Happy Birthday, Dave

Today is Dave Dobson's birthday. I was listening to his Funshop '06 recording yesterday on my way back from NC. I attended the workshop and I've listened to it a coupla times. I always get something new out it. Or I recognize a thought process or belief I've adopted since then, but without having a conscious awareness of it--until I'm hearing it. I took the above picture at VA Beach and made a card out of it for Dave the last time I went to see Bruce Lipton. For those of you who haven't heard his Beach Tape, he has you walk along the beach and get progressively relaxed, starting with 5 . . . 5 . . . and you begin to notice a pleasant sensation starting at your feet. . . .

The first time I heard it, I was asleep after I heard the number 5. :-) I remember when he was asked to do a DVD of the Beach Trip and he wrote to me, "Who wants to watch a video of something that tells you to close your eyes?" Hahaha But back to the Funshop and a quote-for-today:

One of the things that I've noticed about humans is we tend to take life too seriously . . . now I'm serious about that. And I think it's a shame because we're equipped to be able to enjoy life--seriously, we are. And I think it's a good idea to get used to the idea that it's all right to enjoy life.

He anchored us all to laugh at that word "serious." Hahaha Seriously. Back tomorrow with wedding tales. :-) H.

Danny From Nanny Days

This is Daniel. I used to be his nanny. Here he is, circa 1985, sporting my Aqua Net hairspray, the preferred choice of hair glue for the punk rock crowd. He was adopted from Mother Theresa by Freeman, who had lived in India for several years and worked with her. He was such a sweet child and has grown into an even sweeter man. He's getting married this weekend and I am off to celebrate with the fam. So this is my last post until I get back.

Ornament Thursday: Freedom

It's Ornament Thursday for the OT Gang, so I thought I'd post links, even tho I'm not participating anymore. Happy Thursday everyone! :-) H.

Alexa Westerfield a.k.a. Swelldesigner Craft some red, white, and blue drink charms from vintage wartime posters. They'll make a big bang at your 4th of July cookout!
Art Bead Scene Field of Poppies bracelet project from Heather.

Cindy Gimbrone aka Lampwork Diva Celebrate the Independent Spirit

Hurray for Red, White and Blue Lisa takes a shot at teeny tiny beads for a change
Linda at BeadStyle Magazine Childhood memories of Independence Day's past inspired this necklace.

Michelle's take on Indpendence Over at http design, Michelle has scuplted a piece which gives a different perspective on independence.
Strands of Beads Melissa sees stars this month while considering the meaning of independence
What is America to Me? Michelle's favorite words on our country...

Rules

What's the deal with the duct tape? I'll get to that. Back in January, I was on the road with John Morgan. I was registering participants for the weight-loss seminar. The seminar comes with a reinforcement tape for free, but most people like to upgrade to the CD, which is an additional $10 (right now it's $5 with the summer sale). Anyway, one woman started arguing with me that the CD should be free, and who uses tapes anymore anyway, blah blah blah. So you don't want the CD now? I asked. She said, "Of course I do. But I'm going to say something to the hypnotist!" I thought, John is going to have fun with you! At the end of the seminar, she was all smiles. John said good-bye to each person at the door and as she approached, he shook her hand and said, "Mary, have you noticed that you have a few more rules than the average bear?"

We all have rules of how things should be. I had an English professor say once that the more laws we implement, the more get broken and the more criminals get created. I think with rules, often the more rules a person has, the more they set themselves up for disappointment because other people don't fit into their model of how the world should be. AND they tend to judge or worse, should on other people with their rules because "that's the way it's supposed to be." It's a patterned response that begs the question, "Says who?" And is it a useful rule? Shoulding on yourself or others is a sure recipe for creating unhappiness.

And now to the duct tape: Duct tape is for taping ducts. That's the rule. However, over the years, it has evolved into the all-purpose everything solution. I love to find examples of its creative use. That's my rule.

Taking the Mike

There is nothing like being in front of a group of people for you to be able to see yourself. You see yourself in every other person who is seeing you. You discover that you are independent of who you thought you were. You dive into self-exploration through the eyes of others. Any differences you find between yourself and other people is the result of something you made up, some presupposition or rule you created. You find out about yourself from other people, and about other people from yourself. ~Jerry Stocking, How to Win by Quitting

When I was going to go to Jerry's Personal Renaissance course, John Morgan told me to take the mike as often as I could. I've no problem getting in front of a group and teaching, that's my training. It's harder when I don't have any content to hide behind and it's just me. I really had no idea what to expect. I had listened to some recordings of Jerry's cluster (teleconference) calls. He's not really a sound-bite kinda guy. The first morning he would say to the group, Get it? And I would see people nodding their heads. No, I don't get it. Get what? So I sat and watched everything going on and then Jerry said something about an "Out Day." I raised my hand and asked him what an Out Day was and he pointed to the mike. I repeated the question. Why are you here? he asked me. Yikes! I'd like to recount the rest of it accurately, but I'll have to wait til I get the recordings of the seminar. Something about me being oppositional. I AM NOT!!! Oops.

The above picture was taken by my partner-for-the-course, Nancy Cassel. On the last day. I was not smiling that first day, until much later in the afternoon. But I have to say, I'm continuing to get little lightbulb moments and insights.

Quitting

I'm reading Jerry Stocking's How to Win by Quitting.

When you quit what you perceive you have to do, you will discover what you want to do...I am not suggesting that you do nothing, I am suggesting that anything you perceive you must do ruins your life...It is never too early to quit, and it is never too late to quit. ~Jerry Stocking

I've no problem quitting for the most part. When I look back at the things I quit, my only regret is that I didn't do it sooner. That goes for small things like suffering through a movie I wasn't enjoying (e.g. A River Runs Through It: through what? Where's the river?! Aaaaah!) to life-sucking jobs and relationships. When you...take a pause...and assess where you are, what you're doing, why you're doing it...you might decide to get off the hamster wheel and design a life instead of living the programs installed by well-meaning parents & teachers. Or not. Can you imagine an ad campaign: JUST QUIT? What would happen if everyone just did what they wanted to instead of what they thought they had to do? When you give up the idea that you have to do something, you create S P A C E for something else to show up.

Day of Rest

The lotus is one of my favourite flowers. It is sacred in Eastern traditions--that whole rising-out-of-the-muck thing. The lotus doesn't complain about the muck or refuse to move out of it or get stuck. It grows. The muck is a stage; just as we have stages in our lives. We can learn a lot from Nature. :-) Happy Sunday & Happy Summer Solstice, too.

Home

On the way to my postbox

I'm back in the wilderness after a month of being out in the world. When I first moved here a year ago, if I ventured out, I was exhausted and ready to be back at the end of the day. I kept waiting to have that feeling as I was traveling around. You know, when you just want to sleep in your own bed? But it didn't come. I slept better in my brother's bat cave guestroom than I had in a while.

And I loved spending time with my sibs & the nieces. I took my nieces out for dinner at their favourite place, Ukrops, a local grocery store. We all had sushi, except for Z, who's 4 years old. She had chicken. As we were eating, this was the conversation:

Z: Auntie Halimah, does chicken come from real chickens?

Me: Yes.

Z: Oh my God! Really?

At this point I was expecting her to say, Eeewwwww! But she said, Mmmmmmm....

Hahaha That's my brother's daughter. He told me that after they found the Ganesh statue I'd buried for their treasure hunt, that they would play the Bury-Ganesh-in-the-desert game and rebury him and rediscover him.

Anyway, back to the idea of home. If home is where the heart is, then where is my heart? Connected in nature...which is everywhere. Something to ponder....

For All My Trekkie Friends

Somewhere in Georgia

It was early this a.m. and my brother said hey. I said, "Morning has broken." He said...yes, that's right...Quick, better go fix it. Hahaha Back tomorrow with the start of more consistent posts.

Visit at Dr. Lee's Office

Cool mission statement, huh? #3 is v. Jerry Stocking-ish.

Every Tuesday morning, the office is closed and Dr. Lee treats the staff and they work on each other. Then they go to lunch for a meeting. How cool is that?! Here he is adjusting Donna with the adjustor.

Me & the doc in the footbath room.

I'm sorry not to have gotten more pictures. I had wanted to get a group photo, but they were SO busy Wed. a.m. that there was no time. I also wanted to get some of the tensegrity room. My lungs are pretty much cleared out from that and all the other work we did. I'm on the mend! On the last day Dr. Lee put me to work on a patient with the percussor. She had a charming southern accent and said, "Dahling, I wish I could take you home with me." Well, as a matter of fact, you can...

THANKS to Dr. Lee and Sally, Diane, Donna, Jan, & Virginia for making me feel so WELCOME!

P.S. 1/2 price sale with ALL John Morgan products PLUS *FREE* shipping! Check it out!

Hallo from Marietta, GA!

I've no uploadability for photos, so they'll have to wait. I'm spending a coupla days with Dr. David Lee. It's turned into a more e-x-t-e-n-d-e-d visit than first planned. I got laryngitis during the Jerry Stocking seminar (more on that later) and it wasn't until this a.m. that I finally stopped denying I've been sick. "It's just laryngitis." The last time I did that, it turned into pneumonia while I was going through massage school, so I thought it best to address it. I'll say more about it when I have photos. Suffice it to say, I'm MUCH better, and should be leaving tomorrow...sometime...whenever...ish.

And now for something completely different...Jerry Stocking through the door of the Goo Goo Dolls:

It takes 36 muscles to smile, and only 4 to stick up your middle finger. ~John Rzeznik
Well, that's how I felt a couple times as I got pissed off. But we're never angry for the reasons we think we are, and it's really just patterns we're running. So I got over it. Eventually. By Day 3 I lost my voice, another pattern. Did that stop the excruciating 3-minute videotape where I had to answer the question What's it like to be you? NO. D'oh!

Jerry showed us Prince's performance at the superbowl where he sang in the rain. He said who else could pull that off? The Goo Goo Dolls at their 4th of July concert, of course. IN THE (non-purple) RAIN.

Everything's wrong, but it's all right. Jerry says if you deny the downside, you ignore 50% of life. And we make ourselves miserable wishing for things to be other than they are. I was struggling through some things [see Rezzie quote above] but I'm stepping out of my own way. I'm making a space not to have to know.

Name My only reference for models is The Devil Wears Prada. A v. famous one was at the seminar. I didn't know her name before, but I recognized her from magazines. Think about what your perceptions might be about models: Now throw them away.

Jerry sent us on a day-long scavenger hunt of sorts. We had to:
*see a dead body or lie in a coffin
*eat a bug [Eeeeewwww!!!]
*buy a pair of shoes for $5 or less and then negotiate a lower price.
*give the shoes to someone who needed them
*sing a song to some senior citizens
*donate an hour's worth of service [I took my percussor to the community center]
*tell a joke to 5 different people:

How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Fish.

Yeah, I got nothin'. I followed up with my favourite knock-knock joke:

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Olive.
Olive who?
Olive you.

*give & receive a hug/kiss from a man and a woman
*get on the radio or TV [60 second interview on the radio]
*get a free lunch
*make a bet with someone
DO ALL OF THIS WHILE STAYING IN PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH YOUR PARTNER.

That last part was v. challenging, especially getting in/out of the car! But we did it all--except for the bug-eating. The first was the dead body. We went to a funeral home and the director kept saying, I think ya'll are on something. So we showed him our list. I think y'all are on something. But he showed us Miss G. who was 2 days shy of her 92nd birthday. Did you know that you can't lie in a coffin? They have steel bars and aren't good for your back. You know, because they're made for dead people. My partner didn't think our free lunch at the community center counted (we attended a going-away party and they had food). We stopped at the end of our v. long day to get tea. Everything is always better when you have a cup of tea, and we were both exhausted. So we went to Crapplebee's first. Not only could we not get a free cup of tea, we couldn't get a server. I counted 8 TV's in the room, and it was so noisy. Not conducive to tea-drinking, anyway. I found a Mom 'n' Pop diner and they had homemade cheesecake with blueberry topping (YUM!!!) Pinkey, the gal behind the counter asked us about our day, and we showed her the list. There was a sign on the counter about entering for a free lunch, and I pointed to it for my partner and said, "Here's your free lunch." Pinkey said, "Would your tea and cheesecake count?" YES!!! So we got 2 free lunches. :-) All in all, an AMAZING day. When we got back, we recounted our experiences to the rest of the group. Then Jerry gave us each a single adjective that we had to use in lieu of any other adjectives. Mine was substantial. Others were terrible, questionable, delicious.

Back to the bug: I realized after talking to Delicious that I had made scary bug-eating pictures in my head. She said, "Just a little, tiny one. No chewing, swallowed with water, very fast." Oh. I was making HUGE pictures in my head of spiders and other creepy-crawlies. How many gnats have I inhaled and swallowed accidentally?! I also was the only person who didn't swim in the pond. Eeewww!!! I made it colder and ickier than it was. When Jerry challenged me to go to jump into the pond, I did it. Thanks to Delicious for going with me. She even offered me her bathing suit except that she couldn't find it. So I took off the top layers and ran in. Not as bad as I had made it out to be. I will remind myself of this when I'm making other molehills into mountains and bugs into watermelons.

So that's all I'll write for now. I'm at Dr. Lee's again tomorrow a.m. and then I'll be on the road on my way back home. Unless I'm not. Will stop in to see the rellies in Richmond. [Treasure hunt a huge hit!] Until then...adieu.

P.S. John Morgan is having a half-off sale with FREE shipping for ALL his products!!! The marketing dept. is streamlining all the products and getting rid of the old packaging (same recordings). Personal faves are Self-Image, I Love My Body, Relax in 2 Minutes. You may want to go see for yourself now. ;-)

Treasure in the Desert

I'm off to Georgia, so this will be my last post til next week. I've had a fab time at my brother's. Today I walked along the sidewalk to the house and discovered that the HUGE bush is gardenia, my favourite flower. I remarked to my brother about it and he said, "Really? I have gardenias? I'm impervious to beauty." The perfume is intoxicating. Mmmm....and now we transition to the Hindu elephant head god, Ganesh. [Please Meester Simpson, do not offer peanuts to my god]

I have been telling an ongoing story to the nieces with them as the heroines. They've gone on all sorts of magical adventures and I've tied in different songs and myths. Most recently they are helping the Maharaj of Gunga Din in India to locate his stolen statue of Ganesh. I just happened to find an el-cheapo Ganesh statue at Ross's, so I'm burying it in the sandbox and they'll find it on a treasure hunt tomorrow after I've left. It starts with a letter from the Maharaj. Good times.

P.S. I discovered this awesOMe yoga studio, Journey Home, here. I've so missed Yoga East, and it was great to be able to practice in a class again. Thanks, Laura! :-)

Reiki LOVE

You will find as you look back upon your life

that the moments when you have really lived

are the moments when you have done things

in the spirit of LOVE. ~William Drummond

I taught a Reiki class yesterday, my first since last year. The above quote is from chiro-sister Ruthie's shirt. I looked over and the first thing I noticed was that it was inside out. And then she explained that it was so the quote would show on her back. I love that! The class was AWESOME! They were all massage therapists and they spoke Bruce Lipton fluently--natch, having been students of Ruthie's! So it was great to have my Bruce references and arm-flailing appreciated. They were also experienced Reiki practitioners and brought their own insights and intuitive hits to the class. I forget how much I LOVE teaching until I do it again! THANKS Ruthie for the invitation and the opportunity. And many THANKS to the class for making it so much FUN!

I am sitting in my brother's v. quiet house. He and SIL arrived Saturday night. Ruthie and I sat at the gate watching the Goo Goo Dolls 4th of July concert on her DVD player while we waited. I made a sign to hold up that said, "Atlasta + Wifey." [Side note here: this is a family joke. In Mum's photo album for us, she wrote: At last! A boy! after me & Ruth. So we call him Atlasta. Hahaha] Just as we finished watching the concert, (It ROCKS!!!) I said we should stand up with the sign and look like we'd been waiting for hours. Just as we stood up, there was SIL walking toward us. Hahaha We got in around 2 a.m.-ish and D & SIL woke up the girls. It was SO SWEET! OK, we're home. Wake up...now go back to sleep. Mum was going to leave first thing Sun. a.m. but D said to look at his photos first. He rigged up a slide show on the TV. I watched the first coupla hours but then had to get ready for my Reiki class. He had 958 photos--AWESOME!!!

Mistakes

I was in the grocery store yesterday with the nieces and thought I'd get some popcorn as a snack. No! We don't neeeeeeeeeeeeeed microwave popcorn! Daddy has a popcorn popper! they said. I must confess that I started imagining just what kind of popper this would be given my brother's tendency toward gizmo-gadgetitis. I was too tired to face another one of my brother's appliances that I needed Stephen Hawking to explain to me. Organic microwave popcorn, it is.

In Doug O'Brien's How Deep the Rabbit Hole?, he poses the question:

How much of your expertise is based on knowing what NOT to do?

How much of it came from making mistakes?

What are mistakes, anyway? Aren't they part of the learning process? Sometimes what I labeled as a mistake, ended up being one of my most valuable learning experiences. Does that still make it a mistake? And sometimes they provide a good laugh:





So let me s'plain. The microwave has a handy Popcorn setting. It didn't pop the recommended time listed on the bag and it left lots of kernels on the bottom. So I repopped them. Here comes the mistake part: I didn't close up the bag, so the kernels popped all over the microwave. It was v. entertaining and we all had a good laugh that we'd not have had otherwise. So here's what I've learned:

Most mistakes clean up. Go for the laughs.

Barking Spiders, Sneezing Trees

My nieces told me that this is a statue of their mommy & daddy. Hahaha

I smell barking spiders said A. Barking spiders??????

Oh. My brother's euphemism for passing gas. Hahaha

A was showing Mum her model of the planets and was explaining that Pluto is no longer considered a planet, but has been demoted to a planetoid. She's missing Uranus, which she then said was being renamed to Urectum. Hahaha That's my brother for you. The youngest niece remarked at 18 months as they were driving along, "The trees are really sneezing today." In our world, that means it's a windy day. Yesterday when Z said she needed a bandaid, I asked her if she had any Jesus bandaids. My mother laughed. "You're just like your brother!" Yeah. In last night's story, we learned that the macrocosm reflects the microcosm. Hahaha

I think about Bruce Lipton and Conscious Parenting, and Dave Dobson and honoring the Other-than-Conscious mind. There's so much going on with their little brains. It's a huge responsibility to make sure they're getting programmed with the good stuff. :-) H.

Chiro-sister

This is the header for a website I'm helping my sister do. She's an amazing artist as well as healer and I'm excited that she's joining us in cyberspace. Next! A blog! ;-) It's been a real bonus getting in lots of vizzies with her. We're going to teach a Reiki class together on Sunday. Good times. :-)

Auntie Tales

We're past the half-way mark and the children have survived so far. Last night I was in the kitchen making stirfry. I was looking for the exhaust fan and Z asked, "Do you know how to work this house?" "No," I said. "Do you?" "No," she replied. My SIL's parents spent a whole evening doing nothing because they couldn't figure out how the TV worked. It's not just the TV; it's the rice-cooker and any other electronic gadget with all the bells & whistles. I'm more of an On/Off Switch kinda gal. Speaking of rice, I made a boatload of sushi rice for the stirfry (v. STICKY!) so A will get her request for sushi tonight! She already showed me where all the stuff is to make it. Did I mention my brother is a gourmet chef? And the Dried Toenails gives you an idea of his sense of humour. Hahaha

When I used to teach in Montessori school, and when I taught first grade, I always had a storytime incorporating lessons and children from the class. We would go on all sorts of adventures. They always end with a Do you know what happened next? And the kids say What? And I say, Tell you next time. Awwwww! they say.

One time a mother called to tell me that her son had had lice and that she had tried to give him a short crew cut. It's not as easy as it looks, she said. And now he has bald patches all over his head. I knew that poor little Thomas was in for some teasing, so I created a story about a little boy who was the hero and in the end he gets his hair cut off as some sort of rite of passage. I don't remember, but I think he went to China or India or something. Anyway, I never mentioned that it was Thomas or anything else. By the end of the week, 4 other little boys had gotten crew cuts. One mother said to me that her son never wanted his hair short before.... Really? I said. How curious....

The nieces come into my bedroom in the a.m. and wake me up. Mum said that Z & M sat in a chair and watched the clock for 5 minutes this a.m. because Mum said they couldn't wake me up before 7. 5 minutes of clocktime is an eternity for children! I'm v. grateful that Mum is here because I would be way more exhausted. And the house would be way messier! OK, that's my update...will endeavor to write more later in the week.... :-) H.

Day of Rest

In chiro-sister's backyard. This was the first time these robins were out of the nest. Ruthie said the next day, they all flew away. We're off to a picnic this afternoon. Happy Sunday. :-) H.