this moment, this love, leaving behind the labels

if i want to word about it
and call this moment, enlightened,
then
it's not

and if i want to word about it
and call this moment, not enlightened
then
that's true,
but not getting me anywhere

which getting
any
where
comes from being
any where
and that's just good enough
sweet fine kind
amazing
without any wording
to tell me
or
you
or anyone,
except maybe God,
how wonderful it is

and the whisper,
the words that just slip out
uncalled for
unthought,
the "i love you" words,
the more unidirectional
and unspecific
the better

(though God is in the details,
too,
loving every little grain of sand,
or wrinkle
or irritation
or leaf
or star)

that whisper
is on the way
to the enlightened thing
the lighten up
thing
the everything is slipping forth
the way it
is
and isn't that fine
thing

and it can't be told
good

can be experienced
good

now
very good

yeah,
this now

and sometimes that feels so good
we have to write a poem
or a song
and shout I LOVE YOU
to everyone

that's okay
it's necessary to the tides
of life

can't be helped

ask Hafiz,
drunken love maker to
God
in every man woman child moon
and star
and sun

or
ask the self in you
that has no name
and no place
and no words
and feels like it's not there

except it's the only thing
always there

kind
of

who knows
let Adyashanti tell us all the details
that's his job

our job:
to smile
feel our feet on the ground

wake up to a life of love
and
presence

and all the places that
will
take us

good

Relationship Heaven

Is your relationship heaven?

Is that honeymoon flavor there most of the time?

Are you excited to find out new aspects of each other
every week, if not every day?

Is touch, truth and fun continually improving?

Can you talk about anything and everything, including
the sweetness of sex with its various tangles of desire and obligation,
and money with its seemingly endless ramifications?

Are you present with each other?

Are you deeply in love?

I hope so.

If not, that's my main treat and service for the world now,
helping others to the love that could be, and maybe even "should"
be, at the center of all lives.

Real love, real work, real awakening, real connection to the Earth,
real service.

All good stuff.

Ciao
for
NOW,

Chris

Special Needs Children, lessons to "imitate" the daily action of "normal" children, learning is the aim

A "normal" child is pushing into the floor, into the chair, into everything, and pulling herself along,
or rolling herself over, or figuring out strategies of moving, and sitting and going up and down and crawling, and doing just about everything.

All day.

Each hour of each day is a lesson for the average child.

For a special needs child, life is full and wonderful, too, but the spasticity,  or the limited repertoire of successful motion, or the disabled attention abilities keep the learning less than full time.

This is where lessons come in.

We practitioners create the connections and the pushes and the pulls,
slowly,
gently
with variation,
to mimic
but much more effciently,
the learning all children need about how,
say,
the hand pushing into the floor connects through to the ribs and spine and pelvis.

How the rotation of the pelvis affects the legs and spine and head.

How the chest and ribs affect the back and the pelvis and the head.

It's all the miracle of this body and this brain,
a brain that doesn't start out knowing how to roll over,
or crawl or walk or talk.

What is learning?
It's adding on an ability to perceive new differences.
This is what children's lessons are about, whether it is "normal" children
moving themselves around experimentally,
or the special needs child lucky enough to get our lessons
to simulate and encourage this learning.

Life is amazing, and lessons,
for adults and children,
at all ranges of activity,
can increase the ability of the whole person
to perceive the whole person, the self,
the "me" inside of each of us,
as an independent source of motion,
and intention and action.

Action is us living our own life.
Action is what brings the children in for lessons.
Action is the life expansion for the children,
however small, bit by bit, after each lesson.

This is the little miracles that can add up to such big ones.

Hope to see you and your child soon.


Chris

Early, tired, awake

when reality brings these tired moments, I could complain.

They won't go away with my complaining.

Further proof that I don't run the Universe.

That's good news. Think how much responsibility that would be.

What's left to me, is that what is now,
this I can experience,
this I can treasure,
even these tired, early morning, up since 2 AM now it's 7 morning.

I'll live

A little nap will go a long way.

Life is good.

Ciao
for
NOW

An essay for a change: Loving God, with or without belief

GOD:Loving God for the hell of it; oh, wait, the heaven of it

God is good. We’ve heard that. But then again, we don’t have to believe that.
We don’t have to believe in God.
I don’t have to care about or think about God.
And we like to love God, sometimes and those times are in indication of the deeper callings in Life.

Remember when you were small and looked up at the stars and it seems so amazing, that they were so many and so perfect and so brilliant and you were down here and they were up there and it was all just amazing.
That’s what loving God can be like.

Or when you sat by a stream one time, or many, and rested your back against a tree or a rock, and just did “nothing.” Just watched the water flow by and delighted in the sparkling, rippling, reflecting light bouncing from the sun off the water and into your eyes and into your brain and into your heart and your breathing and you and the stream seemed as if they were one.
All is one. All is One.
Some people say things like that. What do you think?
What do you feel?
What do you experience?
What do you love?

Say you love flowers. Is that a way to love God? Sure.
Say you love sunsets and walks on the beach. What if loving that is loving God is loving yourself in your expanding form?
Say God is something like the Whole Tamale, and so anything you love is loving God.

That makes it easy to love God. Later we’ll roam around in the scary world of God is everything, even the “bad stuff,” but let’s start easy.
Loving sunsets and puppies frolicking in the mud and babies laughing and birds singing and rainbows rainbowing these are all easy.
And that’s good, you know. We tend to forget the easy, the simple. We want God to be something fancy we have to pray hard for, or go to India to join the ashram.
We think God is some strict father, and we don’t get the goodies, the love and okay to get into heaven and whatnot, if we don’t toe some line, shape up, be good.
We don’t’ have to be good.
We might want to be kind and loving and useful to others and the Earth, and when you really feel those urges they are from that complicated and simple all at once place of All is One. The being kind to you is being kind to another part of me. The helping the Earth along is being useful to another part of me.

We appear to be apart from others and from Nature. And we appear to be a part of others and a part of Nature.
We are a part of love.
Love is a part of us.

We spend our days often, way often, forgetting that we are love.
That’s okay. God is love, some say, so that God, She or He can but us some slack when we forget to love.
Cutting us slack is called mercy.
Someone once said two things are infinite: human stupidity and God’s mercy. One kind of calls forth the other, and maybe humans are less stupid that confused and cut off from their natural intelligence.
And how do we get back to God, get back to our true selves, get back to days of more and more Love.

Start now, course. We always start now.

The love we want is in us now.
When we come to the Now, everything slows down, and we have this great swoosh of peace. Why? Because all those things lined up ahead of us don’t exist in the present.
Because all those things we remember and have told ourselves about our past, they don’t exist in the Now either.
In the now, the Now, the NOW, not much is left.
Except a peace.
A happiness.
A friend.
A sense of having come home to our true selves.

Is coming home to our true selves, our True Selves, coming home to God?

Maybe.
You don’t have to believe in any God, or anything, to feel very peaceful, happy, free by coming back to your true self, your true Self, in the Now.

And does that make the Now another name for God?

I’m not sure. I don’t think so.

I think God might be the vastness, the beauty, the ALL OF IT, that we can see and feel and merge with from the now.

But that’s just my story.

What’s your feeling when you come to the now, really now?

Does that feel like God, or a path to God, or just a great relief from all the regular ordinary everyday suffering and hurry and worry and contention and bother?

It’s your life.
It’s your feelings.
It’s you now to love and live in or not.

Try loving God, with or without believing in God. And then just coast there, without thoughts, in the Now, and see what happens.
Feel what happens.
Love what happens.
Love yourself.
Love It ALL.

Enjoy.

God is ??, and Loving God anyway

You don't have to be good.

You don't have to believe in God.

You don't have to love God.

And sometimes you just want to, as if
as if
as if
compelled by the very life force
within
you

to worship the
Life Force all around you

and it is as if you are worshipping
yourself
but the bigger self
the Self
as they say and it's bigger
than just a big S
it's bigger like the univerSe
that kind of big

and worshipping the univerSe
seems kind of lame,
really,
but what if we are worshipping
the animating force behind it
all
the force that created you and I
and this Life on Earth thing
and this moon around the Earth around the sun thing
and the butterfly ocean sunset sweet kisses and hugs
and rivers and oceans and rainbows and peaches thing

that seems worth worshipping

the worship
and the workshop

what if this world is but
a workshop
for our souls
to deepen their leapin
into the univerSe
of
All is One

and what is All is One
is another name for God

just like some people say
Love
is
another name for God

and other people say
Everything / Reality is another
name
for God

and of course
when you connect with something
too big
really
to have a name
it's just a game
if you are spinning words
about something beyond the words

but the being alive
and experiencing
it

NOW

thing

that's God

maybe

but it feels like love
and it feels like what we are meant to do
and so
maybe that's good

maybe it's just fine to worship
God
and to love God
and leave out the whole "believe in God
or don't believe in God"
argument

who knows?
try it out.
See is loving God
without believing in God
works

for you.

whatever "you" are

Good.

Love's possible pathways: happy new year

If you look at the world around you,
here is what you see:
some nature,
more if you are lucky,
less if the city is your place

you see a lot of buildings
and roads
and that too,
more or less

and then there are people
everywhere people

and sometimes you are lucky
and someone comes along and you share
some nights and days with
you love them
or at least want to be with them

sometimes children
come from this

sometimes
not

and sometimes this "relationship,"
as it's called gets better and better

you are fascinated
the other person is fascinated

you are learning and growing
they are learning and growing

you are on the spot present to them
listening
and hearing what their words say
and what the heart underneath the words
is saying



and they listen,
really listen too

and you laugh
and discover,
my oh my,
you each have quirks and eccentricities
and you find that charming

and sometimes one or the other
will be less than totally thoughtful
and that can be interesting to explore

and you get bored sometimes
and go off and read a good book
or write one
or meditate

there is no rush to be always
together
and
a great delight when you are

.....
this happens sometimes

.......

i hope this is happening to you
right now
this year

and in the meantime:

if no one is around who is a great listener,
get out a friendly journal
and start listening to yourself

if no one is around to laugh and indulge you
when you are less than perfect
my
this is a good habit to develop

and when you want to romp with others,
and don't have a special other,
find a dance group,
find a group hike,
find a sing along crowd
find a reading group

there are people everywhere
some are lonely
and just waiting for a friendly
person
to say hello
how was your day

the world is full
of possibilities

enjoy

January 6. 2012
a very good year

love is this moment caressing itself

Love is important
and it goes like this:

you are amazing,
alive
and I cherish you just as you are

that's the honeymoon
phase
and why not have it always be the honeymoon

like this:
the Other does something that irriates
us
we see that as our problem
we got irritated

and we see it as a chance to play:
"Hey, I tweeked myself when you
did
so and so

is that weird, that I tweeked myself
or is that some insane notion
that you are supposed to always
do things just the way

I want you to do them?"



the quote means
you say it.
you speak to the other person
about the bother in you
and
you do NOT
blame them for the bother

you both get curious:

them about whether they wanted to tweek you

you get curious about: whether you have program
that the Other "should" do
what you wish the other to do

....
i know
i know
it sounds too simple

aren't we supposed to get in
conflict when we
"don't get our way?"

if we want to be unhappy
we can get into conflict

if we want to be happy
then curiosity
and good old fashioned
letting the other person be
who they are

goes a long way

and la
la
la

here's the deal:
until we wake up
there is no real happiness

what does that mean?

it means
in the present
love is always possible

out of the present
it's just our robot and theirs
either meshing
or not

hard reality
except
so fucking amazing:
we can come free any
now
and
now
is always right now,

no waiting wanting or coniving
it's right here

this one , too, of course

love
and such
to one
and all,
Chris

Today is Friday and....

image from the past

interesting our pictures and where our attention goes

when we past surf

eh?

Today is Friday and
apparently I have slagged off
my promise of posting three times
a week

gads
and we can always tell ourselves the story:
I should have done more
yesterday

trouble is:
it's never true.

we can never have
done more yesterday
from today
back

yesterday
had we things
 like
been different
we could have made different choices

but today
looking back:
yesterday's did dad done dead

and now
it's a beautiful day
and love is good
and sunshine is good
and easing up on the
"you should have done more
yesterday"
voices, the
little
(Well intentioned or not)
liars

this is our life today
I'll post this poem today

this moment is mine
the only "sure' thing
and I'll love it and me
and being alive in
it

and tomorrow
who knows
I may  post another poem

but so far
I have spared myself any new year's resolutions

I've got some grand ideas
for the year

but a poem a day
or two pages a day
or three jogs a week
nah

i'll just love this moment
and see what happens
next

hope your day is wonderful

and ps
I am mulling and designing
ways of combining this joy of the present,
love of being present,
and creating a fabulous future for ourselves

stay
tuned

ciao
for
NOW,
Chris

Love is big, and why not?

Love is easy

          Love is in no hurry

                     Love is kind

                              Love is not demanding

                                      Love expands your mind

And your heart

your heart

your Heart is free in love

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

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

                                         be
                                             so happy

happiness is what we came for

                            and love is the road


                                          Love has no shame

                                                     it shines out to all the world


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

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










 happy new years

Loving the X, especially if you have kids

 Back from here, but nice to look at

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

and the X is still a huge part of
their life

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

and damage them

and you don't want to do that

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

one:
for the children's sake

two:
for the sake of your soul

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

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


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

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

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

oh, wll

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

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

which isn't a nice place to be

so,
what to do

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

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

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

There it's written.

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

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

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

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

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


"My X should have loved me more"


turns around to I should have loved my X more


and I should love myself more.


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


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


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


Good
luck

Chris

christmas in an airport

leaving Southern California

for love, learning, laughter

and 

waking up,

happiness

and usefulness in

Austin

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

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

and the homeland security
again,
no line

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

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

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

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

and when the next place
arrives
it will delightfully
arrive

and then next place

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

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

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

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

same as what I'll say:
MErry Christmas.

Chris

Christmas cometh

a light shines in the sky

a light shines in you

it signals something amazing

it moves

the wise folks in you follow the light

it ends up in a smelly place
a humble place

new birth
helpless baby

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

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

in you

yes

yes

yes

if your Mom is falling apart and your wonderful advicd

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

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

and the food dance
is sometimes friendly
sometimes iffy

and the weirdness of forgetteries
practicing for alheimers

and the crunched over body
no longer sure in movement

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

and so what'
it's a dance

learning to love
is
a dance

not the only dance in
town

but one of the sweetest

maybe the sweetest

i dance
listen
sometimes am totally present
sometimes not

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

divine

life is
good

so are you
no matter how broken
or healed
you are

you are amazing

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

which is kind of
kin to
remember

yeah
remember yourself
and the glory of
being
a
live

ciao
for
NOW

Chris

the importance of love

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

that we have to
"get our needs met"

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

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

their life to be stretching
learning
happy

awake

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

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

let them talk about their
flaws
if they want

that's their business

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

"just" need to be present

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

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

that's a thought,
eh?

and what of past "lovers"

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

love them,
of course,
how can you not?

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

and when someone else
can get close to that fire

great
see what ignites

life is good
and can get better and better
and
better

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which means?

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

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

The perhaps do the two together.

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

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

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

Registered where?

The brain, of course.

Special vs Holy Relationship: Course of Miracles via Marianne Williamson

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

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

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

And holy wholey as two/ one.

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

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

Of the wanting to get
vs wanting to share variety:

other has to shape up
vs other is grand

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

and so on

Get it and read yourself.

This is a nice quote of hers, though:

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

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

loneliness is one thing
alone ness is another

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

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

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


and then again,
it's nice to have friends

how do you make friends

a. be yourself

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

c. find something to like in them

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

e. if this doesn't scare them off

you've got a friend


good
enough for this cold
and sweet night

ciao
for NOW
Chris

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

You do not have to be good

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

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

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

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

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

just warm
lying there
wasting time

You do not have to not waste time

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

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

even your work

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

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

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

but why bother

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

if love

if love is our subject to
day
what to say

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

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

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

and that's what's called an aside)

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

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

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

or
something like that


ciao
for
NOW

chris


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

or
larking
(or giggling)