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.

DAILY PHOTO: Scenes from Indianapolis

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Photograph of the Indiana War Memorial Museum in downtown Indianapolis.
Photograph of the Indianapolis skyline taken from the Canal Walk.
Photograph of the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indianapolis, Indiana.

PROMPT: Moment

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a moment you wish you could freeze and live in forever?
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This sounds to me like a recipe for how to turn a great moment into Hell. Nothing special survives its moment. I’m with the Buddhists on impermanence — i.e. Everything is impermanent, (and the desire for things to be what they are not is the root of all suffering.)

DAILY PHOTO: Boats Under Foul Skies

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Photograph taken in Bai Tu Long Bay in Northern Vietnam of boats, islands, and cloudy skies.

PROMPT: Vote

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Daily writing prompt
Do you vote in political elections?
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I do. I didn’t for a while because I was living abroad and absentee ballots require forethought, but look where that got us.

PROMPT: Direction

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Daily writing prompt
What gives you direction in life?
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Once upon a time, it used to be a compass, but now it’s GPS. Soon, AI will be telling me not to worry my pretty little head about things like direction, that it will get me where I need to go.

DAILY PHOTO: Yellow River of Stone Mountain

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DAILY PHOTO: Blue Sky & Golden Grass

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Photograph of blue skies over golden grasses, taken in Chaminuka Nature Reserve outside of Lusaka, Zambia.
Photograph of tawny tall grass, taken in Chaminuka Nature Reserve outside of Lusaka, Zambia.
Photograph of tawny tall grass under blue skies, taken in Chaminuka Nature Reserve outside of Lusaka, Zambia.

PROMPT: Quote

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Daily writing prompt
Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?
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“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.” – Mark Twain

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“What you imagine, you create.” – Siddhartha Guatama Buddha

All restatements of one key principle, that our [mental / emotional] experience of the world is an entirely separate thing from the world itself. The latter one has almost no control over, the former one can reach a state of complete control (granted through painstaking and relentless effort.)

DAILY PHOTO: Rail Bridge, Tuscaloosa

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Photograph of the railway bridge over the Black Warrior River from the Tuscaloosa Riverwalk Park of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Photograph of the railway bridge over the Black Warrior River from the Hugh R. Thomas Bridge in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Photograph of the railway bridge over the Black Warrior River from the Tuscaloosa Riverwalk Park of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

PROMPT: Favorite Holiday

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Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?
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Halloween. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. (Suck it, Andy Williams, December is too cold.) And I like a holiday that has a dark side and embraces it.

I like Thanksgiving’s food but think a practice of being grateful just once a year is bad form.