Below are the 3 most recent journal entries recorded in james_burbank's LiveJournal:

Wednesday, March 8th, 2006
8:41 am	A curious and fulfilling dream (no Narwhales, damn it) Had a very good dream last night. Seems like I was giving some kind of presentation to a rapt audience. I said. "When we see things and we strip away at them, we have a deep dialog with the self to reveal the heart, the true core of things, and that's when we really see, when we really feel, when we really know what it means to be alive." I woke up immediately and wrote this down. It seemed to reach into the secret places that I needed to see. This morning I look at these words, and I don't know, like much dream material it just doesn't feel the same...sort of like those insights delivered while on some psychic enhancer, but I'm workin on it. The dialog part just isn't here now in waking reality. Just as I finished saying this in my dream and my interlocutors (how I love that word) were enthralled, the door blew open and in came Sedition Nurse with a bunch of shakers, drums, and stuff she dropped on the floor. The spell was gone....Hmmmmmmm. Is this a repeat of my ex-marriage? Think I'll go do some dishes and get centered, maybe take a shower after my morning workout. Let's face it, I stink of Tiger Balm and sweaty pits, but I'm full of goodwill toward humankind. Maybe I won't do the dishes. I'll just give myself a big hug and think SPRING BREAK! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 14th, 2005
8:28 pm	Draft Two of my Abstract Re-centering Writing : Beginner’s Mind and Felt Sense as Rich Sources in the Composition Process Sondra Perl and other contemporary theorists about the writing process, such as Peter Elbow, have begun to explore the relationship of the mind and body in composition. Perl argues that when we enter a pause and think about what we are about to write, we come into a place of not knowing, a place of confusion or emptiness from which ideas emerge. I intend to use the work of Zen Master Sunryu Suzuki to indicate what I think is an open stance that a writer can discover and use in the pause before writing begins. Instead of shutting down when confronted with the often confusing and multi-layered decisions writing composition requires, students can develop skills and practices to go with the flow and not against it. Discovering what is alive and implicit in the present moment engages ideas that are not yet in words, a kind of embodied knowing from which comes newness, a fighting for the words, which truly express our meanings. This kind of “beginner’s mind” serves not only as a starting place for composition, but can provide a way to work with the uncomfortable pauses that mark the writing process. By developing the beginning writer’s capacity for tolerating and even thriving from the anxious places of uncertainty that distinguish writing and that make it such a difficult endeavor, students can discover new ways to encounter and express ideas and not shut down. Western rhetorics have thoroughly explored many strategies, methods and approaches to writing. Our classroom teaching sometimes assumes, If the instructor can only impart the right strategy to the students, they can improve their writing skills. Until recently our pedagogies have neglected the essential dimension of the writer’s emotional and physical experience that impinges on and interacts with the writing process. In this article I wish to explore the relationship of mind to body in the writing process in order to question this teacher-focused methodology and re-center, re-focus on the student’s learning and writing process, which is an expression of the subtle interplay among mental, emotional and physical factors. I argue that by learning to develop physical and emotional awareness throughout the cognitive challenges of writing , student writers can understand and overcome issues such as writer’s block, the anxiety of capturing the right word, phrase, or idea, and the recursive attempts to capture the vision embodied by the entire composition. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 8th, 2005
10:03 am	Abstract for comment-- practice entry Re-centering Writing : Beginner’s Mind and Felt Sense as Rich Sources in the Composition Process Sondra Perl and other contemporary theorists about the writing process, such as Peter Elbow, have begun to explore the relationship of the mind and body in composition. Perl argues that when we enter a pause and think about what we are about to write, we come into a place of not knowing, a place of confusion or emptiness from which ideas emerge. In this article I wish to explore the relationship of mind to body in the writing process. I argue that by learning to develop physical and emotional awareness throughout the cognitive challenges of writing , students gain crucial tools and skills to succeed where otherwise they might fail. Through these awareness techniques, student writers can understand and overcome issues such as writer’s block, the anxiety of capturing the right word, phrase, or idea, and the recursive attempts to capture the vision embodied by the entire composition. I intend to use the work of Zen Master Sunryu Suzuki to indicate what I think is an open stance that a writer can discover and use in the pause before writing begins. Instead of shutting down when confronted with the often confusing and multi-layered decisions writing composition requires, students can develop skills and practices to go with the flow and not against it. Discovering what is alive and implicit in the present moment engages ideas that are not yet in words, a kind of embodied knowing from which comes newness, a fighting for the words, which truly express our meanings. This kind of “beginner’s mind” serves not only a starting place for composition, but can provide a way to work with the uncomfortable pauses that mark the writing process. By developing the beginning writer’s capacity for tolerating and even thriving from the anxious places of uncertainty that distinguish writing and that make it such a difficult endeavor, students can discover new ways to encounter and express ideas and not shut down. (1 Comment |Comment on this)