Frederick Meyer
Frederick has been the director of Writers.com since 2019. He studied literature, creative writing, social sciences, and business both as an undergraduate and in graduate school. He has also worked as a copyeditor, writing tutor, web developer, and spiritual coach. Frederick’s writing interests are poetry, short fiction, and especially spiritual nonfiction. He strives to create a welcoming environment for all writers, wherever they’re coming from and wish to go.
Frederick's Writing
Body Text: Reflections on Mixing Kundalini Yoga and Writing
Our team just got back from AWP 2024, a huge conference for writers and writing programs. On Thursday morning, we sponsored a yoga and writing session with poet and instructor Nadia Colburn. It made a large impression on me, which I’d like to share.
Nonfiction, Trauma, and Healing
In my view, the best nonfiction book of the past 20 years is The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk.
The book is one of those cases where everything comes together. It explains the cause of a huge proportion of human suffering—a cause which our culture has somehow overlooked or misunderstood—and it also describes ways of relieving this suffering that differ greatly from what our culture has been trying to this point. Like The Wealth of Nations or Silent Spring, The Body Keeps the Score is the cornerstone book on a crucial new domain of understanding.
The book’s topic is trauma.
Buddhism and Psychedelics: A Practitioner’s Personal Experiences and Reflections
Buddhism and psychedelics have a long and mixed history in the West. Overall, the question of how psychedelics and Buddhism mix—and how, when, and whether these experiences benefit the practitioner’s Buddhist and spiritual path—remains a lively one.
I am a lifelong Buddhist practitioner, and beginning in my early thirties, I have had several experiences with psychedelic substances (also called entheogens), specifically psilocybin and ayahuasca.
I have personally found psychedelics extremely helpful on my Buddhist and spiritual path. My experiences are, of course, unique to me, but I hope that sharing and reflecting on them can illuminate some ways in which Buddhist practice and psychedelic experiences might support one another.
