The American Media: Where to start...

Addressing subjectivity reveals truth
June 30, 2008

Journalists must disclose potential biases behind their positions

Opinions themselves are not treacherous, but hidden opinions presented as the news offer readers a slanted view of the world. Full disclosure of a journalist’s personal agenda reveals the powerful punch of individual biases that contribute to shaping the news.

Hard news published in credible newspapers is based on the lofty assumption that a reporter’s neutral voice is revealing the truth in each story. But fair and balanced coverage in newspapers and on television has taken a bloody beating from modern-day media barons such as Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch brazenly uses the media outlets he purchases including the Fox News Channel and The Wall Street Journal as mouthpieces for his own political and social agenda.

The slanted worldview that media moguls like Murdoch present to their audiences pushes gullible news consumers off-balance in their every day decision-making prowess by presenting them with misinformed and biased interpretations of national and global affairs.

In the case of an opinion writer like me, full disclosure is my way of revealing the voice behind the words. Full disclosure gives you- the reader- the knowledge that you require to recognize the origin of many of my positions on the issues.

Full disclosure is necessary because no opinion emerges from the darkness of a void into the light of day in a heartbeat. The code of beliefs we each live by and the boundaries of cultural constructs we map out in our minds were formed over years and years of living in the world.

The social, cultural, geographical, religious and economic circumstances that I have been exposed to throughout my lifetime affect my writing.

As Canadian philosopher Lorraine Code said, “Objectivity requires taking subjectivity into account.”

In his April 18, 2006 blog post “Goose Meet Gander: Answering The Times’ Questions,” Jeff Jarvis discusses the disclosure questionnaire that The New York Times requires freelance journalists to complete before they begin work at the newspaper.

Jarvis writes in that blog entry that if a reader needs information about a journalist to judge the credibility of his or her story, “We don’t need to litter stories in sparse print and airtime with every such disclosure; it could reach an absurd though amusing extreme… But we should not shy away from such disclosure when it is relevant.”

And Jarvis doesn’t shy away from exposing information that might affect his slant on a story including his religious, business, media, financial and political ties. He also answers some of the Times’ questions on the personal disclosure page of his BuzzMachine blog. The questions inquire about current and previous employers, volunteer work, lobbying and any financial ties or connections.

At the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, journalist Bill Moyers condemned media consolidation as the root cause of what he described as “journalism in extreme crises.”

He referred to the mainstream media as accountable to corporate boards and profits but not the public.

“As conglomerates swallow up newspapers, magazines, publishing houses and broadcast outlets, news organizations are folded into entertainment divisions. The news hole in the print media shrinks to make room for ads, celebrities, nonsense and propaganda, and the news we need to know slips from sight,” he told the audience at the conference.

In a world where corporations and media barons control both the content and ideological perspective of the news, Moyers warned the American public against becoming an unconscious and indoctrinated people fed by the mighty armada of power and influence in the dominant and dumbed down media.

For me, being an opinion writer is not about irresponsibly using this space to ignorantly and egotistically broadcast my own agenda to unconscious and indoctrinated readers.

For me, being an opinion writer is a process of using writing to publicly explore my preconceived notions about day-to-day life and engage in some mind-bending discussions with you: the readers.

I openly disclose that I wouldn’t mind possessing the riches that Rupert Murdoch enjoys, but that I wholeheartedly disagree with his personal news agenda.

I want readers to build a bridge of communication with writers that will assist us all in engaging in a robust and informed discussion about national and world affairs.

Full disclosure is the first step to reaching that goal.

Looking for My Path in 2009

[I wrote this editorial when I was in the Teach for America Program during the summer of 2008. I decided not to sign the contract with the Las Vegas Valley school system after completing my training in Watts. My path involves teaching talented and gifted and college bound students. I know that now.]

Education
July 28, 2008

Children in low-income neighborhoods deserve more adequate public school systems

A police helicopter was buzzing above the school grounds, drowning out the instructors’ voices inside of their classrooms at Markham Middle School in Watts, California on July 9.

Markham Middle School is a series of nondescript buildings near the Jordan Downs Housing Project. It’s a public housing project where residents experience the fallout from gang violence and a high crime rate on a level that profoundly affects the future opportunities available to the students who were sitting restlessly at their desks in front of me.

Los Angeles Times writer Sandy Banks described Jordan Downs in a 2006 article entitled “Injunction Has Community Feeling Handcuffed,” describing it as “a notorious public housing project in Watts considered by the Los Angeles Police Department to be so dangerous that officers are allowed to conduct ‘foot beat’ patrols from the safety of their cars and the department is installing outdoor surveillance cameras to monitor crime.”

I faced my students and wondered how their lives were different from mine.

I was a new 2008 Teach for America Corps member sent to Markham to teach summer school for the month of July. I was placed at Markham as part of the organization’s mission to close the educational achievement gap in the U.S.

When I sat down to join my small group of summer school students in our math and literacy class on the third day of school, I asked a student named Noe to tell me about his neighborhood.

Noe looked at me earnestly and said, “Miss, you don’t want to be in Watts at night or you’ll get raped and killed.”

I then asked Noe to advise me on things I should see or do while I was in Watts for the month of July.

“You should see the Watts Towers, Miss. It’s made out of garbage,” he said.

When I saw the Watts Towers for the first time, I wanted to appreciate this series of towers as optimistic expressions of art. In fact I visualized the towers as exuberant monumental pieces of urban art constructed from steel, concrete and found objects such as bed frames and bottles. Noe had told me, however, that the towers were made of garbage. Was I being overly optimistic?

Markham’s high school graduation rate is less than 50 percent, and the discipline problems I faced in my classroom were severe. I taught a group of extremely intelligent students who had created a classroom culture of misbehavior and bad choices that slowed down their learning process.

One of my students spent most of the hour using his hands to ball up his notebook paper and throw the balls across the room. Another student fidgeted restlessly and checked the cell phone in his pocket every few minutes, while another student completely turned around in his chair to chat with his neighbor.

This was not Iowa, the state where I had studied during my middle and high school years. Things were definitely different at Markham.

It was my job to create a space for learning. In the Teach for America literature that I read in order to prepare for my teaching experience, I re-learned what I already knew. An educational achievement gap exists in the U.S. To put it simply, where children grow up determines their life prospects.

According to the government’s National Assessment of Educational Progress 2005, a national assessment of students’ knowledge and skills, 9 year-olds living in low-income communities are three grade levels behind their high-income peers.

Of the 13 million children growing up in poverty, about half won’t graduate from high school. Those who do will perform on average at an eighth grade level according to the same report. Markham students were no exception.

After working with my students for only one week, I knew that the one thing I wanted most for Gilbert, Keynay and Jessica was for them to have an opportunity to learn and a chance to go to college, so that when they were 30 years old, they would be closer to realizing their dreams. And my kids had big dreams.

After reading their journal entries, I discovered that Gilbert wanted to own his own company and work with cars when he was 30. Keynay wanted to be married to a beautiful woman and have a good job, while Jessica wanted to get good grades in all of her classes and graduate from junior high and high school.

If, as the data suggests, only one in 10 students from low-income communities graduates from college, I still believe that a relentless pursuit of academic excellence in the classroom will result in my students at Markham beating the odds.

Evolution of the Species at Burning Man

Evolution, the Year of Science and Burning Man
Current mood: sleepy
Category: Art and Photography

[I am planning to go to Burning Man this year with Ana, Susan and Marina, and our plans began to take shape this afternoon on the road home to Kalani.]

Burning Man Update: The Jack Rabbit Speaks
Volume 13, Issue #12
February 5, 2009


Don't know if you're aware of this, but this month is the 200th anniversary of the birth of one Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of his seminal book "On the Origin of Species" being published. (You could say it had a bit of an impact on things.)

Combined with the fact that 2009 is officially the Year of Science (yes, for reals: http://www.yearofscience2009.org), and that science is poised to retake its rightful place in governmental priorities, and that this year's Burning Man art theme is "Evolution", well ... our minds are about to explode with sciencey goodness!

So break out a beaker, fill it up with your libation of choice (be it a mixture or a solution), warm it up over your trusty Bunsen burner(if you're partial to hot toddies) and offer up a toast to the wonders of logic, reason, and science. And, heck, fanciful whimsy too, while you're at it ... because why not?

Unblock the Mind, Heart, Body and Spirit Flow

Blocked

[I am trying to unblock myself Pema. I wish that you were here to give me some mentoring from the heart! I need it.]

The river flows rapidly down the mountain, and then all of a sudden it gets blocked with big boulders and a lot of trees. The water can't go any farther, even though it has tremendous force and forward energy. It just gets blocked there. That's what happens with us, too; we get blocked like that. Letting go at the end of the out-breath, letting the thoughts go, is like moving one of those boulders away so that the water can keep flowing, so that our energy and our life force can keep evolving and going forward. We don't, out of fear of the unknown, have to put up these blocks, these dams, that basically say no to life and to feeling life.

-Pema Chodron, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Vol. I, #1

Girls Got Balls

Thought Provoking Quotes

From: The Gay Quote Book by Brandon Judell

To hell with the missionary position! (I don’t agree with this message 100 percent, but it has a rebel yell ring to it that shakes the status quo boat. That, I like.)

“I don’t think there is such a thing as a precise sexual orientation. I think we’re all ambiguous sexually.” Tennessee Williams

“Love can read the writing on the remotest star.” Oscar Wilde

“This morning even my pencil’s got your tooth marks.” May Swenson, writer

“Poison kills the body, but moral poison kills the soul.” James Douglas, Editor of the Sunday Express, 1928

“Girls got balls. They’re just a little higher up.” Joan Jett, musician

Learning Nudes

Title: Abdomens & The Chihuahua
Current mood: working
Category: Art and Photography

Non-Conform

The bubbly electronic music playing in the background was accompanied by 40 mile-an-hour winds blowing through the coconut palms and lauhala trees. The gusts and bursts of power from Mother Nature caused the Chihuahua sitting in my lap to twitch nervously from his Batman cape ears to the tip of his rat-like tail. After making ten to twelve attempts to snooze in my lap, he yawned wide-mouthed and decided to investigate the light-blue sweatshirt balled up in the corner of the futon. First, he sniffed the medium weight cotton thoroughly, and then he drug one arm of the sweatshirt into his territory.

Biting and sucking the fabric, he growled when I tried to reclaim my possession. Wrinkling his brow and powering his stick-like hind legs into high gear, the little brown bundle of nervous ticks pulled the sweatshirt to the middle of the futon where he could dominate and make love to it doggy fashion.

I put my sketches and pencils down so that I could address the situation, but once the sweatshirt was out of the little rascal’s jaws, my raincoat became his desired mate. Gently setting his four paws on the wooden floorboards, I returned to my drawing.

When the dog was no longer a problem, I realized that I enjoyed gazing at Neil’s flat muscular stomach. The first part of a man that catches my eye is his abdomen if it’s exposed, and here in Hawaii, exposed male abdomens abound aplenty. If I were to work on a sculpture, Neil’s well-defined abdominal muscles would be the body part that I would chose to isolate, knead and caress- spreading clay erotically through my fingers to replicate an adoration for that part of the male anatomy.

Neil was about five feet six inches tall, mildly hairy from his lower calves to his upper thighs, smooth on his back and topped with brown curly tresses sun kissed yellow. The hair under his arms was not too thick; sexy due to its sparseness and soft texture. Neil held his poses from one minute to twenty- twirling, spinning and yoga posturing until he found a comfortable position to freeze for our interpretations.

The music was changing, picking up tempo, lifting me spiritually higher off the futon’s cushion. The wind spun through the ceiling, rocking the metal supports with creaks and groans while the large-eared Chihuahua temporarily slept peacefully in my lap after I had hidden my excess clothing from his view. I realized that there is no right or wrong way to represent our physical world on paper. As I looked around the studio at various easels, I saw Neil represented in skin tone, passion purple, tingling teal, pencil, watercolor and oil: the consciousness of the artist whose energy brought the drawing to life hovered above each hand.

Step away from the binding constructs of right and wrong, left and right, homo and hetero and into your own being. Slip into the present moment’s teaching and the act of living itself. Step outside cultural conditioning and find your own space: the personal heart, mind, body and spirit comfort zone that gives you bliss.

The dog slept for perhaps two to three minutes in my lap, only to wake, turn his head 180 degrees, reshuffle his protruding bones into a new position and search again for the peace of slumber.

Wind chimes flavored the air with smells of dew kisses and honey.

The model relaxed the pose, stretching his stiff limbs with a sigh.

The Law of Growth

Each day at work in the landscaping department at an eco-resort on the Hilo side of the island of Hawaii, I witness greedy vegetation reach for the sun at the expense of what slouches and festers beneath the surface. As lava rock cracks and ohia trees and sword ferns emerge from the black ground, sensitive plants and morning glory vines root in the fertilizer of fallen leaves and rotting lehua flowers. The cycle of volcanic activity and the reclamation of lava by plant life is an organic process that transforms the landscape from the barren, rocky playground of Pele to lush swaths of variegated green growing at amazing speeds. The lovers Ohia and Lehua continue their love story high in the branches dropping life on the ground below.

I agree with Louise Erdrich, who in her collection of short stories “The Red Convertible,” describes the law of growth like this:

“In the woods, there is no right way to go, of course, no trail to follow but the law of growth. You must leave behind the notion that things are right. Just look around you. Here is the way things are. Twisted, fallen, split at the root. What grows best does so at the expense of what’s beneath.”

Seek Pleasure

Bliss and the Adventurer

Increasing pleasure was the focus of a day-long workshop I attended in January '09 at Kalani Oceanside Retreat in Pahoa, Hawaii. Stewart, the pleasure workshop facilitator, described himself as a serious student of bliss. That's the best job description I have heard to date.

One of the assumptions I embraced from Stewart's teachings was that the universe wants me to be happy because it's a place filled with excitement and joy. These are five points from the workshop that I want to remember in my own personal quest for pleasure.

1. My body is my friend.
2. When in doubt, forgive. Always be in doubt.
3. Say "yes" over and over again as the body accepts this promise of openness to possibility. Yes is an affirmation to the universe.
4. Integrate mind, body, heart and spirit. (The most important point for me!)
5. The following affirmation makes life more pleasurable: "I refuse to endure discomfort and pain, and I give myself permission to experience multiple daily pleasures in pursuit of a life complete with delight and harmony."

Of the eight steps to increasing pleasure that Stewart discussed at the workshop, my personal favorite was adopting the spirit of an adventurer. I have followed the adventurer's path for most of my life, and if I were to lead you on a tour of that path, it would look something like this.

An adventurer accepts risks, including the possibility of feeling pain, showing vulnerability, seeking out intensity and successfully handling challenges. A curiosity and sense of awe for the unfamiliar and unexplored territory define the adventurer's state of mind. Flexibility and openness to exploration and change are personality traits we cultivate. We allow curiosity, imagination and wonder to be our inspiration for action as our imaginations lead us to greater pleasures. We know how to manage expectations of ourselves and others and enjoy variety, contrast and novelty.

My advice is to adopt the attitude of an adventurer if you haven't already and bliss out at least once today and every following day.

Silence and Me: Seeking the Sea

Poem Thirty-One

Silence is the sea, and speech is like the river.
The sea is seeking you: don't seek the river.
Don't turn your head away
from the signs offered by the sea.
Mathnawi IV, 2062-2063

[I have been seeking silence lately because she's a willing partner who leads me through my mind's whirlwind to peace: a welcome relief to sit with her and share burdens only I can shed from my heart. She understands.]

Poem Forty

Don't hide your heart but reveal it,
So that mine might be revealed,
And I might accept what I am capable of.
Mathnawi I, 2682

expand the belly, rib cage and chest

Focus on the breath.
Expand the belly, the rib cage and the chest.

Notice where you feel relaxed and tense in the body. There’s nothing wrong with tension, but expand a feeling of ease into the areas of the body with stored pain, mental and physical.

Focus on the breath.
Expand the belly, the rib cage and the chest.
Open the heart.
Bow the head to show respect to the wisdom of the heart.

I'm practicing yoga again.

June-bugging

“Do what you will with me.”
is a line from Alexis Harte's song by the same name on the CD Junebug.

When I think of trust, playful lust, emotional safety in romantic relationships, respect between lover and loved, and damn pleasing sex, that line says volumes in six words.

People fornicate for hundreds of reasons.

1. They want to forget an ex-lover and banish pain from their hearts.
2. They want bodily pleasures with no strings attached to responsibility for their lover’s state of mind.
3. They’re drunk and a naked opportunity arises in their hands.

But, to give yourself over to another in trust, allowing him to do what he will with your body and mind is earthy, sexy, and oozes the context I am looking for when I am pleased from head to toe.

Therapist and author Mary Pipher, who I wish were my mentor, opened a channel of self-awareness in her book Writing to Change the World. I realized after I read a paragraph in her book that in order to reach the level of trust where I can tell my lover: "Do what you will with me,” I must observe and practice this truth.

“Unacknowledged emotions do not disappear. They fester. Ignoring dark emotions leads to addiction or violence (or regret). In fact, most of the truly rotten behavior in the world comes from running away from feelings.”

Don’t run away. When I don't run, egos will disappear in a state of grace, so I am able to follow the flow and soar.

"...the process is right, and the neurons are snapping, so ideas will burst forth."

Three Day Beard: How would you re-write the song?

I heard the song “It’s a Great Day to be Alive” on my way to school, and thought, “Heck yes! If I were a man, I would grow a Fu Man Chu too.” Getting a new tattoo and cruising for three days on a Harley are avenues to happiness for some. I, however, would re-write the song’s lyrics as follows:

Well I might go get me a new tattoo
or take my old Harley for a three day cruise,
might even grow me a Fu Man Chu...
Oh Aww!

My Revisions:

Well might go get me a plane ticket to paradise
Or take my sweetest buddy on a trek through Peru
Might even grab me a fellow and dance the tango
A fellow who has a Fu Man Chu.

(A visual is provided from Google Images although he is not THE fellow I plan to grab. In fact, I do not know this man.) Does he resemble an archetype of evil criminal genius floating around in the lyrics of a red neck country western song?

I am curious. What words would you use to express the sentiment that it's a great day to be alive? Don't be shy because it's your turn. Let the inner song writer emerge.

Side Note: I was reading about the racial stereotyping of the Fu Man Chu character, but his mustache is one of his defining characteristics. I think it is interesting how a country western singer, Travis Tritt, uses this reference to a style of mustache as something that he wants to grow on his face when he is feeling high on life. Tritt also wants to go unshaven when he's feeling fine. Perhaps for Travis Tritt, altering his facial hair is a sign of shaking off societal conformity and expressing his own inner creativity. As a woman, it is difficult to empathize with growing facial hair on a great day. We usually pluck ours.

My favorite parts of the original song are below.
Artist/Band: Travis Tritt – It’s A Great Day to be Alive

Got a three day beard I don't plan to shave
And it's a goofy thing but I just gotta say
Hey I'm doing alright

Feelin’ pretty good and that's the truth
It's neither drink nor drug induced
No I'm just doin’ alright

Now I look in the mirror and what do I see?
A lone wolf there starin’ back at me
Long in the tooth but harmless as can be
Lord I guess he's doin’ alright

Sometimes it's lonely:
Sometimes it's only me
and the shadows that fill this room
Sometimes I'm fallin’
Desperately callin’
Howlin’ at the moon...
Ahwoo!
Ahwoo!

Well I might go get me a new tattoo
or take my old Harley for a three day cruise,
might even grow me a Fu Man Chu...
Oh Aww!

And it's a great day to be alive.
I know the sun's still shinin’ when I close my eyes.
There are some hard times in the neighborhood.
But why can't every day be just this good?

Every Day: An Opportunity for New Beginnings

Treat every day as a new beginning.

If you need a break from winter weather, open to life's mystery with openhearted abandonment, and enjoy the support of community members who envision a more peaceful world, explore volunteer opportunities at Kalani on the big island of Hawaii.

I highly recommend the sunsets, black sand beach, clothing optional hot tub and vegetarian food. Here’s my plug for a lush slice of paradise.

Aloha to Health, Wellness, Forgiveness, Compassion, Kindness and New Beginnings.

It’s Time

What time do you have?

“Time heals what reason cannot.” - Seneca
“One should count each day a separate life.”

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” - Andy Warhol


My personal favorite:

“There is no great genius without some touch of madness.”

Perhaps that gives me an excuse for disregarding the clock, often to my own demise. Thank you Seneca.

What does life mean to you?

Mental Negotiations

I have always been interested in how the mind negotiates with reality, fantasy, hallucination, desire and dreams, but I usually approach my fascination from a literary standpoint. After I read Roger Ebert’s review of the film “Synecdoche, New York," I realized I needed to see that film. Ebert spells out how life is supposed to work in his review, yet the hollowness of his definition echoes down the hallway of my doubts and uncertainties: Shouldn’t there be more to this entity that human beings narrowly define as life? I feel as if I don't get anywhere when I ask the question, but at the same time I can't escape the pondering.

“Synecdoche, New York"
(excerpts from a November 5, 2008 film review by Roger Ebert that enticed me to the theater)


Here is how life is supposed to work. We come out of ourselves and unfold into the world. We try to realize our desires. We fold back into ourselves, and then we die… The job, the name, the race, the gender, the environment, all change. The human remains pretty much the same.

Here is how it happens. We find something we want to do, if we are lucky, or something we need to do, if we are like most people. We use it as a way to obtain food, shelter, clothing, mates, comfort, a first folio of Shakespeare, model airplanes, American Girl dolls, a handful of rice, sex, solitude, a trip to Venice, Nikes, drinking water, plastic surgery, child care, dogs, medicine, education, cars, spiritual solace -- whatever we think we need. To do this, we enact the role we call "me," trying to brand ourselves as a person who can and should obtain these things.

In the process, we place the people in our lives into compartments and define how they should behave to our advantage. Because we cannot force them to follow our desires, we deal with projections of them created in our minds. But they will be contrary and have wills of their own. Eventually new projections of us are dealing with new projections of them. Sometimes versions of ourselves disagree. We succumb to temptation -- but, oh, father, what else was I gonna do? I feel like hell. I repent. I'll do it again. Hold that trajectory in mind and let it interact with age, discouragement, greater wisdom and more uncertainty.

Charlie Kaufman is one of the few truly important writers to make screenplays his medium. David Mamet is another. That is not the same as a great writer (Faulkner, Pinter, Cocteau) who writes screenplays. Kaufman is writing in the upper reaches with Bergman. Now for the first time he directs.

It is obvious that he has only one subject, the mind, and only one plot, how the mind negotiates with reality, fantasy, hallucination, desire and dreams.

Source: Rogerebert.com

[Synecdoche: A form of the metaphor in which the part mentioned signifies the whole.]

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I have nearly finished reading the book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (less than 50 pages of the 609 remaining). In addition to making me miss the neighborhoods of Tokyo, I am stunned by Murakami’s ability to capture the haphazard uncertainty, displaced sense of reality, disjointed spontaneity and humanity’s disconnectedness boiling brain recipe of fate and free will in each of the character’s movements through a thick paste of internal monologues, which become a large part of the setting.

The characters forced me to examine demons churning around in my own glob of energy- subconscious and conditioned responses- and ask myself the question: How does my free will intertwine itself around the thick and viable vine of fate swinging me for a ride in the night sky?

All of these questions. And where was that damn cat, Noboru Wataya, for an entire year?

I want to write the screenplay for this book. If I had only one scene to compose, it would be Lieutenant Mamiya’s story. Mamiya is a World War II vet who tells Toru, the book’s hapless hero, of the atrocities he witnessed on the Mongolian front including the skinning of his companion from shoulder to groin.

pineapple-juicy groovy

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes

countdown turned on to affirmatives

pineapple-juicy groovy

clothing-optional sunshine sweet

coqui frog-croaking dinner bell

and stars in my purr

I’m squishy with possibilities
in the Kingdom of Yes.

Where is your center?

I love the idea of restoring my life for balance and settling my day with meditation. I want to be aware of the powerful crouch of my cat while he waits for goldfinches to perch on dried coneflowers to nibble the seeds. I want to see the cotton candy gray clouds violating the blue optimism of the sky with threats of assault. I want to notice my world, rotate my tires and roll evenly through the world with eyes wide open.

November 14, 2008 - Tricycle's Daily Dharma

Settle Your Day

It is not merely enthusiasm that erodes when practice declines. Your body and mind can go out of tune. You are no longer a vessel of insight. The cardinal can sing; the wind can move the ironwood trees delicately; a child can ask a wise question--and where is your center? How can you respond? It is time to put yourself back in tune, to be ready for experiences that make life fulfilling. Take up the advice for beginners. Put your zazen pad somewhere between your bathroom and your kitchen. Sit down there in the morning after you use the bathroom and before you cook breakfast. You are sitting with everyone in the world. If you sit only briefly, you will have at least settled your day.

-Robert Aitken, Encouraging Words

from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

assert your voice

I am reviewing assertive communication styles for my midterm exam, and I know positively that this is the style I want to add to my intellectual wardrobe.

An assertive communication style is:

open;
direct;
appropriate to the situation;
spontaneous;
responsive to my own best interests;
resisting of coercion;
AND, best of all


results in helping me build healthy, constructive relationships.

my journey: the catalyst

Catalyst to Dreams

My fellow reader Greg, who is also an intensely missed conversation partner of mine, is currently teaching at the American University in Cairo. Jim is jetting off for spiritual growth in India, and I am preparing for my body, mind and soul re-fueling mission. I’ve purchased the airline ticket, contacted fellow travelers who will be there as well, and I daily whip my body back into swimsuit shape.

Ms. Body is ever so grateful for her chance to shine and serenades me daily in appreciation for the cardio and fat-burn sessions. “Push me harder,” are three of her favorite words. “Feel the burn," she hums in delight as I peel off my sweat-soaked sports bra and toss it into my gym bag.

As I prepare for the trip, I ruminate on Barbara Coloroso’s words, which simplify my life and make my ethical decisions easier to execute in my relationships with others.

“Don’t manipulate another person’s behavior. Positively influence and empower others to be successful, to feel confident, to identify what they need in order to feel safe and secure in their world. Be a catalyst for their sense of self-discovery. “

That’s how I want to see myself today.

I am a catalyst for my own sense of self-discovery.

This leads me to a place where I am ready to cooperatively explore creativity and empowerment with others.