Day 20: Sending self-love

If we are trying to stay present, and we are "just" there,
just now,
just experiencing, awaring, nowing
the now of now

and all that
it's a quiet place

looking at a tree doesn't
come with a voice narration,
unless we are talking inside,

going about our business
doesn't come with voice narrations
on "I didn't do this well enough,"
or
"I wonder what so and so thinks
about this and that I did or said."
and the old bugaboo:
"I wonder if so and so even likes
me"

So: being present, we
just "are" with what is
("just")

and other times, the voice takes
over
and we have our interpretation
of reality
our narration
our inner yap yap

and then we aren't present

many, many times to not be present
is to suffer
to feel discomfort
or worse

good,
we can be present to our discomfort
and feel the voice inside has something to do with it

today's game:

coming to the arms and legs and spine present
and sending a little "I love you"
"I approve of you"
to ourselves,
and then returning to as much silence
as we can find

not affirmation
not over and over,
just a shot of love
a shot of approval
for our thinking, our feeling, our awaring ,
our forgetting to aware,
whatever we are at that moment,
loving it

and then moving on

all restlessness
unhappiness
worry
doubt

all that converted into
self love

and then back to arms and fingers, legs and toes, spine and pelvis
head,

grounded in the bones
add on the breathing if you wish

and listen for the happiness in
the silence

and when the unsilence comes:
"I love you"
"I approve"
"You are wonderful"

Just a little whisper of self love

that's all

"Just" a whisper

and hey: let's add a Thich Nhat Hahn thing:
a hint of a smile on the outbreath as and after
we sent the whisper

"just" a hint of a smile

good

Full package, now we are in the middle of the month

 beautiful waters

in California mountains

when I did a yoga certification

in a month of high elevation

learning and love

Body: sensing arms , legs, fingers, toes , spine

Sensing bottom of the spine and sexual area. (On or zero, a tidy property unlike emotions, and thoughts which can be on/ zero/negative)

Emotions : sensing breathing , aware of emotional state in present

Head:
Aware of & not believing " thoughts"
Aware of voice tone of "thoughts"
= words in the head
Sensing tongue & relaxing
Eyes: light coming in
Ears: sound coming in

Soul:
Aware of awareness
In love with the being alive thing

Day 18: Earth, air , sky: three brains, all awake at once????

                              

Rain in Northern California. 

Not so humid. 

Colder. 

Equally wonderful as rain in Texas. 

The sky blessing the Earth with water.

If we want to sense our blood, 

we can add water to today's mindful package.

We stand on the Earth, if you are lucky enough to start the day with
bare foot tai chi,
or just happy enough in your body,
and living somewhere where you can sneak
off
those shoes and socks
or sandals and
wiggle your toes on grass, or in sand, or ????

And we stand sit lie on the Earth
or in the gravity field
full time
until we
die
or go into outer
space

So, like yesterday, awaring
gravity
is a good way to "ground" ourselves.



And mid level, our lungs need feeding constantly
air
in,
and we need to let the gunk out
breathe out
whatever our bodies
need to let go of in that air realm.
CO2, and what else?

Sometimes an extra long outbreath
feels so good for us

And awaring our breath
especially in the "frame"
of arms and legs and spine,
makes it pretty clear
about this minor detail:
we are
alive

right

NOW


And then, up high, our heads have eyes, and
the light comes down through the sky,
and we can look up,
if in a room to the ceiling,
if near a window or outside,
how high can we look

And this, earth, air, sky,
gives a nice fullness to
Life on Earth

A nice project for today
perhaps,
staying aware of air
aware of gravity
aware of light and the sky

I feel lengthened just thinking about
and sensing and awaring all three at once

how about you?

17: Mindful Walking, (and sitting)

As part of meditation practices all over the world people have realized that sitting forever and ever
is both narrow and beside the point of being in life

so you get to get up now and then
and walk slowly and pay attention to your walking

this is fun
and we walk a lot in the day

and today:
pay attention to : when is your weight on your heel
and when is it on the front of the foot

and when you are not walking:
come back to gravity and breath:
are you leaning forward or back in your chair?
what is the shape of your spine?

and those sweet arms and legs:
where are they

good

16: Gravity and breath

Writing each day is fun and not fun
To have made the decision completely knocks
out the "Do I really want to make the effort today?"
thing

And it's sweet in a way, to have the next day's possibility
looming overnight

Today, happily, I woke and soon knew what today's
topic/ focus would be:

And didn't feel like getting on the computer for awhile,
so I got to "test drive" it for awhile.

It's a good one.

And, like almost each day so far,
if we could do it even a "little more,"
the change in our whole life and
being
could be
magnificent

And the title says it:
Gravity:
sense our bodies in gravity
feel the spine arms legs shape in gravity

and
breath

notice the breath
that animates
this life we are in

As an interesting (or not) aside:
gravity and breathing are not part of
our womb experience, except the very slightest
feeling of gravity shifting as our mother lies or stands
(and we're "upside down" for months. I wonder
wonder
wonder
what that sets up for us)

Anyway:
come out of the world
and gravity is much bigger
and breathing is a full time thing

and so,
unless we are in outer space,
gravity and breath give
us an ongoing way to not
only
orient ourselves in
the world
but to
be
present

as well


Good

15: "Thinking" as voices in our head

HAPPY TODAY.
sensing arms
and legs

or better order: right leg, right arm, left arm, left leg

and spine

and breath

and light

and sound

and then there's the pesky "voices in the head"
we call thinking

they have a voice tone

what is it?

often we are talking/ arguing/ scolding/ complaining/ pleading/ bargaining
with someone else as part of our inner chatter

who is it?

is our voice tone different person to person
and emotional underlay to emotional underlay.

What is the point of all this?

To wake up to the craziness of all this inner chatter?
Kind of.

To know ourselves?
Kind of.

To know what "issues" are bugging us?
Kind of.

To be present to everything
we are experiencing,
including our inner conversations with people
who aren't there?

Yes, that too.

Enjoy.

Day 14: Toes of one foot, fingers of opposite hand and...

Let's make it simple today
Sense one of your feet. Fully. Easily.
Sweetly. Gently.

Sense all five toes, or however many you have.

Now sense the opposite hand
and all its fingers.

Sense them as pairs if
you want to get fancy:
thumb-big toe
little toe-little finger
and so on all the way inbetween

Add on breathing and anything else you
want

start like
now
as you read this,
so I'll let the words ramble a little more
while you catch five toes
in the awareness net and then
loop in five fingers

when that set of ten is feeling saturated,
switch to the other diagonal,
but let it be a nice long while

Good.

Day 13: Breath, voice, arms, spine, legs

We spend a fair amount of time talking talking to others

talking in our heads
sometimes to ourselves
often to others, in imaginary conversations

And then there is the whole new world
of texting talking fingers do the tapping
and the screen lights up
and a soundless message is send''

eyes and no sounds
and this may be
a profound disturbance of
the original order of
voice
sound
see another person hearing
your sounds
hear your own voice making your sounds
hear their voice making their sounds

hang around
today
in sound

the sound of your voice
the sound of other people's
and the sound of the voice/ chatter / "thinking"
in your head

slow down enough
to listen

and be in breath
and sensing arms legs and spine
as the container for that

Good

Just Remember Yourself, "Just"

 the self

the paint

the world

it could all be exploration

discovery

communication

love

creation

food

?

?

?

the word "just" gets put to use
too slight for what follows,
at times,
maybe even often

today:
"just" remember yourself

that's it.
you can use all or some of the mindfulness
elements
you've been served up
over the last eleven days

or not

"just" remember yourself

how can you tell when you are doing it?
what is "yourself?"

hint: if you are describing your experience
you are remembering your describer,
go deeper,
go now-er:

"just remember yourself."

Good.

Day 11: Spontaneity and Compulsion

Something to do

on a couch.

A non habitual folding and exploring with the back neck ellbow

and foot (and hip) ( The whole self explores....fun)

Sometimes we are stuck and
being human,
our solution is to do the same
thing
we've done over and over,
but maybe do it a little angrier
or a little faster
or a little harder
or with more swearing
or all four

Usually the results are frustration
sometimes injuring ourselves
and almost never getting the stuck thing undone.
Getting life to move along.

If we are stuck,
it's a habit,
or a pattern.

It can also be fear of doing anything
new,
and almost certainly the habit of
using more force and less intelligence when
"stuck."

Oh, well.

The fear thing is worth looking at:
fear of doing it a new way.
The old was feels familiar.
Feels safe.

And......what if we want freedom
and joy in our life?

Then, dadum da dum, da dum,
awareness to the rescue.

We wake up to the present,
and notice what we are doing and
do something different.

Anything different.

Slower, faster, a different angle, a different timing.
Taking a different perspective.
Lots of possibilities that are dependent on the stuck pattern.

And that's our mindfulness game today:

To notice when we "feel" stuck.
Feel that as emotion. In the present.
And feel the sensations that go along with that emotion.
And notice the thoughts that go along with that stuckness.

And try something else.
Different,
or no,
thoughts.

Different body shape, so the sensations will be different.

Even a different emotion,
or almost always better,
the not quite emotion of
curiosity.
Of wonder.
Of discovery.

Try putting wonder and difference into the
stuck place.

See what happens.

Enjoy.

Day ten: Feelings and feeling/ sensation and emotion

 

Feeling and feeling.

What are we feeling, right now, as sensation?

What are we feeling, right now, as emotion?

Put that in the box: arms, legs, spine.

Breathe into the emotion.

Watch it. What does it want?

Where does it want you to move, you know: e-motion.

Don’t believe it too much, just feel the tug.

Sensations: where are they.

What do they feel like as lived in now experience.

That’s enough.

That’s huge.

Good.

Day 9: Some story and a nature orientation to our mindfulness

 Home grown food, in a second big garden in Sonoma, a later story, the Chris and Marlie story.

But food and land and sleeping outside and making big gardens (the smallest at 1/3 acre, the largest at 3 out of an available 5 acres) are part of the running theme of Sonoma. (And Feldenkrais/ Anat Baniel come along then. And the work of Byron Katie. Good times. Below's a beginning introduction.)

Once upon a time I was enthralled with healing the Earth. I am dedicated to it, just now, but not enthralled. But then, I was living in Berkeley and making a living taking advantage of landscape design and garden creating as chance to do the Gurdjieff meditation full time, and was more or more obsessed with high quality food and the Berkeley farmers markets. I got to know the farmers, got to love and thrive on the food and had this wish: move to the country, become an organic farmer, do it.

This gal I was with, Jeri Lynn, was a garden lover too, and she finished her masters degree in Landscape Architecture and we both wanted out of Berkeley, no matter how amazing it was. To top that off, I’d had the good fortune to “try” out a Permaculture course, and Bill Mollison was one of the two teachers, and my question of “How in the hell are they going to teach about gardening for two weeks,” become, “How did I not know this system for relating to the Earth as a whole? I wanted access to land.

We found the place: Sonoma, California, about an hour from the bay area. We visualized a cottage with meadow and woods and creek and got them. There was a public garden, 5 acres donated by a school teacher on her death to the city of Sonoma, being managed by the Sonoma Ecology Center. The farmer there was going crazy.

After a summer of growing amazing food and making about 50 cents a pound on organic tomatoes, I was ready to take advantage of this land, which needed a visionary and an active garden maker, but I didn’t want a farm. I wanted a total permaculture ecological demonstration garden. There was already a water system and a straw bale barn on the place, and I put in grape arbors and paths and created a double ring of fruit trees with a circumferences of 150 and 130 feet. Vegetables inside. Lavender and thyme and rose beds elsewhere.

The Garden continues, now called the Sonoma Garden park. I got about 3 acres up and running ( there was a square orchard already as part of the given), and then this and that happened.

That’s for later.

For now, for today, to continue the mindfulness play:

take nature into your mindfulness practice today.

See how much time you can sneak or creak or zip or zap outdoors and spend time walking or bike riding or swimming, with a couple of places for your attention.

One: the glory of nature.

Two: your body in motion, and the pleasure of that, and the actual sensation of where your arms and legs and spine-pelvis-head are.

Three: the light coming in thing.

Four: the sound coming in thing.

Five: Feelings and thoughts as flickerings. Be mindful of them as additions to the first four and then come back to now and nature, if you can.

Gently.

If we yank ourselves into being present, it’s not really going to work.
Nature (usually) doesn't yank (though the waves do crash and the lightning does strike and the fires do burn, and today: let's do the breezes and the grass growing up to delight in the sun aspect of our nature.

Day Eight: Laziness is Next to Godliness

 

I had a very fun teacher in the Gurdjieff work once. He smoked and swore and ate politically uncorrect 

and

would do all three while watching TV and use that occasion as a great place to practice meditation.

You remember the Gurdjieff meditation: what we’ve built up so far:

Sense both arms

Sense both legs

Pay attention to sound coming in from the world

Pay attention to reflected light coming in to your eyes

A nice way to watch television, or read the computer, or read a book, or watch a movie, or talk to a friend, or write a blog entry into the cyberworld.

So be it.

He had a name, which we’ll call David, and he had some great sayings:

One was

“Laziness is next to Godliness.”

An obvious play on the old

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, which is soooo Good, eh?

And did he mean don’t make efforts to remember yourself?

Skip to vigilance of paying attention?

Who knows.

He’s dead.

What do you think?

What do you think to juice of “Laziness is next to Godliness” is?

That’s your mindful practice today.

To be lazy in releasing certain “try harder” ways. To be lazy in releasing certain, “get this and this and this done, sooner than now” ways.

To be very lazy about speaking up on behalf of the Judge inside who wants to tell you that you aren’t “doing enough.”

To be super lazy about speaking up
inside or out
about how others should “get their act together.”

Be lazy on the advice to others.
Be lazy on saying what you think is so important, so

Important that you need to

Interrupt

Be lazy.

Listen.

Be lazy.

Wait.

Be present while listening.

Be present while waiting.

Be lazily present today.

That’s a nice present to yourself.

Mindfulness Day 7: What about Heaven?

 

What about heaven?

Heaven is our natural state. When we are

Present
and honestly present and so
no words pulled in from the past storage banks, just

Now &

Now &

Now

So today, try this: be mindful of how soothing and pleasant it is
to “just”

Be

Be in your breathing if you wish

Be in sensing arms and legs and fingers and toes

Be in sensing your spine

Be light coming in and

Sound coming in

If that pleases and amuses you

(Bach, when asked about why he composed thousands of works of music and had umpteen children, said:

“For my own amusement and the

glory of God.”
Pretty good, eh?)

Just Be

Enjoy the ease of that

and here’s the deal: when unhappiness or discomfort or annoyance or any of that

Shit

Sneaks in

Smile and look for the “should” or “shouldn’t” in your thinking

This is the next stage in mindfulness, of course<

Be in the body

Be in the breath

Sense look and listen

And then watch thoughts, especially the “should” and “shouldn’t”
so called “thoughts (auditory hallucinations) try to steal our

Real selves away

and who and what is our real self?

find out this heaven in the quiet of real now
and when your mind thoughts up,
like a mirror fogging up,
notice:

Ah, unhappiness,
Ah, “should” or “shouldn’t” thought

Then maybe come back to reality

Enjoy

Day Six: Let there be (awaring of) Light

 

Let there be

Light

To be in the world and

In ourselves at the same time

to have the arrow of

Attention
pointing both out
and

In

Life. This is life. To be aware of our

Bodies as

Arms all the way out to ten fingers &

Legs all the way out to ten toes &

Spine with the pelvis at the bottom and head at top &

Breathing in

Breathing out

that is a nice basis for operating

and then the outer world in its simplest
form

Or better said: our perceiving of the outer world
in our most crucial and ongoing and “important” modes

listening to sounds outside our heads
noticing light coming in our eyes

Reflected light the Gurdjieff meditation likes to say

Bounding

Happily off something in front of you (unless you are looking straight at the sun or a light or a flame) and then dancing

Dancing

Streaming

Flying

Soaring

Lilting

Into You

(whatever You is, who ever You are:

who is the You

sensing the arms and legs and

Noticing the breathing and

Awaring the sounds coming in and
Presencing the reflected light coming to You)

That’s a fine question
to have floating in the background

and for today

play
if you will
with the joy of the now of all the sensing and breathing
and listening and looking

(and paying attention to reflected light is

not quite the same as looking
and that’s okay)

fill up at the fount of

Now

Enjoy

Happiness 202: Life is Yes, and can get better and better

It's a good day yes
and then
fine
what's not to be happy about?

It's a "bad" day
and what a minute..
slow down,
what's going on right now

this now now
of your so called "bad" day

sense it,
in your body:

what is
now
yeah yeah
the now now
now
what is going on,
as sensation
in the moment

and what is
now
going on as your feeling?

can you take your feeling as emotion
e-motion (which way does it want to send, take, lead you?)
and feeling
as sensation

and add on this:
I/ me/ the one inside all the dancing
am aware
of those feelings/ sensations

we'll get to this later
on mindfulness in emotion
and mindfulness in sensation
and most of all
mindfulness as inquiry into "thoughts"

that's all coming in the thirty days,
and today we just add on light

but I was in the mood to write two blog posts
today,
to get the number of the posts (506)matching that today's posting
will be day 6 in the mindfulness derby)

so this is an extra

and a good idea
to put into action if
you can:

life is yes
even to your "unhappiness"

and the "yes" is noticing,
watching
experiencing
being open to
accepting
loving

think of what your "unhappiness"
is up to
as a child
your child
that you would and could
love to help comfort love
and
so
on

so all the yeses pile up
and life can get even better

how?
think of something wonderful
you want to do
or feel
or think
or say

next

and do
feel
think
or say

it


Good.

Day 5: Real sounds vs auditory hallucinations = "thinking"

 

Today is immense.

All days are immense.

Practice this today:

Take the deep “bones” of awareness we have so

Far

Two arms

Two legs (all the toes, all the fingers)

Spine pelvis head

Sense the five lines and your

Breathing

Add on this amazing distinction
(recall from other blogs: the food for the brain,
for real learning is the awareness of differences
that make a difference)

Sounds outside your head, in the

World

&

Auditory hallucinations of various words in your head that
we call
“thinking”

That’s it:

All day, all night till sleep:
Five lines: sense
Breath: notice and enjoy
Sounds outside: Listen and enjoy.
Sounds inside: Listen and realize > this is a hallucination,
And hear the voice tone of the inside “words in your head”

That’s plenty, that’s

Huge and so is

Life

Good

Breathing with the power belly: independence, joy, discovery, love, life, mindfulness day 4

 

July 4, 2012

Independence Day:

People who work with breathing and who work with “bodies”
have lots of rules:
breathe this way
move that way
this is the correct posture
no strain no gain

And this isn’t mindfulness
the full

Mind in what we do

let’s breathe again today,
more or less the “opposite” of yesterday
and let’s add on the pelvis and head as the

“Middle Line”
of a

five line being we are connecting with
as a daily and ongoing meditation:

Two arm lines

two leg lines

the pelvis spine head line

And breathing (is there more?
sure,
we’ve got 27 more days to fill with
more and more

de

lightful

mind

ful

ness)

So, sit comfortably

Way at the front of the chair

(as my qigong guy says: So your genitals
are hanging off into the air,

Or as I’d say: so your pelvis is on the chair
and your legs are off)

put both hands on your forehead

Elbows pointed forward

First yesterday’s breathing:

Bend down, round your back,
bring your elbows toward your belly
let your belly go back and in
as you breathe out
and squeeze the air out

Add on pelvis awareness
and rock back on your pelvis as you round down

Feel your chest sinking,

Feel your head and pelvis moving “as if”
towards each other

Feel the whole pelvis head spine line

And

And

And

Keep awareness in both arms and both legs

now, after the air is out and your are as
curled up as you are going to be,
push your belly forward

Breathe in

Rock forward on your pelvis,
Lift your head, connected to your arms
towards the sky
and feel the pelvis spine head line
and two arms and two legs
and

Breathing in

Do this happily a number of times.

Now rest

Now, put the hands again on your forehead
again elbows forward

And bend down, elbows toward belly,
pelvis spine head all a unit,
and SUCK IN AIR

This is going to be “different”

Hell yeah

Good!

Belly squeezed way in

And

Suck in

Air

To your lungs

To your lower back

Suck

Suck

As you curl up

(again two arms, two legs,
this is life

Life is big)

At the bottom pause,

And as you push your belly forward

THRUST  (gently) your pelvis so your butt
rocks back and the top near your belly moves forward

As you move forward a bit on the chair

And PUSH the AIR OUT

ARCHING breathing out lifting your spine long and

Full in this

Curve

Then, come back down and in and curling up

Folding in

SUCKING THE AIR IN

AS YOUR BELLY PUSHES SMALL

Get small and round and full of air

In your back and lungs,

And then push the air out

Thrust your belly forward

Let your hands and arms and back and pelvis

All lift your gaze towards the sky

Many times

Rest

And then play with three of each

Type of breathing

No right way:

One, in my opinion,

“relaxes”

The other, again, my opinion,

Is a power stroke,

As if with a martial arts thrust

You feel and sense and notice what they are

Like to

You

Good

Day 3: Mindful breathing with our spine in motion....fun

 

Breathing in and out, and including the spine

Here’s what we have so far:

Breathing in

Breathing out

With awareness

Plus sensing, our

Legs with all ten toes

Arms, with all ten fingers

Today, let’s add the spine to this, and in a fun way where we linked breathing to a flexing and extending of the spine.

Place your right hand on your head, with your elbow pointed forward. ( If you can. If not, put your hand on your face or chin, with elbow as forward as it can point).

Sense both arms and both legs and your spine.

Breathe out and bend forward, as if your elbow is going between your knees, and the bending down is pushing air out of your belly. (Or the pushing air out of your belly is helping you round over).

Go very slowly. Enjoy this.

Lift you head back up, pushing your belly forward and let your head point a little (not a lot, do NOT go near any limit) toward the ceiling and feel and arch in your back.

Breathe in as your belly comes forward and your head lifts.

Now breathe out and round your spine and bring your elbow toward the ground. Feel the spine changing shape as you do this gently many times.

Sense your arms and legs as you do this.

Take a rest. Enjoy sensing your spine and arms and legs and breathing without any shape changing.

Now, if you feel adventurous, take your right hand again to your head, and take your left knee with your left hand, and as you breathe out, bring your knee and elbow toward each other. Do NOT try to touch them, even if you can. Just breathe and enjoy rounding.

Then breathe in and let your knee down and belly forward arch your back and point your right elbow toward the sky or ceiling.

Many times, gently. You may rest at any time. And try the arms the other way.

Enjoy, slow, gentle, aware, enjoy.

mindful day two: a "box" around the breathing in, breathing out delight

 

Breathing in and breathing out is

"close to"

Who we are as living beings

And it is also close to the “Feeling” area of our life
the chest
the ribs
the heart inside the lungs where the breathing takes place
the diaphragm below the lungs, where
lots of emotions hang out

so, a good next step in our mindfulness,
as even now,
we notice our in and out breathing

is to add a “box”
a container
to this middle of ourselves breathing in and breathing out

The box is this:
2 arms
2 legs
our spine

We can at any moment we are awake
“sense” the arms and legs and spine

And let’s start now:
(now always being just the right
time to become more present)

Let’s start with the right leg:
all five toes up to the hip joint
sense all of the leg you can
enjoy how big a part of us this is
enjoy how this foot and toe awareness begins
very much
to “ground” us

Now sense all the fingers of your right hand
now
as you read this
all the fingers of your right hand and then the rest of  your right
arm
all the way to the shoulder

all along
sense the breathing in and breathing out

(“hard?” , oh well, it’s just
our life we are paying more attention to,
with great advantages down the road
when we can cease and desist demands for
attention/ ATTENTION/ attention
from others)

breathing in

breathing out

right toes and leg

right fingers and arm

and add on

left upper arm at the shoulder

all the way down to the five left fingers

And the left leg
from hip joint all the way to the five toes

actually,
that’s enough
let’s leave the spine until tomorrow

try this game today:
ten fingers
ten toes
two arms
two legs
breathing in
breathing out

This is “a lot”

YES!

Life is a lot.

(You can do this when happy, and when sad,

doing nothing

taking a walk, swimming, driving

reading on your computer

even,

and we’ll work on this later:

while talking to someone else,

it’s an open eyed mindfulness
rooting us in the reality of these arms and legs
that reach and touch and move us around
and shake hands and write and hug and open a door
and this

breathing thing
breathing in
breathing out

we are alive

isn’t that a good feeling to be sensing

the aliveness of our bones and fingers and toes and
are breathing?)