An atoll in my right parietal lobe a dark lagoon surrounded by a necrotic reef ever pushing outward, hungry for nourishment contained by the wall of my skull.   An indigenous tumor, this not an immigrant from some other place. What is it origin? An errant thought? A pocket of hatred? In search of its…

I’ve decided to wrap a black belt around my brain tumor and see it not as an enemy but as a formidable Sensei. I am bowing into it and requesting that it teach me : About asking for prayers and help about receiving help instead of clinging to the role of helper, the strong one….

Aikido is the Japanese martial art of peaceful reconciliation, an art I have studied for over forty years and written about extensively in my book Aikido Off the Mat: One woman’s journey using Aikido principles to stay sane in body, mind, and spirit. Here are several basic principles of Aikido that directly translate into writing…

It started a month ago today, a Sunday and night of pain. Ten, on a scale of ten. No, that doesn’t begin to describe it. As a writer, as someone working on conscious embodiment, I want to be more precise than that. Abdominal pain, seeming to originate from the lower right quadrant, but I don’t…

I have long been unacquainted with and resistant to the word retirement. It seems to go against my Aries, warrior, full-steam ahead nature, (plus, it’s not like Henry and I can just sit back and let the money roll in). My older sister kindly suggested semi as a way to soften the thought of retirement,…

Dear Professor Kathy, What an amazing journey we shared together! From the very beginning of this course to its end, working with you has been nothing short of a delight. My heart thanks you for being its conduit to the outside world, unchaining my voice and mind that feel trapped by barbed-wire fences and concrete…

Excerpts from a letter from L. C., a former student who is currently incarcerated at South Bay Correctional Facility in Florida Dear Kathy, I’m sorry for the delay in writing, but as you know Mother Nature has been doing some house cleaning in our area. Irma came through and scared the living crap out of…

Several of my Aikido teachers referred to a famous 1980s study in which felons convicted of murder and/or assault were shown videotapes of random and diverse people walking on the street and asked who they would pick as their victims. The muggers were asked to rate the videos on a scale from 1 to 10…

Arrogance, colored pencil, 2011. I drew this colored pencil painting after 9/11, but I think it still speaks to a fundamental problem in our society and in the world, as evidenced by the struggle of the Water Protectors at DAPL and the Black Lives Matter movement, and by this horrendous polarizing election. The first world,…

There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man. Sir Winston Churchill As a girl, I found that when I was around horses, my sense of body shame transformed because I didn’t feel divided between my mind and body. I felt fully embodied. Horses didn’t care…