Author Archives: Garnet David

Living with Love

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Love FlowerI just brushed one of my cats before letting him out. At first I did it without thinking, then I let myself relish the pleasure of connecting with this little soul and giving him pleasure while grooming him.

Whatever you do, do it with love. By that I mean do it as if it were the only time you do it, perhaps the last time. We all live as if there is ALWAYS another chance, which there usually is. However, living fully means expressing the poignant urgency, the wistful beauty of each moment, without bitterness, as it passes us.

We tend to see every event in terms of what it isn’t. We measure and parse accordingly, allowing happiness when something happens which averages better that usual. But that’s not the way it really is. Each moment is unique. Live to that idea and you will live fully.

Weep with your whole being when there is great loss. Smile with your whole self when life offers a gift, as it so often does.

Write your name on today, a gift you will never get again in the very same way.

David Brooks says it outright

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The [US] presidency is a bacterium. It finds the open wounds in the people who hold it. It infects them, and the resulting scandals infect the presidency and the country. The person with the fewest wounds usually does best in the White House, and is best for the country.

David Brooks’ article on Obama vs. Clinton starts out supporting Clinton as the most viable winner in a competition between the two… if the race is for the Senate!

Then he dissects the vicissitudes of the Presidency of the Big, Fat ol’ US of A. And he doesn’t mince words. He uses the above acerbic language to describe the nature of the US presidency.

Then he outlines the particular strengths of Barack Obama to fill those HUGE shoes. Perhaps Oprah Winfrey is thinking along the same lines.

Moreover, he has a worldview that precedes political positions. Some Americans (Republican or Democrat) believe that the country’s future can only be shaped through a remorseless civil war between the children of light and the children of darkness. […]

But Obama does not ratchet up hostilities; he restrains them. […] In the course of this struggle to discover who he is, Obama clearly learned from the strain of pessimistic optimism that stretches back from Martin Luther King Jr. to Abraham Lincoln. This is a worldview that detests anger as a motivating force, that distrusts easy dichotomies between the parties of good and evil, believing instead that the crucial dichotomy runs between the good and bad within each individual. (emphasis mine)

Well put, Mr. Brooks. Are you by chance considering running for Vice-President?

And, above all, could this analysis of character be applied to each of us in our search for balance and meaning?

The Porous Nature of Thought

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Porous ThoughtMy daily walks are a combination of meditation and exercise. I practice the Alexander Technique, meaning I am acutely aware of how I use my Self. The Self includes the body and mind, the whole package.

As I walk, I keep my neck free and flowing up. I remind myself that the neck is a continuation of the spine, not separate from it. I am aware of my 3 dimensionality. I feel my “thickness” and my “width”.

After a few minutes of this awareness and loosening up, I think about my day, or whatever comes to mind. Occasionally a negative thought will arise, or I will dwell on an unresolved issue in my life.

Porous Nature of ThoughtIf I am careful to keep my body free and balanced during these thoughts, I have noticed how much freer my mind is in dealing with them. I prevent my Self from disappearing into the abstraction of thought, where the world becomes something other than where you are now.

Thoughts can be insidious in this way. Thinking can go on automatically and habitually in the back of the mind. Many of us live with thoughts constantly churning and unbalancing our bodies. Emotions are reactions to thought. Thought always affect the body. It emanates from the body and involves it.

You cannot raise your hand without the whole Self being involved; your entire body and mind are involved. This is not to say that you must focus your entire being on raising your hand. No, but your whole being is a participant. It is the same with thinking.

We also tend to treat thoughts as “real”, as if they are actual events occurring to us at the moment. They feel that way to me if I am not careful. If I think of a dog attacking me, my pulse will quicken with adrenaline. If I think of my debt, my body feels heavy. Those are reactions to thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. If you maintain a balanced, free Self during thought, you can prevent those reactions from occurring without your consent.

So what do I mean by the “porous nature of thought”? If we are aware of staying balanced and 3 dimensionally free throughout the process of thinking, the feeling of thought seems less “heavy” and “solid”. The presence of bodily awareness helps us keep perspective of what thought is: an abstraction of possibility or emotion. Priority is given to the physical self, and a thought is just a passing concept.

Then, thought can pass through us like water through coral, or air through a fan.

Pithy Truisms From Brad

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Integrity recognizes itself.–
The power of the inability to learn a lesson is the multiplier of the cost to fix it.–
The ego is a useful vehicle, if you get to know the driver.

Those are from Bradisms. Brad regularly expounds on various subjects ranging from politics to trust to caring to love, all with an inimitable style which can only be described as “pithy”, meaning tersely cogent. He also has a webpage featuring a collection of his best work, also worth visiting. Brad recently commented on my post Truth and Being, where I attempt to summarize large patterns in life, and which I almost deleted because of its intractable pithiness. But Brad seemed to understand my obscure logic. Then I found this post, “Life is…” on his website, and realized I think a lot like him. Yet he allows himself much more freedom in the realm of pithiness than I! Thanks Brad, for showing us how playfully rich truth can be.