[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!
Melanie Faith
Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.
Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.
The Society of Professional Journalists
In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.
I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.
Maxine Greene
Philosopher and Education Scholar
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A Psalm of Life
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act—act in the glorious Present!
Heart within, and God o’er head!
From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s, “A Psalm of Life“
The Present is a gift. I have read that statement over the years on posters, pillows, and plaques. I absolutely believe it. The ability to stay Present when the Past weighs and the Future distracts is a gift.
I believe we have Present muscles. I believe we can build them, and that building our Present muscles is perhaps the only route to happiness. Breath is a Present muscle. Breath that uses a specific time and pattern. Breath that uses our entire body. Breath that slows down our thoughts and actions. After breath, comes our mind. Mindfulness, attention, wide-awakeness, flow, and consciousness centers on where we are, rather than where we have been or will be in the future. Our minds help us carefully navigate the not yet space — the life (and world) we want to/will create. Another Present muscle is our heart. By heart, I am talking about something that definitely includes motivation, but runs a bit deeper. In the truest sense of enthusiasm, heart is all about passion and pulse that keeps us going while we are here and after we pass away.
Heart is our soul’s home. I held my grandmother’s hand as she passed away a few years ago. At that time (if I did not understand it already) I understood this body — this life — is but a moment, and does not end when we take our last breath. Our presence only shifts. The soul simply moves. Our song continues. That is the Psalm of Life. That is a gift of the Present.
About Katie
From Louisville. Live in Atlanta. Curious by nature. Researcher by education. Writer by practice. Grateful heart by desire.
Buy the Book!
The Stage Is On Fire, a memoir about hope and change, reasons for voyaging, and dreams burning down can be purchased on Amazon.
