Taxes are taxing, death is relaxing, love is everlasting

taxes come
taxes go

the time of year
so near my birthday

and we can be taxed
or vexed
or tweeked
or rushed

or just sit down
and do
what we have to do
and follow our breathing
and look out the window at the birds
and take a walk
in now
(see my book, for many a "soul" chapter
in "walking in the now")
and remember:

we are alive
now
no matter what rigmarole life
is seeming to require of us

and then
we die

which,
with a story
can seem sad
scary
unfair
weird
whatever

and without the story:
it could be like going to sleep
at night

the hurry and worry and rush
and demands
all disappear

and the Sufi's
say: die before you die

have that death to the worrier
and the controller of others
and the unhappy one

have the death to stress
and trying to hard
and even
to being bored

die to the "later it will be time
to be happy"
and
just be happy now

on the way
to whatever is next

and when we do the Work of Byron Katie
and judge our neighbors
write it down
ask four questions
and turn it around

that turns into a little death:

the death of :
"so and so should have been better/ different/ more
the way I I I I me me me wanted"
and what's left after that?

freedom
love
release

love can be what's left when we
"die"
to the stories about how x and y and z
should be different

and we can improve
that's what huge amounts of my work is about

but let's love ourselves along the way

and working with the children:
love them exactly as they are
so we can be there with them
as they discover
as we help them discover
what can be next in their skills
and increased
love of life

and how does that incease?
noticing more

noticing more differences

noticing more of the glory of life
to be in love with

helping the children
to love more of themselves
and more
of life

what a nice job

what a nice job for anyone

helping ourselves and others
to love
life
more

good

happy April

Chris

93: Upload your life: arch and round and twist with awareness, then do the Thich Nhat Hahn Meditation

Mind and body and learning: rounding and arching in sitting, with a twist.

Sit in a chair or on a log, or bench, near the front so both feet can be on the ground, and your back is not leaning on anything.

Interlace your hands and put them behind your head, and in this position, do the arching and rounding we have described several times. Do this for a bunch of pleasant and aware and waking and learning times.

Sometimes have your eyes going the way your head is going. Sometimes the opposite.

Go slowly.

Know how you are breathing.

Feel really good.

Rest.


Now try this, when you round, bring your elbows forward, as if they want to touch or straddle your knees. When you arch, widen your elbows out, and one time twist to the right and up with your right elbow, following it with your eyes. Then bring elbows forward, come down, round, and breathe out. Then go to the left, breathe out again (you figure that one out), push your belly out, and lift your left elbow up and backwards, feeling your whole back involved.

Do this a number of times.

Go slowly.

Feel the whole shifting that is going on in your spine.

Enjoy this.

For the rest of the day, simple be present to breathing and to being in your body. You might want to try a famous Thich Nhat Hahn meditation: breathing in, I sense my body; breathing out I smile.

This is a good one, and today, and do sense your spine when you sense your body.