Anxiety: Inside the Box

The more I work with people and listen, it is apparent that we as a nation (world?) are suffering from a chronic low grade to debilitating anxiety.  And the more I listen, the more I understand it is rarely the seeming cause of the anxiety that is the problem (although, the world's collective distress is plenty).  Crisis and even levels of trauma are part of the human experience through our continuums.  We are built and designed to heal ourselves.

What I am hearing and seeing is the lack of inner preparedness, the non-cultivation of more Wholeness and well being in ourselves.   The culture at large does not introduce and nurture in people from a young age the means to navigate this.  We're just not prepared for the speed of life having not known well and appreciated, the slowness.  Most of us are indoctrinated from an early age to be productive, have attainable goals, to note the sequences leading up to success and imitate that.  But most of all, it is the what not to do that westerners have been taught that I believe has the anxiety-meter going through the roof.

We are taught not to value emotional intelligence, the creative impulse and the mysterious.  Indigenous cultures, and peoples whose values are close to nature, close to knowing more subtle and hidden aspects of themselves have this sort of preparedness to deal with crisis.  They have a well developed emotional intelligence  (see Emotional Competence and Autoimmunity).  There is a vertical knowing, a respect and value for a layered emotional connection to self, intuition and a metaphysical relationship to nature, spirit and others.

This type of modus operandi is not the norm in western culture.  We are far from Ourselves.  We put        all our energy into developing our cognitive abilities.  Our systems, paradigms and cultural structures are reason oriented and hierarchical.  There is an external, extend-out-from-ourselves emphasis.  This leaves our core depth, our should-be-solid vertical unsupported, unprepared for stress.  We are living within a tight and often claustrophobic box.  The delight of the unusual, unexpected manifestations and truths that ground our core selves become atrophied.  We operate from a fear-based need to be in control.  Our metaphysical, intuitive, creative self is not used in a balanced relationship with our cognitive capacities.  There is a stunting of this other aspect of ourselves.  This creates a chronic inner state (unseen, unfelt) of being bereft, separated from our inner reality.  There is no wonder we have anxiety.

What can be done? An affirmation of this core strength and a gentle visiting to those places in ourselves is required.  As is seen in the following article, when a corporate (western) approach is taken to encourage people to learn meditation or yoga (Is Mindfulness Making Us Sick?), 

unexpected and un-desirous results ensue.  It's an attempt to go from the (totally unprepared) outside to the In.  As the article points out, the In resists.  It puts up all sorts of resistance because it's a violent attempt (from its perspective) at awakening parts of ourselves that have had little activity.   This would be akin to sprinting a mile when you've been on the couch for a month.  So all the ego-survival mechanisms pull out the stops and what we get is a lot of disturbing body memories buried in a vault in ourselves.  It is a violence of sorts and because of the often insistent approach, not rooted in kindness but force.  A gentle, curious interest needs to be cultivated first.  In this state, knocking on that door might yield a gradual opening (if there is no agenda).  Everything in its own time.

The western approach (cognitive, analytical, systematic, efficient, rational) in a basically eastern method is not possible.  We have to lend ourselves to our more innate eastern capacities.  The creative, the metaphysical, the sensory-based--- all inherent in the human organism.  This is an intelligence of a totally different order.  It is wise when transversing on foreign soil, to be attentive, curious and humble in one's approach.  Temperance. Rome wasn't built in a day, or in a weekend meditation workshop.

Know Thyself.  Know your (present) limitations.  Feel what is keen inside.  If the door is not opening, it has its (good) reasons.  Respect this.  It is just for the present.  Bring a humility and care to all of yourself and your endeavors.  Ask for help.  Be discerning in whom you trust with your Depth.  Is it a hierarchical arrangement? If the relationship is less a mutuality and more a "I know more than you, I will teach you about you/what you should know", be careful (run for the hills).  A healing is always a state of self-empowerment (as messy and non-sensical as it sometimes may be).  A healing and healer finds you when you're ready, you don't have to go looking for it/them; you just have to be available, in a state of receptivity.  Receptivity blossoms when there is a nonjudgmental interest and an authentic curiosity.  With self-empathy and joy, start to experience aspects of yourself outside the box.  Anxiety will be less overwhelming and more manageable.

Half of Me, Whole of Me

This time of year, I always find other's words to be more meaningful than anything I can muster.  I need the comfort and joy that can be found leaning into them, inevitably finding some support.  So, with great appreciation to Parabola Magazine, The Society for the Study of Myth and ... (a rich and rewarding subscription gift to give btw!) for bringing my attention to the following hallow words of Thomas Merton:

"When I am not present to myself, then I am only aware of that half of me, that mode of my being which turns outward to created things.  And then it is possible for me to lose myself among them. Then I no longer feel the deep secret pull
of the gravitation of love which draws my inward self toward God. 

My will and my intelligence lose their command of the other faculties. My senses, my imagination, my emotions,
scatter to pursue their various quarries all over the face of the earth.  Recollection brings them home.  It brings the outward self into line with the inward spirit, and makes my whole being answer the deep pull of love that reaches down into the mystery of God."

—Thomas Merton from "No Man is an Island," (Shambhala, Boston) 2005 (first published in 1955).

May we all return to this inward gravitational pull as the season dictates.  May we bring home this recollection of other possibilities.

Plating: Procurement to Plate, the Joy of Partaking III

Why do we bother to imagine and intend how a plate presents?  It's the food that matters, right?  It's the  components  we bothered to prepare that get our saliva started, bile juices turning, that promote the digestive process.  What does it matter what it looks like as long as my body and a meal are in gear?

We humans discount the impact of subtle (and gross) impressions on our being.  Impressions are a food unto themselves.  They satiate a deeper hunger, a hunger that isn't always at the forefront of ourselves.  I saw this when I was a nurse in a hospital.  Patient's fragile states and reduced appetites were often impacted not by the food so much as the presentation.  I saw patients lose their appetite if the meal was huge (imposing, overwhelming).  Countering this, I saw patients gain an appetite when color, care and balanced portions were presented.  It's an energy thing, I think.  A patient's energy is so sensitized due to their illness; they pick up on, register (possibly assume?) the energy of the plater, the server, the preparer of the meal.  When it is mechanical, uncaring it's unappetizing.  Institutional food is not unappetizing solely because it's mass produced, but also because it's mass delivered in an often coarse way.  The automatic and unmindful way we partake of meals or food as a general population has become commonplace.  And so it is reflected in our institutions.  When we become more sensitized to the sacred event in a meal and all the parts thereof,  the event becomes something else.  We become something else other than food shoveling automatons.  A meal is (could be / should be) a sacred event; a nurturing of our being through deep nourishing impressions and thoughtful, balanced nutrients.

When imagining a meal, the long view of how it will be served and how it will end up on a plate is necessary.  Whereas three components on a plate are traditional, a fourth (or more) component makes it a party, a feast.  Keeping intact the original shape and size of at least one component supports the other components which have undergone chopping and/or shrinking (a transformation).  Alternately, if all the components are roughly the same size and whole, it is less interesting and appealing than when one or two have been altered in size and/or texture.

It might be helpful to look at the components of a meal as playing a role.  There is the "hero" on the plate and the supporting players.  The supporting players enhance, even elevate the hero.  They are sometimes the sublime foil for the hero or each other.  They do this through complimenting color, texture, size and shape and of course flavor.  An example of this would be the sweet/sour/pungent accompaniment to meat, such as a chutney or a sauce/gravy.  This is a complex foil.  Complex in color and flavor.  Often the simplicity of a steamed vegetable unadulterated, brings relief to one's gastronomy when the other offerings have more complexity.  

As far as plating goes, harmony and balance are achieved in a meal when proportions are considered in relation to the whole, when colors are complimentary, when texture and shape are varied.  This might seem like a lot to consider and possibly fussy.  Fuss happens when tension moves in.  In a relaxed state, the right everything is available.  There is no hyper considering, worrying, over-concern.  Hence, no fussiness.  Considering the relationship of the meal's components as full and dimensional as well as being sometimes complex, is not the same thing as being overdone or fussy.  Overdone can be loading a pancake with so much fruit, that it does not allow the complex carbohydrate to have a voice of its own.  Or drowning the hero (protein) in a sauce that overbears upon the prime attraction.  Too much.  Not enough thought, restraint, or care-- or perhaps a capitulation to impulsive desire.  The food's end result will always show us the truth of the matter.

There are always surprises in cooking.  The colors you thought you were going to get don't happen or aren't pleasing.  Something shrinks in cooking you didn't expect.  The relationship of the components isn't finding balance on the plate.  Wonderful quandaries!  It allows us to reconsider what is required.  It asks us to sensitize ourselves to what is and to move from there in an open inquiry.  Quite often, the simplest of things like a leaf of parsley, a sliver of orange rind pulls everything together.  What to use?  How to decide?  Relationship should be what dictates the creative impulse.  If parsley was used in one of the components-- to have parsley at its simplest, expressed on another component would speak volumes.  It would be sublimely related. We aren't bringing something entirely foreign, but something, somehow related.  It's an interesting study to soften and open to what is and what the plate asks for.

photo credit:  Lalu Danzker

Service is an interesting consideration.  Do we plate before reaching the table, attempting to  control the received impression?  Or does the meal call for a family-style delivery?  Platters and bowls of the meal's components on the table to individually serve from?  This latter prospect invites a sense of abundance and also a different type of interaction among the meal's participants (things have to be passed to others, conversation ensues).  Every meal calls for its own type of service.

This post and most of the posts I write on food (hopefully) invite you into a sensitization, a receptive mode:  this state is the human gift.  All people have this as a propensity, it is part of our human inheritance.  Receptivity to impressions of food is just one facet of the prism of our existence.  It's a good place to practice the process of opening, sensitizing and receiving impressions and will carry over to all relationships (inner and outer) as its value is recognized.

Preparation: Procurement to Plate, the Joy of Partaking II

photo credit:  Lalu Danzker

So, you have hauled home a treasure trove of good eats from vendors with whom you have hopefully had a jolly time.  You are excited.  You are hopeful.  You are vibrating from relationship; relationship with your curious self, exquisite gifts from nature and beast, and a nourishing engagement with those who love and appreciate what they grow.  This is a happiness.  Now, in this gratitude, we consider how best to prepare these gifts.

How do we do this?  What are the influences?

The conditions vary.  We might have shopped with an idea of a meal in mind, being directive in our approach.  We might have shopped wearing our instinct, our intuition, open to what is freshest at the market.  Regardless, we have these fine resources.  I take them out and admire them once again.  I resensitize myself to their vibration, their hardiness or delicacy, their beauty.  I consider their relationship and possible combinations to each other.  I notice their "voice".  The seasoning they call for, even the way they'd liked to be cut, chopped and treated.  In my regard for them, these gifts I and others are about to receive, there is a hope to honor them and those that provided them.  But this is not a heavy honor, if anything it is a playful one.  I want to find ease, and relaxation, again my curiosity and most of all I want to have some fun.  Braise, broil, steam, bake, poach, reduce, wine or no whine?  The possibilities.  How to know what actions and in actions are needed.

Because you shopped locally and picked things with glory and vibration-- you probably picked seasonal.  And the season calls you to respond.  Spring is light and lightly aromatic.  Summer calls for bare-naked naturalness, a coolness even rawness.  Fall is deep, earthy, heavier more sustaining.  Winter is warm, daringly aromatic, rooted.

Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace has been a life changing book for me.  Life changing in the way I consider food and cooking.  One of her premises I work with all the time is the connection one meal has to the next.  The thick residue from the bottom of the pot of beans one cooked is the beginning of tomorrow's soup.  The "ends" of vegetables not used in preparation for dinner, are again, the beginning of tomorrow's soup stock.  Everything is connected, useful.  I've taken that one step further in asking myself, how are my components related?  How do I bring a thread of what is part of one component to the next, relate them, bring an overall harmony to the entirety of a meal.  The slice of lemon in water served at a meal might be echoed in a sliver or two of it's rind perched almost

imperceptibly on a piece of herb and wine-poached fish.  The basil in the herbed fish might be suggested in the spearmint (same family--Lamiaceae-- as basil) that is lightly confettied over the fresh fruit for dessert.  A lamb stew with fresh sprigs of rosemary has an almost subliminal echo in the water boiled for the accompanying rice or potatoes which you threw the stripped branches of rosemary into (to remove at the end of the cooking).  It's a hint, a light almost subconscious impression of the relationship from one component to the next. There is an endless way to carry the thread in a meal.  Staying close to curiosity and "the player" in oneself is helpful in determining the manifestation's gesture.

Another consideration is suggested by Ayurveda, an (eastern) Indian health approach.  Our tongue and palate is comprised of sensory taste receptors: sweet, salty, sour, savory (umami) and bitter.  Ayurveda cooking looks to satisfy all of these taste receptors in a meal.  So, when I cook, I try to consider that the entire meal has a balance of these five taste sensations.  Balance not being 20% of each flavor making 100% of the meal, but balance being in relation to the whole.  Hence, the development of one's culinary "palate" is inevitable.  This opens my field quite a bit.  Sweetness doesn't always have to be in dessert, but perhaps a condiment to go with the protein.  Perhaps dessert is the protein; a combination of nut-based crust and dairy filling, preceded by a thin soup and light salad; a sublimely hearty end of a meal .  Experimenting with turning the predictable on its head is, dare I say, a heady notion.

Culinary pleasure and digestion begins in our senses, especially the visual.  Hence, why care in presentation is necessary.  The gustatory sense is stopped if food is presented wrapped in greasy paper or unspecific boxes.  Considerations with the visual in mind are color, shape, size and texture.  In the plant world there are arguably 7 colors as far as palette goes (that arbitrary number is challenged as there are at least 5 variations of green alone in the edible plant world).  I try to have at least 5 colors in a meal, (for nutritional composition and visual compliment) but I always aim for 7.  I consider the "heart" of my meal and move from there.

The heart is often the protein.  My rebel self often balks at this seeming undeniable culinary truth.  I play with this notion.  And sometimes I lose.  But at least I play and I always learn.  I resist the cultural habit that meat be at every meal, be at one meal a day, one meal a week (depending on your cultural influences).  I play with the notion that meat can be treated more like a condiment, an aside, a small potent presence to the mighty diverse selection of the incredible vegetable or homey complex carb.  Sometimes it works just so and other times the heart of a meal just can't be the vegetable combination you've put together.  It's live and learn.  A very complex and hearty slaw with roasted nuts or seeds can be very central and sustaining, especially if a chewy/crusty bread and cheese accompany.  Try and succeed, try and fail, it's all great because your interest, intention and attention are active.  There are no bad meals if that is engaged during the preparation.

photo credit: Lalu Danzker

The consideration of shape, size and texture is important, but often enough not considered.  I was looking forward to trying Ethiopian food out on the town with some friends, but found that each of us were served varying flavored legume purees.  The flavors couldn't trump the solitary texture, and the bread served, although somewhat interesting (made from an ancient African grain) was not in good relationship to the pureed food, being kind of stretchy and gray.  Purees can be used to wonderful effect; they can compliment in color and texture. A light green pea puree under a delicate white fish has contrasting textures and complimentary colors.  A white parsnip puree or bright orange carrot puree is a delightful foil for a rich, darkly glazed beef or lamb.  To have something straightforward and simple accompanied by something complex in flavor is a marriage of balance.  A group of minimally touched green beans is a whole component that supports a garlic/potato mash and multi-colored/complicated stew.  Everything about it grounds the meal:  the deep green color, its untouched wholeness, its promise of lightness and simplicity, even its possible reference to a season just ended or about to begin.  It might not be the "hero" on the plate, but it makes the hero look good by its otherness.

Following the Rules: Embodying Ourselves and the Practice

The embodying of an art form, practice or ourselves, means a two-fold process:  learning the "rules" well, living them so they are a natural reference point, and then letting go of the rule's structure.  Only then is there a deep confidence in one's "Way" and a freedom in that Way. Only then do we become ourselves, or form art or live a practice.

I am not particularly a lover of rules.  In fact for me, it has always been a secret pleasure to bend and/or go against them.  Rules often impinge upon "individuality", a self's impulse.  They are often restrictive, even stifling.  But as in all things, there is a season, a time for everything.  So there is a time to understand and live the rules (without them absconding who You may Be).  To blindly identify and attach to rules, whether they be a religious or spiritual practice or a craft/art, is to live bound.  There comes a time when stepping beyond the structure of rules is necessary to grow oneself and one's practice up.

I am a 'personal witness' for someone in a large group Authentic Movement (AM) session.  I move first and find myself doing a lot of strong, grounding movements with my arms, legs, body.  It's as if I am filling myself with strength and courage.  I move out and my mover moves in.  I am 15 feet away from her and have the impression I should be closer.  This would be breaking the group agreement (rule) of returning to the same place for witnessing all the time, established at the beginning of the group session.  I stay where I am, but keep feeling the tug to move closer.  I finally move the 10 feet I need to be closer to her.  I "sprout" my arms, moving them into a large embrace of the space to identify my new spot to the other witnesses. They sprout their arms as well, acknowledging the change. The container feels intact.

Despite my deep love and appreciation of Authentic Movement practice, I almost always have an inner eye roll when the form's guidelines get raised in a new group.  They are practical and almost entirely safety based; why take the trouble to bring them up, we all know them.

Well, we don't all know them in the same way. It is an assumption to think otherwise. Much like social etiquette in different families, regions and countries, the rules, customs and the understanding of AM rules can be different.  It becomes necessary when crossing boundaries and terrain to keep clear the very simple guidelines.  The reminder of them actually sets an intention for safety.  Safety is imperative in an AM setting; the depth of our work has the possibility of surfacing and showing us our otherwise submerged material.  Without safety, our protection and survival mechanisms are always in play, in at least an oblique defense, making it impossible for the more subtle expressions to reveal themselves.


As I witness my mover, I remain standing, this being somewhat irregular in the form.  The mover's process is intense and the witnessing requires a significant renewal of self-grounding on my part.  I find myself moving slightly (maintaining stillness is a norm in the practice) to what I witness.  This standing and moving is necessary for me to stay present and unattached.  I have an impression of myself being a samurai; knees are bent, feet wide apart, arms bent in front of me as if protecting my dantian, my torso, my 'home'.

Embody:  to give a concrete form to; express, personify, or exemplify in concrete form: (to embody an idea in an allegorical painting.); to provide with a body; incarnate; make corporeal: (to embody a spirit);  to collect into or include in a body; organize;incorporate; to embrace or comprise.  Merriam-Webster Dictionary

What does it mean to embody something?  M-W Dictionary says it in a cerebral way above.  Embodiment is quite the opposite of cerebral.  Embodiment is a full integration of parts; parts of an understanding we hold in varied aspects of ourselves.  Embodiment is to fully live or express something complete.  To be embodied is to be ourselves as we are meant to be in that moment.  To be a complete expression in movement, verbalization,  or visualization.  For anything to be embodied is for it to be perfectly Whole, to be exactly as it is meant to be.  This usually doesn't look or sound like what we  imagine the expression to be.  And yet, it rings absolutely true when it is expressed.  Embodiment can not be forced or created. It creates itself.  It's the timely accumulation in experiencing the suffering and joy of our material over our continuum, and the benefit of having lived the rules.

My witnessed mover has moved out of the moving space and is now witnessing.  I enter the space as a mover, running, skipping, jumping lightly, releasing any held tense material.  I circle and bend and turn and feel absolute lightness and joy.  My face feels open and ecstatic.  I become aware of another who has entered the circle.  She is following me;  it actually feels like I am being stalked.  I feel she wants a part of me.  It comes to me that this needs to be confronted.  I stop circling and stand in my samurai pose.  I am surprised at how relaxed and unafraid I feel.  The other mover doesn't hesitate to move into my body and attach.  The primary guidelines for contact in AM-- to move slowly, wait for cues that mutual engagement is desired by all parties, has not been maintained.  My samurai arms move swiftly up disengaging the mover.  I feel angry at the violation. 

I later describe this experience in the circle.  The other mover reacts and starts to justify her actions.  Before she starts to speak, I want to ask her to take three breaths before speaking so as to enter herself, the cell memory of her experience.  But I am too slow and also, this would be irregular to do this.  She is defensive, reactive, not clear in her verbalization.  She forgets or doesn't know the AM guideline to attempt to be in oneself (one's embodiment?) while talking about a movement experience, as she was in the actual movement.  She forgets or doesn't know that witnessing response to a mover is always in service to the mover not themselves as witness.  When this (difficult) effort is made, the verbalization becomes an extension of the movement experience instead of outside the movement experience.

The concepts of following the rules and being embodied seem antithetical on the surface.  But they are related, part of the same process.  We have our attitudes about words, like "rules" and "embodiment".  When these attitudes relax into an open inquiry, a word and its previously assumed meaning becomes an unknown.  It isn't attached to the attitude any longer.  I can have a different, fresh experience of it.

Not living the simple guidelines/rules of AM practice agreed upon by a group of movers/witnesses, can have dire consequences; even in 'mature' and seasoned groups.  When the rules are relaxed in groups where the trust level is high amongst the members, a certain vigilance and integrity also relaxes.  Sometimes it results in a further spaciousness, an expansion of possibility.  Sometimes it leads to a 'no one being home' situation, and a drop in meta support of its members and the container's safety.  In groups that don't have a seasoned foundation, people get stepped on, bumped into, (not usually serious) injuries can ensue, as well as the obvious psychological repercussions of not being seen, felt or respected through "accident".  Unwanted contact can feel like a violation.  Unwanted, unembodied verbal witnessing in a circle cheapens the mover's experience and can feel like a violation.  Rules in the form are not arbitrary, but provide safety in a circle of movers, seasoned or not.

No matter how mature one is in a practice or art form, returning to and letting go of the rule's of the form is necessary. As one becomes more seasoned, they are a light reference point touched upon and released.  As in all rules maintained in society and elsewhere, one doesn't have to think of them, they are well established in our interior.  When this is mature in us, embodiment of a material and of ourselves is possible, in large part to the safety of the rules we have integrated over time and practice.  How do I know where I am in this way?  Our self-awareness becomes more refined with practice.  I begin to see the natural adherence and letting go of the guidelines and the oblique repercussions.  This is my maturity, my seasonedness.  This is how I know where I am in the practice.

Modern Toiletry

The subject of toiletry has pertained to all people through all of time.  Ancient Egyptians mastered it making it an art form.  Medieval Europeans suffered a significant lack of engagement with it.  What does modern toiletry say about us and our relationship to wellness?

Toiletry is a type of self care.  It involves self-touch and self-appreciation.  Media-zation has considerably distorted the practice.  It has become dousing oneself in chemical-based colognes and products (to cover odor), masking aspects of ourself we would be culturally embarrassed by (hair, wrinkles, blemishes, scars).  Toiletry shouldn't be based on cultural embarrassment.  It's not a negative influence.  It's a celebration of the body we live in, an appreciation and honoring of our function.  We wash ourselves not only of dirt and sweat, but of dead cells and static energy.  We attend to rough skin and callus.  By touching and looking with appreciation (not condemnation), we mindfully care for ourselves.  This care changes our respiration rate and hormonal output.  It is a subtle message to the rest of me, a message of love, which impacts the entire organism.

Much like other basic activities in modern life, toiletry has gone to the wayside.  Basic activities like cooking a meal from scratch to feed the body (inclusive of spirit and soul) has become separated from most of me and has become mechanical.  So too, bathing becomes automatic, something we do because we should do it, but often it is missing the intention, the love of oneself that actually impacts our health and wellness. Like most things, we find shortcuts to move through eating and toileting as fast as we can.  In this rushed process, we eliminate care; care of ourselves on a dimensional level.  In a gym setting, I've watched with interest the absence of toiletry in others.  I'm not talking about people not showering after working out.  I'm talking about the lack of consciousness in the bathing and toiletry activity.  People barely dry off from a shower, throw clothes on and are out the door.  There is no awareness of their bodies in this way, of their skin or hair.  I sometimes think I am an observer outside a fast food restaurant; the sensibility is similar.

Toiletry involves our largest organ:  the epidermis-- skin.  Skin breathes.  It respirates, removing toxins. What we put on it is absorbed into our bloodstream, hence effecting the rest of our organ systems.  By subjecting it to seemingly benign chemicals, whether it be commercial soaps, shampoos, oils and lotions we further toxify ourselves as much as if we ingested these harsh substances.  So we need to take a look at the quality of water we use and the ingredients in these topicals.  It's possible to buy (and make!) lotions and oils that are whole, chemically free.  Appalachian Valley Natural Products http://www.av-at.com has lotions, oils, shampoos and other toiletry needs that fit this bill.  They sell a wide range of harvested/processed-with-integrity essential oils for you to customize the scent or desired energetic response of the scent-free product (i.e.: lavender good for relaxation, rosemary good for stimulation of hair follicles, etc).  They sell minimally processed lotions, like avocado butter and almond oil, good for hydration and softening respectively.

At the heart of all this, is the emotional and psychological aspect of basic self care.  It could be our (cultural) indoctrination of shame and contempt of the human body or the particular human body we live in with all its flaws and imperfections, impacts the cursory way we approach toiletry.  Or the guilt of not deserving the time, place, space or resources to manifest this type of care upon ourselves is another influence.  And then there is the denial, that intention and consciousness is not really that relevant to basic things like eating and bathing.  Just cook it, or sponge it and get it over with.  It would be interesting to try the experiment of taking one's daily shower as one usually does, with the addition of an awareness of how it is done (without changing anything about it).  And then on another day, taking one's daily shower with the addition of intention and care.  Conscious of the pressure of the cloth or sponge down the various limbs, the breath in the body as whole scents permeate the shower atmosphere.  How does it feel to take time and awareness in the drying process, noticing the small almost imperceptible needs of various parts; a small massage to a tired knee, a sandstone to a tough and callused heel.  Is there a difference?  What is the difference?  Look in the mirror, does this attention change how I feel, how I look, the tension levels in my body?  How does this effect me?  Is there an accumulated benefit if toiletry is regularly performed like this?

I had an interesting conversation with an old friend the other day.  We spoke about how it is the imperceptible and indirect actions which brings about meaningful, authentic change, not the direct and usually ego driven imposition of ideas or actions.  The small garden privately tended impacts the neighbors, impacts the person doing it, who then brings that influence into their day and to those with whom they interface.  The love and self care one shows oneself will mirror to the outside world, impacting all.  When we forgo these small opportunities of showing care to oneself or others, whether it be cooking a meal, or simply bathing with more awareness and self-love, we indirectly shower (pun intended) disregard, lack of awareness in our daily atmosphere.  This intrinsically leads to insensitivity and inconsideration.  A small act will do this:  what I care and don't care to put in or on my body, how I care or don't care to acknowledge about my body by lack of caring touch and regard. It's subtle yet pervasive.

The Care of Aging Parents: Making the Last Laps Rich (Part I)

This post is Part I of a 2 part series.  It precludes the practical detail of the action of mindful caring for our elders.

We are all born.  We all die.  And almost all of us have elders to consider as we ourselves age.  Without exception, that complex relationship, has its ups and downs (as well as karmic complications) through the relationship's continuum, and inevitably impacts our intentions to our aging loved ones.

At a certain point in a person's life, decision-making is necessarily abdicated due to advanced age or infirmity.  The decisions regarding the circumstances as to how their life will run its course is left to others:  adult children/family or institutions.  As adult children of aging parents, how do we consider what our relationship will be to our loved one's last laps?

For some, its a "no-brainer"; their parents have put into motion through long care term insurance purchase, or moving into an elder community that sees to the layered needs of the aging, or specifically voiced to their family how they would like to live the last years or decades of their life.  For these adult children, it's about follow through, respectfully adhering to their parent's wishes.  Even this ideal scenario is complex.  Possibly the adult children are not in a position physically, geographically or financially to honor these wishes.  Perhaps the aging community chosen is not so ideal, needs to be monitored on a regular basis.  Whatever the arrangement planned, the adult child's committed engagement is required, therefore, altering many aspects of their own independence.  Becoming clear to one's boundaries, capacity and level of commitment is essential.  Setting an intention that corresponds to the relationship you seek to create or maintain with the elder in your life is also required.

Many people claim there is a natural unfolding of this process, everyone involved takes their place.  Why make an intention if this is so?  Making an intention clarifies what you wish for in this relationship, shores-up the commitment with more of oneself.  The expected journey is long; challenges to the healing of a relationship, guaranteed.  An intention keeps us close to ourselves, and what we hope for, especially when the going gets rough and we question the endeavor.

Making an intention opens the field.  The field being one's perception, one's sixth sense.  It's possibly a growing up of the soul, an internal awareness of oneself and other.  It's a path of deepening oneself and one's possibility.  All the facts of the circumstance take a minor role and the relationship rises to the surface of prominent importance.  This is healing.  A possible healing of karma for those engaged and definitely a healing of what has been hard in the relationship.

With an intention, this is practically guaranteed.  How can I say this?  Because with an intention and a commitment to this journey comes a letting go of all that ultimately does not matter.  Whereas the details and circumstances are important, they are very secondary to what is shared. The cream rises to the top, a softening of oneself allows for perception to descend into parts of our self we didn't know we had.  This changes everything.  It also allows there to be this type of change in another.  If we only hold on to the details, the specifics, schedules and external needs-- and only allow that to run this lap, we miss the opportunity the  initial vow or intention created for us.

An intention might start with questions:  What percentage of my time do I want (not necessarily can) to spend with my parent?  With my parent's life affairs? What are aspects of our relationship that are  asking to be healed, would I like transformed? What are the grudges, resentments and hard parts we share?  How can I forgive?  How can I ask for forgiveness?  How much hands-on caretaking do I want to do (again, not necessarily can do)?  What is the necessary sacrifice on my part to do what I think I want to do?  Can I do this?  Can I get help with it?  All these questions are treated as an open inquiry.  Nothing is answered in a hard/fast, black/white way (at this point).  It's a beginning in fleshing out the feeling aspect of the proposed journey.  The decision-problem solving aspect of myself shouldn't jump in at this point, there will be plenty of time for that part to act.  In intention setting, its about allowing breath to enter the feeling center to create some room.

In this place of relationship a trust in something else besides the external occurs.  An adult child's anxiety and worry over the external details, the finances, the medical complications is background material.  It is almost always there, but for the most part doesn't take over our lives because the relationship's intention has helped us make it primary.  The connection, the vibration shared, the meeting and the healing is at the center.

Making the last laps rich, even under challenging and difficult circumstances is possible when this intention is in place.  Intention runs my actions.  I lose it, I return to it, I lose it again, but it is at the heart of what I want for my loved one and myself and steers me in the critical moments.  Our time, our financial resources, our individual direction; taking this on complicates our lives a little (or a lot) more.  Much like people making the lifelong decision to raise children.

In this journey we make, while there are hurdles, there is also a satisfying ride, a relaxing into the sublime elements of being connected to oneself and another more fully, an allowance of a natural unfolding.  Witnessing the external decline of another, whether mental or physical, isn't what you were afraid it would be.  The other's hallucinations, disorientation, good/bad pain days are experienced in a different way as this more subtle relationship is taken on.  The distinct impression of seeing our loved one with one foot in one world and the other foot in another more opaque world is touching and awe-inspiring. We see more of each other, a broader spectrum beyond personality and that is gratitude personified.  It is in this healing relationship one feels one's fortune; and it is reflected back from our loved one, having been shared.

I bring up intention in this first part, because it must precede the nuts/bolts and problem solving of the circumstantial details.  Otherwise, the external drives our actions, not the intention.

Food as Impressions: Impressions as Food

All things are connected.  All things are one.  If this is true, everything we impart to our bodies, whether vegetation or animal is something that is already a part of us.  In a Whole world, the relationship we have with this food would be mutual.  Then why do we (as a general rule) not behave in accord?  We ignore this connection in the most basic ways.  We find ourselves when eating, not paying attention, reading a magazine, eating it from a take out container or pot.  When we prepare food we impose ourselves upon the resource at hand.  We make all the decisions (usually automatic) without finding that relationship to the thing that eventually will enter our body and hopefully nourish it.  We are under the mistaken notion that by just ingesting the food, we are nourished. And we are, but only partially.  When we make a relationship with the animal flesh or vegetable before us in the preparation process, a symbiosis of sorts is created which is rich in impressions, an aspect of eating almost always under rated, unnoticed and unacknowledged.  This type of food has a higher vibration, nourishes more of me.

Digestion starts with the impressions received by our six senses.  So, proper digestion starts in the eyes,  and nose, touch,  and even ears (ie: crackling sound of fat in a pan meeting flesh or vegetable).  This of course happens before it even gets to the gustatory sense.  The parasympathetic nervous system (our relaxation response) kicks in when the attention is related to what is at hand.  Our senses trigger the bile juices in the gastric system that begins the process of digestion.  This whole process makes the intake of impressions and food Whole; it's a primary impression.  So, it's not purely "aesthetic" or even a luxury to give attention to presentation.  It's imperative to our Wholeness.

It's a mistake to see an act of care (attentive detail to presentation) as an extraneous ego act ('it looks nice').  To be mistaken in this way is an example of how far we have devolved in our culture in regards to self care; care of what we see, our impressions and care for our digestion process, which is greatly compromised at this time between the surreal industrial-farmed product we are provided and the diminishment of what is important (ie: eating off a plate vs eating out of a box).  As we begin to attend to this vital relationship, our sensitivity and impressions become more refined.  

We have five receptors on our tongues that register sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and pungent (the sublime combination of sweet and sour).  Western palates have been exclusively indoctrinated to sweet and salt through proliferative processed food use, marketing and habit.  To consider that all five qualities of flavor be present at a meal is an exercise in finding unity.  Likewise, providing diverse color and texture is to bring harmony to the senses and the receptors in ourselves that long to be met.  The balance of acid and alkaline inherent in foods is yet another demand.  If we are related to what is in front of us in the preparation stage, these aspects of unification unfold very naturally.  I become sensitized to the call of a dish, the meal as a whole.  I become aware of the components and how right or wrong they are for each other, be it in shape or size, complexity or flavor.  It becomes an interesting interplay and exchange between the raw food ingredients and myself.  A dialogue.  Relationship.

When plating, what happens when we spread the meal's components out?  Keep them in groups, add a gesture component (like a few thin pieces of lemon rind to the plate juxtaposed without fuss).  It falls on a place of rightness in us that isn't about aesthetic or "artistry"-- it's very interesting.  The life of the food starts to engage with us, inform us.  It becomes a relationship.  We no longer act upon it.  We work WITH its life, and it works with us.  

Impressions feed us.  Why deny this when it benefits our bodies and spirits so beautifully?  Food can be a negligible impression or one that reaches the organism in an expansively spatial way. Choose a bigger life.

Repetition and Transformation

We live our lives in repetition.  So much of our comfort and discomfort is in the everyday cycling through sameness.  Repetition can bring a type of death.  It also can bring a type of renewal.  Renewal to what might have become mundane; the ordinary transformed.

I've taken to like ending my blog each year with a poem post. Below is a year-long series of tweets by poet Ian McMillan, describing the same walk he takes every day, wherein he illustrates the possibility of transformation in an ordinary, everyday sameness.  It is long, so freely skip and play in-between, allowing the impression of a new sameness to fall on open senses.

May 2014 bring the miracle of transformation in ordinary sameness to us all.

Each morning, I get up early and go for a stroll through my ex-mining village near Barnsley; just before 6am, I walk to the newsagent, then down a long hill and up a steeper hill and back home. It takes me about 40 minutes and I tweet about the stroll as soon as I get in. I’m excited by the idea of creating minimalist poetry about a limited canvas, trying to find something new every day from the same mile and a bit. The moon is a regular presence and so is the word “beautiful”. Here’s my selection of some of the tweets I’ve posted since  Christmas Day 2012:

25/12: On my early stroll, by the zebra crossing, one Belisha beacon working, one not, Like the cheapest open-air disco you ever saw.

27/12: On my early drizzly stroll I pretend  I’m in a film noir walking the mean streets of ~LA until a bloke with a dog says “ R8 kid!  Cold ’un!”

28/12: On my early stroll I’m battered by  the breeze, a skiff on the pavement’s lake. A  bit of old Christmas paper like a gull with  holly wings.

29/12: Early stroll. Find a pound coin on the pavement. Beats that 5p I found the other day. Moonlight alchemy!

30/12: On my early stroll I’m struck by the simple beauty of a No Entry sign. The red circle, the white line. It has the power of art.

5/1/2013: Different ways of looking at the moon: gaze, peer, peep, stare, glance, gawp. Pointing sometimes, like today. It was so beautiful.

6/1: Early stroll. The moon hasn’t turned up. I’ve been moon-jilted. Maybe it’s slept in. Sky like an empty purse with no coin in it.

8/1: Early stroll. Beautiful sliver of a moon low in the sky. I could almost touch it. I will. I daren’t. I might. Would it feel cold? I daren’t.

20/1: Just took the snowgrip things off my shoes. They feel like something you might find in the haunted wing of a lingerie shop.

21/1: Early snowy stroll. I find myself trudging, so I try to vary it: jazz trudge/hero trudge/tap trudge/thoughtful trudge/satirical trudge/trudge.

28/1: Early stroll. A man at the bus stop wearily lifts his arm as the bus approaches: it’s an exhausted hand-jive, an almost-signal, a wavelet.

16/2: Early stroll. I come across three discarded pens, and an empty pack of headache tablets. A poet’s passed by, I reckon.

23/2: Early stroll. Here we go, another day to seize, from aubade to nocturne, from first  kettle on to last light off!

1/3: Early stroll. Birds fly across the moon,  blossom begins to appear on a tree down the hill. I’m walking through a haiku, it seems.

3/3: Early stroll. I’ve eaten my apple then find another apple on the pavement. Tempted to eat it, so tempted. Barnsley: garden of Eden. Me: Adam.

8/3: Early stroll. I say Good Morning to a bloke in a camouflage jacket and he seems surprised that I can see him.

9/3: Early stroll. There’s a door in a skip and I’m tempted to open it, go through, find a mystical and magical land. Somebody stares at me from a bus.

10/3: Freezing early stroll. Grit wagon  trundles by and sprays me. Now I’m gritty.  I’ll go home and write a country song and a detective novel.

11/3: Early stroll. By the almost-demolished school, a bunch of red fire extinguishers  like chess pieces waiting for a game. Snow speckling them.

12/3: Early stroll. I see the bloke in the  camouflage jacket again, but walking behind is a man in a hi-vis jacket. His evil twin/ soul/conscience?

14/3: Early stroll. A big piece of gold-coloured wrapping paper, lifted by a breeze, flies towards me like a primitive sculpture of a mythical bird.

23/3: Early snowy stroll. A craving for colour in the white. So, thanks to blue bag in tree, green sparkly hat in front of car, crushed marker pen.

29/3: Early stroll. Cold, brilliant blue morning. By the flats where the farm used to be I remember a fire, burning hay. I was 6. My face warms.

30/3: Early stroll. An empty bus passes and I crouch to look at the moon through its moving windows. The driver slows down, thinks I want to get on.

7/4: Early stroll. A mystery by the demolished school: a small box with HARMONICA  written on it but no harmonica in it. I stand and listen: birds.

8/4: On my early stroll my left shoelace unravels itself: so that’s what walking is, a gradual progression that leaves you naked. Better speed up.

14/4: Early stroll. I walk past a door and the smell of toast and the sound of someone whistling and I want to go in and eat and whistle.

15/4: Early stroll. Beautiful visual image of five garage doors in a row, each door a different colour: a green/a blue/a green/a brown/a blue.

20/4: Early stroll. A row of black socks on a washing line seems to be walking in front of a tree just beginning to sprout pink blossom. I find 50p.

21/4: Early stroll. I wish I knew the proper names for clouds, but I don’t. So I’ll call that one George, that one Thinking, that  one Yesterday.

25/4: Early stroll. Meet my brother who looks just like me. Our voices mingle in the morning air. Our breath hangs in sibling sentences.

26/4: Early stroll. I often see that horse in that tiny field but this is the first time I’ve seen that trampoline in the corner. Possibilities.

27/4: Early stroll. That house joined onto the dancing school is To Let. Imagine living there, living near rhythm. Living near jazz and tap.

2/5: Early stroll. I’ve walked up and down these hills for fifty years so I must have worn a groove. I’m erosion on my own.

4/5: Early stroll. I stand, as I often do, where the long-demolished football factory was,  to listen for the sound of ghost footballs  being made.

12/5: Early stroll. An abandoned ironing board near the paint shop. Six snails move towards  it. A bread van lurches as it passes: inside,  rolls roll.

16/5: Early stroll. A runner gasps by. The grumpy bloke who never returns my Good Morning returns it grumpily as we walk through fallen blossom.

18/5: Early stroll. Dandelion clocks in verges. Abandoned football on top of a bus shelter, looking like the moon. Clocks/moon: time/space stroll.

19/5: Early stroll. A tiny snail rushes towards a huge snail. A discarded lipstick sits on the floor, waiting for a smile.

26/5: Early stroll. Bright sunshine, and a full moon dawdling over my brother’s allotment, which is bathed in sunlight, moonlight,  lettuce-light.

30/5: Early stroll. It’s such a lovely morning that I feel my shadow wanting to skip. I try  to resist, but my shadow insists. Roof  pigeons watch.

2/6: Early stroll. Equine excitement on the street: four escaped horses corralled into a  front garden by a passer-by. House owner  still asleep.

3/6: Early stroll. A plane makes a chalk mark across the sky. Passengers look down and  say “there’s @IMcMillan on his stroll. We’re in his tweet”.

4/6: Early stroll. Under a sky the colour of boredom I hold my stomach in as I pass a Slimming World poster and almost tread on a slug.

5/6: Early stroll. Sculptures: the wheelie  bin monoliths, the single stone placed on the low wall, the imperfect pavement circle of spilled pop.

13/6: Early stroll. A home-made (stick and string) bow and arrow on the floor. I pick them up. On the corner: a hubcap that could be  a shield.

15/6: Early stroll. Muggy, damp. Two snails make their slow way towards two discarded beer cans near the roundabout. Party time  next Tuesday.

30/6: Early stroll. A helicopter flies very low over my head just as I walk by a huge white arrow in the road that’s pointing at me. I  walk faster.

6/7: Early stroll. Mist over the valley where the pit was. An empty eggshell on the floor as though the mist has escaped from the egg.

9/7: Early stroll. A fridge-freezer in a garden like the start of a fridgehenge, and a bus full of people in hi-vis jackets like a sun on wheels.

27/7: Early stroll. Dozens of snails climbing Mr Moody’s garden wall. Slow music on a brick piano. Rose petal patterns on the path.

28/7: Early stroll. Two small blue betting-shop pens on the floor tell a tale of hope. A single stick of rhubarb points Northward.

30/7: Early stroll. Someone has placed a hubcap on a low wall; it’s like a grey metal sunrise. I lean to try and align it with the real sunrise.

31/7: Early stroll. That brick-shaped piece of polystyrene means that someone, somewhere is building a polystyrene house. 4th little  pig, maybe.

2/8: Early stroll. I find a single jigsaw piece by the empty houses. Turn it over: a blue sky. The man on the mobility scooter waves.

19/8: Early stroll. A vivid sunrise over the old pit then, unbelievably, a single orange button by the bakery. The sunrise represented.

22/8: Early stroll. Mist over the valley, the  trees poking like broccoli. The man in the  Men at Work sign is still wearing wellies. The moon hides.

23/8: Early stroll. In the soft-edged rain I  buy a big bag of porridge at the shop then  trudge down the street like a disappointing/surreal Santa.

24/8: Early stroll accompanied by the nihilistic dance music of a burglar alarm. Three party poppers stuck to the wall of the betting-shop: win!

26/8: Early stroll. The few pink clouds fade, reflecting the pink rose petals scattered  on the pavement. Beside the chip forks. And that biscuit.

28/8: Early stroll. Moon like a half-constructed emoticon. A runner pounds by so I increase my walking speed momentarily. As does that  ginger cat.

30/8: Early stroll. Bright cool morning. As I pass the streetlights they go out and I try to ignore the stone in my shoe which nags like  a memory.

6/9: Early stroll. A few leaves on the floor like scouts for autumn’s wagon train. The temporary traffic lights are at red and I stand very still.

11/9: Early stroll. Three white vans pass,  followed by a black van, then a white van. Like a chess game on wheels. One overtakes. One turns off.

14/9: Early stroll. Couldn’t find my glasses  so the sunrise glowed like a three-bar electric fire and the grumpy bloke shone like a  shaky angel.

15/9: Early stroll under shifting, dramatic skies. A white van trundles by, the passenger holding a map. I see it twice more: lost, wandering.

20/9: Early stroll. The moon slips in and out of the clouds, auditioning for a horror film. I stand in front of the new CCTV camera,  holding a cucumber.

22/9: Early stroll. The moon hangs in the  sky like an idea I wish I’d had. Two carers  rush to change a flat tyre. Someone waits in a room somewhere.

23/9: Early stroll. Single lights: the security light illuminating the cemetery, the car  with one headlight like a radioactive monocle, a bathroom.

26/9: Early stroll. Dark and quiet. The man  on the mobility scooter nods as he rattles  by, crushing a discarded Bob Marley cassette, tape waving.

30/9: Early stroll. I eat an apple from my tree under a fingernailclipping moon. The two  grey-haired ladies walk by me laughing. I spit a pip high.

6/10: Early stroll. Vivid constellations remind me how small I am. A man says “Has tha seen a white dog?” Is that it there, shining in  The Plough?

14/10: Early stroll. Morning still as a coat  hanging in a wardrobe. I find a shiny penny beside a red removal van from Cornwall. A man’s cig glows.

15/10: Early stroll. Five minutes later than usual, so I pass different people. The bus shelter is empty. That light is on. That light is off.

19/10: Early stroll. Can you be dazzled by  the moon? This morning I was. A red necklace lies on the path like a jewelled snake. Two  shattered brollies.

21/10: Early stroll. A white cat looks at a white car, as though trying to decide what kind of cat it is. Two people ignore my cheery “Morning!”

22/10: Early stroll. The scaffolding on the pub throws beautiful shadows in the pavement. Raised voices from an upstairs room. A  hedgehog bustles by.

30/10: Early stroll. I wish I could save this morning’s light in a shoebox and release it on a gloomy December afternoon.

1/11: Early stroll. In the heavy mist, a discarded 2p coin gleams like a fallen moon. I pocket it. Hens cluck at me from behind a hedge.

3/11: Early stroll. The sky is a delicate,  questioning blue. That green box I moved off the road yesterday waits for me on the  pavement, frostily.

5/11: Early stroll. Rain flecks my glasses and a man in a black coat and black hat passes with a black dog on a lead. Only the lead is visible.

18/11: Early stroll. A light goes off in a bedroom and on in a kitchen, as though light has  fallen downstairs. Loaves are put on the  bakery shelves.

22/11: Early stroll. Perspective and slope make that man as tall as a tree. A red van parked by a white van: wine on wheels.

24/11: Early stroll. A tennis ball sits in the  pavement like a failed idea; the two older women who walk most mornings smile at the Christmas lights.

26/11: Early stroll. The moon is a huge grin in the sky. The dead cat by the Post Office looks oddly peaceful. The paper boy’s head is down, hood up.

28/11: Early stroll. The moon is in and out of the clouds. My old house is empty, but it has new windows. I lift a fallen bin. It clatters.

30/11: Early stroll. A clear sky vivid with stars and an astonishing sliver of almost-orange moon. Two skinny men in tracksuits appear from shadows.

2/12: Early stroll. Over several months that cardboard box has turned to mulch. It has a time-based beauty. I slip on it, laugh, slip again.

3/12: Early stroll. I’m held by the sight of leaves falling from a tree in the cemetery. The man in the paper shop draws his wife a map.

5/12: Early stroll. Those hedges have been trimmed so the view down that back street  is different. I refuse simile, even when I see a red glove.

6/12: Early stroll. A woman in bright white shoes waits in a darkened bus shelter. A kid goes by on a bike with his hands in his pockets. Puddles.

7/12: Early stroll. Sign on a lamp post: LOST BLACK LAB. A man whizzes by on a bike, coat flapping like a super-hero’s cape. Cycleman!

8/12: Early stroll. A man comes out of his house, looks at the ladders on top of his van as though he’s contemplating climbing them to the moon.

13/12: Early stroll. The ginger cat beside the tarpaulined caravan. The tattered circus poster. The lit snooker table in the empty pub.