Jesus died so you could have beginner's mind

 Jesus died so you could have beginners mind
Which sounds like some improper mix

and who knows?

the straight line is that He died to redeem our sins

okay
what are sins?

failure to love others
failure to love ourselves
failure to love God/ nature/ the big picture/ Life

and with beginner's mind can you be
angry at so and so,
without a prior story about how they should have been different?

And with the beginner's mind :
you can be curious about their behavior
or attentive
but basically not at all stuck in any idea they should be
any differnet

it takes an fixed and gathered mind
a sure of itself and its opinion mind
to judge and not love another

and ourselves:
same deal

like I could judge this poem
as not enough leaves
and sunsets
and wild geese,
but the beginner's mind doesn't know
how a poem is supposed to be

and judging ourselves,
only can be
with some pre judgements, so prior pattern of
belief

from the beginner's mind again,
about ourselves,
curious,
open,
wondering
waiting,
receptive

a nice way to live
a nice way to love God/ nature/ Life,
too

and from beginner's mind
we are trapped,
not able not to love

and what's left?

find out,
it's Easter

have a resurrection of your
beginner's mind 

(even about this poem,
perhaps)

I'm so wonderful, you're so wonderful, life is good. then we die.

I really like my tag line:
"Life is Yes, and Can get Better and Better and Better"

It's already perfection
you and me
in all our
fucked up ness

in all our imperfection

yes,
yes
in all my imperfection,
if I just ("JUST"!) come
back to the present
I'm sitting, standing, lying, moving
in the middle of
the most amazing miracle of all:
I'm alive,

and alive
and aware
of being alive

that's enough,

if I'm in a bad mood,
there's always a story behind it

the story is never in the present

it's "baggage" of words
trotting along,
hijacking my life

my thoughts aren't me

your thoughts aren't you

the "you're all fucked up" story
we trot out,
drag out,
fling out,
puke out

about ourselves and others is
a
LIE

good old Byron Katie and her first question:
"IS IT TRUE?"

just asking ourselves that
can calm
and bring us back to the glory of being
alive
in the world
without a story

so
today's the Monday of this Monday
of your life

actually, it's Tuesday
and I've already gotten hell
from someone for getting that wrong

oh, well.
life is good

even if I am imperfect and forget that
today is a Monday called Tuesday
and someone gets angry at me about that

and how many "mistakes" can you make
on this Monday/ Tuesday

and how much now can you love
and lust
and turn on
to
as you do?

happy whatever the hell day
it is
Chris

Five lines of our us, six directions of our spine

we sit in a chair

five lines:
two legs, can we sense them,
five toes each side, usually
the calf, the knee, the thigh
the hip joint

sense both legs,
heels, ankles
both legs all of them


two arms
more digits,
fingers this time
all of them
and the hands
and the wists
you know the parts,
all the way to the shoulder socket

where do these guys fit:
sense the spine pelvis ribs shoulder blade

might as well throw
in awareness of the head
and the end of the spine

that's us

that's a lot


and sitting:

on what?

where are we balanced
out with gravity?

and the directions of the spine:

the earliest
the fetus:

1. bending our spine in a C pointing forward
mid back back
pelvis rotating forward at bottom part
sternum down
head forward

sort of the slump thing
and it could be a lengthened
C forward

can we do it
both ways

2. the easiest for the spine
wrists behind head
if we can
or back of hand to opposite cheek
and rotate,
feel the spine shifting
one vertebrae atop another,
rotate right

3. rotate left


what's left?

rest



4. C pointing backwards
belly forward,
arching back
looking up in a lengthening way
not shortening neck
butt rotating up toward back of the head
breathing soft
rotating to front side of pelvis
feel us
getting taller

rest

5. wrist again behind head
or hands interlaced
now making side facing
C's

tilting left first
not a pizza tower
but left elbow down
left hip up
shortening ribs over there
and back to center
C pointing left (open part of C)

6. open part of C to the right
right elbow down
right hip up,
shortening R side ribs
lengthening L side,
feel weight coming all
to L side of pelvis

and sitting
5 lines
6 spine moves

this can be a little
or
a lot
of awakening of awareness

good

sept 11

didn't write my Wednesday ramble
yesterday
and
today
is a famous
day

september 11

things
"went wrong"
if you/ we/ one
held the story:
no one can do rude
and senseless attacks
on Americans
in America

I'll skip any talk
of perhaps
attacks have come from
our organized violence
wing,
known
as the military
(and composed
of fine
and sometimes confused
and often idealistic
and often brainwashed
and sometimes clear as a bell
young men)

people
can get into habits

the enemy
habit
has been the ruin
of a million marriages
throughout history
and probably
even this moment,
this very moment
a million relationships
are suffering from the

ME RIGHT .... YOU WRONG

ME GOOD....YOU BAD

wars


and so nations,
something
goes
wrong,
and the
so called "leaders,"
go for habit
rather than
learning,
and
find
an
enemy
and attack


and
alas,
many suffer as
a result

and
also:

in

our bodies:
we often
fall back on
the same habit,
almost,
and
find an enemy:
the pain,
the clumsiness,
the inflexibility,
the limitation,
the I can't do that
place

and attack

and gosh,
just what that place
needs,
like a child confused
and afraid
and having a "bad day"
is someone to slow down,
listen
pay attention,
ask
and discover:
what's going on?

how can we make that a little better?

how can we pay attention in
a soft
and easy
and
healing
way?

ah,
nice idea for
"bodies"
and
"partners"
and
of course
even for ourselves




more thoughts
on sept 11
and the "enemy game"
over at the Brain Plasticity
and Amazing Changes blog

ciao,
for
now

Healing, Health, Happiness and Sex

sex is silly
really
the way most of us get all worked up about it

sex is profound
if we slow
down
and realize
this is me
alive now
connecting
with another person
alive
now

usually we
don't do that

oh,
well

there is always room for improvement

this work

the Feldenkrais Work
and the Anat Baniel take on it
and
my take on it
(here in
essays
and at SlowSonoma.com
is
about real health
real
healing

which means

what???

to connect with ourselves in ways of
moving that feel good
that increase ease
and happiness
that allow us
to really enjoy being in this body
thing
to have a grand old time
using our brains
to do
what they love to do:
learn

this is good

shoulders, 2

shoulders
hips
elbows
knees

can you come up with a gentle
and interesting
way
to connect
and play with these
four parts
of our mind
body

game?

Excerpt From: UP, Improve Mood, Posture, Thinking, Backs, Necks and Sex, ...and Help "Save the World"

AND THEN WHAT? (in book, paragraphs are "regular," here I spread things out, for easier viewing in computerland)

These prior 4 activities/ meditations/ practices/ lessons (first four of 21 activities that will be in the book) will increase your awareness of how you fit together as a human being on this planet Earth.

They will bring you into the present.

And soften and moderate your breathing.

And will lengthen your spine and improve your posture.

By involving your pelvis they will increase your sexual awareness and skill.

By involving your attention and thinking and awareness they will help you to solve problems better.

By connecting more of you to more of you in pleasant and watchful ways, they will increase your ability to love yourself.

This way of learning and exploring and discovery is ancient to our lives. It is the way we learned when we were infants and the best learners we’ve ever been. When we discovered how to crawl and roll over and walk and talk, we were little geniuses. We didn’t have a program of action, we didn’t do what we were told. Rarely, at least in the first movements, did we imitate anyone. (Speech required a lot of imitation, and yet: it also was hugely about “playing around” with sounds and discovering how to make the noises we heard out there.)

This way of discovery will access our brains, and call us back into solving real and literally tangible “problems.” How to move the head down as the belly comes forward and the head up as the back comes back, is a real feat of attention, and awareness.
And learning.

Learning as discovery.

This is how this work can be anti-aging, by reconnecting us to that young state of heightened learning and awareness, where we are pouring on the new cells in our brains.

When we learn one of these new and complicated movements, we are doing just that: laying down millions of new brains cells.

When we make the new, we become as if young again.

Aging, so called aging, can be seen mainly as a solidification of old and familiar and unaware patterns. We move and talk and sit the same way, wearing down mental and movement and emotional and speech groves (ruts) that tend to get a little more rutted and stuck each year. We think the same things, say the same things, do the same things, have the same reactions to the same situations.

We become predictable and programmed, and boring, although we probably don’t realize that.

So, now, these activities offer a chance to move beyond old habits and get back in the way of living where being present, and being curious and discovering are what our lives are all about.

what are these activities??
come to a Sufia yoga class, or movement class
and find out.

It's so much
fun
and you
really do
expand
change
learn
and become better able
to love yourself