Before teaching my first classes of the summer session, my friend Janet said, "I'd wish you 'good luck,' but you don't need luck. You have experience." We agreed that phrase wouldn't work and decided to start a new trend with a different saying. We came up with a more appropriate sentiment from the French, 'bon courage,' which literally means 'good courage,' or 'have courage.' 'Courage' can also mean 'heart,' as in 'perdre courage' or to lose heart.

I have nothing against…

Yesterday southern California experienced high temperatures that were unusual for this time of year when it should be cool and rainy. Today and this coming week, more of the same blue sky and 75 degrees. I say this not to torture anyone feeling trapped and cold this January of 2011 or to complain. The weather feels great and odd. It will revert to its natural rhythm eventually. Some students and teachers will come to school sick. This is the usual pattern.



It feels like an…

When you feel bad, you may experience a sense of powerlessness over your body that can leave you feeling like a shell of a person, as though your spirit has abandoned your life and refused to live in it any longer. This is the first salt in the morning and the last at night.

After you've finished raging at your shortcomings and reaching out for help, you finally stand up and decide to go on with the realization that your priorities have changed. The things you thought you…

Perhaps one of the most overlooked tools in recovering from illness is distraction. The mind is a tricky thing---a wanderer, a talker who thinks its right all the time and tries to convince us of this, whether true or not, worrisome or hopeful. When yoga just won't cut it and you cannot go out for a long walk, sometimes the best way to get it to shut up is with distraction.



And I can think of no better form of distraction than music---far better than t.v., reading, talking,…

When you're ill or in pain for a long time (months, years), you may wish to be someone else, to experience anything else but what you're experiencing in your body, your life, which don't feel like yours anymore but things that have taken over your spirit. Your own body like something separate from yourself that has betrayed you in a most intimate way. You wish to comfort it like a sick friend or to kick it out your door like an intruder.



But just as the mystic medieval Christian…

Over the past couple of years, problems with my health have had an enormous impact on my writing. That is to say, parts of my body have held my attention and consumed me. The only types of expression I've managed have been poetry and drawings, things that require metaphor and visual dimension where directly stating the facts or putting them into story form (so many attempts) resulted in my creativity's stubborn refusal. (No meant no! I got that loud and clear.) Work on a novel manuscript has…