Relationships and Mindfulness

As I write this,
and as you read this,
we are either mindful
or not.

Aware can be all sorts of things,
but it seems to need to be at least in part
grounded in the physical reality,
like our breathing, or our arms and legs,
or light coming in our eyes right now.

The good old here and now.

and if we aren't mindful,
then we are on some sort of automatic,
which even Thich Nhat Hahn admitted was hard when writing.

And he's not in relationship.

So, we meet someone.
And they are groovy
and they think we are groovy
and sex is good
and we like a bunch of things in common,
so whoopie,
life is solved.

Feels like that for awhile,
except that once we start to spend enough time
together,
someone is going to fall away from the "perfect" projection
and fall back into normal jerky selfish scared angry whatever.

You know, the stuff happens.

So one person has stress and reacts,
and then the options are:

one or both people realize things are off and become mindful

neither become mindful which means you
by definition
are on automatic (which sounds nicer than mindless,
but that is the opposite of mindful isn't it)

Anyway two people on automatic have to fall
back on what their parents taught mainly
and then any other training
or habits they've developed/ gotten away with
over the years

So we have the couple:
stress
people fallen into not so great patterns
and various automatic responses.

Which means: if you and your partner had perfect unconditionally loving
parents,
who dealt with stress with love and listening and humor,
then you can fall back on some pretty high grade
automatic behavior

without such parents,
things more or less have to disintegrate

or the couple has to get more and more busy
and distant
and businesslike
to stay out of the trouble zone

or the "trouble" can be held inside
and gnashed away at as
it eats somebody's guts out
(and chances are the inner gnashing
if used by one or both,
was a pattern they picked up)

So:
without the mindfulness
to feel what we are feeling
as in us
and the mindfulness to stay
present to the other
and to our words as we "deal"
with a situation,
we are bound to either avoid
or conflict

and what to do about all this?

one is to agree,
in calmer moments,
what the default agreed upon
pattern will be when conflict happens:

say, doing the work of Byron Katie

or listening to each other without interruption
of five minutes at a time

or stopping the talk and touching for awhile

or arguing in gibberish

or non violent communication

or taking a walk and calming down

or writing up gratitude lists

or prefacing each statement with:
I know anything that bothers you
is in me too

or.


well, the world is full of things to do besides the usual painful ones

it's kind of amazing
we take so little advantage of them

oh, well.

See: My Joy of Divorce website, five month course page
if you are by chance interested in a group from yourself
or your friends that could lead out of a LOT of suffering

The Joy of Divorce, the Novel, first scene: Ping Pong balls

HAPPY ANGER

Ping pong balls

Jennifer is in a rage, that bastard, how dare he? And she’s a little bit joyous, too, how can you not be when six other divorcees are all hurling ping pong balls at photographs of their X, making all sorts of ridiculous grunts along the way, all the while Joey’s voice so cheerfully urging them along.

“Feel za anga, yah,” he almost sings, pretending embellishing clearly enjoying some ridiculous accent. “And feel za breathing, too, yah. You breathe, you anga, you throw the balls. Gut. Make zos grunts bigga. Big noise. Angry noise. A little bit happy, too noise. So fun to throw ball and grunt. Yah! Grunt ze ‘ Yah, yah’ as the throw.”

They grunt the yah, yah, and Jennifer loves this stupid stuff. It feels so good to move. And stop worrying. And stop torturing herself, ‘What went wrong?’ She throws, grunts, “Yah, yah.”

“Gut, gut,” continues crazy wise Joey, “ feel za spine, feel za weight shift, one foot to other. Yah. Feel za breathe. Breathe more. Feel good and gut and yah to za breathe in you. Feel za arm move and let ze throw be soft and anga and delicious all at once.

“Now stop please, pause, stand still, close zee eyes, feel za you inside of you. Feel za ‘I am alive’ on you.

“Feel za you, yah. No name. Just the you experiencing za you, just now. Only now. Now now wow. Feel za two feet and two legs and two arms and how ze body thing all held together. How does that miracle body puzzle you given for a while all fit together?

“Feel feet on za floor, good floor, nice floor, hold you up. Feel za floor holding up feet, feel za feet holding up legs, feel za legs hold up pelvis. Breathe. Breathe down near to pelvis. Ah, gut. Send love up feet legs pelvis and then spine, love up spine, feel pelvis hold up spine, spine hold up head, brain in there. Good brain.

“Awareness in there, or maybe not. Where is aware? Don’t know. Don’t matter. Feel za awareness of feet legs pelvis spine head and spine hold ribs and ribs hold arms and breathing inside ribs, some and down by pelvis some.

“Breathe. Good feel, yah. Feel the in. Feel the out. No need to take care of breathe. Breathe take care of us. And heart, feel if can, it pump. Pump, pump, heart always pump, always love you, always send oxygen all over to your feet and legs and pelvis and spine and ribs and lungs and stomach and liver and brain and tongue.

“Good heart. It loves you. Can you love your heart for taking care of you? Love your feet to hold you up? Love za legs to hold you up? Love za everything to be alive for you now?

“Now. Feel za now of heart, breathe, legs, arms ribs, spine head lungs pelvis. Feel more. Sense the all of you.

“This is gut, no? Yah, this is gut.

“Now open eyes. Look around room. See other people in same room. See them breathe. See their feet holding up their legs holding up their pelvis holding up their spine holding up their heads. Other people alive. See them alive. Feel you alive. Feel the same now you all in. Gut? Yah, feel za gut to be alive just now, wow, all together here. Look at them, see them, see them seeing you, forget a little who is who watching whom in this room, zoom, zoom, zoom.

“Breathe. They breathe. You breathe. Sense your breathe. Notice or imagine their breathe. All alive.

“Gut.

“ Now look at picture of X. Sense feet and look at picture. Feet real, now, picture two dimensions. A story not now. Feel legs and pelvis and spine. And feet. Sense the real. Look for anger in you when look at picture.

“Realize big dumb joke. Picture not sending anga to you. Anga in there, but when sense feet arms spine legs breathing, not so big the anga, is it?

“Sense the little anga, and if not any imagine a tiny bit, and throw za balls again. Throw slow. And feel each throw as delicious movement. Feel the feet and spines and rotation and weight shift and fingers on ball and then letting go. Feel delicious to be you and to be move and feel tiny bit anga, and feel alive.

“This is you, now alive. Feel za miracle of two legger creature throw ball. Feel joy to throw. Watch ball in air. Hear sound when it hits. Love za breathe as you throw. Love za you with za anga and za pleasure of za throw.

“Be happy big, and anga a small part of the big you. Throw za pinger ponger and say, ‘Thank you, God,’ or ‘Thank you, Universe,’ or ‘Thank you, Life’ each throw you go.

“Have fun in this now, now, now. Breathe. Feel all the little parts of the spine, the vertebrae changing and moving as you throw. Feel fingers. Feel toes. Love to be alive.`

“Sing out, thanks, Thanks. Thanks!”


Jennifer, tears streaming down her face, a smile so wide in hurts her jaw, the glorious sensuality of her body as she moves, throws these ping pong balls of anger, ping pong balls of love, ping pong balls of waking back to the magnificence of Jennifer.

And what is that?

She doesn’t know yet and can’t wait to keep discovering, recovering, singing and moving. “Thank you, sweet Life,” she sings forth, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, indeed.”

Sweet life. Alive life. Sweet life, indeed.

Babies love to learn, help them along

I had a nice talk with a parent on the phone
the other day.

Her daughter does not yet use
much language.

I suggested that she could have a lot of fun
and be of huge use to her child
by playing with differences in the world of sound.

It could be differences
in pitch,
going eeeeee in a high pitch
and eeeee in a low pitch.

It could be differences in long and short:

laaaaaaaaa and la
la and laaaaaaaaaa

It could be differences in sound
ma ma ma ma
ba ba ba ba

It could be differences in fast
and slow
ma////////////////ma//////////////////ma////////////////////ma
and ma ma ma ma

All sort of combinations
could be invented and played with
ba ba baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ba ba
ma ma maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ma ma
and the ba and ma could be different pitch

When the child hears the difference and begins to play
with them
she is learning the basis of language.

"The dog is in the house" can
wait,
first play with da da da n nnnn nn n nnnn hoooooooooo
huuuuuuuuuuuuu haaaaaaaaaaaa heeeeeeeeeee
ssssssssssssssssss snake salad slippery and so on

the "dog in the house" will come


It's like how I explain our system is so different that the rest
by talking about crawling.

Take a child who doesn't crawl
and do
accupuncture
energy work
spinal adjustment
stretching
and you'll get no results, and probably a lot of
discomfort in most of these,
since babies aren't masochists yet

Take a child who can't crawl
and show her connections of pelvis to shoulder
and to knee and to ribs and to head
little soft
showing of connections

and you've given information
and information
which is the learning of differences
that make a difference
is what the nervous system
lives for

it's called learning

it's great

go out and have a learning day


ciao
Chris

The Happiness option

You know and
I know
we can at any moment
"chose happiness."

And it's a bunch of fun to let happiness
emerge as
"Who we really are,"
not by "trying" to be happy,
nor by the Pursuit of Happiness,
famous words we've heard someone,
and a sucker's game for a consumerist society, really,

nah, just happy because we run out of
steam in our games that avoid happiness

Like the
"You are wrong game."

play that and be happy.
lots of luck eh.

righteousness feels so good for the first half
second
and then, whether we know it our not,
it's just disguised hatred,
and that poison plays away inside

oh, no,
does that mean we can't be right and happy
at the same time?

No. we can be right about the bird we
see
the sky we watch
the breath we follow
even be right about the yukky sensations we
feel when righteous

but right that another is wrong,
or even better,
right that another should be different
because they could be "factually wrong,"
or behaviorally challenged (always according
to our rules and expectations of how we want
to be treated like kings and queens, and they somehow
just don't
"get it")
and how far do we get being right that they are wrong about
how they proceed in the world

ah, this is either obvious or
not

doesn't matter

I've discovered that the Work of Byron Katie
can greatly be assisted by switching positions:

sit here and believe the story is true
sit here and think it's an opinion
(this is Questions 1 and 2 in a way)

sit here and look at the other person knowing with
sweet righteous conviction: They should be different

How do you react in that seat.

Move to the "my thought is an opinion" chair.
look at them without the thought, empty mind,
just see the present reality
and
ta da...
what's left
who are you?

happiness is probably part of what's left
when the not you of judging falls away

don't believe this
or preach this

try it out

or not

your business
your life
your happiness

nourish your happiness and it will nourish you
and those around
you
and the Earth

be of good Cheer
on this muggy in Austin friday
with Austin City Limits music blasting to me
from several miles away,

good
Chris

Loving What is

Anger with variation

As I've mentioned I believe
I've realized that this mindfulness + variation thing
which is to say
creating options THAT YOU KNOW ABOUT
which is to say
GIVING OURSELVES FREEDOM
is
what transformation is about up and down the line.

Let's take anger.

We can feel the anger in our body.
Then stand and feel the anger in our body.
then shift foot to foot and sense the anger as a smaller part of a bigger body.
Then we can skip and try to start angry

We can babble the words that we are angry about,
especially useful if we turn it into a should and shouldn't statement.

And then babble them sit to the left,
sitting to the right
sitting to the left with a British accent
sitting to the right with another accent

babble them at half speed
half volume
double speed
double volume

say them while standing on one foot
hopping

and then there's the whole Work of Byron Katie game,
that we can play with the should and the shouldn't

and if we are movers of attention and deepeners of awareness
as in Feldenkrais or Anat Baniel people,
we can start some simple complexity
like head one way,
eyes the other,
ribs the same as eyes,
babbling the anger while we rotate head to the left
babble life is wonderful while we rotate head to the right

babble anger on the outbreath
gratitude on the in breath
reverse those two

and this is just beginning

anyone getting the idea of how much fun
this would be
and how hard it might be to stay committed
to the suffering that anger likes
us to get stuck in?

Good
Chris

Shorty but goody, for special needs parents, and....all of us

This is going to be short.

Find anything
your child is learning,
or enjoys
or does well
or does slightly better than betfor
or is happy about

and be enthusiastic about that

And realize what a miracle a human
body is
and
get enthusiastic about taking lessons yourself.

You know all the reasons.

And if you only know the tiniest smallest littlest
reason,
get enthusiastic about that.

Good.

The Joy of 9/11

By the time you finish this little ramble
at least 3000 people will have died on this
beautiful planet from idiotic reasons:

Car crashes,
stupid wars,
starvation because the rich stole the food that was supposed to go to the poor
starvation because the world bank shoved the country into monoculture and the people forgot or weren't allowed to grow their own food
drugs that doctors gave doing the person in
lover's quarrels where the gun is the answer
drug war idiocy

and so on

This human race does dumb things
with its big brain
that gets used to make weapons
and to justify the most common human
fallacy:
The Me Right, You wrong fallacy

And throughout today,
many will be busy saying
the terrorists were wrong
or that George Bush was wrong
or that the whole economic mess of the country is wrong

and you know what:
everyone who wants to be right,
is
and yet,
are they happy?

So let's dance around and wonder:
are we terrorizing ourselves with the idea
that 9/11 shouldn't have happened

are we terrorizing ourselves with the wish
that in this country at least
crazy men with the idea that they can solve
anything by killing a bunch of people all at
once ( Hiroshima anyone? firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo)
should happen

people want to be right
the most idiotic form of this is to go
out and figure that you are so right
you get to kill off a bunch of the Wrong crowd

crazy

and then,
if we want to erase this idiocy
from the world
or from happening in "our" country,
who are we, but mental expungers of the
the Wrong folk
so we wipe the "bad/ dumb/ wrong THEM" out
with our judgment

me right, you wrong
ah, such sweet poison

such a common way to waste our lives

and the unfailing way to be unhappy:
You, the past, should have been different

me right, the past should have been my picture,
you, reality, the past as it was, is WRong

la, la

lots of luck

so, if you don't agree with me,
be happy,
but don't be right,
be amused, confused,
curious:

how could he possibly think that way?

what would it be like if I tried that out for awhile?

And if you can't entertain an "alien" viewpoint,
why get so mad at the terrorists,
who clearly lacked humor and the good graces
to see that not everyone agreed with them

they are just like us
with the extreme of getting to really wipe out
what they don't like
including themselves

imagine how much self hatred goes into terrorism,
forget all the hogwash about 40 virgins in heaven,
these dopes all knew they were going to die,
and that they were destroying themselves

nothing but good old lack of love
for self
others
and the whole big mess
can lead to such drastic acts

and then again as the ramble rumbles
down,
and the 3000 mentioned above are all
dead
and here we are still

what's that about?

it's our moment
this gol dern moment is
our life

how much love and joy
and tolerance of the "wrong" people,
and love for the "wrong" people
can we conjure up

IN THIS MOMENT,
CAUSE IT'S THE ONLY ONE

ciao
for
NOW

Chris, 9-11-2011
whoppie, here we are,
you and I
alive

Joy of Divorce, via Slowing down the emotional roar

In a time of divorce
or separation
or breakup,
the temptations are two:

to simply lie down, pull the covers over one's head
and
"give up:

and
to add a bunch of extra activities,
learn Spanish,
take dance lessons,
keep busy every single night

Ah, yes.
Well, in a way, both are useful if they
shift us out of the rut
we were in,
AND they are only useful
to our true discovery of ourselves
and our inner transformation,
IF
we take part in them as mindful actions.

So, if we go dancing:
pay attention to all the movements, thoughts and feelings
while showering and dressing to go
while getting in and driving the car
or getting on and riding the bike
while waiting for someone to dance with
while getting instructions
while either "getting" the instructions, as in knowing what to do, or not

In other words,
if we are desperate for approval,
and that's what our relationship seemed
to be satisfying,
and wasn't really,
and then we go off to dance,
and are desperate for approval there,
even if we find someone who seems to be the one
who will give that approval

it won't work

unless we are content within and
able to give ourselves approval up and down the line,
good days and bad,
in sickness and in health
in poverty and in wealth
in good mood and bad

then we aren't ready to pretend that someone
else is going to do that for us

they aren't

So, maybe only do one or two new things.
And take them as experiments to be mindful
the entire time.
And don't try to meet anyone.
And watch, and be lovingly humorous about
our wish, need, demand, craving for outside attention
and
approval
and
affection
and
"love"

Why don't we take this breakdown time
and a breather
a breathe in
and breathe out
time,
time to discover who we are,
who we would be without the approval, or disapproval
of any person
or set of people

Okay, and what of the head under the covers
path.

Slow down on that, too.

Can we go to the bed, slowly, and sense our entire body.
Can we feel ourselves on the bed,
can we feel the covers,
can we sense where our arms and legs and spine are
in space
can we follow our breathing

can we get so relaxed and "into" our body on the
bed under the covers
that we can start to watch our thoughts
as a very entertaining show

and if the thoughts are coming too
fast
or are
too mean,
can we slow them down?

how.
by getting a journal and writing them down.
slowly.
carefully.

One "Should"
and one "shouldn't"
at a time.

All misery has a should or shouldn't or a should have or a shouldn't have attached.

Can we slow down, by writing, and then looking at what we have written with our
eyes and heart and brain,
and say: Oh, that's what I believe.

Soon, with the shoulds and shouldn't written down
the transformation can deepen.

But just to get away from hiding from the thoughts
behind our misery
into writing them down
and recognizing them
is to move so much closer to mindfulness
as to almost constitute,
then and there,
the new life we want for ourselves.

Good.

Out of the Soup, into the brain: Transforming Emotional Pain

The amazing results we get from the Feldenkrais Method
and the Anat Baniel method,
are all about going slowly, and
gently,
and in harmony with the natural functional movements
of humanity,
so that our brains get more alert and smart
and at ease moving in many new ways.

New options.

New possibilities.

And the pain becomes superfluous because the movement
and our selves becomes so interesting
and free.

Let's take a "bad feeling"
and play a little with what I'm calling the
Elixir of Transformation.

You feel bad, very sad say, as if you are all alone in the world,
no friends, or something like that.

First thing is to pause,
and not try to run away from it,
but just stick around there awhile and see
"What Is."

Then you start to gently see this feeling as a
four layer package:

The thoughts:  I'm never going to have any good friends. No one likes me.
(Whatever they are(

The emotional feeling: which is sad and abandoned, say. But it's you,
you find what it is for you, now, today.

The physical sensations. Where is this constricting you.
All "unpleasant" feelings are felt as unpleasant
because we clamp in and down on ourselves.

How and where are you doing that? Now. Today.

And the "soul" equation.
Soul knows we are all one, and that this moment is precious,
and body life isn't forever, and that life is good.

This area is a bit less clear to work with, but we can just
feel the missing, the longing in our soul, when
this feeling is where we are living.

And then,
hang out with the four layers all at once,
and experience who and how you are.

Now,
my whole process is taking each area into more and more
distinctions,
more and more differentiations,
more and more options,
so the stuck becomes not only unstuck,
but darn interesting.

Let's take the feeling realm.

One option: intensify and lessen the intensity of the feeling.
Notice these differences.

Two: think of the feelings as a child that needs care.
1) Give that child a tender feeling, by breathing gently into the pain,
as if stroking the child.

2) Feel the historical aspect of this feeling, the whole panorama of times
this has been where you've been caught.
Find an observer in you to witness this, like a kind parent,
just watching and knowing you went through all this.

3) Look around the room. Be like a parent who guides a sad child
to look at the tree leaves and the colors in the sky in addition
to the feelings.

4) Rock yourself, not to escape the feelings, but as if it's a baby,
that needs soothing motion.

5), Sing to the child

Three:
Give voice to the feelings without words. Let them sing
to you,
but with no words.

Change styles: opera, lullaby, country western, classical, anything you want

Four:
Add other feelings at the same time.

1) Sad plus gratitude

2) Sad plus curious

3) Sad plus patient

4) Sad plus happy!

really, you can do both, it's not common,
and it's freedom.

Five:
perspective:
think of happy moments in your life, and see them from your sadness

think of happy moments in your life and see the sadness from your happy moments

Six:
Get lost in the present,
leave the words out,
leave the history out,
just sense what you are aware of in your body now

This leads to the sensations part of your feeling,
and there are lots of options there,
and that's another essay,
and the sensation route is actually the most sure route
out.

So why didn't I pick that first?

I don't know.

Enjoy this much learning.
Even though it's a fourth of the Elixir of Transformation,
leaving out the work of Byron Katie on the thinking part,
and all sorts of movement and sensing play in the physical part,
and all sorts of distinctions on when we are in soul and when not,
it's huge what I've offered here.

Take advantage of it, if you wish.

Ciao
for
NOW,

Chris

Tansformation via backing off: the importance of subtlety. written for "special needs children" parentk, applicable to all

We are here again,
as we always are.
You're here, is........
My here is .......

Just taking the time and attention to notice:
what is my now,
this is one of the most important subtle shifts in
our
whole life.

We are always in whatever moment we
are in.
To shift to noticing that
knowing that
experiencing that
is something that someone outside of us
might have no awareness or recognition of

And yet from the inside
it is like lying down on the floor when we are tired:
it creates a shift back to the "us" of us
that we often forget in our rush through "daily life."

So, Anat has found what Moshe Feldenkrais found:
that the little movements,
the little difference,
that we notice,
make all the difference in the world,
in improving and transforming our own
lives
and in improving and transforming the lives
of our children,
special needs, or otherwise.

A child who is noticed
when the mood is slightly shifted
when the skill is slightly higher
when the posture is slightly different
when the hunger or emotion is slightly different
is a child who doesn't need to go through
big swings of emotion or action to
get attention from itself
and from others

The more we honor the little shift,
the 109 degrees to 99, or 88 to 82, the more we
can appreciate the what is or
our life,
and not have some fixed temperature,
either in emotion, or heat, or activity
that is "the good one"

life is change,
the Buddha says: it's impermanent,
and as we notice the subtle shifts,
we find life an ongoing delight

With you and your child,
the feast is large:
the child's slight changes,
your slight changes,
and slight changes in the environment:
all these make each moment new
and potentially magnificent

and what would keep us from thinking every
moment is magnificent?

Having some fixed opinion of "how it should be"
could be one way

Not being free to experiment with subtle changes
inside ourselves when "things aren't going well."

And yet, it is the subtle changes
we
can trust, because
almost anyone can change their mood
by running a hard run,
or jumping up and down like crazy to wild music,
but what about sitting in a boring meeting
and shifting the focus from disliking the meeting
to the colors you see in the room,
distinguishing all the blues from the yellows say,
or distinguishing the quality of your in breath from
your outbreath,
or deepening your dislike feelings
and then lightening the intensity of them.

Would that begin to bring back
freedom
and
joy.

Something like this is actually exercise 2 in Anat's chapter on
Subtlety,
and she then has some inspiring quote kind of stuff,
that I'll put down here:

"The correlation between discerning subtle differences,
being in the now,
and vitality,
is impossible to deny.
Our sense of vitality is CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH
OUR BRAIN'S
ABILITY TO PERCEIVE DIFFERENCES ( my caps)
and it is through this perception of differences that our brain
creates new information.
Sometimes just a shift of our attention
in the direction
of noticing subtle differences
can be transformational,
awakening us to vitality in
new
and suprising
ways."

The capitals, and the messy line breaks are mine. In the book it's straight sentences.

Her book is worth reading straight ahead front to back, and also to just randomly opening a page here and there and soaking in what that has to offer.

Happy noticing of subtle differences today.

Chris

Carlos, again, Casteneda in motion

Back in the days,
if you read Carlos Casteneda
you got hooked

magic
mystery
deserts
Indians
sorcerers

whoopie

in was like Harry Potter and
it was supposed to be real

and who knows
some probably was

he's got some great stuff,
reading through Journey to Ixtlan
about treating the world as a mystery
as an unknown

that we don't need to buy into everyone
else's description of Reality

and you read the first part of Awareness through Movement
and basically, Moshe is saying:
the society wants you to be a cog,
that's it's purpose

and hey, person: what's your purpose

and what's the best tool to escape the mold,
the mask as he calls it,
and discover the life you really want for
yourself?

awareness.

and what's the best step to awareness?
movement that creates new patterns
and increases complexity
and demands
and rewards attetention

and will attention lead to awareness?

well, it is awareness while being used,
and it can turn on our "awaring" ability
as at first a gift
and then later a necessity:

life is so dull and same same same
without awareness

and even my fingers
now
on the keyboard

I can get the job
or sense the tips touching and my spine holding
up my head
and my eyes looking at the black shapes
appearing on the screen

needless to say,
awareness like that can contribute to
wanting to leave the restricted world
of the computer,
but awareness like that sharpens me
wakens me
back into life

and so all Carlos' adventures
real
or not,
was I following my breathing while
reading them

was I real
as i thrilled to his learning to be more real

sometimes

it's a great day
to live in reality

have a great time

here's the book again.

I have so far made 10cents from people buying Amazon books
off the blogs,
so it's obviously a flourishing source of income

Awareness Through Movement














PS my book for sale to the right,
if you click to the demo chapters you'll see choices
of four prices
the bottom price is just for another week

great day
play in the fields of awareness
do things wrong
see who you are
if you forget who you are

be your own sorcerer

good

What are Brains for?

You know that seems like a silly question,

or an obvious one?

And in our day and age,
this insulting phrase is floating around:
"it's a no-brainer"

As if a human could stand,
let alone breathe,
let alone make an easy/ what the talker or writer thinks is obvious
decision.

And brains can get us in trouble:
they are very good at comparing;

So and so has a bigger car?
You should have been nicer to me (comparing reality to our picture
of how reality "should" be,
is ,
alas,
one of the great ways to suffer in this world)

It's hotter outside than inside,
or vice versa.

Brain's notice.

They also are kind of lazy, sometimes.
If you know how to open a door,
we "just do it,"
we don't really feel our fingers on the door,
or "play around with/ experiment with" several ways
to open the door.

When is the last time we used the other hand
to open a door?

When is the last time we slowed the rate of turning
as we opened the door?

When is the last time we noticed how our feet were placed
or how our breathing felt
when we opened the door?

And this is just one of the many things
that we could,
for all we know,
improve,
or at least become more awake and aware and playful
about.

What others?
Saying hello.
Looking around on the computer.
Rummaging around in the kitchen.
Walking to our car.
Getting in our car.
Driving our car.
Getting out of our car.

Me, not having a car,
like to point out how auto-matic
people tend to get around their auto mobiles,
but put a mobile phone in my hand,
and I go automatic, too.

Except when we don't.

Brains love to learn.

They love to notice differences,
and learning could be said to be
the noticing of differences that make a difference.

So brains love to learn.

In good Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel Method lessons,
our brains are given, via movement, opportunities to
tune into options and possibilities that were there
before the lesson.

We learn that we are less restricted than we thought.
We learn how big and amazing our possibilities are.
We learn how to move easier and more gracefully
and farther from the clutches of pain.
More pleasure.

This is all learning that takes place in the brain,
by new pathways and options being opened.

Brains love to learn.
Brains love to stay to same.

This clues us into the challenge and opportunity of living an
amazing life.

How are we going to use our brains?


For a change.


Good,
Chris

Why Paint?

To have stuff to put up on your
walls that amuses
and delights you.

I'm in a course where they want you to "process" this
and "process" that,
but I just like to move colors onto the paper,
feel how that makes me feel,
look at what I've got,
fool around a bit more,
and see what I come up with.

The process is discovery.

Big deal.

Well, actually: all discovery
is a return to who we really are:
majestic beings in the thrill of the unknown
now.

What's next?

Put up another color and see.


And when to stop?

Go slow.
Follow the breathing.
Keep looking.

Ask yourself when is it done.

When you think it's done,
it is.

Good.

Happiness, Patience, Loving What Is, Having Fun with Improvement

Moshe Feldenkrais has a great book,
The Elusive Obvious

You can only get it in hardback.

Oh, well.

It's good.

One section in there he says what he need to realize
with ourselves, our children, our partners:

If you aim to get something "right," you've only got
one option.
In your mind you've got one finishing point,
and that's it.

And, you usually get annoyed until you get to the "right" finishing point.

And the alternative:
"better."

And since lately I've been on the trail of expanding what I do into
executive and divorce coaching,
I'm really interested in four alternatives:

So one is to "do it right."

One is to head toward "better,"

But "better" can be Easier,

can be more interesting

can be more pleasurable

can be more weird

can be more entertaining

can be more complex

So, now we've got a whole lot of directions
and possibilities.

So, that's the way to head when we want to improve something.

And our internal state:
the word patience is in the title.

Patience means we honor where our feet are
Right Now,
and don't demand that they be across the room
until the get there.

Patience and mindfulness ride hand in hand,
as we can sense our feet moving across the room
toward the new spot,
the "better spot,"
and along the way,
we could be improving the
ease
pleasure
awareness
variation
delight
of plain old walking across the room.

So, you can see how this fits with the special needs kids,
can't you?
And the partner who won't "co-operate," which
usually means, "do it our way."

Patience is loving what is.

Improvement with patience is what Anat writes
about in the essential of "Loose Attachment to Goals,"
in
Move into Lifeanother good book












We can love the children totally as they are,
and we can have so much delight it helping and watching
and bringing them to lessons
where slow and aware
and learning are the game.

This is a good game for us
all
anytime.

Even
now.

Ciao,
Chris

What to do about Heat, Death and Taxes and People who are mean to you

What to do about heat?
It's now some interestingly impossible heat in Austin,
I'll go ask the iPhone,
the modern device to amuse use and destroy all our telepathic abitilities:
109
while LA a mere 85 and Sonoma, for some reason, the place I left
as getting too warm with global warming: 77

La, la
What to do about the heat?

Be happy.

Next:
death.
What to do about death?

You guessed it,
be happy.

Why?

Why not?
You aren't going to die until you die,
and then,
if you can walk down the street in 109 heat, or 77 or 85 and be happy,
how hard can it be
to just stop?

I mean each night
we
just stop/

and in a good meditation
we
just stop

and any argument we've ever had
and been tortured in
and then shifted the
whole
shape of our ugly
world
we
just stopped

so,
here's the game:

we can sit in chair A,
and think: shouldn't be so hot,
death isn't so great/ is bad/ is scary

then we can shift over to chair B
and
just stop
our thinking

and see what's left.

sometime's it's happiness

there are lots and lots more thinks to do,
to leave behind unhappy Chair A

that could be our assignment for the next hour:
find a couple of mental/ emotional places
that aren't so great
and

get in chair A and feel how ungood/ bad / yukky they feel

and then figure chair B, the just stop thinking chair,
and go there

and then
figure chair C
and do something else there

and chair D
and do something else there

and chair E
and... you know what.


Taxes, people who are mean to you?
if those bother you, try the game.

if not, have some trying anything that bothers you

good
Chris

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

Four Ways to Do Anything: leaving suffering

 

Life is a mystery

Tomorrow can be anything,
or the same old nonsense

We can wish or plan or expect "something new"
to happen tomorrow
and something will.

But, this moment,
whatever we are doing,
has a posture/ body component

a thinking component (wondering about my words,
listening, agreeing, disagreeing)

a feeling component (patient, impatient,
really feeling something nothing to do with this
particular string of words,
and maybe on the computer to "avoid"
that feeling)

and a "soul" component,
which is tricky to talk about:
but some part of you knows,
bubba bubbete that this earth bound
life
is not forever
and thus
knows that this second
instant
moment
whatever you want to call it
and it's
gone already

is precious.

Four ways to do anything:
you are already "doing" the look at the computer thing
one way,
and
to be aware of all or some of the four components
is another way

and so
to be free,
play it out in two more ways.

Shift your body shape, or breathing pattern, or do
a little aware moving

Look for a feeling that adds to whatever you are
feeling
or
select a feeling you'd like to be having
or
deepen the sensation and the emotion of what you are feeling
or
add on feeling plus sensing as a wholeness
or...

do you know what I'm talking about

call or email if you don't

and the basic idea: we take our feelings as so real,
not a cloud floating through
and a cloud we create at that

and what of our thinking,
what are a couple of amazing or interesting
variations
we could make on that

who knows:
me
i'm going to stop typing and try out all this grand advice
now
and see what I can teach me
by this.


.....

okay, that was fun

many many messages about standing,
moving
breathing
getting more physical than I can behind a keyboard
and screen

what happened/ happens for you


Good

Transformation is a big deal

Harper putting her weight on one knee
and then the other.
This is a different level of world
than life on two knees,
she's doing some real "balancing" her.
Look at her concentration.
And in light of below essay,
the second knee after all sorts of other
learning was "almost too much."

We throw the word "transformation" around
as if it's a fancy kind of change,
like a new set of clothes,
or how nice you feel on a vacation,

but transformation is a two edge sword,
because it means shedding the old you
to allow a new you to develop

think of a child that can't crawl
and then
they can

this is a different child

as I've said/ written many times,
no acupuncture, adjustments, relax massage, "energy" work
is going to facilitate that transformation

it's build on real sensations
and real connections of hands and shoulder
and shoulders and hips,
and lower back and head
and knees and back
and so on

it's a miracle the child puts together for herself,
and it's fun, because she can get around better,
and she's not the same kid

now, lessons are like that
and for a child
it's  a thrill moving to a new level
and a little or a lot "scary"

and we don't know their experience,
but we can just think about say,
we're in a foreign country for a month,
and finally ready to "wing it with the new language,"
we're out there
and don't really know what'll happen

same for the child as the newness builds up
and up

and with children who have seizures
or have emotional trigger points,
this can create an amazing balancing act:

how to keep the lessons challenging enough
to be real
transformation

and how to take enough rests,
and know when to back off
before the child goes over the edge
of
"too much"
into a seizure, or a crying spell

it's "hard"
and part of the transformational work
for me,
is staying present enough to each second
with the child
to catch myself when I'm getting a little too
advance
and to prod myself
when I'm playing it a little too safe

wow:
what if adults
in their conversations looked
for this edge?

wouldn't that make life
amazing????


Don't forget to play around with the ideas in Anat's book
Move Into Life

Cancer and Love and Food

This is a start, partly to get more books
up here.

Just started to watch an amazing uTube thing,
of home school guy,
out to figure out why no cures
for cancer,
(embed doesn't seem to work:
HERE'S THE LINK TO THE UTUBE OF THE GERSON CURE
FOR CANCER)
ps the video has a bunch of extra stuff in the beginning
but it gets there finally
actually, it goes on and on about the bad news
of traditional dentistry
and then the bad
news of
food additives

only watch if you are in
the mood to get riled up:
basically:
eat healthy,
eat food




and wait there is one,
and it was/ is based on nutrition,
a lot like mentioned on the food, health page of my website

So far,
a couple of things I've left off:

get mercury out of the mouth

stop flouridated water drinking

get acquainted with Weston Price,
who work led to
Nourishing Traditions,
already recommended


but why not go all the way with learning what Weston Price
discovered as a dentist looking for groups with really
healthy teeth,
and these people have no cancer, heart attacks, or diabetes

Here's the basis book:
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration














Good links without a book are
One: The Weston Price Foundation

Two: Price Pottenger Nutritional Foundation

Okay, that's enough for tonight

Hafiz, Mira, love is everywhere:

Hafiz first
a poem challenging those
with their small tiny gods/
tiny small hearts
who want to shove away sex from the
sacred
as if the sacrum isn't rotti toot toot to both:

Some god say, the tiny ones,
" I am not here in your vibrant
moist lips
that need to beach themselves on the shore
of a
naked body."

Some gods say," I am not the scared yearning of the unrequited soul,
I am not the blushing
cheek
of every star and planet--

I am not the applauding Creator of those
precious secretions
that can distill
the whole mind
into a perfect wincing jewel
--- if only for a moment

nor do I reside in every sweet warm dung
born of the Earth's gratuity."

Some gods say, the ones we need to hang,
"Your mouth was not designed to know His,
love was not conceived
to consume the luminous realms."

Dear ones beware
of the tiny gods frightened men
worship

to bring an anesthetic control
to their sad
days.

*****

Mira:

In my travels I spent some time with a great yogi.
Once he said to me,

"Become so
still
you hear the
blood
flowing through your
veins."

One night as I sat in quite,
I seemed on the verge of
entering
a world inside so
vast
I know it is the source of
all
of us.

****

Again, this book has 12 mystics,
including people you haven't heard as mystics before:
St Thomas Aquinas, St John of the Cross

Love Poems from God

The alternative to suffering--- Rumi's take

Rumi:
plus moaa


The wonder of the water
rushing over the rock in the
stream
justifies existence.

the swish of a horse's tail
and
again I am stunned by the grandeur of the
Unseen One
that governs all Existence.

I resist looking at my palms sometimes
Have you ever gotten breathless before
a beautiful face----
I see you there sometimes
my dear

there is a wonderful problem waiting
for you
that God and I share:

how to keep from fainting when we see
each
other

In deed eo:

How does God keep from fainting all
day
when She sees Herself again
and again
and
again

Light is moving like a stream,
and a myriad of celestial beings
applaud.



Rumi,
via Daniel Ladinsky
via
me
via
you

look at it
smile
close your eyes
sensing your beingness
and
then write
your version:

light streams
just now
from your beauty to mine

it dazzles
and what is
IT?

you are it
I am IT
it is IT

all the explanations crumbe
when we see that the mirror
is bursting with love
and laughter


good

new website:
mystical
practical enlightenment
as the cure
for the divorce blues thing
to transform it,
inta:
da da

The Joy of Divorce:

TheJoyOfDivorce.info

'cause even divorced
we can
faint with love
and joy at the thought of
each
other

what a sweet little piece of the stream's
dance to the ocean
that was

and if we forget the sweetness,
time to remember, time to remember,
yes
what else is time for,
but to
re
member
our Selves
as
pieces of God
staring at other
pieces of God

ha,
ha

don't believe any of the above

and
if
you
wish

experience as much of it,
as you can
stand

with or without
fainting

ciao for Now,
chris

New Website: thejoyofdivorce.info

 .com wasn't available
And Info is always good:

there are only three pages on it.

Please check it Out:

TheJoyOfDivorce.info
the three pages so far:

One: the home page.

Two telling of two Friday night intro evenings
and a five month process

Three: telling of an intensive 2 or 3 day process for one
or both of the people undergoing the divorce.

Here's a bit I like from the website:

In Chinese, the character for
Crisis
is the same as that for
Opportunity

Most lives in contemporary society are mere shadow lives, played out behind a SOCIAL MASK, squelched by CONDITIONING,
and riddled by PARALYZING FEAR OF DISAPPROVAL,
that reaches into our every movement,
thought,
feeling, & even
spiritual aspiration.

Times of breakdown are among the few in our life when we can “GO BACK TO ZERO”
and
reconstruct ourselves as we really are,
and really wish to be,
and are really
MEANT TO BE.

This has huge parallels to the Feldie
and ABM work,
since sadly, though people could be going from good to great
to better in dance and sports and music and breathing and walking,
they
mainly come in when things are
"broken."

The above quote, from me,
is a nice reminder: these broken periods
are VERY fertile times for building a new
life.

Good for us.

Good for the broken ones who clomp on in.

Thumb and little finger, games for you, and maybe food for the brain of a child

Last week the toes, 
this week the fingers.

And what is the biggest different we can
find
in the fingers.

Between the big strong and ever useful thumb,
and the little weak, and often forgotten pinkie
is a great place to start
(though in reality the ring finger is the least recognized
in the brain, but that's okay,
let's make the differences as far away as possible:
big finger = thumb
littlest finger = pinkie.

Now, this gets tricky with a special needs child,
because we can play with these fingers and the
child might not be able to distinguish
the differences.

So what to do?
As always start with yourself:

start with whatever hand is connected to the  shoulder and elbow
that feels best.

Let your hand be wide.

Splay out your thumb and little finger as far away from each
other as they can comfortably go,
and then paying attention to them both,
begin to rotate and gyrate your hand
in many places and positions.

Roll in around, way out there,
up high, over the the side, down between your legs,
behind your back.

Bring it close and rotate the hand up and down your front side
feeling the differences in the thumb touching your body and the
little finger doing the same, and feel/ sense all the while,
the relationship in space and in sensation of the two fingers.

Take lots of rests.

Have some fun.

Take a walk to rest, or lie down.

Then do everything you did above
with realization of the elbow
and the shoulder blade
and the ribs
and the spine
and the pelvis.

Think of different ways to circle your head
with the pair of fingers, the little finger and the thumb,
all the while keep attention and awareness
on and open to your spine and ribs and pelvis.

Take lots of rests.

Would this to be good for your child.

In little doses, sure.

Keep it small.

Don't force their hand,
and I have never said that literally,
it's kind of neat:
don't force their hand.

And touch their spine or ribs now and then
as you do this.

If you don't force anything,
and don't expect yourself to have had the
years of training a practitioner has,
and just let it be joyful,
something will happen.

You will have some experience.
Your child will have some experience.

If you are non judgment,
and not forcing,
they will learn.

You might not know what.

That doesn't matter.

Go slow,
gentle
curious.
Enjoy the touch.

Love poems to and from God

if we forgot what we were
doing
and just
"just"
remembered the glory
of
I AM

would that be enough?

I don't know.

But I suspect that it
Would

Let's try for a while
and see what
happens....
shhhh
no words in the head

ah, peace, empty
can't even say it
can we

and...

pretty nice


Chris

And from Kabir:

I sat one day with a priest who expounded
on the doctrine of hell

I listened to him
for hours
and then he asked me,
what I thought of what he'd said.

I replied:

"This doctrine seems an inhuman cage.
No wonder all the
smart dogs
Run Away."


And from Mira:

I tried controlling myself
but it did
no good.
My senses are aflame.

I heard You singing.
that started all this blessed madness.

I openly made love with everything in sight
last night
and this morning.

The constable showed up and wrote over twenty citations.

I guess I shouldn't have jumped
naked
on him
in front of his wife.

the hypocrite,
he wouldn't have complained at all

if we were
alone.

St Catherine of Siena:

If you cried in Heaven,
everyone would laugh

for they would know,
you were just kidding.




Poems are pointers
where do they point
for
you
today

and what if you read
them again
tomorrow

would the arrows
have sprouted branches
and the branches
leaves

and the leaves
shimmer
light every which way?

Who knows
but you
and your experience
of this
existence

just
now

Chris

the non me ones,
slightly shifted around,
from
Love Poems from God

Ze trans formation ov Suffering

Let's just do this all up quite grand:

Pain is stuck
is lack of differentiation
is same old same old in an unsatisfying way

The way out:
freedom

Can be the shake the chains,
go beserk (from Norse warriors, foamed at mouth, destroyed all in sight,
and lots they couldn't see through the foam),
trash about,
do the opposite of our conditioning

and we're still slaves:
two ways of doing something is still slavery:
the way and the reaction to the way

So, here's what I realized:

Any feeling bad can begun to be broken
open into mindfulness
by coming home to ourselves and looking/ noticing/ awaring:

The thinking part of the feeling bad
(I'm no good, he's so awful, this is not fair, etc)

The Feeling part of the feeling bad
(sad, afraid, angry, annoyed,
etc)

The sensing part:
sensations in our body,
almost always restricted in feeling bad

and the
"soul"
part,
which is some lie about how small and little and separate
and unvaluable we are

Okay.
That's just the start.

Then in each of those four areas:
how about at least four options;

Thinking:
Take the thought and see the difference if we perceive it as
an opinion or the truth

Take the thought and hear the voice to it, and make options
with that voice

Many, many more


Feeling:
Going MORE into the feeling

From that going less

The feeling plus constricted posture and breathing
the feeling plus upright posture and breathing

The feeling plus gratitude

many more


Sensing:
Where is it in us: make it more intense

Find the edges'

Sensing that part, plus the arms and legs

Sensing that part, plus looking outside of us and hearing outside of us

Movement and that sensation

Many, more


Soul:

This feeling as if we have forever to live,
this feeling as if Life is this moment now

This feeling as a story people laid on us vs
who is the real us underneath

This feeling watched from emptiness

Much more

Okay,
I consult by phone.
Expensive,
and you can go and go and go
with this.

I hope you do.

Chris

Ze pain of judging another, the old mindful vs mindless truism, more

the more:
one of the paths to happiness:
let go of being "Right"

watch this:

Life is like this:

we have a choice
at any moment:
mindful or mindless.

This doesn't sound polite,
but it's true by definition.

The harsh truth beneath this
is that in the mindless world,
we can cruise on automatic when
things "go well,"
but when the "shit hits the fan,"
if not mindful
= mindless, then...
alas....
we have to fall back on conditioning
and with most of our parents
and past "troubles"
this can be slippery/ messy / awful territory
into which to fal

yuk

and it's no wonder life is so
"hard" sometimes

and here's couple more
"truths"

when mindful we can't accuse/ blame/ judge

I'll explain that later,
but you figure it out

and it's cousin:

when we do judge,
we are always mindless
and
always in pain,
because it's totally and always true that when we judge
we also judge ourselves
and that's painful

indeed,
the pain of judging ourselves
is what we try to relieve by judging
others

never works,
though we can get the false satisfaction of
being right.

except this is true,
too:
you can be right or you can be happy

sometimes both:

like right about the time,
or about loving a flower,
but the right that makes another "wrong"
as in "bad person wrong"
always brings unhappiness

ask Jesus,
ask Gurumaya
ask Buddha,
ask your experience:
think about getting huffed up and "right"
about another person being
"wrong/ bad" and feel the yuk
of how it really was to be you then

la,
la

life is good

More mystical poems

Close to God

One may have never heard the sacred name 'Christ'
and be closer to God
than any priest
or
nun.


St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

I Just Laugh

If I told you the
truth
about God
you might think
I was an Idiot.

If I lied to you about the Beautiful One
you might parade me through the streets saying,
"This guy's a genius!"

This world has its pants on backwards.
Most carry their values and knowledge in a
jug
what has a big opening in the bottom.

What to do?
With a clear grasp of the situation,
when asked to explain the Universe,
I just laugh.

Kabir  (c1440-1518)

What is Grace

What is grace? I asked God.

"All that happens," He replied.

"All that happens."

And then he added, when I looked perplexed:

"Could not lovers
say
that every moment in the arms
of their Beloved
was
Grace?

Existence is my arms,
though I well understand how the
heart
can turn away
from me

Until the heart
calms,
wakes up to the ease
and wisdom
that let's it know."


St. Teressa   (1515-1582)

A Hundred Objects close by


I know a cure for sadness:
Let your hands touch something
that makes your
eyes
shine

I bet there are a hundred object close by
that can do that.

Look at beauty's gift to us--
her power is so great she enlivens the
Earth, the Sky, our
Soul.




Mira (c 1498-1550)

Wherever you may look


Wisdom is so
kind and wise
that
wherever you may
look
you can learn something
about God.

Why
would not the
omnipresent
teach that
way?


St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

Wring Out my Clothes


Such love does the
sky
now
pour

that whenever I stand in a field

I have to
wring out my clothes
when I get
home.

St. Francis (1182-1226)

There are twelve poets.
The book is divine,
in a meaning deeper than usually
used iwith
that word.

Oh, yeah,

Hafiz (c13320-1389):

Two Giant Fat People

God
and
I
have become like two

giant
fat
people

living in a tiny boat

We keep
bumping into
each
other
and

l
a
u
g
h
i
n
g

That's a nice taste,
write a few of your own

They'll be perfect

if you think not
read the above poens
again

with your mind calm
and your heart
giggling

it's all
waiting inside
gurgling up
weather we
know it
or not

and the weather is
always
what it is:
God saying:
Hello
and
Wake up
(and maybe: treat the world
just
a tiny
bit
better,
who knows?

You listen.
what do YOU hear?

All from this book,
which you might love:








And not from here,
also amazing,
and there is only one Hafiz
in today's offering
he wrote thousands

Up and down for the parent, toes and brain and delight for the child

This is my weekly post,
mainly for parents of special needs children,
but the ideas are obviously valid all over the place.

I.e. in life.

watch those feet in action

The wonderful thing about my work as an Anat Baniel and Feldenkrais
Practitioner,
is that I can move around inside myself
if I have forgotten just what connections might be fine
and wonderful for
any of my clients, be they adult or children,
to learn next.

Recall that the learning is about expanding awareness,
pleasure and options (freedom), not "doing anything right."

So, parents have feet, children have feet.

What can we do with this delightful fact?

I recommend this to all adults:
for five minutes in the morning,
warm up to life by bending the knees and touching the floor or ground,
and then reaching up and touching toward the sky or ceiling.

Now, up and down and up and down
and it's one more donkey thing.

BUT if each time you reach down for the floor
you create some slightly different placement of
weight on your feet, and different shape of your feet,
and pay attention to a different area of your whole
self
(feet and ankles,
feet and hips
feet and spine
feet and knees
feet and head)
the time will fly and you'll be amazed at how wonderful
it is to be human.

And your child:
play with her feet with the memory of all the different ways
your feet could push down into the ground,
and you are pushing gently and playfully up
into her/his feet in all these directions and
combinations
(both feet turned this way,
pigeon toed, toes out, both to left, right,
all sorts of angles)

and as you play with the different directions
and shapes of pressure,
think
Pleasure

think
Play

think
where else might this connect,
as above:

(feet and ankles,
feet and hips
feet and spine
feet and knees
feet and head)

Have a smile on your face.
Pay attention to what she/ he likes.
Pay attention to your ease and pleasure and breathing while
doing this.

Have a joyful learning session with your child.
A meditation for you.
A gift and a delight for them.

And the other way around, too.

Good.

The Way of Love, the mistake of "original sin"

Let's say sin is this,
"missing the mark,"
as translation
and what's the mark?

love.

sin is that which takes us away from loving God, ourselves,
nature and others

any order is fine, that's another sin, dividing and splitting into levels,
but we'll pass that by for now

and think about the idea of
original sin

people being born "bad"

which is nonsense

look at babies
no bad
pure love

the idea of original sin is a sin
against babies
and against what we really are underneath all our conditioning

it's a control trip really

and that's the way it always is:
you can have love
or control

to see everyone as good and innocent at their core,
this is an idea with much less power to shame, and bully
and get people to cowtow before God

as if that's what God
wants
shamed and self-hating people
on their knees repentant for the sin of being alive

hooey to that:
hell is always in the moment,
when we are out of love
with now
with the joy of life
with ourselves
and others
and nature
and God

any order

and we can be in love
or we can be condemning
but not both

the sin of original sin tries to turn us into human
beings haters

bad idea
bad loving
bad living
bad medicine

and if we don't say bad:
lets  just say, not so useful

good

this book great, not on this topic particularly
but on what love
without all the doctrines
what love could be
and
is
when we are their and taste in its/ our / God's glory



and two great pathways back
to the love
of who we are
originally:

Awareness Through Movementspeaking of the use of awarness found
in movement based in presence and discovery
to lead us back to who we are
before conditioning
underneath the Mask of "fitting in"


and Loving What Is,

Katie's treatise/ roadguide
to life as if ALL and EVeryone
is God

so it's all love
(or else the sin of suffering, no, the suffering of
not being in love
in that moment)

Loving What is