Here’s his site: http://timelesssculptures.com/biography.htm

In the past year, there was a writing assignment that I just couldn’t get inspired to write, then one night I got going and I ended up staying up until 3 a.m. to complete it. Turned out really great and the client loved it.

I want to start a “slow movement.” I think people today are going way too fast, whether on the highway or through their “to do” list.

After picking that I had a wee bit of interest to go back into the Village, Wooly had the Crown Royal and the shot glasses handed out. And Mike, Bryan, Wooly and I were off. We hopped the bus back, begging for some Canadian coins from our friends, since we had not traded in our American dollars. My stomach didn’t make it too long after that shot, but no matter. We ran up and down the Olympic statue, did our best moves on the bobsled, stopped for a beer, laughed like little girls and caught it all on camera. It didn’t matter that we were some of the last left among the “athletes”, closing down the bars. This was the kind of silly fun that I used to have before becoming a parent.  It was exactly what I needed!!

We got home around 2 or 3 a.m. reminding ourselves that we had a full day of skiing and snowboarding ahead of us at Whistler/Blackcomb.

We probably weren’t in tiptop shape for that, but we gave it our all. What a time we had! Just the views from up there were worth it.. Though when you got off the lift at the tippy top, it was a bit tough to see because the snow was whipping. You kinda had to just go for it and steer clear of cliffs until visibility improved. Every one of our companions is on ski patrol at Crystal Mountain in WA, so Mike and I were in good hands. We went on the “Peak to Peak” Gondola, to take us over to Blackcomb….which is a good 5,000 feet above ground. Whew, this gondola was thankfully enclosed so it felt safe. Then they took us up a T-bar that looked pretty sketchy at the top. This is pretty old school. Instead of a chair lift, you have to hang on to a little bar to get to the top of the mountain. And my first time happened to be on a steep mountain like Blackcomb! When my snowboard started going toward the pole, that was exciting.  Abdominals, abdominals. Then we hoofed it a little ways to get to the glacier. Yes, Paul wanted to take us skiing on a glacier.  I have a video of us looking down into it… Once I inched my way down the first bit – one of those grades that looked vertical but you couldn’t really tell–once I got off my butt, I was going.  Then it was all about just keeping focus on Bryan like a bulls-eye and going for it full on. It felt like surfing on Cool Whip.

So for those of you who didn’t get a postcard,  I apologize. We were soaking in every minute of the Olympic buzz and savoring the experience! (Plus we only stayed one more night and then returned to the U.S.)

Most days since Oran was born I roll out of bed with my legs already running toward his room or if he’s sleeping next to me, I am physically yanked out of bed, as he yells “Mama, get out, get out! This way!” Then I proceed to drag myself from one chore to the next, baby on my hip, never completing them all satisfactorily as he is running toward the next thing. I never was a morning person. And I am no match for this little boy, who knows what he wants.

I really don’t think I have postpartum depression. I think that fighting to keep your eyes open through breakfast, while catching flying tomatoes and trying to sneak in a less-than-satisfying downward facing dog is just the way life goes with a baby/toddler. How could anyone want to get out of bed with less than 5 hours sleep? I am working on acceptance of the situation, loving acceptance.

Yet I certainly don’t have postpartum jubilation either. I am trying to understand how someone else’s experience could be so drastically different from my own that they would say “I love being a mom.” Don’t get me wrong, Oran is a blessing and he makes me smile and laugh all of the time. But it is a very different kind of smile – more of a fleeting one- than the feeling of wellness and serenity that I had before.

Any advice is welcome! Do you think I am struggling because Oran is a difficult kid? Or is it because I am an older mom, who was used to having her own life at age 34? Is it a control issue? Or maybe it’s a more difficult stage of life and I need to accept that I have very little control.

Wabi-sabi (侘寂^?) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The phrase comes from the two words wabi and sabi. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” (according to Leonard Koren in his book Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers).

To me, it is a constant reminder to find the beauty in imperfection.

You see, I am a recovering perfectionist. When a teacher reprimanded me in the 4th grade for doing something stupid, this left a lasting mark on my psyche. My breaking point was when I left school. When I saw the rules had changed– the expectations were jacked up–that’s the first time I realized I wasn’t going to always get straight A’s. I found myself frozen, unable to cope because I didn’t know what to do with real criticism, no matter how constructive.

I realized something had to give if I was going to find happiness and reach my dreams. I had to learn how to fail (in a big way), get back up and keep going. I had to move forward with my writing and share it, rather than editing again, seeking perfection.

Yoga and its teachings offered me answers: Life is not a performance, it is a PRACTICE. Within the practice, day in and day out, that’s where you find the beauty in every moment as it unfolds.

I am struggling with this very issue. Over the past 3-4 years I began buying organic produce when I can, and now I always seek out organic meat with no antibiotics/hormones, etc. However, our grocery bills are getting out of hand. I can totally understand why families buy cheap meat in bulk. But this movie asks, what is the true cost of food? To our health, to our environment, to our communities and country?

Has anyone seen Food, Inc.? I plan to put it on my list. More to come.

So, there we are, sitting in a little room with Jupiter swirling over our heads and stuffed astronauts on the shelf,  all ears to hear what an actual pediatrician–one who is known to be holistic–has to say about all of this. And she takes no stance. She took a very hands-off approach at the time, recommending that we go home and read up on all of the facts ourselves and make our own decision as Oran’s parents. Hmph, a little help?

The literature out there is mind boggling. Some see it as very black-and-white. For me, it was mostly gray, as I see most things.

Because of my middle-of-the-road approach, I leaned toward the Dr. Sears take on vaccines. The Sears family of physicians seem well-trusted by many parents looking for the most holistic nutrition for their children. And Dr. Bob’s book on Vaccines was based on fact instead of the power of persuasion. Like our doc, he does not tell parents exactly what to do—-a quality that I’ve found can be frustrating at times—but actually more valuable in the end. It’s kind of strange, if you buy the paperback, the Dr. Sears alternate vaccine schedule is actually buried .

I really do wish I could just blindly follow the AAP guidelines. It would have made the past year a heck of a lot easier. But my conscience would not allow it.

Dr. Sears’ alternate vaccine schedule offers up an alternative to the schedule set up by the AAP with much more time in between shots, and no more than one or two given at once. Dr. Sears also has one chapter dedicated to each vaccine and each version (brand name, ie. GlaxoSmithKline or Merck) of the vaccine. In each chapter, he weighs the risk of your young child getting the disease with the risk the vaccine’s ingredients pose (based on proven fact).

I have seen too many products on the drugstore shelf that are completely toxic, to trust anything with the FDA stamp of approval. I repeat, NO trust in our government when it comes to food and drug safety.

But I had to trust someone, since this was not research that I could do myself. We decided to give Oran DTAP/Hib for diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae B, and Polio and forego most other vaccines for the time being.  As we read further, we decided to stop the Polio vaccines (We did one in the series of 3).

At his 18-month appointment, I again tried to elicit some sort of vaccine opinion from his pediatrician, who seemed more comfortable leaking her opinion in tiny increments. She said, “Which ones are you doing again? You decided to forego Polio?”  We said “Yes, and we may eventually decide to give him MMR and some others if that is possible after age 2.” She said, “We can revisit that at his 2 year appointment. By then, he can process aluminum. There is aluminum in the Polio vaccine.”

What? Aluminum. Say no more. Why did she not share this tidbit with us when we told her we wanted to alter the vaccine schedule for our baby’s health and safety? Honestly, reading books cannot replace good advice. Is this perhaps because of an allegiance to AAP or other medical associations? It really makes you wonder.

Everyone must have a deep desire in order to survive, and it should be a wholesome desire, in order not to suffer later on. If we do not have a fire inside of us–a desire that is deep enough– we cannot succeed. We need that desire to transform suffering and fear inside so that we can be a happy person and in turn, transform a society full of violence, hate and despair.

What is your deepest desire? Thich Nhat Hanh says we each need to look deep to identify this. His was to be a monk, and that fire in his heart has driven his every step. MLK Junior had that kind of deep desire, that fire in his heart. Thich Nhat Hanh was a personal friend to him.

I am still looking deep.

He also stresses that to nurture the soil that will help us grow our deepest desire, we need a sangha – our beloved community, our kula– surrounding us. This group is made up of individuals who have that strong desire, that fire. With a sangha, you are buoyed on by the collective energy of mindfulness. It is not a matter of faith, he says, it is a matter of practice.

I search deep by taking a yoga class, surrounding myself with the beloved community at Easton Yoga. Since leaving the dharma talk I woke up and have made a point to get there at least once a week. There is a noticeable difference in my life when I surround myself with the beloved community and collective energy of mindfulness. I find that I walk with ease, I speak kinder words, I am emptied of negativity and full of clarity. Clarity helps me connect with my deepest desire.

The power of the beloved community cannot be overestimated. Thich Nhat Hanh also spoke of President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He believes that the President was bestowed this honor to help him maintain his fire, his deepest desire. And, he went on to say that Obama needs a very strong sangha surrounding him. We need to surround the President with wholesome energy to negate the energy of the military/industrial complex, which is “very strong and does not generate peace and understanding.”

He goes so far as saying that WE are responsible for President Obama’s success.

This past Monday was especially good one since I managed to finish dinner for the guys before leaving. That meant I floated into a home full of welcoming dinner smells. I could still hear stirrings in Oran’s room, so he wasn’t quite sleeping yet. I tiptoed around, but a sneeze erupted. Then in my hungry state, I couldn’t wait to heat up some food, and the microwave beeped.

But it didn’t seem to throw a wrench in the routine. Michael emerged from the room soon after. Later, he said “I have to tell you this. You know when you came home earlier and I was in the room with Oran? He was just about asleep on my shoulder when you sneezed.” (I thought he was going to reprimand me for sneezing.)

“He turned and said ‘Bless you Mama’  Then the microwaved  beeped and he lifted his head and said ‘Mama make it, make it mama.”

Why does it make your heart skip a beat when you hear this kind of commentary from a 17-month-old? Perhaps because you start to see it’s all coming together for him, he not only knows words but is developing this love for finding words and using them in context.

The nutriment of the senses was confirmation for me: I have always felt that what I take in through my senses has a deep and lasting effect on my soul. When we pop a film into the DVD player, I know that I cannot “take it with a grain of salt.” Whatever it’s content, it pours into my heart and has lasting effects on me. In our society, this transparency of sorts can make me feel wimpy, as though I am some sort of over-sensitive weenie. Especially when violent movies come along. But Thich Nhat Hanh reaffirmed this as solid fact. He said, “Whether it be conversation, music or film, we should not listen to it if it contains fear, anger or despair. We need good ingredients [for our sensory experiences] such as understanding, compassion and love. If we are consuming bad/negative energy, we should remove ourselves from that spot right away.”

He says that certain sensory experiences, such as a dharma talk, waters the seed of mindfulness, compassion and understanding in us. Everyone has this seed, but not everyone waters it.

I’ve noticed the drastic difference – the way I feel when I see a violent movie in comparison with the way I feel after taking an inspirational yoga class. It is our choice. We can read books or watch movies that contain fear, violence, anger or despair –breeding more fear, anger and despair. Or begin to choose what we watch and listen to more selectively and water the seed of mindfulness and compassion in us.

More to come on:

True love=self love

Beloved community and why we need to surround Obama with a sangha, or beloved community

My Two Hands, the beautiful poem he read

Born in Vietnam in 1926, Thich Nhat Hanh became a monk at the age of sixteen. The Vietnam War confronted the monasteries with the question of whether to remain meditating in the monasteries or help the villagers suffering under bombings and other devastations of war. Thich Nhat Hanh chose to do both, helping found the “engaged Buddhism” movement.

After visiting the United States and Europe in 1966 on a peace mission, he was banned from returning to Vietnam. On subsequent travels to the United States, he made the case for peace to federal officials. He persuaded Martin Luther King, Jr. to publically oppose the Vietnam War, which helped galvanize the peace movement. In 1967, King nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.