A bed of roses

 I am very, very close to being ready to self-publish 'The Curse of Mannerley Manor'! *bounces excitedly* I've found a free service that has good reviews (Draft2Digital). As the name implies, they publish e-books but they have a deal with CreateSpace for print copies. Of course, that's a subsidiary of Amazon, I think, which kind of puts me off. I have looked into print on demand, too, which is actually a lot cheaper than I expected. I have a few friends who have self-published, so I'm going to pick their brains before making the final leap.

In 'holy news', I've found a new method of breathing meditation. I like breathing meditation because it gives me something to focus on, which helps keep the random thoughts at bay. This one focuses on YHWH - the name of God. You can say it without moving your mouth, meaning that you aren't really saying it - because, of course, saying the name of God is forbidden. You 'say' the YH on the in breath and WH on the out breath. I'm finding it really easy to get to a deep state and to hold it. There's a real sense of my 'little, false self' (as Richard Rohr puts it) fading away into the 'big, real self' of the Divine. I also feel my heart's hesitation to let go, which makes me feel I'm on the right track.

My real problem, though, is bringing that sense of a larger self into the rest of my life. It's all very well losing 'myself' in 10 minutes of meditation but if I'm letting that control my thoughts and actions the rest of the time, I'm missing the point. Still, I suppose it's all about practice...