A meditation on Fearlessness

A meditation on Fearlessness

Tonight we will explore the idea of Fearlessness, or moving beyond fear to have the courage to embrace vulnerability and raw emotion, and in the process break down the walls we erect and masks we wear to hide behind.

This meditation comes from a personal insight and plea for guidance which directly led me to a book by my bed, “Shambhala: The sacred path of the warrior” by Chogyam Trungpa. I was guided to page 35.

I have realized in the past few weeks that a huge shift is happening within me – emotionally and mentally, as well as most certainly on a physical level. I am being drawn to deal with my fears about the birth and journey with my child to be, as well as being a mother. I was profoundly impacted by what I read about fearlessness and “working with the softness of the human heart.” My own tears and emerging sadness in working with memories and emotions from my last birth are positive signs of growth and awareness.

I am glad that we can share tonight in not just honoring and supporting the journey into motherhood for Lauren, but for ourselves as well. Lauren’s revelation of fear and anxiety in the last class about her upcoming birth touched my heart and I realized we could help her with a positive transition with this class. Tonight we will focus through art, movement, meditation, and sharing on building a Positive Foundation for birth and motherhood with heartfelt Release, Inspiration and Encouragement.

Release painful or negative emotions and stories we hold in our bodies.

Inspire each other and allow others to journey with us.

Encourage understanding, growth, softness of heart, and peace in our lives.

Our art: Using simple crayons, markers and pencils we can create powerful images of birth and motherhood, blending hopes and dreams, words of affirmation, and personal stories.

Our Movement: Tonight we will perform authentic movement and create a sacred space for our bodies. Allow your movement to be spontaneous and come from within your body, not from choreography or thought.

Our Sharing: The work we will do tonight is transformative and lasting. We become stronger and more authentic through exploration of our stories and emotions through art and movement. Please keep the space sacred by not judging or interpreting others experiences – you will have an amazing impact as a witness and support!

Authentic Movement

The practice of authentic movement allows a mover and a witness to share an experience of creating sacred space for moving deeply into the mind-body connection, thereby gaining insights and awareness through spontaneous expression of the body's wisdom. Practitioners may gain a sense of incredible emotional freedom and release. I can personally recall a number of powerful emotional releases over the years during sessions, from intense happiness to anger, with previously unimagined healing effects lasting in my whole being to this day. These have been small 1:1 sessions with a witness and with larger groups of movers and fewer witnesses. Each time has been a unique opportunity to move inward and discover a new aspect of self previously hidden, I believe, behind an overactive mind masking and numbing intuition and self-awareness. Authentic movement can begin with the simple intention of allowing your body to start a journey from a movement impulse or memory, and following (not leading) the course of action until a closure occurs and the body rests. The voice of the mover that sometimes arises during authentic movement can be startling, even unsettling, for the participant, as the sounds are felt so intensely and the impact of the words may feel more genuine than in daily conversation.

With a beginner to authentic movement, it can take some time to feel comfortable to open up in this way - a way sometimes described as allowing yourself to be raw and vulnerable, unexpected, and going into an unknown place in yourself. My experience is that trusting and not trying too hard to make movement happen allows for an optimal experience, even if you lay on the ground for 10 minutes and merely move a finger, that may be all that is called for that day. Was it an authentic experience? Only you can say. Learning what that is, is part of the experience.

I am eager to experience authentic movement this week in my class, and have to admit I certainly have a bit of an agenda going in - working on dealing with feelings from the birth of my daughter. However, I can not say what will actually surface once I begin, and that is part of the beauty. I also look forward, always, to the experience of being a witness for others, and sharing in the authentic expression of our deeper selves. Witnesses, and witnessing, help create a sacred and safe space. The witness responds to the mover's comments about what he or she experienced, and the witness reports in terms such as, "I felt" or "I saw", careful not to interpret or analyze. A witness receives incoming images and thoughts with mindfulness, that is to say with a certain receptivity to seeing clearly what is happening in the moment. Non-judging, and holding the space for the mover to be seen and heard.

Authentic movement is a creative process of opening and going deeper into the self, healing, and being in a spontaneous moment of self-awareness. See you there!

Be Fit for Baby | Boulder Moms Connect

Be Fit for Baby | Boulder Moms Connect

What happens in a garden?

Some people are drawn to nature, and some people aren't. I was telling a friend today that I grew up feeling closer to nature than to most people, except my family. The lake I spent my summers next to was my friend. I would sit on the dock and look into those waters and connect. I remember giving the lake little gifts of flowers or leaves. And I remember I gave them as "gifts". Many things in nature were my friends over the years and taught me... rocks, valleys, grass, animals. Last year the animals harvested my sunflower seeds. I intended to bake those tasty seeds but seeing the animals enjoy them, and need them for the winter, changed my mind.

Each year I grow a garden, and have done that with a few exceptions since leaving college. What makes me get out there year after year to plant, work the soil, compost, harvest, and weed? What is the attraction? There is a definite attraction - a soul yearning feeling - to working and being in my yard. I wouldn't recognize myself without it. I can honestly say it has very little to do with what actually grows out there, though the "harvest" keeps my passion sound reasonable I guess. I do love to see a full healthy garden. I also love to see my "illegal" water cache fill up with the spring rain. I take pleasure in the spring green, and the summer browning of the grass because I refuse to waste water to keep a lawn green. But I think what it all comes down to is loving the land is in my genes. My mother, my mothers grandmother, my brother all have been gardeners. Family time was full of camping out, hiking, or spending the summer outside in the beautiful Adirondacks.

Beyond that, I just connect with the land. If you do, you get what I am talking about. So, what happens in a garden?

Just a few very beautiful things.

rich dark dirt
worms
mud
seedlings
large leafy plants
flowers
food
a place for wild animals (a refuge in my neighborhood)
weeds and straw piled high to keep them down
survival
watering cans
gifts
growth
life
yearly cycles
a place to sit and be
challenges
dirt under your nails, in your hair
...

The End of Times! (what?)

Did you look outside today and contemplate the end of times for humanity and life as we know it? The people who created Vivos, which doesn't deserve a link on my blog, have and are making lots of money selling space in vast underground shelters built to help you survive for one year in the event of the end of the world. The "news" is also picking up about the Mayan predicted End of Days in 2012 due to the recent disaster in Japan. Why on earth am I talking about this in my blog (besides amusement)?

A brilliant man's writing I follow keeps inspiring me to approach current issues with my own view point. He was writing about Native American views on apocalypse and how humans are creating their own demise by the way in which we treat our planet, the way we selfishly live our lives, and our lack of foresight into sustaining this beautiful earth for our children.

My friend posted this comment about another blog entry of mine:

‎"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children."

Ancient Indian Proverb

For many years now, I have been of the opinion that the sum of our destructive tendencies are so great that we will not be able to overcome that inertia. Eventually we will follow the fate of Easter Island inhabitants, who abused the environment to such a degree, overpopulating, deforesting and decimating resources, that they destroyed themselves. Though people are now trying to curb environmental pollution and "save the planet", our individual tiny everyday acts as a sum total are still too great a burden. As an activist I believed that getting the message out was a change catalyst. As an individual I believed changing myself and my actions would teach others. As a mother I hope my child and her generation will still see the beauty of the planet and save, even restore, nature. In the end, I see that the planet will outlast humanity and I am peaceful in recognition of this.

I would not want to live to see the end of times as we know them. I would not want to live in an underground bunker, for a year, only to emerge and die. I want to live everyday in the beauty that is here now. As I've said before, I cherish every moment I have watching my little girl explore, discover, and know for the first time the world around her. I want to surround myself with people who try to live in balance with this planet - the healers of this world.

Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up

Sometimes I just have to have one of those nights... Bring the Funk on, have some fun!

Feeling Spring

There are so many ways that I feel the coming of spring. Spring and Fall are always major events for my body, mind and spirit - I always "feel" them coming within my whole being. I cherish those experiences and am always pleasantly surprised when my body starts to sense it. I attribute my being tuned in and sensitive to the changes to quiet sitting and movement practices, and keeping with nature as much as possible. Growing up camping and spending summers outdoors in the mountains helped as well I am sure.

Feeling the seasons is a wonderful practice for the human creature, though saying that seems odd, doesn't it, considering that we all can be tuned in to our planet's energy and normal cycling (as well as our own). I enjoy witnessing how the sunrise changes, how the sunshine enters my home at different times. I enjoy experiencing how as the day moves along the energy of the area shifts, how people and animals have times of rest and activity, and how I feel at each period of the day. The natural places I frequent have a rhythm of their own, with different times of shade and heat, wind, animal movement, and general activity. All of these daily things I experience, I can attribute to enhanced feeling of the seasons shifting. With meditation and other practices, that awareness has only grown stronger.

It is a joy to watch my 16 month old daughter eager to go outside each day. I watch and wonder what animals she will be drawn to, what tree she will want to touch, or leaf she will pick up. My earliest memories were of being outside in parks or feeding the ducks. I can't wait to take her camping this year. And as spring approaches, my thoughts turn to being outside hiking and gardening. I find my spirit rising and my energy growing.

I believe that being closer to our natural world is invaluable and is necessary for health and well being. This spring I encourage everyone to feel more than ever - to feel how the shifting season changes you and your world. Sit for a few minutes and watch the sun set or rise. Watch and listen and feel while you eat lunch outside. Observe.

Let nature wash over you and absorb you into the landscape. Unite and feel as one, if only for a moment.

Moments in Colorado - A visual entry

Food Stamp Diet

In 2007, some members of congress decided live on an average food stamp diet of $21/week. Why? "The crux of the challenge: to provide a small glimpse into the choices that people who use food stamps must make each day... The challenge coincides with congressional consideration of the Farm Bill, which includes the food stamp program, the minimum benefits of which have not been raised since the mid-1970s." About the same time, Jay and I were spending roughly $40/week for the two of us. We had no idea that we lived on a food stamp diet! At this time, a family of four would get a maximum of $668/month (about $40/week per person). I should add that our $40/week included items not allowed to be purchased such as beer and household cleaning products (see below).

Our typical weekly food purchases in 2007 (which I can remember):
bananas
black beans
corn
turkey
tomatoes
bread
peanut butter
tuna
eggs
milk
yogurt
snack bars
spinach

Here are some great links about the members of congress and how they did on the diet:
http://foodstampchallenge.typepad.com/
http://www.dchunger.org/blog/

Eligible Food Items
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/retailers/eligible.htm

Households CAN use SNAP benefits to buy:
Foods for the household to eat, such as:
-- breads and cereals;
-- fruits and vegetables;
-- meats, fish and poultry; and
-- dairy products.


Seeds and plants which produce food for the household to eat.

In some areas, restaurants can be authorized to accept SNAP benefits from qualified homeless, elderly, or disabled people in exchange for low-cost meals.

Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco;

Any nonfood items, such as:
-- pet foods;
-- soaps, paper products; and
-- household supplies.
Vitamins and medicines.
Food that will be eaten in the store.
Hot foods.

Earthships - beauty and function off the grid

A visual blog entry on the beauty of earthships. To learn more, visit:
http://earthship.com/

The Healthiest Foods

Check out the following links:
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/25-top-heart-healthy-foods?page=3
http://www.whfoods.com/

When someone asks me about diet, I say, "work toward adding healthier choices and changing eating habits." Dieting shouldn't be a habit... but eating well should. Everyone needs to discover how to use food to help them to achieve optimal energy. Many athletes really understand this concept. Food becomes a tool for fueling the body, creating muscle, staying lean and fit. If you don't eat right as an athlete, you can suffer illness, fatigue and poor performance. Why wouldn't this be true for everyone?

Eating to achieve energy for life may also include getting processed foods out of your life, especially the ones with really long ingredients lists. I love it when I recognize everything on a ingredients label. Even better is making your own food, using the healthiest choices. Right now, as a family we make bread, granola, soup, dessert, and chili every weekend in preparation for the week. Try to add foods that are on the healthiest foods list. Those lists are full of foods that are delicious "single ingredients".

People at work have accused me of being a "healthy eater" to which I respond, have you seen me eat? But I guess there is some truth. Yes, I eat junk here and there. Overall, though, my food choices are basic healthy meals with small portions. I eat 3 "larger" meals and 3, or more, snacks of fruit, granola, chocolate, banana bread (home made). And I work out, which I think is necessary for healthy living, and means I can enjoy food without worrying about extra weight.

Finally, there are so many fad diets. How can they really be good for you? I think the only thing diets are good for is learning about how to change the way you eat and add better foods. Doesn't just making healthier meals and snacks, and experimenting a bit with how, when, what you eat make sense? And then adding some kind of daily exercise and stress relief?

25 Top Heart Healthy Foods
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/25-top-heart-healthy-foods

1. Salmon
2. Flaxseed
3. Oatmeal
4. Black or kidney beans
5. Almonds
6. Walnuts
7. Red Wine
8. Tuna
9. Tofu
10. Brown Rice
11. Soy Milk
12. Blueberries
13. Carrots
14. Spinach
15. Broccoli
16. Sweet Potatoe
17. Red Bell Peppers
18. Asparagus
19. oranges
20. Tomatoes
21. Acorn Squash
22. cantaloupe
23. papaya
24. Dark Chocolate
25. Tea

The Dirty Dozen

Courtesy
http://www.foodnews.org/fulllist.php
http://www.foodnews.org/executive.php

The Great American Apparel Diet

http://www.thegreatamericanappareldiet.com/about/

I first heard about this "diet" on the national news. My first reactions was - how did this make the news? I was simply stunned that not buying new clothes for a year seemed that difficult for people, so much that they needed a support group and website. But then, ok, I get it. Maybe I should join if it is so easy. AHHHHH! Caught.

Our family has it's own "diet" thing going on anyway. I need to create a website for this: we figured out that we lived on a food stamp "diet" every week, without the food stamps, at first without even realizing it. But I digress.

Here's the thing... we hardly ever go out shopping for clothes. When I do go, I often go to used clothing stores. I'm starting to find some good selections in this area but it hasn't been easy. Luckily I have friends that shop second hand as well. I think buying second hand clothes and giving clothes away when I do buy new clothes is recycling. And that is good enough for me. So why should I challenge myself to a diet of no clothes for a whole year? I'm already a responsible shopper and I don't need to go "cold turkey" as I don't have a shopping addiction.

I do think that I could do better with buying clothes that aren't made in sweatshops. I used to read labels for exactly that reason, but why did I stop? What about the so called "green and earth friendly" clothes? Let's take a look at this HUGE business area and see what is being said.

Green and Earth Friendly Clothes (a tutorial):
In general, all the websites seem to agree on the following principles:
1. Buy Fair Trade
2. Buy less and reuse (recycled clothes, second hand)
3. Buy Made in USA with Unite label, meaning that the clothes were made by members of the union, Unite Here - retail workers with a voice regarding wages, production standards and safety.
4. Research who you are buying from

Here are some good resources to start with:
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/fashion-beauty/sweatshop-free-clothing-guide.html
http://www.thegreenguide.com/ (National Geographic)
http://www.greenamerica.org/programs/responsibleshopper/
http://www.greenamerica.org/pubs/realgreen/articles/nosweatshops.cfm

What about our "Super Stores", like Walmart? Haven't you heard that Walmart sells organic clothes? A lot has been said about Walmart, but doesn't it make sense to be able to buy SO much in one place - even food. In the US, it's hard to live where we can just walk out the door and find everything we need in walking distance... but if we drive to Walmart, there it is, and cheaper too! ON the other hand -

Here is what one link says about Walmart:

http://www.greenamerica.org/programs/responsibleshopper/company.cfm?id=306

• Wal-Mart operates over 6,500 discount stores throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico and sells products ranging from groceries to clothing to automotive and electronic equipment.

• Due to low wages and negligible benefits, thousands of Wal-Mart employees are dependent on public assistance to meet their basic needs, and American taxpayers eventually subsidize Wal-Mart's low prices.

• Wal-Mart hurts U.S. communities by undercutting local merchants and increasing urban sprawl, and its suppliers have been cited for labor and human rights violations.

ME: "I am not sure it is fair to say that Walmart is increasing urban sprawl, but rather may be a result of urban sprawl, as that already existed before Walmart".

• Wal-Mart has been repreatedly accused of union busting in the US and Canada, and of using a "Labor Relations Team" that stops Wal-Mart workers from unionizing.

• Wal-Mart's overseas suppliers have been repeatedly accused of using sweatshop labor.

• A recent investigation by the AFL-CIO affiliated Solidarity Center found that Wal-Mart is sourcing shrimp from plants in Thailand and Bangladesh where workers as young as 8 years old are subject to sweatshop conditions.

• Shop with Go Green and pressure Wal-Mart to reduce its environmental impact and respect its workers.

I always think that people should be educated enough to make informed decisions. After all is said and done, why do you shop where you do and do you know the company practices? Do you care whether your clothes are made in a sweatshop? Would you pay more to buy free trade and union made clothes?

Cosmetic Safety and Redefining Beauty

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/

The link above is a great tool for examining the safety of what you are using in your daily bathing activities. As my family and coworkers already know, I cleaned out my beauty closet last year and managed to save only a few products, some of which I am still seeking out replacements for. The change was spurred by pregnancy, breastfeeding and research on what we are unknowingly passing on from one generation to the next and into our environment.

Changing products also included eliminating unnecessary items and establishing a very simple routine and refocused mindset for "beauty". I am highly amused when people get TV recognition for not wearing make up - especially teens, but this is worth sharing to illustrate a point.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/19/earlyshow/living/parenting/main6971793.shtml

The feature above is about teens "redefining beauty" and choosing to go without makeup one day a week.

One moment in my life that stands out regarding this topic took place in a camp site bathroom. At the time, I had just finished brushing my teeth and looked up at the other women by the sinks. Every one was putting on makeup and probably attempting to duplicate a home beauty routine while "roughing it". I recall thinking that somehow I would teach my future child to have a thoughtful, practical and natural approach to beauty, one that, at the least, would not include worrying about wearing makeup in a campsite.

That, obviously, is not the point, but illustrates how we become set in routines, thoughts and actions about how things should be and don't think about what we are actually putting on our skin, or in our mouths every day. We are a consumer zombie nation. A nation where advertising reflects our stupidity and our lack of insight into the products we consume.

Goal: examine cosmetic purchases impact on health and on planet.
Questions: What example do we want to set for our children? How can we fight back against zombie beauty practices? What does beauty "redefined" look like? Are you beautiful with less?