Writing – Page 3 – KM Huber's Blog

In the Presence of Coffee and Oatmeal

Posted on March 16, 2014March 20, 2014 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Spirituality, Writing

Each morning, I drop into a reverie that is becoming more routine than not. It occurs after my meditation and yoga practice but before that meditative state settles into my day.

It is a time in-between, this hour between the dog and the wolf, this waking up to the day where thoughts define what must be done but being present provides the focus.

Breakfast often serves as a bridge for the meditative state to make its way into my day. A steaming bowl of oatmeal and coffee brewing simultaneously reach a point requiring a similar action, to pour.

The thought of pouring defines what is required but being present focuses the thought, which is either to pour almond milk into a steaming bowl of oatmeal or to pour freshly brewed coffee into a mug. If the general thought of pouring swirls between oatmeal and coffee, what was one or the other might just become another.

Such coffee-in-the-oatmeal mornings bring reality to our attention, courtesy of the meditative state. The realization of what has occurred intensifies our focus on what might happen next. This shape shifting of our lives uncovers us.

Give your real being

a chance

to shape your life.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj~

Mindfulness does not multi-task but awakens us to where we are, to what we are doing. It is a snapshot, a jolt of opportunity to consider the untried, the untested. When our real being emerges, it is an hour between the dog and the wolf not so much of reverie but of reality.

I have many coffee-in-the-oatmeal mornings and just recently, I watched a writing life I had envisioned evaporate. The writer I was trying to be was not the writer I am. It was just that basic. I was trying so hard to secure a writing life not meant for me that I almost missed living the writing life I have.

I used to think I wrote because there was something I wanted to say. Then I thought, ‘I will continue to write because I have not yet said what I wanted to say’; but I know now I continue to write because I have not yet heard what I have been listening to.

~Mary Ruefle, “On Secrets”~

I am not a writer of fiction but for years fiction is what I thought I heard yet no center of any story I wrote ever held.

In my poetry, prose crowded meter, and the lines went flat. I did not distinguish what I heard.

Some sentences stand alone until the day they pour into a single paragraph not about one or the other but another, like coffee in oatmeal. For me, this shifting of my writer’s shape is my awakening to the writer I am.

Rather than hearing story or rhyme as one or the other I hear another, a beat in-between, a meditation on the story of a human being, sometimes a verse worthy of song.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

~ J. Krishnamurti ~

Thursday Tidbits: The Gentle Touch

Posted on August 29, 2013 by KM Huber in Spirituality, Thursday Tidbits, Writing

This irregular Thursday Tidbits post features the gentle touch of Craniosacral Therapy (CST) as described in Kate Mackinnon’s From My Heart and Hands. If you have never heard of CST, as I had not, consider this concise definition: “the healing power of a gentle touch” (Mackinnon).

Essentially, CST is based on the body’s innate ability to heal itself; the therapy has a physical as well as energetic component.

Therapists’ hands are trained to feel and monitor changes in the body’s tissues to a very high degree of sensitivity. In the process of monitoring what is happening in the client’s body, therapists’ hands follow change as it occurs rather than making a decision to move a person’s body in any given direction. This is a principal difference between CST and most other therapeutic types of bodywork (Mackinnon).

The term craniosacral involves the cranium and sacrum, the bony features that protect the brain and spinal cord, our central nervous system:

These structures are further supported by membranes that line the bones of the fluid that fills those membranes, which provide cushioning for the brain and spinal cord. The craniosacral system is at the very core of our being; disturbances in the system create disease or disharmony in the body as a whole. Likewise, problems of the body also reflect back to the craniosacral system, putting it under strain (Mackinnon).

The cerebrospinal fluid of the central nervous system is essential to CST for the trained therapist’s hands are able to evaluate how well the body is functioning by feeling the craniosacral rhythm, a gentle motion that can be felt throughout the body.

It would be an injustice to Mackinnon, her book, and CST to attempt to discuss the different facets of this therapy in a blog post. It would also be quite a challenge as Mackinnon deftly explains and explores the many facets of CST. Not only is her book readable but it is an engaging and thoughtful presentation. This is a book I recommend for anyone who wants to know about CST, either as a client or as a professional. Mackinnon covers it all.

She provides an in-depth discussion of a ten-step, CST protocol as well as what to expect in a session and how to prepare for a session. Each chapter includes fascinating case studies of an array of conditions that have been helped by CST. Mackinnon never presents CST as a panacea but rather as a viable, healing modality.

Mackinnon studied with the Upledger Institute, and in addition to discussing the training in various modalities that one should consider requisite in a craniosacral therapist, she includes a fascinating chapter on accessing and using what she refers to as our inner wisdom.

While CST is based upon the premise that our bodies can heal themselves, it does not mean that the body cannot use some support, even from allopathic medicine. Thus, regardless of the healing modality, it is essential to access that information within our bodies, which is not always easy.

There are various practices that help us do just that including tai chi, yoga, meditation, and CST. “We often need support to reach our inner wisdom, to allow us to move beyond our logical or rational minds” (Mackinnon). An increased level of awareness allows us a deeper sensitivity to what is occurring within our physical bodies.

Having had a regular meditation practice for just over a year and for a much shorter time, a yoga practice, I am encouraged daily. Beyond what meditation gives me, I am beginning to see the effects of having a regular yoga practice, especially for discomfort, stiffness, and flexibility. In particular, there has been real progress with the neuropathy in my legs.

CST is not covered by most insurance companies, although it is certainly complementary to allopathic medicine. Craniosacral therapists often are also licensed as massage or physical therapists. Mackinnon provides an excellent glossary and list of resources. The Upledger Institute website is among them.

Perhaps what most convinced me to start looking for a craniosacral therapist is the following from the late Dr. John Upledger: “‘the therapist does not heal or cure. The healing is done by the patient using the help and facilitation of the therapist.’”

I will keep you posted.

(All quotations are from the Hay House print copy of From My Hands and Heart by Kate Mackinnon, 2013. As a Book Nook member, Hay House has provided me a free copy for review. My review is to be posted on my blog as well as on at least one commercial site.)

Thursday Tidbits: Into the Past for the Present

Posted on June 27, 2013June 26, 2013 by KM Huber in Thursday Tidbits, Writing

This week’s Thursday Tidbits considers the past through the lens of the present, as seen through my recent visit to the American Civil War site of the Battle of Natural Bridge, fought on March 6, 1865.

“To dwell in the here and now does not mean you never think about the past, or responsibly plan for the future. The idea is simply not to allow yourself to get lost in regrets about the past or worries about the future. If you are firmly grounded in the present moment, the past can be an object of inquiry, the object of your mindfulness and concentration. You can attain many insights by looking into the past, but you are still grounded in the present moment.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~

Grounded in the present moment, standing on the invading side of the battle site breastworks, caught up in the radiance of a June morning 148 years later, the breastworks and I overlook a river bend, surrounded by dogwoods. We are the anomalies.

I am conscious of lives long past and I am just as aware that my presence, my literal and figurative footprint, is already mingling among those memories. Such is presence among the past.

Memory is always tinted, whatever the reason we recall a moment. What comes to us is tinged, softened around the edges, imprecise. No moment ever plays out exactly as it occurred for we are, and it was.

Each moment we have is a one-time shot whose existence is preserved precisely in the past. The mindful inquiry into the past acknowledges the tinted lens, whether it is the close-up of a personal memory or the wide-angle view of history.

So on a radiant June morning, a still life study in green and light, I tread the dew of a battle site. Although trained as a historian, battles and war are not stories that interest me, yet it is history that has brought me here.

The old woman whose story I am writing discovered a part of her past that stumped me, and this battle site is as physically close to the old woman’s past as I can get. Her connection to the Civil War recalled my initial discovery of the Battle of Natural Bridge.

When I first moved to Florida, I lived near battle fortifications that local legend associates with the natural bridge battle but history has proven otherwise. I always found the legend a great story, and after two years of walking by those fortifications on a daily basis, local legend became my version of the battle.

Now, over a decade later, it is not hard to understand how my fondness for the legend worked its way into the old woman’s story. Yet, the legend did not serve her story but history seems to, so far.

As I look across the still waters of the St. Marks River, I am grateful the old woman’s story has brought me to the actual battle site. It has made for a lovely morning and a memory grounded in the present, an object for inquiry again and again.

Also accompanying me that morning and in the writing of this post was Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” I hope you enjoy the music and the images. Both are worth the status of memory.

Thursday Tidbits are weekly posts that offer choice bits of information to celebrate our oneness with one another through our unique perspectives. It is how we connect, how we have always connected but in the 21st century, the connection is a global one.

Thursday Tidbits: Peace in Relationship and Dystopia

Posted on June 20, 2013June 19, 2013 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Thursday Tidbits, Writing

This week, Thursday Tidbits considers peace in terms of our relationships, as the June post for Bloggers for Peace. I am reminded of Pema Chödrön’s observation that we are always in relationship, even if the only other being in the room is an insect.

We are always in relationship, and the first is with ourselves. Whatever that relationship, it flies as our banner, the basis of our relationship with reality, peaceful or no.

“When you enter deeply into this moment, you see the nature
of reality, and this insight liberates you from suffering and confusion. Peace is already there to some extent: the problem
is whether we know how to touch it.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh~

Our day-to-day relationships are mostly peaceful but not always, for we are human and do not always lead with compassion. Yet, by entering deeply into each moment, we are able to try again, perhaps even to meet one another in acceptance, if not in agreement. Is that not the threshold of peace?

Just recently, I read Piper Bayard’s dystopian thriller, Firelands, a fine novel that raises question after question regarding our relationship with our world.

A cautionary tale, Firelands is as unpredictable as the nature of relationship for we are taken down paths that prove not to be what they seemed but like any master storyteller, Bayard allows her characters to reveal themselves for all that they are and are not.

I am not a frequent reader of post-apocalyptic fiction but as I read Firelands, I was reminded of a favorite Mignon McLaughlin quote: “The hardest learned lesson [is] that people have only their kind of love to give, not our kind.” Bayard’s vision is not a pessimistic one. Rather, it is refreshingly realistic.

In the theocracy of Firelands, we see what a faction-weary world can become for such a world, like ours today, “desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds” (Dalai Lama).

Storyteller Bayard affords us a glimpse into one possibility for our future and offers us the opportunity to look at ourselves now, in our present. But mostly, she takes us to the threshold of peace by reminding us that our story is one of relationship and always will be; to touch the peace within ourselves is to extend it in relationship in any world that comes to pass.

Although this is Piper Bayard’s first book with StoneGate Ink, we can look forward to more fine writing, including a seven-book series written with Jay Holmes. I am a constant reader of their blog, Bayard & Holmes, for their posts are thoughtful and thought-provoking. Often, they reveal a perspective I had not considered.

In Buddha Nature, No Excuse is Necessary

Posted on April 5, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Writing

“The reason everything looks beautiful is
because it is out of balance,
but its background is always in perfect harmony.

This is how everything exists
in the realm of Buddha nature, losing its balance
against a background of perfect balance.

So if you see things without
realizing the background of Buddha nature,
everything appears to be in the form of suffering.

But if you understand the background of existence,
you realize that suffering itself is how we live,
and how we extend our life.”

~Shunryu Suzuki

My blog posts are a bit out of sync for this has been a week of resistance, meaning accepting what is has not come easily. Whenever we resist what is, we suffer, for we hold on and tug at a moment, as if to reshape it and the future, as if we could.

That kind of attachment never works, ultimately. The freedom inherent in every moment is not only more palatable but more realistic, for every moment is framed within the harmony of Buddha nature.

When suffering is viewed through Buddha nature, resistance reveals itself as a struggle against what is being extended to us. If we just open up to whatever the moment is offering us, if we just trust the harmony of Buddha nature, we do not escape suffering nor do we push it away for another day. We accept and move through it.

It is tempting to trot out reasons and excuses for why we resist–some of them are really good stories in and of themselves–yet resistance relies on past moments that are beyond changing, which is not to say those moments may not find themselves in a story. Writing extends life to any moment as a new story playing out within the balance of Buddha nature.

Quite often, I lose my balance in life, unlike the old woman whose story I am writing. She knows her story and accepts Buddha nature as basic but she did not always. Writing a story is secondary to living one but like real life, story plays out on a blank canvas, as choices color each scene, ultimately revealing Buddha nature.

I try to remember the old woman when I slip away from Buddha nature for her story shows me what is possible—no matter what—but unlike the old woman, I do not have the benefit of knowing all my story, not yet. Rather, my advantage is the clean slate that every moment presents to me, as a writer and as an old woman, uncertain in both and curious about what happens next for either.

“Do not try to know the truth, for knowledge by the mind is not true knowledge. But you can know what is not true—which is enough to liberate you from the false. The idea that you know what is true is dangerous, for it keeps you imprisoned in the mind. It is when you do not know, that you are free to investigate. And there can be no salvation, without investigation, because non investigation is the main cause of bondage.”

~Nisargadatta Maharaj

A Matter of Practice

Posted on February 17, 2013February 17, 2013 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Cooper and EmmaRose, Writing

Since I began practicing present moment awareness, I have known dark moments, even despair at times. It’s not as if the mere practice of present moment awareness means all is light for not all is nor ever was.

KMHuber; Dark Moments; Waverly Pond; Tallahassee — KMHuberImage

Present moment awareness allows me to attend the dark and light in me, to place every moment under scrutiny without fear of shattering illusions or poking at beliefs still circumspect. Light only illuminates the truth, even in the dark. There is no need to cling to any moment for any longer than it lasts.

Practicing present moment awareness turns the uncertainty of the unknown into the possibility of opportunity. It is “being here now” as Ram Dass has told us.

In one way or another, I write about present moment awareness in every blog post, perhaps even write around it at times. Yet, within the last couple weeks my present moment awareness practice has changed. Less and less, do I discover myself in past meanders or future scenarios. Dark or light, I am more now than not.

Perhaps it is because I am finally writing the old woman novel, not plotting, considering structure, or writing reams of back story. No, I am telling a story, which requires specificity, focus, “being here now.”

Certainly, some sentences and scenes are more ragged than others in this initial draft, but the present moment awareness of the novel’s world is seeping into my real life practice. That has my attention as well.

When I enter the world of the old woman, I meet her fears–fear moves a story along quite nicely–while her story is not my story, fear is an emotion magnet. When a character reveals fear to me, I am attracted into her moment by my own reservoir of fear.

Some days, the connection with the old woman takes my breath away, and I am blown back in time to one uncomfortable moment after another until I turn my attention to the old woman’s story, the vehicle into and out of my past. Only through the telling of her story am I able to close the doors she opens so easily.

At one time I believed my characters spoke to me but since I began my meditation practice, that belief no longer serves. To be clear, I do not hear voices when I write or when I meditate. It is much quieter than that. Frankly, stillness suits either practice as awareness or mindfulness has a practical application, at least for me.

In my daily meditation practice, there is stillness, a “gap between thoughts” as Deepak Chopra calls it, different than when I write but similar, too. My meditation precedes my writing practice; my mind is quiet as it enters the world of the old woman.

Physically, I am refreshed, deliberate in each hand movement, a uni-tasker, as I do not type. I use voice recognition software to write the story–the only voice I hear is my own–relaying observations and marking moments in an old woman’s life as I come to know her story.

Every day, the hours I spend in my meditation/writing practice increase. It is changing how I am in “the real world,” although I cannot characterize just what the effect is, not yet.

KMHuberImage; Meditation Cat; — KMHuberImage

The only change is that my cat, EmmaRose, now meditates with me more often than not. At five and half pounds, she is more like a neck scarf than a cat around my neck or on my chest. Our meditation posture is a leaning back position rather than the more traditional cross-legged sit–for now. With constant practice comes constant change.

Gifts and Limitations

Posted on December 9, 2012December 9, 2012 by KM Huber in Beyond Time, Consciousness, Writing

In a recent morning meditation from Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening, I read of his playing basketball during high school and college. He assessed his performance with this stunning sentence: “My gifts were enough to hide my limitations.”

In immediate response, my mind sorted its archives to a job interview I had in the late ’80s; I interviewed for a library cataloger position with the library system’s director. Her impression of my resume was, “You’ve had many positions that most people would consider careers.”

Forever naïve, I welcomed her comment as a compliment, freely admitting how wonderful it was to experience as many careers as possible. Not only did I miss her point but I’m not sure that I fully appreciated my own response until I read Nepo’s sentence.

In other words, my gifts were sufficient to let my heart go elsewhere.

The ability to enjoy more than one career seems to be much more accepted in the 21st century. In fact, it may be a necessity. Regardless, there is an emerging awareness that exploring our gifts to their fullest allows us to let go of the dreams that are mere moments of brightness for the one light that is ours alone.

I have been incredibly fortunate in my work as a journalist/editor, a college writing instructor, an administrator and in between, I worked clerical jobs that taught me the immense importance of detail.

For as long as I can remember, writing was in my heart but I never had the courage to experience it. I believed one secured a job to support one’s writing, which wasn’t working out too well for me. Never did I consider “the succession of life’s trials is precisely the unfolding we need to find our bliss and rightful place in the order of things” (Nepo).

Not surprisingly, I did not get the cataloger position but I was later hired as the branch librarian and went on to become the director of the library system. I loved those library years but I could not make them be my dream nor was I the library system’s dream, ultimately. We both looked elsewhere.

It is not that I have not considered my careers from time to time for I have. I am grateful for all that brought me to this moment, for all the unfolding of my gifts that gave me each dream until another dream emerged. I think it kept me curious.

What I never experienced in any of the dream jobs was the joy I experience every time I write. For me, there is nothing like it, and I am completely serious when I say that I come to the writing to find out what happens next. Whatever happens in the writing, I experience it. No longer clinging to what the writing may or may not be, the words and sentences open into the field of infinite possibilities, where joy resides.

Every career brought me moments of happiness but never joy for I was clinging, which is very like trying to touch the wind.

“The truth is that what we want to dream of doesn’t always last. It tends to serve its purpose… And then fades away, losing its relevance. And we can do enormous damage to ourselves by insisting on carrying that which has died” (Nepo).

Only in pursuing our gifts do we meet our limitations, which, I suspect, is the stuff of dreams.

Finding Story Anew

Posted on December 2, 2012December 2, 2012 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Writing

My last two blog posts have been an examination of my current mind-body consciousness, specifically my meditation practice and eating habits. I share Deepak Chopra’s belief that a change in one’s consciousness or awareness affects a change in one’s physiology at the cellular level.

I don’t remember when I did not believe in the mind-body connection but I know that reading Chopra’s Quantum Healing helped me consider what quantum healing may mean for me. I first read the book in the early 1990s and again just recently.

Of course, my current level of awareness is quite different these twenty years later. Then, I was completely attached to outcome—clinging the Buddhists call it—meaning my attention was always focused on the end result. Mostly, I was on a pendulum, swinging back to the past and then to the future without a thought to the moment. No wonder I never felt free.

Becoming aware that the moment is where freedom resides broke me open to Chopra’s “field of infinite possibilities” both physically and spiritually. Now, every facet of my life is fluid as I focus on what is and not what might be, which takes a lot more energy but in every moment, there is more energy.

Nowhere is this more evident than in my writing. When I began blogging, my writing focus was entirely outcome based: I set myself a certain number of words per day, I joined various writing challenges, and I troubled my readers with my angst over whether to plot out a novel scene by scene or just write it out by the seat of my pants. In nine months, I produced 220,000+ words in what I have come to regard as my daily writing practice. It is as valuable as my daily meditation practice, and I don’t regret a word.

I was so attached to the outcome of writing– was it a novel, was it a memoir, was it a compilation of essays–that I abandoned story in search of format or genre. I could not free myself of what my words might become until I settled into the moment to write. One word after another, each sentence emerged from life rather than artifice. I re-discovered how I write.

In writing from the field of infinite possibilities, format/genre didn’t matter nor did structure, which is not to say that format and structure do not matter. They do and are critical to a successful outcome but like story, they have their moments for each writer to discover. For me, that meant having to know my story first, and I wrote in a way I have never written.

Having always appreciated a good story, I was well aware that I did not know the structure of story so I found out from those who did. I read, I watched movies, I discovered scene, and I wrote every day. I began to see snatches of story and I was reminded of John Irving’s response to the question of how he writes: “I start writing my autobiography and then I begin to lie.”

I am writing an old woman story, and I am an old woman. If one can come of age at age 60, this woman does it. I cannot say that she is sympathetic or even likable—yet—but she exists in more faces and more places than is comfortable for any of us. Age or aging is still a thorny subject, and we have many clichés and euphemisms to avoid the word old.

But what can a woman make of a life at 60, if she has just awakened? That does sound rather autobiographical but I was lying before the end of the first paragraph–such is the way of story. For all I know, the old woman story—for lack of a better title–will remain part of my writing practice, as publication is not the outcome it once was for me. It’s too soon to tell.

For now, I go to the writing every day just to see what happens with the old woman for I have not lived her life, although an old woman myself.

When Reality Calls

Posted on November 4, 2012November 4, 2012 by KM Huber in Beyond Time, Writing

Perfect storm Sandy arrived as predicted, forever changing millions of lives, a staggering reality. Three bloggers that I read regularly have written about their new reality–thanks for making the effort to publish your posts–as usual, each of you inspires, making all of us a bit more grateful for you as well as the lives we have.

Poet Anne Michael’s reflective post: “Weather like this is refreshing, my sister says, even if frightening, because people need to be reminded that technology cannot control everything. The hurricane interrupted cell phone use, communication systems, transport networks, traffic, electrical grids. We ended up wet and cold and we needed to take shelter with friends and to share supplies and stories, to wait awhile before we hurry on our way.” Read more….

Bottledworder provides his usual thoughtfulness regarding his reality: “In situations of such magnitude, you’re lucky if you can manage some description with integrity and so I decided to just record what I saw and provide my tiny bit of detail in the great picture of what happened. So here it is.” Read more….

Layla from Cat Wisdom 101 is candid: “I’m not used to being restricted with Wi-Fi but the past few days have taught me not to take anything for granted. Being a hardy Canadian, I’m used to harsh weather but nothing could have prepared me for Sandy. We’ve weathered Nor’easters, power outages, flooding, major trees uprooted but I’ve never wrestled one on one with a force like Sandy.” Read more….

Another blogger is not yet able to get online—Stephanie and her family may be without power for another fifteen days is the latest word—we have been able to communicate via Twitter, on almost a daily basis. True to her generous and kind nature, Stephanie’s last “tweet” of the day is a “shout out” regarding other blogs. She’s like that.

While I am not a fan of Twitter, I have seen remarkable exchanges not only during Super Storm Sandy but during storms/disasters not so perfect or super. The reality of any storm, especially a perfect one, is that its seemingly omnipotence does end, leaving an aftermath of stories, lives forever changed as they rise in resilience.

Not in the path of this super storm, I watched and wondered. I began to consider all of the blogs that I follow and read regularly. Each is an invitation into a world I would have missed if it were not for that blogger. In myriad ways, their perspectives add new dimensions to my reality. I had not considered the world of the blogger in this regard.

And because I, too, respect all the forces that exist beyond humanity’s grasp, I do not want to wait a moment more before acknowledging some of the blogs that expand the universe on a regular basis.

Here are some other blogs that rock my reality:

Adrian Fogelin’s Slow Dance Journal: “I am both wonderful and a genuine waste of skin. Like water I assume the shape of the vessel into which I am poured. And that vessel is your opinion. I can’t be alone in this.” Read more….

August McLaughlin: “Blogs grow along with us. It only makes sense that they’d change as we do.” Read more….

Diana J. Hale: “Their dystopian vision of a world surviving on salvaging rubbish is not such a fantasy as might be thought.” Read more….

Matthew J. Wright: “The only real way to do it was abstract the whole thing – take the shapes out of the context and turn them into something else. A trick that writers use too.” Read more….

Sigrun: “What really impresses me is how Oliver manages to capture the mystery of the world, its vastness and beauty, in very simple, ordinary, everyday words. She makes it sound so easy, but of course we all know that nothing is more difficult than simplicity.” Read more Links….

Let’s all go out and rock a little reality.

Taking a Full Breath

Posted on October 15, 2012October 27, 2012 by KM Huber in Writing

I usually mention “being present” or “being in the moment” in my posts but until I read Elizabeth Mitchell’s inspirational post, I did not realize how often I am my own obstacle. When I read Elizabeth’s words of “get out of your own way,” it occurred to me that I am only in the moment when I am not standing in my own way.

Here is another way to consider it: I am my greatest obstacle when I am least aware that I am aware, the opposite of Michael Singer’s definition of consciousness, “being aware of being aware…the seat of Self.”

When we are in “the seat of Self,” we immerse ourselves in each moment for the experience of it, allowing all of it to pass through us completely, not holding onto a single breath. It is as basic as inhaling and exhaling, the essence of living.

Breathing/living completely requires constant awareness and attention; if we get sidetracked, we attach first to this, then to that and we find ourselves short of breath. Our physiology constricts; our head is over our heart. We need to get out of our own way.

Currently, I am participating in Kristen Lamb’s two-month, online blogging course, which I highly recommend for all bloggers; I am about to engage in writing the initial draft of a second novel; I have a nonfiction manuscript that requires revision; the response to my blog pleases me more and more every day. Every one of these is an opportunity if I breathe fully and do not attach.

Fortunately, I have the luxury of being older as well as being chronically ill, and I’m serious in my application of the word luxury to both advantages.

Aging provides me a considerable archive of experience—albeit one of attachment—yet I pause, mainly because I’ve been there, done that, which is not being present. I catch myself relying on the known, which does not fit as it once did. So, I am considering the class, my writing, and this blog–each for what it is–through perspectives unknown to me. It is taking some time but in understanding that the moment is all I ever have, time is yet another luxury for me.

As I have written numerous times, chronic illness keeps me more in the moment than any resource in my life and as such, I discovered worlds I would never have known, and there are so many more! Every day, I meet people with the most extraordinary stories, constant sources of inspiration and information.

Always, I am grateful for my readers and for the incredible insight that so many of you reveal in your comments as well as in your correspondence with me. Frankly, your response is humbling and energizing. It keeps me on the search for blog post topics. Truly, I thank you.

As I reorganize and reconstruct, I am taking a break from blogging, returning on October 28. As usual, Mark Nepo succinctly describes the coming and going that is living:

“Being human, there are endless times we need to be still and as many times that we need to move. But much of our confusion as modern citizens comes from trying to have the one we are more comfortable with substitute for the other.”

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