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.

stretching brains, not attacking tight muscles

barn in morning


a muscle can contract
it can stop contracting and release and return to loose

if a muscle is chronically contracted
and you try to "stretch"
it
the body has an automatic "stretch reflex"
to tighten against that,
so if you do succeed in
"stretching," you will be
actually only succeeding in tearing
the muscle

ah, so what to do?
find the muscle on the other side
use it
and
as you use it,
see just how much
easily
and honestly
you can uncontract
which is to say let go
which is to say release
which is not to say stretch
the muscles on the other side

so "stretching" hamstrings is cruel
and useless
and using the quadraceps
and honestly stopping when hamstrings bind
and honestly seeing about letting go
as the effort goes into softness at hamstring side
and appropriate use
(to lengthen leg, not to stretch anythng)
of the quads

make
sense?

if not,
come get some lessons,
amazing results in
all sorts of areas of ones
life
from this:
use effort where it should be used
let go where it should be let
go

good

Pose, Warrior, Warrior Pose

Non warriors with the great teacher: Earth and flower and Life

Sad but true:
the warriors are out there
posing away right now.

The Russian hot shot.
Some Georgian hot shot.
Even the brilliant little boy who
is playing President, is busy posing:
I am warrior.

I can send enough
bombs
troops
guns
planes
(not myself, of course)
to blast,
kill,
push away,
push around,
stop,
bully
get my way.

E gad. A world lived out at the level
of sandbox bullies,
whether the so called Terrorists,
or the now hung dead Bad Guy Sadaam Hussein
or the Bush Sr
or the Bush Jr
or the Lyndon Johnson
or the JFK
or the Truman
or the Hitler
and on
and on.

Warriors
posing.

And the poor idealistic
young men,
full of love for something bigger than themselves,
and anger at they don't know what,
and testosterone,
and whoosh,
they are off getting killed
as some older man or men
go through their warrior pose.

And then in yoga:
we hold
"poses."

What are we posing as?
Strong?
Doing it right?
Get our act together?
Taking our punishment?
Being good to our bodies?
Dedicated?

And sure,
yoga can be just plain old fun
and interesting,
if the teaching were just
about finding and discovering ourselves
in the moment,
and in the movement,
and so often,
that gets so lost
in the
poses.

And warrior poses.

What are we at war with?
Our bodies?
Doing it wrong?
Being weak?
Not being young any more?
Our teachers for being better at
poses,
than us?
Our bad habits?
Our wish to not be in pain?
A lifetime of not being perfect?

Who knows?

How could we do warrior
one
as a heart opener,
and no posing,
and lots of learnig.

How could we do warrior
two
as a shoulder and leg support
discoverer,
with no enemy?

How could we do warrior
three
with a sense of learning to
press down into the sweet Earth
and letting it all fly up
from there?

Play with it one your own.
Come to me from private yoga lessons.
Join the neurological upgrading lessons.
Go home from yoga and turn the war into
pleasure.
What would that take?

Won't that be interesting to find out?

Learning by Going "Slow"

Slow
Sonoma
dot
com

the idea:
go slowly
and life will be more available to us
in its everyday
miracle:

yes,
this miracle:
We are alive.

It sounds so corny
or
so obvious

and as Moshe Feldenkrais
said,
it's the elusive obvious
that is
so useful and powerful
in our lives.

and say
we are teaching Feldenkrais
or
taking lessons
and want to
keep improving
each
and
every
day

what's the best
way to do that?

Give ourselves
time
at least twenty minutes a
day

Find a nice firm surface
to lie down on,
grass,
the floor,
sand,
a firm, really firm couch
( I have one made from plywood with
some packing mats and a carpet over it)

Lie down
move
easy,
but with awareness

Not the discharge
wiggle moving

but exploring
how does
this
relate
to that

in ourselves

what can we discover
re-cover
explore
re-explore
examine
re-examine

how much can we love
going
within
going slowly
and trying
out some new, old,
easy, a little less than easy
combinations

how much
fun
can we
have
exploring
and learning

this is a nice
way
to
spend some time

each
day