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

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

Happiness Now, 2

This is a mallow plant.

At the end of Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat, a discouraged gopher, living in heaven
in a yard full of mallow, and hence mallow roots, has to leave his
garden of eden because there are no females in this food filled heaven.

Mallow is a hibiscus relative,
and hence is edible.

I ran some through my wheat grass
hand grind juicer
with wheat grass
home grown
this morning.

Is this a way to happiness?
One way.

Taking a walk
is another.

Following my breathing
is another.


Finding my skeleton
and breathing and noticing them,
and then playing with them
is another.

Being aware
of this
moment
as the unique
present
that it is

is always the path
back to happiness
now

this now
different
than the now
when the little essay/ poem
started

moving along
breathing in
yes
breathing out
yes
light coming in
our eyes
yes
feeling our skeleton
in gravity
yes
sounds coming in
our ears
what is our skin
touching

the now
is so
full

and if we keep
the stories
out
or question
the stories
(see, as always, The Work of Byron Katie)
or look at them with amused
side glances
of delight
and realization

realing this:
we can always
come back home
to a stillness
to
a noticing
to a
nowing
to
an awareness

of being alive
right now

yes

Spiritual Yoga, Paths to Heaven

DNA YOGA:
DISCOVERY
NATURE
ANANDA

Move safely.
Use the brilliance of the Feldenkrais Method® to discover more ease.
Include spiritual and emotion affirmations, as part of the practice.
Rest between each pose.
Meet outdoors, connect to Nature inside you and outside.


SEVEN PATHS TO HEAVEN:

DNA Yoga
Wake Up Feldenkrais
The Work of Byron Katie
Nature Connection, Permaculture
Slowing Down
Happiness
Now

Sleeping Life, and Life with Divine at the Center

Sleeping life is thus:

doing what we always do.

Doing what we hope, want others to approve of.

Doing what we are "supposed" to.

Having a mind full of "thoughts,"
which are auditory hallucinations of us saying the same things,
over and over and over.

Responding according to program.
Even,
sadly at Ananda:
how do you feel asked by teacher,
and the robot
response:
Awake and Ready.
Ready yes, to please,
but awake,
to the feel of feet on floor,
the vibration of sound in throat,
the quality of light
Right Now.

Usually not.

And yet,
a big longing for Ananda
at least they knew
and wanted
connection to
Something More,
Something Higher.

The Divine in life,
the Delight at the Center of it all,
the Joy that Haffiz
sparkles us to
over and over in his poems.

So, what's next
for this seeker,
who isn't clear how to get
what he's seeking?

The work of Byron Katie
as usual,
leads me
and anyone straight to heaven.

Is it true
I should know exactly or even slightly more than I do
what to do next?

Nah.

If I want more clarity than I have
what happens:
unhappiness.

If i give up the story
of wanting a clear way
to resolve the longing,
who am I?
Free,
delighted.
Divine.
Perfect.

Just the way
you are
without your story.

Coming Soon: DNA Yoga

Well,
just what the world needs, right,
a new form of yoga?

And then,
again,
in a way,
this is a return to the ancient form of yoga,
and perhaps it is exactly what the world needs.

And what is the ancient form?
A search for inner stillness
and inner peace
and inner connection
to Something Higher,
either in ourselves
or in the Universe.

Ananda (the A in DNA) Yoga,
is all about connecting to this Higher.
The intension is the concentrate on
sending energy up the spine
to the area of the front brain
called the third eye.

To help this along
every pose
has an affirmation attached:
With calm Faith I open to Thy Light.
I am calm and poised.
I joyfully manifest the power of God (my Higher Self)

and so on.

DNA

Discovery.
As in taking advantage of how Moshe Feldenkrais
re-explored how children learn,
by "mistakes:"
and variations
and experimenting
and being in the process.
Yoga is often so dreary with its
emphasis on
This is the Right Way.

The Right Way
may indeed be a fine way,
but if the human being
can't discover and know that
for herself or himself,
it's just one more Rule
that is pushing us around.

So, DNA yoga will be about discovery.

And N,
Nature.
As much as possible,
classes will be outside,
bare feet on grass, for
the standing poses.

As much as possible
the class will be about not
Doing it Right,
but discovering
what it is to be a human being,
a breathing
and living in gravity
and having awareness
human being on this planet earth.

A
for Ananda Yoga.

A for
Awareness.

a delight.
a way out of our misery
a way back to ourselves.
a way to wake up
to the glory of life.

Call me
if you have a time
you'd like this
DNA yoga to be taught.

707-996-1437

'
Also:
weekend workshops'
will be set up
to combine DNA yoga,
Feldenkrais
and the Work of Byron Katie

Talk about transformative possibilities.

Wow.

common to the Work of Byron Katie and Feldenkrais

Both don't say:
you have to change.

Both open a door:
you can feel better,
be happy,
be more free.

Both don't tell you
what you are doing wrong.

Both allow you to discover
and at some deep level
decide
to make a change
if it's sweet and good for you,

by providing an options

by providing options.


If we are unhappy,
the katie work says:

judge your neighbor (know your pattern,
don't try to be too good)

write it down (slow down the obsessive thoughts
behind all suffering)


ask four questions
(let mind meet mind,
use the power of comparison
to heal,
not as often, to dig ourselves into a hole)

turn it around
(try a completely opposite pattern)


The four questions:
is it true?
can i absolutely know it's true?
how do i react when i believe that story or thought or belief?
who would i be without the belief?

Two sets of comparing:
is it true, vs, is it a belief, story, opinion, interpretation

how am i when i attach to the belief
who would i be without this attaching and believing?

no command to stop
the belief
an experiment


The Feldenkrais Method
allows
us to try our habitual pattern,
and
then add on this alternative
and that variation,

try it in different
configurations
than we usually do
(on ground, on side, on stomach, back and so on)

change speed pattern:
slow down

change unconscious moving pattern:
pay attention

change having to get something done,
and done Right pattern:
explore

we become young
empty
learners again

a whole new world
opens up


is this fine?

Yes.

Not eating dinner

Not eating dinner seemed like a great idea
at six thirty

but now
at nine thirty
i'm way hungry

is that true?
apparently.

can i absolutely know that's true?
hmmm.

when i attach to the belief:
this is too hard,
i'm going to starve
or hurt myself,
or deprive myself
or miss out on something

without the story:
amused that the stomach
can be such a big shot
in my life
amused at these sensations

in love with myself
and life

Nothing to Say

Is that true?

Well, once I ask that question,
I recall how wonderful it has been
to have the Work of Byron Katie
as the system I find most human
and useful
for those troubled moments in life
when something doesn't go my way.

Funny about life,
how it hasn't woken up
to it's job
of making everything just so
comfie, comfie,
flattering to my image
for me.

Alas,
of course,
then there's the turn around:
I haven't woken up
to realizing that it's my job
to make this life what i want it
to be.

And what is that?
Happy.
Aware.
Useful to others.
Creative.
Learning.
Useful to nature.
Happy when the yap yap mouth starts yapping.
Aware and awake when the yao yap mouth starts yapping.

ah,
the tongue
organ of taste
organ of speech
organ of conditioning

our mother tongue,
the lie:
these words are reality,
the miracle:
these words can makes sense to other
people
the drag:
these words can tell us what to do
and who we are
and shame and twist us
the glory:
these words
can sometimes be sprung loose
and be used to remind us
of the glory
when we are
quiet
and not in words
but in Reality

what is reality?
who we are without the story,
which brings us back to katie
and to the end of this little entry.

a bit to say
after all.

la,
la

Is Yoga a Religion ?

Carl Jung once, supposedly, said a pretty fun thing,
sort of like this:

God wanted to help humanity out
so she gave them spiritual pathways
to find the way back to Her

Commenting to the Devil on
how great this way,
the Devil said,
"No sweat,
I'll just turn that stuff into
institutions and religion,
and then I'll have 'em all coming
right on back to me."

So is yoga a religion,
in the sense of Jung's distinction,
with,
to me,
hints that religion is rigid
and rule bound
and pretty much an enslaving activity
disguised as something to do with
uniting or serving God,
whatever God is.

Some yoga seems like a religion
to me.
Bikram for example.
Very rigid, very dognatic,
no room to explore,
discover,
come to your own truth,
all set down from on high,
lots of effort,
no questioning,
no joy,
no inner stillness.

Lots of the Hollywood flash,
body building yoga,
seems like a religion,
worshiping at the altar of Eternal Youth,
or bust.

Some of the yoga or
nothing else people
(as in no Feldenkrais,
for example,
for some reason, I bring that up)
seem mired in true believerdom
which is what makes a religion,
in many ways.

So how about Ananda Yoga?
Is it a spiritual practice,
focused on finding a route for people to
connect with the Highest in themselves
and in their life?

To a large extent it is.
Some of it gets into what I'd call
the religion trap
when the reasons for doing something
are of the
Thus Spake Yogananda,
or
Thus Spake Swami Kryananda,
therefore it must be true.

By in large, though,
the essence of Ananda Yoga
is intensely spiritual,
to help people find and connect
to something Higher in themselves,
be that called God
or their Higher Self.

This is what spiritual work
is about,
and the path can be
Nature,
or being present,
or serving humanity,
or even passionate simplicity and stillness.
But it all points to something deeper
or higher or more "real"
than the muck and shuck of
ongoing ordinary
run around in robot circles life.

I plan to use it as a spiritual
path,
as well as the Byron Katie work,
and the be present work,
and the see the God in nature
and everyone work.

Some have even said,
no it's not a religion,
it's a science,
but even that statement to
me
is just more true believerism.

And from the Byron Katie
perspective,
Blessed be the true believers
and blessed be the unbelievers,
and blessed be the power yoga people
and the hot yoga people
and the snarling dance sex bod people.

For me,
what i wanted when i came to learn Ananda
Yoga was
something to get back to Patanjali's
Second sutra:
Yogas chitta vriti narodah.
Yoga is the stillness and calming
or the whirlpools of thought/feeling/attachment/belief
in our consciousness.

In the stillness,
there lies the path of spirit,
at least as far as I know so far.

That's the long answer:
the short answer
to
Is Yoga a Religion?
Yes, to some people.
Sometimes the religion
of My Body
sometimes the religion
of Doing it Right

To some people
yoga is a spiritual path
and I say,
horaay
for them,
and us on that path.

rain, rainbows, byron katie, life, yoga, and so on

today,
the six o'clock get up bell
and the six o'clock sun
met the six o'clock drizzle
rain
and
lo,
rainbows,
and double rainbows

rain in july

is the world upside down
of what
nice for the deer,
hard for the fires later,
great for the air,
fun for the shaking up
of all our set ideas
of how it's
"supposed to be."

people at dinner interested
in hearing about Byron Katie
and her weird lineage:
alcoholism,
obesity,
raging,
depression
and then
waking up
weirdly,
in Barstow,
to the nothingness of herself
and all the thoughts
that kept that myth
supported,
and her love for
anything and everything
in front of her

good world

tired today

learning goes on
Feldenkrais
classes popular.

So nice to do so little
in the efforting department,
and get such huge results.

Fun.

Ciao
Chris

If we want to be happy

We can do a couple of really great things.

One,
we can decide that this is our right
and our duty to be joyous
into the world.
Joyous as an affirmation
of why we are here,
in the midst of this miracle of life.

Two,
we can pull the plug on our unhappiness.
Easiest and most thorough
to do this,
is one vriti at a time.
Here the good old Work of Byron Katie
helps wash away our suffering
and makes it very clear how to
deal with other people.

three,
get clear,
as Byron Katie says,
that what other people do, say and feel and think
is their business.
If we let it get to us,
that's something we
did to us,
and we can do the work on.

If we wish to be free.

Four,
wish to be free.

Five,
live in the present
where there are no
words to make ourselves
miserable with
by discribing any story
about how what is
should be different.

No words,
no comparisons that lead to suffering.

Good comparison:
which is warmer right now,
your right or your left hand.
Which feels longer: your spine
or your left leg.

Six,
find real things to pay attention to.

SEven,
have some awareness and gratitude
reserved for the miracles,
the miracle of having awareness,
and life,
and being in this great game.

Ciao,
Chris

Awakened Beings and Suchnot

The nice thing about Byron Katie
(you know, thework.com
is that though she shows all the signs
of an awakened being:
no desires,
no real sense of self
(listen to her or read the latest,
Thousand Names for Joy,
where she enjoys her body,
doesn't think it's real,
loves being a woman,
doesn't think that's real,
loves the sights and sounds
of the world
and doesn't think they are real).

To finish the sentence:
even though she shows all the signs,
she never uses the word
enlightened,
or realized,
says that's just one more concept
to take us away from reality.
won't claim anything
except to have had
"a moment of clarity"
which just happened
to have radically changed
her life.

She doesn't even have desires
that people do her work.
It's just there,
and she keeps offering it,
because people keep asking.


when she's with people
she says that our suffering
and what we are going through,
she can understand from our point of view,
from hers none of it exists
and since there is nothing left
of her,
we are her
when she is in interaction with us.

One of my favorite times with her
was at one Nine Day School
she came into the room
(no bowing or whatnot,
just smiles of love
to everyone in front of her)
beaming
and said:
"Isn't it a beautiful day,
even though none of it is real."

Another favorite
at a New Year's Juice Fast,
people getting cranky,
someone stands up and starts
chewing her out,
she's beaming,
lets the woman finish,
and says to everyone:
"Don't you just love it.
Isn't she speaking for all of us."

So be it.
Fun

Contentment,,,,,, Satosha

Here we are studying all sorts of things.

Part of the study is
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras,
short verses
that explain
a life that will lead to spiritual advancement
and ultimately liberation.

Whatever that is.

Let's start with the doable:
Loving What Is.

Santosha
is the Niyama
that says: cultivate contentment.

Which is nice,
as in being happy
when things go our way.
Most of us can do that.

And be happy when things
don't go our way.

And how to do that.
Well, it should be no suprise
to anyone who has read in here,
I'd suggest
the The Work of Byron Katie
a gal who Woke Up
in the desert town of Barstow, California,
with no spiritual practice
but only a deep wish to die.
She was an alcoholic, obese, chainsmoking,
depressed and raging.
So she had reason to want all that to die.

And one day it did
and she was left with nothing.
Only bliss.
People had to explain that she had a name,
that she was a woman, that she was a wife,
a mother.
For awhile they had to pin her name to
here when she'd go wandering around,
because she had no identification with that.

And her
gift?>

Well, she discovered, brief moments of unbliss would
arise,
always from a thought,
and that by following this path,
she'd be back in bliss

Judge Your Neighbor
Write it Down
Ask four Questions
Turn it around.

When discontent,
write down
the "should" or the "shouldn't"
that you are throwing away your joy for.
Do the four questions.
Find the turn around.

Where are the four questions?
See once more,
if you wish
The Work of Byron Katie
(and Katie never wants anyone to
do her work unless they want to,
never prizes anyone more for doing it
than rejecting it)

And if you aren't more content
do the work
again
on your annoyance that it didn't happen
instantly
or do the work more deeply.

It works
if we do.

Ciao
Chris

Happy Monday

One way of looking at yoga is as a chance to return to a
connection to our bodies,
to an enjoyment of moving in precise
and conscious way.

Another way of looking at yoga is as a chance to
slow down the rush of the world and
come inward with our attention and energy
and thus recharge ourselves.

Another way of looking at yoga,
is as a chance to become that which
we are at our core:
stillness
that is as vast as the universe.

Thus the second sutra of Patanjali:
yogas chitta vritti narodah:
Yoga is the stilling of the whirlpools of our feeling driven thoughts.

As if coming to the center, the eye of the huricance,
yoga can,
sometimes,
bring us to a stillness and peace
that is truly who we are.

And, as those who've read these remarks
over the years know,
the Work of Byron Katie
is another path
to still the rushing of thoughts
thoughts that lead us to suffering.

And the Feldenkrais Way
in a strange and beautiful way,
can lead us back to the glory
of awarenss and learning
as pathways to the Bigger Self that is
down there
inside our little self,
waiting to be discovered.

The Work of Byron Katie

We are alive

We go about our days

Life is what it is.

Thoughts come up, in our minds, and suddenly unhappiness descends.

We can tell the thoughts to go away.
We can go to affirmation.

We can write the thought down,
or get it clear in our mind
as a set of words.

and then question:
is this thought true?
can i absolutely know this thought is true?
what are the fruits in my life and feelings and actions of believing this thought?
who would i be without this thought?

and then,
what is the upside down,
the turn around of this thought?

So and so should be nicer to me
turns around to
i should be nicer to so and so
and i should be nicer to me.

then, we go about our business of
loving
life
and ourselves
and others
until another thought comes along
and we can then question that

a game of love
and learning
and freedom

better put,
for sure,
at TheWork.com

Wonderful Relationship, part 12

Sometimes we go about ruining our relationships with complaining. Our friend / partner/ lover is doing something we don’t like and we yap, yap, yap, about “You always do this.” And it’s twin, “You never ….”

The first question of the Work of Byron Katie: Is it true? Should be enough to get us laughing about our always and never statements.

But, what do we really want?

Well, at one level we want them to do something different.

Say, they pick food off our plate and we don’t like that.

We can COMPLAIN: “You are such a pig. You act like everything is yours.”

We can DEMAND: “This drives me crazy. You have to stop this.”

We can REQUEST: “I’d really like it if you’d stop picking food off my plate.”


Now, a request is a hidden demand if the person has to only reply to our request in the way we want.

So, say for some reason, they just love to pick to food off our plate, or keep forgetting and do it now and then.


Here’s an interesting distinction: love vs getting our way.

If we have to get our way, we can keep demanding, or complaining or requesting. If we can get beyond that it’s all about me syndrome, then sometimes we can request again, and sometimes just be charmed at the way they do whatever they do, including drive us crazy sometimes.


If we can only love the other person when things are done our way, we don’t really know what love is yet.

Awareness + Look for the New + Forgiveness = a Start to Wonderful Relationship

WONDERFUL RELATIONSHIP
This month, on April 29, Sunday, from 12 to 6, with an hour off for lunch at 2, I'll be hosting a workshop on how to have or move toward (if you are single) a Wonder-Full relationship.(See Current Offerings) To build background for this workshop, the Monday essays in Slow Sonoma will be on relationship this month. .

(The blog essays will now be once a week, on Mondays in here, on Wednesdays at WakeUp Feldenkrais, and on Fridays at The Health Blog).

So, let's start with three fine ingredients in having or attracting a Wonderful Relationship.

BE PRESENT.
This sounds so simple, and is the key to a wonderful life as well as a wonderful relationship, and yet we forget this so often.

When we are present, we actually listen to, look at, enjoy and pay attention to the person with whom we are spending time. If this is our partner, then we will be allowing them to be themselves, and will be giving ourselves a chance to enjoy the miracle of their being alive and in our life.

If we are single, to pay real attention to others is to allow them to show themselves at their best, and who knows, one of these people might show themselves to be someone we could really enjoy.

Notice how in speaking we so often lose the present by talking inside our heads the words we want to say next even while the other person is still talking. So we aren't in the moment, we aren't with them, we are stuck on ourselves and don't know them, and can't really learn about them. By not being present, we lose the ability to listen, and when we can't listen, we can't really connect.

No listening = no love.

Also, and this is HUGE:
if we are present, we can be giving ourselves attention, attention to our breathing, attention to being in our bones and skin and shape and connections, attention to the sights and sounds and delights of now. And, when we are giving ourselves real attention, especially when we are sensing ourselves, we aren't going to be in the oh so pitifully normal state of humanity
of striving to get attention from others outside us.

If we can have our attention on ourselves, then we can love another, or enjoy another, instead of just wanting, waiting, scheming and demanding of their attention for us.

So, be present.


BE EXCITED ABOUT NEWNESS
Now, in an old marriage or relationship, this can be greatly underappreciated. We can take the other for granted, or even worse, only be looking at them to do the same old wrong thing again. We have them pegged, and all we do is look for proof that they are going to show their rotten colors again. This obviously is a recipe for hell on earth, but taking each other for granted is a recipe for a dull and lifeless life.

What is new?

What haven't we noticed?

What is unique and alive and excited in the person with whom we are spending time?

Again, if we are single and this is a "new person," this search for the new and unexpected and the fresh could pay wonderful dividends.


LEARN A WAY OF FORGIVENESS
OR: LEARN TO LEAVE BEHIND THE STORY.
This is the Work of Byron Katie, or any other system you know of forgiving, and that forgiving can't be of the snobby, I'm right and you're wrong and I'm going to deign to let up a little on my barrage of hatred and criticism. Forgiveness to be real has to come almost to a smile or a laugh of joy that the so called "bad" thing, wasn't the thing, but was our own inner reaction to this.

In other words, someone says some harsh thing about us. If they are bad, evil, on our poop list for this, then we are carrying a burden in our heart. If we have phony forgiveness and decide to like them even if they are bad, we are still separated from and feeling superior to them. If we do the Work, and see that those were just words, and our reactions inside to the words is what is causing the pain, then we can laugh and be free.

And love again.

This could be theoretical, but isn't if we doing the Katie work. See the many essays herein, or go to thework.com.

---

PLEASE BE WELL:


Pleasure
Ease
Awareness
Sensitive Strength
Enlightenment

BE

Waking up to now.
Embracing Change.
Learning to learn.
Loving to move, improve and transform.

Learning and Knowing

LEARNING AND KNOWING
One of the great joys in life is learning something new. The brain gets excited, the heart get happy, our whole life gets stimulated, we feel more alive and free and fresh.

And one of the great tragedies in life is that so often we are so stuck in Knowing, that we have no room left over for Learning.

You've all head the story, the great student who goes to the Master and says, "I go to all these teachers, and they tell me stuff, but I don't seem to be making any progress." The Master orders a glass of water, an already full glass, and then she begins to pour water in, pour and pour. The Great Student yells, "Stop," what are you doing? The Master says, "Teaching you is like filling this glass: no room for anything else.

This often happens when people are introduced to Feldenkrais Work or the Byron Katie work. Instead of going inside and sensing and learning what that can be learning new, they shift it into something they already know: this is just like what I do in …..(yoga, my stretch exercises, something someone taught once in college gymnastics, NVC, 12 steps).

So now they are protected from learning. This is nothing new. They already know everything. The glass is full. No need to waste time on any exploration or discovery, and so they can zoom off and keep doing the same old things they've always been doing.

One minor problem: no learning and thus none of the joy and delight from opening up and becoming new as our life becomes new.

A few good questions: And a Department of Peace

What can we do to help make this world a better place? This is a question that has come to us all. Working to understand our own abilities to change and transform is the most effective step. And also: creating change, real and healing change, out in the world: this is another wonderful challenge.


Last night at the library a wonderful start took place, a meeting of the evolving Sonoma chapter of a movement to create a Department of Peace as a cabinet level department in the U.S. government. This department would be charged with promoting peace locally, reducing gang violence and spousal abuse and the whole mess of frustrated lives spilling out into guns and knives and the wounding and maiming of other human beings. The department would also work throughout the world to bring peaceful solutions to issues that have been endlessly leading to war and conflict.

How it would do the international thing, I have no clear idea. But just the idea of the word
and the actuality of a
Department of Peace,
out in the world,
could be a very positive force.

That it could be of huge use in internal violence, I have no doubt.

For that reason alone I think this is a fine idea.

As I think about what it would take to create world peace I think of two things: happiness and a social system the was set up for equality and basic human dignity, so that clawing one's way to the top, and having more stuff, and getting more profit for the corporation, and having more goodies in one's life were no longer driving forces in the world.

How can that shift take place?

I don't know.

Does that mean that it isn't worth the effort?

No.

As we say in the Feldenkrais work, the real satisfactions in life often come in making the impossible possible ( a frozen shoulder that can move), the possible easy ( now the shoulder moves well), and the easy elegant ( and now the formerly "frozen" shoulder moves better than it ever did).

World Peace is "obviously" Impossible, which means, we have an idea that it's impossible. And as we learn to ask in the Byron Katie Work: Is it true? Is it true that this is impossible?

I don't know.

It better not be.

We don’t have room for the global warming that war is creating, for one thing.

But: we have too many people on the planet.

What if Gurdjieff's creepy idea that some cosmic force eats dead people if not enough people are living lives of consciousness, and so all these wars are the sucking in of the cosmic need for food from a humanity that can't wake up. Can't wake up to the moment. Can't wake up to love.

Can't wake up to being good to the Earth.

And in a way: this is the root of war, this unconsciousness, this lure of the Enemy, that if we just kill enough of The Enemy then The Problem will go away.

Sigh.

This isn't so easy an issue is it?


We have almost every economic system in the world pegged to survive and thrive only by expanding, which is a drive for more stuff and more people, and more potential conflict over land and resources to get and control and use all this stuff.

We have armies and covert operations designed to help corporations keep the goods flowing. We have a whole new system of World Trade agreements that don't even let local farmers grow the kind of food that need for a local people to feed themselves. How can there be peace in this sort of world.

I don't know.

Is this impossible?

I don't know.

I believe, have a hunch, a feeling that humanity is pressing up to the edge of eliminating itself, and that waking up, and learning a new way to live, a way that doesn't demand so much from the planet, will be necessary for us all the survive.

Can people learn growing their own food instead of going to the mall?

Can people learn to be happy with a walk to a neighbors and not have to roar off somewhere in their car?

Can we have kids that are allowed once again to play in and lose themselves in and find comfort and learning in nature?

Can we come to enjoy sharing, and helping others, in real, life shifting ways, not just charity?

Can we learn to do the simple things again: walk, dance, sing, read, make music, make plays, make love?

Can we peacefully create a Department of Peace?

Sure.

And how?

I don't know.

How do we make that shift?

I don't know.

Does that mean we shouldn't try?

Hell no.

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Meet the good local people (Terry and Melissa and soon more to sit at the booth, I'm sure) who are starting up our small group to help
this
Department of Peace
at the local at the Farmers' Market on Friday mornings.