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SUMMARY:Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue  3/15/24
DESCRIPTION:photograph by Elizabeth Domike \n  \nOpen Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue \n  \n  \nMarch 15\, 2023 \n  \nOut breath \nand in breath— \nknow that they are \nproof that the world \nis inexhaustible. \n  \n—Ryōkan  (1758-1851) \n* \n  \nYoga \n  \nYoga is Love \n  \nThere are many ways to learn how to tolerate being uncomfortable. \n  \nYoga has been one of those ways for me.  I’d taken a few classes here and there and watched Lilias! as a teenager. I read then\, too\, voraciously about the austerities that the yogis performed along with some Buddhist texts. But it wasn’t until 1999 that I found myself going to a yoga class at my gym with a girlfriend of a work colleague who didn’t want to go alone. \n  \nIt was that one class and the most unusual teacher\, an older fellow\, shaggy beard\, who had been teaching martial arts until he was involved in a car accident from which he learned to rehabilitate himself from\, by practicing yoga. Not your normal teacher in a gym\, for him it was a short-term gig but after that first class I took every class he taught until one day he was gone. \n  \nHis replacement was a Russian woman in her 30’s who came over on a visa to compete in fitness competitions and found a way to stay. Born is Siberia\, trained as a grade schoolteacher she was able to have tea with our original teacher and find out the bones of what he had been teaching us. \n  \nSome classes we would spend an hour on our feet\, another day\, our necks. \n  \nMy partner at the time told me after maybe the second class that he liked that I was going\, which was unusual as he was a bit particular about time with me. He said I will take you any time you want to go\, you are so much “nicer” afterwards. \n  \nOlga\, my new teacher\, did (and does) not have the common American affliction of low self-esteem. \n  \nAfter teaching at the gym for six months she told us she had engaged studio space nearby and was going to teach independently and had found a new teacher for herself and was transitioning from a more fitness-based style to a spine and breath centered style that was developed in India and transmitted to her teacher there. \n  \nOver the next four years she trained with him while we followed her around from studio space to studio space until she was fully certified as a yoga therapist and opened her own dedicated studio. \n  \nI was happy taking class from her and at my local studio for the next 13 years.   \n  \nThat is what I did\, I worked\, I wrote and read poetry and practiced yoga. Always curious\, but (for a number of reasons) not interested in traveling either to India or to high priced retreats or trainings. I read\, asked questions\, and attended a few local workshops with visiting “master” teachers. Including Olga’s own\, Gary Kraftsow. He trained in India with the family that trained BKS Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois. \n  \nOlga finally started grandfathering me into her classes and workshops for teachers because I wanted to know stuff. \n  \nIt was kind of a joke\, just me\, the perpetual student\, and all the teachers. Eventually though it became clear that the only way I was going to retain the Sanskrit and more esoteric teachings was to take on the challenge to teach them myself. I took that training and began\, much to my surprise\, to teach right away\, at work\, of all places. \n  \nAfter all those years of showing up and taking class and feeling better in my body and avoiding injury and helping my nervous system stay on an even keel\, I realized that I loved sharing the teachings with others. \n  \nThe movement\, the meditation\, the breathing\, the profound deep relaxation. This isn’t a metaphor\, teaching for me is love. I love the folks who show up for class and I love being there as a guide for them into their own journey of discovery. Of course\, I have my own practice\, separate from teaching as well. \n  \nHow many of us have the opportunity to fall in love every weekday over and over\, in love with the shared experience\, in love with the creativity (I now read a poem at the end of my morning classes)\, in love with the community the classes provide\, in love with the intoxicating flow during class that is like taking a vacation from the doubts and tribulations of our lives as they are these days? \n  \nEach practice is new\, even if the movements are similar. Each day is new\, the body is a mystery manufacturing plant\, astonishing in its ability to throw us for a loop and catch us as we spiral around back towards balance and integration once again. \n  \nIn the intervening years discomfort has been there\, always a companion\, but so has the yoga. \n  \nI can vaguely make them out\, holding hands\, heading along the path ahead that leads towards the mystery just over the next rise; the one to which we all one day will return. \n  \n–Elizabeth Domike \n* \n  \nWalk so that your footprints bear only the marks of peaceful joy and complete freedom. To do this\, you have to learn to let go – let go of your sorrows\, let go of your worries. That is the secret of walking meditation.  \nWalk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. \n                                                                                   —Thich Nhat Hanh \n  \nWhen I was 11 years old\, in the course of a devastating accident\, I had an out-of-body experience. 30 years later\, parasailing in Hawaii\, I recognized the perspective. From a great height I could view my entire neighborhood. I could see residents coming out of their houses and running in the direction of some intense  activity happening far below me. After a time\, I heard distant screaming. Then\, it was me screaming. \n  \nI might have been unconsciously trying to assimilate this experience a couple of years later when my mother came home from her book club with Forever Young\, Forever Healthy\, by Indra Devi; a kind of autobiography with instructions in the practice of yoga asanas. Devi had been the wife of a Czech diplomat in India. She had become an Indian movie star (hence the name) and had convinced the famous yogi Krishnamacharya to take her as a student—perhaps making her the first woman ever accepted into a yoga ashram. Years later\, she opened a studio in Hollywood and taught yoga to movie stars and other famous people. Her book was a success and she followed it up with Yoga For Americans\, a six week yoga course in book form. I was intrigued and began a practice of the asanas\, which has continued more-or-less unbroken for 60 odd years. \n  \nDevi made some reference to the meditative aspect of yoga\, but it was an encounter with another book\, Autobiography of a Yogi\, by Paramahansa Yogananda\, that convinced me to adopt yoga—an idiosyncratic yoga to be sure—as my way of life. Devi’s yoga was basically exercise. She taught a progressive series of asanas adapted for Western people. Yogananda\, on the other hand\, created a syncretic religion focused on meditation and the attainment of “cosmic consciousness” or “oneness with God.” He named it Self-Realization Fellowship. \n  \nIn the hyperbolic language of yogic literature\, dedicated practice gives the yogi power over life and death. The authoritative Yoga Sutras lists eight primary siddhis\, or magical powers\, and many minor ones. Yogananda tells intoxicating stories of healings\, appearing in two places at once\, walking through walls\, stalling passenger trains\, and having casual conversations with God\, whether in the form of Krishna\, Jesus\, Buddha\, or an articulate glowing light. This was heady stuff for a 13 year old nerdy American boy with no athletic prowess and a considerable capacity for self-depreciation\, and I became a committed “devotee.” \n  \nAs the months and years went by\, I noticed that I wasn’t feeling particularly integrated or powerful. While some “meditative experiences” did occur\, I actually seemed to be moving in the opposite direction. I was not becoming more integrated\, but less. At first I attributed this dissolution to weakness in my practice\, but as time went on the Buddhist analysis of the self and of the intention of meditation seemed to confirm my experience. (This is\, of course\, an extremely condensed picture of my development.) At the university I encountered the Prajnaparamita literature and the Mahayana teachings of emptiness\, no-self\, and dependent origination or interbeing. \n  \nIn 1968 I was drafted. The United States involvement in Vietnam was surging\, and the anti-war movement was in full oppositional flower. Now\, the first axiom of Yoga\, philosophically and in practice\, is ahimsa or harmlessness—“not to injure any creature by thought\, word or deed”—and I applied for Conscientious Objector status\, ascribing my dissent to this principle. As part of my application\, I had to gather reference letters from as many people as possible. To my genuine surprise\, the Self Realization Fellowship refused to support my appeal. The flamboyant Yogananda\, with his long hair and ocher robe\, had perhaps wisely required his followers to assume a conservative demeanor. The small organization did not want to become the object of government scrutiny. (Conversely\, they may have actually believed in so-called conservative values.)  \n  \nAn FBI agent was assigned to my case. He spoke with friends and neighbors\, teachers\, acquaintances\, and\, in the end\, he concluded I was sincere. The local draft board turned me down. I appealed to the State Board. An investigation followed; again the investigator concluded I was sincere and the board refused me. This sequence was repeated with the National Board and a Presidential appeal. I was able to read through these various reports due to the Freedom of Information Act. I steeled myself to go to prison. One evening\, a friend  advised me to write to my senator\, Henry “Scoop” Jackson\, a hawkish Democrat who was a strong supporter of US involvement in Vietnam. I felt it was futile\, but I wrote to him stating that I thought an injustice was about to occur. To everyone’s surprise\, Jackson asked that my  case be reviewed. Two days later I received my Conscientious Objector status. Thus yogic ahimsa was made a precedent in claiming CO standing. \n  \nThere are many stories about how yoga came into the world. One of my favorites is that Shiva\, the Lord of Yoga\, created all the forms of life by assuming the appropriate asana for each being. The practice of yoga asanas is an act of identifying with the god\, and through him identifying with all creation. In a typical asana session one becomes a dog\, a cat\, a frog\, a cobra\, an eagle\, a mythic hero\, a baby Krishna\, a tree—even an abstract being such as a triangle. There is no limit to the possibilities of identification. \n  \nTo me\, the practice of Hatha Yoga is a form of meditation\, no different from sitting still or from the  practice of walking described in the quotation above. It should never be done as mere exercise or as a bitter medicine that is supposed to be good for one. I think it’s hilarious when someone refers to me as “disciplined.” For me\, yoga is play\, something so enjoyable I begin to smile the moment my foot kisses the mat. I never hurt myself “doing my yoga”. I don’t stretch or pull my muscles beyond my capacity. Whether in sitting meditation or in asana practice\, I like the sports phrase “playing the edge”—testing one’s limits without trying to go beyond them. Hanging out\, exploring the edge of possibility\, that edge expands without effort. Ahimsa\, the first principle of Yoga\, applies to oneself as well as others.  \n  \nAlthough I studied yoga somewhat extensively\, I was not one of those western pioneers of the ‘60s who journeyed to the east and practiced at the feet of the gurus. I remained in America\, was a dilentantic student at best\, and devoted more time to the study and practice of theater than to Indian metaphysics. Any interpretations I have of Yoga or of Buddhist theory and practice are likely\, in the language of Harold Bloom\, to constitute a misreading. Nevertheless I am bold enough to claim to be a yogi with a small “y”.  The study and practice of Yoga as I understood it has been an unqualified blessing in my life. Whether “kissing the Earth with my feet” or turning the World topsy turvy by standing on my head\, I find stability in insecurity and certainty in not-knowing. To anyone who thinks of yoga as a remote or inaccessible regimen\, I invite you in this moment to bring your attention to how you are sitting (or standing) and breathing. In a moment of attention without any effort to improve\, you can experience yoga\, which is the ending of division and conflict.  \n  \n—Howard Thoresen \n* \n  \nI initially began a serious yoga practice shortly after the birth of my first daughter. It began as an escape. I had gone from an independent\, young woman pursuing my education and supporting myself\, to partnered with a child in a short time. I was looking for something that could be mine. Looking back\, I see I needed to grieve for my life before children—for my former identity—and I was searching for a way to complete my metamorphosis. I was looking to relieve the spiritual suffering I couldn’t articulate at the time.  \n  \nI met a woman teaching Kundalini yoga. I was drawn in from the first class and started going as often as I could. I liked using mantras and the resonance of speaking these new and foreign powerful words aloud and in community. It felt like tangible strength. I was reconnecting. I was breathing and transforming. And with a flexibility of body comes a flexibility of mind.  \n  \nThroughout the years my practice ebbed and flowed. I went from Kundalini to Ashtanga to shadow yoga and back to Ashtanga. There were times I was practicing daily separated by periods with little to no time on the mat. But yoga has been a part of my life since that first class. There is asana and there is everything else. It is the inner practices of yoga (concentration\, meditation) that have been the most profound for me. What is striking about yoga to me is its ability to gently guide. I make better\, more conscious decisions\, as a yogini.  \n  \nIn 2018\, I traveled to Kathmandu to become a certified yoga and meditation teacher. I had no intention of teaching. I simply desired to dive deep and solidify what I began so many years ago – to take a new shape as a person content with the unknown. I am happy\, as I now understand that gratitude and presence is love in action and are accessible any time.  \n  \nYoga has now led me to the healing potential of Ayurveda and I am now an Ayurvedic Wellness Counselor\, committing myself to a life of balance and wonder. I continue to practice meditation daily and asana on a regular basis and imagine I will do so for the rest of the days within my one wild and precious life.  \n  \nIn gratitude and light \n—Nicole Rush
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/meditation-mindfulness-dialogue-3-15-24/
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SUMMARY:The Nonstop Love-In by Johnny Stallings
DESCRIPTION:  \nDear Friends! \nI’m excited to be publishing my first book! The Nonstop Love-In: poems\, stories\, essays & other writings is published by Open Road Press.  \nThere was a Book Launch at Ross Island Grocery & Cafe on March 23\, 2024. There was a Book Reading & Signing at Belmont Books\, in Portland\, on April 17. \nYou can buy a copy of the book from Belmont Books.  \nMultnomah County Library has ordered 12 copies. You can place a hold now! It’s also available as an ebook from Multnomah County Library\, or on Kindle from Amazon. \nYou can order a copy of the book from Open Road Press. Make out your check for $20 (includes shipping) to “Open Road Press” and mail it to:  \nOpen Road Press  \n4110 SE Hawthorne Blvd.\, PMB 268  \nPortland\, OR  97214 \n  \nYou can also get a copy by emailing me at: \nstallingsjohnny@gmail.com. \n  \nThe book can be ordered from the websites of: \nIngramSpark \nPowell’s \nBarnes & Noble \nAmazon \n  \nA portion of the proceeds goes to Open Road Press to seed future publications. \nThe release date was Saturday\, March 23rd\, 2024.  \nWe had a great Book Launch that very evening at Ross Island Grocery & Cafe. It was a total Love-In! \n  \nFrom the back cover: \n  \nIf you know Johnny\, you will love this book. If you don’t\, after reading\, you will want to meet him—by reading this book. Who else can provide such a good-humored\, big-hearted\, modern Socratic quest into the nature of human happiness\, and the myriad paths to finding joy? Johnny lived in India—and in the remote Eastern Oregon town of Ashwood. He’s spent years in prison—as a generous visitor creating dialog circles to bring lively thought to shadowed lives. And all the time he was writing these zesty morsels of insight\, poem\, story\, meditation\, and manifesto just for you. \n  \n—Kim Stafford\, author of As the Sky Begins to Change  \n  \nGet your copy today!  \nMakes a great gift! \n  \npeace\, love & happiness \n  \nJohnny
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/how-to-order-the-nonstop-love-in/
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SUMMARY:peace\, love\, happiness & understanding  4/4/24
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \nTHE OPEN ROAD \npeace\, love\, happiness & understanding \n  \nApril 4\, 2024 \n  \nCreativity! \n  \nKim sent some helpful words on the subject of creativity by Martha Graham\, a couple of poems\, and an essay: \n  \nLetter from Martha Graham to Agnes deMille \n  \nThere is a vitality\, a life force\, a quickening that is translated through you into action\, and because there is only one of you in all time\, this expression is unique. \nAnd if you block it\, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it.  \nIt is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly\, to keep the channel open. \nYou do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. \nKeep the channel open… \nNo artist is pleased… \nThere is no satisfaction whatever at any time.\nThere is only a queer\, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest. \n  \n(Martha Graham was a revolutionary dancer and choreographer in New York in the mid-twentieth century\, here writing a letter to her friend Agnes deMille) \n* \n  \n                       Wild Visioning \n  \nThey say her name is Susan\, and she holds these  \n“Why not?” sessions somewhere east\, up the Gorge.  \nShe’ll ask\, Why should we believe only one can say\,  \n“I have a dream…”? She says\, “Why have freedom  \nif we don’t sing out loud the best we could ever say?” \n  \nSo they practice wild imagining. People get fierce  \nand joyful\, saying\, “What if I…What if we…?”  \nThey start with dark news\, and turn it inside out.  \nThey vision\, then they plan\, and then they act.  \nOnce they shake things up\, they’re hard to stop. \nThey summon mayors. Then city councils catch \nthe fever. Then voters start to see things otherwise. \nSome friends went to learn what it’s all about. They  \nnever came back. Now they’re comets\, lighting  \nour way across the sky. —And you? And I? \n  \n* \n  \n           How to Make a Poem \n  \nLet it open like a flower—but you won’t  \nneed the bud\, blossom\, scent\, or petals. \n  \nLet it beat like a heart—without naming \nanatomy\, blood\, valves\, counting the pulse. \n  \nLet it be warm as sunlight fingering  \nthrough storms to find you shivering. \n  \nAnd may it address the world of silences\,  \nof kinship short a few right words. \n  \nNow take down the scaffold. Let it grow  \nby brevity: Open hearts warm the world. \n  \n* \n  \nKim does a good deed every day. He writes a poem. In addition to being a writer\, Kim has been a teacher of writing for many years. He is a treasure trove of ideas on this subject. He even sent an essay on someone else’s essay!: \n  \nCreativity \nHow Naomi Shihab Nye does it…for example in her essay “Maintenance” \n  \nShe likes eccentrics and she remembers details about them. She looks at her subject—housework\, order\, maintenance—sideways\, while looking directly at people. The essay begins as a catalog of people\, with each including observation\, location\, dialog\, and now and then an oblique observation on maintenance\, and the deeper meaning of maintenance: keeping a place for the life of the spirit. \n  \nOne trick is to keep changing categories as a way of keeping the range of interest broad\, the opportunity to include rich details wide\, the essay in the realm of daily life: “Barbara has the best taste of any person I’ve ever known—the best khaki-colored linen clothing\, the best books\, the name of the best masseuse.” \n  \nThe narrative voice can move from one topic to another—maintenance\, feminism: “I never felt women were more doomed to do housework than men; I thought women were lucky. Men had to maintain questionably pleasurable associations with less tangible elements—mortgage payments\, fan belts and alternators\, the IRS. I preferred songs\, and the way people who washed dishes immediately became exempt from after-dinner conversation.” \n  \nShe takes every opportunity to bring detail to her sentences: on Thoreau\, “A wealthy woman with a floral breakfast nook once told me I would ‘get over him\,’ but I have not—documented here\, I have not.” \n  \nAnd she lets Marta Alejandro have the last word. “Is your house still as big as it used to be?” \n  \n—Kim Stafford \n  \n(If you want a copy of Naomi Shihab Nye’s essay “Maintenance\,” let me know and I can mail or email it to you.)—JS \n* \n  \nActor\, writer and director Keith Scales sent a couple of quotes and a poem on the subject of creativity: \n  \nHere’s from William Faulkner’s Nobel prize acceptance speech: \n  \n(His output was the result of) “a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit\, not for glory and least of all for profit\, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something that did not exist before.”   \n  \nThe Choice \n  \nThe intellect of man is forced to choose \nperfection of the life\, or of the work\, \nAnd if it take the second must refuse \nA heavenly mansion\, raging in the dark. \nWhen all that story’s finished\, what’s the news? \nIn luck or out the toil has left its mark: \nThat old perplexity an empty purse\, \nOr the day’s vanity\, the night’s remorse. \n  \n—W.B. Yeats \n  \nAnd: \n  \n“Don’t talk about it or you’ll lose it:” \n  \n—Ernest Hemingway\, from The Sun Also Rises \n  \n—Keith Scales \n  \n* \n  \nDeborah Buchanan wrote about her creative process: \n  \nMy Process of Creativity \n  \nI waste a lot of time. I do the laundry. I cook something. I procrastinate—I’m a champion at waiting for another hour\, another day\, maybe another lifetime. All the while I am pondering\, turning ideas and phrases over in my head. Or maybe I turn my attention aside and let whatever the idea is gestate in darkness. Many\, many slips of paper with little notes on them. Look at my kitchen counter right now—phrases\, words\, topics\, the beginnings of poems. Some I come back to and a flash happens. Other times I wonder\, What could I have been thinking? I listen for a dream. In fact\, some of my best poems began as a dream\, a voice that spoke to me. In all this\, time doesn’t matter. Some poems wait for years\, others die on the vine. All of that is okay. I remind myself that Stanley Kunitz wasn’t particularly prolific—he said he only wrote a poem that spoke to him\, he didn’t force things. There is also a quote from Theodore Roethke that I have repeated to myself countless times. It goes something like this: “A poet spends his life standing outside in the rain\, waiting for the lightning to strike.” A perfect image in the Northwest.  \n  \nHere is one poem I wrote about the process. \n  \nHer Gaze Never Drops \n  \nThe muse is angry\, \nher words sting\, \nshe wants to be inside you\,  \na deep place you rarely find. \nIt is like a seed\, the shell broken. \nThrough the cracks\, words. \nHere\, this is yours\,  \nsee the clear tunnel. \nWhere have you been? \n  \nThe fist can be hot\, the sound hard. \nWe stand in the open\,  \ncrackling vibrations around us\, \nlistening our only option. \n  \nAnother poem\, which comes with a story. Many years ago I was at the Gurukula Botanical Reserve in India’s Western Ghats. Wolfgang was showing me around\, plant lover to plant lover. When we were in the orchid area he pointed to some dirt and said\, “This is where the underground white orchid flower blooms.” Well\, as an earth sign I went wild. I tried and tried to write a poem about that. Only nine years later as I was at a workshop and learning about the fungus on plant roots did an idea come. This is the result. \n  \nwhite orchid \n  \nwaxy petals unfurl slowly against the tropical earth pale insects burrow in \ndrawn by fragrance escaping molecule by molecule through soft loam \nsurrounding the tendril of whitened stem piercing soil branching off \na flower then another creeping underground this life unseen unheeded \nabove ground our life drawing sustenance from the dark explosion \n  \nAnd a final story and poem. One summer I spent a week camping out on the Zumwalt Prairie as part of Fishtrap’s annual workshop. In a discussion I used the phrase retroactive prayers. A friend said\, What a great poem idea. Again\, many years passed and I couldn’t think of any way to use those two words. Then this last winter I wrote the following poem as part of a song cycle. \n  \nSo my advice: Pay attention to suggestions\, forget time\, let the world offer itself to you.  And delete\, delete\, delete. \n  \nRetroactive Prayers \n  \nMoist pads on frog feet turn leathery\,  \nstreams and ponds evaporate\, \nwater’s flow drains\, then vanishes. \n  \n     We didn’t think of them\, we turn trying to see \n  \nAnts and beetles\, roaches and worms too numerous  \nto count\, all refugees from untallied worlds\, wander this \ndamaged landscape—habitats scorched\, flooded—buried. \n  \n     We turn\, we turn trying to see \n  \nFlocks of birds drawn to the sky\, called by season’s  \nchange\, by earth’s magnetic lines— overcome  \nby heat and ash countless bodies drop to earth. \n  \n    We didn’t think of them\, we didn’t think \n  \nWanting what is lost\, our prayers reach out  \nto these abandoned lives\, reach to recover and embrace\,  \nto become each other’s prayer of remembrance. \n  \n—Deborah Buchanan \n* \n  \nAndy Larkin shared some thoughts about creativity from the ancient Mexicans: \n  \nHere through art I shall live forever…\nA singer\, from my heart I strew my songs\nI carve a great stone\, I paint thick wood\nMy song is in them…\nI shall leave my song-image on earth  \n  \nToltecayootl a ycaya ninemiz ye nicã ayyo.\nAc ya nechcuiliz ac ye nohuan oyaz onicas a anniihcuihuana ayayyan cuica-nitl y yehetl y noxochiuh nõcuicayhuitequi on teixpã ayyo.\nHueyn tetl nictequin Tomahuac quahuitl nic ycuiloa yã cuicatl ytech aya oncan no mitoz in quemanõ in can niyaz nocuicamachio nicyacauhtiaz in tlpc \n  \n–Nahuatl poem (circa 1570)\nCantares Mexicanos\, fol. 27r-27v \n  \nThe Cantares Mexicanos is a collection of lyrical poetry from the courts of the Triple Alliance (Aztec). I think the poet was the philosopher-king of Texcoco\, Nezahualcoyotl (Fasting Coyote). He’s the tough-looking guy on the Mexican 100 peso note. \n  \nAlso: \n  \nThe Artist \n  \nThe artist: disciple\, abundant\, multiple\, restless.\nThe true artist\, capable\, practicing\, skillful; \nmaintains dialogue with his heart\, meets things with his mind. \n  \nThe true artist: draws out all from his heart;\nworks with delight\, makes things with calm\, with sagacity\,\nworks like a true Toltec\, composes his objects\, works dexterously\, invents; arranges material\, adorns them\, makes them adjust. \n  \nThe carrion artist: works at random\, sneers at the people\,\nmakes things opaque\, brushes across the surface of the face of things\, works without care\, defrauds people\, is a thief. \n  \n-Nahuatl poem from the Codex Matritensis\,\nfol. 115 v. (208)\, ca. 1540—1585 \n  \n—Andy Larkin \n* \n  \nElizabeth Domike is a poet and yoga teacher: \n  \nSisters \n  \nWe’ve talked about boundaries as sisters to creativity. These days I lean on them heavily. Not teaching yoga for an institution\, but for the specific students who have been drawn to the material I share\, some of the boundaries I have are defined. Say for time. \n  \nEvery week I send a reminder with a theme for the next five days. And I head that with a photograph\, one I have (most often) taken during the previous week. This is something I hold close when out and about it the world. What would work\, what would set the tone\, represent the world here and now in this place. \n  \nEvery weekday morning I choose a poem to read at the end of class. I’ve tried doing this in advance and it doesn’t work as well as those spontaneous moments reading poems in the early dark. It is a kind of meditative practice after writing 750 Words and exploring the nature of my thoughts and emotions there so close to the dream state. For the poem I choose a key word or words\, like relief\, or old trees\, or hyacinth. And then I read what comes up and choose one that has the length and tone that I think might work and might inspire an image or thoughtfulness to carry us all through the day… a tiny bit richer. \n  \nThen during the class\, although I do prepare\, (sometimes for hours\, depending on the material)\, I let go\, responding to who is there and what their needs might be. Each practice\, an all-consuming creative act. This took years for me to be confident enough to do. It is a kind of free fall\, with the invisible ropes being the structure I have spent time revisiting again and again.   \n  \nThese practices have taught me that everything I do\, can in some way\, be expressed creatively. And most times is\, without me even trying. Any experience of connecting to the sources we carry within and translating them into the language of the present moment is\, in my opinion\, an offering\, a gift\, a blessing for us all.   \n  \n—Elizabeth Domike \n* \n  \nHere are a few of my poems that might relate to the subject of creativity in some way: \n  \nThe trick of a poem is: \nDon’t say too much. \nIf you do \n* \n  \ni want to go to the place where poems come from \n* \n  \nthe unwritten poem \nis completely useless \n* \n  \nif i could put into words what i see out this window \ni would do with language what no one has yet done \nif i could say what this bean plant means \neveryone would fall down and worship my poem \nwell\, probably not \nbecause\, as it is\, we don’t kneel before the bean plant \nand water its roots with our tears \n  \nholy holy holy is the bean plant \nthe cup of coffee \nthe stuffed animals on the window sill  \nthat have been loved unto baldness \nthe song sparrow \nthe sunlight \nand even the man sitting with his laptop \nfailing once again to say the unsayable \n* \n  \nLike all good topics\, the subject of “creativity” is endless. Many creative people have written about what they do\, but most of the inspiration we get from them comes directly from the poems they’ve written\, the paintings they’ve painted\, the music they’ve played\, the dances they’ve danced\, the meals they’ve cooked\, the gardens they’ve grown\, the films they’ve made. A couple inspiring documentaries about artists at work are “Rivers and Tides” (2001) and “Shangri-La” (2019). \n  \nOn Saturday\, March 23rd\, there was a wonderful book launch for my first book\, The Nonstop Love-In: poems\, stories\, essays & other writings. It was a Love-In! The Multnomah County Library has ordered some copies. Check it out! You can get a copy at Belmont Books in Portland. You can order a copy by emailing me at: stallingsjohnny@gmail.com. It’s also available from the websites of Powell’s\, Barnes & Noble\, Amazon & IngramSpark. Coming soon to Powell’s Books on Hawthorne! \n  \n  \npeace\, love & happiness \n—Johnny Stallings
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/peace-love-happiness-understanding-4-4-24/
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UID:4581-1712914200-1712934000@openroadpdx.com
SUMMARY:Day of Mindfulness Retreat with Katie Radditz  4/12/24
DESCRIPTION:  \n  \nHello all you on the Open Road  \n  \nI wanted to let you know of a Day of Mindfulness I’m offering on Friday\, April 12th\, from 9:30 to 3 at the First Unitarian Church in Portland. (The entrance is on SW Salmon Street\, between 11th & 12th.)  \n  \nBring a sack lunch!  \n  \nThe focus will be on developing equanimity and practices for opening our hearts. Inspired by Loving-Kindness practice and the Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue.  \n  \nI would love to see you there. I hope you will be able to come!   \n  \nlove and peace\,  \n  \nKatie Radditz \n  \n  \nThe event is free\, but please click on this link to register:\n\n  \n  \n\n\n\n https://www.firstunitarianportland.org/events-calendar/\n\n\n  \n  \n 
URL:https://openroadpdx.com/event/day-of-mindfulness-retreat-4-12-24/
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