Earth, water, fire and air: the essential elements involved in laundry.

You begin by removing soil from the clothes (both soil and clothes are “earthy”) by washing them (water), then you take the clothes outside to be dried by the sun (fire) and freshened by the breeze (air). And there you are, doing what women have done over the centuries, cleaning clothes and drying them, an activity as elemental as can be with the end result: fresh, sweet smelling garments.



As you can see, laundry can be more than just a chore. It can be a satisfying and almost atavistic task when done, as much as possible, the old fashioned way. It gets us back to the basics of human experience. Gardening and cooking are other earth, water, fire and air chores that, like laundry, are basic activities that actively support our good health.


Tidying up in general may not be so basic, may not include all the elements, but it does contribute to our sense of well being. Mum always said that cleanliness is next to godliness. Maybe what she meant is that the act of cleaning something, be it body, mind or spirit, feels good. It feels right, somehow, to set our home, ourselves, our minds and our spirits to rights. It feels really good, and that which feels really good connects us to the universe.


Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.


After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, ENJOY!

The Cleverest Trick

Rumi Says:



"No better love than love without object,

no more satisfying work than work with no purpose.

If you could give up tricks and cleverness,

that would be the cleverest trick!"


If you can, be sure to see the Berkeley Art Museum's latest show "Create".  It features incredible art work, unselfconscious, true, beautiful, touching, and all done by people with various kinds of disabilities.  They have truly given up "tricks and cleverness" and become amazing artists and observers of life.  Compared to the work of  many "real artists" these folks have a freshness and energy about their work that illustrates Rumi's point beautifully.  Go and see, and you'll feel what I mean.

Memory

Memory is such a tricky thing, yet so much of how we live our life is based on what we remember.  We remember that mean instructor in our second grade class that shut us down in front of everyone, teaching us that our eagerness and curiosity are not appropriate, tainting our future scholastic explorations.  We remember our sister’s coldness, or our brother’s emotional fragility and our adult relationships are guided by these memories.   

Our past can and does create an emotional hangover that clouds our daily life.

Have you ever compared your memories of a specific occasion with someone else?  Sometimes the two of you remember the same things, but sometimes your recollections are very different.  The emotional baggage that a person carries to every experience often colors how he or she views and event.  Our happy memory might be anothers nightmare.

When a conscious or unconscious emotional perspective colors one’s view of the present, history is getting in the way of a fresh new life.  Knowing that you have the power to choose how to react to any situation is a way out of this kind of patterned thinking.  When you feel your emotional buttons being pushed, step back and make a choice to react differently.   New choices can often create a beautiful, and more interesting, new experience.

Bones

There’s always a structure when you need support.

In our bodies, our skeletons keep us from being just a hairy puddle of flesh and blood.

There are two kinds of skeletons, endo and ecto. An ecto skeleton, a hard shell on the outside, is perfect for a bug because of their size and needs.  An endo skeleton, bones on the inside, best serve the needs of a mammal.

Even the design of our bodies serves as a metaphor. Is your life’s structure fulfilling your needs?

If your life is structured to reflect who you are and you have is plenty of room and time to do what you love, you have endo-skeleton-like life structure. If you have an ecto-skeleton, your life is structured to facilitate the needs of others.  Watch that you don't get squashed!


In the Bas Haus School of Architecture came the phrase “form follows function” meaning that the building’s design should be based on its use.  A strong structure can support great beauty, and the strongest structure is the one with the most integrity, perfectly designed to perform the function for which it was designed.


A flimsy structure cannot support a building or a life, much less create beauty. Does your life allow you to perform the function for which you are designed? 

If you don’t feel it in your bones that your life works for you, it’s time to rebuild it from the inside out.

Roots

Being rooted is a big part of The Martial Arts.  It’s a fine balance, really.  Rooted like a tree to the ground, the practitioner still moves fluidly and easily. It seems an impossible task, yet an Aikido Sensei who was a master of his art had this to say about being rooted. 

"Imagine having a tail going from the base of your spine to the center of the earth. Don't move until you feel your connection."

When you think about it, you can see that there is no place on earth that is not in relationship with the center. Therefore you have absolute freedom of movement.

You can see, then, that being rooted is not about being stuck. Being stuck means that you think that you have no options, no choices.  Being rooted means absolutely trusting your balanced response to any situation.  If you lose your balance and get angry, fearful, or crazy, or imagine that you have no options or choices, you’ve “lost” your root. Remembering that you always have a choice, that you always have options (even if they’re lousy ones) can help you regain your balance and reestablish your root. Realize, too, that you can never really lose your root.  You are always connected to the earth and to everything on and in it

 

Getting your balance back may be just a matter of remembering that fact.  And it's important to find, feel, and restore your “root” even if you're not a martial artists.  Being rooted brings with it a sense of balance, strength, and personal power. Therefore when you feel rooted, you can’t help but contribute something of real value to yourself and the world at large: a peaceful heart.

Don't move until you feel your connection.

Nature Raw in Tooth and Claw

 This chalk drawing was found near the local community center.   The center is close enough from a wild space, to imagine that this little sketch was drawn from life.  A hawk does live in the tall trees surrounding the center, and the open space houses rats, mice, snakes, gophers, moles, in short a whole raptor buffet.

What's great about this drawing is that, clearly, some little critter is caught in the hawk's claws, yet there's no indication that the hawk is a "bad" animal for having to kill to survive.  Some realistic, observant little kid drew this matter-of-fact representation of life.  The hawk has got to eat, and therefore has got to kill something, plant or animal, in order to survive.

No blame, no shame..

Vegetarian or not, something has to die so we can live. Yin Yang. Yet we sentence people to death as if it's the worst punishment possible.

Why does death scare us so?   We don't know what happens after we die.  Is it the terror of the unknown that makes us crazy?  Why, then, aren't we scared of tomorrow, of going to sleep, of the future in general.  We don't know what's going to happen in the next five years, five hours, five minutes, five seconds, ever.  We only think we do.

We take life for granted.

If we didn't take life for granted would the thought of death be easier to handle? If we embraced our life's unpredictability, would we see death as just another path to follow?  Death is a hard topic to get our heads around.  It's a place where people go and don't come back. Perhaps the best we can hope for is to continue living as fearlessly and matter-of-factly as we can, come what may, moment to moment, no matter what.

Let's eat!

Smile

Waking up in the morning can be unpleasant in the Winter.  The weather and gloom are strong incentives to pulling up the covers and going back to sleep. 

Spring makes it a little easier.  The sun peeks around the curtains and birds sing.  If you have a thoughtful partner like I do, coffee will be brewing in the kitchen and soon the paper will arrive without my having to move a muscle.  It makes me smile.

On those Winter mornings, or when life is not going my way, my smile has to take the place of the sun and the birds singing.  I grin and bear it, and as I fake it I start to make it.  My grin starts to generate feelings in my body that seem like genuine happiness.  More smiling makes me feel more genuinely happy.  Smiling is so powerful.  It can actually change your mood. 

My son visited Oregon State, and was amazed how friendly the people were. "They actually Smile at you when you see them on the street", He marveled. "It's so different from the curt nods they give you in California. And this is supposed to be the Sunshine State!"

You may only have your smile to share with others, but it's a rich gift!  
A friend sent me a TED talk all about smiling.  Check it out.  You'll discover that your smile is your everyday beauty.  Don't be afraid to share it.  Smile. Right now.  You'll feel better.  You'll feel beautiful, and those around you will benifit too.  Every day.

It's Pointless. Hurray!

What is the purpose of life?  Big question, no easy answer.  Maybe it's a pointless question to ask.  We are alive, and to get the most out of our life we can treat it like our (usually) imperfect bodies: we can dress it up the best we can so we feel good in it.  Kind of a What Not to Wear solution to living.

Maybe life doesn't have a point, or if it has a point, maybe in the grand scheme of things it may be pointless to try and understand life's point. If that's the case, why worry.  Stressing over our lack of understanding seems pointless too.  So what do we do with our pointless life?

We live it.  What choice do we have?  I guess if having a pointless life gets you down you can opt out.  Or you can look at it differently and see that life's very pointlessness is actually pretty freeing. You don't really have to do or be or have anything. What's the point?  You can, instead, do or be or have everything that's in your power to do, be, or have, no holds barred.  And YOU get to choose what you want to focus on.  You get to create your own reason for living, define your own true north, make your life be about whatever gives you joy.

Get to YOUR point.  After all, you are HERE. You might as well enjoy it.

That Dog Won't Hunt

This is a folksy expression meaning that whatever is being presented, an idea, a theory, a personality, a person, is not measuring up.  A dog is supposed to hunt.  A dog that doesn't hunt isn't much of a dog. 

But all dogs aren't designed to hunt.  Some dogs are designed to catch frisbies, sit in laps or purses keeping their owner's company, aiding the blind, etc.  You get the idea.  Not all dogs worth a sniff are hunters.

Do you have an idea of the way you SHOULD be?  When you fall short of your ideal, do you beat yourself up?  Do you spend your days bemoaning that what you actually do with your time is not the best and finest use of your time? Do you criticize yourself for not being the person you want to be?

You might want to ask yourself who you really are.  Trying to be someone you're not is like asking a German Shepherd to spend the day in a handbag.  Accepting yourself as you truly are will get you where you want to go much more quickly: to peace, joy, and happiness. 

Try looking at what you consider to be your "bad" qualitiess in a different light.  Perhaps what you consider "lazy" is really the wisdom to not start anything that you don't really want to do.  Maybe your sadness is the flip side of the depth of your compassionate heart.  Your crazy energy might be an expression of your amazing creativity trying to find an outlet.

Try to find yourself in your darkness and bring your personal taboos into the light.  See yourself in a new way. When you try to make yourself something you're not, your doomed to frustration and self criticism.

Now that's a dog that won't hunt!

Support

Yesterday was a day of highs, and today came some lows.  My elderly mom and husband are nearing the end of their financial tether, and the person who was doing such a good job of taking care of them has to take care of herself.  Their house maintenance, bills, yard work, doctor's appointments, and any and all emergencies are no longer being handled by this wonderful, skilled and resourceful woman.  

The kids on both sides of this marriage are either not located anywhere near the parents or are in precarious financial positions themselves.  It seems like the parent's future care is an unsolvable problem, with corrals made of "no, that won't work" surrounding every wild and desperate idea. 

Fortunately, this episode of Everyday Beauty speaks to the beauty of support. 

The husband of one of my friends is an expert in elder care.  After talking to him on the phone I discovered I was breathing with a little more ease and my thinking was a little less obstructed by the gloomy clouds of fear.  He outlined some steps to take, and made some clear and concise suggestions that opened up a path to follow through the formerly impenetrable forest of my uncertainty.

Hurray for the support and knowledge of generous friends in need!  Remember when you're doing whatever you do, giving your own particular expertise to someone in need, that you are someones shining light. 

You may think you're only a small star, but you're a star just the same.  Shine on.

What A Day

This was the kind of day that I imagine my ancestors floating through.  Dawn to dusk work work work.  Not just dawn to dusk.  I'm still working and it's dark out and, after this blog, I'll have more to do.  I'm taking a break from it all when I'm writing to you.  I know I sound like I'm complaining (narcissistic too--I count three of the dreaded letter "I".  Oops, there are two more.  

Well, sometimes I have to express myself in no uncertain terms.  Though, as I write that phrase "no uncertain terms" I wonder just how certain my terms are.  No work, I worry about lack.  Too much work, I worry about overwhelm.  And it all changes from day to day, the circle keeps going round and round.  

When I think about that, I feel better.  Phew.  Tomorrow won't be like today.  No day will be like today.  That's great and that's too bad.  It was a busy day, but oh so satisfying!  I got to be creative and make a home beautiful today.  Can't beat that.

Sometimes, you just have to celebrate yourself. IIIIIIIII am happy! IIIIIIIII am busy!  IIIIIIIII am grateful.  

Go celebrate your lovely selves too.    UUUUUUU are awesome!

What would you like to do?

It’s an excellent question.  Stop an ask yourself “What WOULD I like to do?”  Are you doing what you like?  Is it difficult to do what you like?  Do you feel selfish doing what you like? Or is doing what you like impractical?  Do you even know what you’d like to do?  Are you afraid that doing what you’d like to do will disappoint you? 

Clearly this is such a rich subject!  So many questions involving something that should be so simple, and not just simple, natural.  Isn’t there a kind of atavistic feeling that doing what you like to do is what you should be doing all the time?  Doesn’t it feel like that’s the reason you’re here, and that not doing what you like might prove to be one of your great regrets as you leave this mortal world. 

It’s worth exploring; the what and whys and the hold backs.  A good start might be noticing when you’re doing what you really want to do.  You might be surprised. I think we tend be a bit romantic about what we THINK we want to do.  But that’s another discussion.  

Enough talk.  Go and DO.  

Use this mind map as your guide!

Blooming

The flowers are beautiful in my neighborhood.  Spring is truly here. 

One thing I love about flowers is their unselfconsciousness.  They don't care if you're there appreciating them or not.  All they care about is doing their flower thing.  They're blooming, dammit, and nothing can stop them from expressing themselves in all their flamboyant beauty.  There's not an ounce of shame as they expose pistol and stamen to the world at large.  Their colors and textures and profusion attract our attention, but that's not why they bloom.  They bloom because they must.  It's their nature.  They gotta do it. 

How about you?  Are you giving the world what you were born to give?  Are you blooming fully and freely as you do what you need to do to express your gorgeous self?  Do you feel free, nay compelled, to share what you have to give?  It's what you're born to do.  It's your nature.  You gotta do it. The world depends upon your blooming.  Only you can give what you are born to give.  Don't be shy. 

Bloom. 

How do you feel?

Not are you sick or are you well. A more interesting question is:

"What's your base line emotion?" 

Speaking textually, what's your natural emoticon? :>) or :>( ? 

When nothing good or bad is happening, when life is in neutral, or when you're settling down to sleep or waking up in the morning, what are you feeling?  What is the subtle emotion that makes itself felt in the wee hours? Are you content, happy, pleased with life in general, or are you tense, annoyed, or angry without knowing why? 

Do you even know how you feel in general? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Is your life based on externals? Do you need an event or experience or person to point to that generates an emotion (You won a million dollars so you're feeling happy, or your dog died so you're feeling sad?) to know how you feel? 

Try an experiment.  Right now, how do you feel? However you feel, can you change the feeling just by wanting to?  Can you move into joy without having to have something to feel joyful about? Can you feel good with no good reason?

How do you feel?

Take a page from Nina Simone

 Feel good.