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I used to watch videos of tennis games and tennis players practicing and I would notice that my stroke would improve significantly.  That phenomenon extends itself to many other topics; nowadays I watch videos of climbers, yogis, massage therapists, swimmers… a learning through empath.

Microsoft has just put 7 hours of Feynman lectures online, for the free viewing.  I recommend you go learn through empath by watching and listening to this inspiring person.

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html

The third TED talk in less than 24 hours to be posted here.  As you can see I really enjoy those talks and have been deprived of them from some time; I have recently embarked on a new stage of my life (certainly feels that way at least) and so I have been checking out some of my passions.

This following talk stays on the theme of the previous one, ethnomathematics.  No corals in this one but, instead, African villages.  A very interesting talk.

Enjoy:

This is another TED talk which I had watched several months ago.  I enjoyed the pace of the talk, the topic, and the presenter.

Enjoy!

In this video Diane Benscoter talks about her experience of being a Moonie (a follower of Sun Myung Moon, a member of the Unification Church).  She talks about how she was part of that cult, of how her mind was “infected” such that she truly believed that that was best.  And she talks about how it is important to help people preserve critical thinking.

A heartfelt talk.

Writing about birth.

…

I was at a friend’s house, only a few minutes ago, a good close friend.  She had delivered her baby only a couple of hours ago.  The baby was birthed by her, her partner, and support of two midwives and family.  Born into water, as the birth took place in a large water tub.

I’m really speechless, it has been a long time since wrote …

February 16th 2009

After a long day at work on the 15th I only went to bed at 2am.  Twice during the night I wake up and rolled over to my open computer to see if I had received info on whether the baby was being born or not.  Sleep was good though and at 6/7 am I was finding myself totally awake in bed.  In high spirits, singing random made-up songs, I got out of bed, had some water, a nice shower and left the house.  The air was different and it stopped me at the steps, I walked slowly and took my time starting up the bike.  The most significant thing were the birds.  Hundreds of them.  The days had been rainy, drizzly, unpredictable until this morning.  This morning was crisp and hundreds of birds swarmed from one tree to the next.  I had not received an email about the birth but the signs were so striking…  I continued singing out loud, looking forward to seeing the new mother.

It was 3pm when I made it over to the house.

I don’t know what to say about the experience.  Or how to describe it really…   How to describe what it felt like to see my friend’s face, exhausted and happy, holding a baby – her baby.  How did I feel when in the presence of this new family, her, the baby, and her partner? I’ve been reading up on birthing for a few months now, reading and watching dvds over and over; fascinated by birthing, fascinated by the topic of hospital vs homebirthing.  When I was at the house I was blown away by … by IT.  By the what is happening there, not happening, nothing was happening but yet the happening in the place was overwhelming.  I mean, I knew I hadn’t seen a birth before (and this still wasn’t the time) and that I hadn’t seen a really really young baby in real life… but how different could it be from watching so many movies.  Don’t movies allow the body/mind to live the experience to a certain degree….
I’m blown away.

I rode the bike to my office, where I sit now, and my mind and my body and my spirit are so quiet.  Tears came to my eyes, that lump in the throat…

I’m blown away by presencing this new life.

I want to step up and embrace the world even more than before.  To step up my involvement in the world even more.  Yet, I know that that is not done by making/doing more things.
Part of me wants to buy presents, send gifts, find that special gift… and yet that is what I have been doing for so long, and recently shifted to simply being and sharing my presence.  Now it’s all confused.  Do more?  Do less?  Do?  Perhaps this birth has called out to my self and it is writhing with a want for birth too.  Perhaps.
This world cannot contain a life.  Contain as in containment.

Birth.  Birth ladies and gentlemen.
Is there a feeling to ascribe to seeing my friend’s belly grow and grow and grow and then see this baby…  Simply awe.
I want to do a pilgrimage for this baby.  A fast…

I’m a little overwhelmed right now.

As a christmas gift to ourselves, my wife and I decided to go to Pt Reyes on Monday to enjoy a walk along the Pacific coast, and possibly,  if the weather was good, a picnic too.  It turned out to be a gorgeous gorgeous day, blue skies, cool temperatures, it was drizzled in the morning so things were green and the air was clear.  We saw plenty of wildlife, we had our picnic, we enjoyed the presence of the Pacific waters on our feet, sighted a Harrier Falcon/Hawk and got our hands on something dead…

the path

ursula

jellyfish

riders on the beach

Pouring water in through the foramen

Hummmm

Scooping out the brains

Definitely one of the more recent developments in my awareness has been around the Soul.

Religion talks about the soul, new age hippies talk about the soul, it is a concept often talked about and, for me, it became just that – a concept, a word, without an embodied reality.

The shift for me definitely began during my time at the Florida School of Massage, very possibly during one of the many rounds in which we were asked to: “feel what is going on in your body, your heart, your soul”.  I was confused, mentally, “what is going on in my soul?”.  I assume I have one, yet how come I can’t simply answer the question?  So many instances in which that word -soul- shows up and yet I can’t answer this question?!

The body, the physical body, was, for example, feeling achy after all the climbing the previous night.

The heart, my emotional state, was feeling excited, excited and happy.

My soul though… and I often answered “clear” or “curious” because I either came up to a blank or an unknown.

I now don’t remember when (or even if) there was an exact moment in which I began to really understand how to tap into what my soul felt.  But I do remember the multiple ways in which I saw and felt my different interactions in the world.  It was like learning about this extra sense, a sixth sense.

I remember one time I was sitting at a Vipassana circle, on a Wednesday, where Paul Linn was, after the meditation, addressing a woman who was having some difficulty in waking up early enough to sit before starting her hectic day.  She expressed how it just felt so good to lie in bed for that extra half-hour instead of getting out of her comfortable, warm, state to dozzily sit cross-legged.

He said, and this is not a quote, that there is a great and undeniable pleasure that comes from waking up in the early hours of the day, before the sun has rise, and snuggling even tighter into the warm bed and going back to sleep.  And yet, there is a different pleasure that comes from getting out of bed and sitting in meditation.

This different pleasure – what is that about?

And at some point the shift happened and I came to better understand many things in a different light.  I reflect on how I value my need to go climbing even though I may be pressed for a work deadline, or go dancing even though my body is tired.  I reflect on the ways in which a long night out partying and drinking can affect me the next day, or how telling a small, insignificant, lie can sometimes stay in my mind for a while.

I used to walk by a piece of trash on the floor and think: “Should I pick it up, something is inviting me to pick it up but it’s not my trash.  Should I?”

I think the main catalyst for the shift came through the presence of particular friends.  The experience is that different people have different qualities, possibly different qualities of presence.  The truth of that experience is that I am fed in different ways by different people, and whereas certain people feed my body, others feed my heart and others feed my soul.

There is a sense that is more subtle than the others, subtle in that it is commonly less evident (even though it is always more evident).  Tapping into this sense is in a way tapping into the reason behind things, behind the thoughts, the words, the actions.  Tapping into living according to this sense is becoming an immensely joyful experience, joyful in that wide-eyed way akin to watching those videos where the camera was zoomed in on some region of the Earth and gradually zooms out until one sees the whole planet, then the whole Solar System, then the whole Galaxy.  It is the “Ahhhhh” of understanding that spontaneously comes out even though there is not understanding, no words.

I can ask myself now: “Is this action necessary?  If not then why would I want to do it?  What does it feed in me?  What does it satisfy in me?  Does it feed my soul?”

Example of picking up litter.

Many years ago i found myself questioning myself and others about relationship.  The question I would ask them would be something along the lines of: “If you eat because you are hungry, then what is the root of the wanting to be in a relationship?”  Somewhat related (and this I did not ask people) is “what is Love?”

Is it physical? – Sex, need of physical touch

Is it emotional? – Fear (of being alone), insecure (and needing reassurance), or other

Is it soulful? – Greater than you

A quote by Nietzche comes to mind:

“Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse.

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.”

There is a sense of alignment, and possibly clarity, that comes from walking down the street and picking up a stray piece of trash.  Not because you/I should, should has nothing to do with it, but because it feeds that sense of alignement.  There is some more expansive calmness that comes from getting out of the comfy warm bed and washing one’s face, gently stretching, and then simply sitting quietly.  Not sitting because one should sit, not sitting to save the world, or to become enlightened, just sitting because it promotes that same Ahhhh, that same expansive calmness, and there is something in that, beyond words and explanation but definitely something… “beyond good and evil”.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field.  I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.” – Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)