resolutions

New Year's Resolutions: The Two Lists
A Message from DailyOM Co-Founder Scott Blum

I was fortunate to spend time with an enigmatic man named Robert during a very special period of my life. Robert taught me many things during our days together, and this time of year reminds me of one particular interaction we had.

"Now that you are becoming more aware," Robert said, "you need to begin to set goals for yourself so you don't lose the momentum you have built."

"Like New Year's resolutions?" I asked.

"That's an interesting idea," he smirked. "Let's do that."

By then I was used to his cryptic responses, so I knew something was up because of the way his eyes sparkled as he let out an impish laugh.

"Tonight's assignment is to make two lists," Robert continued. "The first is a list of all the New Year's resolutions you WANT to keep, and the second is a list of all the New Year's resolutions you WILL keep. Write the WANT List first, and when you have exhausted all of your ideas, then write the second list on another sheet of paper."

That night I went home and spent several hours working on the two lists. The WANT List felt overwhelming at first, but after a while I got into writing all the things I had always wanted to do if the burdens of life hadn't gotten in the way. After nearly an hour, the list swelled to fill the entire page and contained nearly all of my ideas of an ideal life. The second list was much easier, and I was able to quickly commit ten practical resolutions that I felt would be both realistic and helpful.

The next day, I met Robert in front of the local food Co-op, where we seemed to have most of our enlightening conversations. "Tell me about your two lists," Robert said as the familiar smirk crept onto his face.

"The first list contains all the things I SHOULD do if I completely changed my life to be the person I always wanted to be. And the second list contains all the things I COULD do by accepting my current life, and taking realistic steps towards the life I want to lead."

"Let me see the second list," he said.

I handed him the second list, and without even looking at it, he ripped the paper into tiny pieces and threw it in the nearby garbage can. His disregard for the effort I had put into the list annoyed me at first, but after I calmed down I began to think about the first list in a different light. In my heart, I knew the second list was a cop out, and the first list was the only one that really mattered.

"And now, the first list." Robert bowed his head and held out both of his hands.

I purposefully handed him the first list and held his gaze for several seconds, waiting for him to begin reading the page. After an unusually long silence, he began to crumple the paper into a ball and once again tossed it into the can without looking at it.

"What did you do that for?!" I couldn't hide my anger any longer.

Robert began to speak in a quiet and assured voice. "What you SHOULD or COULD do with your life no longer matters. The only thing that matters, from this day forward, is what you MUST do."

He then drew a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it to me.

I opened it carefully, and found a single word floating in the middle of the white page:

"Love."

blood pressure

i went to the doctor this afternoon. while waiting to be called, i meditated. just sitting, back straight, feet on floor, eyes closed, hands on thighs.

after 30 minutes, the nurse called my name. she took my blood pressure. it was 84/50, the lowest it's ever been. it's usually more like 100/70.

meditation works!

vulnerability and boundaries

sally kempton's wisdom column in the february 2009 issue yoga journal (now on newsstands) is once again a masterpiece of insight, with wisdom we can all use.

she writes of an acquaintance, a surgeon, who began meditating and doing yoga to control stress. he's noticed a new tenderness toward people on the operating table, a feeling of softness and rawness, that he was unaccustomed to.

kempton says these feelings of vulnerability are not optional but part of the process.

she says the most open person she ever met was her teacher, a swami. when you looked into his eyes, there were no barriers; he would meet you at the deepest place you could go. at the same time, he had incredibly strong boundaries and a take-no-prisoners attitude toward challenging situations.

oh, okay, so this is what a swami is like!

what made me want to share this is this paragraph:

"the spiritual journey often looks like a dance between the two distinct poles of vulnerability and boundaries. it's a continuing dialogue between the impulse to soften and open and the impulse to contain and protect. the two apparent opposites turn out to be equal partners in the process of embodying spirit and heart."

in my NLP training, my teacher, tom best, has several times mentioned the idea that all our wants can be classified as either a drive toward security or a drive toward freedom. tom attributes that to someone else, i forget who--tom or NLPers, help me out here.

sally kempton's understanding of the paradoxical poles of vulnerability and boundaries is a similar way of understanding ourselves, more subjective, more feeling and behavior oriented. there is not one without the other.

ultimately, kempton says, entering your vulnerability and connecting with the source is key to recognizing your own spaciousness, which is invulnerable.

go get a february yoga journal to read the whole article, including the meditation practices kempton provides.

stop being stupid

click the title to read the opinion from bob herbert, who says it better than i could: it's time for americans to stop being stupid. about the economy, the future, industry, jobs, wars, regulation, credit, mortgages, college tuition, globalization, government spending, debt, investment, paying now versus later, infrastructure, education, the environment, health care, and consumption.

i would add another policy area that needs overhaul, where the government can stop being stupid NOW with a great long-term payoff: the farm bill. it has a huge effect on the food that's available to us and the cost of this food.

processed food (the packaged stuff that is stripped of nutrients--sometimes added back in as chemicals!--that can sit on a grocery shelf for months and has been shipped from who-knows-where) is cheap and available everywhere because the government subsidizes it.

in other words, the u.s. government is taking our tax money and paying it to farmers to grow monocultures of wheat, corn, soybeans, spraying them with pesticides, using chemical fertilizers. it's paying for research programs at universities to come up with better ways of processing these "components" and turning them into cheap, unnutrious food with long shelf-lives.

if america is to get smarter, focusing on high quality, nutritious food (and clean water) that is available and affordable to everyone is a great place to start.

after all, how are we going to get smarter? what do you think builds the brain?

sunrise

today i got to do one of my favorite things: watch a sunrise starting when it's still completely night. kathleen (with buckshot, the boxer) and i convoyed to pedernales falls state park. it's about 50 minutes away that early. we left at 5:09 am, arrived at 6 am. watched stars twinkle out and the lightening sky in the east.

low clouds on the horizon before dawn became heavy clouds shortly after dawn.

very comfortable temperature without a jacket or hat, marvelous to experience on december 27.

walking from cars to overlook without light and being able to stay on the path in the darkness...

expanses of limestone punctuated by water...

a wooded ridge across the stream...

rock, rock, and more rock...

a gushing spring...

deer hoofprints in the sand...

an occasional distant plane but otherwise no sounds but wind and water and birds...

many trickles and washes and falls and damp places...

caves...

so lovely and serene.

did peripheral walking back to the car. it stayed with me on the drive home.

family christmas

my family, even though we all live in austin, doesn't gather together very often, but christmas eve is one of those times.

yesterday afternoon we gathered at my brother frank and sister-in-law kathy's home. they always host because they have a house that's big enough for us all.

i look forward to these gatherings. i love seeing everyone and spending a few hours together and catching up. the length of time we spend together feels just about right (many of us are introverts), and at the same time, i wish we did it more often. last year, for the first time, i didn't attend, because i was in maui. this year i was really looking forward to it.

this year my grand-daughter hannah wasn't present. she's spending this christmas with her father's family and was especially looking forward to spending time with both her half-sisters, an uncommon occurrence. i look forward very much to her presence at our gathering next year.

my daughter's boyfriend, bruce, joined us for the first time this year. welcome, bruce.

we've been planning our gathering for weeks. instead of a big fancy meal with a turkey or ham, we decided on mexican food for our christmas eve dinner this year. more informal, casual, something different.

kathy made enchiladas. grace, her and frank's 11-year-old daughter made nachos. frank offered traditional pork tamales.

my brother will's wife helen brought a puerto rican rice dish. helen's mother is korean, father puerto rican. this dish is one her mother learned to make early in their marriage. it's kind of like spanish rice but has pigeon peas in it. they're kind of like lentils. it was very good.

i brought guacamole i made using a highly rated recipe i found on google.

lela and bruce brought vegetarian pinto bean tamales and apple cinnamon tamales from mr. natural. (my request. i like tamales, but lard doesn't appeal.) thanks, lela and bruce. i'm eating steamed apple cinnamon tamales as i write this, and they are delicious.

after everyone arrived and got settled in, we put food on the table and gathered to eat. we (brothers frank and will, and i) said the traditional family blessing, which we call "the baruch". it goes "baruch ata, adonai elohainu, melech ha olam, hamotsi lechem, menha aritz." (the "ch" is pronounced like "kh".)

while bruce, i'm sure, was wondering what the heck was going on (these people are praying in a foreign language!), frank explained. it's the jewish blessing of the bread. our father spent time in israel studying hebrew and brought this blessing back with him. "blessed art thou, o lord our god, king of the universe, for bringing forth bread from the earth."

we ate too much. and then there was tres leches cake, which kathy made, apple cinnamon tamales, and brownie. i could only eat a small slice of cake and one tamale. then i was really full.

(even though i enjoy the festivities of special occasions, I'm always glad after such feasts to get back to my plain, ordinary fruit- and veggie-laden diet. i must be a peasant at heart, because rich food is not something i can indulge in very often and feel well.)

nephew sam, age 8, will and helen's son, ate pizza, having a limited palate. helen tells me he's getting better. will, who was also a picky eater as a child, is working with him to expand his range. helen says that because she has lupus, that's made her sensitive to the connection between what she eats and how she feels. i have come to have much more sensitivity about that connection myself, having sensitivities to certain foods.

after dinner, bruce and sammie played nine-ball on grace's wii. we stood around and watched as bruce sank the last ball and then gathered in the living room to open gifts. grace was the gift distributor this year and did a great job.

at christmas, we give christmas gifts to the children and birthday gifts to the adults. i know that sounds strange, but it's easier that way. the children usually have birthday parties and get their birthday gifts then. birthdays aren't that big a deal for adults. we are often working on each other's birthdays, so coordinating is difficult, and we give each other birthday gifts at christmas. a year's worth of birthdays, taken care of in one day. (we usually call or email on or around actual birthdays. we don't just ignore them)

everyone seemed happy with their gifts. we had sent wish lists to each other via email in the weeks before christmas, so everyone got something they wanted. helen got baffle gab, a game. frank got obama books and a multimeter. i gave bruce some cds on his amazon.com wish list, which lela had pointed me too. cutting edge stuff. i felt very sophisticated in waterloo records!

bruce gave me a nicely framed photo of hannah, dancing naked on a beach in tulum, mexico, in her fully expressed goddess mode of "all out," which she would prefer to live in all the time, but unfortunately doesn't mesh with the usual expectations of an 8-year-old girl. she's beautiful.

and after regular gifts, we had a white elephant gift exchange. nicely done, y'all! i ended up with pedestrian turn signals. you put them on your ears!

i'm pleased that i got to have a conversation with each of the adults there. will really likes his new job at the radisson, and we get a family discount.

frank referred me to a couple of divorce lawyers he knows for a friend who asked, and we talked about a mutual acquaintance who's very smart.

kathy told me how things were in her office and that she'll be eligible to retire in about 3 years.

helen talked about sam's schooling and food preferences, and her upbringing as a multicultural military child, at home with many cuisines.

bruce talked about going on tour with jason mraz and getting to see new parts of the world. he and kathy were both raised in austin. he seemed to connect with everyone well.

sam, an aspergian, let me hug him and seemed comfortable with the wii and a little hand-held game he'd brought.

grace sparkled in her peace symbol necklace and showed us some dance she and her friends made up. the hot dog, the lawn mower, and so forth.

we all missed hannah's lively presence.

no children cried or otherwise had meltdowns. a true blessing! and frank took a couple of group photos with a timer, so he could be included. he'll email them later.

i am deeply grateful to have a family, and to have this family in particular. our time together felt really sweet, and was fleeting enough to look forward to gathering again next year. family, i love you all!

the true meaning of christmas: radiance

i hope that whatever your plans are for christmas, that you take some time to experience and appreciate your own and others' and the world's radiance. that has come to be the true meaning of christmas to me. it's about radiance, of which the christ child is a symbol. the energy of solstichristmakwanzukahh is that of radiance.

one dear friend told me that she wasn't looking forward to the usual family dysfunction (old stories, old roles, old rules) and all that contraction when they gather for christmas. with a prompt from magician bobbi, she determined to perceive each family member as having the beautiful, powerful, pure, trusting, innocent radiance of newborn babies. instant expansion!

people respond to radiance. that state, for me, is associated with beginner's mind, presence, clarity, focus, openness, unconditional love, innocence. it is most vulnerable and yet paradoxically, it's incredibly powerful.

when someone looks at you with radiance, accept it in your heart and bask in its glow. let your radiance shine to others too. fill their hearts and fill yours too--both at the same time.

it is especially meaningful in this season of short days and long nights when we become more social, tribal, communal. let your light shine!

morning thoughts

what are you first aware of when you wake up?

it varies for me. sometimes my waking thought is profound and sets a theme for the day.

sometimes it's monkey mind, chattering 100 mph. that's annoying.

this morning i kept hitting the snooze after awakening from a dream about 2:30 a.m. and being unable to go back to sleep for at least an hour.

i'd hit the snooze, and fall back into a doze, over and over. i noticed that my mind's theater showed me a display of images (visual internal medium range), and at times my attention went to my body (kinesthetic internal and external broad).

being not such a visual person, i enjoy these images and feelings a lot. let the words and self-talk cease! i want pictures and sensations!

poem: the new rule

panhala, which sends me poems each weekday, is on holiday hiatus. i'm missing it and maybe you are too, so here's one from rumi. it ties into a rune i drew after sharing a dream sunday with peggy, phyllis, and victoria.

It's the old rule that drunks have to argue and get into fights.
The lover is just as bad. He falls into a hole.
But down in that hole he finds something shining,
worth more than any amount of money or power.

Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street.
I took it as a sign to start singing, falling up into the bowl of sky.
The bowl breaks. Everywhere is falling everywhere.
Nothing else to do.
Here's the new rule: break the wineglass, and fall toward the glassblower's breath.

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die, and be quiet.
Quietness is the surest sign that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running from silence.
The speechless full moon comes out now.
"I used to want buyers for my words.
Now I wish someone would buy me away from words.

I've made a lot of charmingly profound images,
scenes with Abraham, and Abraham's father, Azar,
who was also famous for icons.

I'm so tired of what I've been doing.

Then one image without form came, and I quit.

Look for someone else to tend the shop.
I'm out of the image-making business.

Finally I know the freedom of madness.

A random image arrives.
I scream, "Get out!"
It disintegrates.

Only love.
Only the holder the flag fits into, and wind. No flag. "

the brain's subconscious vision

marco schneider sent me a link to a NY Times article about a man who had no functioning in his visual cortex due to two strokes, yet was able to navigate an obstacle course successfully and cringe at a picture of a scary face--even though he could not consciously see them.

click the title of this post to go to the article.

marco and i both speculate that there's a connection between peripheral vision (see more under the label "12 states of attention"--and the subcortical areas the researchers found this man was using.

sinus mystery

just a note...

i ended up buying claritin and a sinus spray at CVS, based on my assumption that the longer sinuses stay congested, the more opportunity for infection to develop. just couldn't get them to clear with acupressure, ginger tea, homeopathic remedy, neti pot, rest, etc.

yesterday i took one claritin and 3 sprays per nostril yesterday, which cleared me up.

after this latest cold front blew in during the wee hours of this day, solstice, i awoke with sneezing, coughing, nasal inflammation. took claritin and sinus spray again, which took care of symptoms.

it's not that i don't believe the alternative treatments work. it's that sometimes stronger intervention is needed. these cold fronts alternating with 75 degree days are hard on the body.

fighting a sinus infection

last sunday a cold front blew into austin, complete with gusty winds and freezing temperatures at night that didn't rise much with daylight.

sunday night i began sneezing. the inside of my nose felt inflamed and sensitive. my sinuses were soon congested, and then my throat got sore.

i felt a little better in the daytime.

when the front left sometime tuesday night, i felt a shift occur. i stopped sneezing, but the sinus congestion remained. yesterday it really got to me. i left work early. i cancelled celtic christmas at the cathedral with peggy and stayed home to nurse myself after stopping at whole foods in search of remedies.

i got a homeopathic remedy, phytolacca decandra, specifically for sore throat radiating to the ears, which mine was.

and whole foods was out of fresh ginger! i bought some local honey, and with ginger and lemons i had at home, made a fragrant, soothing, delicious hot tea to sip on.

i googled acupressure and found pressure points for the sinuses. there are several: inner wrists, outside thumbnail, web of hand, 2nd toenail, eyebrow, just outside nostril. (google for more specifics, these are general locations.) i've been applying pressure with a pencil eraser or my finger intermittently since then.

i also used a neti pot last night. the warm saline solution couldn't travel far, but it turned out to be somewhat effective. today when i've bent over, fluid comes out. gross.

and i meditated. i'd have to say it wasn't one of my deepest meditations, but i'm positive it helped more than not meditating would have.

i went to bed early and felt pretty good this morning, except for the dang sinus congestion.

it's friday, about 6:45, and it's back and forth. is it going to turn into an infection, or can i clear my sinuses and breathe freely?

i figured the sneezing was probably because of allergies, that that cold north wind was blowing something in that my immune system mistakenly reacted to with alarm. cedar? i don't usually react, but did one year, at least 10 years ago.

the allergic reaction is gone, but the aftermath remains. wish me luck with my self-healing efforts, and if you know how to do the NLP allergy cure, would you be willing to work with me?

tonight i'm doing ginger tea, neti pot, homeopathic remedy, extra zinc, and going to bed early again.

what do you do?

control of attention is the ultimate individual power

Click the title of this post to read David Brooks' response to Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers, which contains the quote above. Outliers explores what makes successful people successful and concludes that it's mostly social forces.

Brooks applauds Gladwell for moving us away from the cold rational self-interest model and hopes it will influence policy-makers to focus more on policies that foster relationships, social bonds, and cultures of achievement.

He also takes issue with the book, saying Gladwell has lost sight of the point at which the influence of social forces ends and the influence of the self-initiating individual begins.

This is important. Success is not entirely determined by social forces, in Brooks' opinion.

He points out that successful people have two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so. Successful people also have a phenomenal ability to consciously focus their attention, and people who can focus attention have the power to rewire their brains--a topic of great interest to NLPers, meditators, and others seeking to improve the quality of experience.

As Brooks puts it, control of attention allows people to choose from patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons, which leads to self-control, resilience, and creativity, something humans can certainly use more of.

This certainly got my attention! Who doesn't want more choices, self-control, resilience, and creativity????? I totally do!

Kathleen this morning told me she realized last night that in 15 years (when the moon is this close to earth again), she'll be 70, and that 15 years is the mere blink of an eye. It's time to truly focus on what's important.

I agree. What is important enough to focus your ferocious attention on?

Disclosure: I haven't read Outliers but have read Gladwell's previous book Blink.

For more on developing attention, see the posts under the label 12 states of attention on this blog.

Also, I'm reading Meditation for Dummies after meditating for a few years with minimal instruction. I'll post a review of that later. Focusing the mind is a key benefit of meditation, which in the big picture doesn't really have any downsides...

i'm being published

Stricken: The 5,000 Stages of Grief is being published in January. An essay I wrote is included.

A book reading will take place at BookPeople on Wednesday, January 28, 2009, at 7 pm. I may be one of the readers, yet since there are 14 contributors from Austin (local writer and raconteur Spike Gillespie pulled the book together), I may not. Details remain loose, but I plan to attend whether I'm reading or not. I haven't met the other contributors, and I look forward to that.

The book is available for pre-order on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Stricken-5-000-Stages-Grief/dp/0981744362

You can also request it from any local bookstore, and copies will be for sale at the book reading and at BookPeople.

I wrote the essay many months ago, and actually, I forgot about it until I got an email from Spike about the opening. It'll be interesting to read what I wrote and see if what I wrote then is close to what I'd write now!

Yes, there is living in the present after grief.

cranio-sacral therapist contact information

i got a comment from someone very interested in my cranio-sacral therapist (hi, carol), and someone else has inquired on facebook when i posted something about CST there.

here is the contact info for my cranio-sacral therapist. she doesn't have a website, or she'd definitely be included in my links.

her name is nina davis. she does adult and pediatric cranio-sacral therapy and lymph drainage therapy.

her phone number is 512.329.9993. office is located in the wallingwood office village on the west size of zilker park.

quickly find your enneagram type part 2

okay, i'm assuming you read part 1 and picked two statements--one from the ABC group and one from the XYZ group--that best represent you. not how you'd like to be, but how you are.

if you haven't done that, go to part 1 and do it. you should have a combination of letters like AX or BZ.

here's the key:
AX=7 the enthusiast
AY=8 the challenger
AZ=3 the achiever
BX=9 the peacemaker
BY=4 the individualist
BZ=5 the investigator
CX=2 the helper
CY=6 the loyalist
CZ=1 the reformer

this is the simplest way of determining your type that i know of. it's not infallible. we humans often tend to see what we want to see and have blind spots. if you're not sure, ask those who spend the most time with you for help.

if you get into this, there are a whole slew of books and workshops you can partake of.

remember, enneagram types are set by early childhood. it seems to be the common human destiny that we are born free and open, and early on, something happens--who knows why, perhaps it's genetic--and we get fixated and develop in a particular way, seeing ourselves and the world through a major filter.

enneagram work is about discovering our filters and transcending them. it can be painful at times and also very, very liberating.

there are also wings, directions you go in stress and in health, levels of development, and instincts, which make the enneagram an infinitely fascinating and complex tool for self-discovery and personal growth.

warm wishes on your journey!

quickly find your enneagram type part 1

I'm taking this straight from the book The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. If you want to know more, read the book! Click the title of this post to find it on Amazon.com.

The enneagram can give you a bigger picture of your life and hone in on issues pertaining to your type. If you're serious about reaching your highest potential, learning your enneagram type and working on awareness of your issues and cultivating your gifts can be extremely rewarding.

Okay. There are two sets of statements below. Pick one from the ABC group and one from the XYZ group that best represent you. You don't have to agree 100% with a statement. Just pick one from each group that you agree with most.

A. I have ended to be fairly independent and assertive; I've felt that life works best when you meet it head-on. I set my own goals, get involved, and want to make things happen. I don't like sitting around--I want to achieve something big and have an impact. I don't necessarily seek confrontations, but I don't let people push me around, either. Most of the time I know what I want, and I go for it. I tend to work hard and to play hard.

B. I have tended to be quiet and am used to being on my own. I usually don't draw much attention to myself socially, and it's generally unusual for me to assert myself all that forcefully. I don't feel comfortable taking the lead or being as competitive as others. Many would probably say that I'm something of a dreamer--a lot of my excitement goes on in my imagination. I can be quite content without feeing I have to be active all the time.

C. I have tended to be extremely responsible and dedicated. I feel terrible if I don't keep my commitments and do what's expected of me. I want people to know that I'm there for them and that I'll do what I believe is best for them. I've often made great personal sacrifices for the sake of others, whether they know it or not. I often don't take adequate care of myself--I do the work that needs to be done and relax (and do what I really want) if there's time left.

X. I am a person who usually maintains a positive outlook and feels that things will work out for the best. I can usually find something to be enthusiastic about and different ways to occupy myself. I like being around people and helping others to be happy--I enjoy sharing my own well-being with them. I don't always feel great, but I try not to to show it to anyone! However, staying positive has sometimes meant that I've put off dealing with my own problems for too long.

Y. I am a person who has strong feelings about things--most people can tell when I'm unhappy about something. I can be guarded with people, but I'm more sensitive than I let on. I want to know where I stand with others and who and what I can count on--it's pretty clear to most people where they stand with me. When I'm upset about something, I want others to respond and to get as worked up as I am. I know the rules, but I don't want people telling me what to do. I want to decide for myself.

Z. I tend to be self-controlled and logical--I am uncomfortable dealing with feelings. I am efficient--even perfectionistic--and prefer working on my own. When there are problems or personal conflicts, I try not to bring my feelings into the situation. Some say I'm too cool and detached, but I don't want my emotional reactions to distract me from what's really important to me. I usually don't show my reactions when others "get to me."

riff on "the map is not the territory"

One of the basic presuppositions of NLP is "the map is not the territory." That presupposes that there is a map and there is a territory, and they are separate or different.

I came across a new take in Ken Wilber's A Brief History of Everything.

"The mapmaker, the self, the thinking and knowing subject, is actually a product and a performance of that which it seeks to know and represent....the map is itself a performance of the territory it is trying to map."

Wilber says this nondualistic approach doesn't deny the representation paradigm altogether; but it does say that at a much deeper level, thought itself *cannot* deviate from the currents of the Kosmos, because thought is a product and performance of those very currents.

Thus, thought is the true Tao from which one cannot deviate.

"And as long as we are caught in merely trying to correct our maps, then we will miss the ways in which both correct and incorrect maps are equally expressions of Spirit."

a visit to my cranio-sacral therapist

just back from cranio-sacral therapy

lying on the table on my back
nina puts one hand under the small of my back
the other under my neck

releasing
surrendering to gravity
breathing space into the tight places
i nearly fall asleep
images come unbidden
no effort

C2 and T7 have a dialog
a competition to see who can open up the most
in all directions

i feel really good

poem: Despair

Despair

So much gloom and doubt in our poetry -
flowers wilting on the table,
the self regarding itself in a watery mirror.

Dead leaves cover the ground,
the wind moans in the chimney,
and the tendrils of the yew tree inch toward the coffin.

I wonder what the ancient Chinese poets
would make of all this,
these shadows and empty cupboards?

Today, with the sun blazing in the trees,
my thoughts turn to the great
tenth-century celebrators of experience,

Wa-Hoo, whose delight in the smallest things
could hardly be restrained,
and to his joyous counterpart in the western provinces,
Ye-Hah.

~ Billy Collins ~
(Ballistics)

click the title of this post to see it on panhala, with image of laughing buddha and cardinals

2009: year of the breath

katie raver created a facebook/meetup group called 2009: year of the breath. click the title of this post to go to the website, read, and join, if you like.

we'll meet monthly, on alternating tuesday evenings and saturday afternoons. there will be weekly how-to posts on breathing practices you can do at home. there will be an RSS feed you can subscribe to for these emails.

here's the january meeting description (and more about the work kathleen is doing now):

Shift Happens
with Kathleen Radebaugh

Using the breath practice of Fanning with Spatial Relations Changework... to get a powerful shift.

Tuesday, January 20, 7pm to 9:30pm
Location: Unity Center, Room 206 (9603 Dessau Road, Austin, Texas)
$10 Donation

Fanning is a simple process for releasing blocks and attracting your desires.

Fanning often creates profound shifts within.

Using the practice Carlos Casteneda calls 'recapitulation,' Don Americo Yabar and Tom Best (see www.nlpoptions.com for more information) have developed 'fanning,' a process for shifting energetic connections.

After aligning the mind, heart, and body with intention, the breath is used to clear - or "fan" - inappropriate energetic connections and refresh and strengthen appropriate energetic connections between an individual and other people, emotions, and/or events.

Facilitator Kathleen Radebaugh developed Spatial Relations Changework (SRC) from her own experiences of the work of David Grove, James Lawley, Penny Thompkins, Stephen Gilligan, Nelson Zink, Tom Best, and the body of work called Neuro-linguistic Programming. This powerful toolbox allows her to co-create new worlds with her clients, assisting them to quickly and easily shift old patterns, beliefs, and behaviors in a deep, lasting, and ecological way. Common changes from just a few hours of SRC include hitting the 'reset' button on one's life purpose, increased awareness of limiting patterns, and resolving unhelpful internal conflicts.

Bring something you'd like to shift, be it something you want less of or something you want more of.

About Kathleen Radebaugh, M.A.
As she was developing the early processes of Spatial Relations Changework, Kathleen underwent a radical life change in which she sold her home in St. Cloud, Florida in the middle of a recession, dispersed all her possessions, completed the 18-year-long project of writing and publishing her literary western novel Walker's Island, and fulfilled her dream of moving to Austin, Texas. Having refined SRC through hundreds of hours of client testing, she now facilitates clients in a 4 part series of 4 hour sessions, customized to each client to help them explore the inner worlds that limit and motivate them. You can reach her at (407) 924-4161 or kradebaugh@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

feet and earth

what is the relationship of your feet to the earth?

this is one of the most important connections you can make, in my opinion and in my experience.

walking, standing, sitting, lying, bring your attention to the soles of your feet and their energy.

the more attention you give, the more you notice.

love your feet! ask them what they want. they are amazing and often ignored body parts with a lot to say.

thoughts on mind

the conscious mind is what you are aware of at any given moment.

the unconscious mind is everything else. i really mean that. the unconscious mind is everything else in the universe that is not in the conscious mind.

so if i'm thinking about making some tea, that's conscious. the connection of my energy to everything else that exists in the universe--trees, stars, rocks, water, fire, ancestors, relations, earth, microorganisms, galaxies, matter, energy, spirit, life force, that cute guy, the crying child, that violent person, the grieving person, the crazy person, the dying person, the unborn child, past, future, present--is unconscious.

just knowing this, getting this, understanding this, living this is huge. at every moment, whether i'm aware or not, i am connected to the whole universe, and it is connected to me, and we support each other, and really, there is no "other".

consciousness has levels. and if the conscious mind comes to understand and accept that this connection is present all the time, it changes consciousness. it's not a matter of either conscious or unconscious. you can have both at the same time, and indeed, you always have.

two ways to change the world

the dalai lama says that western women will save the world.

i want to write about two organizations through which we can really make a difference in the quality of life of an individual.

my dear friend peggy lamb is working with an organization called women for women international: helping women survivors of war rebuild their lives.

you donate $27 per month, or $324 per year, to support one woman for one year, and you can send it to a specific country: afghanistan, bosnia and herzegovina, democratic republic of the congo, iraq, kosovo, nigeria, rwanda, sudan, or wherever the need is greatest.

women for women matches you with a woman in the country you choose.

besides financial support, you correspond with the woman you're matched with by writing to her monthly. she may respond. peggy got a letter written for her sponsee (who doesn't read or write) in rwanda, thanking her and letting her know her generosity means a lot.

imagine what it would be like to suffer the devastations of war, often losing home, family, community, and livelihood, witnessing violence (some of it perpetrated by the american government) or being a victim of "ethnic cleansing," and to receive help like this from an individual american woman.

WFW spends 11.7% on administrative costs.

http://www.womenforwomen.org/


another dear friend, fantasia london, works with an organization called kiva. kiva is a person-to-person microlending institution. you donate $25 or more online, and 100% of your money is sent to an entrepreneur you choose through a microlender in the entrepreneur's community/region. you can choose entrepreneurs by gender, business sector, and region of the world.

if their need is greater than what you can afford, your donation is pooled with others' donations.

you can view updates of your lendee's status and repayment online, and once the loan is repaid (usually in months), you can choose another entrepreneur to lend to. you can also have multiple loans going at once.

kiva loans go to buy tools, equipment, seeds, livestock, raw materials, and so forth.

with kiva, 100% of what you donate goes to the entrepreneur. they ask that you donate an additional 10% to help them cover their administrative costs, but it's not required. (apparently microsoft and other big donors support them too.) you get an email receipt for your tax deductions.

i wanted to check it out, and i found someone who only needed $25 to complete her loan. her name is isadora gomez de aquina. she lives in peru and is my age. she requested $825 to be repaid in 4 months to purchase a calf to raise and sell. 22 people contributed to her loan, mostly from the U.S. but also from france, australia, spain, and sweden.

you get a page on kiva.org where you can see your loans and repayment status, and the entrepreneurs you lend to also have profile pages.

after you donate, you can even send a feed to your facebook profile! i did, but it hasn't appeared, so there's probably some setting on facebook i don't know about...

it's a one-time donation that you can repeat, and you aren't obligated if your circumstances change. you can even get your money back!

http://www.kiva.org/

yoga journal and sally kempton

i just added yoga journal to my list of favorite links (scroll down to view), and you can click the title of this post to go to yoga journal's website as well.

i subscribe to their emails about yoga--they come from the tabs on the home page--practice, wisdom, health, lifestyle. you can also look up poses on the site.

i get the paper magazine at home and hang onto old issues for their practice sequences and other goodies. i tapeflag articles to refer to later.

i particularly enjoy reading sally kempton's articles, mostly under the wisdom tab. i just love, love, love her groundedness in communicating about a subject in which there is so much misconception and woo-woo. she rings true.

plus i dreamed i was turning into an angel after reading her wisdom on prayer.

today i was inspired to add YJ to my blog links and post about it because of one sentence about meditation techniques: "Perhaps the most important thing to remember about any practice is to keep looking for its subtle essence."

this quote is from an article called "points of entry" by swami durgananda under the practice tab.

after i read it, i found out that sally kempton IS swami durgananda! that's her monastic name. and... she's written a book, the heart of meditation: pathways to a deeper experience.

here's a little about it: The book presents principles and practices for opening gateways to the inner world. It offers detailed guidance through the subtle terrain of meditation, and practical methods for living from the heart while integrating spiritual insight with daily life.

i'm going to order it! she's brilliant and a fabulous communicator.

blog analytics for november 2008

there were 142 visits from 76 unique visitors to my blog in november, the most i've ever had! 48.6% were new visits. there were 240 pageviews, doubling october's pageviews.

125 were from the US, with others from the UK, canada, ireland, germany, ukraine, australia, and the netherlands.

wed., nov. 26 was a big day, with 18 visits, the most ever.

i feel happy that more folks are checking out my blog!

beauty alert: monday night sky

The crescent moon will be adjacent to Venus and Jupiter. You may see some earthshine too.

Look to the southwest as soon as it starts getting dark, about 5:30 Austin time.

Thanks, Kathleen, for alerting me to this.

Click the title of this post to read about it.

stringing pearls

Each moment of awareness is a pearl. If today were a string, what are the pearls you would string on it?

poem: For Freedom

i felt resonant especially with the third verse after our tree meditations at the nightwalking workshop.

click the title of this post to see it on the web, with photo and music.

m

For Freedom

As a bird soars high
In the free holding of the wind,
Clear of the certainty of ground,
Opening the imagination of wings
Into the grace of emptiness
To fulfill new voyagings,
May your life awaken
To the call of its freedom.

As the ocean absolves itself
Of the expectation of land,
Approaching only
In the form of waves
That fill and pleat and fall
With such gradual elegance
As to make of the limit
A sonorous threshold
Whose music echoes back among
The give and strain of memory,
Thus may your heart know the patience
That can draw infinity from limitation.

As the embrace of the earth
Welcomes all we call death,
Taking deep into itself
The right solitude of a seed,
Allowing it time
To shed the grip of former form
And give way to a deeper generosity
That will one day send it forth,
A tree into springtime,
May all that holds you
Fall from its hungry ledge
Into the fecund surge of your heart.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)

blind leading blind

yesterday morning i was driving to work, late already, stopped at the red light at the northbound i-35 access road and 15th street, cars in front of me, behind me, and to the sides.

i noticed a young black man with a white cane trying to--i couldn't tell if he was trying to cross the access road or 14th street. he wasn't in the right place to do either and was wandering into a lane of traffic. he'd go back and try again, facing a different direction.

i rolled down my passenger window and yelled, "what are you trying to do?" he came over and said he couldn't understand me, so i rephrased my question, "where are you trying to go?"

he said he was trying to get to the school for the blind. that's on 45th, quite a distance.

"hop in," i said, mindful of cars waiting behind me and the green light and a long difficult journey for him ahead.

tried to call my boss and tell her i'd be late, but my cell phone had run down. oh, well, nothing is pressing.

nathaniel was his name, and he was from up north by his speech, not a texas accent. indiana, he said.

he said he had lost his cane, and sure enough, i noticed he was using a length of white PVC pipe as a cane. he said he'd been up all night. he said he got disability payments but had to have an annual review, and his check was being held until the paperwork on that was completed. sounded plausible.

he had green eyes that either looked straight ahead or were closed.

he was going to the school for the blind to get a new cane and also see if he could get a few bucks until his check came through. he lived in an eastside rooming house that cost $12 per night, and he had no money. he was hungry and tired.

with a reframe of the problem, i ended up giving him $15, telling him it was a ten and 5 ones. he asked me not to give him the money in front of people near his rooming house. he asked which bill was on top.

he asked me to take him back to his rooming house. he said he could call the school for the blind and they'd mail him a cane, which would arrive tomorrow. he told me to turn on MLK, which we were approaching.

i asked him how he'd gotten in this situation. he repeated the story about the disability check being late. i meant in a broader sense... and then we got to 13th and chicon where he had asked me to take him. another young black man was there who spoke to him after he got out of the car. it's a "hangout" area, the core of the old black community in austin.

so my $15 got him a place to stay for 2 nights and $3 to eat with. he could sleep, eat, and solve the other immediate problem, the cane.

OR...(and this has happened before with "out-of-place people" on the east side with fantastic stories all ending with a desire for me to give them money) i got scammed.

if the latter, he went to a lot of trouble, and i'm a fool.

i decided i'd rather be a fool than ignore a blind person wandering through traffic.

when i let him out, he said he'd see me again in heaven.

lizard liberation

i got a couple of bags of charcoal out of my shed and put them in my car trunk to take with me to the nightwalking workshop at buescher s.p. this past weekend.

i unloaded them but ended up not using them.

when i was loading my trunk for the journey home, i saw a lizard in my trunk. it looked like the lizards that live in my shed--mottled, textured, reddish brown, slow moving. it hid from me and the light.

i worried that it might not come out, that it might die in my trunk.

when i got home and unloaded my trunk, i saw it scurry out of the trunk and disappear and felt relieved.

no pain

i woke up monday morning with no pain, stiffness, or tightness anywhere in my body.

that was pretty amazing and unusual.

i attribute it to several things:

--sunday morning, waking up in mini-cabin #3 in buescher state park, i felt sore and stiff all over, so i did yoga. for about an hour. i mostly did the sun salutation, doing each small move slowly, over and over and over, until i felt complete with it.

--wearing my keen crocs on sunday all day. these shoes conform to my soles well, and i can feel the ground through them. oh, for some winter shoes with the same qualities!

--paying attention to my footstrike, particularly to spreading my weight evenly on 3 points: ball of big toe, ball of little toe, and center of heel. rising on toes to get those pads even, and then lowering my heels.

--peripheral walking, both day and night. the eye position somehow lowers the center of gravity into the pelvic bowl. the theory is that it activates the parasympathetic nervous system.

--and of course, all the body work i do--the regular yoga practice and working with patrice who does acupuncture and myofascial release work, the hanging upside down, foot stretches, knee circles and so forth that she has taught me.

may such days come with more frequency, so i may be healed of scoliosis.

feet

Tias Little, yoga teacher and anatomist, writes about the importance of the feet. This in-depth article includes practices you can do that increase awareness. You don't have to be a yogi to benefit.

Walking on uneven surfaces is good for your whole body. Walking on concrete doesn't activate all the little muscles used to keep balance on uneven terrain. These little muscles help keep the whole body pliable and flexible, able to accommodate variations, from the ground up. And what a metaphor that is for life skills!

poem: What's in the Temple?

What's In The Temple?

In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring.
It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.
The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.
The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.
The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing.
The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.
If she stands still it will catch up with her.
Pause with us here a while.
Put your ear to the wall of your heart.
Listen for the whisper of knowing there.
Love will touch you if you are very still.

If I say the word God, people run away.
They've been frightened--sat on 'till the spirit cried "uncle."
Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can't name.
They know he's out there looking for them, and they want to be found,
But there is all this stuff in the way.

I can't talk about God and make any sense,
And I can't not talk about God and make any sense.
So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

I miss the old temples where you could hang out with God.
Still, we have pet pounds where you can feel love draped in warm fur,
And sense the whole tragedy of life and death.
You see there the consequences of carelessness,
And you feel there the yapping urgency of life that wants to be lived.
The only things lacking are the frankincense and myrrh.

We don't build many temples anymore.
Maybe we learned that the sacred can't be contained.
Or maybe it can't be sustained inside a building.
Buildings crumble.
It's the spirit that lives on.

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,
What would you worship there?
What would you bring to sacrifice?
What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?

Go there now.

~ Tom Barrett ~


(Keeping in Touch)

click the title to see it on panhala.net with photo and music

book review: The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe

I recently finished reading The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe. As promised, here is my take on it. Click the title of this post to order the book from amazon.com.

Author Lynne McTaggart is an investigative journalist. Her mission here was to examine the cutting edge of science, quantum physics specifically, by reading studies, interviewing scientists, and translating scientific findings into a layperson's language while maintaining as much accuracy as possible.

She got interested in this topic when she kept bumping into hard scientific evidence about methods of healing that went against the prevailing ideas about human biology, including studies validating homeopathy, acupuncture, and spiritual healing.

Now some of you may think, what's the big deal? Everybody knows they work, even if science doesn't know how. Well, the answer to that is that science is a prevailing paradigm in Western culture,and science is on the verge of a revolution that goes far beyond alternative medicine. McTaggart says that scientific stories create our perception of the universe and how it operates, and from this we shape our social structures.

What McTaggart discovered is that a small number of scientists have been working on the fringe of science (although their work is slowly becoming more and more acceptable to the mainstream), using the scientific method to prove things that fly in the face of the scientific belief system. These scientists were often at risk of ostracism from the main scientific community, yet they kept at their research because like true explorers, they knew they were on to something new, and that's what is exciting about science--discovery of the new. These men and women are the revolutionaries of the scientific community.

McTaggart interviewed scientists from around the world, adding personal information about their appearance, background, and so forth to humanize them. She stuck with scientists with solid credentials--some at prestigious universities like Princeton and Stanford--and limited her reporting to studies using rigorous scientific criteria, such as the double blind study design with a control group. The bulk of the book is about their studies.

She interviewed 22 scientists, some up to 20 times, basically translating their findings into metaphors that you and I can understand, in the process receiving an education in quantum physics, statistics, brain neuroscience, and other hard sciences.

Very few of these scientists would discuss the metaphysical implications of their work. McTaggart herself says that although her sympathies lie with alternative medicine, she still demands scientific proof. "There is little of the woo-woo about me," she writes.

The prevailing scientific paradigm is based on Isaac Newton's work in the 1600s. Remember the apple falling on Newton's head and his "discovery" of gravity? Newton basically saw the universe as a machine that follows laws and behaves predictably, independent of human observation.

Then came quantum physics in the early part of the 20th century. The smallest bits of matter were not set things. They were mutable, often many possible things all at the same time, and had no meaning in isolation but only in relationship to everything else. Subatomic particles existed in all possible states until disturbed by us--our observation influenced them to settle down. Time and space did not exist except as arbitrary constructs.

Most scientists assumed the strange quantum world only existed in the world of dead matter, or that one set of laws (Newtonian) applied to the visible world and another to subatomic particles (quantum). It was all so counter-intuitive to their belief system.

Reading her stories about the studies was a good experience. Some were pretty amazing. I especially liked the studies where scientists worked with psychics--who could see inside machinery (influencing it at the same time) and also describe remote locations they'd never been to and only had geographic coordinates for. Even in Russia. (Hint: The NSA gets involved.)

In a nutshell, some of the findings are:
--Human beings and all living things are a coalescence of energy in a field of energy connected to every other thing in the world. There is no duality to our bodies in relation to the universe. There is one field that underlies everything, us included.

--"Nothing" does not exist. Even in absolute zero degrees (the closest we can get to a vacuum), things are happening. There is a field of energy, called the Zero Point Field.

--The field is a recording medium for everything, the means by which everything communicates with everything else. It holds the memories of everything that ever happened. The brain is a receiver.
[define coherence and resonance]

--Perfect coherence is an optimum state just between chaos and order.

--Health is a state of perfect subatomic communication.

--Each molecule in the universe has a unique frequency, and the language it uses to communicate is a resonating wave. Molecules "speak" to each other, regardless of distance, virtually instantaneously.

--We perceive objects by resonating with them--perception occurs by tuning in to the field.

--Consciousness is a global phenomenon that occurs everywhere in the body, not just in the brain. (Perhaps it occurs everywhere, not just in the body. Perhaps consciousness IS the field.)

--Observation puts a halt to randomness and creates order.

--Intent can change the physical world, even the past.

--Pairs of people of the opposite sex have more power to influence outcomes, and bonded couples have even more power, than individuals.

--Women produce better results at influencing outcomes when multitasking; men when concentrating on the task at hand.

--Consciousness results when individual quantum particles lose their individuality and begin acting as a single unit.

--Coherence of consciousness is the greatest form of order known to nature.

--Wishing or intending makes our own coherence infectious.

--People can influence their body functions by directing their attention.

--Other people can have almost the same mind-body effect on you that you can have on yourself.

--Influence increases depending on how much it matters to the influencer or how much he/she can relate to the influencee.

--The greatest effect is when influencees really needed influence. Needing something such as calming down or focusing attention makes people more receptive to influence.

--Humans have a latent ability to see anywhere across any distance. Even those skeptical of this idea can be primed and do this after a little practice.

--The important ingredient in remote viewing is being in a relaxed, even playful, atmosphere that avoids causing anxiety or nervous anticipation in the viewer.

--The information often comes across as if in a dream state. Interpreting or analyzing it colors impressions as the information is still coming through and makes it less accurate.

--People can remotely view the past and the future. It's as if the field is just NOW and all points in space and time exist in a single instant.

--People can influence the future. Using a random click generator, they could influence the output of the machine before it generated clicks. Present or future intentions act on initial probabilities and determine what events actually come into being.

--It is important for the influencer to be the first observer. Others observing first make the machine less susceptible to later influence. So focused attention freezes the system.

--Theoretically everything in the future exists in the ralm of pure potential, and in seeing into the future or past, we help shape it and bring it into being.

--Theretically, the bottom level of the Zero Point Field is not electromagnetic. The secondary fields (scalar waves) travel far faster than the speed of light and provide the ultimate holographic blueprint of the world for all time.

--To remove time, remove separateness. Pure energy at the quantum levelexissts as a vast continuum of fluctuating charge. We create time and space, and therefore we create our own separateness.

--On a subconscious physiological level, we have an inkling when we are about to receive bad news or when bad things are going to happen to us.

--People communicate and respond to remote attention, although unaware of it.

--When the left brain is quiet and the right brain predominates, ordinary people have access to telepathy.

--You can block or prevent influences you don't want by visualizing a protective shield.

--The more organized a sender's consciousness, the more ordering influence on a less-organized recipient. The most ordered brain pattern always prevails.

--The capacity of our brains to receive information from the field is limited in ordinary consciousness; states of altered consciousness such as meditation and relaxation loosen this constraint.

--Children under five permanently function in the alpha state.

--Gentle wishing works better rather than intense willing when using intentions to achieve certain outcomes.

--Plants have empathy for each other. They respond when a neighboring plant is injured or dies.

--Death is a disturbance in the field.

--Human intention can be used as an extraordinarily potent healing force. We can establish greater 'order' in another person.

--Distant healing works. All kinds of healing were tested. Conventionally religious Christians, evangelicals, kabbalists, Buddhists, and healers from the Barbara Brennan School of Healing Light, those changing colors/vibrations in patients' auras, using contemplative healing and visualizations, working with tones and singing or bells, a Lakota Sioux pipe ceremony with drumming and chanting, a qi gong master.

---The main commonality of successful distant healing was healers being able to put out their intention for the patients' health and then surrender to some kind of healing force.

--Asking for help was more effective than not. Whether it was Jesus, Spider Woman, or a healing energy was irrelevant. Help came in the form of energy.

--Experienced healers have abnormally high electric field patterns during healing sessions. This may be a sign of greater coherence.

--Intention on its own heals, and healing is a collective force. There may be a collective memory of healing spirit.

--Illness may be isolation, from oneself, community, and spirituality, rather than physical conditions.

--Experiments suggested individual consciousness doesn't die. Death may be a decoupling of our frequency from the matter of our cells. It may be simply returning to the field.

And there's more. I'm getting tired of summarizing; maybe you are getting tired of reading this very long post too.

One more point sticks out. McTaggart actually says, on page 159, "the left brain is the enemy of The Field."

NLPers, does this ring a lot of bells for you, about congruence, rapport, maps/territories?

Hypnotists, are you inspired to bring the implications of quantum physics into your trances?

McTaggart's next book is about Intent, inspired by what she learned in writing this book. I intend to get it!

2012

my daughter told me that about once a year, she has a dream about the end of the world. this month she dreamed about 2012, that portentous year in which the aztecs predicted a momentous shift of some sort would occur. it's interpreted as a major change in world order, an apocalypse, an asteroid crashing into earth, aliens taking earthlings aboard their spaceship, a great shift in consciousness, spirituality, psychic connection. (from wikipedia)

lela dreamed that it was winter solstice, 2012, and the earth changed the direction of her rotation. it took a couple of hours. some people were not affected, some got dizzy, some passed out.

the earth's axis also changed, resulting in a shift in seasons. winter became summer, summer became winter. this wreaked havoc on agriculture. people in developed countries managed to survive with processed food. people in poor countries were devastated. it took about a year to adjust, in lela's dream.

whatever it is, i believe it could be metaphoric for a shift in consciousness.

i've been reading The Field. one of the key points is that in western culture, we still believe and behave for the most part with the principles of newtonian physics. yet quantum physics has gone way beyond. everything is connected to everything, intent can influence outcomes and even the past, group energy is powerful, distant healing works, the more coherent influences the less coherent to become more coherent, et cetera.

when i finish reading this book, i intend to post its key points here. look for it!

i joined facebook a few days ago, and the connectivity is pretty amazing. you can see what your friends have posted, who became their friends, their posts and their friends' posts, etc. it's a big network, and every interactive.

maybe this is the paradigm shift occurring now, and the peak will occur in 2012. maybe it's a critical mass of people understanding that we are all connected that will really change the world. 2012 will be an election year; obama will be finishing his first term as president.

2012 could also be the year the earth reaches her "tipping point" and responds violently to the changes humans have wrought. air-water-soil pollution, mining and drilling, managing the oceans badly, chemical and fossil-fuel based agriculture, chemical and fossil-fuel based lifestyles, deforestation...

and maybe 2012 will bring both a shift in consciousness and the earth "talking back".

we shall see.

gratitude

i am so grateful for so much. for my dreams and for all the uncertainty that precedes the significant ones that represent shifts. for my 19-year-old cat, sitting next to my computer as i type this. she often visits me when i go to sleep and when i wake. i am grateful for her long years of companionship.

i am deeply grateful for my daughter lela and my granddaughter hannah. words just cannot express how much i love and care about and enjoy them.

i am grateful that i am able to choose good food and to recognize when i eat something not so good for my body, like the yummy strawberry cheesecake i had today for dmitry's birthday.

i am grateful for co-workers willing to swap being on call on weekends so that i can work this weekend and have the following weekend, the weekend of nightwalking, off.

i am grateful for naropa university for existing. looking through their graduate programs is like christmas morning.

i am grateful for my brothers and their wives and children, frank, bill, kathy, helen, grace, and sam. i think about all of them often with much affection.

i'm grateful for my friends, for kathleen, fantasia, peggy, colleen, linda, sarah, marco, keith and katie, jaime and kathleen, my NLP community, my shamanic community. and i'm grateful for all the friends i haven't met yet or befriended yet.

i'm even grateful for some of the rougher parts in my life--the loss of my sister, my father's asperger syndrome. they have been part of this experience, and i savor the contrast of when life and relationships are going well. they also keep me humble.

i'm grateful i have a good job with a good salary, a good hybrid car, a house that's homey, a yard with a garden and now a firepit.

i'm grateful for my health, awareness, heart, mind, body. i'm grateful that eleanor stretches me in yoga and that i have improved so much over the last 3 years, able to do poses i wouldn't have imagined i could do.

i'm grateful for patrice and all her experience, knowledge, and wisdom. and for active life chiropractic and for nina davis, my cranio-sacral therapist. together we are getting me healthy, in a way i wouldn't have believed possible a few years ago.

i'm very grateful for this incredible planet--its sky, winds, weather, soil, rock, rivers, oceans, islands, mountains, its incredible range of geography and beauty, for sunrises and sunsets, plants, animals, cities, deserts, poles.

meerkats

i took my granddaughter hannah, age 8, to wheatsville co-op wednesday to pick up a few things. i pick her up on wednesdays when lela has her intro to nursing lab.

there's a very small toy section there. she picked out a small stuffed animal, a tawny meerkat with huge eyes and a long tail that hooked at the end.

hannah told me that meerkats have such tails so they can hang on things and look into meers.

dream: i see the bigger picture

this morning i shut off the alarm thinking i'd get up, but then went back to sleep, unusual for me.

in my dream, kathleen and i are traveling together. we are at a college campus that reminds me a bit of oklahoma state university's campus, the first college i attended. we have been doing a workshop there, and soon it will be time to leave.

we've been boarding with some cool people, very open and generous. it's morning, and i'm getting my breakfast together. a plate has been set out, but i put it back and get a green cut-glass bowl down from a cupboard. then i start looking for something to eat. i open cabinets and the fridge, selecting and rejecting and tasting various foods. i assemble something that is something like a granola with honey and yogurt and dried fruit on it, and i eat it.

i go outside. i somehow gain height--and perspective. i see that the town is on a gentle slope down toward a valley with a river, and across the valley in the distance is a range of mountains.

this isn't an ordinary range of mountains. they are of a fairly uniform height, and they are fairly evenly spaced. each mountain top is snowcapped. they look like they are in a fantasy landscape, almost as if painted, almost as if in a children's book/film like narnia. there is something special about them.

the view is breathtakingly beautiful. i want to go into those mountains.

i come back down and find kathleen and tell her about it. she's excited too. we decide that's where we'll go next.

i remember that i have an office job that i've taken time off from to do this workshop. i consider the consequences of not going back: people will be inconvenienced, and i will be abandoning my personal items in that office, photos, etc. i know they will send my check to me; it'll be in the mailbox when i get home.

that job now seems so tiny, distant, and irrelevant. the mountains, and adventure, call.

i wake up.

===

associations:
my roommate kathleen is leaving this morning for a one-day seminar on getting set up as a clean space practitioner in san francisco. i am with her in spirit.

my job now is definitely not a throw-away job like my job in the dream.

boulder, and naropa university, are in the mountains.

feeling thrilled and excited is thrilling and exciting!

life often spirals with time, allowing us to re-experience aspects differently, from who we are NOW.

i've been afraid to really go for a dream. i've held back, discounted, repressed. now it's time to face, cultivate, play.

follow your bliss.

marianne williamson on the election

click the title to read her interpretation of the meaning of this election. she sees it as a fulfillment of the promise of the 1960s, that we were too immature and angry to make manifest.

she says bobby kennedy and martin luther king jr. can now rest in peace.

thinking

this morning i woke up, and my monkey mind jumped right into high gear. "remember this!" "don't forget that!" "oh, yeah, and what about that?"

the sweet thing is knowing there's an alternative.

monkey mind takes itself so seriously. even when it's amused at everything. it likes attention. it likes to be the center of attention. "ta da! look at me! i'm THINKING! woo! listen to THIS..."

it actually likes to believe it runs my life.

so i let it believe that and do its thing. it's just that my awareness has become bigger. there's more.

thinking isn't bad. some teachers would have you believe that, i've read and heard.

what would happen if there was no thinking, if thinking ended forever? i don't know. it's hard to imagine (a form of thinking, as are planning and remembering). imagine not imagining, planning, or remembering.

could the human race survive? could you? could i?

mind does what mind does. thinking helps create order, and it helps us survive. it's nice to get perspective on that.

it doesn't matter what it's about

last night i climbed into bed to read a little before sleep came.

i noticed tension in my chest. not even muscle tension really, but some kind of energetic contraction centering around my heart chakra. the closest emotion i could relate it to was mild fear.

it was fairly subtle, but i picked up on it. it was not a pleasant sensation. it didn't seem connected to anything occurring in the here and now.

i didn't like it. i wanted it to go away.

as soon as those thoughts came into my mind, the unpleasant sensation left. it dissolved, released, vanished.

i felt relaxed and peaceful.

who knows where it came from? i imagine it's old armor, an old defense pattern, unconscious habit. something that no longer serves me.

who knows what triggered it? i didn't notice it start, what was happening then, how long it had been there.

the point is, you don't have to know anything about it, just that it's there, you don't like it, and you want it to go away!

with my thoughts, i intended it away. the intending was a cooperation between auditory internal narrow and kinesthetic internal narrow. once it left, i felt peaceful, which was kinesthetic internal broad.

i read for a bit and went to sleep!

the earth does not belong to us. we belong to the earth.

“The Schumann resonance is a unique electromagnetic phenomenon created by the sum of lightning activity around the world. Electromagnetic pulses from lightning travel around the earth, bouncing back and forth between the ionosphere and the earth’s surface. At any given point on the earth, the Schumann resonance shows up as electrical and magnetic micropulsations in the range of 1-40 Hz.” (Oschman, 99)

There is evidence (though controversial) that geomagnetic rhythms serve as a cue for physiological rhythms. “There is evidence that geomagnetic pulsations strongly entrain brain waves during meditation and other practices in which one ‘quiets the mind’ to allow the ‘free-run’ periods to be dominated by geophysical rhythms.” (Oschman, 102)

Oschman hypothesizes that “if the therapist relaxes into the state of consciousness typical of those who practice meditation, therapeutic touch and QiGong… it is likely that his or her brain waves will, from time to time, become entrained with the micropulsations of the earth’s field. If the patient is also relaxed, both therapist and patient may become entrained with the earth’s field.” (Oschman, 107)

click the title of this post to go to a website on energy medicine. fascinating.

congratulations, lela!

i want to congratulate my daughter lela for being accepted into nursing school at ACC. she's worked long and hard for this, taking a lot of rigorous courses like biology, anatomy, physiology, chemistry, etc., all while working and mothering hannah, taking care of their needs, paying her bills, and managing to have fun and maintain a relationship.

she's quite a woman for managing all that.

she will start in the spring.

she plans to focus for the next two years on her nursing studies. she'll get a 3-year RN degree, which she can later turn into a BS in nursing at UT/Austin if she chooses.

lela, i'm so proud of you!

blog analytics for october and september

according to the report, in october 2008, i had 58 visits (excluding myself) and 33 unique visitors, 120 page views, 2.07 pages viewed on average per visit, average time on site 3 minutes 15 seconds, 44.83% new visits.

52 visits were from the US, with single visits from turkey, slovenia, ireland, greece, portugal, and spain.

not bad, considering i was in maui for two weeks and not posting.

in september, when i posted a lot on the 12 states of attention and gave a talk about them, i had 113 visits and 55 unique visitors, 244 page views, 2.16 pages viewed per visit, 5:13 average length per visit, and 42.48 new visits.

in september, there were 109 visitors from the US, 2 from canada, and 1 each from vietnam and israel.

thank you, thank you, thank you for visiting my blog! i feel happy that i'm reaching people!

piko-piko and embryo rising

i went to my monthly cranio-sacral therapy appointment this morning. my therapist, nina davis, has a marvelously refined sense of touch and a deep understanding of the body's rhythms and processes.

i told her about piko-piko breathing, the huna technique that has many variations, but which i primarily use in this way: i breathe in through the crown of my head and fill my body with energy, and breathe that out through the soles of my feet into the earth. then i inhale through my soles, fill my body with energy, and breathe out through the crown into the cosmos. i repeat this cycle many times, not every day, but several times a week.

somewhere in my NLP/shamanic wanderings, i encountered the q'ero belief that breathing in from the crown and out through the feet cleanses the human body of "hucha", heavy energy from being imbalanced with nature that only human beings accumulate.

from what i remember, the q'ero also believe that each of us is energetically connected to the "center of the cosmos", which i can't really imagine, so i interpret it as "the source of being". for some reason, i associate this with individuation.

to breathe from crown to sole is to release what really doesn't belong in our energy bodies into the earth, which neutralizes hucha.

to breathe in from the soles to the crown is to incorporate energy that develops the self and connects us to the source.

so anyway, i was telling nina about this, and then doing it in silence as she was working with my energy. (i should mention that mostly she works with my energy from the head down my spine.)

a little while later, she mentioned becoming aware of a body rhythm she hadn't perceived before in my body. she related it to a "white streak" in a developing embryo, which later becomes the heart and the spine. the rhythm is called "embryo rising" or something like that, and it moves from the base of the spine upwards. and we always have this as one of our subtle rhythms.

it's kinda cool to get an external affirmation of a natural energy flow in the human body (so ignored by western medicine and science) that pertains to the shamanic teachings of indigenous cultures.

she also mentioned getting a stronger impression of my mid-line, mid-tide, and images of the eyes moving from the side of the head to the front in embryo development, while working on me.

it's all fascinating!

RFK predicted this election outcome

On Meet the Press in 1968, Bobby Kennedy predicted that someone like Obama would emerge.

"Despite what is going on in the country, particularly in Alabama, things are moving so fast in race relations a Negro could be president in 40 years," he declared. He thought such an eventuality inevitable, just as the election of his brother, a Roman Catholic, had been inevitable.

"In the next 40 years," he went on, "a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother has...prejudice exists and probably will continue to...but we have tried to make progress and we are making progress. We are not going to accept the status quo."

His prescient words can be found in Excerpts in Rights for Americans: The Speeches of Robert F. Kennedy.

morning in america

i believe ronald reagan used that phrase many years ago. well, i'm stealing it to describe how i feel this morning after america elected barack obama as its next president.

i'm proud to be an american today:

proud that americans used their votes to change the direction of the country.

proud that we elected someone we can be proud of instead of ashamed.

proud that a country that once enslaved black people, whose history is so entwined with racial issues, has elected a black man president. what must it feel like to be a black american today? is martin luther king's dream coming true, that people are being judged on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin?

proud of barack obama for having the vision, intelligence, and temperament to put himself forward as a candidate, assemble a great team to run a great campaign, and inspire the majority of americans to vote for him. i mean, this man has l-o-n-g vision. he walks the hero's journey.

proud to have a president-elect who uses the english language so eloquently.

proud to have a president-elect who can go to second position (put himself in others' shoes) so well.

proud of obama's team--david axelrod (chief strategist) and david plouffe (campaign manager) especially--for their consistent message of change, their constant focus on what matters most now, their ability to get america comfortable with the ideas of a black family in the white house and of barack obama being the man we need to lead us forward.

proud that obama's campaign was about as clean as you can get on the national political stage while in no way being wimpy.

proud of obama's fortitude. it's been two years and a lot of tough battles and demanding schedules.

proud of john mccain's incredibly gracious concession speech and urging his supporters not just to accept obama as president but to support him.

i'm glad the election is over and happy with its outcome. the real work begins now.

maui slideshow available below

new feature on blogger. scroll down to view. if you click or double-click the photo, blogger goes to picasa, where you can view the slideshow full size.

here's a link to katie and keith's maui photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/katieraver/Maui2008#

here's a link to tom and bobbi's photos: http://www.nlpoptions.com/awakening_the_rainbow_dream/

here's a link to miki's photos. one is a short movie! http://picasaweb.google.com/mikifarrin

vee's photos are on facebook. you have to join, then look up virginia brodie. vee is a superb photographer! you'll really enjoy these.

i'll post links to other maui photos as i receive them.

odds and ends

new month. hope you enjoyed halloween/samhain/all souls/day of the dead.

weekend highlights: meeting a friend for dinner on friday, gorgeous sunset from mount bonnell on saturday, setting up a gypsy camp in the backyard and attending the austin celtic festival with my granddaughter on sunday. she loved the viking camp, the dogs and horses, and getting her hair braided.

i just finished the third book in the "his dark materials" trilogy, which starts with "the golden compass," moves to "the subtle knife," and ends with "the amber spyglass." the author is philip pullman.

i enjoyed these books a lot. although considered children's books, they contain plenty for adults to enjoy--speculation about good versus evil, freedom versus security, what dark matter (the 96% of the universe that scientists currently can't identify) consists of, and how to live a good life. the main characters are well drawn and vivid.

i liked them better than the harry potter books. the author cites major influences as milton's paradise lost and the poetry of william blake. damn fine work for an english major!

welcome back from maui, katie and keith!

poem: A Spiritual Journey

A Spiritual Journey

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(Collected Poems)


click the title of this post to see the original, with beautiful photo, on panhala--link at left

going with the flow of the universe

Enjoying the Ride
The Flow of the Universe

The flow of the universe moves through everything. It’s in the rocks that form, get pounded into dust, and are blown away, the sprouting of a summer flower born from a seed planted in the spring, the growth cycle that every human being goes through, and the current that takes us down our life’s paths. When we move with the flow, rather than resisting it, we are riding on the universal current that allows us to flow with life.

Many people live their lives struggling against this current. They try to use force or resistance to will their lives into happening the way they think it should. Others move with this flow like a sailor using the wind, trusting that the universe is taking them exactly where they need to be at all times. This flow is accessible to everyone because it moves through and around us. We are always riding this flow. It’s just a matter of whether we are willing to go with it or resist it. Tapping into the flow is often a matter of letting go of the notion that we need to be in control at all times. The flow is always taking you where you need to go. It’s just a matter of deciding whether you plan on taking the ride or dragging your feet.

Learning to step into the flow can help you feel a connection to a force that is greater than you and is always there to support you. The decision to go with the flow can take courage because you are surrendering the notion that you need to do everything by yourself. Riding the flow of the universe can be effortless, exhilarating, and not like anything that you ever expected. When you are open to being in this flow, you open yourself to possibilities that exist beyond the grasp of your control. As a child, you were naturally swept by the flow. Tears of sadness falling down your face could just as quickly turn to tears of laughter. Just the tiniest wave carrying you forward off the shores of the ocean could carry you into peals of delight. Our souls feel good when we go with the flow of the universe. All we have to do is make the choice to ride its currents.

this comes from Daily OM's weekday inspirational email--see link on this blog, go to Register for Free to subscribe. occasionally it's a little too "woowoo" for me; usually it's true wisdom, well put.

i voted today

at fiesta mart at 35 and 38th, about 8:30 am. it was easy breezy.

i took my voter ID card, but from what i hear, you can just go with your driver's license.

i've long enjoyed voting on election day, going to my precinct. this year i decided to vote early. there were so many new voters in the spring primaries, i wanted to give them space on election day and avoid standing in line for a long time.

it felt really awesome to cast my vote in this historic election!

dream: i transform into an angel

dreamed that someone i know can fly. it seems i have always known that about them, but have never witnessed it. i witness it in my dream. she undergoes a transformation when she returns, from a light being to an in-the-flesh person.

an older, bald, portly man seems to be overseeing this. i tell him i want to fly too. he tells me i'll get my chance, with a twinkle in his eyes.

i cross a doorway. two children in front of me have already taken off.

i feel myself getting lighter, levitating, coming down, levitating, coming down, turning in the air. wow.

i feel wings sprouting from my shoulder blades. wow.

i wake up, still feeling intensely the big white angel wings sprouting from my shoulder blades.

twittering and tweeting

i joined twitter a few weeks ago. you get 140 characters to post your response to the question, "What are you doing?"

you can follow people, and people can follow you, and you have control over this.

you get little slices of daily life and of essence from folks you like.

click the title of this post to go to my twitter page. follow me, if you wish!

fingerprint analysis

i'm just putting it out there that i am doing fingerprint analysis. i read Richard Unger's new book, Life Prints, in which he describes how to analyze people's fingerprints to determine their school in life, life purpose, and life lesson.

so far, i've analyzed 8 people's fingerprints, and they all seemed to think it was pretty right on.

even folks my age can be surprised, although many folks feel that this is a new way of putting something they already knew.

email or call me if interested. no charge at this time.

me: i'm in the school of service, my life purpose is to be spirit in action, and my life lesson is believing that i'm worthy of love.

poem: Sandstone

door of being, dawn and wake me,
allow me to see the face of this day,
allow me to see the face of this night,
all communicates, all is transformed,
arch of blood, bridge of the pulse,
take me to the other side of this night,
where I am you, we are us,
the kingdom where pronouns are intertwined,

door of being: open your being
and wake, learn to be ....

~ Octavio Paz ~

nature relieves brain fatigue, says NY Times

click the title of this post to read the story and hear the podcast

back from maui

.
arrived back home on tuesday after two full, glorious, intense, beautiful, inspiring, transforming weeks in maui.

highlights:

being in maui again

staying at peace of maui again

eating ahi shoyu poke again

going to savers in kahului again

spending 6 days with katie and keith, taking them to a couple of beaches

camping with them for 3 nights at 8000 feet on haleakala

catching two sunrises and a sunset from the summit

seeing the shadow of haleakala fall across land, sea, and molokai

seeing the tops of mauna loa and mauna kea on the big island above the clouds from haleakala

hearing a man spontaneously begin chanting in hawaiian at the first sunrise

hearing nick goodness tell the legends of maui and pele

bird songs at hosmer's grove

meeting up with fellow travelers at milagro's in paia

driving to hana with glenda behind the wheel--she couldn't stop smiling

stopping at the kea'nae peninsula to see the waves crashing against rocks, and then seeing the full moon just above the horizon

meeting up with the rest of the group of 15 at wai'anapanapa state park

setting up my tent above pai'loa beach with an ocean view and soundtrack

all the learning and practices from tom best, my teacher

the heartbeat, birth canal, turtle walk, big mama, koki beach, hamoa beach, alelele waterfall, waimoku waterfall (and the banyan tree and bamboo forest on the way)

painting mud streaks on my face, jumping out and shaking a bamboo branch and yelling at fellow travelers on the way up to waimoku

getting up EARLY and watching the sunrise, especially starting when it was completely dark

doing sun salutations on the beach, on the rocks, on the grass

the talking rocks at the beach

hawaii night at the hana aloha festival and all the wonderful hula and music

being invited to fake the hula along with a singer who was also a great hula dancer at the bar at the hana maui hotel

being told by bobbi that she and tom noticed i looked like i was floating when they saw me walking--being that relaxed and centered, and having all the bodywork pay off

all the great energy surges, feeling deeply present and alive

driving the hana highway back with glenda, who couldn't stop smiling

stopping in paia at mandala for two fabulous tunics, on sale for 50% off

getting two pretty rings, of mother-of-pearl and blue topaz, and a spiral shell necklace at nahiku ti gallery

somehow managing to startle kathleen, who picked me up at the airport, with how much being in maui had changed my energy

off to maui very soon

.
i'm kinda glad to be going away for a couple of weeks to an island in the middle of the pacific ocean, part of the most remote island group in the world.

there i will camp on the side of an inactive volcano and spend time near the small, remote town of hana, camping at the ocean's edge. i'll be doing a workshop from best resources during the hana part of the trip.

while camping, my access to the outside world will be limited. there will be no cell phone or television or radio or newspaper or computer access.

all the tense headlines about the economy, the pending election, environmental troubles, etc., will be on "hold" for a while.

does that sound like bliss to you? it does to me.

it will be interesting to see when i return how things have changed. will post about the trip after i return later this month.

aloha and mahalo.

what is a maverick?

.
i'm curious about this word, as well as wondering why being a maverick is supposed to be a good thing for a president/vice president to be in this day and time, facing the problems this country faces.

from good old dictionary.com:

mav·er·ick /ˈmævərɪk, ˈmævrɪk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation [mav-er-ik, mav-rik] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. Southwestern U.S. an unbranded calf, cow, or steer, esp. an unbranded calf that is separated from its mother.
2. a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates.
3. (initial capital letter) an electro-optically guided U.S. air-to-ground tactical missile for destroying tanks and other hardened targets at ranges up to 15 mi. (24 km).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Origin: 1865–70, Americanism; after Samuel A. Maverick (1803–70), Texas pioneer who left his calves unbranded]

—Synonyms 2. nonconformist, independent, loner.

looking at definition 2 above, does a maverick listen to his or her associates? does a maverick explain the basis of his/her reasoning?

it seems to me that sometimes being a maverick could be a good thing, as in being able to think for oneself, and it could be a bad thing, as in making risky decisions without being accountable.

i guess it's up to the crowd to make the determination. is a maverick a good thing for a presidential candidate to be? are there other presidents who have been considered mavericks? and how often does one have to dissent from his/her associates to be labeled a maverick?

deleting text messages and photos on razr

my razr cell phone's text message inbox was full. every time i opened the phone, it said "messages full".

i could not figure out how to delete old messages. same with old photos. delete wasn't on any menu that i could find, not even settings.

i googled "razr delete messages". i read post after post and didn't know what they were talking about--tech talk way over my head, cables, etc. i kept reading and saw a mention of an "options key". i didn't know what that was. it inspired me to explore my phone.

i figured out in a blinding stroke of insight is that the middle key (-) is has multiple functions. from the main screen, it lets you select a menu, say "messages" or "multimedia". once you get to a message or photo you want to delete, press the middle key again. it becomes the options key!

so to delete text messages, from the main screen, press the middle key, scroll to Messages, select, scroll to Message Inbox, select, scroll to a message you want to delete, press Read.

now click the middle key again. Delete is the first option. press Select.

you've just deleted your first text message!

conservative white man likes obama

Thanks to Bruce for sending me this column, which ran in the Huffington Post on 3/21/2008. The writer, Frank Schaeffer, describes himself thusly: "I'm a fifty-five year old white man who has been a conservative all my life. I've been a right wing Republican activist. I'm a big fan of the military."

The Huffington Post also describes him: "Frank Schaeffer is a New York Times best selling author. He is a survivor of both polio and an evangelical/fundamentalist childhood, an acclaimed writer who overcame severe dyslexia, a home-schooled and self-taught documentary movie director, a feature film director and producer of four low budget Hollywood features Frank has described as 'pretty terrible.' Frank's nonfiction includes 'Keeping Faith--A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps' and 'AWOL--The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes From Military Service and How It Hurts Our Country.' Frank's latest book is 'Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.'"

Read what Frank Schaeffer has to say about the presidential race, keeping in mind this was published in March.


This Good Friday Let Us Not Crucify Barack Obama

Senator Obama has a problem: the hardening of the American heart, the closing of the American mind, the shriveling of our souls, the shrinking capacity of our imaginations, our jaded senses, the seen-it-all attitude that makes us into sneering voyeurs too mean spirited to save ourselves.

I was a guest on a PRI radio show the day after Obama delivered is historic speech on race. I was a guest along with a person that the host introduced as "most responsible" for making Obama's minister's charged comments into a political football. According to the host's introduction, Republican activist Ronald Kessler used his website to turn Obama's minister's words into the story the media jumped on.

Kessler had just heard Obama's March 18 speech on race too. He said it left him unmoved. He was in a sneering mood bristling with ever-so-reasonable middle class certitude of his conservative righteousness. To Kessler the speech was just politics, nothing more. The idea of it's truth was of no consequence. To him it was all about tactics.

That night I was listening to Laura Ingraham (a show that I was on several times and where Laura repeatedly called me a "great American" because, as the father of a Marine, I'd written Keeping Faith and then Faith of Our Sons, books that praised and explained the military family.) Laura was sneering at Obama's speech. Her candidate had been Mitt Romney. As Romney's self-described "conservative-conservative" Ingraham had also been routinely mocking McCain. And she hates Clinton. Now she hates Obama more...

Bitterness as a way of life marches forward on the left as well as the right. I read the responses from Clinton supporters (on various websites) also damning Obama's speech as "just words." Some of the Clinton people sounded even more cynical than Kessler and Ingraham.

Obama is the chef who opens a new restaurant and serves honest good and beautifully prepared food made of the most wholesome ingredients only to have the food critic pan his offerings as "all too ordinary." "Where," asks the seen-it-all jaded bored critic, "are the calf's brains marinated in truffle-soaked baby duck's testicles?"

Obama offers civility in the midst of a drunken national bar fight. Obama speaks in complete sentences, well-turned paragraphs, offers thoughts with intellectual depth, nuance, humility and compassion. Obama is a reasoned essay cast before sound-bite swine who seem ready to tear anything that falls into their sty to shreds.

By providence or blind luck, we are being given a second chance. In Obama our founders appear once again stepping from the mists of time to offer a wayward great, great grandchild an opportunity for redemption. But everything is turned on its head. Good is called bad. The greatest things about Obama are used against him, decency and transparency are mocked.

Obama stands in the tradition of our founders, a citizen running for office, not a "professional" striver. But the cry goes up, "He doesn't have the experience!" Experience? At what? Playing games with our country's soul while the only real game in our nation's capitol is hanging on to power, enriching oneself at the political trough through connections, taking us to war after war, making us hated throughout the world by catering to our insatiable, unreasoning fears.

Obama is the man who reaches out to help a dying passerby and the passerby snarls, "What do you really want?" Obama came to us on March, 18 with one of the most generous and brilliant speeches that has been delivered on American soil. He spoke honestly of things all other American leaders have been too timid and self-serving to even mention. Standing behind him were the sprits of countless murdered, enslaved, tortured, lost black Americans. Their blood cries out for revenge and yet Obama offered forgiveness, perspective and understanding.

Obama is not Jesus. Obama makes mistakes. He is rightly self-deprecating. Nevertheless, imperfect as he is, Obama is offering America a fresh start. There is more decent intelligent authenticity in his little finger than the Clintons will ever know. There is more kind wisdom in Obama than in all our sneering bloodsucking moronic media combined. But we have imbibed detritus for so long that when clean food is offered we can't taste it.

This isn't about politics. I'm a fifty-five year old white man who has been a conservative all my life. I've been a right wing Republican activist. I'm a big fan of the military. If Obama can reach out to me he can reach out to anyone. He can win in November.

What I'm saying here will lose me friends. For instance the Bush family gave one of my recent military-related books a ringing endorsement. After Laura Bush read an excerpt out on Meet The Press sales skyrocketed. I probably won't get too many more of those sorts of endorsements. But the chips are down and the presidential choices this year are too important not to not fight for.

As I see it our choice is between a good and heroic old man whose time has past and who will perpetuate failed policy, a jaded woman of the establishment, who will do anything to perpetuate her family's dynastic "claim" to power, and a brilliant, openhearted new founding father the likes of which America has not seen.

Obama comes to us from outside the system that has produced our present multiple crises of wars of choice and a failing economy. He does what all truly great leaders do: he speaks to the soul in plain self-revealing words of hope.

If we squander this undeserved reprieve and choose business-as-usual, if we don't elevate ourselves out of our self-made mire, we will step into a future of steep and steady decline and war without end. It won't matter if you are right or left. It won't matter if the Republicans or the Democratic Party wins. We will all lose.

I think there is reason to hope. There are decent people out there who have refused to go along with the smear-by-association campaign. Mike Huckabee defended Obama. McCain said we can't blame Obama for his minister's words. Not everyone on the right is stooping as low as the Clintons and the right-wing media scavengers.

Obama is worth fighting for. He is worth losing old friends for. History has thrown America an unlikely lifeline. Do we have the decency, the sense, the last glimmer of sanity needed to open our hearts to change?


Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of "CRAZY FOR GOD--How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back."