looking over the shoulder

at the end of this tumultuous year, with so much to think about, i have to stop and give praise for all the blessings i've experienced. now that our lake is frozen and we're confined to the river i have had to shift my focus to the movement of life. last weekend we paddled to the Dollar Bridge from the dam and the wind was stronger than the current. so much to consider when life takes the same course. i remember the headwinds Katie Lindquist, my rider in RAAM 2001, encountered on the high plains of Colorado. When every other factor weighed in, a twenty mph headwind was enough to call it quits. on most other days it probably wouldn't have fazed her. on our Des Moines River a headwind doesn't seem too difficult most days, but on Lake Superior it was enough to keep us bivouac'd on the rocks all day. how often does one small detail become the deciding factor in everything we do?

our history defines us in so many ways, and often limits us by our hesitations and indecisions; yet, it allows us the freedom to soar with the eagles on that one occasion when we stop fighting the current.

"The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it" - Woodrow Wilson

in a year when the economy has redefined all of us, there is time to rededicate ourselves to understanding that we have the power to survive any test of will, and the determination to turn and go with the flow. To make our Way easier we simply have to turn and absorb the energy that is needed to reach our goal. no obstacle will sweep us away or turn us under if we have the flexibility to bend with the pressure, and not break. for all the mistakes, for all the wrong turns, for all the indecisions......... i give thanks for the ability to learn, and keep on paddling.......

thanks to all those that have helped me on my journey in this past year. i look forward to exploring new destinations, new sunrises, and new sunsets.

finding The Way

at the end of a busy year i harken back to exciting moments and warm consistencies. when the weather becomes dark and cold it is comforting to think about all the blessings of the past twelve months and all those that have made it special: family and friends. it is too easy to just live out the daily existence and see tomorrows turning into todays, and todays turning into yesterdays: í framtiðin, í dag, í gær.... or some semblance of this difficult language (icelandic/islensku) that occupies my desire to learn.

there are so many wise individuals to draw from when discussing the concept of "the Way" and i'll include a few of my favorite quotes. this has been a central theme of my writings so i'll just continue to explore what some would focus on, "i am the Light and the Way".

“God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the Way.”

-author unknown

“Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the Way.”
-Abraham Lincoln

“The Way of the superior person is threefold; virtuous, they are free from anxieties; wise, they are free from perplexities; and bold, they are free from fear.”
-Confuscius

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life, not so much by what happens to you as by the Way your mind looks at what happens.”-Kahlil Gibran

to be proactive is to use an old football idiom that says, "a strong offense is your best defense". as i mentioned last, to overcome adversity with positive nature is the best medicine. i revel in the joy that comes with each morning and the possibilities for everyone to live life to the fullest with expectations of great things. what a wonderful time in our existence when we can at least believe that we make a difference in this world.

may you all, at this joyous holiday time, be free of anxieties, perplexities, and fear! God bless us everyone!

compassionate thanks giving

“The Way to overcome negative thoughts and destructive emotions is to develop opposing, positive emotions that are stronger and more powerful.”

I decided that my being should be dedicated to something useful for others. One of my favourite prayers says "So long as space remains.. So long as sentient beings suffer and remain.. I will remain in order to serve". This gives me a lot of comfort. This is the meaning of my life. Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama quotes (Dalai Lama, b.1935)

“As long as space abides and as long as the world abides, so long may I abide, destroying the sufferings of the world.”

-Buddhist scripture, Santideva

at a time of thanksgiving we are able to refocus on purpose and understand that each of us has been given a chance, in this world, to make a difference for someone. in Buddhist teachings we are told that eliminating suffering is the highest element. i am so thankful to work in the healing arts and have exposure to so many fantastic individuals, that amaze and inspire me every day.

just yesterday i asked a woman when she last felt wonderful, full of life, and free from pain. she went back in time to her childhood when the love of parents and friends was unconditional and fulfilling. with that love as a Light she was able to safely identify the emotion that walled off the area of pain, the darkness, and understand where it started - and what she needed to do to be free from the pain it caused. forgiveness is just one of many solutions we draw from in the healing process, but a powerful solution to powerful negative emotions. she visualized the frustration and anger burning up in a fire and then filled the painful area with Light. she left painfree and for the first time felt in control of her body, and her life.

Motivation by pure altruism striving to eliminate the suffering of everyone; this is the fullest expansion consciousness is capable of, expressed as the complete perfection of wisdom and (this is crucial) compassion.

let us all, in the approaching holiday season, remember to include compassion for those less fortunate, and understanding for those that struggle. let us include unconditional love and caring in all our relationships and as was once said, "keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer".

birth days

Barack Obama, our next president, had to contend with his past in getting to his future. unless you lived in the sixties and seventies you wouldn't understand the time of turmoil and unrest that marked the changes that took place. in 59 years i've been privileged to see many things, and although i've not witnessed a fraction of what my father has experienced, i've lived a full life too. we often look at birthdays with skepticism and dread, forgetting that it is the opportunity we are given to "get things right", to find our Path. birthdays should be the biggest holiday of the year! in ayurvedic philosophy the birthday is a very auspicious occasion, to be honored for all the potentiality that it holds. remember, in Taoist teachings, that life is about self-discovery.

i draw from the wisdom of the ages and remember the quote from the Greeks that said, in death, they did not eulogize a person but rather were found to ask, "did he have passion?" with each passing year i realize that the abilities we gain through experience free us from bonds placed upon us by past emotions and problems. in life we have just four things it is said: problems, causes, lessons to be learned, and resolution of our problems. so far i've come up with a list of problems in my life and a few causes, but am still waiting for knowledge of the lessons.....

without botching the spelling in Sanscrit for phrases i'll just say that they spoke of the knower, the knowing and the known........ that process of acquiring knowledge is integral to progressing through life and moving on to a higher level. i am learning more about passion, not so much the physical, but the spiritual. i am not sure that enlightenment is in my cards but achieving a view from a higher level must be like the feeling i felt on top of the highest mountain peak in the range, when nothing within eyesight was higher than me...... i included a picture in a previous blog of that mountain and keep it in my mind's eye for inspiration.

so for any of you experiencing a birthday, remember that each day is a celebration of your birth and suitable for celebrating. i hope you too will find your passion.

obamarama - a celebration

"When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations..... The artist becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society....."

--John F. Kennedy

it was poetic to watch the resurgence of grass roots political involvement and the inclusion of so many young people in the recent presidential campaign. it is wonderful to know that there is a stimulus for change and a HOPE for peace in this crazy world. it will be a very difficult struggle to turn around our economy and image in the world, but by eliminating the onerous words other would use, like "fight", and substituting words like "peace" then "Yes We Can"........ i won't be so naive as to think that it will be easy, but everything worth having is worth the effort.

at a time when Al Franken is still waiting on the last votes he needs to win his race we understand that every vote indeed makes a difference and apathy can turn the course of history as quickly as action........ an undercount of 10,000 votes in Mountain Iron may be the deciding turning point in his campaign.

here in Iowa we have decided that the "Kayakers for Obama" were the turning point in the election. a group so rooted in the environment and so concerned with water quality, we went the extra mile and put our energy into creating a healing place for everyone to reach out to others for the greater good. in his book, "The Hundredth Monkey" Ken Keyes Jr. (http://www.sfheart.com/hundredth_monkey.html) proved that the collective consciousness really does matter, and can change the course of history. when we come together in a common cause, with pure intent, our energy is transmitted across continents and can shape thinking in ways we never imagined.

never think that you are insignificant...... your opinions do matter and your actions do count!

noche de las brujas

all hallows eve or hallowe'en has always been a national holiday at our house, but is pre-empted this year by election activities. the "night of the witches" always had special meaning with our kids at home because it involved being someone different for one night. one special memory for me was the year i dressed up as a werewolf to hand out candy. with my dark beard (then) and a particularly scary wolf mask, a trench coat, and a black wide-brimmed hat i watched out the front door as two young boys approached our especially spooky house (we have three stories with a tower on top with a strobe warning those that chose to get too close). just as they got to the front porch i threw open the door and jumped out, and with a deep voice said, "what do you want?" knees shaking one boy looked up at me with wide eyes, pointing at his friend, and in an obviously scared tone said, "eat him!" i was at once caught in the middle of a difficult situation. my first action was to throw off my mask and assure them that i was not going to hurt them, then to offer as much candy as they would take. My second reaction, after making sure they were not scarred for life, was to quickly shut the door and roll on the floor laughing - not because i had scared them to the point of giving each other up to be eaten, but because the boy was so honest in his actions.
how many times have we passed on the opportunity to be honest and forthright because we were simply afraid.......... locked into behaviour patterns learned through years of conditioning and role-playing. not realizing what path is our "true path" takes us to many doors where the werewolves live and fear becomes our reality. in the celestine prophesy the insights learned follow a progression from recognizing coincidences to recognizing how others gain control by taking our energy - and therefore making us powerless to act.


Does this path we are meant to follow lead us to the Way? we learn our lessons and move to a higher level, free from fear and indecision - free from the paralysis of mind that engulfs us just when we come to the point of knowledge.


when you get to the door of knowledge, don't be scared - the old man with the wolf mask won't hurt you!

tagged

my lovely daughter, Calliope, in her blogsite "http://www.dobrya.blogspot.com/" initiated a "tag" to me to post seven (7) either wierd or random facts about myself that i could share with readers. also i was to enlist seven others to do the same............ another pyramid of information to bring us all closer together. well, first of all, i don't have seven friends that blog (or even know what a blog is) because i am a dinosaur and relatively antiquated for computer usage. i'm lucky that my son contributes to "http://lonelynote.blogspot.com/" music review blogsite and my daughter has started a site called "goings-on". if any of you want to be my friend and include seven random things on your blogsite i'd be closer to proving to my daughter that i'm caring, trustworthy and cooperative, even if she knows better. so here goes.....


1. when I was little i threw cold water on my brother, who was in the bathtub, and he hit me above the eye with a metal toy submarine – the scar is still there.... and you thought only a red ryder bb gun could poke your eye out......

2. i watched peter pan, starring mary martin, for the first time when I was young and that night in my sleep, thinking i was flying, jumped from the bunk bed hitting the desk. (another scar)

3. i’m very good at wiggling my ears without moving my mouth. I’m not very good at keeping my mouth closed at other times……


4. when i was 17, i climbed hochstuhl, the highest peak in the southern alps karawanken mountain range and got stopped at rifle point by a yugoslavian border guard. only because i was an american did i keep from going to jail; and because my climbing partner was cute and persuasive.


5. i’ve kayaked on all the big water in the united states: the atlantic, pacific, gulf, alaska, all the great lakes; and the mississippi, missouri, and illinois rivers. the only time i’ve ever fallen over into the water was in red rock lake, here in iowa.



6. i got knocked out cold, in college football, playing against john matusak, who later was an all-pro defensive end for the los angeles raiders – and who played “sloth” in the movie “the goonies”. Can you do the truffle shuffle? he died of suspected complications of anabolic steroid use so guess i didn't do so badly in the exchange. the "tooz" was 6'8" tall and weighed 280#. at the time he was about the biggest man in pro football. all i remember is that his forearm was as big as my thigh.

7. i sang sergeant pepper’s lonely hearts club band at 3am one morning, in harmony with a young german cabin attendant from hamburg, on the hawser deck of the ss ryndam ocean liner, while crossing the atlantic in 1967. i stayed up all night listening to rock & roll on the pirate stations in the english channel and made it back to my cabin before everyone woke up at 6am. i slept in and missed my language lessons. now i'm sorry not to know more german.



so that is my contribution to world information. i hope that it hasn't changed anyone's opinion of me in a negative direction, but that is the risk you take when you expose yourself on the internet. we are told to be careful of what we put into print. perhaps that is why i prefer being a storyteller instead of a writer. you can always say, later, that it wasn't what you said........ ask the senator from north carolina........ no, i'm not going to play "gotcha".......... well, it is an election year.......... oh, i am the self appointed head of the midwest "kayakers for obama" organization and if anyone wants to join i will declare you a member of the group........ we don't approve of shooting animals from airplanes if you are concerned......



remember, just when you least suspect it, you're on someone's candid camera. see you next time on youtube!

sentinels

throughout the ages different indigenous populations used signs and symbols to communicate with others that might not be able to understand their language. even today we use symbols on roadsigns and in buildings to let people know something when they don't speak "our language". i have been fascinated with different languages and recognize that language is truly the identification of a population, not customs or dress. losing a family language is typical now in ethnic groups because it doesn't fit into the mainstream thinking and singles out someone as "different'. our heritage is valuable as i've said and knowledge of the past lets us chart our course for the future with better results.

the stone cairns of iceland marked the way of travel or alerted travelers of places that needed heed. andy goldsworthy has made a career out of stacking things together and his cairns at the art center in des moines show the precision of a craftsman and how cohesive you can make things with care. life must also be like that when trying to fit all the pieces into a solid stable shape. i am now off on an adventure to the lava fields of keflavik where i will try out my knowledge of "íslenskur' and soak in the wonderful 'blue lagoon'. perhaps the stone cairns i left last time there will still be guiding people, and the friendships i made will also be there to guide my Way. the world looks different close to the top.......

i hope you will take time to stack your stones carefully so they will be there to guide others.....

passages

time goes by so quickly and stopping to consider a moment is often more difficult than it would seem. in 2001 i accompanied a bicycle rider, Katie Lindquist-Eriksen, in RAAM, the race across america. as part of the team, signed on to provide sportsmedicine coverage, i quickly found myself primarily a driver of the vehicles following her on a superhuman journey. she was riding almost 300 miles/day and about 21 hours/day. the winner of the race made it from coast to coast in less than nine days and barely slept 8 hours on the whole race. i drove behind her at about 14 miles/hour for nine hours/day and then moved to the leapfrog vehicle to scout out the road ahead and run errands, before driving the RV to the next stop.

she later married Kent Eriksen, who worked for Moots Bicycles, and who now has his own line of racing bicycles. i learned a lot about myself during those long hours, and not all of it was good. my communication and social skills needed more improvement than i could understand, and working under stress with little sleep and trying to multi-task required terrific concentration. i'm glad they didn't send me home in the middle of the race......... i would have missed a wonderful journey and the exposure to a pure champion and athlete with more dedication than i'll ever experience again.

at 14 mph you get to see the countryside at a pace that is almost surreal........ an almost Dali existence that few experience. how is it that we never slow down this race we call life to enjoy everything, and also everyone? my beautiful daughter Calliope recently posted on the passing of her great uncle Guenther and the love she had come to share with him and his wonderful wife Genie. he was from germany and moved to chicago after the war. his dapper dress and properly trimmed mustache bespoke his pride and love of his work as a buyer for Marshall Field. he had so many stories that i never got to hear...... where was the time?

my father, now almost 93, also has stories i've never heard and every time we get together i catch a bit of another experience that wasn't told before. why don't we chronicle the timelines of this thing we call history......... our history..... and realize that we are the sum total of our experiences to date....... the drama, the emotion, the influence that it has on our existence. maxwell maltz, in his book PsychoCybernetics, spoke about the almost computer like path we follow and the ability to alter our behavior by understanding the inner workings of our psyche. just rewriting the first chapter of a book can change the whole storyline...... and the ending. wouldn't it be possible to change our whole course with just one emotional change of an early event? i've worked with hundreds of patients and have found just that........ the ability to change our total health and wellness just by resolving a negative event from long ago........ if only there was enough time to work with everyone..... and have them understand how effective it can be.

"I live here and now", you may say and you are right. But how can you define now? Time is fleeting and so is now. Or as the saying goes: Today is yesterday's tomorrow. And if you only have a now, you would have no past and no future, no history and no hopes.

just think, finding your Way by understanding where you have been and how others influenced that journey. wouldn't it be exciting?

learn to slow down and find the things that are lost in the haste..... and those that have influenced you in your journey..... good and bad.

circles

a friend called me on my first blog topic and reminded me that endings didn't necessarily have to occur as a natural part of everything. life is ever renewing and, as in nature, there can be "perennials" (lasting, perpetual, enduring, everlasting). the reason i love to sea kayak is because i am not dependent on someone else to "pick me up". i can return to my van and simply make a circle. of course this thought set me off on another tangent musically and, as often does, a favorite song came to mind.

harry forster chapin grew up in new york and was famous for his hits: cat's in the cradle and W.O.L.D., but more importantly for me, All My Life's a Circle, sung in 1972. that was the year i matriculated from undergraduate school and went to work at the VA psych. hospital. it came to mind that everything turns over and comes back around again, in one way or another - karmic or otherwise. guess we should just get it right this time and find another Way. so here's to harry!

All My Life's a Circle

(Starts with 2 stanza chorus):

All my life's a circle;

Sunrise and sundown;

Moon rolls thru the nighttime;

Till the daybreak comes around.

All my life's a circle;

But I can't tell you why;

Season's spinning round again;

The years keep rollin' by.

It seems like I've been here before;

I can't remember when;

But I have this funny feeling;

That we'll all be together again.

No straight lines make up my life;

And all my roads have bends;

There's no clear-cut beginnings;

And so far no dead-ends.

Chorus:

I found you a thousand times;

I guess you done the same;

But then we lose each other;

It's like a children's game;

As I find you here again;

A thought runs through my mind;

Our love is like a circle;

Let's go 'round one more time.

Chorus:

harry forster chapin (12/7/42-7/16/81) was interred in the huntington rural cemetery, Huntington, New York. his epitaph is taken from his song "I Wonder What Would Happen to this World." it is:

Oh if a man tried
To take his time on Earth
And prove before he died
What one man's life could be worth
I wonder what would happen
to this world.

try to take your time on this Earth to prove what you are worth.....

six degrees of separation

so much of my work is helping people to find their path, their Way, and correcting the wavy lines of behavior that hold the pattern in the tissue. first and foremost, as a body worker, we try to balance out that which deviates from what is their "normal" and set the compass on a better heading. in wholistic thought we would say that the lack of balance is a lack of ease, and a lack of ease is simply called "dis-ease" (dys-function, dis-ability, dis-enchanted) . to remove disease we simply have to restore balance.......

now you might say, "what is normal?" it is different for each person and finding that balance takes a lot of introspection, and a bit of exploration - well, maybe a lot too..... it is so easy to just follow the herd and expect that to be your path ( it didn't work too well for the lemmings...). hell, politics has gotten to be so mind numbing that we turn off any thought that might be original for something that everyone can agree upon. the days of revolution we embraced in the 60's has been replaced with "status quo" and a continual slide into mediocracy or even decline.

our health issues are mediated by pills, injections and surgeries long before we try innovative non-invasive strategies and self-balancing practices. perhaps this is also a metaphor for our everyday emotions and actions......... don't let anyone see you sweat, cry, or let go........ i was privileged to watch, on tv, Alexander Vladimirovich (Sasha) Artemev, the american gymnast, compete in the pommel horse finals in the olympics, only to fall and lose a chance for a medal. he had the most original, difficult, and exciting routine of the competition and risked everything for a chance to "do it right". i'm not sure i wouldn't have followed the logical lower risk route, but he had made it to the finals and he wouldn't have been happy to think he didn't give it his best shot........ you have to respect anyone that sacrifices rewards for ideals...... i'm still in awe of his abilities and poetic performance..........

so this brings me to the segue:

Segue (seg-Way) is from the Italian, meaning "there follows," from seguire, "to follow," from Latin sequi. a smooth transition from one thing to the next......

It's the only way that YOUR life is gonna have any value to you. If you're just living the same life that everybody else is living what's the point?

--Todd Rundgren

if you intend to make the transition from this life to the next, you need to figure out how to do it smoothly - and YOUR Way.......

gettin' this thing together..

so how do we find the Way? exploration is a time honored discipline, but how often are we complacent about knowing our surroundings? we go through our daily routine satisfied that the information we receive is sufficient and the path we walk is clear, yet we have that feeling there is something more......

i set a goal four years ago to kayak on all the "big water". not because it was such a grandiose design, but because it had limits and finite expectations........ a comforting feeling for a "fifty something" dreamer. it allowed for exploration, yet didn't encompass risks that were beyond repair.

while paddling toward an island on georgian bay, in canada, i realized that as soon as you reach your destination, "there you are"...... so continuing to set goals farther ahead had some meaning..... last year i finished paddling on the atlantic, pacific, gulf, 5 great lakes, and alaska...... and had accumulated total mileage, over four years, equal to the distance coast to coast. yet, it was only a fraction of the distance i achieved in appreciating life and the journey we have to accomplish by being who we are..... yes, life can be hard but it is an opportunity to learn lessons........ and find resolution to the problems we carry with us.

i flash back often to music i've heard in my lifetime and forget what lyrics used to be, compared with today's style.......... it was protest, it was revolution, it was change....... and it was just joy for life in all it's complexities, but good and bad..... one artist never sold out on his desire to express whatever he felt at any moment, and still is looked at as "wierd", but often had lyrics that caught you thinking......... here's one for the books:

You may not ever get this chance again

That empty feelings just about to end.

Talkin' bout life and what it means to you,

It don't mean nothin' if it don't run through

I got one thing to say, you know it's true

You got to find some time to get this thing together.

--todd rundgren

remember to find some time to get this thing together.......

lower case studies

it behooves me, yes, it moves me, to add a poem from one of my favorite authors, e.e. cummings. my lower case history precludes upper case comments so i continue to write in the diminutive as he might continue to do.... so much of our lives can be stated in poetry and the lyric nature of our being demands a rhythm that can only be contained in verse.

to connect to our friend Pooh we hear him recite:

And you are you,

As you can see;

But when you do

The things that you can do,

You will find the Way,

And the Way will follow you.

so here is a poem from e. e. cummings in his own unimitable Way:

you shall above all things be glad and young

you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young,whatever life you wear
it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love
whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time
that you should ever think,may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

the mirror reflection of our lives is often clearer than

our perception and the lyric nature of the clapotis, or

reflection wave bouncing off of others, is becalmed by

the ultimate nature of our purpose......

take the time to learn how to sing......

just for the tao of it......

so why use the title "uncarved block" for this blogsite? recently a good friend in canada added a precious soul to our universe, a son, Tao Atreyu.

Tao, is recognized as saying that the secret to life is ... simply being true to yourself and smiling, looking upon each day with the new wonder it deserves.

in his book, The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff writes about the concept of Pu, the Uncarved Block. a block of wood that is not yet carved has no set form. it is thus infinite in potential and free of desire. "when you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tao_of_Pooh

"from the state of the Uncarved Block comes the ability to enjoy the simple and the quiet, the natural and the plain. along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work, odd as that may appear to others at times."

"... but, no matter how he may seem to others, especially to those fooled by appearances, Pooh, the Uncarved Block, is able to accomplish what he does because he is simpleminded."

as Christopher Robin said to Pooh, "of course. all we need to do is, lean back, relax, and there we are." so my advice to you is "wherever you go, there you are!" if you have experiences in your life that you consider FUN please write and let me know because i am indeed simpleminded and have a desire to know....

our life is often like this kayaker contemplating the sun...... is it a sunrise or a sunset? no matter which, it will be the other soon...

beginnings

beginnings are always difficult because they entail commitment and always lead to endings. i've been privileged to watch brilliant people work, and play, and have been "mike myer'd" with the feelings that "i'm not worthy". back when i started tuning into the "lonely note", and steve's postings on new music, he mentioned that i should start blogging with random ideas and streams of consciousness but i didn't feel compelled to make time. now with energy from the west and east coalescing here in the midwest i think that i'll find time to express a few thoughts on life learned over the past 58 years, even if they are only meaningful to me........... it helps to see the words framed in concrete. mine has been an oral tradition and the book inside of me has been handed down from generations of enlightened beings, and lurking in the recesses of my brain somewhere. i have lived a full life and only wish that others might experience the same joys, so here we go.......... come along if you dare.