Five Practices -------------- Read, Consume, Inject, Listen, Inhale, Intake, Contract, Interiorize, Systole Write, Produce, Project, Speak, Exhale, Output, Expand, Exteriorize, Diastole Text: Reading Writing Body: Breathing Stretching Reading (text) Writing (text) Praying (???) Breathing (body) Stretching (body) Reading Reading a book is common and straight forward kind of thing. We hold a book, look at it, and read. And yet, the most curious thing has happened and we're not sure why. By looking at the printed word, we feel the contents of the book in the mind. Whatever we read, in some mysterious sense, we experience. It is not clear how, but we feel the major themes of the book occuring our mind. How does this happen? The act of reading gets stranger when we think that those themes were put there by another person at some time. They experienced something, decided to put pen to paper, and thereby conveyed their experience to us. This is how, of course, how books get written. The author and reader may never meet, but there has been some kind of mysterious and elusive sharing between theme. All this happens in the common sense act of reading printed words. Writing Praying Breathing Stretching