From 2012 Writing From the Senses

FIRST
First check in
I went to a very intense Tibetan retreat this weekend. 

thinking about the prompt “I am coming from…” I am starting to formulate a piece that’s coming from a pretty deep place.

I haven’t gotten one word onto the page yet, but I’m seeing something forming up in my head. I plan to stay with the process, and  hope to turn it into the first installment of a new blog.

SECOND
Stream of consciousness, writing with full permission

The hands give pleasure, give kindness.
Rubbing my face, hoping to heal whatever has visited.
Remembering holding my baby. Especially her less than five minutes old grasping onto my little finger with such amazing force.

And now she is 28 years old. And I will be 68 in less than a month.

Starting to work on the piece that’s forming up about “I’m coming from…”

I’m coming from a weekend retreat with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. Maybe about the tenth year in a row that Mary and I have gone. 

The effect has been cumulative and this one was really powerful. I have so many thoughts and reflections about this. It’s going to take a while for it to unfold and decompress.

It’s percolating in my head and I won’t be able to rest until it starts to unfold.

Hearing the others read I realize I could have tried to capture the subtle sensuous feelings I felt during the hands exercise.

But this story is trying to take precedence.

Sorry.

THIRD
Nomi reads from hers. Playing with the words. She could only show her soul through dance, but then got injured.

FOURTH
Nomi -I really hear your frustration about dance. I can’t talk, or drum (which has been my primary expression since age 6), or dance, which had been a major life saver. But they are all more complex than just a slammed door.

Sent her off on a long share about healing

FIFTH
hearing people’s work from home.
I’m going to write here while they are reading.

I wanted you all to know that this is the second writing class where I have been the only male. It is a great privilege to be allowed this far into each other’s hidden lives. I bring what I learn from being with you all home to my best friend, lover, and wife of 35 years. Among other things, you all nourish my marriage. In exchange I try to model being a man who it is safe to be around at this level of self disclosure. Thank you.

SIXTH
The blockage was so deep I had to stop because it  felt like I had to vomit, which is probably energetically appropriate.

 I was telling Wendy how hurt I felt when I found out what happened with the priest training. I was just trying to speak what I would write in an e-mail accompanying a copy of my journal notes from that day.  Mary said she couldn’t believe that I never spoke to Wendy about what I wrote. It comes up every time I explore possible connections between my speech problem and any sense of having been forcibly silenced or had speech repressed in real life. I had so much of my life’s energy invested in that path, that having it be denied that devious way, I interpreted it as a message from a huge institution that no matter how I tried I could never move into the role that I wanted.

SEVENTH
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