Conversations with Calliope

Conversations with Calliope

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today.
JOE: Okay. I am starting to feel a little overwhelmed though. I have joined a number of writing and marketing groups all of which have active conversations. Sometimes it is hard to keep up with them all.
CALLIOPE: Maybe you have to be a little more selective.
JOE: I think you are right. It would probably be a full time job to correspond with all of them and leave me little time for writing and editing.
CALLIOPE: You do need to decide what is important.
JOE: Where have I heard that before? It brings to mind something Eckhart Tolle stresses, awareness being more important than thinking.
CALLIOPE: Care to elaborate?
JOE: He talks of identifying with you thinking as a distraction. If you think you are your thinking, you can get lost in it. Actually we are our awareness which includes awareness of our thinking, and seeing it as separate from who we are.
CALLIOPE: A rather deep topic. It bears some reflection.
JOE: That's his point. But not reflection in terms of ideas or words but just being with things, ideas or emotions and just experiencing them.
CALLIOPE: So how do you balance that with writing? Doesn't that necessarily involve words?
JOE: I guess I'm not sure and it does to answer your two questions. Maybe it is important to be with events, feelings or thoughts first in an experiential and nonjudgmental way and then write about the experience if proves useful to do so.
CALLIOPE: Where did you learn all this?
JOE: Tolle recently wrote a book called The New Earth which has been the topic of ongoing podcasts with Oprah. I have been watching them with Carol and was prompted to reread his earlier book, The Power of Now. Both books seem to be talking about meditation with which I struggled in my monastic days. Now I am starting to understand it. Talk with you tomorrow.