Again? Yes. DAY ONE: Breathing, Awaring, Living, Yes!

We breathe all the time. We can be aware of our breathing. We can be aware of the difference being aware of our breathing makes. We can be aware of this action of ‘awaring,’ and get a sense of how central that is to being human.

As long as we are alive, we are breathing. We are breathing and we can know this, or not know this.

We have a brain that learns by noticing differences.

We have an awareness that wakes up when we return to being aware of life as it is, right now.

We have the ability to wake up to the reality that we haven’t been living in the now, over the last bit of our lives.

This is all good, great, wonderful amazing.



This book is an idea, a series of ideas and adventures and possibilities: ways of exploring a waking and vital and amusing and pleasure and love filled life. You might enjoy it.


There are 108 practices/ activities/ meditations/ games / things to try/ experiments, maybe to be done over 108 days.


Here’s day one’s:

Today’s game, what is the difference we can notice when we remember, follow and sense our breathing.


A whole lot of this 108 day journey will be about “sensing” ourselves while we go about “everyday” life, which is in itself a bit of an amazing miracle. And when we “sense” ourselves, we seem to more deeply and immediately connect with our being aliveness, whatever that is. An experience, surely, beyond words.


“Sensing” means feeling ourselves from the inside, as if our awareness were a hand. You can sense the inside of your hand, or the top of your neck, or the back of your left leg, or your right ankle. Or shift: sense your right big toe and your left thumb, and then your breathing and then your left foot.

The YOU inside you has the ability to move your awareness around and sense different parts of yourself.

Sensing.

This is the word for feeling ourselves physically. Can you sense right now where your right arm is, and the shape of it and the feel of it from the inside and outside, the bones and muscles and skin and aliveness of your arm?

Now sense your left arm.

How did you make that switch?

The YOU of you did it, is my idea.

And YOU are the one I am inviting on this 108 day journey of discovery.

Please take “time” today to sense yourself, in all sorts of ways. Take time away from, or in addition to scurrying down all the habitual grooves of thought, talk and behavior. Time away, or underneath to come back to breathing in, breathing out, and the sensation, the “sensing” in yourself as you do this.

Obviously this can change your whole life.

Notice, and notice again, the change when we return to awaring and sensing your breathing.

What does awaring mean?

Experience this for yourself. Discover. Play around. This is YOU. The game is waking up to our lives.

A good game, I think. What you discover will be what you discover.

108 days of nowing, day one

1. NOW
Breathing, sensing, 5 lines

As long as I am alive, I am breathing. Can I have the richness of life, where many times in the day, I know I am breathing, when I feel the sensation of my breath coming in and out.

Sensing.

This is the word for feeling myself physically. For you feeling yourself physically. Can you sense right now where your right arm is, and the shape of it and the feel of it from the inside and outside, the bones and muscles and skin and aliveness of your arm?

Sensing.

This is the way to wake up to now. To sense our breathing while we are breathing, to sense our body in its particular shape. Right now.

What is the shape and sensation of my arms and legs and spine?

What is the sweet feeling inside my spine that connects my two arms and two legs.
Can I sense the five lines of myself, two arms, two legs, and spine?
And follow my breathing while I do this?


There is more to being an awake human being, but this is a good start. Would you like to join me on this journey?

The journey will last 108 days. Each day will offer something small or large to follow in our awareness, in our waking up to now.

Today is one of sensing: two arms, two legs, our spine, our breathing? Can we do this while eating and working and reading and resting and even talking?

Even a minute or two of this can change our lives forever.

five paths, when is hearthbreak heartbreak?

five paths for my
life
and perhaps for my assistance to
you
as well as myself:

Mindfulness

Loving

Serving

Caring for the Earth

Learning


In there comes a yoga beyond yoga,
based on being present
and learning
and kindness to ourselves so that every person
in every class learns how to move more easily
in their everyday life,
not just attempts to get "better" at various poses.

In there:
moving with mindfulness and ease
if ailing in back, shoulders or neck

In there:
moving with more ease
and grace
to dance, walk, ride horses,
garden, do sports,
whatever you love
in a way more pleasing and fun

In there:
learning to talk and be present

In there:
learning to garden and
go about ecological action
in a soft and sweet and
mindful way

In there:
finding the love
inside of so called heartbreak
and learning how far
and wide we can fly
with something far more vast
than the usual "forgiveness"

The self is small
the Big Self is immense

One is the false home
one the real

that's the whole journey
really,
and then sharing, caring
and helping others with the journey

ciao
Chris

..
and today's exploration,
treat,
inquiry
at 108 Days: Undoing a Wonderful Relationship
with Love and Learning is:

Marlie and I are insane to be undoing
something when we are so wonderful and aware
and have such good times a lot:

Is that true?

uncondtional love

ah yes,
unconditional love,
my
my
my

it
sounds good doesn't it?

unconditional love.

and it feels good.

really good.

but, only if we are really doing
it:
loving the other just the way
they are
all the warts
and nasty looks
and complaints
and unfair remarks
and demands

the total them:

when we are there,
we are loving What Is,
and we are free

and maybe you can jump there

usually I can't hop right over
when I find myself miserable
and annoyed by someone else

sometimes coming into
the total present
will spring me lose
and let me look, hear and allow
the other to be exactly as they are

usually, though,
it takes the Work of Byron Katie
which by encouraging me
to go to my crap first,
with its

easy/ hard/ amazing path:

Judge Your Neighbor (or Reality)
Write it Down
Ask four questions
Turn it Around

First two steps
judge,
and then
write down the thought that I think
blames
the world
for my suffering
and then examine (ask four questions,
turn it around)
what's really happening.

That,
if I follow on through,
can get me to the other side,
on over to unconditional love.

(Since this site
is partially the place I want people to end up
who are wish to discover the "work"
I offer,
I'm moving the in detail Work on the Marlie and Chris thing
over to another blog
which is called Testing Some (Reality) Two,
but for click over purposes I'll call it
108 Days


So there, in
108 Days
I'll keep up my public examination,
of how to love
and leave
and learn
and undo
all at the same time


and in this blog
good old ongoing
SlowSonoma.com
I'll roam between the four places I think I
have most to offer:

Loving Nature
(including healthy eating,
being outside
gardening
permaculture,
all that good stuff)

Being Present

The Byron Katie Work

The Anat Baniel Method and
Feldenkrais work.

Please keep up
with this if you want,
and let me know
what, if anything you are learning,
and how this is helping you,
and how it could be of more help.

Thanks
Chris