In a sense, I was revisiting the passion of my former livelihood, when I was a freelance journalist in Peru pitching story ideas and sweating deadlines. It reminded me that I really loved the intellectual challenge of explaining a country as challenging as Peru and finding news sources who could give a story an extra-dimension or a good quote. People and their lives were adrenaline for my beat. Anyone interested can check out some of my stories on my other site, Peruvian Graffiti.

All the award-winning Post journalists spoke about their own work and how they developed their writing craft and story harvesting techniques. All but Klein were long-form (feature-length articles and books), and Klein, though a blogger by title, endorsed a more open format since article length is no longer dictated by column inch on newsprint. I learned something from each of them. Obviously, the seminar was a way of showcasing its leading writers to an audience eager to know the Post and the journalism business deeper.

However, compared to other courses offered by newsU.org, this one-day event was light on the red-pencil. rewrite-driven craft. Clark did an inspiring job of turning an hour chat into a romance with the inventiveness of the English language. He’s spent 30 years teaching writing and journalism so he knows how to turn lessons into morsels that can been absorbed and applied. It’s evident in the titles of his books, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer or Help! For Writers: 210 Solutions to the Problems Every Writer Faces. I am tempted to take some of the online courses to sharpen my blunted skills.

The seminar title itself somehow misses the mark. It made it sound as if the Post was trying to crowd-source its Metro section, encouraging new recruits to “write their hearts out.” The Poynter-WashPost event seems to be a periodical collaboration over the past few years. I suspect that the Post participants change from iteration to iteration, depending on who’s available. I suspect there were a lot of high school journalism teachers present as well as writer-reporters who publish in newsletters or magazines on their spare time.

For me, this exercise was an opportunity to examine what it takes to be writer, to employ  reporting and listening skills to dig up a version of the truth, to make the interior haggling over wording and meaning a core component of my self-identity, and to light a fire in the gut. These days, from this keyboard, writing a blog can require the same kind of intensity and honesty as writing a news story. I guess that may have been the real topic of this seminar.

The Washington Post Meditation guru Tara Brach is calm eye of Washington’s stress-filled storm
Listening that night would be far more than the 300 people in the room. Brach’s talks are downloaded free nearly 200,000 times each month by people in more than 150 countries. Strangers write from around the world to say her words have saved them from committing suicide or relapsing into drugs. Government contractors who parachute into the District plan trips around her class. One devotee last year gave her newborn son the middle name Brach.

Her latest book, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart was published earlier this year and has become a best seller (for good reason). I’ve written about her dharma talks before (both attending the talks in Potomac and the audio files available online). She has deeply influenced my life even though I have never personally spoken to her..

YOGA: THE ART OF TRANSFORMATION | Freer and Sackler Galleries
Through masterpieces of Indian sculpture and painting, Yoga: The Art of Transformation explores yoga’s goals; its Hindu as well as Buddhist, Jain, and Sufi manifestations; its means of transforming body and consciousness; and its profound philosophical foundations. The first exhibition to present this leitmotif of Indian visual culture, it also examines the roles that yogis and yoginis played in Indian society over two thousand years.

The DCist also has more details on the exhibit, including crowdfunding, which will start on May 29. Under the auspicies of the Smithsonian Institute, Yoga: The Art of Transformation will be opened from October 19 to January 2014.

Forbe’s has published a List of Top 10 Cities for Yoga, and Washington is in a tie for fourth place, in a tie with New York City. Somehow, Los Angeles does not make the list, though you’d probably have to divide up suburbs. San Diego does.

Who elected Forbe’s as the arbiter of yoga status among U.S. cities and why?

To determine the top U.S. cities for yoga, we turned to data from the marketing firm GfK MRI, which conducted surveys in 205 markets last year, asking participants whether they practiced yoga, and if so, how frequently and for how long.

To be fair, Alice G. Walton has written multiple articles about yoga, meditation and neuroscience so we can’t ascribe her motives to the latest run on Lululemon stock.

Washington Post Express Never Out Of Practice: Mysore yoga classes help students advance at just the right pace - ”First-timers get personal training in a few postures, starting with five rounds of sun salutations, and that may be all they do. As they return to class and master that section, the instructor adds on. Advanced students can complete the beginning of the series, but at some point, even people who can hook their legs around their necks need an assist, a modification or a pep talk.”

A few months ago, I pointed to another article about Ashtanga and Mysore practice in the DC area.

Thanks to Donavan Wilson for tipping me off about this article since I am “out of pocket” (meaning “away,” it’s journalism jargon, if I remember correctly.)