Returning

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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We carry a centre that is always returning. – Mark Nepo

I know what it means to spiral. I know what it means to look so far behind that I get mired in shame and regret and anger. I know what it means to look so far ahead that I am paralyzed be fear and anxiety. When I think about a centre, I think about love.

Love requires jumping in with both feet

There is no halfway love. Love is not small. Love is not minimal. Love does not equivocate. Love is full on, all in, stars-in-your-eyes, sweat-in-your-palms wonderfulness. There is no better feeling than the deep connection when a full heart meets another full heart. When full hearts join miracles happen. That kind of love is gentle and fierce, quiet and peaceful, honest and strong. That kind of love is big enough for it all.

There is a calculus to love

I never did well in mathematics in school. I never took a Calculus course. That being said, I am convinced there is a calculus to love. Calculus, generally speaking, is the study of continuous change. Love’s calculus is the infinite, boundless, on-going, ephemeral, and eternal capacity for change we experience in love. Love’s calculus is flexible, enduring, malleable, and wise.

Love’s center holds

When the world falls apart, loves center holds. Though Yeats offers a far less positive vision in The Second Coming, I want to suggest love is the constant center in the midst of chaos, violence, injustice, and lies. Love is something we must remember, protect, defend, celebrate, and cherish. When nothing makes sense, come back to love. When tears flow, come back to love. When fear shake us to our core, come back to love. In loving one another, however that love manifests, we are becoming our better angels.

https://kitt.global/march-6-returning-mark-nepo-the-book-of-awakening/