Thursday, January 31, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
ROGER WRITES | Life is Beautiful
The day after Christmas, I went down to the basement to get my bike for a ride. I unlocked the door only to find that my bike was gone. I was shocked! Instantly I was bombarded by a thousand thoughts, but I knew that it hadn't been stolen. I sensed that I had probably locked it up somewhere and then left it. But where? I spent hours retracing the events from the Winter Solstice (when I last remember having my bike) to the moment I found it missing. I called my friends and hashed out all the events of those few days. Nothing jogged my memory. I visited all the typical spots where I ride my bike. I visited all the unusual spots where I ride my bike. I spent three weeks racking my brain and searching Portland, but the bike didn't turn up.
Then one morning I was out with Tommy. He was about to drop me off at Shakti House to teach a yoga class, and I asked him to ride by Three Friends Coffeehouse (a nearby place I go to occasionally) to see if my bike was there. It wasn't. Tommy dropped me off, and I said good-bye. I thought to myself, "Okay. This is it. After today I am letting go. Tomorrow I will start my search for a new bike." Literally 15 minutes later I got a call from Tommy. "Roger, I found your bike!!," he exclaimed. I coudn't believe it. I asked him where he found it. He said, "Fred Meyer."
Fred Meyer is the grocery store I shop at regularly. It's literally 1 1/2 blocks from my house, and even as I write this entry I can look out of my window and see the roof of Fred Meyer. I go to that store almost every day. The bike was locked up on the bike rack right next to the entrance. For three weeks I walked right by my bike and never noticed. Finding my bike was a relief, but there was also an element of humiliation. How could I walk by my bike every day for three weeks and not notice?
The other morning I went to Fred Meyer to get some organic bananas for my breakfast. As I was leaving the store I was texting with a friend, and I accidentally bumped shoulders with a woman who was also texting. I stopped for a moment. I looked around and literally every single person I could see had their head down looking at their phone. It was like a weird scene out of Stepford Wives or some zombie movie. Then it hit me: this is why I didn't see my bike. Every time I go to the store I am on my phone catching up with texts, making phone calls or checking Facebook. I'm not paying attention!
Since then, I have committed to leaving my phone in my backpack when I'm out and about around town. Instead of using my phone, I've been trying to notice as much around me as I can. It has made all the difference. Portland is beautiful. People are beautiful. The trees and the moss and the cloud swollen sky and even the street signs are beautiful.
Life is beautiful, and we can see it with our own eyes if we're willing to lay distraction aside and look
TED | Julia Bacha : Pay Attention To Nonviolence
In 2003, the Palestinian village of Budrus mounted a 10-month-long nonviolent protest to stop a barrier being built across their olive groves. Did you hear about it? Didn't think so. Brazilian filmmaker Julia Bacha asks why we only pay attention to violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict -- and not to the nonviolent leaders who may one day bring peace.
Julia Bacha is the Media Director at Just Vision and the director and producer of "Budrus," a documentary about a West Bank village, a giant barrier and nonviolent resistance.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
POETRY | David Whyte : The Winter of Listening
The Winter of Listening
No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.
All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.
What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.
What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,
what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.
What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.
Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.
Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.
All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.
All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.
And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.
Silence and winter
has led me to that
otherness.
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Saturday, January 5, 2013
ROGER WRITES | The War of Art
I recently came across a posting on Facebook that read:
I want to open a business called Resolutions. The first month of the year it's a gym, and the rest of the year it's a bar.
It gave me a quick chuckle. I think we all in some way have intentions or resolutions that we create at the beginning of the year to improve ourselves. It's a good and healthy desire to want to grow and evolve and wake up. This ritual can also leave us feeling disappointed and frustrated when the enthusiasm and motivation gets side-swiped by the embedded habits and patterns of our day-to-day lives.
I've been teaching yoga for many years and inevitably, the month of January brings many people back to their mat, as new or returning yogis. The classes are packed and brimming over. By March, the classes are usually back to normal size.
A while back I read the book, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It's a short, humorous and very powerful book about what happens when we set goals or resolutions for ourselves. In the chapter titled "Resistance's Greatest Hits" he writes:
The following is a list, in no particular order, of those activities that most commonly elicit Resistance:
1) The pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art, however marginal or unconventional.
2) The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise.
3) Any diet or health regimen.
4) Any program or spiritual advancement.
5) Any activity whose aim is tighter abdomenals.
6) Any course or program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction.
7) Education of every kind.
8) Any act of political, moral, or ethical courage, including the decision to change for the better some unworthy pattern of thought or conduct in ourselves.
9) The undertaking of any enterprise or endeavor whose aim is to help others.
10) Any act that entails commitment of the heart. The decision to get married, to have a child, to weather a rocky patch in a relationship.
11) The taking of any pricipled stand in the face of adversity.
Inevitably, upon engaging in one or more of these pursuits, you will meet a variety of resistances from yourself and others. Period. There's no way around that. Most likely you will fall down, forget, regress, or in someway sabotage yourself on the path to self-improvement. Setting an intention is a courageous act that can leave you feeling vulnerable and out-of-place. You have friends, family, and co-workers who count on you to be consistent with who you are. When you change, you disrupt what some people have come to rely on.
I'm not here to give you advice on what to do about your resistances. You can read all about that in The War of Art, or in one of a thousand other books on this topic.
David Whyte says in his poem, Sweet Darkness, "You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in. Give up all other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you."
Unequivocally, what I want to say most for myself and for you is to stay with it. When you forget your intention, come back to it. When you fail, get back up. When you get lazy and slough off your commitment, re-commit. It's easy to berate yourself or others and use failure or forgetfulness as a weapon to attack yourself and to give up.
Perhaps Rumi sums it up best:
Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.
Here's to a year of inspiration, honesty, scuffed knees, bruised egos, vulnerability, excitement, growth, happiness and acceptance of life as if unfolds right before you.
Happy New Year. Peace and love to you and all those who care for you.
POETRY | Nadine Stair : If I Had My Life to Live Over
If I Had My Life to Live Over
-Nadine Stair (age 85)
I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
I'd relax. I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances.
I would take more trips.
I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I'd
have fewer imaginary ones.
You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly
and sanely hour after hour, day after day.
Oh, I've had my moments and if I had it to do over
again, I'd have more of them. In fact,
I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments.
One after another, instead of living so many
years ahead of each day.
I've been one of those people who never go anywhere
without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat
and a parachute.
If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot
earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.
If I had it to do again, I would travel lighter next time.
I would go to more dances.
I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
I would pick more daisies.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Thursday, January 3, 2013
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