it's never too late to tune in

I recently attended an orchid information and care workshop because I find those flowers so sculpturally beautiful.  People have given me orchids in the past and I have tremendously enjoyed the long blooming (up to three months).  However, the plants either did not survive at my hands, or if they did they did not rebloom.   It did not sit well with me that I basically cared them to death and I thought I could do better, especially since people told me that they were pretty easy to care for.

single phalaenopsis bloom

Wake-up time it was.  The solution was so simple, yet  it hadn't even occurred to me.  My mind had not been open, I had not tuned in.  Now that I did I found out that the plants need fertilizer on a regular basis besides water and light (and repotting every two years).  Oh boy!  Food!  The poor things did not get any food!

Wake-up time can happen anytime, it's a shift in thinking.  But we can also promote it by tuning in, focusing on a particular area of interest or concern, and delving deeper.   The answer will come, and then we wonder how we could ever not have considered this new view.

eye candy for you and me

Do we need beauty in life?  I always thought that New York City was not a particularly beautiful city (character yes, beauty not) compared to perhaps Amsterdam or Paris or a Tuscan village. While beauty is not everything, and some beauty comes from within and lies deep, I do find that beauty enhances my life tremendously.  It adds harmony and pleasure to my life.  It makes my life more pleasant. I like it when our dinner table is nicely set, it pleases me to have flowers around the house, I love the joy of color (in clothes, in food, in decor, in nature), and I appreciate good design.

We may not need it (in Maslow's hierarchy of needs it would be way at the top of the pyramid in self-actualization), but it sure is nice to have.  We can become more aware of its effects on our moods and actively seek beauty out and consciously add it to our life.  I am not much of a movie goer, but in the past few years I saw two movies (on a big screen in a theatre, not on Netflix) that were extraordinary eye candy:  Kung Fu Panda II and Mirror Mirror, watching pleasure through and through, Kung Fu Panda for its exceptional landscapes and amazing details, Mirror Mirror for its exquisite wardrobes, landscapes, decors and use of color.

Add some color, add some beauty, add some quality to your life!

mindfulness goes mainstream

There is a yoga studio on every corner and everyone seems to be dabbling in meditation these days. The NY Times recently reported on mindfulness's ubiquity. It must be a sign of growing awareness in all of us (I am hopeful). I have dabbled in meditation - on and off - for many years.  Nonetheless I struggle with it and sometimes think it is overrated (oh well, many ways lead to Rome).  I love guided meditations (there I'm off the hook) but I don't seem to have the willpower to make solo meditation a regular practice and I am probably not alone.

Mindfulness is my thing and it is not so different from meditation and how it trains your mind.  Mindfulness is simply intense monotasking, sometimes I also call it Deep Living.   We can practice mindfulness with just about anything and we do.  Practicing yoga, Taekwondo or any other sport can become a moving meditation when you keep to the task (being in the moment) instead of trying to remember your shopping list or that you have to pick your child up at daycare at 5PM.  Chopping vegetables and cooking can be a meditation in action - that's my favorite one.  I find it very relaxing and grounding to stand in the kitchen at the end of the day and just chop away and stir and taste (perhaps have a sip of wine) and concoct - it comes very easily to me and I don't think of anything else during that time (I'm in the zone).

Try doing something you like doing with relaxed concentration (no fierce determination here).  It's actual not that easy because we need to remind ourselves to let other thoughts float through without hanging on to them and letting ourselves be carried away and off task.  Just like meditation mindfulness requires a mental effort to stay with the task.  You could be washing the dishes, or driving, or brushing your teeth, or composing a report in mindfulness.  Anything done mindfully with deep focus is done better, deeper, with more meaning and quality.   Getting a task done "in order to get it done" is the exact opposite.  You will not find meaning in it and the task will not get done as well.  Having your cellphone next to you in anticipation of the next ding and distraction won't do either.  Thich Nhat Hanh famously described how to eat a tangerine mindfully in his classic 1975 book The Miracle of Mindfulness.

Why not pick a task now, any task you are about to undertake, and do it mindfully? Try it.

Please also visit related previous posts on "Now" and "Just Being."

oh beautiful perfect normal day

Let's honor and enjoy this great day.  Its normalcy is what makes it cherishable - nothing out of the ordinary, no upset, no catastrophe, just quiet and uneventful day-to-day normalcy. Of course, there would be no such day if it weren't for other types of days in contrast, since we live in a yin-yang world, a world where night comes inevitably after day, and is followed again by night in a never ending succession; so inevitably, uneventful days will alternate with eventful or upsetting days, exciting days, or crazy busy days.

Today is peaceful and restful and perhaps even a bit boring and just right.

homemade

DSC08076I was so happy when our daughter came back from an event on Saturday and announced that she had won first prize for her Halloween costume.  Why was I so happy about that?  Because she sewed the costume herself (with the help of her sewing teacher), which was part of the reason she won. We have always made our own Halloween costumes.  "We" has meant "me" when the children were smaller; although I also remember my husband getting involved.  When our son was five I made him a robot costume out of aluminum-foil-clad boxes including boxy shoes, while my husband wired the costume up so it would blink.  The costume was so impractical that our son had to leave his shoes alongside the road because he couldn't walk in them, and he couldn't see too well through the boxy box head's cut out eyes (good try - but we really had fun making it).

Why does any of this belong in a holistic living blog?  Because holistic living is about living in the moment and enjoying it, it's about authentic, or deep living.  Sewing your own costume instead of buying one is so much more satisfying.  Our daughter got a great sense of accomplishment and empowerment from it, she had a good time while she was making the costume, and she learned a valuable skill along the way.  Meanwhile,  I got the satisfaction that I taught the children a valuable lesson.  What would we have gotten out of a purchased costume?  A shopping trip (blah) and money and time not well spent (ok, so the sewing lesson was as much as a purchased costume), and probably (almost) the same amount of time spent (ok, a bit more - it took her four hours to sew the cat outfit).

Whether it's making jam, cooking dinner, sewing something, tending to a vegetable garden, or building your own bookshelf, it's time better spent (in my opinion) than screen time or shopping-and-driving-around time because it develops a hands-on skill, the activity itself is enjoyable and the result is handmade and unique.

 

divorce is not an option

That's what Bill Clinton said about our interdependence with our planet in his keynote address at Omega Institute's recent conference on sustainability which I attended. We must all wake up to the fact that climate change is here and that it is real, that it is manmade, that it is happening fast, and that it is a scary thing.  As a matter of fact, Jeremy Rifkin, the writer and economic and social visionary actually called it "terrifying."

But then, out of crisis and chaos new things are born.  Environmentalist and entrepreneur Paul Hawken's message at that same conference was to embrace carbon, our supposed enemy.  "Carbon," he says, "is the business of life and the answer to our nightmares," the subject of a book he is currently writing, because carbon is "the currency of abundance," a concept we lack in our present interest based economics of scarcity (see also Charles Eisenstein's Sacred Economics).  Interesting, because spiritual traditions have always advised us to embrace our enemies who mirror back to us what we lack or need to embrace.

So, since divorce from our planet is not an option, and closing our eyes and ears just prolongs the agony, we each need to wake up - quick quick.  The break, or consciousness shift, that the Mayans may have seen in the ending of their calendar with the year 2012 is here.  Change is opportunity, and we choose how gently or how chaotic change happens.  Through embrace and acceptance change happens more gently.   Do your bit  -  we must get off carbon as an energy source and embrace it in other forms.  Get a Prius, insulate your home, realize that the world is changing, eat much less meat and not the supermarket kind, open up to your intuition, speak kindly to others, and most of all enjoy life!  That way "life does not come at you, it comes from you," as my wise yoga teacher Aura Lehrer said.

It's no longer business as usual!

Also see recent posts on what sustainability is and the conference notes.

spontaneous acts of kindness

"Ma'am, your burger has been paid for. "  When I see articles on positive cultural observations in the newspaper, as opposed to reports on catastrophes, calamities or simply negative observations, I am hopeful that we may be on the right track.  The track to what you may be wondering? The negative stuff is so pervasive in our culture and the media.  We get this quick jolt of negative energy, similar to a sugar high, then it's over and in the long run that constant stream of negativity is draining.

So back to the positive stuff.  The NY Times had a wonderful article this week-end on the apparently increasing occurrence of spontaneous acts of generosity.  Totally gratuitous, these acts do not come from a calculated expectation of something in return, but rather a spontaneous opening of the heart to others. This is more where we're headed - eventually - if I interpret the signs correctly - more empathy, more kindness, more opening of our hearts to others.

Any idea for a spontaneous act of kindness?

what if you had chosen your parents?

I always think that a radically different perspective helps us adjust our outlook on things.  I know the thought of choosing your parents might sound crazy to some or many of you.  But then I have made it my business to further our/your/my thinking and help change our current cultural thinking because much of it has become stale and ossified (I like that word) and could use some refreshing. Do you have an axe or two to grind with your parents?  We easily blame them for what they sent us into this world with; for what they did or didn't do.  Looking at it from a different perspective helps.  As my yoga teacher Aura Lehrer said recently "life is not about right or wrong, life brings you experiences and opportunities."

So think about your parents from that opposite perspective, not the one in which you are the victim, but the one in which you are the recipient of a valuable quality or trait or ability or realization.

my dear parents

I have a lot to be thankful for from my parents. They have been lifelong learners and taught me to become a critical thinker.  We lived in different countries when I was young and so I learned to love traveling, discovering different cultures and how people do things elsewhere, and to explore and enjoy the different foods all these cultures have brought forth.  On the other hand I could blame them for not being very emotional and showing their deep love and appreciation for me enough (they are kind of "Northern" in their emotional behavior - hiding their emotions and you have to read between the lines.

But parents can also teach you by default, by not showing you love or acceptance, or whatever else you think you need.  In that case their behavior may be making you aware of a quality you'd like to add to your life that is currently not there.  You could turn your attitude around and instead of blaming your parents for what they didn't give you, you could be grateful for making you aware of something you need that you are currently lacking.  By default my parents have taught me to tell my children all the time how much I love and appreciate them, something my parents never openly expressed - although they are changing a bit as they are becoming older.

So what if you had chosen your parents before incarnating (oh, another radical thought) in order to learn and become aware of specific themes you need to work on?  Just a thought....

 

boring homogenous food

I love food, I love to travel, and I love to try food from other places in the world.  Bill Clinton said "we need to look at how people do things in other places."  Of course he did not say that with regard to food.  He said it at the sustainability conference about expanding our insular and one-sided perspective on politics, energy policy and sustainability here in the US.  But the idea is the same. Fast food joints turn out the same food whether you are in Paris, Los Angeles or New York.  Whether food or Western culture at large, homogenization simply goes against nature's grain, because nature is all about diversity and increasing complexity with ongoing development.  And what we eat depends on what grows where we live.  Different soil, different climate, different culture, different ecosystems create different foods, which in turn allow us to create completely different dishes.

What fear of life let's us be comforted by the knowledge that we can eat the same hamburger and French fries even if we travel halfways around the globe?  I will scream if one more pizza joint, one more Italian restaurant or Chinese take-out opens in our town.  Instead, give me Indian, Thai, a fish restaurant, real Chinese, or true local American.

It's about discovery, it's about opening up to new tastes, new experiences, new ingredients, a zest for life and all it has to offer.   I tried duck tongues (tough and

chewy) and chicken feet (didn't like those) in China, green papaya salad in the Phillipines (delicious), chirimoyas in Peru (creamily yummy), jackfruit in Hong Kong (so so; ripe ones are so smelly they are forbidden on the Singapore subway), and of course frogs' legs and escargots in France (love them).

Let's celebrate the diversity of life, let's discover what people have to say in other places, how they eat in other places, how they do things differently from us.  Why must we be politically correct?  Why can't we live with our differences and appreciate them?  Discuss them?  Learn from them?  We need to accept that the entire world cannot be homogenous.  Imagine if the whole country were Republican?  Or Democrat?  If everyone wore the same outfits?  Boring.