![BRW Monday AM [W]rites: Get Centered & Fortify Yourself for the Week](https://img.evbuc.com/https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.evbuc.com%2Fimages%2F1105747343%2F103222147305%2F1%2Foriginal.20250826-185313?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&w=940&auto=format%2Ccompress&q=75&sharp=10&fp-x=0.00526923062251&fp-y=0.00405611648303&s=32c1ec1fe01d2b2b939e7d7abf2fce99)
BRW Monday AM [W]rites: Get Centered & Fortify Yourself for the Week
Connect with yourself and others. Write from your center. Give yourself the treasure of listening to others and of being seen and heard.
Breathe/Read/Write welcomes everyone. If this will be your first time, see "What is BRW?" below.
BRWs Monday Morning [W]rites from 8:30 to 9:30 am ET
- Monday, October 6
- Monday, October 13 for Indigenous Peoples Day
- Monday, October 20
- Monday, October 27
Join us from anywhere in the world for a one-hour rite of meditation, free-writing, and sharing. We meditate for about eight minutes. Then I read a poem and offer some possible jump-off points for your 15-minute freewrite. We take time to read each freewrite out loud two times when we share (optional), and listeners tell the writer which sounds, words, and phrases they like the sound of. And, as time allows, we wrap up the session and transition into our respective days with a few moments of silence.**
What is Breathe/Read/Write?
To sit with Lisa and quiet down, then write, is a great feeling....no one knows what will surface, and the sharing is such a relief from the noise of daily nothings. Highly recommended for poets and for all those who feel. Pamela B.
Breathe/Read/Write combines short periods of meditation with timed free-writes off a prompt. Lisa Freedman facilitates the breathing, the writing, the sharing, and the responding.
BRW circles are open to everyone. Just bring your curiosity.
No meditation or writing experience required. And the free-writing is free, as in wide open, no need to be correct or logical. Just let the pen move non-stop. This opens space to express the vastness of your unfettered mind.
After each round of meditating and free-writing, everyone has the option to read what they’ve written. We listen deeply to one another and briefly reflect back (without evaluation or criticism) what stands out. This is where the BRW magic happens. As June F. says, strangers become family.
These BRW Morning [W]rites happen in Zoom. You are totally welcome to have your camera off during the meditation and free-writing time. Join us on-screen, if you can, for the sharing and responding time. Pajamas and bathrobes welcome!
The Morning [W]rites last one hour and usually include one cycle of meditating, free-writing, sharing, and responding, occasionally two. With larger groups, zoom breakout rooms give everyone a chance to be heard and get encouraging responses.
Lisa describes BRW in the Zen Studies Center Newsletter:
"It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and reactive these days. Every time we guide our wandering minds back to the breath, we offer ourselves a fresh start. Every time we meditate and then pick up our pens to write in response to a poem, we are in a realm of unlimited possibilities."
Why does BRW have a tree logo?
When Lisa guides the BRW meditations, she channels what she has learned from her teachers, including those who use the Alexander Technique, and she encourages people to let gravity help them settle their bodies into their chairs and to imagine roots growing down through their sit bones and through the bottoms of their feet. As participants are able to rest their attention on the breath, the breath becomes the trunk of the tree, connecting our rooted bodies with our wide open sky level minds.
Connect with yourself and others. Write from your center. Give yourself the treasure of listening to others and of being seen and heard.
Breathe/Read/Write welcomes everyone. If this will be your first time, see "What is BRW?" below.
BRWs Monday Morning [W]rites from 8:30 to 9:30 am ET
- Monday, October 6
- Monday, October 13 for Indigenous Peoples Day
- Monday, October 20
- Monday, October 27
Join us from anywhere in the world for a one-hour rite of meditation, free-writing, and sharing. We meditate for about eight minutes. Then I read a poem and offer some possible jump-off points for your 15-minute freewrite. We take time to read each freewrite out loud two times when we share (optional), and listeners tell the writer which sounds, words, and phrases they like the sound of. And, as time allows, we wrap up the session and transition into our respective days with a few moments of silence.**
What is Breathe/Read/Write?
To sit with Lisa and quiet down, then write, is a great feeling....no one knows what will surface, and the sharing is such a relief from the noise of daily nothings. Highly recommended for poets and for all those who feel. Pamela B.
Breathe/Read/Write combines short periods of meditation with timed free-writes off a prompt. Lisa Freedman facilitates the breathing, the writing, the sharing, and the responding.
BRW circles are open to everyone. Just bring your curiosity.
No meditation or writing experience required. And the free-writing is free, as in wide open, no need to be correct or logical. Just let the pen move non-stop. This opens space to express the vastness of your unfettered mind.
After each round of meditating and free-writing, everyone has the option to read what they’ve written. We listen deeply to one another and briefly reflect back (without evaluation or criticism) what stands out. This is where the BRW magic happens. As June F. says, strangers become family.
These BRW Morning [W]rites happen in Zoom. You are totally welcome to have your camera off during the meditation and free-writing time. Join us on-screen, if you can, for the sharing and responding time. Pajamas and bathrobes welcome!
The Morning [W]rites last one hour and usually include one cycle of meditating, free-writing, sharing, and responding, occasionally two. With larger groups, zoom breakout rooms give everyone a chance to be heard and get encouraging responses.
Lisa describes BRW in the Zen Studies Center Newsletter:
"It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and reactive these days. Every time we guide our wandering minds back to the breath, we offer ourselves a fresh start. Every time we meditate and then pick up our pens to write in response to a poem, we are in a realm of unlimited possibilities."
Why does BRW have a tree logo?
When Lisa guides the BRW meditations, she channels what she has learned from her teachers, including those who use the Alexander Technique, and she encourages people to let gravity help them settle their bodies into their chairs and to imagine roots growing down through their sit bones and through the bottoms of their feet. As participants are able to rest their attention on the breath, the breath becomes the trunk of the tree, connecting our rooted bodies with our wide open sky level minds.