The title – it’s one that I have scrawled on a piece of paper, and has been sitting on my desk for some time. It is a great book title. I am not sure yet what I’ll be writing about, but it will come to me.

It was one of the biggest ideas days ever. The ideas that I came up with this morning acquired a momentum of their own. My first thought was that I should write a poem for possible inclusion in an anthology that Mary Trafford and I are going to be co-editing. Mary Trafford lives in Quebec, Canada – she is a Level III Centered Riding instructor and also a poet. We became friends after I sent her a draft of my newsletter submission – she edited it down and did a really good

Alys and Signy in Fireweed

job. Since, we have been corresponding via email on a near-daily basis, mainly about writing and about Centered Riding.

My poem – I was my primary audience and Mary was my secondary audience – was one in which I drew upon the concept of Ideokinesis. I start with an image of a Centered Riding instructor, who assists me in finding my bubbling spring. I am on Raudi. I then (while still mounted) let my mind drift and imagined myself crossing nearby Moose Creek. It was moving very fast. I took this image to extremes because one of Ideokinesis’s key tenets is that the more outlandish the image, the more the central nervous system likes it. And the more the central nervous system likes it, the more effective it will be in terms of changing posture patterns and releasing tension.

My poem is okay. It’s not great. Of course, time spent writing poetry is never wasted. As I was writing, yet another idea came to mind, and this was that Mary and I should do a combined writing/riding workshop. I figured we could do this on the east coast, and in June when I’m there. I emailed Mary, and told her all this. She got back to me this afternoon and said she really liked my idea. Possible venues now include Brattleboro, VT, where Sally Swift lived and taught, and Cortland NY, where Susan Harris now lives. These locations would be ideal for me.

The writers would have the opportunity in this workshop to generate ideas, and for all, this might be an ideal writing/riding networking opportunity. None of this seems to me to be out of the realm of possibility.

I have never fully trusted ideas that come to me at the speed of light. This is because they tend to be fleeting. After such surges I also feel drained and therefore less inclined to want to act upon them. Later in the day I think – ohh, that idea seemed good at the time, but it was really dumb. Half-baked are the words that then describe them.

Today’s ideas are most likely going to be acted upon; this is because another person, in this case Mary, is also interested in picking up the ball and running with it.

I have been pushing on doors and they have been opening for me. I have been maintaining momentum. It’s now almost to the point in which I no longer have to push on the doors – they are starting to swing open of their own accord. Almost to this point. I’m not there yet.

And there was yet another idea – I am going to ask my anatomy and physiology teacher if I can submit poems instead of case studies for class credit. I can easily make a justification for this – it is an example of writing across the disciplines. We’ll see how this Big Idea goes over.

Next: 24. 1/23/16: Ideokinesis