new phone # : 360-317-4773

As part of the week from now move to Orcas Island
I've gotten an Orcas compatible number:
360-317-4773

new life

To change we have to change.

Seems fair enough,
and yet
the human condition is like this:
wanting to change without changing anything

Oh well


And the sweet reverse:
the payment for transformation is to set some
inner non habitual action in motion


Good

Anat Baniel Practitioner

my son
Brendan
and I

have both completed
10 segments of the
Anat Baniel Method
Basic Training.


2 and a third years,
90 days
tons of learning

it has changed us both
introduced us to a big tribe
of fine people
and given us hours
or great time together

and allowed us to become
colleagues in one of the most
amazing healing technologies in
the world.

new day, end of an error

so far
so good

new President
with all black wife
a basketball game

and a plan of getting things done:

hire good people
don't be afraid to hire people smarter than he is
low tolerance for turf wars and ego trips
therefore smart people are focused on real goals

and as he says,
"some things get done."

......
his speech:
laying the groundwork:
new ways of thinking, the old are bankrupt,
time to make hard decisions
time to stop squabling and work together

could we any all
of us
use this in
"everyday life??"

finally

finally:

it's not a sin
to be
intelligent

welcome
Barack


Baraka: the invisible stream
of lumination
from a deeper world
the other world
the invisible world

whatever

welcome
blessings
intelligence


good

boundaries

someone once said
"boundaries are always selfishness"

could this be true?

sure.
and sometimes selfishness is
just what we need
and sometimes it's a grand old excuse
to stay in the same old same old
prison self robot

oh, well


what is love?

annihilation:

is that true?

it's all pretty interesting

Year's end, lives end, frost cometh

variously
and
endlessly
things change

this is good
if you are surfing the now

troubling
if
not

love
and surfing
the now

can be confused

one of the few
confusions worth
allowing and expanding

We Did it

we,
the American people

elected a black man
to the Presidency

some voted for him
millions

some voted for the other
guy
a once honorable man
who imploded to his lowest
level

that's fine
we most of us
do that sometimes

and the other other guy
the black man
stayed calm
smart
focused:
how can we break
through into
new possibilities

many, many wanted
that shift

he is black and that wasn't the point
he is smart and that's part of the point

the point:
to use that intelligence and calm
and the organized focus of millions
of people
to create
something better
for us all

we the
people

did something amazing:
good for us

rains, birthdays, elections

much of beauty and amazement
happening

rains


Marlie's amazing party


tomorrow:
a chance for an breath forward
or a slide back more or less into barbarism
what will it be?

40 days: what a difference going inside makes

40 days ago, I started this idea of
108 days
of writing wonderful
gleanings of wisdom and usefulness
I've picked up over my 63 years.

Then Marlie decided, day 3,
we needed to come to an end as a couple.

Then we decided to do this with
love, learning, and sanity.

So the 108 days, became an amazing opportunity
to track and trace
the discoveries
and uncover-ies necessary to
make an undoing a beautiful, kind and loving
and learning experience.

40 days ago the 108 days started.
37 of them have involved putting fears, worries, angers,
blames, all that shit,
into the mill of the Work of Byron Katie.

With, to me,
sweet and amazing results.

Seems too good to be true
if you are deeply committed,
or brainwashed, to
believe that endings have to be awful.

And still, even though it almost seems impossible:
this is turning out to be one of the best things
ever to occur in my life.



So,
40 days, and the proof seems to be:
Change is possible.

And over at 108 Days: Unwinding with Love and Learning,
I talk about this 40 days in a slightly different way
and do
the Work
on the commonly held belief, by me, too often,
that: People Can't Change.

Check it out, if you want.

sept 11

this is a day
when
the curve
ball
got

thrown
to America

and the right wingers
always
ready to
hate
simplify
demonize
and go to war
hit
a home run

now,
it's our turn
maybe
the softer
more easy
and looking for humanity
and the other people
and the world
in our vision

up to us
to reign in the madness
come to the moment

be happy
and get the scene as
sensible
and kind
as we
can

how to do that?

start with the person
you live with

undo any strands
of
war

see
what's left

a little love, a little discipline

sometimes children,
young people
even the Big Baby in us all

needs a little love
sweetened with a little discipline

huh?

isn't that supposed to be the other way
around?
no,
the chutney
without its spices is just jam

life without a little clear effort
(not the huff and puff effort
of almost all movement
systems)
gets stale

and sometimes the parent
for the child
needs to have some interesting
and useful
NOs
out there

want three showers a day?
one is enough.

want to watch television
every day?
twice a week is enough.

the hollering,
the gnashing of teeth
and
then
hell:

you just get rid of the television
and they read
and talk
and hike out behind the place
and learn an instrument

take away
the unnecessary
and many people
will rise to the occasion
with something
real
to do
or
be

soon the death of 2007

Marlie's brother David, cousin Craig, Craig's girlfriend Sarah, David's wife Karen


once upon a time
there was a year
and it had a number

and this breath is in
and this one is out

and the keys go type
click
clack

and this year
ends
as far
as the calendar
goes

and this breath
is a new
chance to wake
up

now

Big Picture: We live, we move

if we are alive
we need to move

duh?

to get food
to make love and make more of us
to go to the car and drive ourselves crazy
or drive somewhere wonderful

we move to breathe
we move to think

really?

why does it take longer to count from twenty to thirty
than from one to ten?

think about it
try it out
see how something like movement
is involved in something as
"mental"
as counting

and getting up from the computer
going outside
to take a walk:

if we can do
that :
we have access to a good life

and if we can't
learning is at hand
and we need to recognize
the life we could be leading
is far more sweet than
that which we are leading

without comfortable
at ease movement
life is far less
wonderful than it might be

if you want to move
better,
all sorts of ideas
on this and the companion sites.

enjoy

maybe even check out
her new upgraded site at
Anat Baniel Method

and also the sweet new site
at Feldenkrais (rhymes with paradise) Method

and my other sites,
which you can find links to at the side

enjoy


ciao
chris

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

Fat Tuesday

this was early summer, Fava Beans. These guys
are long gone.
A garden is a good place
to remember:
the shift
of seasonal time

today's the last
official Tuesday
of
official summer

next Tuesday
will be
official fall

the seasons
change

we change

i went up to Santa Rosa
today
exploring
the possibilities
of subsitute teaching:

to make some money
to be of use
to see how
my ideas of learning
and communication
pan out in the real world

to explore
ways of really
getting brains
in action

to see what goes on
in schools
and teachers' mind
these days

if we keep turning
out people
as dumb
and asleep
as most Americans
seem to be

the planet seems
doomed

is that true?
i don't know

sounds dramatic

and i don't have to get in
a froth
about it

i just think kids
are amazing
and school
seems to not be a place
where real
learning
takes place very often

oh, well

life is good

Leaving Sonoma, 1

Ah, so sad.

And is that true?

All good things come to an end,
and some things aren't just right,
for various reasons:
people grow,
the other person doesn't.

People change and
the place changes the opposite way.

When I came to Sonoma
it was much more rural
much more small town
much more influenced by creative,
artistic,
land oriented people
of the nonslick variety.

I started a beautiful garden
with the name
Pauline Bond Community Garden,
that got changed
to Garden Park
and my goals
of a spiritual, and deeply ecological
place
have been either dropped or watered down.

For two years
I've been offering
work that can transform people's lives,
and help open up amazing possibilities.

It is out of the box,
not a big strain big gain
look sexy kind of thing.

People have stuck to their ruts,
not taken advantage of this work.

Young people,
dancers,
really creative people
thrive on this.
Somehow Sonoma doesn't seem to have enough
of this,
nor enough bicycle riders,
nor enough home gardeners
nor people willing to forgo sugar and wheat
and study what Price Pottenger has to offer,
people excited to apply Permaculture
to their land and their lives,
people excited by the miraculous possibilites of The Feldenkrais Method
and the Anat Baniel Method.

The shift to crowded
and yuppie,
the emphasis on wine, wine, wine,
land values,
the next event,
party,
happening,
wine tasting,
food testing,
nice froth,
becoming the second Aspen,
so cool,
so slick
and

yet:
where is the slow
life
the aware life,
the life
without the cell phone
and the wine glass
and the rapid fire
empty words?


So maybe I'll leave,
we'll leave,
and yet,
to leave without
love and
gratitude
would be crazy,
harsh to myself,
and to my life now.

As long as I'm here,
loving what is,
means loving Sonoma.



So,
hello Sonoma,
i love you while i'm here,
and when i leave,
goodbye Sonoma,
i'll love you, too,
and love another
new place as well:

ciao,
love,
learning,
laughter

Chris

What is Yoga?

Wouldn't you like to know?

It's a way of awakening.

It's a path of spiritual unfolding.

It's a chance to reconnect body and awareness.

For some it's a way to torture themselves,
for others a way to do calesthetics more elegantly.
For others a desparate attempt to lose weight.
For others a quest for looking good naked.

For more and more,
though,
it's a chance to connect
to something calm,
and real,
and Higher in themselves.

For more
on this way of going about defining
yoga,
might as well come on over to the

tai chi yoga weightloss health blogsite
and read today's essay there.

Jan.4: Responsibility vs. Victimhood, a Grand Choice

RESPONSIBILITY VS. VICTIMHOOD
Let’s say I get sick. I can blame the people around me with their colds. I can blame the weather. I can blame the government for not getting me a flu shot. I can blame myself for not getting a flu shot. I can blame the doctor’s for not keeping me healthy enough.

Or, I can take responsibility and wonder what I need to change to enhance my immune system so that the next time cold germs come wafting by, I don’t have to buy into the sickness trip. Maybe I need to eat better, to eliminate sugar and white flour. Maybe I need to get inorganic foods out of my diet, to stop stressing my system with chemicals, additives and pesticides. Maybe I need more exercise, more time outside, more time breathing fresh air. Maybe sleeping with a window open at night can get me more fresh air. Maybe I need to sleep more, or have a calmer, less stressed life.

This sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? So, that’s why the blame route is easier, since I just have to feel weak and victimized and complain, but I don’t have to do anything to improve or more healthfully organize myself and my life.

And then there are the bad feelings, which I can blame on the mate who growls at me, or the ever popular “dysfunctional” childhood. This is greatly popular, and Lord knows, many of our childhoods could have had a lot more love and intelligence in them. But, I’m talking good old fashioned, cop-out blame here. I feel bad because my parents did such and such. Or, the moods just come out of nowhere, as if they come from outer space, and I’m just in a bad mood. No one is to blame, I’m just depressed or unhappy or anxious. These things just sweep over me, the victim of certain cosmic flows, or the bad vibes of our times. ( And Lord knows, our society is structured to cut off people from real things, real life, real knowledge, real connection with each other, real connection to now and to nature, and still: if I’m feeling bad is this something I am responsible for, or is “society” the next step up from dysfunctional parents, the always handy object of blame?)

And then, on the other hand, if I’m feeling depressed I can take it to the source: me. I’m depressing me. How? My thoughts, my actions, my lack of breathing, my habits of talking trash to myself, or staying indoors all the time, or my habit of not being in touch with what I really like and love in the moment. But, if it’s me behind my depression, it’s me that can do something about it. For English teachers: if it’s I behind my depression, it’s I who can do something about it.

Either way, it’s my call. I can do the Byron Katie work on my depressing thoughts. I can take a walk and not believe the story I feel “too bad” to do anything. I can go outside or read a book or do something I like, even though the part of me that wants to stay depressed doesn’t have “enough energy.” What is the Byron Katie work? It’s a way of letting out minds ask ourselves, “Is it True?” that I don’t have enough energy. There are more questions. Next section I’ll run it down.

But for now, what a relief to have this choice: the choice to say, hey, if I’m feeling badly, this is something that I am, somehow, doing to myself. Maybe I’m feeling badly because I want to play the piano and can’t. The solution is not to raise my self-esteem. It’s to learn to play the piano and learn to like myself when I set my fingers to the keys and am not instantly perfect. If I feel badly about not being instantly perfect, I can blame my childhood/parenting/education/society.

Or I can see it as one more part of myself that could stand a little clarity and understanding if I am to get out from under the trouble into which I get myself.

13 New Ideas

NEW IDEAS
In Joan Huguenard’s January 13 column, we were invited to come up with some new ideas. This is the type of invitation I like. Here goes:

1) In city elections, when a PAC (Political Action Committee) donates money to support one or more candidates, they be required to match that amount in contributions to local non-profits.

2) In city elections, if a candidate spends more than $3000 on their campaign, they be required to match dollar for dollar the amount above that $3000 with equal contributions to local non-profits.

3) Notice which leg you put into pants first. See what it’s like to start the other way around.

4) Imagine what it would be like to have this non-habitual response: someone is rude to us, and we reaction with curiosity, amusement or delight.

5) Declare partial independence from the entrapments of the industrial/technological world. Spend one day a week car free and television free and computer free. While we're at it, go sugar free and cell-phone free. What's left, just a hell of an opportunity to be present, to love and to live.

6) Think of something you want to write down and then print it out upside down.

7) Think of something else you want to write and write it out with the non-habitual hand.

8) Pay all the teachers in the district twice their existing salaries and fire all the teachers who aren’t fluent in Spanish within two years ( since kids are expected to become fluent in English in about that time).

9) Subscribe to ( and/or bug Reader’s Books to carry again) Ode Magazine. In the recent issue are idea such as balancing the present 3rd world economic debt with a 1st world ecological debt for the resources we extract and the pollution we create; an article on the rekindling of faith in someone who abandoned organized religion; an article on the connection between soccer fervor and women’s liberation in Iran.

10) And this idea, which could save the world: end the legal status of corporations as bodies of limited liability. Put them in the same boat as anyone else who ruins something: they have to pay to fix it.

11) Learn to stand from sitting by shifting weight from pelvis to feet without any use of the arms and without using the back until the weight is fully shifted.

12) Ponder this possibility: both a “problem” with another person and a sore back have the same source: the organization of thoughts and understandings between the two ears.

13) Think of thirteen as a lucky number, the number native European shamanesses (a.k.a. “witches”) considered sacred because it was the number of moons in a year.

Chris Elms
996-1437