Saturday, December 31, 2011

Love is big, and why not?

Love is easy

          Love is in no hurry

                     Love is kind

                              Love is not demanding

                                      Love expands your mind

And your heart

your heart

your Heart is free in love

             and beats for yourself and the Other and for the whole World

                                 wishing they two three four six billion (or is it seven?) could

                                         be
                                             so happy

happiness is what we came for

                            and love is the road


                                          Love has no shame

                                                     it shines out to all the world


                  wishing wanting helping everyone to smile forth
                        into the next day
                               into the new year
                                        into the next hour
                                              into the next minute
                                                 into the next....no this very now now.......moment

love is the sweetness of Now
                     loving itself in another Form
                                  over and over and over










 happy new years

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Loving the X, especially if you have kids

 Back from here, but nice to look at

If you have kids,
and you gave yourself a divorce
or found one snuck up on you,
or even got knocked around by one,
that's done,
and you still have the kids

and the X is still a huge part of
their life

and if you don't love the X,
even the stinky, yucky parts of the X,
then that resentment/ dislike/ hatred/ fear
whatever it comes up as for you
that glunk, let's call  it,
is going to sneak into your relationship
to your children

and damage them

and you don't want to do that

so why "forgive"
or let go
and learn to love the gunky X?

one:
for the children's sake

two:
for the sake of your soul

and do get this clear:
"Loving your enemy" does not mean
getting back together with them,
or even condoning actions they still do
that might be harmful to the children

But if their behavior is slightly unappealling to
you
or even hugely unappealling
it's your job to love them anyway


for your soul's sake
and for your children's sake

This is a big subject, and might as well start
plugging and working away on any and all resentments,
because if you have even the tiniest left,
even though you can find a new mate,
you won't find a relationship of unconditional love,
until you've learned to do so
with the parent of your children

their gunkiness
is their business
and it's torturing them every day of their
life,
whether they know it or not

oh, wll

your resentment and lack of forgiveness
is
one
torturing and poisoning your insides
two
making it harder or maybe even impossible
to make as much money as you'd like to make
three
as I keep pointing out:
undermining your children's ability to love themselves

even if they think they are
"doing fine"
and you think they are "Doing fine,"
if they sense your lack of love,
that's going to cripple them not only
with the X,
but with themselves,
because whatever gunk the X has,
they'll pick up part of it,
and if they don't have the ability to forgive
themselves this,
then they are trapped in the old self hatred trap

which isn't a nice place to be

so,
what to do

First and easiest
is the work of Byron Katie (http://thework.com/)

Judge your neighbor
Write it down
Ask 4 questions
Turn it around

"My X shouldn't have ....."

There it's written.

Q1 Is it true that "My X shouldn't have ....."?

Q2: Can I absolutely know that "My X shouldn't have ....."?

Q3 How do I feel, react and live when I believe that "My X shouldn't have ....."?

Q4… Who would I be without attaching to, or without having the thought that "My X shouldn't have ....."?

The turn around requires some explaining, but it's like:


"My X should have loved me more"


turns around to I should have loved my X more


and I should love myself more.


On this screen this doesn't seem like a way to transform your life.


You can work intensive days with my and get huge parts of suffering out of the way, and do great upgrading to the way you enjoy and move your body, and without that, you can go to
thework.com
and find videos and worksheets to guide yourself through it.


It's work, not just lazily wishing you felt better.
But it's working like gardening or building a home
that will radically improve your life.


Good
luck

Chris

Sunday, December 25, 2011

christmas in an airport

leaving Southern California
for love, learning, laughter
and 
waking up,
happiness
and usefulness in
Austin


you know
it sounds bad
like it's all hurried and hassled
and that's a bunk way
to do
Christmas

and it's calm
the line for Southwest was zero
you walk right to the counter

and the homeland security
again,
no line

people are waiting for a plane
but calm
i think they all "did"
Christmas yesterday

and what does this have to
do
with a blog called
Poems from Now

well:
life is always now
and airports
and "not being there yet"
are parts of life

and "not being there yet"
is silly
isn't it
because
be
cause we are always
here
now

and when the next place
arrives
it will delightfully
arrive

and then next place

and now
apparently you
and i
are "at" a computer

and your now
doesn't synchronize on
a watch/ clock with
my now

but for you
your experience of
this now
can always be counted
on to bring you
to the best of what life
is
for you

and guess what?
many cell calls being made
and what are they saying?

same as what I'll say:
MErry Christmas.

Chris

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas cometh

a light shines in the sky

a light shines in you

it signals something amazing

it moves

the wise folks in you follow the light

it ends up in a smelly place
a humble place

new birth
helpless baby

and the light of the world
in you
is born
and begins its journey
to the center of the
Universe

happy
birth
to the Son of God
a star
the Sun of God

in you

yes

yes

yes

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

if your Mom is falling apart and your wonderful advicd


if your Mom is
falling apart
and your wonderful advice
is sometimes heard
sometimes not

and the sun shines
and her house is too hot
and sisters come and go
and phone calls go on
and on

and the food dance
is sometimes friendly
sometimes iffy

and the weirdness of forgetteries
practicing for alheimers

and the crunched over body
no longer sure in movement

and everyone wants to help
and sometimes to compete
that their way of helping is better

and so what'
it's a dance

learning to love
is
a dance

not the only dance in
town

but one of the sweetest

maybe the sweetest

i dance
listen
sometimes am totally present
sometimes not

and that
s
the dance of loving my moments
each one
new
sweet

divine

life is
good

so are you
no matter how broken
or healed
you are

you are amazing

don't forget
don't forget
don't forget

which is kind of
kin to
remember

yeah
remember yourself
and the glory of
being
a
live

ciao
for
NOW

Chris

Thursday, December 15, 2011

the importance of love




in love we remember
to forget
the usual lie
the lie that it's
"all about me"

that we have to
"get our needs met"

that the you over there
is to balance out
the "me" over here

in love
it's a falling
into
wanting their life
to be good

their life to be stretching
learning
happy

awake

if you are lucky
your love is about wanting
you
and the other
to be awake

and in that awakeness
admiting
examining
giggling over the faults and
flaws
and silly habitual stuck points
in yourself

let them talk about their
flaws
if they want

that's their business

in love we
don't need to improve
we just need to listen

"just" need to be present

don't even need to
but who wouldn't be present
in the company
of another person,
any other person,
really,
because we all are
so amazing

and this is
kin da saying we could profit
big time by loving anyone
near or around us

that's a thought,
eh?

and what of past "lovers"

sure,
they aren't around
but they are still in our hearts

love them,
of course,
how can you not?

it's so painful
to deny the love that we are

and when someone else
can get close to that fire

great
see what ignites

life is good
and can get better and better
and
better

Thursday night
about to take flight to
California
to see a grizzly bear called Mom

great practice in loving
this gal is
and Thanks God
for all the practice you
send my way


Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Special Needs Children: perhaps compression, for sure: increase perception of differences

Caveat: this is not official Anat Baniel Method,
and
compression is recommended by my friend,
fellow ABM practitioner, and special needs mom,
Michelle Bensky
(She advised the remarks and writing on the earlier
post called:
On the Spectrum: Fragile X and Autism)

I thought of compression again, after having heard from
Mischelle that she threw out the brushing idea, and kept the
compression from PT, because this weekend I had a number of
very successful sessions with a baby with Prader-Willi Syndrome.
His Mom had just started squeezing this and squeezing that,
and the baby liked it, and it seemed to be useful to his learning.

My addition, of course,
is to always have differences and contrasts and teaming up
in mind.

Which means?

Compress/ squeeze the left knee, say knee.
Do this three or four times with different intensity.

Then compress/ squeeze the right elbow, again
with variations, and saying the word elbow.

The perhaps do the two together.

Or, perhaps work your way up the leg.
Slowly.
Gently.
Saying different parts as you come to them.

Or right left differences,
squeezing back and forth the right hand and the left hand,
right thigh, left thigh.

Go slowly. Let whatever "good" the compression does,
and it certainly wakes a child up to the locations of itself,
can be sweetly increased by having contrasts and the verbal sounds,
and going slowly enough so that each compression/ squeeze can be registered.

Registered where?

The brain, of course.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Special vs Holy Relationship: Course of Miracles via Marianne Williamson


This quote is in the relationships section
comparing
(recall all the power of the idea
of learning as the increased perception of differences)
"unholy relationship"
and a holy one:

"For an unholy relationship is based of
differences,
where each thinks the other has what
they have not.
They come together, each to rob the other.
They stay until they think that there is nothing
left
to steal, and then
move on.
And so they wander through a world of
strangers,
unlike themselves [actually like themselves, in their weird
pseudo isolation, but thinking everyone is unlike]
living in their bodies perhaps under a common
roof
that shelter neither;
in the same room and yet a world apart.

A holy relationship
starts from a different promise.
EAch one has looked within
and seen no lack.
Accepting their own completion, each would extend
it by
joining
with the other, whole as themselves."


And holy wholey as two/ one.

This is from Marianne Williamson's
A Return to Love.

The quote is from the Course on Miracles
and then she goes on to increase clarity
on this distinction.

Of the wanting to get
vs wanting to share variety:

other has to shape up
vs other is grand

other should "behave" according to our program
vs other should shake us up a little or lot and get us
to expand loving

and so on

Get it and read yourself.

This is a nice quote of hers, though:

"Our ego is merely our fear.
We all have egos, that doesn't make us bad people.
Our egos are not where we are bad,
but where we are wounded."

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Lonely, alone ly, making friends, sunday night ramble, maybe "good for you"




loneliness is one thing
alone ness is another

you know how
people pay big bucks
to go on a retreat
and get all by themselves
away from others,
not talking at mealtimes?

it's to just shut up
and deal with the inner stuff

and alone time can be like that
time to just sit
with or without journal
and let all the crap come up
and watch it
or do the Katie work on
it
or realize you need help with it
and then just
be empty
and enjoy that power of
sweet nothing
to replenish
almost everything


and then again,
it's nice to have friends

how do you make friends

a. be yourself

b. go up to people who
look like they might be able to tolerate you
as yourself

c. find something to like in them

d. don't worry if they like you,
just keep being yourself
and liking them

e. if this doesn't scare them off

you've got a friend


good
enough for this cold
and sweet night
ciao
for NOW
Chris

Friday, December 09, 2011

Best first line of poem, thank z be to Mary Oliver: You do not have to be good




You do not have to be good

You don't have to finish your breakfast and wash the dishes
before you go to write a poem
or take a walk
or go back to bed and make love to everyone you love

You do not have to say your prayers
Nor do you have to scorn those who pray continuously

You do not have to turn out the lights
and go to sleep at
ten
eleven
twelve
one

You do not have to be fresh and perky the next
day

Nor need you repent of the late night reading
walking under the stars
making love to everyone you love
lying awake in blessed non sleep not dreaming
not thinking
not even meditating

just warm
lying there
wasting time

You do not have to not waste time

You can linger
over
almost anything to good effect
whatever good effect means,
let's say it means: joyful sustanence

and linger away
at the book, the lover, the bed, the walk,
the poem,

even your work

You do not have to begrudge your
work
Nor listen to anyone who is boring you

You do not have to wait until tomorrow
to be
happy
nor even
until this poem is over

Meanwhile
wild geese fly over Mary Oliver's poem
and the heater hums in mine
a rare cold day in Austin
in Texas
where I never thought I'd be
and I'm in love
with so many things
and I could blame it on Austin
or God
or you

but why bother

you do not have to have an excuse
for
happiness
nor
for joy

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

if love




if love is our subject to
day
what to say

except the obvious
actually
love is the bloodstream of the universe
or something like that

and let's be more silly slash direct
love
is who we is
when we let go
of the need to be who
we aren't

(which was imposed on us by
the frightened beaten down
ones who had forgotten that they
were love
and wanted rules and regulations
to make the world safe
for the dullness and pain
of the love
less life

and that's what's called an aside)

back to love
is
who we
are
when we aren't who we
aren't

our essence
the flow flood frolic that dances
all the time in us
and comes out in
smiles
and dance
and giggles
and sweet touch
and happy slurp
and cheerful chirp
of bird man woman bee
or flower

for surely the petals
in the sun
blazing in all their easy might
are but a shimmering
ray
of the universe of
love

or
something like that


ciao
for
NOW

chris


ps, if you want more waterfalls and creeks
and wild geese in this poem,
please feel free to go back
and insert
anything and everything
that you love
in this ocean
bathtub
meadow
merry mishmash
of words
beneath which love
can lurk
wishes to lurk
probably is lurking

or
larking
(or giggling)

Monday, December 05, 2011

Piggybacking on Evolution





Piggybacking on Evolution


What we do, as Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel practitioners, is elusive to many, and extremely effect, often. One way I’ve come to see as one source of our effectiveness is what I call “piggybacking” on evolution.

Many types of bodywork seem interested in “fixing” this problem or that. Many want to balance something. Many wish to release “blocked” energy.

And we just move people slowly and gently in ways related to this famous word “function.” Functional Integration we call what we do when we aren’t being lazy and called it FI. I’m a big fan of keeping that word Function front and center, and this piggybacking phrase of mine could be little more than another way of saying that.

Then again, maybe it hints to a bit more.

Take one of the simplest and most effective Functional Integration lessons. ( Notice I did not say FI). The client lies on their side, both arms forward, one palm on the other. We work with the shoulder via the vertebrae and the ribs and the pelvis and gently moving the hand forward and the usual this and that.

And what are we doing this “working with” the shoulder.

We’re doing what I call piggybacking on evolution, which in this case is a human body evolved with a shoulder very loosely connected to the other bones of our body so that the “function” of reaching forward can be incredibly fluid and accurate and of almost infinite variation.

Evolution helped us create such a shoulder to help the hands reach forward for food, for love, for craft, for cooking, for wrestling, for opening doors and throwing spears.

We have a big batch of vertebrae, all of which can contribute to this reaching forward function.

As practitioners we don’t have to sweat “range of motion” or even “relaxation.” We “just” have to help that amazing product of evolution, the human shoulder, become even better at becoming a shoulder.

We can roll the ribs. We can engage the neck. We can connect the pelvis to the shoulder. Every little thing we do that “wakes up” that shoulder to be a better “functioning” example of the shoulder that evolution spent millions of years creating for human beings, every little bit adds up, because it’s way IMPORTANT to four million years of humanity that this shoulder be a better and better shoulder.

And that’s what I mean by “piggybacking” on evolution.


Sunday, December 04, 2011

It's Sunday night, and you are "all alone" and you don't even feel like




want to escape into a movie
or even a book
and reading a good book
can be such a sweet travel to another world
another mind
another time

and you don't want to escape
but you don't feel so great
and the busy ness of work isn't around
to take your mind off your loneliness

and you have this suspicion that under
neath
the loneliness
is something worthwhile

you have this glimmer of courage that says:
you are enough
you
you
you are enough
without the movie
without the book
without the TV show
without the X there to nag and fight with
and even if it's nagging and fighting at least it's someone Else around

and that doesn't appeal to you

it's kind of quiet

and there's something a little scary about that
quiet
and something wonderful

the wonderful is a bit of a mystery to you
and you have this feeling
this intuition:
letting the the quiet talk to me
is a kind of food

food for my "soul"
whatever my soul is

and if you think about "soul,"
since it's beyond words,
your head kind of hurts
and it's annoying,
like trying to solve a puzzle in
Chinese
and you don't know Chinese

but when you just go with the feeling
that the "soul"
and this quiet ness
fed each other somehow
and you don't have to "know" how

especially since "knowing how"
is usually words
words in the head
doesn't not equal silence

and you are going to just
let this silence
feed something in
you
that you don't need
to name
and don't need to tell anyone about and
that's sweet relief

ah
ah
ah

welcome to self love

feeding yourself the food of solitude
and silence

so inexpensive
and so immensely valuable

rest into it

happy
evening



Chris

Thursday, December 01, 2011

the waves of now, for those of us away, temporarily, from the ocean



I don't live in Nature
here in hurly burly wonderful Austin

and is that true,
that I don't live in Nature?

what about these
body brain miracle carrying around
eyes
that lift to the heavens
and swallow great gobs of the wide open
sky,
even if it's city sky
it's mighty high
mighty free
mighty reminds me of the real me

and what about,
the almost every morning
travel 
down the paved road a bit
tree lined calm road
to a small park,
and
there is grass
slopping to the sunrise west
and on that bare feet usually play
at
a waking up tai chi
right thumb sensed all the way to left big toe,
left ring finger filled in hand wrist arms shoulder ribs
spine pelvis  right thigh knee lower leg foot out to
right ring toe
that kind of bare foot
on grass
full of the inside body bone miracle me

and that's kind of an inner nature
meets outer nature

moving slowly, when I take time
and remember
slowly enough to feel the "small nature,"
the world I carry around inside

sensing the inner oceans
liquid in us
the bone mountains
the sky in our lungs
the sunshine in our eyes
or is it brain
or is it soul
and the inner sun
glow
peaceful spreading of awareness

of this
moment
and
then riding that wave
the now wave
always another wave coming along

and that game can be played
the now surfing
anywhere
anytime

and with the legs and arms and eyes and chest and pelvis
and spine and breathing
basking in mindful attention
how can nature not nurture our
almost every moment?

awareness is a glow
a light that ripples out
like the pebble in the water,
but in all directions,
into us
and out of us,
and shines and shines,
who knows,
maybe forever