Author Archives: B Gourley

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About B Gourley

Bernie Gourley is a writer living in Bangalore, India. His poetry collection, Poems of the Introverted Yogi is now available on Amazon. He teaches yoga, with a specialization in pranayama, and holds a RYT500 certification. For most of his adult life, he practiced martial arts, including: Kobudo, Muay Thai, Kalaripayattu, and Taiji. He is a world traveler, having visited more than 40 countries around the globe.

PROMPT: One Small Improvement

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Daily writing prompt
What’s one small improvement you can make in your life?
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Use a timer to create distraction-free zones in your day. When you’re working on a task, set the timer for some reasonable time (say, 1 hour.) [Do not try to do many hours at a time, you should move and ruminate on a regular basis.] Until the timer goes off, social media doesn’t exist. YouTube doesn’t exist. Snacks do not exist. Visitors do not exist. Phone calls don’t exist. Texts don’t exist. Only the task at hand exists, and only dire emergency should be allowed to interfere. This facilitates Flow.

City Winter [Haiku]

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trees, straight & bare, 
 line the boulevard. one leaf
  blows across the walk.

All Eyes [Haiku]

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yellow fluff
 clamped in a bird's beak -
  now, the new leader.

Salmon Skies [Free Verse]

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Sun dips below the hill;
 Light rises off the roof,
 And the lowest clouds
 Glow in salmon hues.

DAILY PHOTO: Buda Palace in Winter

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“A Question” by Robert Frost [w/ Audio]

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A voice said, Look me in the stars
 And tell me truly, men of earth,
 If all the soul-and-body scars 
 Were not too much to pay for birth.

Fuzzy Moon [Haiku]

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moon slips behind 
 thin, wispy clouds —-
  shifting shape.

DAILY PHOTO: Turquoise Waters of Koh Phi Phi

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“A sepal, petal, and a thorn” (19) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

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A sepal, petal, and a thorn
 Upon a common summer's morn --
 A flask of Dew -- A Bee or two --
 A Breeze -- a caper in the trees --
 And I'm a Rose!

PROMPT: Freedom

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Daily writing prompt
What does freedom mean to you?
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Of the universe of all possible actions, one can choose to attempt any (or refrain from any) but those curtailed by a small number of laws intended to keep one from impinging upon the freedoms of others or imposing costs / burdens on them to which they did not consent, or by self-imposed limitations (e.g. one’s own ethical belief system or one’s physical / mental limitations.)

Often it is wrongly confused with comfort. A maximally free society is not maximally comfortable for anyone, because one has to accept that others will make all sorts of choices that one would not make oneself (and that it’s none of your business.)