Stroke of Insight - Jill Bolte Taylor

This is the most wonderful video on science/psychology/mind/spirituality I've ever seen! Check it out!

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

Anne Lamott is my fave!

I  love Anne Lamott.  I just finished reading her book, Grace (Eventually), Thoughts on Faith.  Had read Plan B, Traveling Mercies, Operating Instructions, and Bird by Bird.  She is such a gifted writer and sardonic muse.  

I love finding someone who I can relate to.  Well.  Really well.  Of course, I have different circumstances -- a different growing-up, family-of-origin, etc., but I can relate to her non-mainstream view of religion and her attention to the details of living that usually go unnoticed.  And her wonderful and abundant compassion.  For herself as well as others (which is sometimes hard -- we all have been taught to love they neighbor, but the part about loving the self often gets lost or obscured or else we try to love ourselves with food, alcohol, shopping,etc.)   Now, I can't really write about her charms as well as others (who do that for a living), but I can say that I find her funny, cogent , enlightening, uplifting, and confirming.   

To me, she represents the power of the human spirit (I know this is a hack-neyed concept) to take stock, to report with dignity all the infirmities one endures and is aware of, and to trace a path back to the Center -- a place of love and Grace -- where the Spirit directs and guides and we rest in a state of bliss.

It's time to start planting those roses...and daffydills... and anything else you can get your hands on.... I say this metaphorically. Plant those seeds. You never know when they'll grow to something beautiful and enriching for your life.... be it friends, acquaintances, hobbies and interests... anything you always wanted to do -- including the hard stuff like cleaning out closets, going through paperwork, calling for a financial planner to help you with your scattered lifestyle (talking to myself here).

And I mean "scattered" in the most forgiving way. Because all that energy that goes out to here, there, and everywhere comes back to me, if not in tangible ways, then in increased satisfaction in life, feelings of connection with life, being on the pulse of life.

But sometimes you gotta rein in that energy and take stock of what you want to leave to this world after you're gone. What you want to be remembered for (if that's not too schmaltzy). Definitely what you want to stake a claim to in your life -- especially if you've felt - as I have at times -- like you've been drifting. I know what Mae West said: I used to be Snow White, but then I drifted. Well I don't mean it like that, ha, ha. I mean pick your constellation of things, your constellation of people, places, and activities and bless them. Labor for them, give yourself to them, stand up for them. Then you'll be known. And not just as the volunteer for one time last year or the year before, someone whose name we can't remember or the employee that seems nice, but what ever happened to her, etc. I'm talking about deciding who and what you want to be "for" and then going after it. Staking your claim, not matter what you think "they" will say or "they" will think, or even what you might think in your self-doubting times...

There are bright lights that are sometimes hidden in the darkest night and you can't see them with a searchlight, but you can with a perceptive nature and loving heart. You learn where they are by how you feel when they're not there. And you come to trust them and remember them and look toward them to lead your way.

self-musing....

I haven't self-mused in a few weeks. Maybe that's what's missing, ha, ha. Not sure, but wanted to document that I feel a pull whenever art comes up. It happened last night on PBS when the Austin artist Bydee was talking about his work and different pieces were shown, and then I noticed it when looking through my email and deciding what to read. I kept skipping over Robert Genn's (Art) newsletter to save me grief. What's that about? To save for later, and savor (at some time in the future). But I keep putting it off - that moment of getting to it (finally) like I have more important things to do, or more pressing things, or things related to my survival.... So, I keep putting off my bliss and my enchantment with life. Hmmm....like I'm saving my cookies til it's really raining. Til I'll really need them.

But what about "if you don't use it, you lose it," or shorter: "you snooze, you lose"? If I don't collect my cookies now, will they be there in the future? Are they a finite resource, and I better "get 'em while the gettin's good?" Or will it always be there? It's something about what I learned to do as a child, in clean up the house before you sit down (and relax in it) or do your homework and then you can go out and play. But sometimes it gets out of balance and it becomes all work and no play. At least not much play. Watching a favorite TV show at the end of a long day of cleaning and taking care of, is not much play. Not much imagination in that. Or much joy. It can be savored but it's quickly boring. I don't think joy would be boring. It could be ecstatic, quiet, peaceful, uplifting, but not boring.
Which brings me to joy .... and pleasure ... and why do I avoid it? To avoid feeling disappointed, getting my feelings hurt, having it taken away or being somehow restricted from enjoying it? More hmmmmm......

Or am I just putting off what I could have now...and then more later?

tree trimmers, snafus, and life

What this is about is all the snafus that occur in our days.... The tree trimmers that I met with 2+ weeks ago to cut some branches that are growing onto my roof (who have just now contacted me to do the job) ... the lawnmower shop that took my lawn mower in June to fix, saying it would take 6 weeks or more, and when I called in August, they said they couldn't repair that type (electric) and I had to go pick it up. ?....and why did they say they could do it in the first place? (??!!) ...and after all that, the mower started right up.

And, boy was I glad! I had been relying on a combination of friend's mower (which I had to go get), pushmower (slippery when wet) and weedeater (back-breaker). I got to where I started pulling the grass out with my hands (!!) ....which was easy because all the rain softened the ground. Now I am happy to say that I have a full lawn of some ground cover other than grass - something like clover. (And no, I didn't pull all that grass out myself.) The "clover" seems to have just taken over and it doesn't need half as much mowing : ) So I'm happy. I guess my persistence (and a little luck or positive ju-ju) paid off.

Now back to snafu-city. What do you do with a friend who misreads how important some mutual plans are to you and backs out, feigning forgetfulness? Well, what I've done, after all the strum and dang (is that right? got to look that up. It's German) is let it go. But still can't help wondering about it. Is all of life a big snafu? Are we all just test cases to see how well we'll do under the influence of snafu-pressure?

The funny thing is that a part of me wants to insist that it be done this way, or that this way is "right." What is that? Virginia Satir said there were more than ....[umpteen] ways to wash dishes. No one right way. Yes, but isn't there such a thing as order? Logic? Integrity? Accountability? Are those concepts too authoritarian to have any use in our lives?

After all is said and done -- and sometimes this takes a long time -- I'll go with love, compassion, forgiveness (of course), and letting go. Though I depend on logic and integrity, I practice compassion and forgiveness - maybe because those don't come as automatic. They have to be "worked at" - to that extent that anything as sublime can really be "worked at." But that's what it takes sometimes - compassion and forgiveness. See where it can take you.

Where were you in the 60's?

Where were you in the 60's?
I apologize for not keeping up with this blog. I don't know how many people might be keeping track of it.... but I got side-tracked trying to put together an art group. But that's another story....

I just saw a PBS documentary about the 60's and it was excellent! I learned a lot of things I didn't know, the most meaningful being that on the eve of the biggest anti-war demonstration to date - with 2 million participating across the country - that Nixon was considering threatening North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia with nuclear weapons in order to end the war, and that because of that demonstration, he decided not to. It would've been the first use of nuclear weapons (I think that's what they said. I guess Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't nuclear.) The pictures especially of the hippies and demonstrations really brought me back to those times. I was only 6 when the decade started and 14 in 1968, but definitely felt part of a movement bigger than all of us. I wish I had been older and had been able to participate more in the demonstrations and concerts (I barely missed out on Woodstock. I was only 16 and didn't have friends old enough to drive there from where I lived in New Jersey).

I was really pleased with the thought put into this documentary. They included balanced coverage from both sides of the political spectrum with interviews from McNamara, Kissinger, and Buchanan as well as Arlo Guthrie, Tom Hayden, Howard Zinn and others whose names I can't remember. It showed the wide scope of the times, including the race riots, the occupation of university offices at Columbia University, the demonstrations at UC-Berkely and Kent State, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. , and described how the political landscape changed over time. (I didn't know what the Pentagon Papers were (!!) Now I do.) It was really clarifying for me. I think the main thing I got from it was that we, the people do have power and if we but believe and act for what we value, then change can happen. And that the more people involved, the more powerful we are.

One of the social activists on the left acknowledged that many who demonstrated against the war did not vote in the election with Nixon and Humphrey, and that it was a mistake. That the election was very close, with Nixon winning by only 1% or something. And that the ones who demonstrated slammed Humphrey and ignored Nixon. I had no idea. I am glad he acknowledged it as a mistake, because it also shows how important a vote can be in tipping the scales.

I know there are lots of others who can do better social commentary than me, but this time, I wanted to take the opportunity to write something about what I learned - which has amazing relevance today. I am proud to be a baby boomer, and proud to be a left-leaning liberal, and ex-hippie (though it really was before my time). I still enjoyed the excitement of the times and the gentle message of the hippie culture (before the excess of drugs) of peace and love.

Identity

Identity. What is it? Things you tell yourself about who you are? What other people have told you? What you learned as a child? How do we form our identities and then depend on them so much to get us through?

What stories do you tell yourself about who you are? What aspects make you feel "good" about yourself and what aspects make you feel "bad," ie, things you like and things you don't like.

Why are we identified with those roles, self-images, pictures of ourselves, unless something happens to us which make us question them?

I'm not the strong, silent, independent person I thought I was, and yet I'm stronger in a different way, and self-reliant, and yet also can remember the me that feels weak, that feels like whining, that feels dependent upon someone to take care of me. These are all inside, but the exact combination of "strong" that I used to think I was, is no more. There is no need for it, because I've learned that it is a fake "strong." It was a "strong" based on how it looked on the outside, based on how others looked on the outside, based on being a certain way and looking a certain way. That shell has long cracked and a more fluid sense of self has emerged instead.

Could that be what they're talking about in The Hidden Side of Happiness: Pleasure only gets you so far. A rich, rewarding life often requires a messy battle with adversity, in Psychology Today online (see Favorite Links).

This article was thought-provoking, because I didn't expect pop psychology to address what seems the antithesis of pop psychology - a situation where there are no easy answers. An experience, a concept more similar to a spiritual experience or a philosophy than a "scientific" study. But oh, so liberating....

It reminded me of about 10 different books I have read and several workshops I have participated in.

doldrums and what Grandfather would say

...doldrums time of year .... school's out (at least for university) ... but not quite time for summer session .... and my birthday's nearing and as my anticipation is overcome by anxiety at not having it be just that certain way that I want it to be, I remember the words of my old Grandfather .....

Okay, that's made up but not the part about my inner deal with wanting it to be a certain way vs. giving up and trying to make the best of it on my own ....

... but what would Grandfather say to me if he could? Well, my make-believe Grandfather would say: "the world is my oyster." No, that was my Father-in-law. Grandfather would say to neither be swayed by praise nor criticism, but hold to the middle way, the way of moderation, or something like that. (My Grandfather would have deep Eastern religious roots.) Anyway, that's what really works for me, because I sometimes feel like a lost balloon that goes floating along in the sky all around the town -- it's lots of fun while I'm out there exploring, but hell to pay when it's time to find my way home again.

Or alternately, I could imagine being pulled this way and that, like taffy, til I'm finally pulled too thin. And then I have to spend some time reconstituting myself with sugar and some TLC.

But right now, let's go with the balloon imagery. It satisfies something inside me that would really like to do that right now. The dirty dishes can wait!

Just imagine looking out the window and seeing a red balloon flying away up high in the sky. That'll be me.

musings on grey skies and clay earth

Today I feel like I'm stuck in the earth... and I don't mean in a good way... but mired so to speak in the heaviness of it all - clay mud and grey skies and damp, humid breezes.... There's something so earthy about it and even though I'm a Taurus and that's our stuff, I feel stuck in it somehow... like I can't transcend this earthly plane no more.

My thoughts drop like heavy raindrops into a too-wet, swampy earth. And though there are a myriad of plants (and adventures) awaiting, I am glued to the spot and feel more in common with the common housefly than with the wingéd imagination of Mercury or the blazing glory of Zeus. Not that I *should* be tracing the heavens in a silver chariot, but the thought has always gotten me out of bed before .... now my feet are lead and my head is cotton-puffy and my enigmatic expression due to a practiced persona rather than anything particulary intelligent going on inside my head.

Ah well, it's a void-of-course moon and that means that the energies are good for napping, answering email, getting caught up on things, etc. So I'm in good company. Plus it's always helpful to have time to digest the experiences of one's life, rather than always rushing down the lane from one adventure to the next. How else can we understand the forces at work? How else can we feel properly? Certainly not from overexposure to TV, radio, traffic, office gossip, etc. From overexposure, all we get is an automaton. Someone who "obeys their thirst," as the slogan goes, but which really means a media-constructed id personality who solely desires to fulfill that need (constructed by the media) for that brand of soft drink. Yuucchhh!

Where is the "soft animal of your body"? (Mary Oliver) Where is the one-who-knows in all this? Definitely not sipping on one of hundred available advertised brands of soft drink, that's for sure. But to feel what you feel and know what you know - now that's not something easily co-modified, not so easily translated, not so easily packaged, not so easily consumed. In fact, we often choke on the truth, or start to. But I'll tell you one thing, the truth is ultimately palatable in the most desirable way. It can change your life. It can open your eyes. It can make you free as the saying goes. Just take it with a shot of trust, because it will go down easier. So I guess my post today is about trusting. Trusting what shows up in your life, even if it's not what you wanted, not what you asked for, not what you would even recognize on an ordinary day. But one which you do eventually recognize on an unusual day - one like today.

My truth? What today is about? All things change. I'll have to work up to specifying. Broad, general strokes, philosophically rendered, will have to do today. See you next time.

It's not that I don't want to grow.....

It's not that I don't want to grow. Sometimes I just get bored with it. Tired. Whatever. But I can tell it's time to let go, because I've been dreading coming here and posting again. Like I couldn't possibly top what I put up a day ago, etc..... Yesterday I was trying to be all cheerful and zen-like and that didn't work. Well it worked for about 20 minutes. ; )

But I couldn't get to my computer soon enough to write down those pearls of wisdom before they began to change to dross. Now, I'm not sure what dross is but I think it's the leftover of what is processed of golden wheat or gold or something. If you know, please drop me a line.

Anyway, part of the process of growing is the resting - which we in the West have a hard time with. I don't know about you -- but I do. Americans tend to be always on the go and action-oriented. Not much room for contemplation. Or rest.

Also part of the process of growing is the dying back (as any gardener knows), in order for new growth to occur.

Okay, now that I've covered that subject...I'll try to get on to the next one....which is? I don't know, but I know I won't be trying too hard. Because part of growing myself for me is letting be. And that's what's going to happen now.

Easy

Easy is right
Begin right and you are easy
Continue easy and you are right
The right way to go easy
Is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy.
- Chinese saint Chuang Tzu

I didn't have the url of the photo I wanted to post, so took it off. From now on, I will remember to get the info on the photo if it's taken from the web, so the photographer's work is acknowledged and you, my dear reader, can go the the website it was found on if you want to.
This photo was from the National Geographic website.
http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/