Eating too much

Well, the son
has come to visit

Brendan Kahlil Elms
and he's taking a training with me
in learning how
to learn

and learning
how to be intelligent
in using our bodies
and learning
how
to learn
easier
and more amazing
ways to move

and he likes
dinner
and if he's going to eat
i join
him
and when i join
him i eat a lot
and it's all raw
and i don't get fat
but
i do get
way too stuffed

oh,
well.

he's making a movie:
here's a beginning picture
of how he's setting up
a little cartoony
thing
for his super 8
project

and here's the
young artist
just about to dive
into his filming

well,
this is n't working

al a
la
la

Too much force

this idea,
the idea that more
can get done
with less force
and more discrimination

is coming along at the training
i'm going to with my son,
brendan

i'll give the website
tomorrow
or the next
because it's supposed to be a new
zippy version

anyway
some example where given:
in skiing,
when you get good, the
less force you can use,
the better
your skiing will get

in flying a plane,
either you react slow
and light
or thngs get very troubled

and then in parenting:
if you are in a rush,
you "show the kid how,"
which means,
make the child do it
as you do it,
and don't give time
to go slowly,
and gently
and so no
discovery takes place

so,
what is it about force
and the world of today?

well,
look around,
listen:
cars and roads are the dominant force
in our "civilization"

what powers a car:
thousands of explosions a minute

what makes the place
the car can drive,

big machines, tearing up nature
to pave out those roads

we explode the gas,
we pave the world

and we forget
sometimes
the simple
power
of the blade of grass,
pushing itself up
through a crack
in the asphalt

what is the crack in our asphalt
where and
what
is our blade
of grass

maybe
that's what some of these poem
thoughts
are about

hope
so

ciao
chris

Remembering Ourselves

to be now
and know
we are
right now

this can be called:
Remembering Ourselves

it can be called
Being Awake

it can be called
Being Present

it can be called
Being Mindful

where Mind is not just
in the head
but heart
and body
and spirit

how to be
now

perhaps the most
important
question in life

or at least one of big
three:

how to be now
how to love and take care of each other
how to love and take care of the Earth

(this site, once a day,
the other two,
once a week,
and today's the day,
to add something to each
wakeup-feldenkrais.blogspot.com
and
http://taichiyoghealthweightloss.blogspot.com/

it may take a while
but something will be
there
today

and what was this all
about:
oh yeah:
remembering ourselves

easy to forget
fun to remember

a sweet
and always
available game

This is "hard." Is that true?

"this is hard:
doing
a post a day."

the thought arises,
the unhappiness and blocking
begin to form

and,
to the rescue:
4 questions
and a turn around.


is that true?
i don't know

can i absolutely know that this is true?
no.

How feel when attach to "hard" story?
burdened, weak, confused, stressed

how and who would i be without the "hard" story?
Amused, curious, what am i going to write today?

Turn around:
This is not hard,
a post a day

la la
when in doubt
or confused
or stressed

The Work of Byron Katie (thework.com)
is always useful,
so clear and
focuses me
back on the source
of all my misery
and all my happiness:

me and my thoughts about
What is.

and what does that
have to do
with Parenting?

everything

because when it's "hard"
is when we really can show the kids
how a person
can be present and loving
even when the dice
are stacked against them

show them how when the going gets tough
the tough
get loving
and
now-ing

wow

ciao,
chris

Buy local, think global

I needed another pitcher
for water this morning

I knew I wanted a pretty
one
like the one I'd bought
before
at the
Robin's Nest
on East Napa St.
in
Sonoma,
just around the corner from the
Sebastiani Theater
and just down the street
toward the Plaza
from Readers' Books.

I knew I wanted
something
nice
and something
NOT
from China.

So I went back
to The Robin's Nest
and found another sweet one.

Pictured above are two
pitchers I've gotten there,
the one on the right
being the one
I bought
today.
$13.95
or so.
(the Robins Nest
is a discount store)
And from Tunisa.

And, of course,
part of going slower
in this rushed world
was to buy while using my bicycle
to return home from teaching
DNA yoga
out on the East Side of town.

So,
now my water can wait for me
to drink it
and Marlie to drink it,
and you,
if you come by and ask for water,

the water
can wait in
beauty.

may your inner waters
be
beautiful
today

ciao
chris

Ramadan

One theory
of the angry Muslims

is favored by a professor
of something of other,
named,
I believe
Bernard Lewis:

his theory:
arabs at forefront of world
knowledge
back in 800's and
so on,
even up to 1300's

then they are in backwater
of discovery
and science
and industrialization
and stuff

and so
they resent
the European / North American
world for getting ahead
of them

and so,
they need to act
out
lash out
and so on

fine
fine
theories
can explain anything

but,
i'd say
to Bernard,
try Ramadan,
for a month,
don't eat until after sundown

or
do the modified
Ramadan i'm trying:
just eat for a few hours
in mid day

and see:
what it feels like
to have a different
connection to food
and hunger
and self control
and waiting
and inner purpose
than most of the rest
of the world

or different
than ourselves at other times

maybe inferiority
is part of it

maybe superiority
to fast most of the day
is to do something
many cannot

to focus on something
higher than the belly
is to make religion
not just words,
but a daily
deep inposition

a deep stance
as it were

and to say nothing
of the irritability
hunger can bring
at first
and then
a learning
that we can change
and that these habits
don't need to rule us

what has this got
to do with Bernard Lewis:
well,
try a week of eating essential one meal a
day
and see
if you feel different
that the rest of
the world

and different
than how you usually feel

my recommendation:
eat earlier in the day
rather than later

interesting note:
two of the five obligations
to all Muslims:
fasting in the month of Ramadan
and hospitality to anyone in need

you can see how they'd go together,

Panic, Email not working

and who
said
it
was supposed
to
"work"

and maybe
"not working"
is just
what i
need
for
a

while

each
breath:

aware
or not

what
a sweet choice

for amusement
i think i'll take a
quick
look at
ananda2007.blogspot.com

3 pages a day

One of the great glories
of the Work of Byron Katie
is that you don't have to fuss around,
don't have to go digging
around in your "shadow,"

don't have to figure out
what to
"work on"
in yourself

either
life is peaceful
and you are happy
and you just cruise

or you are unhappy
and you have the work
and the work
tells you what to work on

so
if someone bugging me
is in a daze
that's my work:
find the daze i'm in

if someone around me
leads me to want to advise:
do more Feldenkrais or more
walking or yoga,
that's my work

anyway,
Marlie's daughter came
to visit
and in a troubled phase of her
life

young twenties
college fun
and then jobs:
they don't care how
smart you were in college

and the old aching question:
what do you really want to
do
with your life?

so i suggested
The Artist's Way,
with its grand
and useful idea
of writing three
free form pages a
day

the step daughter not
so thrilled with idea
and i decided
why not,
i'll take the advice:
so far,
just the second day

and

I
love
it

so nice
to take
my own
advice

Happy Rain, Happy Equinox, Happy Saturday

well
that about says
it
all
doesn't it

and what
would
it
all
be?

any
way
you squeeze
it
life is

and we
are either
with the is
or
we
ain't

so
paint the sky
grey
and blue
with your sweet
eye brains
mind the
tulips
of springs
to come

and come
on outside
and love
it
all

what
ever
it
all

is that
you
or
me
or
we

or
weeee???

Available for public speaking

Topics:

Slowing Down, Enjoying Life More, and
Saving the Earth

Loving Your Enemy, Undoing the Grudges,
and Releasing Emotional Stress

Up:
Elevating Posture
and Mood
at the Same Time

Aging Happily:
Growing stronger,
smarter and more
flexible as we grow "older"

Weight Loss via 3 Paths:
Food combining and /or
Raw foods and/or
Eating in mid day

How to increase
emotional intelligence &
physical intellegence

Moving Easier and Freer
as we Grow Older

Gardening as Pathway
to the Soul and the Soil

Now, Nature and Love

Bad Backs:
How to improve back, brain,
breathing, and sense of humor
all at the same time

Yoga, Tai Chi, Feldenkrais,
and vitality, well being
and health

Slow Foods, Real Gardens,
Coming to our Senses

Coming to our Senses:
the foundation of a good life

Gratitude and Forgiveness:
Practical Pathways
to Happiness

This is a good start, eh???

ciao
chris

Rain, Sun, new Thursday

Oregon summer,
looking a little like California fall

Well
yesterday
it looked like rain
and i bet
it wouldn't

and it did
a
little

so i lost
the wish full thinking
bet

not the first time

anyway,
that put me in gear
literally
this morning
and i rode
out to the garden
and retrieved
some drying fruit
that we'd rescued
from the windfall
that usually just
gets heaved
in the compost

rescued
the drying apples, and pear apples
and peaches
and brought them
home

and almost got them
sorted out
in time
to watch
the beautiful
warm
clear
sun
come on
back out

oh, well

life is good

things shift

soon to go to talk
part education
part slow food

if you want to experience
slow
and learning
and haven't tried
the the Feldenkrais Method®
yet

check out the link
to desk trainer
over on the side

or,
just start moving
really slowly
and imagine
a movement
you have never
done
before

that accentuates,
of complicates,
or expands
the movement you started with

how
do you
do
that?

find
out,
i guess.

or come to one of my
Mat Discovery classes,
Saturday, 10:45 AM
Monday, 12:15 PM
Monday 6:30 PM

see more via current classes link at side
or, heck,
push this Fall Classes

Skinny Wednesday

Studley Street, so far
so good,
and time to
change seasons, and places, it seems

today
Marlie and I
go to look at a couple of
possible
new places to live

(see Loving Your Enemy
for the non gory
details)

anyway
this is "hard"
without the
the Work
you know:
is it true that it's a drag to move?
how and who am i when i go with that story?
who and how am i when i don't go with that story?
what's the turn a round?

and with the work
and the
turn
a
round

life is
pretty sweet,
an adventure
of one unknown now
after another
crashing up
on the shores
of our awareness

hmmm

so,
curious
excited,

and,
the lazy baby in me:
not looking forward
to dealing with all my stuff
and
even
there

to the rescue,
the work:

half turn around:
willing to deal with my stuff,

looking forward
to dealing with my stuff
the whole turn

and what a sweet one
that is
isn't it?

Fat Tuesday

this was early summer, Fava Beans. These guys
are long gone.
A garden is a good place
to remember:
the shift
of seasonal time

today's the last
official Tuesday
of
official summer

next Tuesday
will be
official fall

the seasons
change

we change

i went up to Santa Rosa
today
exploring
the possibilities
of subsitute teaching:

to make some money
to be of use
to see how
my ideas of learning
and communication
pan out in the real world

to explore
ways of really
getting brains
in action

to see what goes on
in schools
and teachers' mind
these days

if we keep turning
out people
as dumb
and asleep
as most Americans
seem to be

the planet seems
doomed

is that true?
i don't know

sounds dramatic

and i don't have to get in
a froth
about it

i just think kids
are amazing
and school
seems to not be a place
where real
learning
takes place very often

oh, well

life is good

Last Day, First Day

today
is the
first
day
of the rest
of your life

i saw that on
a bathroom
in new york

i was twenty one
it was still in the sixties
maybe i was twenty two
anyway
i thought it was neat

today
i think
today
what if it were the last day
of the life

or life
on earth

this breathing thing

how would i want to spend it

pretty much the same
just slower

with more emphasis
on the
sweet pleasure
of now

Awake or Asleep

As I was hanging
around
awake,
so-called,
in the middle of
last night

i was noticing the usual
three choices

the human predicament:
low functioning robot
or
high functioning robot
or
aware

in the middle of the night:
low ro is like this:
worry, worry
things i could/ should have done
worry, about back to sleep
mis
using the old brain
thinking of people
who "done" me wrong
or
even,
old favorite:
"mistakes" i've made
in the life
of the one
named Chris

high ro is:
relaxing into the time
of quiet
appreciating
the no phone
no hurry
nothing to do,
nowhere to go,
nice time to plan how
to do
various things i want to
do
nice time
to review
what's working
and not working in my life
nice time
to think of others
in my life,
wish them well
nice time
to remember
other nice times
nice time
to do the various
visualize nice things
for myself, or the world

and then
aware:
the feel of where i'm pressing into the bed
the shape and feel of my breathing
watching thoughts come on
bubble up,
and with the watching
go
either the Witness thing
or
the Byron Katie Work
thing,
inquiry: is that true?
and so on,
and the thoughts
are like ripples
and the lake
is this me ness
this nowness
this aware glow
from a follow my breathing,
sensing my legs and arms
and spine
and knowing
i'm alive
place

and the big trick:
to be aware/awake
and do the high ro
stuff,
the visualize,
remembering,
upscale planning
while home
now,
in my body, sensing, breathing
nowness

lots of
possibilies
in an empty night

and then
of course,
"waking up"
after falling back to "sleep"

sitting up:
aware of how that happened
or not?

riding bike to park
to teach:
aware of legs moving, or not?
aware of breathing,
or not?
aware of what i'm seeing,
or not?

high ro life:
gettting things done
being nice to people
seeing things in a bigger way
having a sense of the value of life

low ro life:
worried
bitter
angry
blaming
and
so on

aware life:
ah,
well
it's less fancy sounding than the high ro,
and it's real

Water, Sky, Ease, Summer almost Gone

people in
water

clothes on
clothes off

hot day
cool water
blue sky

ease
life

summer
at
its
best

Slow Food

slow food is produced nearby;
here, from E. 7th and Denmark, Sonoma,
at the Garden Park,


slowness
is
one of
life's keys

to slow
down
is
to give
ourselves
a chance

to be present

to change our behavior

to learn
something new

to remember:
I am alive

to heal
ourselves
and the
Earth

to breathe
and follow
our breathing

to think
a new
thought

to feel
a
new feeling

to actually
listen
to another

to say
something
besides the same
old thing
we always say

to think
before
we
say
the same old thing

to move
in a new
and delicious
way

to savor
being

and to savor
being
alive

and to savor
all the Life
around us

.....

here's a component
to slowing
down,
the slow food movment
quotes follow:

Carlo Petrini, :Slow Food Nation

Book Description (coming this spring):

By now most of us are aware of
the threats looming in the food world.
The best-selling Fast Food Nation and
other recent books
(including Carlo Petini's
The Case for Taste)
have alerted us
to such dangers as genetically modified organisms,
food-borne diseases,
and industrial farming.

Now it is time for answers,
and Slow Food Nation steps up to the challenge.
Here the charismatic leader of the
Slow Food movement,
Carlo Petrini,
outlines many different routes by which
we may take back control of our food.

The three central principles of the Slow Food plan are these:
1.
food must be sustainably produced
in ways that are sensitive to the environment,
2.
those who produce the food
must be fairly treated,
3.
and the food must be healthful and delicious.

In his travels around the world
as ambassador for Slow Food,
Petrini has witnessed firsthand the many
ways that native peoples are feeding themselves
without making use of the harmful
methods of the industrial complex.

He relates the wisdom to be gleaned
from local cultures in such varied places
as Mongolia, Chiapas, Sri Lanka, and Puglia.

Amidst our crisis,
it is critical that Americans look
for insight from other cultures
around the world and begin to
build a new and better way of eating in our communities here.

About the Author
Carlo Petrini is the founder and driving force of Slow Food and was recently acclaimed as a great innovator in Time magazine's list of "European Heroes."

See, if you wish,
a Interview with Carol Petrini

Learning by Copying, or Learning by Learning

We can watch
and follow:
monkey see,
monkey do

sometimes
following
someone who does
something really
well
(be happy,
move easily,
listen fully,
laugh at themselves)

can be one
of life's great gifts

and then
again,
if the yoga teacher
is five
times more limber
than we are
and we try to exactly copy
we'll hurt ourselves

if we
move
and just crank along,
following
exercise
or yoga
or the routine we've been assigned
we'll stay in action

but we won't learn

learning
only happens
when we slow down,
and realize and
feel
in our real selves,
a new way of doing or seeing
or feeling something

or thinking
about something
though a
confusion
of thinking and words
and jabber and thinking
and having facts/ numbers and so on
and knowing
is a huge mistake
in much of our lives
(though good for balancing the check book)

back
to learning:
it's a discovery
and un covery
a re covery
a finding
something new
or forgotten

new pieces
falling
together

a big picture
that fits

a new pathway
of moving or feeling
that's easier
and sweetier
and more pleasurable

and natural

this learning
really learning

is sweet
and

this brings
us to the present

this is the present
of learning

without this
life gets
stale
fast

Empty Stomach, Curious Mind

Ramadan
starts today

i'm not Muslim
and i'm curious
about this partial
fast that hundreds
of millions of people
do a month a year

no eating
until after sundown

i'm on a modified version:
eating only
once a day

yesterday
and today,
around 2 in the afternoon

since
eating at night
is harder
on the liver
and whatnot

anyway
it's almost two today
no eating since
around 3 yesterday
afternoon

hungry

curious:
is this "hard"
and
if so
how
much of "being hard"
is my story

and how much
my incredible luxury
of being one of the humans
on earth
with food
around
almost all the time

of course,
anyone
with a garden
and orchard
and some nearby
blackberry patches
has
lots of food
around all the time
this time
of year

curious
interested

what will a month
of this be like

hmmm.

Nine Eleven

i let the pictures
come by
"accident"

i pick some jpgxxx
and the number xxx
doesn't mean
anything

so today
i get a rainbow

the beauty
that can be in the sky

and some people
use the sky
to hurl
weapons

yes, yes
planes into buildings

but bombs from
on high

the man
pulls a lever
pushes a bottom
from four miles up,
a
bomb
drops

and Germans are dead,
Japanese,
Vietnamese

the list goes on
and on

and what does the
button pusher
the lever puller
think

just doing their job

the terrible job
of killing people
and destroying
things

what a world

and then,
there are rainbows,
in the sky

maybe the choice
is ours
and somehow
we need
to get the power
back
from the bombers
and the
people who
command
the bombers

what do
you think?

Hunger

it's interesting
life is

when i'm hungry
i'm so much
more prone
to being irritable

this either means:
eat

or be
patient
come into the now
stop
see what happiness
is waiting
inside the irritability

it's always a delight
to notice
and the more i can notice
myself in my "not together states,"
like
the

feeling
that "something has to be
fixed"
before i can be happy

the more i can notice
the me
inside the "trouble"
and the "story"
and the habitual responses,
then
the more i can be
free

free
ah,

sure,
eating when hungry
is fine

and eating
the way we do it in the west
is like an endless shovelling

what's wrong
with fasting
a little
a meal here
a meal there

letting the irritability rise
and exploring:

where is the happiness
the peace
at the center

at my core

does food fill me
or does the glory of
life ?

Fog

Fog in the morning
Sun now

the sun was
is
always there

and was hidden

change happens
shift happens

light wakens

i am either
asleep to it
or awake

i like awake
better

the sun
doesn'
t
really care

that's how much
it
loves us all

God is Waiting

God is waiting
for us

to laugh
at ourselves

for taking
ourselves so seriously

"so and so
didn't treat me just so"
and now I feel sooo bad

cause for sorrow?
or a big laugh
at our selves?

"so and so #2
thinks what he/she has to say
is more improtant
than listening to me"

time to get annoyed?
or
time to giggle?

what is really important?

this is what
God
is waiting for us
to remember

what is
really
important?

Loving Your "Enemy"

The word
"Enemy" kind of skews things
doesn't it?

(In the beginning was
the Word)

As if the other person
is in some sort of attack on us.

Now if it's knives or guns or baseball bats,
then briefly,
anyway
this seems like a good person to
calm down
or to avoid.

And in most of our life
the "enemy"
is just someone having a hard day,
or a hard life,
and they are taking a bit of it out
on us.

sometimes this is hard
to take

sometimes not

often,
the Work of Byron Katie
is a huge help

Leaving Sonoma, 1

Ah, so sad.

And is that true?

All good things come to an end,
and some things aren't just right,
for various reasons:
people grow,
the other person doesn't.

People change and
the place changes the opposite way.

When I came to Sonoma
it was much more rural
much more small town
much more influenced by creative,
artistic,
land oriented people
of the nonslick variety.

I started a beautiful garden
with the name
Pauline Bond Community Garden,
that got changed
to Garden Park
and my goals
of a spiritual, and deeply ecological
place
have been either dropped or watered down.

For two years
I've been offering
work that can transform people's lives,
and help open up amazing possibilities.

It is out of the box,
not a big strain big gain
look sexy kind of thing.

People have stuck to their ruts,
not taken advantage of this work.

Young people,
dancers,
really creative people
thrive on this.
Somehow Sonoma doesn't seem to have enough
of this,
nor enough bicycle riders,
nor enough home gardeners
nor people willing to forgo sugar and wheat
and study what Price Pottenger has to offer,
people excited to apply Permaculture
to their land and their lives,
people excited by the miraculous possibilites of The Feldenkrais Method
and the Anat Baniel Method.

The shift to crowded
and yuppie,
the emphasis on wine, wine, wine,
land values,
the next event,
party,
happening,
wine tasting,
food testing,
nice froth,
becoming the second Aspen,
so cool,
so slick
and

yet:
where is the slow
life
the aware life,
the life
without the cell phone
and the wine glass
and the rapid fire
empty words?


So maybe I'll leave,
we'll leave,
and yet,
to leave without
love and
gratitude
would be crazy,
harsh to myself,
and to my life now.

As long as I'm here,
loving what is,
means loving Sonoma.



So,
hello Sonoma,
i love you while i'm here,
and when i leave,
goodbye Sonoma,
i'll love you, too,
and love another
new place as well:

ciao,
love,
learning,
laughter

Chris