first posting on new blog, Waking 108

I'm going to come up with 108 ways to wake more fully to life. I have done this before, but it's the first of the year, and new place, new love, a vision of myself as providing some things of immense value to others.

The new blog will alternate moving, thinking, feeling/ emotions, and soul. 

It is at http://waking108.blogspot.com
(later
note:
this blog doesn't exist any more
and it's "baby"
http://4brainfitness.blogspot.com
is lanquishing,
HOWEVER,
 the book,
the Old book
TAO OF NOW
and the only 108 day/ way
book there will be for awhile, is just fine

it's great, in my opinion,
buy it and change your life
if you are so
in the
mood)

Here's the first entry, a movement lesson you may have all done. Good. Do it again before you meditate or every 20 minutes at the computer, if you wish.

1. Find a firm chair or bench or log or rock where you can sit with both feet on the ground and your hips are slightly higher than your knees.

2. Come to the front of the chair, so your spine holds up your head and you aren't leaning back on anything.

3. Feel what this is like if you sit more or less upright.

    a. Feel how your pelvis sits on the chair.

    b. Feel how your spine rises up out of your pelvis

    c. Feel how your head is held up by your spine.

    d. Notice your shoulder blades, and how they rest on the ribs of your back.

    e. Feel both arms and both legs and your spine all at once.

4. Sit for a few minutes as if this is your meditation: noticing and sensing your arms and legs and spine. Find a certain peace and clarity in this.

5. Rest by leaning back, or walking, or just wiggling very slightly.

6. Sit forward again, and begin to round yourself into a ball as you sit in the chair.

    a. Let your head roll down and toward your chest.

    b. Let your sternum sink in and go down and backwards.

    c. Bring your belly in and backwards.

    d. Let your eyes come come toward looking at your belly button.

    e. Rock back on your pelvis, so that you are tucking your tail bone in a little and as if bring your sex toward your face.

     f. Undo all this and come to "upright," but no more.

     g. Then round down again, feeling each time a little more ease and awareness of all the parts of this.

     h. Begin to be aware and in enjoyment on the unfurl back to upright part, too.

     i. Do this many times, each time finding something new, and something more releasing or interesting or both.

7. Rest again. Sit in the meditation of 2 arms and 2 legs and 1 spine and just BE for a while.

8. Come to the front of the chair, and put your hands on the sides on your face, with your fingers pointing backwards, thumbs below the ears, fingers above. In this position, very slowly and easily begin to opposite of the movement in #6.

     a. Push your belly forward.

     b. Arch your back.

     c. Look up with your nose and eyes and the arms connected to your head.

     d. Roll forward to the front of your pelvis, as if you want to show off your rear end to someone behind you.

     e. Don't go too far, or "to your limit." Make it easy and enjoyable and about learning. Feel as many ribs and vertebrae as you can.

     f. In this movement, the sternum lifts and comes a bit forward. (The shoulders are soft ant easy. No "throwing the shoulders back" nonsense. This is about waking up to our spines, a central line to our lives).

      g. Come back to "upright" from this, but go no farther.

       h. Do this many times, each time concentrating and learning about a different part.

9. Rest in walking or sitting. Sense both legs, both arms and your spine. Feel if you are taller and more at ease.

10. Come to the front of your chair. Put your hands on your face and head as in #8. Now combine #6 and #8. Roll forward into a curled in ball, and arch up into a looking up person. Do not, do not, do not bring your neck back "too far." Just have your nose tilting up easily in a way the it feels as if your neck's curve is a continuation of your spine's curve.

    a. Go back and forth from belly in and rolling back on your pelvis, to belly out and rocking forward on your pelvis.

    b. Feel each vertebrae.

    c. Feel all the ribs.

    d. Feel the sternum moving up and forward and then down and in.

    e. Begin to sense your neck as part of your spine, not separate from it.

Brief tidbit for clarity in all of your life: THE FUNDAMENTAL UNIT OF INTELLIGENCE IS THE PERCEPTION OF DIFFERENCES.

Good.

11. Do the #10 again, rounding and arching and as you make and aware this movement notice differences between the folding part and the unfolding part:

    a. in the ribs

    b. the spine

    c. the sternum

    d. the pelvis

    e. the head

    f. your breathing

    g. your eyes

12. Rest.

13. Now do folding and arching, almost like #10 and #11, but don't put your hands on your face and head. Notice the difference in how your head relates to your back without your hands on your head.

    a. then go back and forth, hands on face to round and arch, and hands off

    b. pay amused and delighted attention how one way connects up the movement of your head with the arching and rounding in your back.

14. Rest.

15. Now, do the movement of #10 with this added complexity:

    a. Notice what your eyes are doing as you arch and lifted your head and round and tuck your head in

    b. Deliberately move your eyes (open or closed, try both for more differences to experience) down as your head goes down and up as your head goes up

    c. Now, try this, and go very slowly, and do just a little bit: but as your head goes down with rounding, have your eyes move to look up, as if at your forehead, and as your head (connected by hands to your back), lifts in the arching toward up, move your eyes slowly, slowly and gently down.

    d. Do this many times. Take rests. Make the up and down of your head very small if you get wozzy or confused. Just notice the new difference: head up and eyes down, head down and eyes up.

    e. See if you can become calm enough in this to begin to sense your spine and ribs and sternum and breathing and pelvis again, while still moving your head and eyes in opposition.

16. Rest.

17. Imagine doing #10 with the eyes in the same direction at your head. Don't DO anything. Just imagine.

    a. Then do the movement once, and notice what wasn't available in imagination

    b. Imagine it again, more fully.

    c. Do it in reality.

    d. Back and forth like this as long as you are curious and learning and in ease.

18. Rest in sitting in the 5 line meditation, and then rock forward onto your feet and feel the length of yourself in standing. Walk around and stay in the awareness mode for as long as you can. Notice the arms hanging from the spine and the legs holding up the pelvis and the pelvis holding up the head.

19. Enjoy being you today.