Walking the line
There was a line of dark stone tile embedded in the floor near the west elevators mimicking a balance beam maybe 4 to 5 inches wide and 8 to 10 ft long, seemingly set there on purpose. A PT led me to it and asked me to walk the line heel to toe without…
glioblastoma cancer blues pie
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…
wrapping a black belt around brain cance...
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 Practices for Writing
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…
On rupturing my appendix
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…
semi-retirement: coming home
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,…
letter from a grateful incarcerated stud...
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…
hurricane news from a Florida prison
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…
How being disembodied attracts predators...
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…
The Undoing of Arrogance
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,…