Changing Places

Me at oh, two or so…

Create a Connection Getting to Know You Day

1a. What is one thing about your body that you hate, deny, talk trash about?

I live in my head. I think a lot of the time I end up denying that my body even exists. I tend to ignore it, not give it the exercise it needs, and feed it crap instead of good food. My body lets me down a lot, getting sick, not feeling good, etc, and I let it down in return. I need to focus on being more in touch with my body and giving it what it really needs, not just what I want at the moment. I wouldn’t say that I hate any part of my body or deny it or trash talk about it. It’s more just not giving it what it needs that is the problem.

I guess what I deny is what others probably think of me since I don’t get the manicures, pedicures, hairstyles, and other “girl” things I’m supposed to, or care about fashion or appearances. And it’s not even that I deny it - I just really don’t care what other people think about me anymore. I’ve gotten too far beyond that to even bother with it.

1b. What can you do to make friends with this part and show it a little love?

I’m currently reading “Coming Home to Your Body” by Carmen Renee Berry, and getting lots of ideas on how to be more in touch with my body and take better care of it, which is one of my goals for the year. I’m dealing with my health issues and getting more proactive about taking care of myself.

2a. What is one thing about your home that doesn’t feel good?

It’s full of smelly teenage and young adult boys. Well, only two of them, but it feels like too many.

2b. What is one thing you can do to change that?

Keep pushing them to go to school and get educated so they can grow up and get outta here. Until then, I just close their doors. And make them bathe and clean their rooms.

3a. Is there a relationship that you have difficulty with?

I have difficulty with most relationships. I’m not good about calling people or asking for help or for what I need in a relationship, and I’m not good about being there for other people all the time. My friendships tend to be casual and loosely connected right now.

3b. What is something small you can do to either salvage it or come to terms with the way it is now?

Most of my problem is I have come to terms with how I am, and am not at all unhappy about it. I’ve become very self-contained and independent, even more so than I’ve always been. I’m actually far more frustrated when I do need someone’s help, especially when I’m not getting it. I need to get better about making my needs known. And I need to be more open to being there for other people and mostly letting them know I AM available, but they have to ask.

4a. Is there something you are afraid to do, but would like to try it?

No. I’m not afraid of anything anymore, really. It’s mostly a matter of not wanting to do anything, or sometimes not knowing how I can do it right now….

4b. What can you do to begin a plan to try it?

Oh, I plan to do things. Like have my golden retriever ranch. I got my current puppy, Darwin, to train as a therapy dog, and eventually want to have a ranch with the space to rescue goldens and raise and train therapy dogs. But living in suburbia right now with no space to do the things I want to do is frustrating.

A yama (Sanskrit), literally a “restraint”, is a rule or code of conduct for living virtuously. The yamas comprise the “shall-nots” in our dealings with the external world.

Ten Yamas are codified as “the restraints” in numerous scriptures including the Shandilya and Varaha Upanishads, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Gorakshanatha, and the Tirumantiram of Tirumular. Patañjali lists only five yamas in his Yoga Sutras.

Nonviolence, honesty, nonstealing, moderation, nonhoarding.

Ahimsa: abstinence from injury, harmlessness, the not causing of pain to any living creature in thought, word, or deed at any time.
Satya: truthfulness, word and thought in conformity with the facts.
Asteya: non-stealing, non-coveting, non-entering into debt.
Brahmacharya: divine conduct, continence, celibate when single, faithful when married.
Aparigraha: absence of avariciousness, non-appropriation of things not one’s own.

“The yamas are in many ways the hardest work on this path, for they confront us with the enormous challenge of re-channeling our spiritual energies…. Before encountering the yamas, we are prey to the whims of our minds. Our minds tell us we are good, so we feel good, our minds tell us we are bad, so we feel bad. Our orientation is outward; we continuously compare ourselves to others, and most of the time we find ourselves lacking. We search outside ourselves for the validation we crave. And since we have no control over this validation, we can never truly be at peace or gain access to our true power in this life…. The yamas are the fundamental renunciation of a life based on fear. They are the change. — Rolf Gates Meditations from the Mat

I get a lot of comment spam. So, I moderate comments. Sometimes, your comment may slip through the cracks and I will lose it in the spam… sorry about that… I think I lost a couple tonight…

Just so you know, once you’ve left an approved comment here, you won’t be moderated any more. I wish I had a better solution, but I dislike capchas and just haven’t found a better way to do this.

And yes, I use Akismet. Usually, if I lose something, it’s something I notice too late in the Akismet spam and I don’t save it before I hit that delete all button…

Sigh.

“Much of our energy goes into upholding our importance. If we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.” — Carlos Castenada

Here is the essence of aparigraha, the yama that invites us to let go of the false self and all its symbols. As long as we are holding onto the thoughts and symbols of the false self, we are blocked from the sunlight of the spirit. — Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat

“Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.” — Mary Jane Irion, Yes World

Actually, it’s not half bad. Anyway, had to go get my innards looked at today. That was fun. Hopefully they’ll figure out what’s causing my anemia soon and I can feel better again - at least until I get my next package from the “disease of the month” club!

UPDATE:

Well, nothing wrong with my stomach. On to the next test…

While I really wish the last six years had seen you at the helm of our screwed-up country, Al, I’m glad you’re being rewarded for the great things you are doing. Bravo.

More in the series of Darwin with his friends….

There are two times of the year when my garden pretty much looks empty. In the fall, when I clean out summer’s overgrowth, and now, beginning of spring, when I clean out what winter has managed to damage. This year we got a severe freeze several nights in a row in December, so there was a lot of damage. So it’s been several weeks now of cutting back and clearing out, and I’ve still got a bit to go. I have just gotten to fertilizing the roses - twice now for some of them, since Darwin and Chance decided the organic fertilizer with bone meal in it was like little doggie crack. So we re-built the barricades today - a four foot high green plastic fence stapled to stakeposts. We’ll see if it keeps them out this time or if they find a way in again.

I spent most of the afternoon clearing out the front yard, cleaning up borders that have barely seen sunlight for the last year but are now bare thanks to the freeze. So now the bones of the garden are bare, and I find I kind of like it. I have some daffodils coming up, and find little bulb surprises popping up here and there under the dead branches as I clear them out. It’s nice to see those little colorful blooms, to be reminded that in a couple months all this will be lush and green for many months again, before summer’s dry spell turns it brown and I’m back to trimming it out again.

I love to garden but have tired of my little suburban lot. I long for my golden ranch, with a real, big vegetable garden, with real soil, instead of a foot of soil on top of decomposed granite — fenced from the dogs, please — and lots of woods and meadows and a pond.

But for now, it’s finding the bones in the boneyard.

The “Instant Karma” mix is on now….

Instant karma’s gonna get you now
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin’ to do
Its up to you, yeah you

Instant karmas gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin’
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see
Laughin at fools like me
Who in the hell you think you are
A super star
Well, right you are

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Everyone come on

Instant karmas gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
In everyone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you’re everywhere
Come and get your share

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
Come on and on and on on on …

– John Lennon

And I am all alone
There is no one here beside me
And my problems have all gone
There is no one to deride me

But you got to have friends
The feeling’s oh so strong
You go to have friends
To make that day last long
I had some friends but they’re gone
Someone came and took them away
And from the dusk till the dawn
Here is where I’ll stay

Standing at the end of the road, boys
Waiting for my new friends to come
I don’t care if I’m hungry or bored
I’m gonna get me some of them…

Bette Midler, “You’ve Got to Have Friends”

I’ve had so many difficulties with friends letting me down in the past, and I really got to the point where I just didn’t really care any more whether or not I had friends around. I’ve been envious of others’ friendships at times, although I have “forever friends” who will always be there for me.

I have one of those rare evenings alone tonight, with all the boys out of the house, so I’ve got my “Sister’s Mix” CD on, the music cranked up, and am enjoying this collection of songs I’ve put together about sisterhood for when I feel lonely. My own sister was six years older than me, and had her bipolar episodes starting in her teens, so we never really got to have a strong relationship. I wasn’t really close to my mom either, since she tended to be hypercritical of me. I related much more strongly to my dad, and to men in general, and seem to understand them so much better than women. I never got the way women could be so catty to each other and still claim to be friends, the way my best friend turned on me and refused to speak to me.

So do I have to have friends? Well of course, and I do. But not the kind of friends I call on the spur of the moment, or when I’m upset about things. I have friends I see at pretty carefully arranged times and places, when I am in control of who I am and in control of the situation. I work very hard these days to make sure people don’t see me in any out of control moments — an artifact of the bipolar manic episodes I had. I don’t have those moments now, but I need to be sure nobody sees me that way ever again, knowing that there are so few who could understand it, and fewer still who tolerate it and would stay with me no matter what.

I think if you’ve never had the experience of someone literally just shutting you out of their life forever, you can’t possibly understand what a painful, hurtful thing it is to do to someone else. Perhaps that’s why those people found it easy to do to me, but, it’s something I will never do to someone else, ever. I understand that people have to have friends — real friends, not those who simply say they are or who are only there for the good times, then walk away when things get tough.

Fortunately, healthy people experience almost daily flashes of vision — the peak experience — which makes us aware that there is something badly wrong with our basic assumptions: they bring the flash of “absurd good news” — Colin Wilson

Aparigraha embodies the idea of good things to come. Once we realize we can actually part with whatever it is we have been holding on to — the ten-year-old T-shirts with sentimental value, the receipts we never turned in, the clutter of our lives — we begin to understand that we are clearing a space for something better. The past is dead, and we are making room for the living… Oftentimes when we believe that we’ve been holding on to something we need, we find that the reverse is actually true. The real loss is the emptiness, the soul sickness, that we feel as any form of fear disguised as greed or hoarding. The symbols of our fear block us from the light of our own spirit. As we step away from these symbols, these phantoms, a wind catches our sails. Lighter, freer, we look up and glimpse the far shore, and suddenly we are filled with the joy of “absurd good news”. — Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat

Can’t he and Dubya and their friends just go to their ranch in Paraguay already and leave the rest of us alone?

ITV News - Giant squid caught in New Zealand

Giant squid caught in New Zealand
12.39, Thu Feb 22 2007

A New Zealand fishing crew has caught a huge Colossal Squid weighing an estimated 450kgs in the Ross Sea.

The mysterious marine creature - which could be the biggest of its kind - was brought to the surface on a long line that had been set for toothfish.

The crew on the San Aspiring vessel stopped fishing and hauled the squid on board to preserve as a specimen for science.

The adult sea animal which had eyes as big as dinner plates and razor-sharp hooks on its tentacles, was barely alive when it reached the surface and the crew thought it was unlikely to survive if released.

The beast was placed in the freezer below deck and filled two thirds of the 1,200 litre container.

Colossal Squid can grow up to 14m long and one expert says if calamari rings were made from this one they would be the size of tractor tires.

______________________

Calamari Rings the size of tractor tires?!

“That’s why we’re goin’ to deep fry!”

Comment spammers. Ew.

People who blog on pink pages.

People who blog in white type on black pages (I can’t read them).

And yes, I could switch to a feed reader, but I’m really visual and usually like the look of people’s blog designs.

Feeling like I have to post when I don’t want to write anything - this is also why I hate doing morning pages.

Wanting to write, but having nothing interesting to say.

How about you - pet peeves??

Sigh. And Cheney speaking about honor? He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. “Honor” isn’t making a quarter million a year while over 3,000 troops die for your profits. Or is he going to renounce his Halliburton earnings? Didn’t think so.

U.S. helicopter shot down; insurgents launch second chlorine attack - USATODAY.com

BAGHDAD (AP) — A U.S. helicopter was shot down and crashed north of Baghdad on Wednesday, the military said after initially stating that the chopper made a “hard landing.” All aboard were safely evacuated by a second helicopter.

At least seven U.S. helicopters have crashed or been forced down under hostile fire since Jan. 20. Military officials have said that militants are increasingly targeting helicopters amid the buildup of U.S. troops in Baghdad, firing simultaneously with an assortment of weapons from different directions.

The military has also detected another deadly insurgent tactic in recent weeks — the spreading of toxic chlorine gas by combining it with explosives.

In Washington, two Pentagon officials said the tactic has been used at least three times since Jan. 28, when a truck carrying explosives and a chlorine tank blew up in Anbar province west of Baghdad. More than a dozen people were reported killed.

On Tuesday, a tanker filled with chlorine exploded and noxious plumes covered homes and schools north of Baghdad. Nine people were killed and 150 people were wounded, said one of the officials. A day later, a pickup exploded near a diesel fuel station in southwestern Baghdad, the official said.

A third defense official said the U.S. has been concerned about militants’ ability to acquire weapons like chlorine bombs. But so far, the official said, bomb makers in Iraq haven’t been able to disperse a chemical such as chlorine in an effective way.

All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Meanwhile, Britain outlined its plan to withdraw around 1,600 troops from Iraq in the coming months and Denmark said it will withdraw its 460-member contingent by August. Lithuania also said it may pull back its 53 troops from the country.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that despite the announced withdrawals, “the coalition remains intact.” In Japan, Vice President Dick Cheney said the U.S. wants to finish its mission in Iraq, then “come home with honor.”

Oooh, Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist!!

Thank you so much, Jessie! I’ve been wanting to read this one! I’m looking forward to it!

Jessie also included a lovely card, with this message I will share:

“May you listen to the whispers of your heart,
and follow all of your dreams, always!”

Great advice for all of us, Jessie! Thank you….

And many thanks to Tanaya for setting up the swap at Create a Connection!

“When there is firm conquest over covetousness, they who have conquered it wake up to the how and why of life.” — Yoga sutras

“The final yama is aparigraha, or nonpossessiveness and nonhoarding. As befits the end point of such a journey, aparigraha is about letting go. The yoga sutras advise us not to waste any energy holding on to that which is not really ours in the first place.” — Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat

Aparigraha is the fifth yama described in the Yoga Sutras, and it is often translated as “non-hoarding”. Like with the other yamas, it is easy - and somewhat distracting - to focus on the behavior and not the intention. The practice of aparigraha is not about giving up all your possessions. It is about giving up the belief that your happiness depends on your ability to hold on to what you think you “own”. What you think you own is not just your material belongings, but your time, your relationships, your memories, and your beliefs. When you have freedom from this belief, it is almost irrelevant what you actually own or possess.

So, aparigraha can also be translated as “non-attachment”, which more accurately captures the intention to let go of the fear and clinging associated with trying to protect what we own, or protect ourselves against loss.

This yama, more than any others, has a profound effect on our momentary suffering and happiness. All suffering is caused by a resistance to real or imagined loss. When we cling, we suffer. — Kelly McGonigal

“One who is not greedy is secure. He has time to think deeply.
His understanding of himself is complete.” ~ Yoga Sutra II.39

For me, with my usual focus on process, a part of aparigraha is also about not attaching to the results of what you do. When making art, we might not get exactly the result we thought we would when we started a project, and consider it a failure instead of letting go and letting the piece be what it is on its own as a result of our process. Or, we might accept what it is and feel badly about it, rather than trying again, attaching to the piece as it is rather than re-inventing it in our imagination. Either way, our art suffers. We need to both accept what is, and still be willing to dream of what might be. Letting go of what has happened in the past frees us to do something new, or to re-invent what we’ve done in the past as something new. Either way, we move on to the future instead of staying stuck in the past.

New Year’s Pig - Hannah Gluck

Gung Hay Fat Choy! (Wishing you fortune)
Sun Tai Geen Hong! (Wishing you good health)
Man Si Yu Yi! (Wishing you a thousand wishes)
Sum Sung Si Cheng! (Wishing you your heart’s fulfillment)
Bo Bo Go Sing! (May every step be higher and higher)

The Lunar New Year, also celebrated by Koreans, Vietnamese, Mongolian, etc. for hundreds of years, is called Korean New Year, Vietnamese New Year, etc. by other peoples and known in Chinese as the Spring Festival .

Today we’re starting the Finding Water group - a group of artists and bloggers reading and going through the journey of Julia Cameron’s “Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance”. The group website is here, if you would like to join in. Much thanks to Jessie and Leah for setting this up and leading us through. I did “Artist Way” with Leah’s group last year, and it was a really great experience. I was a bit reluctant to do another Artist’s Way group, but in this bit of serendipity, I found this post today on Time Goes By, and it really spoke to me. The whole post is well worth a read. It is about two brothers still doing art in their 80s, and doing their first art exhibit together. Talk about perseverance!

Time Goes By - What it’s really like to get older

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Jens, who is approaching 90, if it had become more difficult to work as he got older. He looked at me with bemused puzzlement.

Jenswork “More difficult? Yes, in this sense: It becomes more difficult each day to stay and finish my breakfast before rushing into my studio to work. I have more ideas than ever, they become more exciting each day, and my wife insists that I finish my breakfast before I start working. So, yes, it becomes more difficult.” His wife, standing next to us, confirmed this, with a loving smile.

He then added, “If you’re not doing this for the pure joy of doing it, then there is no reason to do it. You should find something else to do.” I then understood the smiles, the twinkle in the eyes, the warm welcome. They were not interested in the fame or the fortune, they didn’t need the recognition. They were true creators. They had never lost the excitement that they had felt as children when squishing paint between their fingers and smearing it all over that big sheet of paper. They were painting for the sheer joy of it, and by the looks of things, they may go on doing it for another 140 years.

McCain to Preach Abstinence in S.C.

Most presidential candidates are trying to get people to say “yes.” Republican Sen. John McCain will be encouraging South Carolina students to say “no.”

The Arizona lawmaker is scheduled to speak Sunday night to about 1,500 middle and high school students about abstaining from premarital sex. Abstinence and abortion loom large as issues in this first-in-the-South primary state in the heart of the Bible Belt.

“Senator McCain has a long legislative record of supporting abstinence-based initiatives in his record in the U.S. Senate,” said Trey Walker, McCain’s South Carolina campaign director. “He thinks that abstinence is healthier and should be promoted in our society for young people.”

The event is to follow McCain’s appearance at a hot dog and ice cream social.

I wouldn’t have sex with McCain, either. Especially if I were a high school student. In fact, I don’t think I would even go the ice cream social with him if he asked. What is he, a pedophile? Ew. And what is this “hot dog” and ice cream social thing? When I was a kid, they were just ice cream socials. There were no “hot dogs” there. It all seems very suggestive to me.