I have started reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Calming the fearful mind- A zen response to terrorism and it’s really inspiring. I want to do more work that is compassionate and from the heart- and I want to reconcile my day job as a psychologist with Buddhism. There is only one course running in WA on Buddhist psychology that is quite expensive in Australia. I wonder if I am strong enough to compassionately listen to clients now, the last time I did clinical work it was with asylum seekers and I found myself so angry at our government every time I heard a refugee story that I was ineffective as a counsellor. I have already written a few short stories involving Buddhism that I’m happy with- you might describe them as parables. To write a longer work is a challenge, I was thinking of a story line involving a woman whom disguises herself as a man to join a sangha and then her troubled path to accepting her feminity as a source of strength (she would be a rape survivor). I could populate the story with ghosts, vampires and fox fairies (my tour de force). Hmmm. Might start writing that one now!