Thursday, January 29, 2009

Margaret

This is the first part of my essay for the book Stricken: The 5,000 Stages of Grief. Click the title to go to it on Amazon.


Margaret

What is this resistance I have to going there again, procrastinating writing about my personal grief? What comes to mind is a scene from Beth Henley’s play Crimes of the Heart, made into a movie with Diane Keeton, Jessica Lange, and Sissy Spacek, in which Old Granddaddy has been dying for a long time, and the three Southern sisters have just been through so much—parental abandonment, suicide, sacrifice, numbing out, lies, neglect, loneliness, scandal, attempted murder, and gallons of too-sweet lemonade—that by the time they learn that Old Granddaddy has finally died, they burst out laughing.

An evening out with girlfriends, taking turns reading favorite Rumi poems on the patio of a Mexican restaurant and laughing a lot, will also do the trick.

Now I’m back home, facing it. So here it is: I am 54 years old, and I can tell you that without a doubt, the most grievous thing that happened in my life was the murder of my younger sister Margaret when I was 11 years old.

This is a story about trauma, about experiencing a loss that is so horrifying that I thought, “If this is what life is, I don’t want to be here.” I checked out in some ways. Yet here I am, years later, and, damn, that was a high price to pay. Never again.

So here’s the story. One day, right before she was to start first grade, Margaret went outside to play after lunch. She went down the street to visit a neighbor girl, but the girl was taking a nap and her mother told Margaret to come back later.

Margaret walked down the alley back towards our house. She met a 15-year-old neighbor boy whom none of my family knew, who was also walking down the alley, and they began walking together. That was the last anyone except that boy saw of Margaret alive.

I don’t know what all happened. I suspect he raped her, and she was not cooperative. Maybe she threatened to tell, her most powerful weapon with her older siblings. Whatever. He strangled her with electrical wire. He strangled her for a long time, the paper said afterwards. Then he put her body in a cardboard box and covered it with leaves and trash and closed the box and left it in the woods. The paper said that the police found a trail of blood leading from his garage across the alley into the woods. There was a photo of a policeman standing by a box in the woods at night. The paper also said that the boy told the police that she was still breathing when he put her into the box.

Margaret and I shared a room from the time she got out of the crib until that day. She had straight brown hair and big blue eyes and sucked her two middle fingers. She still wet the bed sometimes. She was also daring. She once looked up a nun’s habit to see her artificial leg, something none of us older children would have risked. The nun just laughed and later gave her a teddy bear. And Margaret was outgoing. She was the one who told her first grade class, gathered for a group photo at orientation, to say cheese. She couldn’t say her Rs, so if you asked her what her name was, you’d hear “Maw-gwet.”

Every year I remember her on her birthday, May 7. I count how old she’d be now, and I wonder what she’d be like if she had lived. Would we be close? Would we live in the same city? What would she have done with her life? Would she have married, would she have had children? What kind of work would she be doing? Would we like each other?

Sometimes she shows up in my dreams, always as a young child. I miss having a sister. I had one for 6 years.

When my daughter turned 7, I breathed a sigh of relief. When my granddaughter turned 7, my daughter and I both breathed sighs of relief. She made it past 6. Whew.

I also remember Margaret every year on her death day, September 4. That date is seared into my memory. I feel sad, and it passes. After 43 years, my grief has been reduced to feeling what a horrible shame it was that she died like that. She just happened to run into that boy on that day, and he just happened to be so unstable that he had a psychotic break and he killed her. I so wish that she had been able to die at peace, in the presence of love. I wish that for you, for me, and for everyone.

But there’s more to my grief than that.

stricken: the 5,000 stages of grief

Last night, Wed., Jan. 28, I participated in a book reading at BookPeople. The book is Stricken: The 5,000 Stages of Grief, published by Dalton. It's a collection of essays about grief, and several of the local essayists, including me, read from our essays.

Spike Gillespie, whom I met a couple of years ago, pulled me into this with her indefatigable energy. She's one of the co-editors.

So...grief isn't exactly a happy topic. I wondered who would come, if there would be much of a turnout besides the contributors and editors and folks from Dalton. Our society doesn't exactly embrace grief, and yet each one of us will experience loss and ultimately death.

I'm glad to say the turnout was good. The BookPeople staff had to bring down more chairs from the third floor to seat everyone.

I was in awe of some of the writers, and some of them were especially good at reading aloud.

I was just happy I got through my piece without breaking down. The loss of my sister is still emotional for me. I paused a couple of times to gather myself. I could hear the emotion in my voice and feel it on my face. It was so different reading aloud to people I mostly don't know than it was rehearsing by myself to figure out when 5 minutes was up.

Everyone who read had something to say that stuck with me. The biggest lesson is that grief is about love. Or maybe grief is love. It opens the heart, and in that sense, it is joyful and alive. What a paradox, huh? A Zen priest told a story about counseling a woman whose husband was so locked up after the death of their son that he couldn't be there for her when she had cancer. Surrendering to grief may seem fearful, but it's the only healthy way to move through it.

My friends Katie and Keith were there, and I am so grateful for their presence. I didn't go out of my way to invite people, out of fear that I might be inviting them to a bummed-out experience. They volunteered to come without any pressure on my part, and I'm glad they came.

I'm going to post separately the first part of my essay. To read the rest, buy the book! It's available for pre-order at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Stricken-5-000-Stages-Grief/dp/0981744362/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233278022&sr=1-2 It will be available in March.

There's also a social networking site for the book at http://strickenbygrief.ning.com/ where you can read and post comments.

There were funny parts to the evening, too. One was Spike, an inveterate knitter, telling us she'd just learned that stricken is the German word for knitting. Another was spying a chartreuse book cover with the title LOVE + SEX with ROBOTS and realizing it just wasn't going to be all sad.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

poem: follow your bliss, by joseph campbell

Joe Riley, manager of panhala.net, or someone put this together from the writings of Joseph Campbell. I like it a lot and want to share...
Mary


Follow Your Bliss

The divine manifestation is ubiquitous,
Only our eyes are not open to it.
Awe is what moves us forward.

Live from your own center.
The divine lives within you.
The separateness apparent in the world is secondary.
Beyond the world of opposites is an unseen,
but experienced, unity and identity in us all.

Today the planet is the only proper “in group.”
Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.
We cannot cure the world of sorrows,
but we can choose to live in joy.

You must return with the bliss and integrate it.
The return is seeing the radiance is everywhere.
The world is a match for us.
We are a match for the world.
The spirit is the bouquet of nature.

Sanctify the place you are in.
Follow your bliss. . . .


~ Joseph Campbell ~

(Compiled from various writings of Joseph Campbell)

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

vitamin D deficiency explained?

i heard a novel idea about why so many people are suffering from a vitamin D deficiency--even though so many foods are fortified with it.

we are too clean.

cholesterol on our skin is what interacts with sunlight to help the body manufacture vitamin D.

it takes 24-36 hours for cholesterol to reach the skin.

bathing removes it.

so--the point is, i guess, when you're dirty, let the sun shine on your skin!!!

new science: dirt and worms strengthen immune system

this article in today's NY Times (click title to read article) turns some conventional wisdom about hygiene on its head.

scientists are learning that babies putting everything in their mouths are actually educating their immune systems, which is like a blank slate at birth.

“Children raised in an ultraclean environment,” one researcher said, “are not being exposed to organisms that help them develop appropriate immune regulatory circuits.”

intestinal worms may be the biggest player in regulating appropriate immune system responses. scientists say they are mostly harmless in well-nourished people, that humans have adapted to them.

win argentina, introducing a certain kind of worm has reversed MS symptoms. in gambia, eradication of worms increased skin allergies in children.

our modern penchant for cleanliness may explain why allergies, asthma, MS, type 1 diabetes, IBS, crohn's, and other autoimmune problems and diseases have risen in the developed world.

no one is suggesting a return to filth, just hoping to increase awareness that there a price for too much cleanliness.

let children play barefoot in the dirt and have dogs and cats, they advise. soap and water are good enough, no need for antibacterial products.

Friday, January 23, 2009

poem: For Yaedi, by David Ignatow

For Yaedi

Looking out the window at the trees
and counting the leaves,
listening to a voice within
that tells me nothing is perfect
so why bother to try, I am thief
of my own time. When I die
I want it to be said that I wasted
hours in feeling absolutely useless
and enjoyed it, sensing my life
more strongly than when I worked at it.
Now I know myself from a stone
or a sledgehammer.

~ David Ignatow ~


(New and Collected Poems, 1970-1985)

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

poem: Simple Gifts, by Joseph Brackett

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

Refrain:

When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come round right

'Tis the gift to be loved and that love to return,
'Tis the gift to be taught and a richer gift to learn,
And when we expect of others what we try to live each day,
Then we'll all live together and we'll all learn to say,

Refrain:

'Tis the gift to have friends and a true friend to be,
'Tis the gift to think of others not to only think of "me",
And when we hear what others really think and really feel,
Then we'll all live together with a love that is real.

Refrain:

poem: Praise Song for the Day, by Elizabeth Alexander

here's the text of Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem:

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

poem: I Have Come Into the World To See This, by Hafiz

I HAVE COME INTO THIS WORLD TO SEE THIS

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands even at the height
of their arc of anger

because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound
and it is His - the Christ's, our
Beloved's.

I have come into this world to see this: all creatures hold hands as
we pass through this miraculous existence we share on the way
to even a greater being of soul,

a being of just ecstatic light,
forever entwined and at play
with Him.

I have come into this world to hear this:
every song the earth has sung since it was conceived in
the Divine's womb and began spinning from His wish,

every song by wing and fin and hoof,
every song by hill and field and tree and woman and child,
every song of stream and rock,
every song of tool and lyre and flute,
every song of gold and emerald
and fire,
every song the heart should cry with magnificent dignity
to know itself as
God:

for all other knowledge will leave us again in want and aching -
only imbibing the glorious Sun
will complete us.

I have come into this world to experience this:
men so true to love
they would rather die before speaking
an unkind word,

men so true their lives are His covenant -
the promise of
hope.

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands
even at the height of their arc of rage

because we have finally realized
there is just one flesh
we can wound.

~ Hafiz ~
(Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky)

this is a day the Lord hath made

and WE shall rejoice in it.

I heard Cicely Tyson say that when a camera crew found her sitting in a chair waiting for the inauguration to begin.

I watched the ceremony on a very large TV in one of our conference rooms at work, with a roomful of my colleagues. I brought a box of Kleenexes. I only used one, although I felt near sobs a couple of times.

I am pleased that Rick Warren did not focus on divisive issues. Obama's influence?

I am thrilled that Aretha Franklin sang My Country 'Tis of Thee. How regal was she in her gray hat! What a great choice to have her sing. I saw her a couple of years ago. Just an amazing presence.

I'm mentally ranking her version of that song up there with Ray Charles' version of God Bless America. Both are infused with such feeling.

The words of the Shaker hymn, "tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free," came to mind as I listened to Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, and others play. The music was written by John Williams with a strong allusion Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring. I actually gasped when I recognized the hymn, when the clarinet began. It is just a divine piece of music. Will post the lyrics separately.

Even though it is mid-January, that piece is about the beginning of spring. Now for our country, now for our world.

And I am so grateful for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Spring, people! Israel finished withdrawing troops from Gaza in time for the inauguration.

Rev. Lowery with the cadences in his sermon, bringing smiles with his wordplay and the history of the civil rights movement to our consciousness.

The poet, Elizabeth Alexander, a DC resident, did a great job. I'm posting her poem separately.

Didn't Teddy Kennedy look good, considering the health problems he's had?

Obama's inaugural address was short, clear, serious, and uniting. Very well done.

Michelle Obama looked beautiful, and Malia and Sasha did very well, sitting through a ceremony like this--without even Nintendo to help them sit still!

The whole world is watching and sharing this day with us. India, England, France, Israel, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Kenya, the Vatican, Iraq... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/world/europe/21reax.html?_r=1&hp

Friday, January 16, 2009

more on lucid dreaming and lucid awakening

a couple of weeks ago, i had a lucid dream in which i looked at my hands, looked away, and looked back at them. they had changed, so i knew i was lucid dreaming. i enjoyed knowing i was dreaming and looking around at my dream environment.

one of the things i wondered after having that dream was how "solid" things are in the dream world. if you can look, look away, look again, and see things differently, what does that mean? does it mean nothing is solid in the dream world?

earlier this week, i had another lucid dream. i didn't have to look at my hands. i was aware that i was in a place from my childhood, with a person who hadn't even been born then, and therefore i was dreaming.

in the dream, i tested my hypothesis. we were walking past a painted wooden structure. i touched the painted wood. it felt solid.

i saw a place where the paint was chipped away, and i began scraping more paint from that area with my fingernail. the bare wood felt solid, and i felt paint under my fingernail.

we walked on. i noticed even the air seemed alive with energy.

somehow, awareness that one is dreaming seems to make everything more vivid and vibrant. this can transfer to waking life!

since then, i have had several unexpected moments of seeing differently. today i walked to the clay pit for lunch. crossing lavaca, i glanced at the street's asphalt, and it was as if i had never really seen pavement before. it's a matrix of individual pieces of gravel embedded in tarry black stuff! it has a pattern and texture.

walking on 16th, i saw a feather on the sidewalk, just an ordinary gray pigeon feather. it seemed to have something extra to it, as if it had extra dimensions. it "jumped" at me energetically.

and so it goes... will report more when i have more to report!

virtual question: how can i feel even better today?

thanks to katie raver (ENFJ extraordinaire!) for suggesting i write about this. (this post is also posted on my facebook notes.)

today i am still feeling the consequences in my body of working a 70-hour week last week sitting at a computer under deadline pressure, so this request is timely since i have current actual experience and not just advice to share.

so...read this and apply it to your own issues. the structure is given here, along with examples of dealing with my own state.

the starting place is tuning in to your body. this means switching your attention from a Visual External Narrow focus to a Kinesthetic Internal Narrow focus. (see 12 States of Attention posts on my blog.) in other words, pay attention to each part of your body. notice sensations of pain, tightness, energy feeling stagnant or blocked, numbness, rigidity, breathing, heart rate, and so forth. notice whatever makes itself known to you at whatever level of sensitivity to your own body you have. the more aware you get, the more sensitive you become.

you could start with your head and work toward your feet, or go from most demanding to least. map where you are feeling okay and not so okay in every part of your body.

also notice the big picture (Kinesthetic Internal Broad). how are you sleeping? do you feel rested when you wake up? how at ease are you at various times throughout the day and doing various activities? what is your dominant energetic direction--towards, away from, expanded or contracted? how is your appetite--compulsive, craving, relaxed? are you enjoying your life experience? what are you feeling emotionally? what thoughts and feelings cross your inner movie screen? is this situation part of a pattern in your life and if so, when is it activated and when did it start?

if you are not at whatever your experience of optimal well-being is, you have magic to perform! (magic is what it may look like to others--magicians know it takes awareness, intent, and action.)

my intent is: i would like to transform this experience of suffering into learning how to maintain a great sense of well-being.

so where i like to start is what will make the most difference in the least amount of time. what would that be for you? trust your intuition and knowledge base on this, and be willing to experiment and learn.

my foremost experience was stiffness, tightness, soreness, numbness in the upper back part of my shoulders and the back of my neck. this part of my body was just screaming for relief. it was fairly constant, worse when i left work each day, maybe because i could fully tune into it. overall, it was a strong sense of contraction centered in the shoulders and neck.

i noticed that my meditation (when i was able to do it) was not as relaxed and deep as i prefer. i was not sleeping the night through, having more sugar cravings than usual, and fantasizing about quitting my job to go walking in the jungle, daydreaming about going to cuba.

here are some things i did to make a quick big difference to the sore places:
--lying flat in bed with a heating pad under my shoulder blades and neck
--stretching (arm circles, squeezing shoulder blades together)
--rolling head (instead of rolling it back as far as possible, stretch the front of your neck--it's better for your neck)
--having a massage therapist work on me
--applying arnica to the sore muscles
--hanging upside down to let gravity work in reverse
--draping this area over an exercise ball (back to ball) and rolling it around

activities for all-over relaxation included:
--taking a 30-minute warm bath with dr. singha's mustard bath
--shaking my body out all over
--going to bed early
--drinking lots of fluids and detox tea
--listen to a CD of coleman barks reading rumi, hafiz, and lalla, which shifts me into expansive right-brain awareness and opens my heart

another way of viewing "how i can feel even better today" is considering what changes you can make today and continue that over time will amount to a big difference, i.e., how i can feel even better tomorrow and in the future.

here are some things i did to change habitual patterns that got me into this situation--these have to do with how i interact with my immediate environment:
--inflate the exercise ball i sit on at work--they lose air slowly--this turned out to make a big difference!
--sit on ball with good posture and adjust my monitor's level and tilt for optimal viewing--another big difference
--consider whether i need a higher strength of reading glasses
--switch from regular mouse to roller-ball mouse
--pay attention to location of sitz bones and sternum when sitting--pull shoulder blades back and down
--set up appointments with myself in my email program to actually take a break mid-morning and mid-afternoon and use this time to walk, stretch, breathe, tune in, release muscle tension, focus my vision differently

and in becoming aware of unconscious beliefs (going wider and deeper), i looked at times in my life when i experienced stress like this and noticed beliefs that were active--"everything will come crashing down if i don't push myself really hard"--"no one else can do it but me"--"it (i) must be perfect"

i began to reframe beliefs thusly: i accomplish tasks AND take care of myself, both at the same time; i meet challenges with grace; healing, learning, growing energy is available in abundance; i am worthy of experiencing a sense of well-being all the time; perfection is a goal, not a demand; i deepen my awareness of well-being and move toward it every day.

poem: ask much, the voice suggested, by jane hirshfield

i am loving this poem so much today.

haven't posted for several days due to getting through one of the most stressful times at my job, publishing huge appropriation bills for the beginning of the texas legislature, a starting point for the budget decisions that pay for state government services.

my part is winding down for now; i'm still feeling tension from a 70-hour work week leaving my body. this process will repeat 4 more times over the next 5 months.

i'm creating daily reminders in my email program to walk, stretch, and breathe deeply often.

i ask for more joy, more life, more connection, more laughter, more love. buckets full!



Ask Much, The Voice Suggested

Ask much, the voice suggested, and I startled.
Feeling my body like the trembling body of a horse
tied to its tree while the strange noise
passes over its ears.
I who in extremity had always wanted less,
even of eating, of sleeping.
Agile, the voice did not speak again, but waited.
"Want more" --
a cure for longing I had not thought of.
But that is how it is with wells.
Whatever is taken refills to the steady level.
The voice agreed, though softly, to quiet the feet of the horse:
a cup taken out, a cup reappears; a bucketful taken, a bucket.

~ Jane Hirshfield ~

(After)

Friday, January 9, 2009

poem: sometimes, by david whyte

SOMETIMES

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories

who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound,

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

~ David Whyte ~


(Everything is Waiting for You)

poem: what i have learned so far, by mary oliver

joe has had some really good poems to start off 2009. i love the line in this one by mary oliver, "thought buds toward radiance."


What I Have Learned So Far

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of -- indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

~ Mary Oliver ~


(New and Selected Poems Volume Two)

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

EFT videos

i lent my EFT videos (a set of them) to someone and now i can't remember who. it was in 2008, i'm pretty sure.

if you borrowed them, will you let me know?

how do you keep track of stuff like this? make a list, set a timeframe, or just know ahead of time you may not ever see again something you value enough to share?

monkey mind does its own thing

woke up to the radio this morning, hit snooze.

when life is pushing, maybe radio isn't a such good idea first thing in the morning. it's that talking. it's grinding.

how about some didgeridoo? yes, that'll make it better.

note to self: put a steve daniel dij CD in alarm clock.

and then i lay back in bed, slowly experimenting with opening my eyes, wiggling fingers and toes, stretching, inhabiting my body.

i witness my monkey mind get ready for its day. ready, set, go! it's quick. now it's in the trees! now it's jumping from branch to branch! now swinging, now turning, now chasing, now scrambling...

the speed picks up. monkey mind is going 100 mph.

stop.

take slow, deep breaths. focus attention on air coming into nostrils on inhalation. slightly cross eyes. feel third eye chakra blossom open.

focus on the sound of my exhalation. feel heart center expand.

mmm. this feels really nice. i like this much better than...

notice monkey mind off in the trees in my inner peripheral vision, doing its own thing.

you know what? it's not about the monkey mind.

it's about what you pay attention to.

Monday, January 5, 2009

poem: for presence, by john o'donohue

For Presence

Awaken to the mystery of being here
and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.

Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.

Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to
follow its path.

Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.

May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.

May anxiety never linger about you.

May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of
soul.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek
no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven
around the heart of wonder.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)

first day, clean space

today was my first day back in the office since noon on dec. 23. i really appreciated the time off--the better to relax and appreciate friends, family, solitude, nature, and relaxation and to store up peace and harmony for the next five months when i'll be working hard doing my job, publishing the texas state budget.

i slept as much as i wanted to, which wasn't a lot more than usual, but it was nice to shut off the alarm and curl up and doze.

i felt ready for work today. brought in my new 2009 martha graham calendar and food for breakfast and lunch for the week. i shopped last night for yogurt, bananas, blueberries, salad greens, red pepper, avocadoes, cucumber, carrots, salad dressing. got some roasted red pepper and tomato soup in case i need a break from salad lunches.

it helped that i had cleared and cleaned my work area before i left for the holidays. i love coming into a clean, spacious office when i've been away, the same way i love coming home to a clean house after a vacation.

speaking of cleaning house, i did a lot of that during my time off. purification, cleansing, setting boundaries, defining, preparing.

the outer work and inner work somehow harmonized.

Friday, January 2, 2009

dream: i see my hands

had a long rambling dream last night. the most significant part to me now is that in the middle, i wondered if i was dreaming. everything seemed so real. i just couldn't tell.

then i remembered to look at my hands. yep, they were my hands.

i looked away from them and then looked back. they had changed shape, and a finger was missing.

confirmation i was dreaming, aware in the world of dream physics. much more is possible in dreaming reality and "matter" isn't as stable.

i played with that a little (no, i didn't fly or have sex with a movie star). i found i could definitely have some "conscious" influence, but i didn't have a clear, focused intent in the dream to make anything amazing happen.

mostly i just looked more closely at everything, feeling full of curiosity and wonder, in a kind of a slow, deep, appreciative, savoring awareness, as in "i'm clear that i am dreaming, and i am awake in this dream, and just experiencing this fully is what i want to do."

stay tuned for more whatever!

poem: head of the year, by marge piercy

thanks to keith kachtick at dharma yoga for sharing this poem in class yesterday and sending it to me this morning.

this poem was originally written for the jewish "head of the year," rosh hashanah. it's a day of repentance and significantly, the year starts with a new moon, a time of turning inward.

for more on this holiday, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Hashanah.

i liked find this out: "During the afternoon of the first day the practice of tashlikh is observed, in which prayers are recited near natural flowing water, and one's sins are symbolically cast into the water."

i recommend dharma yoga for the fullness of the practice there, the depth and breadth of the teachings. it's also fun! get there early! my class yesterday was packed and wonderful. keith and camilla are amazing and brilliant teachers.

click title to go to the dharma yoga website. i'm adding it to my links as well.

here's the poem:


Head of the Year
by Marge Piercy

The moon is dark tonight, a new
moon for a new year. It is
hollow and hungers to be full.
It is the black zero of beginning.

Now you must void yourself
of injuries, insults, incursions.
Go with empty hands to those
you have hurt and make amends.

It is not too late. It is early
and about to grow. Now
is the time to do what you
know you must and have feared
to begin. Your face is dark
too as you turn inward to face
yourself, the hidden twin of
all you must grow to be.

Forgive the dead year. Forgive
yourself. What will be wants
to push through your fingers.
The light you seek hides
in your belly. The light you
crave longs to stream from
your eyes. You are the moon
that will wax in new goodness.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

change, resolutions, and intent

Today's New York Times has an article about New Year's resolutions. The majority of them fail, and the article explores why.

Particularly interesting were the 4 steps of effective personal change:
1. Start with big changes, not small ones. Quick, noticeable results are inspiring.
2. Act like the person you are trying to become.
3. Reframe the situation.
4. Don't do it alone.

NLP can help a lot with the middle two steps.

It also helps to want something more than you want what you're trying to change from, like enjoying each breathful of clean air more than you want that cigarette. Spend time developing the pleasure of breathing.

There's a little plug for hypnosis, although the woman quoted said it didn't work! Rather, it was "something the hypnotist said" that worked. Go figure!

Click the title to go to the article.

I was at Dharma Yoga for a class today. Camilla talked about the difference between resolutions and intent.

Resolutions sound like imposing your will. Intent is more like a direction for your energy. We set an intent for class.

I wish I could remember more of what she said, but this is what stuck.

dream dance

if you have a dream that feels significant but has you stumped, i highy recommend going to trance dance with the dream fresh in mind, with an intent to get more out of it. or you could do this on your own, by yourself.

move through the entire dream in your dance. make the same movements and gestures you did in the dream. face and change direction just like you did in the dream. walk, lie down, raise your arm, make the same facial expressions just as you did in the dream. you can pantomime running or sitting in a chair if not practical. be safe if you're trance dancing with a blindfold and others in the room!

take your time. repeat parts that don't flow until they do.

you will notice more. perhaps new details appear, new associations connect, awareness of where in your body you feel it grows.

then forget the dream and just dance.

when the dance is over, lie still and notice what comes into your mind. you may have images or words or feeling that seem totally unrelated to the dream come into your experience--and something new will connect.

this happened to me last night at dream dance. i moved through the dream, repeating one part maybe 20 times to get through its stickiness. (by stickiness, i mean some part of the dream that seems difficult to get through, for instance a brief scene that felt ominous when i danced it, as in "there's something i don't want to see/know behind that door.")

then i just danced.

afterwards, seemingly unrelated thoughts and feelings came to mind, and i had an AHA! moment about one of these feelings, connecting it to an emotional pattern that goes way back for me, a thread running through certain relationships.

to start changing the pattern, write it down 3 times, and then write down what you want to feel 3 times in as many ways as you can.

for example, write "i feel so hurt and cheated" 3 times.

then write "i feel so loved and cherished" 3 times.

write "i feel so honored and respected" 3 times.

write "i feel so awake and alive" 3 times.

keep writing until you run out.

my belief is that you have ALL these feelings in your repertoire, but somewhere along the line, you got stuck in a story that emphasized some feelings at the expense of others.

you can unstick your story!

honor your dream, your dance, and your fullness of being.