I am a writer and performance poet living in New York City. I am also one of the editors of Black Lodge Press - a publishing house working to circulate authors who cross back and forth between poetry, prose and that which extends forward. This blog is a weather tracking system of my search for the present. I hope you stop by often and add what ever you want to this open space.

This is Emily's first blog on her new site:

I am starting off this blog with a post about The Presence Process - a book by Micheal Brown. The Presence Processes is a twelve week journey into our own pasts in order to awake to the present. Being a writer I find it extremely difficult to stay present and not get sucked into the drama of life. What else is there to write about if you're not reliving the past or creating the future? The only problem with this I've found is that my imagination is so extensive I've managed to scare the crap out of myself.

A few months a go I was on the E train going from Penn Station to 51st and Lexington when I was instantly struck by an over powering fear that something terrible was going to happen. I wasn't exactly sure what it was but I don't think I've been that scared in my life.

I fight my mind constantly. It is my biggest enemy. And even now at twenty-nine years old I can't talk my way out of being scared of the subways - getting trapped in it and not being able to get out. I also recently discovered that I'm deathly afraid of air planes and traveling out of the country; this coming from someone who has flown over one hundred times and traveled all over Asia at age twenty-two. So what is it that brings us to this boiling point? Is it our make-up? Our creative minds that won't turn off? Or is there a reality to it all?

This is what I am trying to figure out and want to dedicate this blog site too. I am mapping my mind everyday, twice a day, sitting and meditating, becoming present and then searching in the past for where it all began - where in my childhood I became so scared of EVERYTHING. But somehow, this has to do with my writing, my creativity and my performance pieces.

This is not a blog solely about anxiety and mental health, this is a space for discussion on how the mind works - what it creates and how that somehow emanates into the world. I am hoping to attract readers, get comments, announce amazing things going on in my community and spread my community as far as it will go. I hope everyone will feel comfortable posting on my blog and will tell me about how they create, think, deal, whatever.

I am starting off with this post, in this manner because I am hoping to set the stage here – being as honest as I can. I hope all those whom add and comment on this blog are willing to bring everything to the surface, share their art, writing, experiments and psychedelic selves.

Sweet taste and love,
Emily