Mature Brain

[Image of human brain while doing yoga] ... A brief but satisfying conversation last evening with a psychiatrist at a social gathering where the topic was writing and performing. I mentioned that since being retired I've found writing in new forms {especially short story] flowing on demand -- maybe not wonderful poems, short stories or the NaNoWriMo novel but easily written. The images and voices come and the word follow effortlessly. I trust the subconscious to continue yesterday's story when I have left it although I do not know where it might go and only sometimes know how it will end.

Said he, "It's neurological. The mature brain has acquired that ability, it's a fact." There were many other people around, interruptions, I wanted to ask for sources, for references to research. He seemed so certain and factual, I believed him. I've followed a lot of the brain research with Tibetan monk meditaters and of people doing yoga -- MRIs very definitely show changes in parts of the brain used. I find all this very exciting. It is also part of the reason I feel older people who have written little but now want to should not only be encouraged to "just do it" but should also be offered pointers and structures toward good writing that goes deeper than the surface, tells more truth than the sentimentalities and nostalgia I see too much encouraged. The capability is there, let us not be afraid of the truths we have learned through all our living.