Episode 59 Selving, Unselving, BreathingMy latest book, A Memoir-Essay on Literary Dialogue and Two VerseDialogues with Goethe’s Newly Translated Lyrics of Love and Travel, “RomanElegies” and “Venetian Epigrams,” has two parts.My translation of two verse-collections by Germany’s greatest poet will bePart Two. But first, in Part One, I want to show you how I used Goethe’s lifelong outlook to “coach” me in the theory and practice of dialogue. In what the German poet calls his own personal religion, he invented a story filled with meaning for me. So my “memoir-essay” will present this new symbolic narrative, where we learn about the needed alternation of “selving” and “unselving” to stimulate a life of dialogue.Then, I will go on to offer a 6-line poem by Goethe which I find elaboratesthis myth, Goethe’s “own” religion, into a moral psychology of breathing as key to a happy, healthy mental life. The combination of the new-made religion or myth and the illuminating practical lyric on breathing work together so perfectly that they’ve stimulated me to devote more than two decades trying out literary dialogues that will apply and actualize the twofold key I found.