no fires, fresh air, good

the air cleared
good

the nine days more
of the Anat Baniel Training
is over
good

(I'm up to 63 in advanced training basics
31 days of advanced training in special needs children
and 18 days of advanced training in vitality and anti-aging
in the
anat baniel method)
good

great learning
intense
good

and now:

outside
the garden
sparkles
feeds
intrigues:
what to do here
what to do there

good

always
"too much" to do
in a garden
good

sometimes with all this
wonderful
stuff
i'm in a bad
mood
good


inside
following the breathing
good

really inside:
doing The Work
on various bullshit
ideas of how the world
should be
under my control
good

la
la

fresh air
new week
June almost over

life is good

new classes coming:
good

see the click link to the right:

Mondays at 6:30


Thursday at Noon


Saturday at 10:30 AM


all amazing
six weeks
long
start the week
of July 7th

and now,
fog wanting to come
in
ocean influence in the air

sweet

fires are good

why?

red sun

weird light, think about what we are seeing

reminder: global warming

a change

nature will have the last say

clearing out shit

what is

so on

do you love
anything
right now

if so
good

if not
la
la

can you love
not loving anything

bon chance

how to be happy even when you aren't happy

do the Work of Byron Katie

don't believe the unhappiness

be there, now, with the unhappiness and treat
the awareness as the main thing

breathe
and have something more important
to do with awareness

love it
all

love what "it" doesn't love

just decide to be both happy and unhappy
at the same time
and see what happens next

more
ideas
you write
'em

too "tired" to be present

a fine story

like the "too tired" to
be pleasant

"too tired" to be of
good cheer

"too tired" to get
anything done

stories
stories
stories

and are they true?


a good question
is
worth
a
lot

eh?

yes yes, no no and life goes on

i tried this on Sunday

no car
yes garden

no computer
yes reading

no compulsive working
yes puttering

turned
out to be a pretty
good
day

Index, January 1 - June 17, 2008

602. June 17, Tuesday, yes yes no no

601. June 14, Saturday, a foggy day: Life is Good, don't be too Good

600. June 12, Thursday, Brain Plasticity and Learning, and Linking

599. June 12, Thursday, Waking Up, now or later

598. June 11, Wednesday, Wind and Dream Dog/god

597. June 10, Tuesday, Sleep Market

596. June 9, Monday: choices

595. June 6: the joy of today

594. June 5: Irrigation, Learning vs. the old Rut

593. June 2: Vitality, 1

MAY 2008

592. May 28: yes

591. May 27: you're "fucked"

590. May 26: Lazy end of afternoon poem

589. May 24: What good is a Day?

588. May 22: I'm an idiot



587. May 20: Wonderful Movie, the Visitor

586. May 16: Sweetness of Learning, Life, Love and You

585. May 15: Losing Bets, hot day, ha ha

584. May 14: Farmer's Market and people are so cool

583. May 13: What is the Meaning of Life, Loss and...

582. May 8: Lose Weight, Get Smarter, Be Happier


581, May 6: maybe intro to "Up," the book of many aims and sweet intent

580. May 2: Things we are "afraid" of...

579. May 1: bipolar without the swings




APRIL 2008

578. April 28: same "old" stuff

577. April 25: What not love this...

576. April 24: "saving the world"

575. April 22: the glory of life and yes, we are ....

574. April 21: death, love, learning::: the glory of death

573. April 17: Does loving "what is" mean...

572. April 15: death, taxes, enlightenment, God, love, and so on

571. April 9: Life is Good

570. April 7: Gurdjieff meditation, funky fast version

569. April 5: Waiting

568. April 4, open the door, stand on the floor, ask for more, without wanting anything: Why Not?

567. April 2: Signs of Waking, 1

MARCH 2008

566. March 30: body and emotions: improve, enjoy, love

565. March 28: Love is what rain is what life is what is

564. March 26: Is that necessary?

563. March 24: Love is Waiting, what does THAT mean?

562. March 24: life is good, harmonious relationship

561. March 22: waking up to self and body and improvement via the Feldenkrais Method





560. March 20: Barack's speech on ....race and America

559. March 17: green and blue planet; soil and soul

558. March 14: Waking Up for Non Dummies: A start

557. March 12: what is good, sort of, a beginners list

556. March 8: soul and truth, soul and nonsense

555. March 4: the glory and sweetness of life, part 72

FEBRUARY 2008

554. Feb. 28: now, nature, love, the work of byron katie, and just being plain old present

553. Feb. 27: silence, days and night

552. Feb. 24: the vast current of life

551. Feb. 22:Waking Up to a Wonderful Life

550. feb 21: aging

549. feb. 19: back to rotating blogs

548, feb. 18: what's important, a lazy hinting

546. feb. 17: yes to now, for now, for love, and ease, and you/us/ life

545. feb. 15: Isa being God, poem

544. Feb. 14: valentine's day, loving as overflow, ho, ho

543. Feb. 12 day comes, day goes, sometimes we glows

542. feb. 11 monday and more rumi, waking, sunshine and whatnot

541. feb. 10 loving what is, even with..

540. feb.9 loving the non flattery of life

539. feb. 7: what is the true deep wish for our lives?

538/ feb. 4: rumi nations for a monday

537, ////feb 3: time for

536. Feb. 1: using ourselves and getting tiredness that is "real," whatever that is

JANUARY 2008

535. Jan. 31: all things end

534. Jan. 27: to move, and to aware, la, la, best game in town

533/ Jan. 26: this mess, and other stories

532. Jan. 25: this breath, this rain, this brain on and off of belief, hmmm

531. Jan. 24: love, remembering oneself, and other good shit

530. Jan. 23: waking and talking, hmmm , can we really do that??

529. Jan. 22: why do we love?

528. Jan. 21: the meaning of life and so on

527, Jan. 19: dreaming and being awake

526. Jan. 18: What's good about life?

525. Jan. 17: rumi of the day

524. Jan. 16: less force and more learning: towards a good life

523. Jan. 15: slow down to me, taking me own good advice

522. Jan. 14: happy society, Denmark, ideas from my sis

521. Jan. 13: "tired" is a great excuse

520. Jan. 12: staying awake, ???mistakes

519. Jan. 11: waking;;;late family christmas;;;good

518. Jan. 10: chi thing, rumi thing, poem thing, rain

517. Jan. 9: Parenting heaven, parenting hell

516. Jan. 8: More water, Rumi, learning

515. Jan. 7: Trinity within a Trinity

514. Jan. 6: What is the Real Work?

513. Jan. 5: Cold, Wet, Happy, shifting and alive in the now, sometimes

512. Jan. 4: Rain as metaphor, healer and math problem

511. Jan. 3: Dark Day, Rain Play, waiting to eat, so what

510. Jan. 2: parenting, resolutions, evolutions, devolutions, revolutions

509. Jan. 1: Hello "New," to me and you and you and
you

life is good

put plants
here
there
and everywhere
this
morning

taking advantage
of the sweet fog

then
had greens
and raw
chocolate for breakfast

and now
we are off
to see Marlie's
Pa
for fa's
day

la
la

breathing
doing
tai chi with rocks in hand
digging
talking with awareness that
this moment
is like
now

being told
i shouldn't say
things like
i said
in yesterday's
blog

all
sweet
life
is
good

Brain Plasticity

"Yesterday, Sonoma was graced with a visit from
Mike Merzenich
otherwise known, as Dr. Michael Merzenich
and he's a famous brain plasticity guy.

He discovered that monkey's brains,
if they learn something
and if it's marked for them,
if it's significant
(like learning leads to FOOD),
then their brain which lay
down neurons,
grow,
change.

He went on to make a program...."

this
rest of this
essay

plus a Movement Lesson
that will give your brain
learning
and help with
posture
vitality
sex
and vision

is over at the Brain Plasticity, Learning, Love and Vitality Blog

come on up

our phone message
says,
via my voice
and some radio shack machine:

"Messages for Marlie Wesner
and Chris Elms
....
Come on up
if you'd like to work the soil
or
wake up to now."

since people are
often afraid to work
and even more reluctant to work
in someone else's garden

few come up

and waking up?
is that a big draw?

not really

waking up
to now
is
hey,
something
to do later,
maybe on vacation in Mexico,
or this weekend
or
yeah, yeah, this is cool:
at the next Thing
at Spirit Rock,

and so the message's
tail
progaganda/
invitation/
weeding out
device

isn't listened to

it's just
whizzed by

and some message
is left
or
not

so be it

and
and
and...

and waking up
to now
and the soil

are always
here

always
waiting

in no hurry

(and
sometimes
i am
in a hurry
about this
for me
and
worst of all
for others)

oh, well
i'm a fool
sometimes

la
la

what else
is
new???

windy night, magic dog

all night
wind
wind

Marlie said she couldn't
sleep
went indoors

I wasn't so sure,
but didn't want to leave
the out
doors

and sleep
came
and a magic god
no
magic dog

either way:
the skin was like
a painting
sometimes blue
yellow
circle shapes
stripes

fun
dog

and
hmmm
i didn't even know
i was dreaming?

and now,
what makes "it" a dream

and when am "i"
awake


someone asked
last night,
from her "it" to mine
"how's it going?"

what do you say
with those questions
that aren't really
questions?

the market trance

many people
jazz even
food
lots of people around
mill mill
talk talk
eat eat

is anyone
awake

who knows?

choices

I have sweet
wonderful
plans
and
don't follow
my breathing

the plans are big
bigger than me
vast
far away


I have sweet
wonderful
plans
and
follow
my breathing

the plans
are a dream
something alive in
me is real
I'm pointed
toward something
all else
is wonderment
and mystery

I wonder
what will happen?

the joy of today

when i woke
the stars
were still shining

Marlie and I were outside
on a sweet wool and organic cotton mattress
under a wool comforter
on a sweet deck
under the sweet stars

then
the dawn
came,
no stars
no sun

then i got up
and did this
and that

put a little water on the garden
came inside and did some yoga
and Feldenkrais

now
i'm here
the sun
is up
and the
day is continuing
to be sweet

is this because
i'm
in the present
a bunch

i think
so

ciao

have
a sweet
and present
day
as your
present
to yourself

chris

Irrigation

IRRIGATION
One of the reasons I moved to Sonoma Valley was to be near Bob Cannard, Jr., soil shaman and green string farmer, who at the time (twelve years ago), was giving a horticultural class through the junior college. Bob taught about listening to the soil, about adding energy ingredients to the water (pine needles from a high energy forest, deer droppings from a free animal, herbs of various potencies and properties), about respecting weeds, about using rock dust.

He also said something that I’ve neglected to follow at times, always to my later regret. He said, “Before I plant something, I make sure my irrigation is in place.” Ah, yes. It’s so tempting in the nice wet spring to just “stick ‘em in” the ground, the soil being wet and the weather forgiving. And since we’ve just “stuck ‘em in,” when it gets hot and dry, we start to lug the hoses around, and that gets to be a habit and we have “too much” to do (always too much to do in a garden), and then we are lugging around hoses all summer. Each hose watering, say taking 45 minutes, whereas a drip system, once installed entails 10 seconds to turn on a valve and 10 seconds to turn it off. But now we are busy and the 3 hours to set up the drip (and especially, the additional couple hours of shopping for the stuff first time around) seems “too long,” and so the 45 minute waterings go on and on and on, until we’ve spend 50 hours on watering our garden instead of 5 minutes, all because we didn’t have the three hours (five really) to set up the drip system.

Now, if you’ve never set up drip, it can be a bit daunting, and the local supplier is probably not the best way to go. I’d recommend taking the long drive out to Harmony Farm Supply at the west edge of Sebastopol and getting someone there to help you get a real setup. You might want to combine that, if you have a free schedule, with a Wednesday trip to help in the garden at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Occidental. Another time I'll write more fully about that place, but if you want to see beautiful land and what a garden can be with twenty years of one person’s stewardship, this is a real treat.

Anyway, get yourself some half inch plastic tubing, and some of these things called “Barb and Loc Sleeve” (page 17 of Harmony Farm catalog), and some T tape, and something to reduce your water pressure a little and something to connect the hose outlet to the half inch line and you can have gobs of garden covered by one twist of the hose.

This sounds complicated.

Oh, well. Learning something new can either be exciting, if we go slow and really enjoy the process, or frustrating if we rush through and demand that we instantly know now what we don’t know yet.

In fact, “not yet,” as in, “I don’t know how to do a handstand, yet,” is one of life’s great gifts we can give to ourselves.

So maybe you have a nice irrigation system, maybe your irrigation system is Not Yet created. Good luck, and have fun learning and saving big batches of time if you do create one.

And, oh yeah: this saves a lot of water, usually, like 60% or more.

vitality

vitality
is
like this....

feeling excited to be alive

feeling excited to take a walk


feeling excited to learn a new way of doing something


feeling excited to meet a new person


or dancing

or singing


speaking of which:
Young at Heart
is a jazzy
version
of almost vitality

here's the vitality part:

doing things way out of the "comfort zone"

learning new things

getting enthusiastic about the new things

loving to have something to offer

doing something much more alive than the usual old people life of watching t.v. and going to doctor's appointment

being out in the world

having fun

dancing around with their whole bodies

singing with their whole spirits

getting emotional and happy and putting their whole selves into the music

it's a fun
movie

and yet:

wow,
with some Feldenkrais
or Anat Baniel Method
or even desk trainer
(see links at the side)
these people could have been using
their spines
relating to gravity
learning how to walk and move and not just sing
using air better
learning faster and easier

speaking of learning

the director
was a musician
and had the courage and foolheadedness to
push the old folks into shockingly new venues

and yet:
his way of "teaching" was just
more of the old stupidiy

which is,
if someone makes a mistake,
you don't try for understanding
or clarity,
you don't offer variation
and slowing down
and chances to learn,
no,
just
pounding away with the same old same old,
like this:
"Don't do it that way, that way is Wrong.
Do it this way, this way is Right."

This one sweet old guy
couldn't get a couple of lines right,
and instead of playing around,
getting him to purposely do them "wrong,"
and then creating a variation on that,
and then creating some fun ways to do it "right,"
the director just said,
you aren't getting it,
get it

la
la

and
how fine
to teach these guys who to go from sitting to
standing
how to stand so they are over their skeletons
how to wake up their ribs and spines to have more energy and sing
better


oh, well



see
the work
if you
like me
tend
to judge
the poor
old world

or your
wonderful
and imperfect
self

ciao
chris