1000: Love as learning. Hey, it's the new year, don't be afraid.

Sit comfortably in a chair, near the front of the chair,
feet on the floor, and
feel your 5 line:
two arms,
two legs,
one spine.

Feel how you sit and hold up your head in this wonderful and
relentless world of gravity.

1. Turn your head easily right and left.
Go far less than your "limit."
Keep it easy and pleasurable.
If there is pain in any movement, do less, or do
none
and visualize the movement.

Feel the differences between right and left.

Rest.

2. Now pick which ever way is easiest to turn,
and turn just that way a number of times. Turn that way,
easily,
gently,
less than your "limit,"
with awareness and comfort,
and then
turn back to the middle.

Do at least a few of the movements with your eyes open,
so you can see what the starting range is for you
when you turn easily and without efforting.

Feel this as a movement that you can learn
from.
Study and be aware and enjoy this.

After a number of times, rest.

3. Which ever way you have decided to turn,
put that hand on the chair behind and beside you as support.

Then take your other hand, and put the back of that hand,
on the check opposite,
which is to say on the check in the direction you are turning.
(Throughout this movement lesson, you will keep turning whatever was your "easiest" way.)

These directions may seem "hard."

Oh, well. Go slowly in figuring them out.
Any movement you make is going to improve awareness.

So, one hand on the chair, the other hand with its back on the opposite side of the face.

Begin to turn in your chosen direction and back to the middle
a number of times.

Feel your elbow and ribs as involved in the turning now.

Does that make a difference?

Can you enjoy and learn from that difference?

Do this a number of times, and then
rest.

In the REST don't space out, but sit in a way to really feel what is going on in your body
and mind
from these movements.
This is important integration time for your whole being.

4. Sit again at the front of your chair if you rested in another position.
Put the same hand on the chair beside you, and the other hand a
about eight inches in front of your nose
with the wrist in a floppily relaxed position, thumb nearest to your face.

In this position, turn in your chosen direction and back to the middle a number of times,
having the floppy wrist hand make that same amount of rotation.

As you rotate, allow yourself to come over onto the side of the pelvis
that is the same
as the direction you are turning.

Feel this movement from feet through pelvis thru ribs
up thru neck and even nose and eyes.

Enjoy this.

Rest.

5. Now do the same thing as the last movement a few times.

Then, do this: stop about halfway to wherever you are
turning,
and go both ways with hand and nose,
but these will be opposite.

Which means your hand will come back to the middle,
as your nose turns further in the direction you have been
turning,
and then they reverse,
so that the nose ends up looking forward
and the hand comes across to the side you
have been turning.

Let this movement have something like a neutral space
where both hand and head are turned halfway,
and the pelvis is flat on the chair then.

And each movement after that,
either hand to the side or
nose to the side,
let the pelvis shift that way.

Do this slowly,
don't make a big movement out of it,
keep enjoyment and learning and awareness as constants
more important than how far or how 'well' you move.

Rest and breathe and sense your five lines and integrate.

6. Sit at the front edge of the chair,
and put the same turning side hand on the chair.
Put the other hand on the opposite shoulder,
which is going to be the side to which you are turning.

In this configuration,
turn about half way to your chosen direction
and stop.
Now play the eye and head game.
Slowly.
Slowly and small.
Slowly and small and low effort.

Turn your eyes left as your nose turns to the right,
and then come back,
turning your eyes to the right, as your nose turns to the left.

Go slow.
Go small.
Follow your breathing.

Enjoy.

Rest in a neutral position.
Feel if you feel different from the beginning.

7. Now simple sit at the front edge of your chair and
turn your head right and left,
and see what changes have occurred.

Review in your mind the way the ribs and the shoulder and the eyes
and your pelvis can be involved in turning your head.

Now turn your head right and left again,
and feel yourself as a magnificence of possibilities.

Twenty Seven: Toward Heaven, one way: Awakened Movement

The easiest motion for humans is rotating around our central axis. As if you want to turn around and see someone beside or behind you. This game today clues us in to at least 4 levels of our selves that can cooperate and become easier and more clear in rotating to the left.

Please sit more or less upright at the front edge of your chair, sensing both arms and both legs and your spine and breathing, and slowly and deliciously turning your head to the right and left quite a few times, each time feeling it as if it were brand new.

(Mini-sermon: to experience and look forward to and delight in the new is to stay young and vital throughout life, especially if this involved discoveries in our bodies and in our emotional and spiritual habits, not just our intellect; to stick to, cling to, be afraid to leave the familiar is to ossify into a more and more narrow “aging,” which may be nothing more than the loss of zest of all the newness and nowness that our lives could embrace, and could be embracing our lives.)

Rest from rotating your head. Breathe and sense your spine and be aware of gravity and enjoy all three. Feel the depths and details of who you are, in the moment, in your body. Now. Feel the thrill and ease of being in the now.

Begin to turn your head to the left a number of times. Then rest. Then using your ribs with your hands on them, turn to the left a number of times with the head and the ribs as “friends.” Then rest. (At this point, and even earlier if you do this again, you might enjoy taking our any glasses you are wearing.)

Now turn to the left about half way, and stop. Keep your head and chest pointed this way, and move your eyes slowly right and left. Breathe. Be easy in this. Come back to the middle and rest.

Now, again, turn ribs and head about halfway to the left and stop. Notice at what your eyes are directed; keep your eyes in this direction and move your head, slowly, slowly, gently right and left. Feel a softening in your neck as your neck and eyes are allowed to not be in their usual coupled pattern.

Rest. Close your eyes in the rest and move them gently left and right. Feel something like a soothing in this..

Again, turn halfway left with ribs and head. Now, you’re your eyes one way and the head the opposite. Eyes to the left and head to the right. Eyes to the right and head to the left, and they match up and point the same way at this ‘halfway to the left” position. Make it small. Very slow. Very gentle. Make sure you are breathing.

Take it as a learning game. Do this many times, and then rest.

Think about your pelvis, your bottom, the base of your spine, the whole area “down there.” If it’s “large” smile. It’s just you. Think about how to rotate, in sitting your pelvis to the left.

Then try out whatever you thought. Did it work? Good.

Try this: push your right knee forward and a bit to the left and see if that help rotate your pelvis to the left. And then do this many times. Slowly. Enjoyably. Learning about your spine and pelvis. Ease. Pleasure. Even a little skill maybe.


Then rest, and feel yourself as a many leveled movement maker. You can move and rotate your pelvis, your ribs, your head, your eyes. Think about rotating them all, either at once, or in some sequence, to the left.

Be patient. Learning takes coming out of the daily rush long enough to be present to what we are learning. Enjoy even the “frustrations” in this activity, but most of all enjoy the opportunity to sense yourself, and be present and learn about how you can move and BE with more ease, pleasure and skill. (Ease, pleasure and skill are my new wish for the phrase ESP.)

Now, rotate to the left in this sequence: turn your eyes to the left and then your head and then your ribs, and then your pelvis. And come back in the same order, eyes, head, ribs, pelvis.

Rest.

Then try pelvis, ribs, head, eyes and back the same.

Notice these all day, the pelvis, head, ribs and eyes. Notice turning and being you in the middle of all this.

Notice your noticing. Enjoy that.

Day 97: rotation an easy way: on our backs for learning's sake

photo from my daughter's trip to Turkey

Rotation, lying on our back, easy, good, smart

Lie on your back, or some comfortable and firm surface. Bring your left foot to standing (= foot on ground, knee up).

Press your left foot into the ground, and rotate your pelvis to the right while arching your back. Do this the usual “many times.” Each time as if new. Each time feel more of yourself.

Rest.

Put your arms across each other, with your hands resting on your opposite shoulder. As above, press your left foot, rotate and arch your back. Add on, three times rotate the shoulders “with” the twisting to the right, and the next three rotate your shoulders to the left as your hips rotate to the right, back and forth, “many times.”

Rest.

Bring your head into the fun. Do all the above, and have your head rotating, “easily” in the opposite way of your shoulders.

Rest.

If you want to add on the eyes opposite your head, be my guest.

Rest.

Go slow, and feel all the differences each time you add on more complexity.

In the end, go back to the simple arching and twisting. Just push through your left foot and feel the twist and arch in your back. Notice the difference. Then lie quietly and notice the difference side to side.

Then stand and feel differences side to side in your walking, and standing and maybe even breathing.


If you’d like to repeat the entire sequence on the other time a little later in the day, or right before going to bed, that would be interesting and useful, most likely.

For today, notice when you rotate, and have some fun playing with pelvis, ribs, head and eyes in this.

62: Down and up, rotation, enjoyment, coming to now

Lean down, reach up, breathe, twist, enjoy.

Sit in a chair or on a low bench of rock. Breathe and feel yourself in a more or less upright position. Now take your right hand inside your left knee and feel down your leg to the heel of your left foot, maybe even to the floor. Go up and down the lower left leg with your right hand. If your hand can go farther than the floor, let it scoot along the edge of your foot and around to the other side, and then come back up again.

Come up each time to a more or less upright position.

Rest.

Then try the whole thing the other way: lean down with your left hand on the inside of your right calf and head toward the heel, and maybe even around your foot, and then back up. Don’t strain or effort. Just do what’s enjoyable and each time come back to more or less upright.

Rest

Now get fancier, take your right hand down the inside of your left calf again, and when you bring the right hand up, keep bringing it higher and higher until it’s at face height, and then let it keep going up and to the right, rotating your spine to the right as you go, and watching your hand going up and to the right with your eyes and turning your head to see it, too. Then come back down, all the way to your left foot.

Go slowly and enjoy this, feeling your shape the whole time. Then rest.

And do the other side, left hand down the inside of your right calf and then up and to the left, as you arch and twist to the left and watch your hand with head and eyes. A number of easy and enjoyable times.

Rest.

If you want to get fancy, do this in standing, taking one hand down the opposite leg toward the floor, and then up and to it’s own side as you twist your spine and head to watch the hand. Go slowly, figure this out and enjoy it.

Rest and then play this game on the other side, left hand down to right foot, and then up, up and rotating to the left as your whole spine unfurls that way. Breathe and enjoy this.

Breathe and enjoy your day.

What would a day be like of “thinking” less (in the words in the head = “thinking” way) and sensing our arms and legs and spine more?

Day 57: Up from Down, playing in the fields of gravity

Up from down

So yesterday, we played with coming down to the floor, hands and feet on the floor, and then spiraling down by putting our knee between the opposite hand and foot.

Today we’ll play with spiraling up from the floor.

So please come down to the floor, maybe the way we played with and (maybe) learned yesterday.

Sit cross legged, so one leg is in front of the other. Notice which foot and leg is the one in front. Then take the other hand (if the left foot and leg is in front, take the right hand; if the right leg and foot is in front, take the left hand) and put that hand on the floor beside yourself and slightly to the side.
If it’s your left hand, to the left side and slightly behind. Right hand, the other way.

Then begin to move your head in a spiral toward your hand as if your nose is going down toward it, and as you do this, do three things: one, put weight on the hand you have down; two: rotate the front foot so it is pressed down and standing on the floor; rotate your bottom up to the sky.
.
From this position, one hand with weight, one foot coming to standing, keep spiraling toward the down hand, and keep your head low and spiral your bottom up in the same direction that everything is spiraling.


This may sound like nonsense or “too hard to figure out.”

It isn’t.

Go really slowly. It’s the reverse of spiraling down yesterday, so you can play with yesterday’s game/ learning to get clarity on this side.

You can learn this.

Do it.


And for the rest of the day, every time you get up and down from sitting to standing, do something like a spiral. And notice your head and pelvis all day. Again. Yes. Again