Two legged chairs

Look around you at all the two legged chairs...

Not many?

How come?

Lots of four legged ones.
A few three legged stools, and approximately zero
two legged chairs.

What's that about?

Lots of twos in the world,
two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet
two legs.

We can pull it off.
Why not the chair?

Are they picky or something, or
have the chair designers of the world been holding out on us?

You tell me.

Sex Every Day: OM

you know the phrase:
OMG

OM good,
did you know that's what it stood for

and why is OM good

some Greek said that the "good"
after all the endless bullshit debates
was that which was every day

and OM,
with its 20 minute window
of grounding, 
and stroking and 
framesharing
and setting up, taking down the nest

is something that can
easily be every day

with the minor glitch:

you've got to schedule it

and if you don't...
it doesn't happen


so, let's look at a couple of angles:

you live with a mate,
and you're always "too busy" for "normal" sex
or .... ( admit it, annoyed, and wanting
to deprive and punish,
or at least avoid,
the other)

and you could just say:
every night at ten,
we are going to have sex

that would be great for your relationship

and,
if you want to back off from that bliss land
and make it an easier yes,
find a time,
preferably the same time each day,
kids asleep,
you're awake,
and OM each day then


if it's "hard"
OM

if it's a "piece of cake"
OM

if you are sleepy
OM

if you are jazzed to go,
OM

okay,
that's done

and then, "it" can
get a little harder

when you live alone
or with people who aren't OM partners,
then you've got to use your wits a bit

and mainly,
you've got a great chance to NOT listen
to
no,
to not obey,
the voice that says:
"it's too much trouble."

this excuses voice:
partners are too far away,
my schedule is too busy,
I don't like the available partners in my area

and so on,

and I'm not going to solve this problem for
you

just ask:
could you solve it
if you wanted to?

and about the excuses,
could you ask:
Is it true?
Is it absolutely true?

I bet you could

and think, feel, sense this:

how much fun you could have finding
out
if you can solve this puzzle

good.

Grounded

 Being grounded, means pushing into belly and sternum and rooting in pelvis, and the we can push the head up.

This is learned. It's not a pre program. A huge part of the brain loves/ needs/ organizes around this.

Grounding is for real, until you can into outer space, and the phrase "spaced out," hints at more than might meet the feet.

Recently in a class I was taking, a comment about being grounded came up, and the suggestion was given  that this could be accomplished by sensing the genitals. I thought this nonsense, and want to go about showing how simple "grounded" is.

My prior intro, which delays the meat of the posting, is now at the end.
like a modern novel, or something.


Sensing one's genitals roots us in the sexual yum yum hum hum
of existence, but it doesn't ground us.

The human brain comes out of the birth canal at one fifth its
final size.
 
A huge amount of what the baby and her brain learn and
expand the first two years is movement,
and it's always movement in gravity,
which means learning to connect to gravity
and how pushing down with the belly allows the head to
lift to vertical that's crucial,
and that's part of learning to be "grounded."
To roll over, by pushing down here, and moving there, again, more connection to "ground"

And then crawling: standing on four limbs in crawling is a super duper
understanding of gravity and the ground in two hands, two wrist,
two shoulders, two hips, two knees. Our hands push into the ground, that holds the head and chest up. Our knees push into the ground, and that hold the butt up. As we crawl, we push backward into the ground to go forward.

no understanding of the ground: no crawling.

In fact, to those wanting to "get more grounded," crawling has a lot
to recommend itself.

As does walking barefoot on the good old Earth.

Grounding can be seen thru the lens of the four parts of One Taste,
mainly these three:

Simplicity:
the ground is the ground. Unless you are in space,
you are attracted to the Earth. It's pulling. You're pushing.
Where? Notice.

which is
Attention:
If sitting now, are hands and feet pressing down into something,
which is pushing back up?
Which side of your pelvis is most pressing down?
Are you leaning back? Then your back is being used as a foot,
which is a shitty use of the back, except when lying down.

The two sitz/ sit bones are good feet substitutes.
Leaning back, in primitive / survival conditions is an invitation: kill me.

Connection:
If standing, which part of the foot is connected to Earth, or to your shoe or sock
and how does that connection snake/ connect up through your skeleton to your head,
with the eyes and ears and the top?

Sitting, same: pelvic bones to butt flesh to clothes to chair to chair legs to floor, to ......
And up, pelvic to sacrum to spine to ribs, the shoulder blades and head

And so on

And the last guy:

Desire:
Well, desire to sit up straight can be a conditioned/ finishing school kind of thing,
and it can make you better on horses, if you need to attract an upper class mate,
or stand taller if you want to look better as a breeding partner,
and
there is this desire:

to not be dead

so it's like this:
conditioned sitting up straight: make others happy/ get approval

sit up to be able to move quickly: an inner happiness, freedom, vitality and survival thing

it's pretty deep,
but without grounding,
in the way of the world of most of humanity over most
of its existence: we get taken down

No grounding,
we get killed,
And there it goes:
no big limbic party fun

ah....
there's where the desire can have a lot of fun,

not just in survival,
but moving toward the object of our desire

  let's walk across the room to the one who turns you on....
every step is pressing back into the ground
to push through all your skeleton to
move your forward

simple shit
key to being alive

and attention can get finer and finer:
stand:
put weight on insides, outside of feet.
one inside, one outside.
mainly one foot.
mainly one foot and the big toe
mainly one foot and the ring toe

two feet and the toes of one foot and the heels of the other

sound familiar, this increasing of mindfulness by
attending to the details

sure


good

happy week
happy fall as fall in Austin

happy falling into grace
and now
and ground
and desire

where ever you are


Chris 

the original start:
I have a friend, a male friend,
with whom friendship is getting deeper and deeper.

We regularly say I love you.
It's a pants on kind of love, and deep, deep,
friendship to the core, to the mud, to the blood,
and
one
reason it's so strong is that I can occasionally tell him:
"I love you and you don't know what you're talking about."

(This you may recognize from Moonrise Kingdom,
which I've seen 3 times, which you can guess how much
I like. And this is perhaps my favorite line,
"I love you and you don't know what you are talking about.")

The recent not knowing was a cute and radically upbeat
idea of being grounded,
which was to sense one's genitals.

No.

Sensing one's genitals roots us in the sexual yum yum hum hum
of existence, but it doesn't ground us.

The human brain comes out of the birth canal at one fifth its
final size.

Is Anger a Bad Thing? an article this time

 

Is anger a bad thing?

You ever had this happen to you? You’re apparently minding your own business and your partner tells you, “You know what? You’re really angry?” And, since nobody likes to be told what they are feeling, you argue.

Or not.

And later, the thought plagues you: Am I angry? And there’s often this underthought: What’s the matter with me, anyway?

Ah, anger. Is Anger a Bad Thing?

I was at a bookstore a few days ago and in the stairwell (Book People for those in Austin), there are bunch of kid toys. A kid event had just ended, and going up, I passed a Mom I know coming down, so we stopped to talk.

I sat on the top stair and as we talked her son decided to use a punching toy to punch my shoulder. No pain. No insult, of course, and I thought it might be good to help him redirect.

So I said, “I’m a real person, and real people don’t like to be punched. Would you please say my name and pretend that box over there is me and punch it.”

He’s a kid. He had some fizz and aggression. The box was a fine outlet.

Notice I didn’t tell him he was angry, or to cool it.

Anyway: this isn’t going to be a long treatise on anger. I’m going to attempt to send out an article three weeks a month as part of my newsletter. The idea will be to give you a few useful tidbits to reward your time in visiting this newsletter. There will be many more articles dealing with anger and special needs children, anger and making money, anger and healing from divorce or perking up relationship and so on. (As well as articles on the gamut, which you know if you read my blog)

And back to anger: It comes with the human territory. Anyone who’s had frustrations, or learned to cork things in, or hasn’t reached full enlightenment, is going to have moments of anger. Or big reservoirs of anger. (In some later article I’ll tell of my father’s amazing way of teaching me to stuff my anger when I was in high school).

We come from cave men and cave women.

We are geared for aggression, at certain times.

Obviously, one bit of understanding toward an amazing life, is to pick our times, and pick our usage of anger. And to cut ourselves a break for being human.

So, the anger is there. And “WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?”

One: Realize, as per above, this is part of who we are. Stop the second level stuff, of being angry or judgmental at ourselves for being angry.

Two: Realize other people have it in them, and take the giant step and be curious: what’s really bugging them? Asking is good, too, if the time and relationship is right. And to merely go beyond, “Man, they are full of anger. Bad news.” To “I wonder what’s the grating inside their psyche” is to be on the road to compassion and good relationship.

Three: As with the little boy: Find benign or even useful outlets. A benign and humorous one: Write the name of someone you are angry at on a piece of paper and tape it to the bottom of your shoe and walk around with that all day. A biggie: write a song about it. And anything in between.

Four: Spend some time finding the depths. Where were you frustrated in the past, and how can you come to the present and move on in ways that delight you and move your life forward? For Entrepreneurs, channeling the anger into work and making money, as they discover compassion for themselves and others, talk about win/win. For a musician this can be writing the above song, or creating the melody of the anger stripped of all that endless “story.” For lovers it can be, shutting up, coming to the present and finding the love that’s always here, always now.

Five thru 200: To be revealed by me and discovered by you. Any deep coaching has fun, not agony, with this powerful energy, and for starters and to end the article let’s wrap up with the starting question:

Is anger bad?

Answer: no.

falling into the glory of being, BEing, BEING alive

Some place are getting cold
and maybe they had beautiful days
somewhere between June and October

in Austin we had about
zero
and now it's
beautiful
so maybe that's "fair"

or maybe it's the way the globally
warming Earth is playing
its game this year

for whatever reason
I commend you
all
to take some time
out
doors

today

not rushing to the car

not "getting a lot done"
in your garden

not even doing your "power walk"
or walk and talk walk

and what's left:
just go out
and see where your feet
lead you

is that fair

on a Friday?

when there is
"too much to do"?

yes

why?

someday you will take
your last breath
on this planet Earth

what happens next is belief
superstition, possibility,
who knows

but the last breath comes
and as it approaches

you get to be present
to the immense glory
of being alive
and having been alive

fall
does that to people
somehow

gives the preview to the
looking back
and feeling the immense
glory and wonder of
it all

so fall out of your routine
and into the fresh air

and feel experience see hear
notice enjoy
whatever happens

good

Awakened Christianity: the baby and the bathwater there

I haven't posted a long time
in my Awakened Christianity blog,
and only a few people have looked at it

And
the mystical universe being what it
is
someone of high intelligence
and good
heart
crossed my path
in the night
and we talked of these things:

the baby and the bathwater of Christianity:


The bathwater
nonsense
demeaning aspects that make this fine possible religion
a burden to people's minds, hearts and souls:


ONE:
The idea of death as the "bad guy"
as if it's okay for the carrot to die
for us to eat it
and the bird to die after flying around
and glorifying the world in song
for its span on this beautiful planet
and it's okay for the summer to die into the fall die into the winter die into the spring

but
people can't die

so, you have to be afraid of it
or allow yourself to be afraid of it
or , the real thing: don't inquire about
the fear
and since "everyone" knows death is bad/ scary/ to be avoid/ the worst
people
accept,
like good sheep,
yeah, yeah, death = bad

and the essay on why be fearless and even happy
and excited at the prospect of eventual death,
that's another one

but for now,
the death as big
deal
and then the whole
pivoting of everything on Jesus' dying
as a big
deal

but, hey, folks,
death is what people do,
if Jesus wants to do the human thing,
die He must

on a cross is severe, no doubt,
and so is liver cancer and burn victim car crash
and having your head bashed in by your neighbors
during the genocide in Rwanda

death can be less pleasant than going to sleep
at night
or
it can be just the same

and I degress
a bit,
(not really, it all fits together,
just have fun with it,
let your own examinations of what "they" say,
be a source of endless amusement and freedom
for
you)

TWO, in the bathwater: BRIBERY
it's as if Christians allow themselves to be big
versions of little children
who
if they are good, and Santa knows,
yes, Santa knows,
they get presents
and if they are bad,
they get no presents

but worse, meaner awful really,
as if any God based on love and understanding
wants to send people to Hell

but anyway: this deal,
making life a big good get ticket to heaven
bad, get punished go to hell
is demeaning to what it really means to be human

and dumb
to the actuality:
when people are living out of love and the present
their lives are hell
so they don't have to wait until after death

THREE: EXCLUSIVITY,
as if God doesn't want as many avenues to Her or Him or It
as possible
and the Christian insistence that it's "my way or the highway" ( to hell,
to boot)
reduces a beautiful religion to the level of Go Seahawks, or Go Cowboys,
my team is the winning team

alas,
so
why bother:

because
"The kingdom of heaven is within"
right now

"Let he who is sinless cast the first stone"
perhaps the best spiritual story of all times

"Love your enemy"
easy to say, supposedly hard to do,
and until you and I and everyone learns it,
we are in hell

and it's not that hard,
just get real about what the un-loving is doing to your heart,
mind, guts and soul

or,
if you want some help,
jump on in with Katie:
thework.com

and you don't need the books,
but the titles get you thinking
about what a real world of God consciousness
might be:
Loving What Is



I Need Your Love: Is that true?

A Thousand Names for Joy
this the rendering by Stephen Mitchell once more of the tao ti ching, and Katie's take on what life as an awakened one/ master is about, pretty great

How to be Happy, part twenty two

(Two men, John and Chris, on the Earth, above Sonoma Calif, playing with rocks even though they aren't kids anymore, or maybe they are, in part of their hearts/ souls/ bodies)

Once upon a time I read a book
just because the title was so obnoxious
I had to prove to my smart ass self
how ridiculous and assholish the author had
to be.

Not, for the first time in my life,
I was wrong, way wrong.

The book, and title were:
How to Argue & Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday

Looks like this:


Buy it if you want:

Here's what I remember:

The guys was cool, won a zillion good guy cases
for the environment,
or even taking on "unpopular" causes like Imelia Marcos.

And his methods were two that stood out:

One: when he wanted to center and clear his mind
and discover what he really needed to know
and
say,
he'd go out in
Nature,
take off his shoes, circle around
on the Earth
and let the truth
or insight come to him.

Two: when talking to the jury,
he used honesty,
as in:
"I'm really nervous, because I really want to win
this case for my client,
and I think this is really important,
and I'm afraid I won't give a good enough argument."

Or something like that.


And then,
he had a bit of sweet wisdom toward the end:

in an argument with someone you love:
Lose the Darned Argument.

Let her/ him be right.

Hey: wise up folks, remember the beaten down look on
your so-called "loved one's" face when you won
an argument.

Is that love: getting them that horrible look
and feeling?

Ans:
No.

So, hey:

dance in nature

speak truth

look at your loved one when arguing and think, feel and know:
what do I / we really want.

Good luck
Good love
Good Earth


Chris

You are wonderful

Here's the secret to life:
we are alive.

That's it.

We were born.
Some sort of end to the earthly existence happens.

And now,
right now,
we are here, wherever your here is,
wherever my here is.

This is good.

The secret to life is:
I am alive and that is wonderful,
and you are alive
and that is wonderful.

Wonder.
Means not knowing.
Not knowing means a chance to
learn
a chance to
discover
a chance to
be more, know more, feel more, understand more
and to
thrive in that change.

What do you wonder about?

I wonder about how to spend all of my moments
in the states I reach sometimes:
states of being profoundly happy with myself,
and with others.

I wonder about how to create a world
where human beings are free
to take care of each
other
and to take care of
the Earth.

I wonder how to create change
without being "upset," and "uptight"
and just plain old angry,
at the way certain systems
and institutions seem to be
set up
for the destruction of the Earth
and the making it hard for many
people to live decent, healthy and happy lives.

I wonder how to be happy
all the time,
without resorting to denial
and the phony happiness of
thrashing around
and making a lot of noise and hoopla and using
myself and/or the Earth much more
than is kind.

I wonder
how we
as the family of humans,
can rediscover that certain habits
are not helping us much,
whether at the relationship level when we
have the habit of blaming our spouse for
when we feel bad,
or at the national level,
when many governments have the habit of organizing
around attacking and being at war with
some defined "bad guy."

There is more to wonder about.
Even now, talking, and thinking and writing about
"war"
how can I
how can you
stay in our present,
in our breathing,
in some sort of peace and happiness.

If I am wonderful,
being full of wonder,
you are wonderful, too.
And what, can you happily
and peacefully wonder about?
And when is the wonder unpeaceful?
And can that change over the course
of this book?

I wonder what it will be like
to write a book
over 108 days,
starting each day's reflection
as a blog?

I guess we'll find out together.

body and soul

body and soul
on a roll

how to connect with this moment?

just do.

that's the shortcut.

and another:
to follow our breathing

and another:
to begin some simple movement
and go slowly
and with little effort
and see what is behind and
connected to
and stuck
and free
in that movement

say:
this movement,

we sit in some sort of chair
looking at this thing
a computer thing

we slowly let our heads and noses
turn right and left

what is that like?
how does that feel in
neck
throat
eyes
jaw
back
ribs
shoulders
pelvis

fine
and
what do we see
as our head rotates right and left
and
if this is not enjoyable and
even a little or a lot
beautiful
do we want to do something about
how we have our computer thing

and how does it feel
to sit
now
and whatever we are sitting on?

fine:
now,
how about hugging ourselves
nice and sweet
(soul, soul, self love
and soul might have something in common,
the heart in their under this hug),
putting each hand near the opposite armpit,
hug and hug
and rotate the arms
and chest and shoulders
right and left

and feel
in the moment
in the body
and the soul of being now:
chest
ribs
pelvis,
eyes
neck

and how to enjoy something slow
and sweet and simple
like that

are we too fancy
for simple
here and now
self hug rotation?

I hope not.

and now
rest,
hands down,
eyes closed,
how is it to be us
now?

and then,
hug again,
and keep eyes on the computer,
or over the computer,
and let our arms ribs torso rotate right
while our head rotates left
and then coming back
let the torso go left
as the head goes right

slowly
slowly
feeling in the middle
everything lining up

following breathing

enjoying
stopping
resting

and then
fancier still
you figure out how
and go really
really slowly:
eyes one way
shoulders the other
head the others

so eyes and shoulders/torso are the outside of the sandwich
and
the head is going left say
as eyes and torso/ribs are going right

and flow
go slow
find everything together in the middle
if you muddle don't worry
slow
and learn
and be present

and is being present
the royal road to the soul?

one
of 'em I think
(nature and love, the other two)

you discover
you enjoy

ciao
chris

five lines, five ringed circus, called life

time
to follow our
breathing
always time for that

time to sense
our spine
and our relation
to gravity

ah

and our five
lines:
two arms
two legs
with the
sweet
wonderful
often trying to boss
too much
head
on top

ah

breathing
in the middle
especially the lower back
floating ribs

spines and limbs
in gravity

eyes and ears
on mobile
head

the three
ringed
circus

and then
we
add
thoughts
and
awareness
of all this stuff

and then maybe
awareness of awareness

and then
the feelings
e-motioning
us

hopefully
toward
love

and peace

and joy

which are
sort of
all that's left

once we
come
home

to
now

Feldenkrais Method and therapy

This a letter to Feldy Forum:

Therapy and the Feldenkrais Method.

Lots of wonderful conversations on this. FM involves touch. Therapy involves talk. Boundary issues. Cross possibilities and prejudices. And so on.
Some elusive obvious comments:
What do Feld and therapy have in common that helps create real change?
Listening.
Clarifying.
Creating options.

Now, a cynical and realistic way of seeing most of therapy is: someone paying to be listened to.
More harsh, and also true: paying someone to listen to their crap.
(Necessary corollary in therapy training: how not to be a human toilet).

But, not to run too blithely with this, let’s notice how non habitual, indeed, how remarkable ANY listening really is.
Take Ms. Teardrop with the statement: “My husband verbally abused me again last night.”

Here are the gamut of habitual responses she might get in the “real world.” Notice that all are forms of non-listening.

ENCOURAGING FIGHT OR FLIGHT.
1. You should get out of the relationship, fast.
2. You should tell that bastard off.
3. You should tell him off, and dump him.

ENCOURAGING VICTIMIZATION
4. Oh, you poor person. You have such a hard marriage.
5. Dual victimization: Me, too. My husband is… We are so…
6. Dual and competitive victim: You think that’s bad, my husband…
7. Historical victim: You probably had a mother/father who was …, let’s dwell on your rough past
8. Historical dual victims: We both had really tough mother/father, let’s dwell on …..
9. Historical competitive victims:

DIVERSION TO SEXUALITY
(We aren’t talking therapy here. We are talking the main set up for work place “romances.)
10. Oh, poor you. He doesn’t really understand you. I do. Let’s get really close and you’ll feel all better.
11. Oh, poor us. My mate doesn’t understand me, yours doesn’t understand you, let’s get together

Actually: this is a common, poor me and poor you, let’s talk about our bad past relationship and then get together strategy, even if it’s not the adultery route.

Anyway: in common to all the habitual responses: not listening.

Elaine has called therapy, my rephrasing, the rebuilding of a person via the chance to have a good relationship. This, at least in the times I’ve read, hasn’t been defined, but by combining the above examples, and her list of what you can’t do in therapy (abandon, scold, sexualize), you could take another elusive obvious step and say, a good relationship is relationship that is not a bad one.

Actually, just to fill out the not listening possibilities in the “real world,” now I’ve remembered the abandoning and scold/belittling thing, we’ve all seen those:’

ABANDON
12. I’m sick of hearing about your problems . I’ve got too much on my plate. Bye.

SCOLD/ BELITTLE ( often done by a family member to whom one goes for “help”)
13. That’s so stupid of you to keep putting up with his crap.
14. I told you not to get together with ….
15. When are you going to realize….

HELPER ROUTE:
16. What you need to do is this…..

Okay,
So good therapy would preclude all the not listening possibilities that “real life” often offers someone who opens the conversations with the “my husband verbally abused me again” complaint.

Now, Carl Rogers had an ingenious way to do this listening: He’d just say, I hear you say your husband ….
This seems silly. But in contrast to all the ways of not listening is actually fairly profound, and indeed couple to couple arguments can be radically dissolved by people taking turns listening to each other and then feeding back what was said before they have their chance to put in their “defense”, which is often their attack.

Traditional therapy can go off into unproductive waters if the Carl Rogers, “I hear you say…”, is followed by: how do you feel about that?

Why.
Because it’s missing the second of the elusive obvious steps: CLAIRIFICATION:
What did your husband say that you felt was verbally abusive?

Say she says,
He said I was selfish, and a liar, and only cared about myself.

Okay. Now we have clarification.

What to do from here gets interesting. You could go the, to me, unproductive, how did you feel when he said you were selfish route.
You could Gestalt: how do you feel and what are you aware of now, as you talk about that. Or the Gestalt, hop back and forth on two chairs, and get some communication going.

But, in a process I’ll talk about in some later posting, that I find accomplishes most if not all that therapy does, and then some, here is an amazing way to get some options, and go into non habitual territory.

Have a discussion with Ms. Teardrop about: is it true you are sometimes selfish, as am I and everyone on this planet. Is it true you are a liar, as am I, and …. Is it true that sometimes you only care about yourself, as it is true for me and everyone on this planet.

Then what happens to the verbal abuse.
It turns into words we didn’t want to hear.
Oh, well.

There is more. But this is a start.

Next step: What Ms. Teardrop dislikes about her husband, and how that can all be turned into awareness and self realization. Later, for that.

Anyway: touch or no touch: if you keep the person doing what they always did, they’re stuck in the poop. If you get them to slow down, feel validated for being a person who does whatever they do (listen), get some clarity on what’s going on, and provide new ways of ACTING IN THE WORLD, then you've provided some real and wonderful help. (I like Paul’s thing of ACTING as one of the big four).

So: car keys, weird dad, mom hostage. Calls for action. I could go into this one and have a lot of fun, which again is non habitual, since this is supposed to be real bad stuff, but, one of the first things I’d ask is: is it true you need to do anything about this?

Ciao,
Chris

Learning and Love

To learn
is to fall

into the new

maybe a new way
of thinking about
something

say:
someone you used to "hate,"
and you realize:
hey,
they've got issues
and they not only treat me
bad,
but treat themselves
badly
and you decide to just send them
wishes for the best

or:
you always brush
your teeth
with your right hand,
you try it with your left
and
it's slower,
and then
again,
more interesting

or:
you sit at your computer
and kind of hunch over
and
you decide
to try rolling your pelvis
for and aft
a
bit
belly out,
belly in,
feeling shifts in your spine
and your ribs

and then you sit,
with a slight arch in your back
and it
feels new

it's learning

and love
is
noticing
that butterfly
and just really grooving on it
or the
smile
of someone
you know, well,
or don't even know at all

just lit up
by the wonder of
it all

this is what we strive for
in Feldenkrais
and in life
and in meditation
and in coming home to now:

that lit up feeling:
ah,
it's wonderful
to
be
alive

What to say about the Glories of Feldenkrais?

Feldenkrais the man,
bless him,
dead,
and he left us a system of
teaching,
and exploration
and learning.

So,
here we are,
in a world that is in a mess,
and how can Feldenkrais
help with that?

Learning to see things
from at least three points
of view.
That's a good start.

Finding our way
back to our
"bodies"
not as muscles and bones to shove around,
but as marvellous dancing and learning
and loving
organisms,
through which we can taste
the sweetness of life.

and in that state of sweetness
be kinder
to ourselves
and others.

And the fun
of learning
how to do
something "hard,"
the famous
"making the impossible, possible;
the possible, easy;
the easy, elegant,"
quote.

This is a nice way
to go about living isn't it?

Finding
and cultivating
and honing
a sense
of ease
and grace
and elegance,

in our teaching,
in our learning,
in our living.

Good living
can be very simple

and Good living
is going to be necessary
to save the world.

and good living
is going to be one of
our return routes
back to our basic
nature,
which is happiness,
and love
and sharing,
and ease.

So,
take a walk.
Roll around
and remember the Feldenkrais lessons
we have learned.

Be easy,
be happy,
be learning.

Ah,
good.

Freedom

We have habits.

We put one shoe on first.
We put one leg into our pants first.

We hold our breath when trying something
"new"
or
"hard."

We have certain habits of how
we move
and what parts of our pelvis
and ribs
we bring to the party
and whta parts we leave out

we have habits of straining
and stressing and forgetting
about learning,

habits of getting lost
in "how does it look"
to others,

habits of being too much in
a hurry
to slow down enough
to sense and be aware of ourselves
in this wonderful
amazing
moment.

WakeUp Feldenkrais is about coming beyond
these habits,
to learning,

learning not only to move
with more ease
and variety

but learning how
to go about learning
to re-invent
and transform ourselves
by one easy and elegant
creation of options
beyond the confines
of old habits of moving
thinking and feeling.

Life and Love

LIFE AND LOVE
Well, folks, this is one of those late night blogs, where the words either come easily, or not, and we'll discover as we go along how that's going to go.

When you love someone, the nice thing is this: it's about them, and if you really love them, it's really about them and so you are free.

Let's switch the pronouns: when we love we are free. Because why? Because we don't have to be concerned about how we are doing, or are we good enough, or what the other thinks about us: we just think about how great the other is and how much we want them to be happy.

That's love. It's not about us, it's about them.

And in Feldenkrais, if we do the lesson "right," it's about the other person, not about how smart we are, or how connected to them or ourselves we are (though that will certainly help), but about how much they are learning.

A lesson means: the client learns.

And what does the client learn: to move more easily, to connect to themselves in a more full and sweeter way, to be happier and more at ease in their own body. They could learn to like and appreciate the wonder of themselves. They could learn that they have dreams that they've put on the shelf that all of a sudden seem worth dusting off and pursuing. They might learn that it's okay to change, okay to try less hard, okay to pay more attention, that it's wonderful to be present, that it's sweet to pay attention to themselves.

Which is to say: they can be learning to love themselves from brain cells to tippy toes, from in breath to out sigh, from hard bones to invisible awareness. Self love. Self awareness.

It's all about their learning.

It's all about their happiness.

Sounds like love to me.

(That was easy. Hmmm.)

The Porpoise of Life 2

WHAT IS THE PORPOISE OF LIFE?

We learn by slowing down, and slow Sonoma dot com is about the huge advantage of that, but then we like to zip along on our bikes, our trash the tennis ball around, or roar down a ski slope, or laugh our heads off at a silly movie, or run across a field for the pure joy of running.

Life is to be lived.

Which means: getting outside.

Which means: going full speed ahead sometimes for the thrill of it.

Which means: playing and not being initimidated by authority or what other people think,
or any ideas of what we think is right or wrong or a "mistake."

Which means: having fun, being silly.

So, while going slow is an absolute necessity to the learning that takes place in the Feldie work,
we need to let 'er rip every once in a while, to gain the Feldenkrais idea
of living a full, rich and wonderful life.

So let's go at it like this:

Feldenkrais is fantastic for taking neck and back pain and showing someone how to become a person who doesn't live that way anymore.

And at an even better level, the work is for those who want to take a realization that they can transform from pain to no pain and go for a life where they can transform humdrum into excitement, unhappiness into happiness, a mediocre life into a fantastic one.

This is the porpoise of life: to live life, with fullness and richness and zest and joy and vitality.

This is what WakeUp Feldenkrais is about. And this is what you'll get if you come to work with me.

Gurdjeiff and Feldenkrais

FELDENKRAIS AND GURDJIEFF
Gurdjieff is the last name of a man who was a big deal for awhile and still has a powerful influence. He studied and synthesized and maybe even came up with new ideas about man’s spiritual and psychological development.

In my way of seeing things, his main thrust was seeing that humanity is asleep, that most of us are, most of the times, going through our days in some sort of daze. That we are creatures of habit, with no coherent sense of ourselves. That we have a bunch of “I”s going around taking turns ruling the roost: one day the I who wants to save money, the next the I who wants to impress people with a fancy car, one hour the I who wants to learn a new skill, the next hour the I who just wants to get drunk and forget everything.

We are not real people, Gurdjieff says, but by “remembering ourselves,” which is to say, remembering that we are beings and alive and have an effect on others and the world around us, we can wake up and start being worthwhile human beings.

In an essay at Denis Leri’s Semiophysics site ( Moshe Feldenkrais and G.I.Gurdjieff,), he describes the relationship of Feldenkrais to Gurdjieff, how Feldenkrais is purported to have said that Gurdjieff is the strongest influence on what he was trying to do.
If we realize how much of Feldenkrais work is about undoing our slavery to our habitual ways of using ourselves poorly and inefficiently, and reconnecting to a way of being that can have an intention and explore and discover clear ways of achieving that intention, we can see how Feldenkrais is a natural extension of the Gurdjieff work.

I spend many years in the Gurdjieff work, and though I was thrilled to discover that carpentry and garden making and floor washing could be profound and useful meditations, the underlying push of the Gurdjieff work was a subtle or not so subtle: “Thou Shalt Remember Thyself.” Good advice, but if you can’t do it, is trying harder at something you can’t do the right path?

This seems a rhetorical question, eh?

And so, the Feldenkrais work, where you don’t try harder, but try smarter and with more variation and sense of learning: this is a way to wake up that is fun and delightful and gets results and feels good all at once. Because it is how human beings are meant to be.

According to whom? Me, I guess. You decide for you.