Day Fifteen: Take a Nap

FIFTEEN
Take a nap

Sometimes we feel great when we slow down and lie down.

Often this can be as little as five minutes of lying on a firm but slightly yielding surface, such as a lawn, or a wood floor or deck, or even better, a wood floor or deck with a rug or thin mate of some sort.


Sometimes if requires a twenty minute or so period of shut eye that turns into sleeping.

This is known as a nap.


We all know, or most of us do that have allowed ourselves to indulge in naps, that if we let the naps go “too long” we wake up quite groggy and it takes us a long time to get back to normal. Then we often feel great, with the minor problem that we keep going and going way into the night and thereby cut ourselves off from have the night’s sleep be as full as we would like it to be.

Oh, well.

This is the occupational hazard of taking naps, they can be “too long.”

However, the other end, the end of no nap, is many a times too short.

Now, we don’t need a nap every day, or maybe we do. Winston Churchill, under the stress of leading the British in World War II, was famous for getting two days out of one by taking a long nap.

So, what are we to do today?

Take little two breath pauses, mini naps, where all that matters is being present and our breathing and know we are alive. Closing our eyes if it’s safe. Letting our faces swing easily in the sun for those two breaths, if there is pleasant sun around.

And, if the day is that kind of day, play with a “real” nap.

Movement and Love, helping our knees, please

we've been dealing with Knees
around here

a sweet and amazing
joint
the knee is really amazingly
designed to do not very much,
but it's a huge responsibility:
to transfer the power of the center
down to the feet
to transfer the information and
grounding from the feet up to the pelvis
and from there
to the spine

and it's the feet
and the hip/ pelvis that are supposed
to have lots of mobility,
and the knees
just kind of do not very much
going this way or that
as they bend and straighten
and transfer the force

so:
how to improve your knees?

lie on the floor,
one foot standing on so that one knee is
up toward the sky
and one leg long

if one knee is "iffy"
start with the first best
knee as the one
pointed to the sky

and with the foot pretending to be walking,
or doing yoga,
or standing around,
push a little weight into the standing foot,
and experiment
play around with
discover
the different ways you can
push into the ground:
side of foot
other side
toes
heel

then do easy
feel good
and
interesting circles with your pressure thru
the foot into the ground

and reverse

and rest

and same, first best leg:
come to foot standing again, and press into the ground
a bit,
so the pelvis is rotated,
and circle the knee,
but think of this as coming from the hip,
and feel as part of the circle, a nice sweet
arching of your back during big parts of the
circle

and reverse

and rest

and then
maybe,
in imagination or "reality"
do the same thing,
gently
with your second best leg/ knee

there's lots more
and lessons are cool,
see links to right
on neurological upgrading

and what about the "relationship?"
well,
things are sweet,
and good to dig in the sweet times
so i'll do something today over at
108 days

and on what?
the first troubling thought that comes to mind is
"I don't know what's going to happen"

that's an old familiar source
of suffering,
isn't it

so jump on over
and join
the undoing fun, if you wish

ciao
Chris