Before I start, I’ve already said too much.

Finally, I was able to quiet my mind and center myself to apply myself to this task – write. Last night, a friend asked “Are you still writing?” Yes, I still write, but mostly journaling. To write something outside of journaling has been hard for me. I still write, because it fills my well. I started journaling at age 9 and have not stopped since.   

I had a writing mentor, a memoirist, who said, “Writing is a muscle, and like any muscle needs to be exercised.” 

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a part of the brain associated with writing. “This region of the brain is responsible for orchestrating thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals. Many authors have indicated an integral link between a person’s will to live, personality, and the functions of the prefrontal cortex.” (Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex)

Writing this blog is more effortful than journaling, because I make more conscious effort to construct sentences and a flow that is recognizable, understandable, and meaningful, unlike stream of consciousness writing. 

After losing Bruno very unexpectedly, almost seven years ago this coming January 2025, I was in a state of waking coma for roughly 18 months.  When I began to be functional, I noticed that something was off in my mental and emotional reactions to situations.  The trauma had affected my brain, and the effects I noticed were the inability to find words and make associations between things as easily as I use to do.  My speech pattern was slow as I tried to find the words to formulate them into a sequence to communicate effectively.

I found meditation effective to regulate my trauma. Like journaling, I started meditating at a young age of 14. Among the many gifts of meditating is being an observer of my thoughts and emotions.  In meditation, I enter in a state of non-duality as an observer without judgement. 

When I write, I enter the world of duality, because words are distinct.  Words are intended to categorize and organize and make concrete what our mind conceptualizes, hence “words live in duality”.  It has both the proclivity to divide and to unite as words can define and identify.

The words make a statement, but are symbols and imagery perhaps more powerful than words in the human psyche? A name is an elevated form of word.  In the bible, Moses speaks to God.

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name? ‘ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.

Exodus 3:13-15 New International Version (NIV)

In 1993, Prince announced that he would no longer go by the name Prince, but rather by a “Love Symbol” which was a mash-up of the gender symbols for man and woman. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36107590

It is an unpronounceable symbol whose meaning has not been identified. It’s all about thinking in new ways, tuning in 2 a new free-quency. – Prince

There is a backstory to the reason he changed his name, but for the purpose of this blog, his reason was he wanted to encourage new ways of thinking and vibrate to a higher frequency.  Tibetan Buddhism uses images to promote healing.  For example, meditating upon the Green Tara (aka Dolma which means “to free something,” “to be free,” “the method of freeing”.)

There are different methods to engage in this meditation.  One is to focus the awareness on the image of Dolma, as in the thangka below. Another would be a guided meditation with spoken words. The meditator creates the stage with her imagination.  This method allows for spaciousness as the images evoked by the meditator is unique to their creation, for example, variances in the shades of green and the forms of Dolma.

“Goldilocks and the Three Bears” tells of Goldilocks’ experience of discovering the “Middle Way”. She eats from a big bowl of porridge “too hot”, then a medium bowl of “too cold” and a smaller bowl of “just right”. The story continues to the chair and the bed that were too hard and too soft, until she finds comfort in the one that was just right. The author, Robert Southey, had known of some translations and read Shakuntala (from the Mahabharata) and the Bhagavad Gita.   In Mahāyāna Buddhism, the “Middle Way” refers to the insight into śūnyatā (“emptiness“) that transcends the extremes of existence and non-existence.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way) 

One of the main reasons the Gita is so cherished is it promotes and discusses the middle path of yoga.  Krishna advocates to Arjuna that the ascetic life is both a difficult and unnecessary practice. “Krishna recommends the path of Karma Yoga or selfless service as the superior and quickest path to realizing the Divine.” ref: https://www.yogabasics.com/learn/bhagavad-gita/

Reaching the Divine is a state of enlightenment.  There is a method of yoga known as Jnana Yoga, the path of knowledge.  This is what Ramana Maharishi taught.  He spoke rarely.  Whenever a new devotee sought his teachings in person, he communicated in silence.  His message is that we are all already enlightened.  We are already divine. Our ignorance (or maya) blocks the awakening to our natural state of enlightenment. 

We can practice being precise with our words, but it could still create miscommunication because the listener or reader of the words absorbs the meaning through the filters of the mind.  A controversy surfaced in the news about Miss Universe representing Denmark, Victoria Kjaer Theilvig, because she was lip synching a Jay Z rap song “Empire State of Mind”⁣ with the n-word. I don’t know the intent of the TikTok video, so I wouldn’t venture on an opinion.

There is the conceptual mind and the “dream mind” according to Tibetan dream master, Tarah Tulku. “Dream mind” is always active. To experience the “dream mind” requires working with dreams so as to be aware of it during the waking state. If not aware that the “dream mind” is active, we can mistake a waking perception as actuality, when in actuality, the “perception” is a waking dream. Ref: “The History of Last Night’s Dream” by Rodger Kamenetz.

Images are sovereign in the mind. Therefore, Colette¹ said that ‘to choose one’s freedom is to choose one’s images.’

The impulse to write came from recognizing the power of words. There was a period when I couldn’t write what I felt, so I withdrew into journaling. Images and symbols are universal and emotes deeper meanings that are beyond words. Lately, I’ve been doing more sketching and drawing. It’s also become popular to “color”. Coloring books for adults have become popular. There are also mandala coloring books. The Mayo Clinic in 2022 stated “Coloring is a healthy way to relieve stress. It calms the brain and helps your body relax.”

1. Colette Madame Collette is an Algerian-born mystic of the Kabbalah tradition, with whom Rodger Kamenetz studied with to research his book “The History of Last Night’s Dream” ↩︎