Most of us are familiar with the vibe that a stranger gives off. That’s the field. It goes by other names such as electromagnetic energy, chi, prana, or biofield, the National Institute of Health’s preferred term.

On October 25, 1914, banker John Allyn Smith and schoolteacher Martha Little welcomed their first of two sons, John Allyn Smith Jr.—now known to the world as John Berryman. Berryman was born in McAlester, Oklahoma, a town of roughly 17,000 people, about the same size then as it is today, best known for housing prison inmates and a munitions plant...

I moved off campus my junior year at Long Island University into a second-floor room of a home in the cheerful village of Sea Cliff, one square mile of artists, Victorian architecture, and a small cliff park overlooking Hempstead Bay. My space, with an adjacent half room, boasted two walls of picture windows with ample light and openness to support studying, reflecting, and launching myself into independence.

RVA Litcrawl was birthed in a period of distraction. I was busy writing my book on somatics due in a few months and paused from tapping at the keyboard. Out of habit, I checked out Facebook. I learned that friends in Denver were taking part in a litcrawl. What fun!