Feb 7th, 2010
by Kirsten Ogden.
100 Days of Mindfulness: Body + Mind + Spirit
Day 007
This original version of this post was originally published Jan. 8, 2008 at The KRO Blog
“The strength of a poem comes from the poet’s ability to give up control while maintaining a sense of direction.”
I wrote the words above almost 2 years ago–and I am still so aware of the ways in which we need to learn how to give up control, and what an impact that kind of surrender can have on our lives.
Writing, like anything else, requires a bit of surrender if it’s going to be any good.
I love the way minds make connections. Here I am reading my “How to Write” books, and I came across a William Carlos Williams essay: Poetry as a Field of Action. What struck me after reading this essay were the similarities between Williams’ ideas about composing the poem, and Brande’s, Mosley’s, and Carlson’s ideas about writing prose: you have to allow yourself to take a journey. Williams called for poets to make discoveries in the language of the poem that are distinctly American and that are dictated by the poem itself—not dictated by the subject matter or ‘fashion.’ This is easier said than done. Brande, of course, says that writing is best when coming from that space in between consciousness and dream. Williams seems to concur: “the poem is a dream—a daydream of wish fulfillment” where the poet must concern herself with “a new way of measuring” that reflects—or better, takes into itself—the current world in which she lives.
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Posted in: Getting Mindful, Kenyon Review Blogs, Kirsten Ogden.
Tagged: 100 Days of Mindfulness · KenyonReviewBlogs
Feb 5th, 2010
by KirstenOgden.
My niece, catching some sunsleep after a long day of touristing
100 Days of Mindfulness
Body + Mind + Spirit
Day 005–Sleep
In January, Ariana Huffington proposed a sleep challenge for women.
After reading her follow up on getting horizontal, I had to ask myself about my own sleep habits as part of 100 Days of Mindfulness.
Back in high school I was selected by People-to-People as a student ambassador to the USSR (when it still was the USSR. That tells you something about my age). My mate on the trip, dubbed Pumpski, was constantly asleep. She slept on the planes, she slept on the trains, she even slept on the busses on our way to see the sights throughout the country. I kept thinking, my gosh! She’s going to miss everything! But looking back, I think she was on to something. She prioritized by sacrificing certain moments (like airplane or train time) for the benefit of other moments (like hanging out in Red Square). While the rest of us sleep walked through our USSR experience, Pumpski was fully present for all of her moments.
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Posted in: Getting Mindful.
Tagged: 100 Days of Mindfulness
Feb 4th, 2010
by KirstenOgden.
100 Days of Mindfulness – Body + Mind + Spirit
Day 004–Body/Spirit
Check out this funny post over at Public School Intellegentsia. The authors argue that “marathons are just a way well-to-do white folk can replace one addiction with another that’s less “urban.” Well, I don’t know about “well to do” white folk (it took me a bit of time to scratch up the fee for Road Runners, and I’ve had to budget to save up for the marathon registration and the new shoes etc.) but there is something there about why many people are so interested in experiencing something.
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Posted in: Getting Mindful.
Tagged: #Mindfulist · 100 Days of Mindfulness · Hungry Voice
Feb 1st, 2010
by KirstenOgden.
DAY 001
To bring peace to the world, each of us must take on the responsibility of discovering inner peace–Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
We’re a month into 2010. Last month the Super Secret Squad spent a great deal of time investigating ways in which we could be more productive, more open, more present, and more alive this year. We did a personal inventory of the previous year; we made vision boards and tried to tap into our hungry voices to find what out what would really nourish us.
Many of you may be thinking that “mindfulness” and “productivity” do not go hand in hand, but I think they do. Mindfulness requires intentions–small actions–even if those actions are small breaths. It is the combination of awareness and action that will help us all to connect to what I call our super secret selves–the real people we are deep inside, that we often hide away from the world out of fear.
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Posted in: Getting Mindful.
Tagged: 100 Days of Mindfulness
Jan 31st, 2010
by KirstenOgden.
One of my Super Secret List goals is to complete a marathon. Back in September, I signed up for one of the country’s most successful marathon-training programs, The Los Angeles Road Runners. Over the course of the past several months, I’ve trained using the Road Runners training manual, after my initial first-day training session with the Walking-Pace group in Venice. One of the things that had me go to the gym instead of completing the long walks on the weekend was intense foot pain immediately after the training session.
We walked about 5 miles or so that first day at a 17-18 minute-mile pace. It was a wonderful walk. I felt a bit of foot pain at the start, but it wasn’t until later in the afternoon, and then that next day, that I felt the intense pain running up the outsides of my feet. It was horrible. I was hobbling around like an invalid.
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Posted in: Found In LA.
Tagged: Super Secret List
