Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE PRESCRIPTIONS CONSTRUCTIVE REST: Lie on a firm/comfortable surface in semi-supine (knees up), or legs extended. Place a paperback book or two beneath your head, allowing your head to align with your spine. Notice the support of the surface beneath you. Observe any places where you are holding yourself and allow those places to release. Direct for length and width through your torso, legs, and arms. Rest for 5 to 15 minutes. MICRO-PAUSES: (whenever you think of it, or set alerts on your devices) Pause, notice your breath, and invite e ..read more

I once thought I was the only Diana McCullough in the world. And then the internet happened. There I was, many times over, listed under a name search. And not only in the World Wide Web. Several weeks ago, a local home and garden shop phoned to confirm my customer account address, as they have three Diana McCulloughs in their files. One of many. ‘I am so many! What is my name? What is the name of the deep breath I would take over and over for all of us?’ Mary Oliver, Sunrise Wishing you and all of the world’s Diana McCulloughs a good day ..read more

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com Photo by Marlon Schmeiski on Pexels.com Keeping Holding Trying Fixing Finding In the study of the Alexander Technique, rather than repairing, we are befriending ourselves. This is the work of the Technique. Being a friend to oneself. How about: musing, questioning, moving, playing, pondering? Photo by Gustavo Fring on Pexels.com ..read more

Photo by Aaron J Hill on Pexels.com Astonishing what can be seen sitting idly by a window sipping coffee. A pileated* woodpecker, magnificent in all of its black and white and red glory, scuttled over a low-hanging silver-maple branch in the neighbor’s back yard, pausing every few seconds to peck the bark. Flitting to a higher perch, the wide wing span flashed black and white. After five years at this residence, seeing the big bird was a first. They are reclusive, but not uncommon in urban areas, according to on-line sources. Our neighborhood of 30 houses abuts a wooded ravine, where, I am ass ..read more

Dear Ohio readers—-get yourselves to Buzzard’s Roost Nature Preserve for the best-ever day trip. What a place. Hickories and oaks so high up one must utilize Alexander Technique thinking to see their tippy-tops. (i.e.that would be looking upwards from the atlas/occipital joint, otherwise you will have neck scrunch). Just west of Chillicothe’s outskirts, accessed via a one-lane winding road, it’s the perfect place for a winter walk. Unlike many forests in the state, this one was spacious and open, not inundated with invasive bush honeysuckle, which is a problem on our farm. The birds! Multiple ..read more

Here they are, a few (about a third of those recorded), D,P, J and B’s for the month of November: *sun cresting cloud bank, lighting up the west meadow *Meagan’s flute recital *driving with the windows down. So warm! *garden gazebo lunch, another warm day *hundreds of starlings(?) landing in waves onto the neighbor’s lawn, seen as Mike and I sat on the couch with our Thanksgiving Day coffees *checking the lock on the sunroom door, and there to the east is the full moon rising up through a cloud and the neighborhood tree tops *hearing from Duxberry Arts Alternative colleagues, 40 years after we ..read more

Photo by kendra coupland on Pexels.com Standing at the sink, hunched over a bowl of hard-boiled* eggs, I do battle with the shells, exasperated with the little bits sticking to my fingers. Thank goodness, I finally ask, What would give me some ease? For starters, switch on the fan above the sink. It’s humid this morning and I’m sweating. Having paused, or in AT terms, Inhibited, I give myself a few options. I Direct. Head away. Long spine. Oh, and how about a little PMA? (Position of Mechanical Advantage, consisting of allowing the head/torso to balance lightly over the legs, ever so slightly ..read more

Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com That’s the title of a lecture from a recent Alexander Technique class. It’s a phrase describing a Tommy Thompson* take on the AT practice of Inhibition. A standard explanation of Inhibition is this: Having observed The Self engaged in a poor Habit of Use, we stop what we are doing and pause. Having paused, or inhibited, we think clearly about a different way to proceed. If we withhold definition, if we entertain the possibility there’s another way to do something or think about anything, we are, in AT parlance, Inhibiting. For many years, I thought the ..read more

Beth and me, on an early fall bicycle ride It’s October, Beth. Your favorite month. The fall colors, the scents, the pumpkins. You loved them all. And fungi, of course. A prolonged bout with cancer had left you, miraculously, alive. We celebrated your recovery at a Pelotonia fund-raising event, an ice cream social hosted by Mike. Astonished and grateful, it was OSU experimental treatments, funded with Pelotonia monies, that had given you new life. And then, as friendships do, our connections changed. Rather than bicycle rides and art project days, we checked in with each other occasionally, yo ..read more

Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com Longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction, this memoir by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, depicts growing up in 1980’s-90’s Bogota, Columbia, in a family of fortune-tellers, healers, and practitioners of the magical arts. Also a harrowing tale of violence and societal/familial upheaval, Contreras begins her storytelling with an account of her experience with amnesia. A captivating read, the very best kind of memoir, one that immerses me in an unknown life and place. And yet, for all the otherworldly-ness of her story, our shared human experience and ..read more