The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Tuesday, October 03, 2006

The Hollow Place

The first two-day Path workshop is done, and for the first time, we were able to touch on everything I feel is necessary to really convey the message.  Make no mistake: the One-Day workshops had the data, but the kinesthetic experience is simply dependant upon a certain amount of time passing from beginning to end…a certain amount of group bonding (I still need to work on that!) and other factors.

I think it was fabulous, with the participants giving 110%.  I’m incredibly proud of everyone…
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Drove home from San Francisco after the workshop.  Home at midnight.  Wow.  I’ll NEVER do that again.  I hadn’t really remembered how much energy I put into teaching, and was utterly wiped by the time I got home.  Finally ramped down and got to bed by 1:00 am.  Then…at 7:45 I got a call from Ellen Silva at  National Public Radio asking if I could head down to the studio to tape a commentary for them.  So…I dragged my dead carcass out of bed, drove to Culver City, did the gig.  Took Tananarive and Jason with me…given his recent behavioral problems, I didn’t want him to go to Day Care without some serious Daddy time.  Got home, took him to the park to play…then put him down for a nap.  Thank God, I got one too.  At about 2:30 we took him to Day Care, and the word is that he was excellent for the rest of the day.
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“I am.”  That simple meditation…sitting and repeating “I am” again and again, is starting to bear some fruit.  I ordinarily meditate by concentrating on my heartbeat, and a thread of light up and down my spine.  But this morning, shifting between these and a constant repetition of “I am” I seemed to find a…hmmm…let’s call it a “Hollow” space between the words, between the breaths.  Between the heartbeats.  I’d never felt that space before, and am not quite certain what to make of it.  But it felt like the entrance to a deeper place within me.  Time will tell.

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