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?