Palpable Life and Bungee Jumping

I am absolutely fascinated with life--with the experience of it. Not that I am one who lives for high thrills like sky-diving, bungee jumping, eating hot peppers or anything having to do with barrels and waterfalls. Pursuing experience and just showing up are two different things. My main goal is to possess an inner-presence to my own life and to really see the people around me. It means walking slowly, developing an awareness and sensitivity to life.

Stop for just a moment and let yourself just be; silent, still, aware. You'll feel it--palpable life. Let all the other distractions and perceptions drop away for just a moment and become centered on your own being and you will realize that this is more real than the hard wood or carpet pressing against the soles of your feet, more real than the chair beneath you. This is what remains when everything else is gone.

This presence is the truest you, the you aware of Spirit, connected to the Divine. Usually we move so quickly, so preoccupied that we bare no resemblance to our true selves. We are driven and defined by quirks of personality shaped by genetics and environment, yet still imbued with this spiritual self, often squelched by layers of what I like to call "me-ness."

The 'me-ness' is Ruthie. Sometimes I like my 'me-ness', I think she is cute and funny and quirky and clever, soulful and smart. Sometimes I do not like my 'me-ness', because I see that she has a tendency to be lazy, selfish and impatient and too worried about perceptions. Then I fall into that trap of self-loathing and beat myself up for not being a better me.

But if I'm quiet enough, some gentle, Inner-Nudging will push at my pity-filled heart. This is when I remember grace. Divine grace is easy--thank God. Learning to be graceful with ourselves is not. This is the moment when my spirit takes my 'me-ness' by the hand and strokes my worried head. This is when I step back and grant myself compassion, love myself for the silly fledgling I am and open my arms to Grace. I smile and shake my head at my own youthfulness and remind myself that I'm still growing and that is good. In fact, it's a little bit like bungee-jumping.

Life. What a thrill.

A Few Words on Dancing and such...

Do you ever dance in your kitchen? The kitchen is the best place in my house to dance. I haven't been great about yoga lately and getting out to walk just hasn't been happening. I am very imbalanced right now, just not getting this school vs. rest of my life thing down.

So this morning, I danced in my kitchen. I pulled the rug back so I would have a nice smooth surface and I danced--okay it was sort of a yoga/ballet/free-form kind of self-expression type of dance. No music involved, just feeling. And it was good. I needed that.

Have you ever thought of how interconnected our minds and bodies and spirits really are? Sometimes when I'm feeling all balled up and stuck, a good dance or a few minutes on the backyard swing , maybe a brisk walk, seems to open everything up. My body, spirit and mind feel energized. My creativity feels nourished and ready to go! And I feel happy.

This whole experience reminds me of an excerpt from a paper I wrote earlier this year about the body-mind connection in learning and the impact of play and the kinesthetic arts (movement arts) have on our over-all well-being:

In fact, movement and exercise play a significant part in whole-body wellness and the learning process. The body responds to exercise much in the same way it responds to laughter, by releasing neurotransmitters and increasing neuroplasticity--the brain’s ability to thrive and evolve through new experiences and stimulation (Weiss, 2001). This is even more fascinating in light of the discovery that movement and thought are both initiated in the same area of the brain. Jensen asserts that even the inner ear, one of the first sensory organs to fully develop, plays a critical role in the processing of movement and balance. He goes on to praise the “values of playground activities that stimulate inner-ear motion, like swinging, rolling, and jumping” for enhancing brain activity (2005, p. 62). Like active play, the kinesthetic arts push the intuitive mind to its utmost potential. Dance, gymnastics, martial arts and theater are all movement arts that make a dramatic impact on the body and brain as a whole, boosting “emotional, physical and cognitive abilities of the student” (Jenson, c2001, p. 76). Movement arts increase feelings of happiness and self-confidence. Activities that involve a high level of stimulation to both the body and mind, accelerate neuron production and improve the student’s ability to learn and retain new information...Kinesthetic arts and play integrate the body and mind, stimulating the production of new neurons and increased neuroplasticity in the brain along with inducing feelings of joy (Jensen, c2001).


Take a few minutes today to play, move, dance. Spinning in circles is also great for the brain and spirit. :) So try it and tell me how you feel!

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Jensen, E. (c2001). Arts with the brain in mind [electronic resource]. Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved June 28, 2009, from Ebrary.
http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/lib/apus/docDetail.action?docID=10044809

Weiss, R. (2001, September). The mind-body connection in learning. T+D, 55(9), 60. Retrieved June 28, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database.

Logic and Real Life

Hi all. I know I've been a slacker when it comes to keeping up here lately. I started college classes recently in attempt to finish the degree I started before getting swept up in married life and mommy-hood. It's been good, but incredibly challenging to get back in to the swing of college life, especially with adult responsibilities on top. So I'm working on balance, and realizing that I need some down time to relax and to write or I'm going to burn out quickly. So here I am.

Balance has never been easy for me, even before my days of four children and a husband. I tend to jump from one exciting idea to another, easily entranced by anything I find inspiring. School has had my most enchanted attention for the past 3 weeks, while my children have, admittedly, been relegated to "distraction." Sad, I know. Not that I've totally ignored them, only that I'm really struggling with figuring out how to balance this whole thing. My house gets super loud in the Summer anyway: four kids, free to play pretty much all day, not always getting meals on time because of my inability to structure my new adventure, not to mention my own lack of rest and the sibling arguments that are just an indelible part of having everybody home all day every day. Yes, my children are as imperfect as me, only cuter--if that's a word.

So I've been studying logic this week. Oy...talk about brain-stretch. All day long, statements like "If p is true, then q is true.", stream through my consciousness. It seems to not matter what I'm doing. Even before I opened my eyes this morning, "If this is true, then this is true." Then, in those waking moments, it dawned on me, "If my children are behaving in a negative way (n), then they are most likey emulating my example (e)." What has been simmering beneath the surface for days, what I have seen reflected in my children lately and been frustrated to know how to deal with, surfaced in the Conditional Statement: n-->e or If n is true, then e is true.

This whole realization is bittersweet. (It makes me feel like crying; and I do...it's just my way. Like writing, the way I make sense of the world, crying is how I feel it. I laugh too, but that just doesn't seem fitting for this instance.) It's bittersweet--bitter in it's scathing review of my behavior lately, sweet in it's discovery and application.

Humility is freeing, because it's truth. It brings us back to square one. For me, that means no matter how many other things I have going in my life, this is more important.

Last week I was studying Set Theory, another math concept that crept up on me and pounced. I had no idea math would impact my spirit so severely. Set theory is all about clearly defined items grouped together. If My Family is the universal set (u), then my husband and I--as parents {p} --are a subset of the universal set, My Family. My children {c} are another subset of My Family. u={p, c} I could come up with many more combinations of well-defined subsets of the universal set, My Family, but these are all I need. Where the truth lies is in how these subsets intersect in My Family. {p ∩ c} = {p,c}. I know, mathematically it doesn't make sense. Mathematically, {p ∩ c} should = Ø. But the truth is, in the real world, it works differently than that. This set isn't so rigidly defined. Sometimes, I feel very much like a child, and I cannot begin to count the times my children have parented me, been my teachers. Sometimes it just comes down to p<-->c. And the set definitions start to melt together; we are no longer bound by narrow definitions. The universal set becomes All That Is.

That's how humility works. It brings us all back to square one, makes us realize that we're all here together, to grow, to learn, to love and to be loved. And that's the most important thing.

And that's my Logic/Set Theory lesson for today.

love,
R

The Art of Parenthood

Today I was blowing bubbles with my two-year-old daughter. She was catching the shiny orbs, yelling "Pop, pop, pop. Mama I pop them!" Then she exclaimed, "I'm happy!" I asked, "Do bubbles make you happy?" "No," she said, "you make me happy." That's medicine for a mother's heart.

Yesterday we were wandering around in the local Salvation Army Thrift Shop when I ran across a little plaque with a quote by Wilferd A. Peterson. I bought it for 5o cents to hang in my newly painted kitchen. I want to share it because it's so good...a reminder I need everyday:

In practicing the art of parenthood an ounce of example is worth a ton of preachment. When we set an example of honesty our children will be honest.When we encircle them with love they will be loving. When we practice tolerance they will be tolerant. When we meet life with laughter, they will develop a sense of humor. Our children are watching us live, and what we ARE shouts louder than anything we can say.

love, love, love...

Being a Parent

Being a parent is 1/3 wondering how you will ever make it through this, 1/3 sighing with relief that you handled that one with grace, and 1/3 sitting on the edge of your bed, baffled at how your 8-year-old can sometimes be more wise and mature than you.

One Thing

If I could leave my children with one thing, I hope that it would be something I have learned in life as well. I would gift them with the capacity to love, to laugh, to express compassion. But above those virtues, I would hope to instill in them RESILIENCE, the ability to learn from failure and success alike, and in that, kindness toward themselves and a sense of honor for life as a teacher. For whatever their path, this is what I would give them.

All that from a visit to the dentist?

My dentist's office is situated between two grassy, sparingly tree-speckled lots. The chair I sit in to have my teeth cleaned faces a window framed by an evergreen on either side, looking out towards grass and trees. During a few routine dental x-rays today, a chickadee flitting about on the ground and a passerby robin caught my attention.

It doesn't take much to find that spacious inner place...usually those experiences happen in the most everyday situations...the instant when we notice and something inside us wakes up, we remember. Something takes us home, inspires us, opens us to oneness, and we just want to hug the whole blessed world, suffering and beauty all at once.

Then the hygienist asked me something about my children. I leaned back to set in for a teeth cleaning and a view of an advertisement featuring a young woman with an unnaturally white smile. Those moments don't last. I don't live perpetually there. But the sense lingers, that knowing. Even in the everydayness, something deeper, lasting, connecting remains...and it's peace, it's wholeness.

But we don't often notice, so we go about our lives believing that we are just at the dentist getting our teeth cleaned and polished. After all, first impressions are important. Though perhaps, if we looked a little deeper, we'd find something more, something more.

This is the place where the path and the woods converge. This is both the journey and home.

A poem

A link to a great poem written by an old friend....

Thankful Thursday: You know, that feeling...

I'm not sure how to start this post. Mostly right now all I have is a great gush of feeling filling up in my stomach and chest... that feeling of love and hope and anticipation. That feeling you get when you are going to see a loved one you haven't seen for a long time and then they walk into the room and you catch your breath when you see their face...that familiar face. And you just want to run up and throw your arms around them. That's how I've felt the past couple of days. And to put it simply, I'm thankful.

I'm thankful for the beautiful souls who honor my life everyday with their presence, for the people who I get to share this journey with. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn the lesson of true friendship and to be blessed with those who stay.

You all are my teachers.

Thankful Thursday must be revived.

I know it's not Thursday. And I have been hibernating. But the sun is shining today and Spring is awakening my senses to gratitude. So, if nothing else, Thankful Thursday. Thankful everyday....but Thursday to write it down...because I like the aliteration.

But today, thankful. Just because. Because gratitude now is opening to what is...being in it. That 's all for today.