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!