A dog

Maybe I could learn to live more simply by paying attention to Felix.

Drunk on sunshine

There is a saying in Finnish: raittiin ilman myrkytys, which means fresh air poisoning. I think the closest in English is drunk on sunshine. I feel that today. It is finally nice enough to open windows (at least for a while) and go sit in the sun and do things outside like throw snow around so it melts faster. I love doing that.

I also feel drunk on yoga. That's when I have been teaching a number of classes in one day and doing, going, up and down, etc., then I hardly notice how much I have been moving until I feel drunk on yoga. It is a bit of tiredness but such a good tiredness. There is some buzzing in the body and sometimes disorientation. I do notice that it isn't good to do it often, say two days in a row. It upsets the flow of prana somehow. Once I get home a posture that would help is viparita karani which is like doing a v-shaped shoulder stand. The hips and buttocks are sticking out. You can also put the legs up the wall with a prop under the pelvis. I prefer the first one. They have the same benefit: to clear any prana derangement.

Hopefully you can get drunk on sunshine tomorrow!

Simple?

I had breakfast with some friends this morning. Joan has just come back from swimming with the dolphins. She was telling about them: how wise and wonderful they are; the talking with their bodies; and that they mostly do three things - eat, play and have sex. I had the thought about the contrast between dolphins and humans. Good grief! How complex our lives are today. I am not sure this evolved brain of ours has brought us much happiness.

Eating. Sex. Play. vs Work. Study. Gathering stuff. Cleaning. Thinking.
Gees!

I've been thinking all afternoon about this.......food grows in the earth, water flows, we know how to play. Yeah, I know it's cold up here in the north, but really! Do we have to live with so much complexity? Do I need so many different things. In fact, multiple things to do something simple. How many pots and cups and plates? How many phones? How many books to read what someone else thinks about? How many shoes for two feet? It seems perverse to be so natural by nature and to live so complex by deliberation.

photo of Don's hobby

Selma

9 days old - sweet Selma
I spent a glorious afternoon with her. It is remarkable to watch a baby breathe and stretch and sigh and smile and hiccup.

It looks like spring

The Window Box

i cleared out my window box yesterday and today. I am not really sure if this little 6 feet by 6 feet room was part of a stairway or if it was porch at one time. It was a decrepit strange room with only single pane tiny windows and no access to outside. It was too cold in the winter to do anything with it and too hot in the summer to do anything with it. Don and I fixed it up a few years ago so it could be my private little room. It now serves as a wee guest room if necessary, a cool place in winter for extra food, a yoga room, a reading room, a moon gazing room. Patio doors lead to a little breakfast deck (just for the two of us). It's high and I feel regal standing on that deck. Too dark tonight to show you. Now, it's empty again for sitting and when I move the chair to the side for yoga. Everyone needs a private place in the home......even if it's called the window box. Don's daughter, Laura, named it that and it has stuck.

April days

Here I am again!

Good morning!
I've been away. Not out of the city. Just away, busy, doing other things.

I've had a fellow Ishaya teacher here from the Isle of Man, a man who was quiet, and funny, and wise, all rolled into one. I learned a lot. We looked for spring things to do......but it snowed......and it snowed. We ate. We taught together. We walked a bit. We chatted. We meditated together.

And I was also "away" because I was thinking the same old stuff, or so I thought :)
And I was "away" because I didn't want to take any more pictures of snow or my stuff inside the house. And here I am. Hmmm.

Today is a full moon.
I plan to do a full moon intention today. Write on a piece of paper what I want. Specifically. Intend that under the light of the moon. Put the intention away in a drawer.It's an experiment. Sit back. Be still. Speak my truth. Surrender. Thai's a template for life I have been using a lot. More on that later.

Airing out

I notice that I have to change the things I do daily to get all the things done that I want to do. I envy people who have just the right amount of things they want to do in the time they have. I always have more and more things I want to do and sometimes I feel like a juggler. So, today, I deliberately got out of my routine of checking emails and doing the business work first. I cleaned the house and wrote lists of things to cook when I have company in the next few days. And I was fast because it's not what I usually do on Tuesdays. I have now time for my office work even though I have to move a little more efficiently. It's good for me. Routines are wonderful but I have to change mine to get juices flowing. I work better when I have a project for the day. Today mostly cleaning. Tomorrow mostly working. Thursday mostly studying and meditating. Like that.

I think the only way to clean a house is on a sunny day. I love chucking things outside, blankets, pillows, boot trays. I am not much of a cleaner, at least not in the sense of my Finnish heritage. I do get extra inspired when I have company coming. My dad, who lived with us for years after he had his stroke, would ask: who's coming? when I got out the dust rag and vaccuum. < Sorry, can't spell that word, but you know what I mean.

Cracked?

This morning

Thought is matter

If what we think is matter and neuroscience tells us this is true, then what we think materializes in our lives, especially when we repeatedly build these pathways within the brain with our same thoughts daily. It is truly important to think that which we want for ourselves. And so often I find myself saying things to myself and about myself that I would never say to a friend - look at that fat - you're stupid - you don't know what you are doing, etc. What I think grows. What I think becomes who I am. Each thought brings a feeling, which brings a thought, which brings a feeling, so I better be thinking and feeling what I want to think and feel. The more this circular pattern continues the more deep the pathway and pattern becomes and the harder it is to think or feel something different. What thoughts continue repeatedly brings about the attitude to life.

I feel absolutely committed to paying attention to my thoughts and my feelings. Always starting where I am. Tomorrow again, starting where I am then. And the next day. It is simple but not always easy. An effort is required to be vigilant with this. It requires repetition. Repetition to change repetition. A new habit to change an old habit. Like taking a thorn to take out another thorn from the hand.

I suppose I just write to figure something out for myself.
Baba Hari Dass always says - Teach to learn.................and maybe I write to understand.

Step one: Find out what you want.
Step two: Commit to it.
Step three: Be vigilant to the commitment. Every day - remember!

Totality

Today I tried to do everything with totality. Just one thing at a time with full awareness of doing it. I went for a walk and breathed the fresh (and cold) air. I looked at the trees and the snow and the birds and Felix who ran ahead and was totally total. I noticed that eating was difficult to do totally. I wanted to talk and I kept thinking ahead about what's next to do. The office work was easy to do.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to just do one thing and be with it and in it? I think it would be efficient. And perhaps there wouldn't be a sense of time running away. Where does it seem to go anyway? Typing this right now seems totally timeless. I love the feeling of timelessness......where it doesn't matter what's next to do because I can't see it yet. I want more timelessness. Totality. Here. Now. Yahoo!