Today, at a jazz club in San Francisco I saw a man and woman enjoying a drink together. The woman was a dwarf and the man must have been 6 feet tall. Later in the evening they went out onto the dance floor. The man got down on his knees so they could slow dance together. They danced the rest of the night.
There are many, many more. Okay, some are cheesy, but I hope you find some you like. Love does make the world go ’round, you know.
Somewhere between Facebook, Twitter, and web surfing, I came across this article and slideshow about an exhibit of Buddhist art in Hong Kong.
The show juxtaposes ancient and modern Buddhist art, drawing on the Rockefeller collection of Asian art and works by modern artists.
Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, is probably the single most influential individual on the face of this earth in terms of the number of lives touched and awakened toward peace.
Like Jesus, so much has been attributed to the Buddha and projected onto him that the actual man might be nonplussed if he could come back and see the religion he founded now.
(I think of spiritual masters like the Buddha and Jesus as having so much equanimity that the word horrified wouldn’t apply to them. That’s my projection.)
Many people, including me, have Buddhist art in their homes. That serene face, the eyes half or completely closed in introspection, sends an energy into a room of peacefulness, equanimity, compassion, and presence, and reminds me that those treasures lie within.
Transforming Minds: Buddhism in Art showcases Buddhist works from the world-renowned Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection of Asian Art along with contemporary works by leading Asian and Asian American artists that draw inspiration from one of the world’s great religions.
Besides the usual suspects like gratitude, optimism, and forgiveness, some tips were unexpected, like this one:
Avoid over-thinking and social comparison. – Comparing yourself to someone else can be poisonous. If we’re somehow ‘better’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, it gives us an unhealthy sense of superiority. Our ego inflates – KABOOM – our inner Kanye West comes out! If we’re ‘worse’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, we usually discredit the hard work that we’ve done and dismiss all the progress that we’ve made. What I’ve found is that the majority of the time this type of social comparison doesn’t stem from a healthy place. If you feel called to compare yourself to something, compare yourself to an earlier version of yourself.
I also liked what it said about how just watching kindness in action increases serotonin in those witnessing it as well as in the person performing the kind act. By being kind, not only do you feel better, it’s contagious!
Nurture social relationships. – The happiest people on the planet are the ones who have deep, meaningful relationships. Did you know studies show that people’s mortality rates are DOUBLED when they’re lonely? WHOA! There’s a warm fuzzy feeling that comes from having an active circle of good friends who you can share your experiences with. We feel connected and a part of something more meaningful than our lonesome existence.
Thanks to friend Shelley Seale for posting this link on Twitter.
A recent Tricycle Daily Dharma quotation is timely, and I’m sharing. It’s worth exploring anger for what it actually is.
Because we imagine anger is never a good thing, it is easy to think we should practice simply not being angry. But that approach is too general and abstract. It’s important for each of us to be precise, to be real, to be personal and honest, to find out exactly what my anger is. To do that we need to ask ourselves lots of questions about its actual nature.
It is quite a fabulous skill in life to handle anger well — to feel it and not suppress it, and to use it constructively. I’m definitely not saying I’m the most skilled at handling my anger, but I have come to recognize some of its complexity and discovered a key that helps me manage it constructively.
Watch some angry cartoon characters display anger in this video. You may never see anger in humans in the same way again!
First, anger is a body sensation. You can see it in the cartoons. For me, there’s a stiffening, a rigidity that I experience, often in my neck or back. My spine lengthens as I draw myself up to my full height. When it’s more intense, I feel prickly sensations and sometimes heat.
Only rarely have I experienced what Elmer and Daffy do so well, the red face, the steam coming out of ears, the grimace, the fists, the in-your-face stalk, the growl.
I dream about being Bugs Bunny, but when I wake up, I’m Daffy Duck. ~ Chuck Jones
Next time you’re angry, if you can, take a moment and notice what you’re feeling in your body, how your state has changed, what your mind is telling you to do. Just notice.
Anger has degrees of intensity. Anger includes a family of emotions that range from annoyance to rage. There’s a huge difference between asserting oneself when annoyed and abusively vomiting one’s rage on someone.
How angry are you on a scale of 1 to 10?
Can you describe it explicitly — outraged, irritated, mad, hostile, slow burn, furious, exasperated, chagrined, huffy, miffed, pissed, petulant, sullen, piqued?
Anger needs release. Anger builds toward action. This is where I think most of the problem lies. It’s not the anger itself, it’s what people do to release it that can be so destructive. People can emotionally and physically abuse others because they know no other way of releasing their anger. They finger-point and blame — and most of the time, other people are just doing the best they can, unable to read your mind.
When you’re angry, a different part of your brain is operating than the part that is able to have a dialogue, listen respectfully, and negotiate a solution. Respect that. Allow it. Just remember that.
What you do depends on the degree of your anger. If you feel annoyed, irritated, or dismayed, a few concise words can convey that with minimal damage. If you’re feeling really angry, like at least a 4, it’s more about you, not them.
Also, sometimes people feel their anger and recognize its intensity, but then they swallow it because they don’t want to be destructive but don’t know what else to do. That feels really miserable and isn’t a good solution to “the anger problem”.
So…here’s a new skill. When you feel so angry that you might say something you’ll regret, don’t even try to converse. Instead, move your body and make noise. Pace, stalk, make fists, punch a pillow, grimace, wave your arms. Dance with your anger. Growl and howl. You can even let loose a nice juicy string of curse words (or fake or foreign curse words) not aimed at anyone.
The other person witnessing your nonverbal anger may find your anger beautiful, or at least entertaining to watch (if they stay out of your way, right?).
Examine your anger later, when you’re calm. What triggered it? I’m guessing it was probably something you didn’t like, an injustice or injury, or a sense of invasion.
Ask yourself and the other party (if they’re willing) some good questions. Did someone violate one of your rules? Did they fail to read your mind? Could you have contributed to it? Did you communicate your preferences with clarity? Or could your rule conflict with their rule? Did they assume something about you that wasn’t true? How do you move forward? There’s a lot of room for understanding when you get to this stage of anger.
Also, was there another emotion behind the anger, like fear or hurt?
This is the best thing about anger, in my opinion. You learn more about yourself and the other person, and you’ll improve your communication skills. Sounds like a gift, doesn’t it?
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As long as I’m posting about an emotion, I want to recommend a book that I found very helpful for understanding the emotions and the purpose each serves. It’s The Emotional Hostage, by Leslie Cameron-Bandler. It will help you decode your own emotions and those of others, understand the clear messages that each emotion conveys, and resolve your relationship problems more easily.
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1/30/2012. Just encountered this quote from the Dalai Lama about anger:
When we are angry we are blind to reality. Anger may bring us a temporary burst of energy, but that energy is blind and it blocks the part of our brain that distinguishes right from wrong. To deal with our problems, we need to be practical and realistic. If we are to be realistic, we need to use our human intelligence properly, which means we need a calm mind.
I offer bodywork and changework sessions in my Spartan Carousel trailer in the Manchaca area of Austin, Texas.
These sessions combine massage (mostly Swedish and deep massage with a few enhancements, more as I learn new skills) and changework (NLP, EFT, Byron Katie’s The Work, and more as I learn new skills).
If you are a new client, I’ll do an intake on your first visit, and we’ll talk about the changes you might wish to manifest in your life. We’ll decide up front how best to spend our two hours together each time you visit.
I offer two-hour morning, afternoon, evening, and weekend sessions.
While I complete my internship in massage school, there is no charge for massage/bodywork, and you may pay what you wish for changework. After I receive my massage license in February, sessions will be $108 for two hours.
Please email (mareynolds27 @ gmail.com), phone, or text me (512 507 4184) to set up an appointment.
Indeed, the ineffability of the air seems akin to the ineffability of awareness itself, and we should not be surprised that many indigenous peoples construe awareness, or “mind,” not as a power that resides inside their heads, but rather as a quality that they themselves are inside of, along with the other animals and the plants, the mountains and the clouds. – David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous
Thank you, Gioconda, for sharing that quote at the beginning of your yoga class a few weeks ago, and thanks for sending me the actual text and source. The profundity of this quote has been playing with me.
I invite you in this transitional week leading to the new year to play with this concept, to try it on. Ask yourself these questions.
Better yet, pull some questions out of thin air!
What if mind, or awareness, is something we walk around in and live our entire lives inside of, like the air?
What if our entire bodies — torsos, limbs, skin, bone, muscle, organ, connective tissue — are as immersed in this mind as our heads are? Can you experience yourself that way? Can you know with your toes? Discern with your liver? Learn with your heart? Understand with your hand?
What if mind is an element like air? Among the elements, air does represents mind — what if it is mind? We breathe it in for nourishment and exhale into it for release? Does that give new significance to your breathing? And because everyone is doing this all the time, what if the quality of Mind changes by what you and others put into it and take out of it?
Is this the illusion or is it real? Is this consensual reality?
What if expanding your mind, or if you prefer, expanding your awareness, is nothing more than more sensitively experiencing yourself and your surroundings?
And, what if there is no limit to how sensitively you can do this?
What if the boundary between self and environment is just a convenient construct for communication purposes but actually doesn’t exist?
For more on David Abram, here’s a chapter from The Spell of the Sensuous. Excerpt:
For none of the several island sorcerers whom I came to know in Indonesia, nor any of the djankris with whom I lived in Nepal, considered their work as ritual healers to be their major role or function within their communities. Most of them, to be sure, were the primary healers or “doctors” for the villages in their vicinity, and they were often spoken of as such by the inhabitants of those villages. But the villagers also sometimes spoke of them, in low voices and in very private conversations, as witches (lejaks in Bali)–dark magicians who at night might well be practicing their healing spells backward in order to afflict people with the very diseases that they would later cure by day. I myself never consciously saw any of the magicians or shamans with whom I became acquainted engage in magic for harmful purposes, nor any convincing evidence that they had ever done so. Yet I was struck by the fact that none of them ever did or said anything to counter such disturbing rumors and speculations, which circulated quietly through the regions where they lived. Slowly I came to recognize that it was through the agency of such rumors, and the ambiguous fears that such rumors engendered, that the sorcerers were able to maintain a basic level of privacy. By allowing the inevitable suspicions and fears to circulate unhindered in the region, the sorcerers ensured that only those who were in real and profound need of their [healing] skills would dare to approach them for help. This privacy, in turn, left the magicians free to their primary craft and function.
A clue to this function may be found in the circumstance that such magicians rarely dwell at the heart of their village; rather, their dwellings are commonly at the spatial periphery of the community amid the surrounding rice fields, at the edge of the forest, or among a cluster of boulders. For the magician’s intelligence is not circumscribed within the society–its place is at the edge, mediating between the human community and the larger community of beings upon which the village depends for its nourishment and sustenance.
For more on Gioconda Yoga, click here. She’s got some cool workshops coming up!
(By the way, this is my 500th blog post. When I started this blog two years ago, I had no idea I’d post 500 times or post about this topic. Yay life for creating itself anew every day!)
One of my favorite astrology writers is Rob Brezsny. His weekly Free Will Astrology horoscopes, available online, via email newsletter, and in weekly print publications like the Austin Chronicle,always stimulate me. He’s that skilled and creative and that good a writer.
Rob is offering three-part in-depth audio discussions of each sign’s outlook for 2012 beginning next week and for the two weeks following. The cost is $6 per sign, with discounts for multiple readings.
Abbreviated versions appear in print. The forecast for each week is published on Tuesdays.
I usually copy and paste the readings for the coming year into a single document that I can read to see the big picture of my outlook. I read both my sun (Aquarius) and rising (Virgo) signs.
My horoscopes for 2011 called this year my bridge-building year, and asked me to meditate on how to call forth, nurture, and direct my yearning. It’s been a year of getting trained to change my work into more of a right livelihood for me, bodywork and change work. It definitely feels like a bridge-building year.
I was told that life would be conspiring to strengthen my brain, sharpen my wits, and see the world with greater clarity. I actually underwent brainwave optimization in June, which has sharpened my wits, and I do feel as though I am seeing the world with more clarity.
I was encouraged to be myself to find success, and to cultivate my unique talents, some of which might still be latent and undiscovered. I had no idea then that I’d be going to massage school. Several confirmations that being myself leads to success have popped up.
My 2011 readings seem spot on in hindsight.
I have a strong hunch that 2012 is going to be about blending heaven and earth, taking my spiritual ideals and putting them into form. At least that is what my personal, local astrologer Laura Waldman says. I’ve encountered that phrase, blending heaven and earth, from Patrice, my acupuncturist as well.
It will be a year of finishing my internship and getting licensed, of starting my private practice, and perhaps doing other work as well.
I also foresee it as a year of deepening and strengthening relationships.
Can’t wait to see what Rob Brezsny says!
I’m looking forward to reading what Rob says the coming year will bring. Thanks, Rob and Laura, for all you do!
Today is the shortest day/longest night of the year. Before any organized religions existed, people celebrated this day as the returning of the light after a season of shorter days. It’s the end of harvest and the beginning of the yin-most season, winter. It’s the season of facing mortality, of gathering seeds with intention to plant new beginnings.
Ancient ruins show us that cultures around the world (from native Americans both north and south to Irish and British to Mediterranean and more, I’m sure) were savvy enough to build structures to mark and hold ceremonies for the solstices and equinoxes.
In those times, communities were more tenuous, and starvation in winter was a real possibility. Gatherings on winter solstice must have included the last feast before winter began in earnest, prayers for survival, requests for blessings from the higher powers, and of course, recognition of our complete dependence on nature, on Gaia, on the mysterious ways of the Universe that brought this astronomical event every year without fail but left so much more seemingly to chance, in somewhat random cycles of life, death, and rebirth.
When the religions came into existence, not being able to compete with astronomical, seasonal facts of solstice celebrations, they supplanted winter solstice observances by piling on their own holidays — Saturnalia, Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas, New Year’s, and more. (For a full listing of winter solstice observances, read the Wikipedia entry for winter solstice.)
In many ways, the new year actually begins today. This day may well be the most powerful day of the year for looking at your present life and allowing your intent for the coming year to make itself clear — bringing light into the darkness.
What do you intend for the coming year? What do you want to learn? What do you want to create? What direction will your life path take you?
Much of the future, of course, must remain dark. What fun would it be if we knew everything that would happen? No surprises, no trusting (or fearing) the universe will bring you just what you need. No challenges to help you rise to the occasion, to assist you to define and refine your character and expand your resourcefulness.
Recently I posted about beauty, and this is one of the 50 reasons why you are beautiful:
3. Beauty is a daring action. One that is built on your authentic intention instead of being attached to the outcome.
Being attached to the outcome leaves no room for the unknown and invites disappointment. Consider that the unknown making itself known may reveal even more beauty than you can possibly imagine.
Building on your authentic intention creates a direction that your actions can then follow, until it’s time to change direction.
Please let yourself dream today, and get in touch with the silent stillness that’s always available — just an intention away. Tapping into the silent stillness allows intentions to arise and clarify. Intentions are the seeds of action. What kind of new year can you intend for yourself?
Yoga teacher Ellen Smith posted this on Facebook, and its wisdom is well worth sharing with you. It was written by a woman named Bronnie Ware who also wrote a book called The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying.
She worked with the dying for the last 3-12 weeks of their lives and asked them about their regrets and wrote about their responses. She writes:
People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learned never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.
Here’s a process that can make a huge difference:
Imagine your future when you have only weeks left. Imagine you are aware, lucid, have all your wits.
What would this elder you tell the present you?
What are the changes you can make now so that the elder you can die with no regrets?
I came across this list and couldn’t not share it with you! Maybe you will read this list and think of someone special to you, or several someones, and of course you will think of yourself.
Reading this list made me smile, think, laugh, remember, imagine, agree, wonder, qualify.
This one made me think:
3. Beauty is a daring action. One that is built on your authentic intention instead of being attached to the outcome.
There may very well be a future blog post born from that one.
Here’s another:
32. Having faith in someone else’s word, because we know we’ve been true to our own. That is beautiful.
Can I really trust that? It is so beautiful to trust.
What’s most beautiful to you? What is beautiful that’s not on this list? I’d love to hear from you, in the comments.
The Well: bodymindheartspirit 