John R. Miles

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Now, back to my conversation with Mark Nepo.

I can completely relate to what you were going through in a different context.

My papa, who was my hero growing up when he got into his 90s, had developed dementia.

And we faced the same onset that you were going through where he had forgotten dementia.

really how to care for himself and it happened to me in a different way not through feeding him but just seeing all the memories and this brilliant person who was the head of research at craft that brilliant mind disappear was just so difficult to see from someone i respected so much so i completely understand what you're saying here and what i've heard you say previously is that

Immersion is whatever is before us.

And that's what brings us alive.

For someone who's not in one of these moments that you and I are referencing here, but they're in their everyday life, what does that immersion look like?

And how do we know when we're holding back from it?

I think everyone knows the Book of Awakening, or at least millions of people do.

But I have loved your work for years.

But as I have understood from hearing you talk, you knew you wanted to be a poet fairly early on in life.

And I'm going to go in to have you tell the story here in a second.

But when I was early in my life, I was serving as a Naval officer.

I was in Rota, Spain.

And over there, it was really an interesting dichotomy between us Americans and the Spaniards who were in the military.