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Meditation

I practice lovingkindness meditation, specifically TWIM.

Forgiveness Meditation

I struggled for a long time to cultivate the felt-sense of metta that the basic instructions would describe, and forgiveness meditation as taught by TWIM was useful for softening my heart and preparing me for this practice.

Clowning

I’m interested in clowning, and specifically Pochinko clowning, as an art form and spiritual practice. I participated in one of Sue Morrison’s “Clown through Mask” classes.

Pochinko taught clowning as a sort of "reverse therapy", in which instead of
ridding oneself of anxieties, the clown performer leans into their own
insecurities and foibles in order to package them as comedy.

Burning man

I went to burning man for the first time this year (2024), had a great time, and am planning to go back.

Living in a culture that valued radical self-expression, participation and immediacy in the way Black Rock City did (see the 10 principles) re-socialized me to be less afraid of joining spontaneous social games with people. This meshes well with my experiences with clowning.

I also attended an interesting math lecture about embodied ways of approaching mathematical problem solving, which inspired me to work more on my mathematical problem solving skills with a tutor who is helping refactor both my understanding of foundational concepts, and improve my emotional relationship to problem-solving and mathematics overall.