30 Day Plank Challenge

new year
new challenge
this and tabata
plus a game of badminton
thrown in on Sunday
for good measure
let the fitness programme
begin ...

Day 1 - 20 seconds 
Day 2 - 20 seconds 
Day 3 - 30 seconds 
Day 4 - 30 seconds 
Day 5 - 40 seconds 
Day 6 - REST 
Day 7 - 45 seconds 
Day 8 - 45 seconds 
Day 9 - 60 seconds 
Day 10 - 60 seconds 
Day 11 - 60 seconds 
Day 12 - 90 seconds 
Day 13 - REST 
Day 14 - 90 seconds 
Day 15 - 90 seconds 
Day 16 - 120 seconds 
Day 17 - 120 seconds 
Day 18 - 150 seconds 
Day 19 - REST 
Day 20 - 150 seconds 
Day 21 - 150 seconds 
Day 22 - 180 seconds 
Day 23 - 180 seconds 
Day 24 - 210 seconds 
Day 25 - 210 seconds 
Day 26 - REST 
Day 27 - 240 seconds 
Day 28 - 240 seconds 
Day 29 - 270 seconds 
Day 30 - PLANK FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE!!

... expect a progress report
in 27 days time!

Ever had a problem creating a password?

It is only nonsense because it does not fit our paradigm!

In this first video Brian Goodwin talks about wellbeing suggesting it is a word that 'relates to qualities because it is a quality of feeling ... you know what it is like to have a sense of wellbeing, but you cannot turn it into a number ... because wellbeing is a coherent integrated experience of that dynamic whole by a person'. If this is the case, could understanding wellbeing require a different level of perception?

This brings me to the second video where Wade Davis is talking about interspecies communication. What does this have to do with wellbeing you might ask? Here Wade references how Amazonian tribes people can distinguish different ayahuasca plants that a western scientifically trained botanist would identify as one species. When asked how they do this the tribes people will say, 'you take each one on the night of the full moon and it sings to you in a different key'. How do the tribes people find the plants? They will tell you, 'the plants talk to us'. As Wade suggests using our rationale Descartian mind we might say that this is nonsense - talking plants is ridiculous and there is no scientific evidence for such a claim. However, from a different standpoint Wade offers the view that 'it's only nonsense because it doesn't fit into our paradigm'. Different belief systems cannot only make for different individuals they can also make for different levels of perception.



Some might argue with Brian Goodwin and say, of course wellbeing can be measured and talking about wellbeing exclusively as a quality is nonsense. After all there are many people searching for that illusive quantitative metric of happiness and wellbeing. However, like Brian Goodwin's assertion that wellbeing is a quality, that may be correlated but fundamentally is each persons own unique experience, it thus requires or at least invites us to imagine that in order to understand wellbeing, like the Amazonian tribes people communing with plants, we have to inhabit a different reality, perception and paradigm.

Which brings me to my last video by John Shotter talking about the amazingness of the ordinary. Towards the end of this video (minute 13 onwards) John says ' as we go back into the enormous complexity of everyday life on the one hand ... on the other hand quite ordinary people deal with that complexity all the time without too much trouble. It would be nice if we knew how it was done. This would take a very different kind of inquiry from that used to create theoretical ideals and scientific models. It’s a kind of inquiry that looks into all the small details, the different arenas of interaction. And in many spheres of activity that’s the work that remains to be done. That’s the work of the future.'

John Shotter- sep 08- The Amazingness of the Ordinary from Dawn Dole on Vimeo.

What would happen if we took an action inquiry approach to study and understand wellbeing? Can we westerners' caught in the dominance of analytical rationale logical thought step outside of our own paradigm and see the world with new eyes? It's not like many thousands, nee millions of ordinary people aren't already intuitively doing this already. The only difference is they don't draw attention to it, they simple get on with living in all its complexity and messiness doing the best they can. What if we took our understanding of wellbeing from the experiences of ordinary sentient people.

For A New Beginning

Everyday offers up the opportunity for a new beginning. To start a fresh on a blank page. Today we went to visit our potential new companion. A beautiful 6 month old kitten rescued in October 2013 in a dreadful state who has gradually recovered to the point he is now ready to find a home. Little Rocky exemplifies the spirit for a new beginning. He doesn't appear to harbour any bitterness or cynicism for his difficult start in life. Instead he has a curious open soul, very trusting and willing to step into each brand new day.

I have spent the last 24 hours reflect on the year just past and yet as I scroll through facebook entries I came upon a friends post looking to the present and seeing the vista of newness in all it's ripe potential. And in the words of John O'Donohue perfectly summing up what new beginnings represent. New Year's are definitely not restricted to January 1st. They are open to us all the time.

Lest I forget - for a new beginning - thank you Emma Kidd for the reminder and John O'Donohue for the words.

In out of the way places of the heart

Where your thoughts never think to wander

This beginning has been quietly forming

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire

Feeling the emptiness grow inside you

Noticing how you willed yourself on

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety

And the grey promises that sameness whispered

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent

Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,

And out you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream

A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

We the leaderless

We the leaderless are all leaders now

Look to your left

Look to you right

Look all around you

What do you see

A movement for change

A desire for a better way

Anything is possible

Everything is possible

In the name of love

We are the 100%

We are the ones we have been waiting for

Now is the time

The present moment is all

Step on up

Feel the earth beneath you

Pachamama

Mother earth

Place her in the centre

Praise her

Name her

Shower your love upon her

Be sure to hug your introvert today

http://themetapicture.com/how-to-interact-with-the-introverted/

Blah

There is, it is said, a state of being and a state of doing,
as we oscillate between these two states occasionally
we get blindsided with a creative insight
ding and the lights go on - we see with new eyes
if we chose to take the new path before us
we are shifted into a new rhythm of being and doing.

This is one way of perceiving the beats and patterns
found in the music of our lives. Some of us prefer
a more steady balanced orderly being and doing dance
that breeds a certain familiarity, and there are those of us
who like the shift in gears, the change of pace that improvisation
brings with the frequent visit of the creative spark.

And then there are those other times of liminality,
the in between times, when it feels little like
doing or being or even creativity. This is
the blah state. The fog descends amongst us and sounds like
blah blah blah can be heard coming from me and you.

Today is a blah day. Inertia ... procrastination ...
and more blah de blahness ... the grinding stuckness
of never never never ending bleak outlooks
sounding like the screeching of metal on metal as brakes are
applied sapping the energy out, slowing the motion down
bringing everything round and about to an unearthly STOP!

A Shuddering, stuttering and blundering ARREST!
It is in this disquieting blackness that imagination greys
what lies dormant in the heart is the spirit of singing rainbows
multicoloured miracles that split the sky in two
between rain and shine appearing fleetingly before the eye
rainbows lifting soul and psyche up heavenward to smile again.

All there is in the blahland is hope, faith and belief
if your lucky a vague memory of what's gone before
and what can come again and again when we turn within and
search the unseen reaches of the infinite, moving through
places where magic is seeded this is our memoried landscape
of ancestral inheritance and potentiality that invisibly encircles us.

Oh singing rainbow of indescribable delectable beauty
the very jewel of great infamous stores of treasure
searched for over time in long lost stories left high and dry
on the floors of the caves of our most precious lives
to be rediscovered once again when we raise
the courage and desire to grasp and shout our own unique truth.

Stepping forth into that power only true love knows
we stand on land that heals the deepest of wounds
and covers us in a green mossy blanket of protection
so as to be able to shine out our gifts as we place
them back in service of all life human and more than human
in the greatest celebration we will ever know.

A sparkling 12 months

                     2013
                     an epic year
                     as good as it gets
                     and now I look
                     forward to the next
                     wishing for calmer waters
                     hoping for some shelter
                     and a time to renew and refresh

                     after the doing comes the being
                     back and forth
                     the cycle of all things
                     let it be so
                     for 2014
                     gentle forgiveness
                     gentle confidence
                     with each and every step
                     and learning along the way

                     for good measure
                     may I be and see the sparkle
                     shine on!

Thoughts create reality

Not had much to say for a while now. Life has been more doing than being. In the process from expected and unexpected sources I am being visited by my fears and anxiety. Triggers have and are continuing to go off all over the shop. What to do? I can do delayed gratification. Where I struggle is delaying on-coming unpleasantness. Crazy. Craziness. The mis-match of one system crashing into another. Power-over sometimes unconscious or indisguise. Whatever the form it may take my body doesn't lie. My heart sees in ways my mind sometimes placates or obfuscates. My truth is that I am not ok. Not ok with seeming power over at play, running amok. It's not ok with me, not now, not having come this far. The fear is here. Inside me.

The new insight that has been offered to me is how to turn to my fears and show warmth? Welcome in my discomfort and let it be. Not to change it or make it go away. not to grip onto it and fed the monsters. instead to get to know these parts of me. I need not demonise them.

It's ok. It's all ok. It will be ok. Whatever happens. Fight or flight is a mighty strong force to uncouple. Some say my thoughts create my reality. If my thoughts are this grim and dark am I creating this future outcome or is it simply a present reality that can be changed by shifting my thoughts into another dimension. Let's see if I can experiment with this over the coming days. Instead of assuming the worse, why not assume the best! And let the fear be.

I was told a story about observing the swirling leaves. Especially now as they have mostly fallen from the trees on their path to decay as the chill winds of winter call. The leaves fall like confetti buffeted around the ground by local gusts. They form drifts in alcoves, under bushes they accumulate and along the hedgerows they pile high. Surrounding each leaf as it descends is an infinity of space. It's as if the beauty of the dying decaying leaf is cupped in an equally beautiful illuminating glow of love.  

I came across a poem by Ben Okri called The World Is Rich.  

They tell me that the world
Is rich with terror.
I say the world is rich
With love unfound.
It’s inside us and all around.

Terror is there, no doubt
Violence, hunger and drought;
Rivers that no longer
Flow to the sea.
It’s the shadow of humanity.

There’s terror in the air.
And we have put it there.
We have made God into an enemy,
Have made God into a weapon,
A poverty, a blindness, an army.

But the world is rich with
Great love unfound:
Even in the terror
There is love, twisted round
And round. Set it free.

River, flow to the sea.

What is the love unfound in my fears? What can I set free in me? This buried treasure is bound to be found. Is it wrapped in a blanket of trust? Or trussed up in acceptance such that whatever the challenge or the outcome before me, all will be as it is meant to be, all will be well and I am ready for this reality. To see with new eyes and bear witness. No judgement. And to bring with me bundles of love, warmth and acceptance. Offering a safe seat for all to sit round this fireside and share stories of brave and gallant adventures, of times when all was lost and at sea, of moments when searing beauty rang through the valleys calling it's special song, of dark and dangerous monsters who sought to ensnare and trap my soul, of such delicacy and sweetness that my senses could barely behold and of the height and depths of the soaring tawny owl seeking to guide me home to my greatest belonging. Imagine, that is something worth thinking about.  

Russell Brand is on a roll ...

In the last few weeks Russell Brand has been stirring the establishment pot via various elements of the media advocating for a social and systemic revolution. First, there was his guest edited issue of the New Statesman. As he put it, "Total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system is what interests me, but that’s not on the ballot. Is utopian revolution possible? The freethinking social architect Buckminster Fuller said humanity now faces a choice: oblivion or utopia. We’re inertly ambling towards oblivion, is utopia really an option?

With that question hanging in the air, Brand stepped out to speak with Jeremy Paxman on the BBC late night current affairs show Newsnight.



This piece has already had 9 million viewings on youtube alone. Interestingly despite Jeremy's classical antagonistic interviewing style, days later he voiced his agreement with the vue that people are disenchanted with politics. Why can't Jeremy have an open conversation and sharing of opinions during the Newsnight interview? Why is it he has to go on a evening entertainment show to be able to express his own views?  



Now we move into November, since the TV appearance and the magazine publication Russell Brands words have gone viral. It's stirred up a hornets nest of reactions across the political spectrum. Undeniable there are those with entrenched vested interests in the status quo who are taking the stance that Russell Brand is a vacuous waste of space spouting utter nonsense to be utterly ignored and undermined. And yet there are many, mostly the voiceless invisible ones in our communities who are nudging one another and saying 'he's got a point', 'it's about time someone said this stuff'.

I am one of those people who after realising that we live in a world facing immense scary challenges with no obvious instant answers can be overwhelmed to the point of paralysis. When I feel myself moving into a state of despair, disillusionment or nihilism the desire to reach out for my touchstones of comfort - food, TV etc is very strong. Better some method of pushing the uncomfortable feelings away than having to face up to the discomfort. And yet ironically turning to face the discomfort is the door to change, to an alternative, to freedom, to empowerment, to friendship, to reconnection with the world around me in all of it's vibrancy and uncertainty. My interpretation of Brands message, which he rightly makes clear is not new or unique to him, is to take responsibility and to participate in the world to make it a better place. DONT LEAVE IT TO THE ELECTED POLITICIANS. I ask myself how can I step up and get involved? Whatever I do, you do, we do will make a difference and don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

Where are we now in the Brand revolution? Today it's an article in The Guardian newspaper in which he continues to put forward the case that we deserve a better democratic system. "A system that serves the planet and the people" - all the people, not just a lucky few at the top table. It's time ... it's time ... it's time.

10 Rules for Being Human

Check out the list below and see where you are in this interesting reflection on being human.

There is a thread

The Way It Is

It goes among things that change. 
There is a thread you follow. 
But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what things you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and grow old.

Nothing you do can stop times unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

— William Stafford

We learn with the great spirits

Below are some images of the Yanomami people of Brasil. More can be found on the website of survival international.

To the Yanomami every tree, rock, mountain and creature has a spirit.

The Yanomami shamans are not only protecting their own community, but looking after the rest of the world as well. They know that our planet is changing. The sky is full of smoke because our rainforest is being logged and burnt. The rains come late, the sun behaves in a strange way. The lungs of the sky are polluted. The world is ill.

Where will we go when we have destroyed our world?

When the planet is silent, how will we learn?