…I find my inspiration lagging. A topic of focus for today’s post eludes me. “Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful.” A whole assortment of quotes from Beckett’s Waiting for Godot might be appropriate for today, but that was the first one that came to mind. It’s not exactly true of my Tuesday thatContinue reading “On the Twenty-eighth Day of 2025…”
Tag Archives: mental health
On the Sixteenth Day of 2025…
…you replace the batteries in your blood pressure machine and almost first thing in the morning, as everything is pretty much chill, you get the highest reading you have seen since that New Year’s Eve gig seven years ago when, against all common sense, you took a reading while you were fuming about how yourContinue reading “On the Sixteenth Day of 2025…”
On the Eighth Day of 2025. . .
. . . while my friends in the east and the middle are freezing off their nards, and my Southern California friends are guarding against wildfires, here in the Pacific Northwest, during a miraculous dry spell of three straight days and counting, I worked in the yard today wearing a t-shirt. Today was one ofContinue reading “On the Eighth Day of 2025. . .”
Turning 60!
I’m writing on the occasion of my 60th birthday, December 4, 2024. We ascribe a special significance to those birthdays that begin a new decade. Something in us needs a marker, a milestone, a number with a zero at the end. We like that. I think it’s true that the last time I wrote aboutContinue reading “Turning 60!”
On the Ninth Day of 2024: Just Sit and Breathe
Sometimes meditation is difficult. You’d think it’d always be easy; after all, one just sits and breathes. Right? How hard can that be? Most of us do a lot of sitting. And all of us are breathing all the time. Here’s the thing–our breathing (for the most part) is not a conscious choice that weContinue reading “On the Ninth Day of 2024: Just Sit and Breathe”
On the Fifth Day of 2024: Meditation Method
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. Ralph Waldo Emerson Stuff coming out, stuff going in. I’m just a part of everything. Peter Gabriel My meditation practice, as I discovered it some twenty-three years ago now, has been to sit in silence, either alone or with a group. EvenContinue reading “On the Fifth Day of 2024: Meditation Method”
#464: They say, it’s okay to be not okay . . .
Happy day 23 of National Poetry Writing Month, and in my particular case, welcome back to the April sonnet marathon extravaganza. In this final stretch I have been freely messing with the form: blank verse sonnets, odd rhyme scheme sonnets, 15 line-long sonnets, and wonky, iambically-challenged sonnets. Today I’m returning to rhyme in the biggestContinue reading “#464: They say, it’s okay to be not okay . . .”
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?”
Final Exam: The Visitor
Let’s say, you’re beginning class for your seniors in Creative Writing on the very last day of the school year, their final exam. Let’s say you have asked them to do this relatively simple but quite risky thing, to read a piece of their fiction out loud to the class. Okay. And let’s say thatContinue reading “Final Exam: The Visitor”
michael jarmer 