Mindfulness meditation and yoga and tips? When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive. Life is too short, or too long, for me to allow myself the luxury of living it so badly. There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid themBut they are there for a reasonOnly when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there. No one loses anyone, because no one owns anyoneThat is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it. I don’t live in either my past or my futureI’m interested only in the presentIf you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy manLife will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.
One study on the therapeutic qualities of meditation revealed that: Regular practitioners who participated in the retreat without any pay were more self-content than non-meditators. Beginners who practiced meditation for 1-2 months showed improvement in physical and mental health than non-meditators who practiced for the same duration. Beginners and regular meditators showed increased signs of happiness and heightened self-esteem when they were randomly assigned to meditation sessions rather than when they received alternate forms of therapy.
One study conducted at Ohio State University showed that regular mindfulness-based muscle relaxation exercises lowered the risk of breast cancer recurring. A different study at Ohio State monitoring meditation’s effects on elderly patients concluded that mindfulness and relaxation exercises practiced over the period of one month helped boost patients’ lymphocytes, those natural killer cells that improve the immune system. Consequently, the subjects demonstrated better resistance to viruses and tumors.
I’m thinking about how desire is at the center of what it is to be alive and how desire is the root of all suffering. Love and poetry and romance are, like, the only place of enjoyment for me. When feminists like Shulamith Firestone criticize romantic love, namely heterosexual coupling, as a site of oppression, I agree. But sometimes it also feels like romantic love is the only site of release, or even a site of resistance, under capitalism. Maybe I feel this especially as a sex worker, when you’re selling a sense of love or romance for work, the romance “off work” can feel like a space of reclaiming. Yet the new poems are coming so easily, I don’t know if I can trust them. I haven’t gone back to check, but I think there’s only one hyacinth in Porn Carnival. And no one gets bored to death by what existential crises overtake a body in the organic co-op of whatever town Bard College is in. It isn’t that type of book. You get lines such as “these girls were at the wrong orgy,” titles such as “In the Heart-Shaped Jacuzzi of my Soul.” Which isn’t to say it’s all so… rowdy. On god, she reminds me most of Octavio Paz. Still, it’s a book about sex work, mainly. See extra information at https://mytrendingstories.com/article/book-review-othello-by-william-shakespeare/. Rhyming is the most obvious poetic technique used. It helps to make poems flow. Poems do not have to rhyme, however; there are many poems that are free verse—a style that allows poets the flexibility to write their thoughts and ideas without the constraint of following a particular rhyming pattern. There are several different rhyming patterns and schemes. Which one a poet uses will depend on the topic, style, and theme of the poem.
You seem to inhabit a few different personas. There’s Rachel the poet, party girl—and you’re also a sex worker. Which personas did you inhabit while you were writing these poems? I think there is this me facing the idea of melting off the escort persona at times, and then also trying to hold on to a sense of self and politics, which is where the more manifesto-style lines enter [my work]. There is also the “I just want to have fun with my friends and have the orgy” voice, and there’s a a colloquial text message [persona] too. I think you can tell there are direct text messages from me to my friends and the other way around.
St John’s Cathedral, this cathedral is the oldest Anglican church in Hong Kong. It sits on Government Hill, and overlooks the financial district. Constructed in an English Gothic architectural style in the shape of a cross, it houses the seat of the Archbishop of Hong Kong. St John’s Cathedral has quite an unusual history – it was briefly turned into a club during the Japanese occupation of WW2, and many of its stained glass windows were removed. If you’re in Hong Kong at Christmas, the midnight service is highly popular. Queue up from 9pm to be sure of a seat.
Have you noticed how meditation absorbs you into the moment? Mindful awareness comes naturally to us when we meditate, and we reach ‘flow’ state where our mind is in complete harmony with itself. A study on the effects of an eight-week mindful meditation course found that people who are regular meditation practitioners had heightened attention and concentration span. Even people who meditated for short durations showed more focus than individuals who did not meditate at all (Jha, Krompinger, Baine, 2007).