Category Archives: Dog

Something Good

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The reminder in yoga class last week to look to nature, pay attention to how everything is moving to a season of rest and hibernation.

Thursday nights at Old Town Yoga, there’s a class called “Restoration, Rejuvenation and Aromatherapy.” It is described this way, which explains why I go:

This class invites you to allow yourself to truly relax. A gentle therapeutic style of yoga using props to support the body. It is a soothing and nurturing practice that promotes the effects of conscious relaxation.

I have classes I purchased and need to use before the first of the year, so I invited a few friends to go with me. The studio was cold, and we were all using so many blankets, and our teacher reads to us as we sink into the poses, and it felt like we were having a big slumber party. Our teacher talked about the light of the full moon and lightness of our breath, and how they balanced, contrasted with the heaviness of our physical bodies. She said that even though during this season in nature things slow down and turn inward, we remain busy, even busier because of the holiday and all we ask ourselves to do. She said we could instead consider and contemplate nature, see if there is anything we could learn from it.

image by Boaz Yiftach / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Dallas Clayton’s work.

I aspire to be the kind of artist, the kind of person that is true to myself and honest and brave and vulnerable and silly, but also does good for others, and because I am being who I am and doing it so exactly and so wholeheARTedly, the good I do is that much better. Dallas inspires me.

art by Dallas Clayton

TEDxFiDiWomen – SARK (Susan Rainbow Ariel Kennedy) Video.

It took me at least 45 minutes to watch this 16 minute video because I kept stopping and writing down things she was saying, making notes.

And then, a little moment of magic: for the second time, I was watching something unrelated to the Well-Fed Woman Mini-Retreatshop Tour, and saw Rachel W. Cole. This time, it was in the audience at this talk. During the segment where SARK reads a love letter she wrote to herself, who do I see in the audience?! RACHEL!

I even said her name out loud, just like that, but she didn’t look at me 🙂 But then, a few minutes later, she looked right at the camera and smiled.

Holy wow… It feels like the Universe winking at me.

“10 Things I Want To Tell Every Teenage Goddess” from Goddess Leonie

I posted the link to this on my 13 year old niece’s Facebook wall, and I hope she reads it. Although, #9 on the list could be for everyone (the whole list is for everyone, really):

9. The person who is happiest, wins. Happy people don’t bully. Happy people don’t give other people shit. Happy people are off making art under trees being kind to themselves and each other. Happy ALWAYS wins. Why don’t you be one of the gloriously happy weird ones?

Okay, I will! Amen.

Sam’s Birthday

Our “puppy” Sam turned two years old on Saturday. Here’s him at 3 months old, the week we brought him home, and then 2 years later on his birthday. He has been such a gift! Helped to heal our broken hearts when we lost our Obi.

Book Plates

My friend gave me a set of these for my birthday, and they are the perfect way to archive my journals. Previously, I stuck a post-it note to the front cover with a scribbled date range, and they were always falling off, but with these I can have the pretty plates placed inside the front cover. Now if there were only a simple way to create indexes for each of them…

SF Girl by Bay

This is a beautiful blog, written by a self-described San Francisco-based blogger, photographer, photo stylist, design junkie and bonafide flea market queen, representing “bohemian modern style.” I have no real style when it comes to home decor (unless dog hair and dirty laundry count as “style”), but aspire to it, and it makes me happy just to browse this blog.

This picture = happiness.

It has been reposted so many times, I can’t tell you were it’s originally from, but I’ll share it anyway, because I believe that whoever would take such a picture is one of the “gloriously happy weird ones” Goddess Leonie mentions in her list of 10 things, and I have to believe they would want as many people to see it as possible.

Three Truths and One Wish

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For me, love and fear are inextricably linked. There is not one without the other because for every thing I love, I fear its loss. I was thinking about this last night because Dexter was limping, apparently cracked another toenail, this time on his front foot. I love him so much, but know that eventually he will die, so each hint of any physical weakness or injury spins me into a tizzy.

This got me thinking about emotion and how, when we let it take over, it can cause us to generate so much suffering, which leads to today’s Three Truths and One Wish.

1. Truth: As humans, it is in our basic nature to experience emotions. Over the years, there has been a tremendous amount of research done in an attempt to understand this phenomenon. The lists I’ve seen suggest anywhere from 6-48 basic human emotions. The Wikipedia entry “List of Emotions” is really interesting. The artist in me especially loved Richard Plutick’s Wheel of Emotions, a mandala of feeling.

2. We feel emotion in our bodies, embody our feelings. This is why things like fear and stress can be so detrimental. Emotionaly}Vague “is a research project about the body and emotion asking: How do people feel anger, joy, fear, sadness and love? In order to answer this, a simple survey was developed, the results of which were compared and combined to reveal patterns of feeling…Ultimately, 250 men and women from over 35 countries between the ages of 6 and 75 responded.” This research was conducted by a graphic designer Orlagh O’Brien in 2006/2007. It went like this:

Each final survey contained five sheets of A4 paper, one reusable colour swatch board, a red marker pen and a memento card. After the first written questions was a free-form drawing one which led to pages that were more specific, asking for: ‘one spot only’, colour associations and just arrows.

Q1: What makes you feel each of the emotions?

Q2: How do you feel these emotions in your body? Draw anything you wish.

Q3: Where do you feel these emotions in your body? Draw one spot only.

Q4: What colours do you associate with these emotions? Refer to numbered colour chart.

Q5: Do your emotions have direction? If yes, draw arrows.

My favorite part of the findings is the images that compiled how this set of people collectively understood “where” emotions were in their bodies and what direction those emotions traveled. For example, this is love:

And this is fear:

3. Truth: The most fundamental quality of emotion is energy. This energy, by itself, is neither good nor bad. What gets us in to trouble is when we create stories to go with the emotions, to explain them, and when we get hooked by these stories and act out in ways that don’t serve us, that aren’t wise or compassionate. When emotion arises, when we feel that energy, we don’t have to avoid it or push it away, or let it hook us and drag us off somewhere and get us into some kind of trouble.  We could instead be curious about it: “Where do I feel this in my body? What does it feel like exactly? What is the specific reality of my experience in this moment, without the story and without acting on it?”

“What happens with you when you begin to feel uneasy, unsettled, queasy? Notice the panic, notice when you instantly grab for something, (51)” ~Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart. In this way, we can learn what triggers us, become aware our patterns and habits, and take time to consider what the wise and compassionate action to take would be, in light of our clear understanding of the situation. “The more we witness our emotional reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain,” Pema Chödrön. We can simply sit with the emotion, accept it and fully experience it, see it as workable, and in the end it dissipates on its own, we are able let it go, or we are able to direct its energy to something more useful.

  • I wish you ease and curiosity when approaching and working with our emotions today, and for all the days that follow. May you discover the energy and wisdom underneath the feelings, and be able to direct yourself towards compassionate action rather than generating more suffering.