Steven Barnes

We’ll be bringing more people in soon, but part of the quiet is simply that we missed a couple of weeks of classes. Feeling like a divine conduit doesn’t have to swell the ego. If you are half-way between an ant and a star, superior or inferior to neither, it is a sense that uplifts without feeling you are higher or lower than anyone else. A…[Read more]

Just check back in when you can, and share your thoughts and experiences. Travel safely!

I don’t bring in all of them every day, but will “model” the best and wisest men and women I’ve known personally–and some of them have been simply extraordinary.

The assumption that seems most appropriate is that if you go deeply enough into yourself, you reach the “True Self” and in essence, the divine. So either direction works.
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I…[Read more]

I think I’ve got it. As with most problems, if you define it clearly and then look at it carefully from multiple angles on successive days, answers reveal themselves. Whew!

Finding the way to transfer a sexual urge into other realms of performance is tricky. I can manage it in a clumsy way: performing X will make me more attractive, so do X. Doing Y will make my body healthier and more sexual, so do Y. Doing Z will feed my emotional hungers, making me more in alignment with my nature, leading to a more natural…[Read more]

What became of the work you produced?

The “Salute to the Sun” is one of the planet’s “complete exercises” in that simply performing it ten times in a row is a full physical regimen. Every posture and movement can and should have a powerful significance, such that it becomes a ritual of awakening and awareness. Good for you!

I’ve got a major sequence for a book/movie which, if done properly, would be stupendously powerful. Done badly it will sink the project. It is of personal impact to me, and I HAVE to process the pain so that I don’t bludgeon the reader/viewer. This won’t be easy…IF I can actually do it at all!

Thank you!

Ultimately, you’ll have to find your own patterns. The Hero’s Journey works because it is A way of organizing the scenes and events so that people will recognize it as a story…but also to organize your efforts to produce the work itself. It isn’t just “Hollywood”: you can find it in storytelling all over the world. The “Journey” is just the…[Read more]

Your thoughts are critically important. Just understanding you are not alone can make a huge difference. And everyone’s experience of emotional logjam are different, and can be different from one day to the next. Just grasping that can save you from a sense of hopelessness: you begin to seek wide-spectrum solutions rather than…[Read more]

This subject, how to keep your confidence, is of critical importance. A couple of suggestions:
1) it can hurt to get rejected, but rejection is a necessary part of the process. You’ll need to face this early, and devise a strategy to deal with it.
2) My personal favorite is a “daily ritual” of motion, emotion, and focus. Tai Chi performed for…[Read more]

So far, that feels fine. Again, look at other writers, especially those you admire, and see how they filter in the details about race, gender, and so forth. It could well be that if you go far enough into the future there will be very few meaningful distinctions, but that itself might be a valuable detail. Creating a story is both the words on…[Read more]

I’m seeing that on the right side as well. Let me communicate with Michael and see if we can fix it.

I’m seeing that on the right side as well. Let me communicate with Michael and see if we can fix it.