117: Movement Matters, Up and Down with a sweet Twist

Awaring of twisting and awaring of lengthening

Stand somewhere pleasant, perhaps in a yard or a park. Feel your feet and ankles and pelvis and spine and legs and arms and rib cage and head. Breathe. Be present to the wonder of being in a human body.

Now, leaning your left hand on your left knee, and bending both knees, easily and with pleasure, bring your right hand down the inside of you left thigh, down towards the ground, and then bring your hand back up again. Go slowly, let your head hang loose, feel and sense your breathing, and feel how this could lengthen and release various areas in you. Feel going down and coming back up equally with pleasure.

Rest in standing. Close your eyes and feel yourself in gravity and life.

Again: left hand on left knee, take your right hand as before, down your left thigh towards the ground and this time as you come back up, keep your right hand going up and to the right, so you spiral a bit to the right as you lift your right hand above your head and to the right. Watch your hand as you do this. Go easily, and slowly.

Let your neck be soft. Go up and down with this a number of times, and after a while, stop at the bottom and gently move your head side to side, with your eyes moving opposite your head. Same at top.

Rest. Then do the other side.

116: Soul: As on Earth as is in Heaven.... huh?

What can a beautiful flower teach us about connecting at the same time to Heaven and Earth, and the oneness of It All?

On Earth as it is in Heaven

What does that mean?

It means what you want it or understand it or sense it or intuit it to mean.

This book is a second go round of 108 ways in 108 days of living life to the full, using the underlying concepts of BEING PRESENT and lifelong learning through the concepts of the Feldenkrais Method, which are, among other things: learning as noticing differences that make a difference, and finding connections we previously were missing.

Today we’ll try out one way: the be “on Earth” is to bring us closer to being “in Heaven.” Which means what?

Sense your relationship to gravity all day, every moment if you can. You can’t, I can’t, but give it a go. Sense your feet, or your rear end, or your bottom and your back if you are in the usual slumping/ sitting posture: sense them all as how you are relating to gravity.

That’s “grounded.” That’s the Earth.

And as you do that, have some connection, in your understanding/ intuition to a connection to “Heaven.” Awaring of light. Awaring of the vastness of Life. Awaring of God. Awaring of silence underneath all.

See if you can feel at once Heaven and Earth and their oneness.

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.

66: Pick up Sticks

Pick up sticks

Lean over and touch the ground.

Did you keep your legs straight?

I hope not. We don’t need to “try” so hard when we move in ways that are fun and interesting as we do them easily.

That sentence is worth reading a few times.

And again, bend your knees, and lean down and touch the ground and let your hands hang out on the ground and let your head flop freely. And here, straighten your legs just a little, just as much as is easy, not any more and go from more bent to back here to easy.

And as you do this, slowly, easily rotate your head right ad left. And enjoy this. And aware this.

And rest, standing up “straight-ish.”

Then bend toward the ground again, and in the leaning over position, rotate your hips right and left, in a slow and easy and gently way that makes sense to your spine, feeling the vertebrae twisting more down at the bottom of your spine (which is higher up in the air) and less at the top of your spine (which is closer to the ground.)

Do this awhile and rest just leaning/ hanging over like this and play with the possibility of turning / rotating your head in one direction, while your hips rotate in the other.

Then come to a standing rest.

Now, come near a wall, or a chair to balance, and lift one knee towards your chest and take it with one hand, and pull it towards your chest. Do this slowly and experiment with a way that just seems to move the leg and a way the seems to let your pelvis curl in as if it, too, wanted to come nearer your head.

Notice your breathing, and see what form of breathing would make this most easy.

Undo and rest. And then play with the other knee and leg like this. Rest. And then touch the floor again. Feel good. Notice spine all day. And if you see any sticks, pick up a few.

Day 56: Up and down, for brain and body and FUN

Touching the Earth, or at least, the floor

Stand somewhere, outside if the weather permits and invites in.

Touch the ground. Easily. Realize that if you kept your legs straight, you don’t have to. Bend your sweet knees and touch the ground with both hands and feel yourself in this primitive and “strange” feeling position.

Play around with lifting one at a time, a hand, and a foot.

Then see what pairs of hand-foot work best to lift.

Then rest.

Come down to this position (“four points”) again, and start to walk forward. As if crawling, but with knees not on the floor. Discover the two ways to go about this. Go back and forth between the two many times.

Rest.

Now, back to this position. Get fancy: both feet up, both hands up, everything up. Rest.

Back again. Come down to the ground like this: take the right knee and place it between the left hand and the left foot and let the right leg come to the floor/ Earth. See how that rotates/ spirals you down. Come back up in the opposite spiral. Do this many times, just to this side.

Rest.

Now do it the other side, left knee between right hand and right foot and spiral on down to the floor. Make this kind of fun.

Rest.

Now go back and forth, once to the right and once to the left. Get a feeling for lifting your rear to come up from sitting the way this ends you up when you sit. Get a feeling for lowering your rear when you go down.

Notice head and pelvis and how they are both you throughout the day, feel the connection, enjoy. Wake to more.