I remember an adaptation or condensed version of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. The castaway theme probably resonated with my introverted nature.
PROMPT: Childhood Book
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Fluid [Free Verse]
bulging undulation of water, the rolling topsides of wave bumps catch a blazing white shimmer every square meter is in unending flux, shifting & rolling, growing & shrinking the wake of a ferry causes wave to roll into wave at odd angles, sending the ripples into a cross-hatched madness of bobbing water i watch for hours and the same sea never repeats
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DAILY PHOTO: Bhubaneswar Temples Near Lingaraj Mandir
BOOK REVIEW: Mindfulness in Wild Swimming by Tessa Wardley
Mindfulness in Wild Swimming: Meditations on Nature & Flow by Tessa WardleyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Release Date: June 13, 2023
As the title suggests, this is a book about combining mindfulness and swimming in natural bodies of water. It’s part of a large series of “Mindfulness and …” books, and this particular volume is a re-release of a title that came out a couple years back.
While the book does provide an overview the basic methods and considerations for both mindfulness meditation and wild swimming, it’s largely a peptalk or enticement to take up wild swimming as a means to improve awareness (as well as to bolster physical health and mental well-being.) That said, some of this peptalk is artfully, almost poetically, written, and the book is a pleasure to read.
The book discusses solo swims versus those in a group, and it even explores using onshore experiences to bolster mindfulness — e.g. using the sensory experience of the water as a focal point for practicing awareness. The around- (v. in-) water discussions are probably in part because the book uses seasons as a secondary mode of organization, and long and leisurely winter swims in lakes and rivers aren’t an option for people in many parts of the world.
I picked up some interesting food-for-thought in the book, and — as I say — it made for enjoyable reading.
View all my reviews
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The Cough [Free Verse]
Remember the days
when you dreaded
a scratch at the back
of your throat --
harbinger of a cough
that you thought
would get you rushed off
to quarantine.
Or, at least, get a footlong swab
shoved through your nasal cavity.
Best case, it would put all eyes upon you,
as the public wondered whether
you were their Typhoid Mary --
(Except Mary was asymptomatic,
and - clearly - you were not.)
We all learned that the one cough
that one can never suppress
is the one that you desperately
wish to.
That cough won't be silenced.
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DAILY PHOTO: Murdeshwar Shiva
Green Front [Haiku]
squall line coming: the rains will freshen the fort, those walls grown green.
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PROMPT: Three Books
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
This poetry collection teaches that most challenging of human skills: how to be insanely confident that you can do anything without being a jerk about it. (Also, how to see beauty beyond the societal consensus of what’s beautiful.)
Zhuangzi by ZhuangziThe virtues of a carefree, spontaneous, minimalist, and down-to-earth approach to living explained through tiny stories.
The Tragedies of William Shakespeare by William ShakespeareA master class in things that can turn a life into a tragedy.
Titus Andronicus: Live by the sword = tragedy (An eye for an eye, and everyone dies.)
Romeo & Juliet: Grudges (+ Lust) = tragedy
Julius Caesar: handing your adversary the mic (/ the fickleness of crowds) = tragedy
Hamlet: indecisiveness = tragedy (i.e. On or off the crazy-bus.)
Othello: jealousy = tragedy
Macbeth: excessive ambition = tragedy
King Lear: needing gratuitous signs of affection = tragedy
Timon of Athens: expectations of reciprocity = tragedy
Anthony & Cleopatra: mixing one’s love and work lives = tragedy
Coriolanus: a crotchety old warrior in peace time = tragedy
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Burning Sensation [Free Verse]
What's this world?
It's energy playing a game,
a game whose goal is to be rid
of an intense burning sensation,
a burning sensation caused by
low-entropy energy sitting
around with nothing else to do
but burn brightly.
We, the wasters of energy, are
a soothing lotion to the universe,
expediting the making high-entropy,
soothing, tepid energy from
all those stars --
i.e. the universe's poison ivy.
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Midday Fish Market [Haiku]
a fish market, broken down for the day -- yet, its scent still grows.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 