Posts Tagged ‘listening’
Training the Ear of My Heart
March 27, 2018
I don’t live a very active life, though observers might deduce that I am always late, leaping over railroad tracks in my early millennium Honda pilot to get to a pickup before my kids notice my absence. It benefits me to preserve the appearance of a harried, overbooked mother of a large family, because it…
Read MorePoetry Friday: “The Music before the Music”
January 19, 2018
It is often hard to find the language to describe the sounds and impact of a piece of music. In “The Music before the Music” we encounter horns that “plow and plant Beethoven’s/great fields,” “the brash cymbal,” “the wigged-out chug of a bass viol.” In this loud and layered poem, Jeanne Murray Walker uses precisely…
Read MoreThere Is No Free Breakfast
January 5, 2017
When I joined the gym, I was given two free personal training sessions to help “jump-start” my fitness routine. Almost every gym I’ve joined came with such a pass, but I never used them, because I used to coach cross country track, for goodness’ sake. I thought I knew how to exercise. Six babies later…
Read MoreQuaecumque Vera: 16 Songs for 2016
December 29, 2016
You do not have to feel guilty about loving music. Please keep this in mind. Alan Jacobs, in his The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, writes, “read what gives you delight…and do so without shame.” Amen, I say, and don’t be afraid to apply this to the music you like, too. There…
Read MoreAttending to the Body, Part I
August 1, 2016
It’s precisely then that presence is needed: a practice to banish distraction, dial down emotion, return attention to the exchange happening right now, and note my responses—mental and physical. That’s when I live into the role of attending physician. . . Without practices of attentive presence, the patient’s real concerns will be overlooked, important information remain hidden, diagnoses missed, and complex therapies wasted.
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