Laura Young Photography

Journals, Memoirs and the Ways We Ground Our Lives

This article by Abigail Thomas was sent to me by Peter who swears he was reading his mother's AARP magazine. It is an absolutely wonderful discussion of the power of journalling/memoir writing peppered through with some of the most intriguing writing exercises I have seen. HIGHLY recommended.

Here is an excerpt:

Sometimes just holding a pen in my hand and writing milk butter eggs sugar calms me. Truth is what I’m ultimately after—truth or clarity. I think truth’s what we’re all after, although I’d never have said such a thing when I was young. Writing memoir is a way to figure out who you used to be and how you got to be who you are.

There are as many different kinds of memoir as there are motives for writing one. There is memoir written as pure story: you start at the beginning and end where you are now, a breathless headlong rush through what happened.

Or you can start at the end and look back, or with some middle moment, an event that precipitated change and clarity, or the need for clarity. Put the point of your compass there, and start circling. Ilene Beckerman has written a perfect memoir called Love, Loss, and What I Wore (Algonquin Books), an account of her life illustrated by what she was wearing at important moments. I believe someone else has fashioned a memoir composed entirely of lists.

The jumping-off place isn’t always obvious. You can’t always find the way in. Sometimes you need a side door. That’s where writing exercises come in. Here’s the one I give all my students the first week of class:

Not so fast, Buckaroo, gotta to read the rest at the AARP site. It's a brilliant exercise...you can find the full article here.

How It Began: Meeting Michael Schwass

I was 27 years old when I first met Michael Schwass. It was 1990 and I had arrived in Chicago a few months before for my doctoral internship in rehabilitation psychology through Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center. Through an odd twist of events while I was at the University of Notre Dame, my original clinical focus had shifted from gerontology to rehabilitation psychology bringing my first love, medicine, into a perfect marriage with my second and more lasting love, psychology. The Rush program was the jewel of internships in my field in the Midwest, my first choice of programs and I was delighted to have been accepted. The drive up I-65 from Bloomington, Indiana that last day in June felt like returning home.

It also felt like free falling.

What Is a Guru?

Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Sogyal Rinpoche describes a guru in this way:

When we have prayed, and aspired, and hungered for the truth for a long time, for many, many lives, and when our karma has become sufficiently purified, a kind of miracle takes place. And this miracle, if we can understand and use it, can lead to the ending of ignorance forever. The inner teacher, who has been with us always, manifests in the form of the "outer teacher", whom, almost as if by magic, we actually encounter. This encounter is the most important for any lifetime...

Who is the outer teacher? Non other than the embodiment and voice and representative of our inner teacher. The master whose human shape and human voice and wisdom we come to love with a love deeper than any other in our lives is none other than the external manifestation of the mystery of our own inner truth."

Do I consider myself to have a guru?

On What the World Needs Now

"We need guidelines for how to come to know one another, talk to one another, listen to one another.  We don't seem to know how to listen.  Everybody seems to be listening, but what they're really doing is rehearsing what to say next, when the other person shuts up and they can jump in with their agenda, their 'I did this, I did that, this was my experience.'

If you aren't willing to listen to the Other, the one who is different from you--because you fear that person or what she or he represents, you'll pay for it.  The monster that you're projecting onto the other person will get bigger and more terrifying, because your fear will feed it. If you turn away at a stage when you could have listened and spoken in a responsible, non-violent way, there'll be a violent explosion that will harm you and the other person.  The monster you've created isn't going to go away--it's going to go on tripping you up until you deal with it."

Gloria Anzaldua, Poet

Cultivating Gratitude

This is absolutely lovely...A Good Day with Brother David Steindl-Rast

Of Rishis and Robins: Learning to Let Go

And now, for the rest of the story...

You may have seen this picture before.  I love this picture.  As a photograph I just do.  I almost didn't share it with you, though.  I was ashamed to. You see there is a story behind it. It's taken me a year, another baby robin and a shrinking friend for me to understand it all.

This little guy flew into my patio window on "Flight School" day.  We have ten bird feeders in our yard so fledgling virgin flight time is always quite an event around here.  Nervous squawking, clumsy take offs, a cacophony of cardinals, blue jays, sparrows, grackles, starlings, mourning doves and robins.  And, of course, the occasional thunk into a window.

What's a Rishi and Why is He Here? Michael Schwass 101

For those of you who don't yet know my dear friend, Michael Schwass, allow me to introduce you.

Michael Schwass was a member of the National Speakers Association for over 20 years, a therapist, a coach, an author...and a quadriplegic. He was the first quadriplegic ever to walk again without the aid of braces, a daunting feat defying all medical wisdom. I met in 1990 Michael when he spoke at a group I was leading on the spinal cord injury unit of at the hospital I worked at as a therapist. I was instantly captivated by his marvelous energy and humor. We became fast friends.

Michael was an outstanding high school hockey player with dreams of going pro when an accident in the 1975-76 Illinois state championship series left him quadriplegic at age 16. While in the hospital, Blackhawks great Keith Magnuson came to his bedside and asked him what he wanted to do.

"I want to walk again."

No quadriplegic had ever done that before but "The Chief" liked what he heard and became Michael's good friend and champion, cheering him on until he took his first steps six years later. Here is his story as narrated by Chicago sportscaster, Mark Giangreco: