Austin, looking for this and that, and if you know anyone, send them to me:

I'm moving to, and presently in, Austin, Texas. For the winters.

I'm looking for an amazing living situation, perhaps of this sort: in a self-contained guest cottage, secluded and yet accessible to those who want to do my work. Embedded in a big garden, which I will help make even more beautiful. Perhaps rent is traded for work with a special needs child, or someone recovering from a stroke or accident. Perhaps rent is just rent.

A cooperative household of high level of commitment to now, nature and the work of Byron Katie to clarify "issues" might also be a delightful possibility.

Life is discovery. This would be delightful:
A mutual commitment to slowing down in life, to be present to other people, to ourselves and to Nature. Nature can be outside in the trees or inside in the bones and delight of awakened movement.

I teach awakened movement, and awakened communication. Not everyone wants to learn this. Good.

I am a Feldenkrais Practitioner (feldenkrais.com) and Anat Baniel Method Practitioner (anatbanielmethod.com).

I have trained for 224 days in the Feldenkrais Method, a combining of judo, physics and brain plasticity, and 200 days in the Anat Baniel Method, an expansion of the Feldenkrais method to amazing levels.

These methods using slowing down, reduction of effort, awareness in the present, a flexible attachment to goals (ie the learning is what matters and the improvement takes place as a by product), a delight in learning, and discovery, variation and resting to increase the brain's ability to enjoy and organize complexity. These all help the so called "body" function with greater ease and skill, and for us older folk, with a feeling a greater youthfulness and standing taller and lighter, and moving both more solidly and gently at once.

I plan to work mainly with special needs children (cerbral palsy, autism, ADD, brain injury), those brain injuried in accidents, and high performing musicians and athletes.





(High performing dancer, in part of her lesson)


This work is also extremely effective and relaxing and painless and neurologically upgrading for anyone with NECK, BACK, SHOULDER, HIP, KNEE, FOOT, HAND PAIN.

I love to create permaculture gardens and participate in healing the Earth and feeding myself and friends. I designed and got off the ground a 3 acre public garden in Sonoma, California called now the Sonoma Garden Park.

In the Summers ( April thru October), I plan to keep living and working in one of the world's most amazing and beautiful spots: orcas Island, Washington, in the puget sound, north of Seattle (north of victoria, canada, actually: way up in the nw corner of continental usa). a place of creative and amazing people cooperating and creating an amazing world together.


I like to eat healthy, some from the ideas in Nourishing Traditions, some green smoothie, a lot of raw, including raw chocolate and raw cheese, milk, butter, meat (ie. not a vegan). In no way do i demand or require others eat this way, but would at least like people interested and curious.

Want an environment where commitment to being present is central and the work of Byron Katie (http://thework.com)  is used when "issues" come up. I am a christian of a heretical sort, i.e. i believe the core of a decent and happy human life is the ability to "love your enemies" and "love your neighbors" (And love yourself). It seems to me that being present, and forgiveness are two sides to the same delight: it's all now, and what we hold onto that isn't now is the anchor that keeps us unhappy/ stuck/ afraid/ limit/ sick. My heart tells me that in no way would God narrow down the pathway to him to just coming via Jesus.

I Like to cooperate in the worlds of wakefulness and ecology and healing and transformation. Humor is essential: "I'm not perfect, and you're not perfect and that's perfect."

New Wine in Old Skins: Poor Idea, Plus an Amazing Book

NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES




How to be kind to yourself after a “big shift”

Sometimes Life throws us what could be called a “big shift.” In the Bible Jesus talks about this “big shift” as the creation of ourselves as a new person, as New Wine. And He says, Why put the New Wine in Old Bottles, it will just go to waste that way. Put the New Wine in New Bottles.

The quote from my version of the New Testament, a highly recommended, The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas by Willis Barnstone, goes like this:

“No one pours new wine in old skins,
Since the wine splits the skins,
And both wine and skins are lost.
No, put the new wine in new skins.”

This is hugely applicable today, in the era of so many hip, shoulder, knee replacements. This is the New Wine. Because without a New Bottle, we really are not getting any where near all the benefits and improvements we could.

We had the shoulder or hip or knee surgery because we weren’t using ourselves in an ease-ful and pleasurable and efficiently masterful way. Basically, we were using our body as a neglected step-child, not really paying attention to our dis-ease and pain until they became intolerable. And truth be told, for people who don’t know about, or know and haven’t tried yet the two methods recommended here, there is often little effective that can be done.

Come to think of it, a chiropractic “adjustment” could be another way to set us up as New Wine.

And after our chiropractic help, we still haven’t addressed the underlying need to organize and sense and move in easy and efficient and pleasurable ways.

So here’s where the Feldenkrais Method, or the Anat Baniel Method come are crucial.

They are the most powerful, and most gentle ways on this planet to create inside of ourselves a new organization, a New Bottle for the New Wine of post operation, or post chiropractic. (Post alcohol, and post dis-ease, too, and during cancer and depression, and that’s a longer story, but thing of this: if we improve ease and comfort and breathing and pleasure in life, how much will that help our Whole Life.)

Almost invariably, people who have had one knee or hip replacement, need the next, and it is almost always from not having created a new organization from the one that created the stress and dis-ease and harm that necessitated the first operation.

Does that mean after two knee operations, or the second hip operation you should do FM or ABM? Only if you want to have a low level of ease, comfort, awareness and functioning for the rest of your life.

Don't worry, also from the Bible, but that doesn't mean "do nothing," it means: put your energy into love and improvement and into making the world a better place, and stop fretting. See, if you'd please, yesterday's posting: Don't Worry, Be Happy

Good.

63 and I finally

finally learned how to do this.
Plus: last day as a Sonoma full time resident.


Through an hour long
wrist learning
activity/lesson/experience
taught by Anat Baniel,
the leading developer of the
Feldenkrais Method® to further
possibilities
in accessing our brains to transform
our "body" and
our life.

In this hour long lesson,
a bunch of us,
experienced and experimented
with all sorts of ways of
our wrists
and using our wrists
and pushing into the floor
in a way that respected and
was "real"
about gravity,

At the end
of this hour
I could do this yoga
"pose"
the "peacock,"
which before I'd only been
able to lift my feet a few inches for the ground,.


So, my back wasn't any stronger,
but my understanding of how
to support and lift myself
from my wrists had been way
upgrading.

And so:
I could do this


Fun

---

see TravelHeal.blogspot.com
for pics
of the last day
party
hosted
by the beautiful
Marlie
and the beautiful
Isa
for
the one called Chris

waking up and Feldenkrais

Feldenkrais is a name
and it's a shorthand for a method
and it's a way of exploring how
to improve

improving is an improbable thing:
most people don't want to change
unless things are really horrible

this is good
and
it's not so good

we all know those few people
who are running themselves raggedy trying
everything under the sun to cure this and that
and the other

most people
however could improve
their connection to their
bodies
and the grace
and ease of their movement
by taking advantage of the Feldenkrais Method®
which is what the simple word "Feldenkrais" implies.

Feldenkrais is
really a man's last name ( Moshe Feldenkrais,
physicist, judo teacher, inventor, 1904-1984)

So , how could someone get a taste of the Feldenkrais Method?
Come to one of my classes.
Okay,
but quicker than that:
Try to link to the right
that says this:

FREE intro lesson:
Desk Trainer
(actually,
you can link right here)

That's the quickest way.

Another way might be this

1: Notice that you are sitting on two sit bones, Sitz bones,
the part of your pelvis that is for sitting

2: Lean to the left enough so that you can feel
really feel
that the weight is mainly on your left side

3: When your weight is over there on your left side,
breathe easily,
and after your breath is easy, rotate your head to the left
and to the right.

4: Notice which way seems to be easiest to rotate your head
when you have your weight to the left

5: Come back to the center. See if you notice anything different
from side to side

6: Shift most of your weight now
to the right side
to your right Sitz bone
and become comfortable with your breathing here

7: And in this position rotate your head
right and left
and notice which was seems easier.

8: That is a beginning exploration:
what is our pelvis
where is our weight
how does our head move in space
how can we try something new and be at ease
what is there to learn in some new configuration

And if you want to go further,
there is more:

9: Sitting upright
rotate your head right and left, gently
and notice how your nose moves from pointing to the front
to pointing to the side.
This is rotating your head.

Now: slightly tilt your head to the right
and the left
which means this:
when you tilt to the right, your right ear
goes closer to the floor
when you tilt to the left, your left ear
goes closer to the floor.
In both tilts your nose stays
pointing forward.

10: Practice the difference:
rotate your head right and left
tilt your head right and left

Go slowly and be gentle with your neck
and your nervous system

11: Now:
shift your weight to your left hip,
to the left side of your pelvis

and come back to the middle

and now
as you shift your weight to the left
alternate between tilting your head to the left
and tilting your head to the right

See if when you tilt your head to the right
as you shift your weight to the left side of your pelvis
if you can let your shoulders help a little
as the left shoulder comes up a little
and the right shoulder comes down

This is easier with pictures
and my digital camera is broken

desk trainer
above mentioned has a little cartoon guy to follow
oh well

so anyway

12. Now try the other side:
weight to the right side of your pelvis
and tilting your head
right and left,
letting your shoulders
and maybe even your ribs
help out with this

If confusing,
try desk trainer
or go slower
or give me a call
or buy the book:
Awareness Heals

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

Miracles all over the Place, and we forget

MIRACLES AND CHANGE
Here's a story of Moshe working with a young man who started with trouble and had had that trouble made even worse by the "help" of surgery.

Photo: R. Dale

"And I'll never forget what Karl Pribram said at the end of that 'demonstration' (for some who might not know, Pribram was a former brain surgeon turned neuroscientist/researcher at Stanford University--who came up with the "Holographic" model of the brain --which sparked Moshe's imagination no end).

"The young man had, I believe, Cerebral Palsy and had undergone brain surgery to eliminate the spasticity in his right arm. The surgeon's scalpel had slipped in the operation and mistakenly severed a nerve governing the young man's tongue.

" He could no longer speak clearly, as his tongue was not able to differentiate itself from his lower jaw. To add insult to injury, his spasticity left only for a few weeks or months-- and then came back worse than before--plus he could not speak clearly.

"Interestingly, when he played tennis, which he adored, he lost his spasticity and could also speak more clearly. And flirt with the girls. So, Moshe pulled a clean handkerchief out of his pocket, and took his tongue and moved it this way and that way --'showing off' for Pribram.

"Then after about 15 minutes, he stopped and said to the young man, "So what do you have to say".

"The young man replied--clear as a bell--"Hello".

"Not a dry eye in the house.

"Then Moshe went on and worked with his arm and soon the spasticity left. The whole thing took maybe 40 minutes, tops.

"Karl looked at Moshe, awestruck, and said--"You can do more with your hands, than I ever could accomplish with my scalpel".( Recounted by Deborah Elizabeth Lotus)

There are two miracles here: one, the work of Moshe Feldenkrais, which a few thousand of us in the world are trained to duplicate and expand upon.

And two: the reluctance of almost everyone to go through the kind of learning that this young man went through in his transformation. Moshe gave his brain a chance to rewire and to learn anew, as we all learn when we are fresh and young and alive.

We have this chance every day of our lives and throw it away, throw it away, throw it away as we muddle along doing the same things in the same way, feeling the same things, saying the same things, thinking the same things, eating the same things, running raggedy to keep a show afloat that has nothing to do with our real selves.

This is the miracle: we are alive and could be living moment after moment of newness and presence. And we forget.

This is the miracle: at any moment we can wake up and remember, once more: this is me, this is now, this is my life.

I am alive.

Friday, April 28: The Way Out

THE WAY OUT
This may sound like yesterday’s essay. So be it. It is the way out of situations we want to be out of. The situations can be physical or emotional or mental or even spiritual.

The first step is to come into the present. Forget the, Why? stuff. And just get clear on What Is.

In our waking life on earth, What Is always has this as its basic component: breathing and gravity. (Notice, I said, “on earth.” Out in space you can escape gravity, otherwise, it is a constant, either the boss or the mother, but the earth is attracted to us and we are glued to it). We can at any moment come into a concrete feeling, feeling in the sense of sensation, of the present by becoming aware of our breathing and how we are relating to gravity. What is touching down to the ground or the chair or the bed. Somewhere we are being held up. Where is that and how is that?

If we can notice this in terms of what bones are pressing into the earth and how the line of force goes from there to the rest of us, to our head if we are sitting or standing, this is even more connecting to the present.

Okay. Breathing in and breathing out and knowing that. Breathing in and breathing out and sensing our body’s relation to gravity.

And then what? Feeling if we like what we feel. If yes, enjoy it. If not: do something different.

Anything.

Create a variation. Lean forward. Lean back. Shift left or right. Lift our toes. Lift our heels. Bring an arm to a different position. Change the shape of our spine. Change how our legs are positioned.

Then see if we like that. If we don’t. Try another variation. See what difference the variation creates.

And if the discomfort we notice in the present is our emotions, what can we do? Keep breathing. Keep sensing gravity. And listen to the voice behind the emotion. What are our thoughts telling us as we feel bad? What is the tone of what we are being told?

“You are so messed up.”
“You should be doing better than this.”
“So and so should treat me better.”
“I had a terrible childhood.”
And so on.

The Byron Katie work is an obvious call here: judge your neighbor/parent or whatever, write it down, ask four questions, turn it around. This is creating variation. This is doing something different than the usual sulking and obsessing. The questions give the mind something to do besides argue with reality. Is it true? Can I absolutely know it’s true? How do I react when I believe it’s true? Who would I be if I wasn’t attached to believing this thought?

And the turn around is almost to definition of variation. “My Dad shouldn’t be so critical of me.” Fine. And try this: “I shouldn’t be so critical of my Dad.” And “I shouldn’t be so critical of myself.”

In there, too, listening to the tone of voice of these thoughts: how can we change that.

Mental problems, again: come into breath and gravity reality. See what the thought and problem is. See what we’ve tried so far as the solution. Try something else. Turn the problem upside down. Look at it from a different perspective. This is a whole book, but the idea is the same:

If what you are doing isn’t working, do something else. Plus the Zen touch: come to the present of breath and gravity. Maybe that is enough to create an ease and solidity from which real change and enjoyment can come.