love is this moment caressing itself

Love is important
and it goes like this:

you are amazing,
alive
and I cherish you just as you are

that's the honeymoon
phase
and why not have it always be the honeymoon

like this:
the Other does something that irriates
us
we see that as our problem
we got irritated

and we see it as a chance to play:
"Hey, I tweeked myself when you
did
so and so

is that weird, that I tweeked myself
or is that some insane notion
that you are supposed to always
do things just the way

I want you to do them?"



the quote means
you say it.
you speak to the other person
about the bother in you
and
you do NOT
blame them for the bother

you both get curious:

them about whether they wanted to tweek you

you get curious about: whether you have program
that the Other "should" do
what you wish the other to do

....
i know
i know
it sounds too simple

aren't we supposed to get in
conflict when we
"don't get our way?"

if we want to be unhappy
we can get into conflict

if we want to be happy
then curiosity
and good old fashioned
letting the other person be
who they are

goes a long way

and la
la
la

here's the deal:
until we wake up
there is no real happiness

what does that mean?

it means
in the present
love is always possible

out of the present
it's just our robot and theirs
either meshing
or not

hard reality
except
so fucking amazing:
we can come free any
now
and
now
is always right now,

no waiting wanting or coniving
it's right here

this one , too, of course

love
and such
to one
and all,
Chris

Ze Joy of eet All, yes, yez

this moment

fades
it is already gone

we don't know what the
next
will be
and
to surf that moment

is a thrill

an always available thrill

the ultimate cure for
boredom

and the only way to love

because if we love
we have to be seeing,
hearing,
touching,
smelling,
"getting"
the person in front of us,
right now,
otherwise we are interacting with
our story of them,
our mental construct

that's not love
that's the head
make a match
maybe even a "this is love"
match

but without the present,
smelling that rose,
you don't love
the rose,
just the idea of the rose

we are alive
this instant

that's an idea
until you experience the sweet amazing
wonder
of YOU
ALIVE

right now.

That's the new title page to me website:
SAVE THE WORLD:
WAKE THE F.... UP TO NOW!

The world is to the living

Without the Now
we are mindless creatures,
maybe in high grade automatic,
but still
mindless or mindful

and what's more fun?

wake up to this moment
and you won't even need to tell
me
or
yourself
or
anyone

the reward is there,
here
now

eternally
here
now

and...
hey, if we want a better life:

happier
more free in body,
thinking better,
contented soul

where to start?

where else can any action
come from
but
ze goot ole NOw

The Joy of Living Dangerously


PS to Sis: Address stuff fixded, I hope,
check to right

Goodnight Jesus

Easter came and is almost gone
and I didn't make it to church

but I was around a lot of people
in states of sharing and touch and love

dancing together

what would Jesus think?

Good
Life is good celebrate life

What was Jesus for?

To remind us to wake up
from the sleep of unforgiving
the sleep of resentment
tbe sleep of forgetting to love
our neighbors

Why is that a sleep?

What's not to love about the one
who lives next door?

They do what you want:
easy love.

They do what you don't want:
harder love
and you can love them for developing your love
muscle

and who can we love right
now
who is a bit hard

that's the Easter game
the egg to hunt

who are we holding out on loving
and what is the story
by which we are protecting ourselves
from loving
the "boundary" behind which our castle/ kingdom
can stay at war with theirs

give up the war
give up the kingdom
the kingdom is within

we are all one

hallelueh

ciao
and happy bunny

Chris

Taxes are taxing, death is relaxing, love is everlasting

taxes come
taxes go

the time of year
so near my birthday

and we can be taxed
or vexed
or tweeked
or rushed

or just sit down
and do
what we have to do
and follow our breathing
and look out the window at the birds
and take a walk
in now
(see my book, for many a "soul" chapter
in "walking in the now")
and remember:

we are alive
now
no matter what rigmarole life
is seeming to require of us

and then
we die

which,
with a story
can seem sad
scary
unfair
weird
whatever

and without the story:
it could be like going to sleep
at night

the hurry and worry and rush
and demands
all disappear

and the Sufi's
say: die before you die

have that death to the worrier
and the controller of others
and the unhappy one

have the death to stress
and trying to hard
and even
to being bored

die to the "later it will be time
to be happy"
and
just be happy now

on the way
to whatever is next

and when we do the Work of Byron Katie
and judge our neighbors
write it down
ask four questions
and turn it around

that turns into a little death:

the death of :
"so and so should have been better/ different/ more
the way I I I I me me me wanted"
and what's left after that?

freedom
love
release

love can be what's left when we
"die"
to the stories about how x and y and z
should be different

and we can improve
that's what huge amounts of my work is about

but let's love ourselves along the way

and working with the children:
love them exactly as they are
so we can be there with them
as they discover
as we help them discover
what can be next in their skills
and increased
love of life

and how does that incease?
noticing more

noticing more differences

noticing more of the glory of life
to be in love with

helping the children
to love more of themselves
and more
of life

what a nice job

what a nice job for anyone

helping ourselves and others
to love
life
more

good

happy April

Chris

1007: Smiling, laughing, etc

I have a friend,
you might even call her a girlfriend,
who is most beautiful when she smiles and laughs.
And yeah, the other thing, too.


And when she is present in talking to me,
or doing anything
she is doing.

And,
I have watched people in both Anat Baniel trainings and
Feldenkrais trainings
get more and more beautiful as the days went on
and as the training progressed.

So: what have we here:
Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholderl
if the beholder is me,
but in the presence and joy
of the person at whom we are looking.

And what does that mean?

It means:
be nice to your love ones
so they'll smile and laugh and be more beautiful.

It means: be present
around your loved one
so they will feel calmer and more at ease
and more present themselves
and then will be more beautiful and the we'll enjoy
looking at them more

High level selfishness this:
be kind and present and joyful around people
and you'll have a nicer world to look at

good fun,
eh?

ps, coming to Texas for the "warm winters" seemed a "good idea" Friday as the temps hung out in the 70's
and today, in the 20's, well:
the old saying:
"Want to make God laugh:  have a plan."

take ease
chris

1005: Love as ACTION not feeling ( And feeling good is good)

Penina's painting, copy for sale, come to our i love you i love you thank you pre-valentine's day sale, Jan 29-30, in Austin. Email me for directions and a pdf flyer. first 32 sections (0f 108) from Tao of Now also for sale, and mini "lessons" in the Anat Baniel Method

Here's the pdf.

Double click (? left click, right)  on the pic
and in my computer anyway it

expands out all big and beautiful.

Who knows what it will do for you.

And maybe next Friday's essay will be on Loving What is,

since Byron Katie is going to be in town (Austin, town)

THE ESSAY FOR THE FRIDAY THE NAME OF TODAY

AND WHAT IS "TODAY"

ANYWAY?

ONE MORE CHANCE TO LOVE

AND LEARN ABOUT LOVING

AND LOVE 

ABOUT LEARNING

AND LEARN

ABOUT LEARNING:

We want love, sure, all of us do

and
when we are lucky
we feel love as who we are
and
ACT in ways that 
Take care of,
Nourish,
Adore,
Enhance,
Give attention,
Pleasure,
Awaken,
Calm,
Happify,
Relax,
Release,
Stimulate,Delight
Light up
Lighten
Brighten

Another person.

This is our job in life,
maybe,
what with concepts like
"life purpose,"
"life mission,"
"what I was meant to do,"
and so on,
all fraught with peril if they come into the good old
awful
"should" machine.

And, who knows what the purpose of a living being is.


the famous quote, true/ untrue from Bach
when asked why 22 kids and a zillion works of music:

"For my own amusement
and
the Glory of God."

That doesn't include all the above definitions of love
as an
action
except
one,
a very nice one:

amusing himself:  love

glorifying God: love

So to the list of the actions results of loving
another
we can add:

Amusing
Glorifying

and we can re invent the directionality of the list and say:

these are all the results of and'/ or intentions in
one;
loving others
two:
loving ourselves

and underneath it all:
maybe something like this

loving being a live
even the time we waste looking at a computer forgetting that we are
breathing
and have a spine
and a smile
and sexual organs
and ten toes
and ten fingers

but we could be
shoulders
ribs
pelvis
hip joints
thighs
be remembering that
and would
that not be something like the
famous
LOVE

giving ourselves that sort of attention?

methinks so.
how about you?

Love, 22 minutes to mull this jewel of life

In life we venture out sometimes and bump
up against someone with whom
the sparks fly,
the laughter is easy,
the touch is nice,
the words come straight and true.

Or so we think.
And then, sooner, later, they turn out to be
gasp
just like us
oh, no,
gasp again
imperfect.

As Katie (as in Byron Katie, via thework.com) would say:
Oh, well.

But we don't say, "Oh, well."
we say,  "Oh, hell,
what have we done,
sold our soul
into trouble and damnation."

And then we go about
"fixing" things.

Now in the Feldenkrais work and the Anat Baniel Method,
we don't go about "fixing" people's "bodies."

I refuse even to call what I do there "bodywork."

We are doing whole system upgrading and if that
"fixes" a knee or shoulder or hip or back,
so be it,
but the finished lesson means this:
the person is newer and more true to how they
could best be in life.

And in love,
we forget about whole person upgrading,
especially whole person upgrading of ourselves.

The other person does X
wrong.
This bothers us.

Solution:
get them to stop doing X.

Now, love that isn't "love"
might realize that there are always more than
one solution
and the solution that isn't joyous
and present
isn't a real solution at all.

So, here's another "solution,"
we stop being bothered when the other person
does X.

Another solution,
We are charmed when the other person does X

Another solution,
we are sympathetic to watching more closely
when they do X

Are they in pain

Is this some pattern dropped on them by parents

Are they avoiding expressing something else that is bothering them

And then,
and then,
and then,
the glory of
A. the work of Byron Katie
B. new age slop crap: the other person is the mirror
C. old age Jesus stop about don't get hung up about the
speck in your neighbor's eye
when ya'll gots
a big old log in your own.
(always a tricky metaphor to visualize,
for me,
anyway)

So , in Katie land its called the turn around:

our buddy friend lover love
does
X
and it bugs us

How do we do X?

To ourselves.

To our friend lover mate.

To the world.

So: like this.

Our love is not respectful
in certain circumstances.

Oh My God.
What an awful thing.

Or
Oh, well,
that's the way they are sometimes

Or,
curiosity:
what's really bothering them
and keeping them from being present
when they are being disrespectful?

Or:
the turn around:
when have when been unrespectful and or
disrespectful

to the lover friend person?

to ourselves?

to other people in our lives?


And then,
of course,
the whole boring and always true
family history slop:
when were and how were they/ we
treated dis and or un respectfully when
we were the small dependent creatures
that we are
when we are young?

So,
when the buddy friend love lover
is disrespectful
we have lots of options:

get tweeked

complain to them

complain to our friends

give them ultimatums

give ourselves anger fear depression obsession worry

or

WAKE UP

smell the humanity:

ah, they are imperfect
what's going on

how can I be so present that this behavior
isn't pulling me out of the miracle
joy of
knowing I'm alive

how can I take my tweeking
as a reminder that
I haven't always been treated well
and haven't learned
yet,
that other people just do this and that
sometimes
even though we wish they wouldn't


So,
here's love
here's life:

someone comes along and we get to learn this
about love:

love is an action

the action of loving another person
not only when they are Ms Perfect or Mr Perfect
but when they are
life us:
imperfect



"love is blind"
yeah, yeah:
especially when we think we have finally met the
perfect one

but love should be "blind"
in the sense that
looking at and obsessing on the imperfections
blinds us
to the glory:

we are to miraculous people
together,
for some reason

in this miracle of life


(and that's 22 minutes)

love
Chris

the importance of love

sometimes people we love are angry with us

oh, well

that's their job, just then: to be angry

it's almost always because they are feeling raw and hurt and bruised
inside

and are being mean to themselves inside

and imagine that we are being mean to them

and hey, sometimes we are

and sometimes we aren't

and hey, hey
they are angry
and they either get over it
or don't

and we can just
keep on loving

good

"Love," "Being In Love," Woody Allen, mindfulness, stupidity

i know you aren't supposed to say
Woody Allen is stupid
and he does make halfway
intelligent movies

ah,
yes,
and one,
if one is me,
wishes so much for the other half of intelligence

Vicki Christina Barcelona
goes on and on,
has some hot sex,
even a trio that has the dark woman
and the "blond" (bottle blond)
and the dark handsome scruffy artist
huggy huggy kiss, kiss

and somehow "being in love"
is the goal
of life
and no one in the movie
betrays an ounce of awareness of either
what love
is
or what
being in love is

oh, well

so,
let's make a little stab at it:

"love" is wanting, wishing and acting
such that the one
you "love"
will have a good, happy, and wonderful life

"being in love"
is that sort of romantic opening,
when people come out of their little
me/ me/ me shell and realize:
ohmygod, there is another person
in the world,
and they are fascinated and thrilled
by that person
and obsess about that person
and want to be around that person
and if luck has it
get to do wet goey wild sex with that person
which makes the myth:
this person is the one who makes it all
happy, happy, happy for me
seem to be true

so:
"being in love"
is sweet:
a realization of the wonder of another being
and nuts:
a story that the other person is
making the happiness that is firing off
inside

what's really happening is
that
when we "fall in love"
we shut down our "staying out of love"
mechanism,
through which most of our life operates

and how does the
"staying out of love" mechanism work?

I am worse than
you
I am better than
you
I am different than
you
You scare me, worry me, annoy me

We are separate
and what I see is how you will impact my
me/ me/ me world

the world of business
that world of war
the world of politics
the world of popularity and celebrity
and manipulation

most of the world

and then we take a walk
and
if lucky:
"fall in love"
with the sky, or a rose,
or a passing smiling person
or a cloud
or being alive

anything's possible
and being alive
is the miracle

being in love
could be
being in love
with possibility
life
the Universe
the miracle of Now

something like that

and so
mindfulness brings us
to loving the whole world
and stupidity
keeps us searching
for just the Right One
for Being in Love

sounds harsh,
and it's stupidity to believe
in any words
over the experience of now,
even these

---

la,
la

such sweet stuff,
and do I have to drag up gunk over at
108 days?

no.
don't have to,
no requirement
to dig in and do the work every
day

and I will:
the work isn't over until I've cleaned up
all the residual gripes and complaints
and worries and fears and angers:

it's a lot
and it's the gold mine of compost
for the heart and soul:

today:
Marlie should want to form an amazing combination
of yoga and Feldenkrais/ Anat Baniel thinking with me:
Is that true?