day. In our school district, the day is unofficial, in that it’s no longer a paid work day. Somehow during negotiations that took place more than a decade ago now, the paid in-service day was bargained away in exchange for some other mysterious but beneficialContinue reading “Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: October 20, 2017”
Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: The Next Frontier
Remember that on July 3rd we campers were treated here at Mt. Holyoke College to a fireworks display of stupendous proportions. Yesterday, on the 4th of July, it was quiet. I’m not kidding. After the reading I sat on an Adirondack chair in the dark sipping whiskey in the middle of the lawn and IContinue reading “Dispatches from Writer’s Camp: The Next Frontier”
100 Consecutive Days of Meditation Practice; 31 Days Without Sugar, Dairy, Grains, Legumes, Alcohol, and Soy; It’s Spring!
Today my Insight Timer, an iphone app that keeps track of how many consecutive days and how many minutes and hours one spends in meditation practice, confirmed for me the 100th consecutive day of sitting for at least 10 minutes, every other Sunday as much as an hour, on a cushion. Today I have setContinue reading “100 Consecutive Days of Meditation Practice; 31 Days Without Sugar, Dairy, Grains, Legumes, Alcohol, and Soy; It’s Spring!”
Finding My Way Back to Courage
At the turn of the new year in 2016, I resolved to live more mindfully, and in January I joined a local meditation group. A year and some months later, the group still meets every other week, is facilitated by a super competent, compassionate and knowledgeable guy who earns his living as a hypnotherapist. We spendContinue reading “Finding My Way Back to Courage”
michael jarmer 