Activity 104 from Tao of Now, Soul: Cultivating close friends

Cultivate close friends.

What does that mean?

This is a double meaning. Close as in intimate and trusting and healing and listening and helping and “there” for us.

And close as in living nearby. As in the thinking about how to live lighter on the Earth: how to have friends “close” enough so we can walk to, or bicycle to their house, or to some mid spot to meet.

And if our friends, as of yet, aren’t that “close,” what could we do to begin to “love our neighbors” in such a way that people near us did become our “close” friends.

How could this come about?

Even to imagine such a thing, might begin to open us to the kind of community / loving that would make the life on Earth and life in our own neck of the woods far sweeter and more sustainable, again in two meanings of sustainable.

Sustaining for the Earth.

Sustaining for our own lives, and the lives of those “near” us.

And then again, there's always cultivating that close friend who is the silent empty not-me us of who we really are. And if that doesn't make sense, stop thinking for five or ten seconds and see what's left of "you."

Good.

Emotional Learning: What is to be Listened to

Pastel painting by Penina Horowitz

You know
sometimes we have these feelings,
"feelings" like in emotional stuff,
but really, all "feelings" have a feeling part in our body, too,
a physical component.

And maybe we can play with this:
if we "feel" the physical part of any given
"feeling"
does that feel like we are expanding
or
contracting?

So, say: you feel "happy?"
And the physical feeling is like wanting to
dance,
or jump up and fling your arms in the arm,
or reach out and embrace someone,
or
sing for joy.

All that "feels" expansive,
wouldn't you say?

And then, let's go the other way:
we feel worried and abandoned,
say,
and what goes on in us physically?
Maybe we crunch in on ourselves,
and breathe less,
maybe we tighten up our belly muscles
as if protecting (from ???),
and hunch in our shoulders,
almost as if we want to curl up in a little ball
and
escape the world.

And that doesn't sound expansive,
does it?

So,
let's play with this today:
phooey on all the positive and negative
emotion stuff,
let's just "feel" what our feelings are feeling,
and notice:
do I feel expansive
or
do I feel as if I'm contracting myself?

Now, there's an interesting thing to do with both
sets of physical manifestations of our
"feelings:
and that's this,
the good old fashioned
pay attention
wake up
be aware thing.

Feeling happy?
Great.
Notice the sensations in you
and since they are nice,
maybe act on them
or exaggerate them,
or at the least,
just enjoy them.

Feeling sad, mad, bad, afraid,
whatever?
Skip the words in your head
about all that
and just concentrate on the physical sensations.

Don't judge or condemn the sensations,
but pay them patient and kind attention
and see what happens
if you put attention/ awareness
on your
tension/ contraction.

Life can get interesting in the moment.

Life is almost always amazing and at least semi-miraculous
in the moment.

Give it a try,
and see what happens.

Thinking: Us vs. them

When we give someone we love one of our few last strawberries, or say even the last strawberry, we are happy.

Their pleasure in the strawberry is our pleasure.

But if someone we “don’t like,” or even someone we profess to “love,”
but with whom we have a kind of
competitive/ I’m not getting enough attitude,
“takes” one of our last strawberries,
we feel deprived.

Think about how this operates.

Think about what is the difference,
really,
between “us” and “them.”

Thinking: Us vs. them

When we give someone we love one of our few last strawberries, or say even the last strawberry, we are happy.

Their pleasure in the strawberry is our pleasure.

But if someone we “don’t like,” or even someone we profess to “love,”
but with whom we have a kind of
competitive/ I’m not getting enough attitude,
“takes” one of our last strawberries,
we feel deprived.

Think about how this operates.

Think about what is the difference,
really,
between “us” and “them.”

Moving when "tired"

This happens, doesn't it:
end of the day comes, and we just want to "flake out."

For me, it's lie on my back and read a novel.

For others TV, a DVD, a beer.

And there's always getting on the phone and jawing away.

So, what could mindfulness show us about this "tiredness" thing.

Well, for a start, we could feel and sense where specifically in our bodies
this
"tiredness' seems to be the strongest.

Right now for me, it's around my eyes and in the back of my neck.

And in the lungs, my lungs, having a bit of a trouble breathing.

So here we have three areas for me to move, and as I do,
let's see if we together can create an opening back to the joys
of
"just being alive," that is always the fruit and
the sign of being mindful.

Okay: tiredness always seems to come to the back of the neck.
And we are in the Feldy and Anat Baniel fields of learning and exploration,
which gives us the delightful option:
how to move easily and slowly and in a way that connects down deeper
into
ourself.

How about this?
Place your right hand over your head to loosely hold your left ear,
or something close to that.
And here, begin to rock side to side, so your elbow shifts where it is pointing upward
right and left.

Feel your neck move
and
your back
and
your ribs

and do please
allow one side of your pelvis to raise up
each time you bend to the side,
the hip raising Up
toward the shoulder that is moving DOWN

Just do this say seven times
count them
and feel sense notice search
enjoy a little bit different about each one.

Take an eyes closed rest.
Feel if anything has shift.

Now put the other hand, left,
over your head to the right ear, or thereabout.

Slowly shift back and forth right and left as before,
but just a few times.

Then, when you get to the right tip (right hip up, elbow as far to the right
as you and it can easily go), stay there, and rock forward and back a bit
on the left side of your pelvis, your left sit bone.

It is as if you are coming more forward with your elbow
as your belly comes in
and you shift farther back on the left sit bone
(Ishium)

Go slow. Go slowly.

As you do this, close your eyes, and feel your
ribs
and spine
and neck
and breathing.

Then side bend your elbow to your left
raising your left hip and
sitting on your right sit bone/ ishium.

From there fold and arch, feel your spine coming forward at the top and bottom with the elbow
forward part of this,
and feel your spine top and bottom coming toward each
other in the back
as you push out your belly and arch.

Do this with your eyes closed.

Rest.

See if you can put both hands slightly over your head toward the other ear and do
something like a hoola hoop
with your pelvis,
letting the elbows makes their own form of circle.

Go slow.
Go slowly.

Wanting what we "don't want"

Here's one way to go about things:

You beat your head against the wall
and "don't get"
what you
"want"
so you learn to
"stop wanting"

which could mean not reaching out and forward in
life
anymore

just hunker down
and what??
watch TV
complain
play scrabble
who knows




And then, here's another approach:

go for what you want
and if you get it

great

and if you don't get it

great

one: you learned something

two: you have your life and love and awareness
and gratitude no matter what

three: you could step back and learn
how to go about the game
again

four: you could relax and find another game

five: you could meditate on
nothing
and use that bliss
to realize that anything you do
can have the undercurrent

of now is great
and
the next
now is great
and

the next
now is great

and maybe you get to the "aim"
and maybe not,
or
maybe "not yet"
and all
along the way

now is great


good

Emotional Freedom: Turn around your world doing the Byron Katie turn around

I wrote about this Friday at the SlowSonoma.com.

The following is chapter 34 of the book listed above as being for sale in email.

For those in the Austin area, a $20 print version of the first 32 chapters is available. When finished the next 32 will be free via internet, and the last 42 will cost another $20. Seems like a lot, unless you realize how much transformational juice each section is giving.

Like this, the 34th one, which assumes you know the first part of the Byron Katie work


Turn around Your World with the Turn Around

Take some person who has been bugging you. Write down how they make you feel and why as one short sentence.
So and so makes me feel…… because…..

Joe/Ed/ Ann/ Barbara makes me feel angry/ sad/ jealous/ bad/ disappointed/ ….. because they ……. Don’t wash their clothes. Don’t smile. Left me. Don’t respect their mother. Aren’t thankful/ grateful/ respectful/ appreciative/ and so on.

You’ve done this before, mainly with shoulds and shouldn’ts.
Now it’s time to branch out.
I need so and so to …………..
I want so and so to………….
So and so should or shouldn’t………….

So now you’ve got four avenues of judgment:
The way they rile you up.
What you need from them.
What you want from them.
How they should and or shouldn’t be different.

Then take one of these judgments, read it aloud to yourself, and ask the four questions.
You might want to write down the consequences inside you from question number 3.

And now it’s turn around time.
Turn it around three ways, and look for three examples of each turn around.

Examples:
"I want Joe to listen to me more."

1. Turn around to yourself. 

I want me to listen to me more.
(Find three ways you are lacking in this, self listening)


2. Turn around to the other: 

I want me to listen to Joe more.
(Find three ways you are sloughing off on listening to Joe)


3. Turn around the sentence to its opposite .

I want Joe to listen, to I don’t want Joe to listen. Why? Joe already does listen. I don’t need to want this.
Find three examples of this. It might blow your mind.



Or, "I'm angry and frustrated with daughter number one because she is not respectful"


Turn around one: to yourself
I am angry at me since I could respect myself more.
(Find three examples of how this is true)


Turn around two:
To the other
I am angry at me because I need to respect daughter number one more.
(Again, 3 examples)



Turn around three: to the opposite
Daughter number one is not respectful becomes daughter number one is respectful.
( Find three examples of that.)

This can change your life.
Turning around your mind can turn around your world.
Try it.
It’s work, the “work” of Byron Katie.
And the results are huge.

Thinking as Way Out, Thinking as Trap

Perhaps one could lead a totally instinctual life
and everything
would just fall into place.

People talk as if that's true,
and every time I've heard someone say that
I've heard a person spouting a set of words
that they believed in and had spouted
many times,
and they were never present to me nor to themselves as they
were spouting the words.

So, this is the trap folks:
to speak is to enter the world of the abstract,
the world of words,
and in that world,
a "tree" is just a set of letters, or a set of sounds
that can point us in "reality" to one real tree,
that is different from every other tree in the world,
or can at least point us toward the
tree beings out in the world.

And yet, if we were on some land
and wanted to improve that land,
perhaps best thing we could do for that land would be to plant it
in fifty to eighty percent trees.

That's thinking:
using mental pictures
to pre-view reality,
to set up a plan to change reality.

And we would need to use thinking
to explore why trees would be good for our soil,
and the water in the air,
and our eating,
and a windbreak
and a food source for our own chickens and goats
and a food source for the wild things
and a future source of timber for anyone who wanted to build with wood
and a wish of our own to have an income source in the future
and a wish and desire and commitment to keeping some of our land "wild"

And we could "think" about
which is plan mental pictures
and conduct thought experiments
in what percent of our land we wanted in orchard
and what percent in timber
and what percent in wild/ hedgerow trees
and where we might create windbreaks with trees

This is permaculture,
which is applying thinking to land use
and what better way to use thinking?

To improve relationships.
That might be a better way,
or we could think of relationships as a big swatch of land
and what percentage of our relationship
is mindless chatter
is business / getting things done talk
is admiring and supporting the other
is listening to the other
is having physical contract
is complaining
is demanding and correcting and ordering
is fuming inside and having inner complaining
is ignoring
is talking to friends about what's "good" or what's "bad" with the partner

Which is to say:
we can use the brain's joy in seeing how much
and which is more than something else
to get a good look at our relationship.

And then, the core of the Anat Baniel work
and the Feldenkrais work:
what variations could we create

in our relationship
in our land use
in our day use
in our thinking patterns
in our feeling patterns
in our moving patterns


..................

I'm laying in a lot of thought possibilities

Ideas as a kind of food.

Most of my essays I strive to have a kind of high density
nutritional value.

They might require reading several times.

Think about how often you slow down
and really allow your mind to chew
over  (rather than stew over)
new information
and especially,
new ways of organizing that information
and
PUTTING THAT NEW ORGANIZATION
INTO ACTION
IN YOUR LIFE


This is the purpose of thinking:
to create possibilities for an
even more wonderful life
for ourselves,
those in our community
and
the world.


Good.

Moving Into Life on a Monday

The Wake Up Game

Part One:
We wake up in bed.
Gads, and we "don't wan to get up"
or "don't want to move"
or "want to go back to sleep"
blah, blah, blah

The robot is pretty strong when the lazy sweet half dead
comfort
of the bed beacons us to stay on, and on

And how to wake up
inside the covers
and outside of sleep?

Try this:

1. Slowly move your head to the right and the left
Yes, yes, at first you can move like a robot
and then
wake up:
notice your neck
notice your breathing
notice the rest of your spine (yes, indeed, the "neck" is a word, the spine is 24 vertebrae)
notice the change in sensation where the back of your head presses into pillow or bed
notice what you are doing with your eyes

Rest.

2. Do that again and play with at least these variations;
   a. Eyes closed
   b. One eye open, and then the other
   c. Both eyes open
   d. One and both eyes moving the same way as you move your head
   e. One and both eyes (different times, right) moving the opposite way as your head

Rest

3. Move your feet right and left like a windshield wiper
rotate at the hip joint
feel your heels move in where they touch the feet
feel the sensation of feet against sheet as the move
feel your hip joints
feel your knees
feel your pelvis
feel your spine

Rest

4. Imagine combining the head and the feet,
sometimes imagine head and feet going the same way
sometimes imagine them going opposite

Now, "do" this in the real bed
and notice what you forget

Imagine it again

"Do it" again:
notice how your spine,
in between your head and feet
starts to wake up in this

Rest

5. Imagine 3 or 4 ways to roll out of bed

Try one

Roll back in, sensing yourself in the "reverse" move

Now roll out of bed another way

6. Sit at the edge of the bed

Sense your right leg, fully,
from five toes to foot to anke
to calf
to knee
to thigh
to head of top of thigh
to hip bone

Sense your right arm fully
fingertips
to shoulder blade

Sense the right side of you,
with emphasis on right arm and right leg

Sense your left arm from shoulder blade
down
to fingertips

Sense the first three all at once:
right leg, right arm, left arm

Add on the left leg
Sense all  four: two arms and two legs

Add on the spine, your spine

Sense all five at once:
your right leg,
your right arm,
your spine
your left arm
your left leg

Sense the all of you
add on all other bones, breathing, organs,
anything "real" you can sense in the moment

enjoy

Then add on hearing what you are hearing

Then add on opening your eyes and seeing what you see

Then rise to your day
and enjoy, today and all week,
starting the day with the five line excercise
and staying in sense, look and listen
in the now
mode
all day

hey,
what have you got to lose?

"Soul" on Monday: back to work with our real self?? What an idea!

Sometimes we "have" to "go to work" and we
"don't want" to go to work.

We don't have to commute, we don't want to get up earlier than we do on Sundays,
we don't want to "put up" with whatever we have to "put up" with at work.

We have to "do things" in a way that creates or produces or helps something along.

Sometimes we are lucky and get to build or paint or sculpt or garden,
and we can see the fruits of our labors at the end of the day.

And still we might feel "lazy"
or not sure if those fruits are really going to happen.

Often, money rears its sometimes strange and confusing head
in the work game and we either "don't have enough," or aren't being
paid what we are "worth," or just plain don't have the clientele we want,
or a job.

So on Monday we've got to get to work getting work.

And all that seems leagues away from a nice Sunday walk in a park,
following our breathing,
just BEING,
sitting down,
no rushing,
meditating,
watching our thoughts, feeling our bodies in the present,
all that good, Be Here Now relaxation and mindfulness stuff.

Great.
And we've got to go drive the cab, or dig up the dirt, or get on the phone and or computer,
we've got to hustle work, or write the five pages we've set out to write, or illustrate the book
we've said we'll illustrate.

And soul
and being
where are they?

Do they need to take a vacation until next weekend, next retreat, next vacation,
the glass of wine at the end of the day?

Maybe.
Maybe not.

How about a one minute vacation right now?
Close your eyes. Find your feet on the floor, and sit more or less upright,
follow your breathing
and let your spine round and arch ever so slightly as part
of your
"mini-meditation."

Good.
And how did that feel?
And can you keep some of that round and arching and following your breathing
and being aware of yourself, now, as you sit in your chair, now, and read the rest
of this essay?

Can you allow the present to infuse and underlie all that you do in your "Work" today?

This sounds (and is) hard,
but mindfulness as you work
is the key to freedom in all of your life,
not just when you finally get to Hawaii
or Paris
or Disneyland.

And if you are a mother, or the home parent with the children,
that work is both an incentive to being present,
since children already are,
and a great gift to yourself and your children when you are present.

Children want someone who is there, who is really, who can give them real attention.
You don't have to give every second attention to your kids,
though there will certainly be times when that is one of life's great treats,
but when you do give attention,
really give it.

This will feed you and your children
for the rest of their lives.

Good.

Emotional Learning: How you are the "same" as someone else, the good, and the "bad"

This is from the exercise/ activity/ meditation/ game number 10 of a book called The Tao of Now, 108 ways in 108 days to wake up to more of your real you

I'm rewriting that book. The book rotates in  different order through Movement awareness, emotional learning, thinking improvement and soul connection.

It's superb.

I'm going to be selling the first 32 "ways" as a pdf for $12. If people complete those and write email me of their "learning," I'll sell the next 32 "ways" for $8. And if they do and finish and write me about these, I'll sell the final 42 ways for $4.

Email if you wish by clicking here

And if anyone wants to preview, I'll email a pdf of the first 8 "ways" free.

So here's the tenth, without "easy" paragraph breaks. If you want easy email for the first 8 in pdf.

If not, this can change your life, as each of the 108 ways can:

here goes:'

Ten: Emotional Learning

Learning: differences, similarities. We aren’t alone, 2.

Think of a person for whom you have both “positive” and “negative” feelings.

Write down three traits of this person that evoke each attitude.

Look from one list to the other. “Good traits” to “bad traits” to “good traits” and so on. Notice inside yourself the “feelings” that the positive list evokes and the feelings the negative list brings up. INSIDE YOURSELF.

This is huge. They are what they are, but where you put your attention creates what goes on INSIDE of you.

Don’t TRY not to be negative. When you look at the “negative” list, feel what you feel. And as you go back and forth allow real emotion learning to take place as you notice differences, notice differences notice differences. This is learning.

Now, take all six traits and find them in yourself.

Try to do this as if you were an outside observer, some sort of anthropologist taking notes on some exotic tribe. You and the person are both from this exotic tribe. The anthropologist has no stake or judgment about any of these six traits. They are just interested, and very empathetic with both of you for being this way.

The anthologist knows humans are hugely similar.

See and feel the ways you and this person you have picked have a lot of similarity, or fallen into the same habits, or have the same patterns.

Doesn’t matter how you say it, just “be with this” and realize once more,  how you are not alone.

Thinking about Thinking:

In college, if a professor was lazy,
she or he could always ask question like:

"Compare and contrast the Crusades and
Casablanca."

Or more likely:
"Compare and contrast Faulkner's Sound and Fury
and Conrad's Heart of Darkness."

Hopefully the last question would come in a course on Conrad and Faulkner.

And, lazy, as the question is or was,
it still set us up for how to use our thinking at
what it does best.

Contrast. Find Differences.
Notice differences.
Compare two or three things.

Now, this can lead to a life of hell
if we add emotions to this and compare,
say,
ourselves,
to say,
Mozart or Bob Dylan in terms of creative output.

(Those in their league probably aren't reading this,
so we'll stick with the "normal," non genius run of humanity.)

And comparing ourselves to Bob or to Wolfie,
we add on the overtone: oh gad, what's the matter with me.

Then we've used thinking to drive ourselves into suffering.

And as the book goes along, we'll see that most of our so-called "suffering"
comes from so-called thinking.

And what if we were to must play around with thinking
as thinking.

We could imagine ourselves 3 inches taller or shorter.

We could imagine being born 50 or 100 years earlier, or later.

We could look at various problems in our life and set out to list 3 ways
that we've already tried to solve them, and then imagine up 5 more ways we
might go about that.

We could watch ourselves when we are happy
and discover our posture and breathing then,
and experiment around to find 3 other ways of being happy
in slightly different postures and breathing.

Likewise with unhappiness,
we could discover posture and breathing
and search for three different postures and breathing patterns
in which to be unhappy.

Careful though:
getting curious and changing things
around
could undermine our unhappiness.

Oh, well, worse things have happened.

Today is the day of playing with playing with
thinking.

Mess around with ideas
options
possibilities
contrasts
comparisons
and
other stuff

in your mind.


It's your mind. Practice playing it.

Moving Brain: Sitting and Moving, in a Chair, Rotation and Option

Sit comfortably in a chair, near the front of the chair,
feet on the floor, and
feel your 5 line:
two arms,
two legs,
one spine.

Feel how you sit and hold up your head in this wonderful and
relentless world of gravity.

1. Turn your head easily right and left.
Go far less than your "limit."
Keep it easy and pleasurable.
If there is pain in any movement, do less, or do
none
and visualize the movement.

Feel the differences between right and left.

Rest.

2. Now pick which ever way is easiest to turn,
and turn just that way a number of times. Turn that way,
easily,
gently,
less than your "limit,"
with awareness and comfort,
and then
turn back to the middle.

Do at least a few of the movements with your eyes open,
so you can see what the starting range is for you
when you turn easily and without efforting.

Feel this as a movement that you can learn
from.
Study and be aware and enjoy this.

After a number of times, rest.

3. Which ever way you have decided to turn,
put that hand on the chair behind and beside you as support.

Then take your other hand, and put the back of that hand,
on the check opposite,
which is to say on the check in the direction you are turning.
(Throughout this movement lesson, you will keep turning whatever was your "easiest" way.)

These directions may seem "hard."

Oh, well. Go slowly in figuring them out.
Any movement you make is going to improve awareness.

So, one hand on the chair, the other hand with its back on the opposite side of the face.

Begin to turn in your chosen direction and back to the middle
a number of times.

Feel your elbow and ribs as involved in the turning now.

Does that make a difference?

Can you enjoy and learn from that difference?

Do this a number of times, and then
rest.

In the REST don't space out, but sit in a way to really feel what is going on in your body
and mind
from these movements.
This is important integration time for your whole being.

4. Sit again at the front of your chair if you rested in another position.
Put the same hand on the chair beside you, and the other hand a
about eight inches in front of your nose
with the wrist in a floppily relaxed position, thumb nearest to your face.

In this position, turn in your chosen direction and back to the middle a number of times,
having the floppy wrist hand make that same amount of rotation.

As you rotate, allow yourself to come over onto the side of the pelvis
that is the same
as the direction you are turning.

Feel this movement from feet through pelvis thru ribs
up thru neck and even nose and eyes.

Enjoy this.

Rest.

5. Now do the same thing as the last movement a few times.

Then, do this: stop about halfway to wherever you are
turning,
and go both ways with hand and nose,
but these will be opposite.

Which means your hand will come back to the middle,
as your nose turns further in the direction you have been
turning,
and then they reverse,
so that the nose ends up looking forward
and the hand comes across to the side you
have been turning.

Let this movement have something like a neutral space
where both hand and head are turned halfway,
and the pelvis is flat on the chair then.

And each movement after that,
either hand to the side or
nose to the side,
let the pelvis shift that way.

Do this slowly,
don't make a big movement out of it,
keep enjoyment and learning and awareness as constants
more important than how far or how 'well' you move.

Rest and breathe and sense your five lines and integrate.

6. Sit at the front edge of the chair,
and put the same turning side hand on the chair.
Put the other hand on the opposite shoulder,
which is going to be the side to which you are turning.

In this configuration,
turn about half way to your chosen direction
and stop.
Now play the eye and head game.
Slowly.
Slowly and small.
Slowly and small and low effort.

Turn your eyes left as your nose turns to the right,
and then come back,
turning your eyes to the right, as your nose turns to the left.

Go slow.
Go small.
Follow your breathing.

Enjoy.

Rest in a neutral position.
Feel if you feel different from the beginning.

7. Now simple sit at the front edge of your chair and
turn your head right and left,
and see what changes have occurred.

Review in your mind the way the ribs and the shoulder and the eyes
and your pelvis can be involved in turning your head.

Now turn your head right and left again,
and feel yourself as a magnificence of possibilities.

Soul in Lazing, Slowing Down, a Moment of Pause = a day of rest

If God rested on the seventh day,

let's get a little more lazy,

and rest on whatever day is today.

Let's rest three ways:

One, between activities, sit down or walk around, or lie on the floor and do some

Anat Baniel or Feldenkrais or yoga moves,

or just roll around and sense yourself.

which is to say: slow down between things.

Two:

slow down during things.

We all feel sometimes like the world will crumble

if we don't forge ahead with urgency on our various projects.

And this might not be true.

Three: Take a walk sometime today.

Go out the door and look at the sky and the trees and the snow if that's where you live

and the clouds in that's your day.

Just slow down and be outside with yourself, as

if you are a wonderful person,

and deserve this gift.

Emotional Learning: The happiness thing

You know, some people say that happiness is the purpose 

of human existence.

What would a tree say is the purpose of being a tree?

If it could talk, which luckily,

it can't,

it would probably say that the tree's purpose was to be a tree.

Being a tree might just to the exactly wonderful thing

that makes a tree happy,

and so a tree must be pretty happy

all the time.

And how about you, fellow human.

It's supposedly a New Year, and there is various huff and puff

about the Mayan calender next year,

and whether that has anymore substance than the hundred's of "time ending"

schemes

that have crowded up and into history throughout

the centuries,

who knows.

And is today happy for you?

Is right now,

reading this notice on this computer sitting in

whatever chair you are sitting in?

If you were happy, how would you know?

If you weren't happy, how would you know?

Is happiness, like water boiling, something best noticed after the fact,

or can it be conjured up into being whenever we wish?

This is today's game:

be happy all day.

When you aren't happy,

be happy that you can discover something, some difference

that makes a difference, about how you go about making yourself

unhappy.

Read that sentence again: notice how YOU go about making yourself

unhappy.

Be happy for the chance.

When you are happy,

takes some notice and awaring into discovering the other side

of this action:

how do YOU contribute to your own happiness.

Any fool can blame another for their unhappiness.

Many a later disillusioned person will "blame" another person

for their happiness.

Pretend for today that happiness is an inside job,

and see how you go about these two actions:

making yourself unhappy

and

making yourself happy.

Bon voyage. 

Thinking: Thinking as Noticing Differences

Moshe Feldenkrais was fond of saying that "thinking" that didn't result in

real change

(improvement)

wasn't thinking at all. That it was just "mental masturbation."

We'll leave for later the obvious parallels to most of what passes for conversation

in our society, and just offer the missing 6 steps of yesterday's lesson

as a chance to "think without words."

In today's game/ exercise/ offering/ activity,

you get to think,

ie discover a new pattern of differences.

You have a problem to solve, the problem of moving your eyes one way,

while your head moves another. This is how learning takes place.

The numbers refer to yesterday's steps, and I would suggest starting the whole

movement lesson of yesterday from the start, and then adding this in.

The idea is to increase the complexity of rounding and arching by creating a

non-habitual movement of eyes and head relative to each other.

Or the idea is to notice differences we didn't know we could notice.

Or to revisit a difference, and feel it newly and freshly.

Or, to ...... be quiet and present while in "motion."

Or, to.......

In all the movement and thinking lessons 

please

go slowly,

go gently,

look for pleasure,

look for ease,

search for learning.

Be present.

Here are the missing and additional steps, with at least a little backing up to add in from yesterday:

10. Come to the front of your chair. Put your hands on your face and head as in #8.  (Hands at the side of your face, fingers and thumbs pointing backward, thumbs below your years, fingers above in the hair area).

Now combine #6 and #8. 

Roll forward into a curled in ball,

so that

belly comes in

sternum comes back and down,

pelvis shifts to pressure on chair is more to the rear,

nose points down,

spine rolls toward itself top and bottom in the front

and then arch up into a looking up person

so that

belly come forward,

sternum comes up and forward,

head and nose tilt toward the skies

pelvis weight and pressure come more forward,

your back arches towards itself top and bottom in the rear of you.

 Do not, do not, do not bring your neck back "too far."

Which is to say, don't "shorten" your neck.

 Just have your nose tilting up easily in a way the it feels as if your neck's curve is a continuation of your spine's curve.

    a. Go back and forth from belly in and rolling back on your pelvis, to belly out and rocking forward on your pelvis.

    b. Feel each vertebrae.

    c. Feel all the ribs.

    d. Feel the sternum moving up and forward and then down and in.

    e. Begin to sense your neck as part of your spine, not separate from it.

Brief tidbit for clarity in all of your life: THE FUNDAMENTAL UNIT OF INTELLIGENCE IS THE PERCEPTION OF DIFFERENCES.

Good.

11. Do the #10 again, rounding and arching and as you make and aware this movement notice differences between the folding part and the unfolding part:

    a. in the ribs

    b. the spine

    c. the sternum

    d. the pelvis

    e. the head

    f. your breathing

    g. your eyes

12. Rest.

13. Now do folding and arching, almost like #10 and #11, but don't put your hands on your face and head. Notice the difference in how your head relates to your back without your hands on your head.

    a. then go back and forth, hands on face to round and arch, and hands off

    b. pay amused and delighted attention how one way connects up the movement of your head with the arching and rounding in your back.

14. Rest.

15. Now, do the movement of #10 with this added complexity:

    a. Notice what your eyes are doing as you arch and lifted your head and round and tuck your head in

    b. Deliberately move your eyes (open or closed, try both for more differences to experience) down as your head goes down and up as your head goes up

    c. Now, try this, and go very slowly, and do just a little bit: but as your head goes down with rounding, have your eyes move to look up, as if at your forehead, and as your head (connected by hands to your back), lifts in the arching toward up, move your eyes slowly, slowly and gently down.

    d. Do this many times. Take rests. Make the up and down of your head very small if you get wozzy or confused. Just notice the new difference: head up and eyes down, head down and eyes up.

    e. See if you can become calm enough in this to begin to sense your spine and ribs and sternum and breathing and pelvis again, while still moving your head and eyes in opposition.

16. Rest.

17. Imagine doing #10 with the eyes in the same direction at your head. Don't DO anything. Just imagine.

    a. Then do the movement once, and notice what wasn't available in imagination

    b. Imagine it again, more fully.

    c. Do it in reality.

    d. Back and forth like this as long as you are curious and learning and in ease.

18. Rest in sitting in the 5 line meditation, and then rock forward onto your feet and feel the length of yourself in standing. Walk around and stay in the awareness mode for as long as you can. Notice the arms hanging from the spine and the legs holding up the pelvis and the pelvis holding up the head.

19. Enjoy being you today.

Moving Brain: Sitting and Moving, in a Chair

1. Find a firm chair or bench or log or rock where you can sit with both feet on the ground and your hips are slightly higher than your knees.

2. Come to the front of the chair, so your spine holds up your head and you aren't leaning back on anything.

3. Feel what this is like if you sit more or less upright.

    a. Feel how your pelvis sits on the chair.

    b. Feel how your spine rises up out of your pelvis

    c. Feel how your head is held up by your spine.

    d. Notice your shoulder blades, and how they rest on the ribs of your back.

    e. Feel both arms and both legs and your spine all at once.

4. Sit for a few minutes as if this is your meditation: noticing and sensing your arms and legs and spine. Find a certain peace and clarity in this.

5. Rest by leaning back, or walking, or just wiggling very slightly.

6. Sit forward again, and begin to round yourself into a ball as you sit in the chair.

    a. Let your head roll down and toward your chest.

    b. Let your sternum sink in and go down and backwards.

    c. Bring your belly in and backwards.

    d. Let your eyes come come toward looking at your belly button.

    e. Rock back on your pelvis, so that you are tucking your tail bone in a little and as if bring your sex toward your face.

     f. Undo all this and come to "upright," but no more.

     g. Then round down again, feeling each time a little more ease and awareness of all the parts of this.

     h. Begin to be aware and in enjoyment on the unfurl back to upright part, too.

     i. Do this many times, each time finding something new, and something more releasing or interesting or both.

7. Rest again. Sit in the meditation of 2 arms and 2 legs and 1 spine and just BE for a while.

8. Come to the front of the chair, and put your hands on the sides on your face, with your fingers pointing backwards, thumbs below the ears, fingers above. In this position, very slowly and easily begin to opposite of the movement in #6.

     a. Push your belly forward.

     b. Arch your back.

     c. Look up with your nose and eyes and the arms connected to your head.

     d. Roll forward to the front of your pelvis, as if you want to show off your rear end to someone behind you.

     e. Don't go too far, or "to your limit." Make it easy and enjoyable and about learning. Feel as many ribs and vertebrae as you can.

     f. In this movement, the sternum lifts and comes a bit forward. (The shoulders are soft ant easy. No "throwing the shoulders back" nonsense. This is about waking up to our spines, a central line to our lives).

      g. Come back to "upright" from this, but go no farther.

       h. Do this many times, each time concentrating and learning about a different part.

9. Rest in walking or sitting. Sense both legs, both arms and your spine. Feel if you are taller and more at ease.

10. Come to the front of your chair. Put your hands on your face and head as in #8. Now combine #6 and #8. Roll forward into a curled in ball, and arch up into a looking up person. Do not, do not, do not bring your neck back "too far." Just have your nose tilting up easily in a way the it feels as if your neck's curve is a continuation of your spine's curve.

    a. Go back and forth from belly in and rolling back on your pelvis, to belly out and rocking forward on your pelvis.

    b. Feel each vertebrae.

    c. Feel all the ribs.

    d. Feel the sternum moving up and forward and then down and in.

    e. Begin to sense your neck as part of your spine, not separate from it.

Brief tidbit for clarity in all of your life: THE FUNDAMENTAL UNIT OF INTELLIGENCE IS THE PERCEPTION OF DIFFERENCES.

Good.

11. Do the #10 again, rounding and arching and as you make and aware this movement notice differences between the folding part and the unfolding part:

    a. in the ribs

    b. the spine

    c. the sternum

    d. the pelvis

    e. the head

    f. your breathing

    g. your eyes

12. Rest.

(These steps, 13-17, got stepped ahead to the next day.

Enough is enough, and learning about learning

as the Noticing of Differences that make a difference

is huge,

and enough for today)

18. Rest in sitting in the 5 line meditation, and then rock forward onto your feet and feel the length of yourself in standing. Walk around and stay in the awareness mode for as long as you can. Notice the arms hanging from the spine and the legs holding up the pelvis and the pelvis holding up the head.

19. Enjoy being you today.