January 15 Challenge: Be a Sweet Receiver

accept lcaretaking when you need it

accept opportunities, gifts, reasonable risks

 Welcome to hump day, both in your work week and in the month of posts.  Today's challenge was suggested by poet Mari L'Esperance and may be harder than it looks.  It's based on this quote by Anne Lamott, which really resonated.


"For me, it's always about Blake saying we're here to learn to endure the beams of love. I'm fantastic at giving—but receiving is grad school." 

accept treasures from nature

Today be a gracious receiver of whatever beams of love come your way-- whether it's a compliment, a gratitude, or a happenstance piece of beauty that art or nature throws your way.  Practice accepting, without qualifications or other sorts of resistance.  Notice what happens.

song of the day:  a cautionary tale (don't be a don't be)

January 14 Challenge: seek out the sweet spots and find Balance

find your balance and be luminous

Today's challenge was suggested by this lovely photograph, taken by Berlin genius, friend to the underdog, protector of wild things and all-around sweetheart Sebastiano Banese.  He kindly allowed me to repost it here as visual encouragement for your January 14th task.

Your Tuesday quest is to poke around at your life looking for placing that are leaning too heavy one way or the other.  Are you running from X, or collapsing into in ways that distract you from important tasks at hand?  For X, substitute work, intimacy, health needs, play, responsibility, fear... you get the picture.

In between rejection and addiction, between rigidity and collapse, between giving up and banging your head over and over on the same wall-- there is balance.

Less abstractly but abounding with metaphor still: between holding your breath and hyperventilating, there are miles of places for easier breathing.

See if you can notice places in your life where you are running too hot or too cold, too fierce or too wimpy.  Imagine it on a half-dial, like half a clock.  Balance is that middle third.  When your dial is pointing too left or too right, what can you do to nudge it onto a middle path place?

In dialectical behavioral therapy, this goal is seen as a real key to right action and finding regulation. 

the lovely middle path

It's usually encouraged through Opposite Action:  if you are too cool, be warmer.  If you're being hard and rigid, soften and bend.  If you are frenetic, be intentional in being SLOOOOOOWWW for a while.
If you want to fight, sit down and breath.  If you're all about money, focus today on what you value in life that is intangible and not best bought.

I've been either spinning my wheels working too much or, when unstructured time arrives, avoiding the minutia of the work completely.  That's out of balance.  Tuesday I plan to write out my schedule instead of waiting to see when I want to call insurance companies ("How does Never work for you?")  I'm going to call my pal Hal, because that relationship has gotten out of balance with me never catching his calls and then not calling back, and I love him and value our hundred year bond and yet am not acting in right relationship to reflect it.  I have a couple other ideas that may or may not happen, because part of my balance is getting some sleep, cleaning my kitchen, and doing some filing and billing.  I don't love those things but they don't disappear when I ignore them.

Friends, chores, work, play, health.   Eating, sleeping, art.  There's a lot to fit into this tiny life-- and least five novels into a blank book more the size of a novella.  The novella expands when the soul is in balance.  Where does soul need ballast today?

Let me know, if you're willing, what you found out in taking on this challenge for Tuesday.

Quote of the day: 
"The Eightfold Path which the Buddha preached in his first sermon is known as the Middle Path because it is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. Optimism tends to over-estimate the conditions of life, whereas pessimism tends to under-estimate them. To plunge on the one hand into the sensual excesses and pleasures of the ordinary worldly life is mean, degrading and useless. On the other hand. extravagant asceticism is also evil and useless. Self-indulgence tends to retard one's spiritual progress and self-mortification to weaken one's intellect. The Path is a Middle Way between the pairs of opposites. and the doctrine of the 'Way' may only be grasped by an understanding of the correlation and interdependence of the two. Progress is an alternating change of weight or emphasis between the two. Yet, just as a fencer's weight seems ever poised between his feet resting upon either foot only for so long as is needed to swing back the emphasis, so on the path the traveler rests at neither extreme but strives for balance on a line between, from which all opposites are equally in view. All extremes beget their opposites, and both are alike unprofitable." ---Venerable Ashin Thittila

“The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.”
― Anne Lamott,

Song of the day: 

The Slacking Continues: Pick your own challenge

What can I say?  Work ate my socks today.

Today's challenge is to find today's challenge.
Hit resolutions on the search or word cloud on the side of the blog and pick something appealing.  I'll stick a quote and song on here later tonight, but first I gotta eat.
love,
Jana

January 12 Challenge: Slacker Sunday

It's not you, it's me. The slacker, that is. I woke up (sort of, as much as I did wake anyway) with an off-line brain and a full schedule, which means that since I didn't do a late night write there was no blog today. Or at least no posted challenge. But it's still January 12th, so I'm counting this for something.

I hope you got some Sabbathing in today in whatever form works for you. What worked for me was hearing a kick-ass sermon (did you know those words could go together? works in my faith) on concepts of love in action and right relationship. Follow-up was lunch with the first person I met in Corvallis (who came to visit from her 10-year-old "new" home in Eugene) and other friends and then off for a brisk, only slightly damp hike in the woods. 

It's good that none of this was too taxing, because as I mentioned, my brain was off-line today. So was my computer. Everything needs a rest now and then.

Hopefully you are done with your 12th, but if not or if you want to throw in today's challenge at some later date, remember to take a break now and then when your resources are outstripped by the demands of the day.

And I'll do my best to get a challenge out on time tomorrow. 
Til then, sweet dreams.
Jana

Self-serving quote of the day:   “Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”  --Maya Angelou


Song of the day:

January 11 Challenge: Love your Weirdness

it's ok to stand out

 Late start today, but since you're with yourself all day long you should be able to work this one in.
Today I want you to take a loving look at your unique Eunice.  Er-- you-ness.
While we are much more alike than we are different, we are also like snowflakes in our sometimes subtle, sometimes remarkable differences.  I've used Kingsolver's (or was it Pollen's?) analogy about this before.  Any given ear of corn (or apple) contains seeds with disparate aspects.  One seed might thrive in a short hot summer, one in a cold long one, one in wet conditions and one in drought.  While their aspects may not be helpful in the short-term, they are essential for the long-term survival of the species involved.

branching out

We're like this too-- we bring into the world a mix of genetic quirks that make us one-of-a-kind.  Some of the specific quirks may not work too well in specific situations, yet enrich others.  Monet's cataracts may not have made reading much fun, but brought beauty to the world through his particular vision. 

Sometimes what we perceive as undesirable is only so within a limited scope of understanding.  My friend Sebi recently shared this old classic about finding where we belong and our traits are loved.

delightful different rushed eggleston

What's in your dealt hand?  What is your weirdness?  How is it useful, at least in times?  Can you love it?  Even if you can't, it's part of the absolute recipe for all of you.

Related blogs:  Standing alone in a crowd
Hey Weirdo-- Yeah, You.
Strangers in Strange Lands

Quote of the day:  (forgive the sexist language-- he's old)
At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Video of the day:









http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3t5BmU3uYQ

January 10th Challenge: Fear Less Friday

fear of being alone

30% through the challenges-- you scared yet?

A little fear's a good thing.  It's a signal to avoid danger.  Unfortunately, there's a lot of noise to go with the signals these days, and we are jumping at paper tigers all the time.  Fear can stop us from doing things we love and that will help us grow.  It can encourage us towards paralysis in addressing real dangers that require action.  And needless fears can lead us to needless suffering.
 

fear of bugs

Today's challenge is to be brave in some way.  As in the rest of the month's challenges, this one doesn't need to be a grand gesture.  It's especially important you don't measure what is brave for you against what is brave for anyone else.  For some people on some days, getting out of bed is brave.  For others, returning a phone call or asking for something they want.

You may have seen the image making its way around the web for some years-- a vast field with a tiny circle on it.  Inside the circle is labeled "your comfort zone".  The expanse is labeled "where the magic happens."  I can't promise magic, but it's true that the smaller we get, the less opportunities we have for both loss AND pleasure.  And we still get the suffering.   As Anais Nin said:  ""Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." 

Maybe it feels brave to smile or say hello when walking down the street.  Or to show a piece of art you made to someone, or tell your story.   Your job is to figure out what quite possibly beneficial act is brave for you today.  You don't have to have "NO FEAR".  You just have to be brave anyway.

Quote of the day,
by the Reverend  Dr. Martin Luther King:
"Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles;
Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it.
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
Expediency ask the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular?
But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right." 
 

Song of the day:

January 9th Challenge: Thankful Thursday

Continuing with our month of tiny resolutions, here's another that can be as quick or as complicated as you wish.

Gratitude is one of the most heavily researched attributes for contributing to personal happiness.  Martin Seligman's original positivity studies found that keeping a daily journal of gratitudes for six provided immediate measurable uplift, and that participants reported higher levels of happiness months later after stopping.  His more recent research found that if participants added a factor of how they'd contributed to the opportunity for gratitude, the effects were even stronger.  Ex:  "I'm thankful to know about the chance for auroras tonight.  I keep an ear open to learn when these might happen."

Today's challenge is to up your chances for happiness by expressing appreciation in your life.  You can
do a list or start your own journal.  You can step it up by expressing gratitude directly to someone who has mentored, challenged, supported or enriched you. 

I want to express gratitude today to Kathy Jensen, extraordinary teacher, who mentored my love for the natural world and let me TA for her throughout my years at Topeka High School.  It's going to take some sleuthing to find out if I can show this appreciation more directly.  I'd hoped to find a picture online to put up here; no luck.  I think of her often and thank/blame her for my obsession with biology and science.

Today's quote:  “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Related:  
Today's video:

January 8th Challenge: More or Less What? Get Going

Hey new year you--
Remember way back early in 2014, when I asked you to start the month of tiny resolutions as follows?  

"Write down ten things you appreciated from the last year.
Write down a few things you'd like to leave in 2013.
Now write a few things you'd like to see more of in 2014."

Please review.  One week in is when a typical resolver starts to lose the resolve.

Today's challenge:  pick ONE ITEM on off the "more of"/"less of" list.  And do something to make that reality today.

Easy-peasy.

What was it?  How did it go?

I'm going to do a little art Wednesday.  Not necessarily good art, because I am setting a non-judgmental bar.  It may end up in your surprise box, which goes this year, raffle style, to a commenter.  One entry is reserved for every topic-related comment posted.  Past year prizes have included Bad Art, amazing gris-gris, fortunes and Good Books.  Facebook posts count and are welcome too, but you can be anonymous here-- though you'll have to come out to me if you want the Snail Mail prize.

Let's see your more or less efforts.

Quote of the day:  I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the years'.  ~Henry Moore

Inspirational Song of the Day: 

January 7th Challenge: The beauty of vulnerability

Oh, it was hard to select today's challenge. I had a wonderful dinner with two friends, and ended up with notes not just in my little book (during dinner) but on my hand (walking home). This week's challenges are pretty much spoken for, thanks to some great conversation with E and L. Tuesday's challenge is an outcome of that conversation.
Today, practice being vulnerable.
We talked about conversation and being authentic. The concept of being vulnerable-- which we described mostly through its antitheses of avoidance of arrogance, defensiveness and masking-- was key to the attainment of true connection.

This isn't an easy or even reasonable request.  We live in time of culture that encourages or requires constant self-aggrandizement, defensiveness and a goodly dose of paranoia. But there is no true intimacy without vulnerability.  If all that is seen of you is your best and shiniest (or worse, a false) self-- who is really being loved or admired?
What tipped the scales on this being the first of several blogs encouraged by tonight's Good Talk:  graffiti I saw in the bathroom.  For once, at least since I joined Wolf's world photo diary, I didn't bring a camera on my outing.  That was on purpose and in deference to Monday's challenge of Deep Listening.  I didn't want the possibility of an interesting shot distracting me from being present with my friends.  Being a being of very limited attention span (look!  a squirrel!) I decided it best to leave the camera at home for a change. As a result I cannot attest to this quote being verbatim.  But it struck a deep chord:  "I am loved most by the people who know me least", it said.  Back at the restaurant table, we'd just been discussing conversation, vulnerability and defensiveness, and being seen and heard.  My first thought (ok, second--after 'where's my camera?') was 'That's probably true for me on facebook.  And the World diary".  Then I thought, quickly, as if it would be antidote, 'but I try to show my vulnerabilities.'  Yet I know that I can be much more of an asshole, a dimwit, a jerk-for-brains than I ever show on my media face.  I am grateful for those who know the 360 degrees and still put up with me, let alone love me.  And I am aware of those I love, maybe even more, because I know how very real, three-dimensional and human they are.

... and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to blossom. -a. nin

I used to give a lot of public talks.  In most of them I managed to get in my three truths with a lower case t:
1)  Even organisms without brains do a great job of avoiding pain
2)  The middle path is almost always the best path
and most pertinent here:

The best of us have feet that are not only clay, but moldy and rotten.  And it doesn't mean our best isn't beautiful.  And well worth seeing.

For me, I want to know that my friends are human.  That like me, they have bad days, stupid thoughts, difficult ethical dilemmas.  It feels reassuring to know that their lives aren't perfect and neither are they.  It expands my world to know them deeper and it expands my connection to feel less separate from them.

Today, practice being vulnerable to another.  Say you are sorry and admit being wrong when you are.  Say "I don't understand" and seek to.  Say "I didn't know that" and learn.  Say "I am afraid" and maybe, just maybe, there will be comfort forthcoming.

If you've not yet seen this, I cannot recommend this TED talk more heartily: http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html
Join the challenges on Facebook.
Shout out of the day:  Thank you Laura, for donating your laptop.  My desktop is currently Unwell with Virus, and without you, this post wouldn't have happened. 
Quote of the day:  To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. – C.S Lewis

Related post: The bravery of relationship 
Song of the day:
Song of the day: 

January 6th Challenge: Listen Up

Hope you're well rested from your Sunday Sabbath challenge.  I enjoyed a lazy morning in bed with tea and paper and meditation and stretches, then a leisurely hike into the Wild Blue that is our freakish January weather.  I made a decent, well rounded Slow Food dinner.  At at 10 p.m. I watched the moon cap a quiet day with a luminous belly-flop into the western sky.

And it was good.

 I may be a little TOO relaxed to get back into a five day work week after all these holidays.  So I've picked a challenge that I do on work days anyway.  I'll aim to be particularly mindful this Monday.

Today's quest:  let's LISTEN DEEPLY.

As a general rule we don't seem to do this so well anymore.  Maybe it's because we are all so busy.  Maybe it's the competition conversation gets from devices and other pulls at our attention.  We seem to be talking as much as ever, but true dialogue seems to be an endangered activity. This sad observation is the keystone of MIT professor Sherry Turkle's upcoming book, tentatively titled Reclaiming Conversation.  In her 2011 tome Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, Turkle posited (with the research one would expect for an MIT psychologist)  that the digital revolution was hacking the flow of deep human connection.  In a recent Atlantic article about her latest findings, she observes we are communicating more than ever.

alone together

The conclusion she’s arrived at while researching her new book is not, technically, that we’re not talking to each other. We’re talking all the time, in person as well as in texts, in e-mails, over the phone, on Facebook and Twitter. The world is more talkative now, in many ways, than it’s ever been. The problem, Turkle argues, is that all of this talk can come at the expense of conversation. We’re talking at each other rather than with each other.
Conversations, as they tend to play out in person, are messy—full of pauses and interruptions and topic changes and assorted awkwardness. But the messiness is what allows for true exchange. It gives participants the time—and, just as important, the permission—to think and react and glean insights. “You can’t always tell, in a conversation, when the interesting bit is going to come,” Turkle says. “It’s like dancing: slow, slow, quick-quick, slow. You know? It seems boring, but all of a sudden there’s something, and whoa.”

Today I want you to be spies and revolutionaries in the fight for good conversation.  Even if you don't have a chance, for whatever reason, to get into deep dialogue, pay attention to others' dialogues. Spend a little time listening in or watching others converse.  Notice if they are taking turns, where their eyes are, what their body language is communicating about their engagement.  If you are close enough, notice if they are picking up the conversational balls being thrown out by the other.

Here's a few tips on improving the chances you'll have a good conversation:

poor listening body language

Pay attention to body language.  The keys are open posture (no closed arms, hands on hips, heads turned away, back up), decent eye contact (neither staring nor looking askance, and of course that means not texting while talking), and being aligned to and close enough to be able to read the other's body language.

Be a good receiver.  It's great you think you are listening, but could an observer tell?  Here's how they might:  you are looking at the speaker.  You aren't doing something else, like walking away, watching television, checking your email.  (If you're truly busy and it's a bad time, let them know when would be better).  You are nodding, leaning in, making short interjections such as uh-huh, wow, really?, etc at reasonable intervals.  You are asking questions that relate to the topic or "tagging" the information to show you received it.  Simple example:  speaker says "I just saw a UFO."  Listener:  "Whoa!  A UFO?" 

i have on my listening ears (or antlers.)

Check for meaning and intent.  "You really think you saw a UFO?"  Don't assume, or if you do, at least take ownership:  "I assume you were drunk?"  It's great to relate, but be sure the person has finished their thought before you start launching into your own story.  Which reminds me:

Try to interrupt less. 

Get more information.  Especially if you don't agree with or understand the listener.  In my observations, when people are in disagreement with a speaker, they (yes, me too) interrupt or are so busy thinking of their response they stop listening.  They then answer with their differing viewpoint before they've checked intention or accuracy.  This leads to debate, not conversation.

In March I'll be doing a free workshop on conversational arts. We'll do some fun games and have some great talks.  If you're interested in joining, send me an email and I'll let you know the when and where.

Quotes of the day:
“The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend.”  ― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters 
"It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much."  -- Yogi Berra

Song of the day:  

January 5th Challenge: Consider A Sabbath

Probably lost some of you at the title, but even if you're not religious, hang in a minute.
Because we all need a day of rest.  And I'd like you to spend just a little bit of Sunday thinking about how you could commit to--and benefit from-- a Sabbath practice in the new year.

you've done enough.  you can rest now.

The word was first mentioned in the narrative of Genesis as the day God set aside for rest.  In Judaism, it was set apart for both rest and reflection, and to keep it was both a mitzvah (blessing) and a spiritual obligation.  All cooking and chores were completed before it began.   The word itself derives from the Hebrew "Shin-Beit-Tav", which means to cease or end and rest.  I noticed when visiting a friend at Mt. Sinei hospital in NY that on Shabbat the elevators stopped at each floor, so observers would not have the work of pushing a button.

As a nation, Americans are more overworked than nearly any industrialized  country.  In 2000 we worked 199 more hours per year than we did in 1975.  That's of course for those of us lucky enough to still be employed-- which is part of the reason we're overworked.  It's typical for companies to cut jobs and simply shift the responsiblities to remaining employees.  And we don't take vacation.  On average, we're now getting 12 days of paid holiday per year compared to the 30-40 of European counterparts.  And we tend to only use 10, because who has the energy to do the double time on either end at work?

 day is done

It's time to take back some time.  At least a little.  And to do it consciously, intentionally, repeatedly.

Your challenge for tomorrow (even if it is your work day) is to figure out some space you will take at least once a week to hold yourself and your time sacred.  And decide what that means. How can you dedicate a bit of time to nurturing and honoring your own soul?  Is it an hour (or day) where you turn off all outside communication links to enjoy some uninterrupted pursuits?  Is it a time period every day where you dedicate yourself to listening to that small still voice?

How can you offer yourself some sacred time for rest and reflection this coming week?

As always I would love to hear your thoughts.

gone the sun

I also want to tell you about my work on the challenges so far.  But rather than clutter up this post, I'll put it in the comment sections of previous posts.  I really do want to hear what you are doing as well.  Please comment.   It can be anonymous, but keep in mind it may take a bit to show up because I do moderate comments to decrease the viagra ads. 

Some related readings:
Oldie but a good un with the great Andrei Codrescu on why non-believers need a Sabbath too
Last year's Sabbath challenge here

Quotes of the day:
“Sabbath, in the first instance, is not about worship. It is about work stoppage. It is about withdrawal from the anxiety system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.”--Walter Bruggemann

"Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest.” --Mark Buchanan

Song of the day: (thanks to my world-friend Sebastiano for this one)

January 4th Challenge: Widen your world

Since most of us have a M-F work week, I've reserved the big tasks for the weekend.  Today, your challenge is to widen your world.  

There are lots of ways to broaden your horizons.  Your job is to search for some experience today that will send you outside of your zip code, literally or otherwise, in a manner that will connect you to another part of the earth.  It's a big planet, but today you are going to make it smaller. 

Here's a dozen possibilities.  Have more ideas?  Leave them in the comment section. 
Connect with someone from another country.  Adopt a sister through Women for Women International, tutor a learner (or become one) on a language exchange website, participate in a world dairy page, find a pen pal.  Want to be an armchair traveler?  Go to the library and pick up a piece of immersion-style prose or a travel guide.  Make a night of it:  choose a country then find a recipe or visit a restaurant specializing in the cuisine of that country.   Learn a few key phrases from another language.  Sign up to be a conversation partner for a visiting foreigner.  Throw a dart at a globe and read a few web articles about the area.  Read poems in translation.  Watch a foreign film. Think about your ancestry and engage in a cultural activity related to it.

What's the point? 
Well, it may be a big world, but we all have to share it.  The more we know about each other, the more we see our common humanity, and the more likely we will be to protect our planet and each other.  That's good for everyone.

I'm reminded of a tale I heard from Oregon story-teller Alton Chung about Pony Express riders way back in the day.  It wasn't easy making deliveries in the Wild West, and there were bandits on the trail. Delivery wagons were staffed with not just a driver but a security guard, who served to protect the cargo along the way.  The shooters were trained not to over-react-- they didn't want to harm folks who were living along the trails or just checking them out of curiosity.  In the story I heard, a driver and guard were hightailing it along the lonesome stretches of the Lewis and Clark trails when the driver spotted what he figured might be a bandit way off in the distance, so far off it (he?) wasn't more than a speck on the horizon.  He told the guard to ready his gun, but the guard insisted he wouldn't raise it until he knew if it were friend or foe.  They continued their approach until it was clear the speck was a human being, hiding in the bush of a foothill.  Still, the guard would not ready his rifle.  "I can't shoot until I see the whites of his eyes", he said.  They got closer.  It was a man, still a half mile off, but clearly a man.  "Shoot!", said the driver.  "No, I can't see his eyes", said the guard.  Closer, closer they drove, til it was clear that not only was it a man, but a masked man, glaring at them from behind the bush.  By now his eyes, though slitted, were clearly visible, and not without malice.  "Shoot him! cried the driver.  "I can't", said the guard.  "Why the hell not?  Don't you see the whites of his eyes now?"
 
"Yes", said the driver.  "But I cain't shoot him now.  I known him since he was little."

don't be a stranger, here?

OK, let's go get to know one another a little better.

Today's blog is dedicated to German artist Wolf Nkole Helze, who has made my world (and that of some 300 other participants in his world photo diary) a smaller, safer and friendlier place.

Today's quote:   “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”   --Roald Dahl

Today's song:  

January 3 Challenge: Be Patient

waiting for the fog to lift

Yesterday's challenge was to think about, then act on the phrase "Don't Wait". After a week of concrete colored days, I seized the moment of a spectacular sunset and stared as it coursed from purple to gold to orange and back to purple.    I finished a procrastinated book review to support a brilliant poet (BUY THIS BOOK).  I did that massive load of laundry, got my blog done, reached out some, explored a little town I've been wanting to see.  That meant lots of other stuff got pushed into the WAIT pile.

Which brings up to Friday's lesson:  WAIT.  Usual rules.  Here's some suggestions; take one or many or make your own.  Sometime's it's spot-on to wait. Your job today is to practice with patience, with not-knowing.  Wait a second longer to inhale that breath.  To interject your opinion.  To serve yourself seconds.  See what starts to happen if you interrupt your impatience brigade.  Remember this is an active experiment.  Look for opportunities to try it all day.

I know some of you, and you're a smart bunch.  You aren't likely to mix up the Don't Wait opportunities with the Wait choices.  Don't wait to put out the fire.  Wait to start one.  Don't wait to encourage, show compassion, take responsibility when you need to do so.  But do wait to act out your anger-- sit with it and see if it transforms.  Wait to interject your defenses and opinions until you are sure you have heard the other side, deeply.

fog rose up, and sun spots rained down

Be slow to anger, to criticize, to judge, to get to the front of the line, to shut down that elderly person nattering in your ear at the shop.  Notice what opportunities pop up from waiting. 

Some tricks to help you wait:
calming breaths
4 regular breaths EXCEPT after you breath out, hold your breath a couple counts longer-- not til you are gasping, but until it's clearly important to get the next one in NOW.

If talking, wait for the person to finish (and that means more than they are inhaling).  Feed back what they said before you start your reply, and check for understanding.

Measure costs/benefits:  will this likely harm me/decrease my health and power/etc?  WAIT.

Say you're at the market.  You're in no hurry and the person in front of you at the express check-out has four items over the limit.  You could gripe at them, the clerk, yourself for having the bad luck to pick the line.  Or wait.  Use that time to think about what else you want to get out of your day, or to count your blessings, or practice that mountain pose, or breathe.

Life is as busy as we encourage it to be.  Reset the pace today.  Take a little time.  What can we notice when we wait a little?

Let me know:
Jana
"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."
Joseph Campbell

January 2 Challenge: Don't Wait

Glad to have you all enthusiastically on board for 31 days of tiny resolutions. Sure, you could quit wheat, get out of debt, clear out your attic and lose 20 lbs. But anybody can fail in their resolve for those big deals. Here, it's all about the details, and itsy bitsy ways to shake things up for the better.
It's a good thing these don't take much time, consider how late this post is going out. From henceforth I will post the day's challenge no later than noon, and often the night before. And of course you can do these any day, and take what it brings you into the whole year.

Today's challenge can take a couple of minute or the rest of the evening-- it's your call.  

Start here:  Settle into your space.  Whether it's your chair or you are standing, take in a decent breath and feel yourself grounded a little.  I like to use the image of yoga's mountain pose, in which energy begins in a point above my head and channels firmly out both my legs into the ground.  Mountains are strong, calm power.  Big storms come and the mountains stays settled.  Really, take just a 60 seconds here to settle in.

Now think about those words:  Don't Wait.  What is something you can do tonight?  It's not necessary it be a Grand Gesture.  Maybe you will sit and do that blog post.  Maybe you'll do what I did and pull over to the side of the road to look at some almost-lenticular clouds that won't be there in five minutes, or that sunset that will spoil you for sunsets for the rest of the year.  Maybe you'll write a thank you letter, or throw that sweater you never wear into the Goodwill bin.  Maybe you will tell that person you love them.

Here's the deal.  Today is the absolutely only January 2nd 2014 we are going to have in this particular stream of reality.  These things you do, some can wait.  Some won't be there if you do.  It's late-- seize the carping diem already.  Seize it small and gentle, but do something you've been waiting to do, or experience something that won't wait for you.

Then write me and let me know what it was and how it was.


Quote of the day:
"How wonderful it is that no one need wait even a single moment before starting to improve the world."  --Anne Frank

Song of the day (well, of course): '
Photos of the day:  Excuse for not getting the blog done earlier.  
Poem rip-off of the day:
Because I could not wait for time
She did not wait for me
And kill'd from up inside my Bonnet
the Promising Could-Bee
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January Challenge Here

It's Time: 31 days of New Year Challenges

Hey you!
It's a brand new year.
There's nothing like a clean slate.
I haven't blogged for so long I couldn't remember the password, but after a little diligence and last week's sweet encouragement from Marilyn, I'm ready for 31 days of posts full of Tiny Resolutions That Could Change Your Life.   They'll at least structure mine for a while.  I hope you'll play along.  Most of these challenges will require only a bit of time or energy.  If you don't have the opportunity to complete them the day they are posted, try them any time this year.  And let me know what they bring you.  I encourage you to get yourself a nice little notebook to keep track of the list and your efforts.

Let's get started with a little polishing of the slate.

Write down ten things you appreciated from the last year.
Write down a few things you'd like to leave in 2013.
Now write a few things you'd like to see more of in 2014.

Bonus points:  Do a little ritual cleanse.  This can range from a polar plunge or candlelight bath to a clearing of a meditation space or a symbolic washing of your hands or face.  As you do so, see if you can really feel the intention of bringing freshness and blessings to your new year and leaving behind some of the disappointments of the last. 

Watch this space for new challenges each day.

I hope you had a good start to your new year.  I got in a walk in the woods though like the blog, it was a later start than I'd imagined.  But every moment offers a new beginning.  

May your house be blessed.
Jana

Quote of the day:   
"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning." 
                 TS Eliot 

Song of the day:  Let it go, says Harry Manx


Shout out of thanks to Marie L for today's quote and Marilyn for the cheerleading. 

Love letter to a gone beyond friend

 

art retreat with ms annie

Today marks the Earth's first spin around the sun since my friend Annie died. It's hard to write those words: "Annie died."  I wanted to write left her body, transitioned, released her earthly bonds.  All possibly true.  Also true, painfully at times, that she died.  She did it in a beautiful way.  She was at peace with life and her death, surrounded by some of those who knew and loved her.  Tonight I miss her in a sharp-intake-of-breath way, knowing I won't see her again in this life.  I don't like and I fully accept the reality that she is gone.

just over a year ago

Annie died on the heels of the Dia de los Muertos, that brilliant Mexican holiday where death is openly acknowledged and the lives of those who passed celebrated and mourned.  America doesn't offer such an opportunity.  As a culture, we've been historically lousy at grieving, combining a stoic stiff upper lip with a plethora of canned sentimentality.  Far better to rend garments and keen, or to laugh and drink whiskey--both good and honest forms of raging, raging against the dying of the light.

Tonight I miss her.  So I'm writing her a letter.  Since I can't give it to her directly, I give it to you.  Maybe you'll write your own grief love letter, or make a remembrance altar.  Let us acknowledge our loves and our losses.

---
Dearest Sweet Annie:

eating?  again?

For as long as I can remember, you've been Annie to me-- since we first met, and you emphatically told me your name, "Anne, with an E".  My memories of you are perhaps more vivid now that I have no now with which to replace them.  In many, your mouth is either full of food, or open with deep-throated laughter.  I've never seen anyone eat with so much pleasure, certainly no one with the body of a 17 year old baton-twirler.

on the river

Tonight marks a year since you left.  Despite video evidence proving that you are a complete goof-ball, you've gained a certain Saint-like status now. When I want to punch someone in the nose, when I feel my heart get pinched and pinch-y, when I am low on patience and big on ego-- if I am lucky, I think of you.  I think of how you full on loved your kids and Eric and life.  How you balanced the possibilities of vulnerability and lightheartedness.  How your optimism was tempered with a directedness and sensibility that in others would just be bitchy.  That was never, ever a word I would associate with you.  You were authentic, honest and compassionate.

I try most of all to remember how you kept your heart open.  You died way too young, but you stayed young in the most remarkable way throughout your life.  You were playful, active, curious.  You stayed in that space even as you were dying.  I know you way outlived your disease, and I know from our conversation that some of this was in service to others.  Dis-ease doesn't even seem a word to associate with you, because you were graceful in life and in dying.  Not just graceful-- lively.  How to reconcile that life-force you showed those weeks before dying with an actual death?

circus annie, art retreat

Annie, when I think of you, I think of your poetry, your dancing, your always-at-the-ready laughter.  And I think of the way you could make room in your life for all sorts of experience and love.  What I want to take with me after your death is that-- a willingness to engage, even while in trouble.  An energy for more love, more music, more appetite for experience even when or especially when it would be more understandable to collapse and withdraw.

goof-ball

November is a mixy month for me.  My birthday occurs less than one week after and one week before your death and that of my father.  I've always seen birthdays as an invitation to reflect on life.  Your death and his added a new layer to that.  I remember we are mortal, and that days count.  I now try to add your eyes and his to my way of seeing the world.  Like Ansel, who you knew only from my tales of him, I remember I don't have time for novels anymore.  I try to pay attention to the stories.
From a poem he wrote:
He used a tool
and dug in deep
trying
trying
to leave a mark
that would last longer than
he would.

---

post-bath annie

annie, smiling and centered

Annie, my sweet friend, you dug in deep.  Your mark is with me, and I know with others.  I hope to honor it by the borrowing of your eyes and the resting in your heart, so huge and open like your eyes and your laugh.

Wherever you are now, thank you for stopping here, and for changing many of us for the better along the way.  

With platesful of Big Love for you, and for your boys S, E, M.
Jana

For Annie, who always wore green
 --------
 I may never see green again
 without thinking of you
 and the full-on way you greeted the world.
 Your laugh, that strut, the
 baton twirl of your smile.
 
 I may never think of death again
 without thinking of you.
 The full on way you greeted
 your fate; maybe not at first,
 but when the going got real,
 how you grabbed that train,

 saw it as some grand adventure.
 pretty much the way you'd see anything 
 as seemingly small as a walk on the beach.
 
 I may never walk on the beach 

 without thinking of you,
 and that day when you were six weeks 
 on the other side,  when  you weren't so sure
 of it, stuck between your curiosity
 and acceptance and your sense of responsibility
 to those you loved you were leaving behind.   
 deciding it was ok for you to full on go,
 to go full on, to that other side.
 
 I may never think of you, and the full on way
 you loved the world that loved you back, 

 without thinking of the full on way 
 you held life in your hands
 like a most curious child, a child with a 
 treasure intriguing, and frightening and wondrous.

 all we could do was step back

 in wonder in your full-on grace.