I have no wisdom, only direct experience. Direct experience is the moment-by-moment awareness of life.

I worried yesterday: Writing takes me away from the direct experience. Why write? Indeed, why do much of anything if the direct experience, the present moment is here? To be present is to feel a current running through the body, a buzzing, an awareness.

As I write this I listen to Ludovico Einaudi, a composer who, unknown to him, collaborated on one of my first experiments in 2017: I walked long and slow kilometers each day with a heavy pack on my back, my headphones tuning me into his Seven Days of Walking album.

Today, Wind is playing on the speaker not far from me. Rain falls in noticeable splat sounds on the roof above me, on the roof of my car outside my window. Athena wakes from her nap-after-a-long-swim-in-Ghost-Lake and stands to watch the rain fall. Thank you rain. Thank you rain-maker, perhaps a dragon deep in the lake. Perhaps a dragon released from a multicoloured rock, glistening in the morning light and smooth. Perhaps hit by lightning over the last weeks, lightning which started fire and fire?

My imagination is high today. I woke with stories in my head, both at 4:47 a.m. and again at 7:28 a.m.. I am imagining a moment like this moment: who might be here? What might they be doing? What is their intention? How do they live?

Now, Rolling Like a Ball is playing. A pattern repeats: Da. Da. Da. Da. pause. Da-di-da

Thank you, Ludovico.

The rain is paused, the swallows swoop again. Two of them have nested in the small swallow house on the back porch. Baby swallows wait for their parents to bring them food. I delight in such direct evidence of emerging life.

I am patient this morning. Each time I feel resistance rise (often accompanied by thoughts of what am I writing? Am I wasting my time?), I notice my breath coming in, I relax my jaw, my shoulders, my forehead. I close my eyes and exhale. Tension fades. I relax and relax. This is the moment I am in. Is this a way of listening and writing? I guess it is. Would I recommend it? Yes. Experiments with the breath can be helpful in accumulative ways. I like accumulative ways, gathering, perspective shifting, relaxing. I’ve noticed when I relax, I make more space for peace, for the inner voice of peace to come in.

The big question I’m holding today: “Why am I writing this novel? What is the vision for the story?”

When I woke in the early hours and the sun was just making its way above the horizon, I wrote down my dream of approval for my writing focus. When I woke again, about 3 hours later, I wrote some of the vision of the novel and of a newer work, a non-fiction piece, a memoir. I am surprised and grateful.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I repeat these two words often.

When the vision was still fresh, Athena dragged me to the lake and while she swam and in-between throwing sticks, I noticed, noticed, noticed. The lake’s smooth surface. The clouds in the sky. The shapes of rocks. The colours of rocks. The dense-ness of rocks. I took some photos, as I do, to document the beauty of this life-situation. Even on a day when I also think of the victims of mass shootings, of mass criticism, of mass harm.

I imagine a dragon or a lake monster lives in this lake. The rock (the one I’ve taken a photo of) is broken and, now, the dragon is released.

While I was making coffee earlier, I listened to Rick Rubin’s interview (author of The Creative Act: A Way of Being) with Krista Tippet, On Being podcast. Cam, one of five brilliant children I’ve had the privilege of nurturing [;and listening to and doing homework with and playing and playing and playing with, gave me Rick’s book. It sits next to me as I type. I’m tempted to open it up and start reading. I’m tempted to pick up my phone, too, to see if anyone out there is noticing me or if anyone out there is doing something interesting I want to participate in. I’m always on the look out for friends I can trust.

Dragons must go into hiding because they can no longer trust the predators who might have once been friends. The mudfish. The humans.

We need humans who can live with dragons and not freak out. We need humans who can live with each other and not freak out.

I think this is the vision for the novel: what can we withstand without freaking out? What happens when we remain calm and centered in the midst of the suffering?

It makes me cry. I’m tired of people hating each other, not understanding each other, being willing to hurt one another in the name of ideology, belief, and power. I understand they do not know what they do- to them it is the only option they have. We’ve created a society with layers and layers of conditioning and protection and fear and drama.

I’m excited to notice we are also awakening to consciousness, to knowing peace in the direct experience of life.

I think this is the vision for the novel: what happens when we see clearly? What happens when our youngest people hold themselves relaxed and at ease in the moment as it unfolds?

Have you seen a video of an old woman on a subway, holding the hand of a man who was, moments before, enraged and losing his shit? Her head is bowed, as if in prayer. I imagine her saying, “please, let us help each other.” I imagine her calmness comes not from her fear of the future. Her calmness comes, I imagine, from an awareness that peace begins with one person and it can spread and spread and spread. What if he turned on her? What if he did? Wouldn’t it still be worthy to reach out a hand to help peace spread? What better moment than the one we are in?

Life is not a fist. Life is an open hand waiting for some other hand to enter it. Elie Weisel

Atoms is Ludovico’s track I’m listening to now. My heart, expanded, notices Athena is playing with her tail and the coffee I made an hour ago is cold. I’ll read back over this piece and notice what arrived when I was listening and feeling my body.

I’ve noticed the title of the piece is When We Break. I smile. I’ve noticed writing today felt like the direct experience. I smile at the wonder. The wonder of how writing is a direct experience, of how writing uses the mind as a tool in conjunction with the body, not in exclusion of the body.

Athena now has her arm over my outstretched legs as if to say, “let’s go outside, the rain has stopped.”

Thank you for reading. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.