Posts
Or in the Mission, at least, where I have been staying the last four nights, a very young, lively and creative part of San Francisco. I really like the vibe of this city.
Things have flowed well in the Bay Area. One of my intentions for this trip was to try to plan less and respond spontaneously more and try and tap into what wants to come forth, what wants to be expressed. I have been really struck by how things can be provided for you. I am off to Burning Man festival, a gathering of some 50,000+ people in the world's largest temporary city, and have had the majority of my kit provided for me by a cool guy I met only last week, a ticket come together from a friend and have fallen in with some guys who have an RV and 10 BMs under their belts. This all materialised through connecting with the couchsurfing community (www.couchsurfing.org) here...
I have been staying with Gabriel Posner - awesome guy, see his site here - a somatic educator. He was reminding me what Thomas Hanna (whose work somatics is) said about the difference between habitual response and spontaneous response, the latter being where how you respond arises spontaneously. If your right response is anger, feel anger and then let it unwind; if your right response is joy, feel joy and let it unwind. Gabriel also mentioend Bill Plotkin (see his book here), whose has worked extensively as a depth psychologist. His view is that we are so separated from nature that we do not know how to listen to the innate wisdom of the universe. Which Paulo Coelho would agree with, whose book The Alchemist, which explores this, I re-read in Vancouver.
Other things put on my radar this week - Diana Chapman, coach to extraordinary leaders (www.dianachapman.com) - due to be meeting her next week; Besant Hill (www.besanthill.org) whose founders include Aldous Huxley and Krishnamurti, so I am sensing those kids are getting some cool ideas; Science and Nonduality conference (http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/) which I may look to go to. These latter two came from a woman Devon White (http://humanoperatingsystem.org/) whom I have been corresponding with introduced to me to, whose team have pre-qualified to be 1 of 12 bank branches launching in the USA for Unified Field Bank, a conscious bank - www.unifiedfieldbank.com. Curious that when you start looking into things, in this instance, raising consciousness, there are a lot of people playing in the space, which is encouraging.
I have been enjoying reading some Jon Kabit-Zinn (http://www.mindfulnesscds.com/author.html), who is Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. I took this from his book, Full Living Catastrophe:
'As eddies and waves, our lives do have a certain uniqueness, but they are also the stuff of a large whole expressing itself in ways that ultimately surpass our comprehensiveness.'
He then points to Einstein, known to most for his genius as a thinker and less for his interest in consciousness perhaps, who writes: 'the true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and sense in which he has attained liberation from the self'.
So some good books have come across my path to coincide with what life seems at times to be reflecting back at me.
No communications in the desert which will be an experience in itself, alongside the trademark BM values of radical self-reliance and self-expression.
Be in touch on other side,
Jack
[ps - sorry the links aren't quite right in this post - not finding the blogger interface completely intuitive to get things lined up :)]
Things have flowed well in the Bay Area. One of my intentions for this trip was to try to plan less and respond spontaneously more and try and tap into what wants to come forth, what wants to be expressed. I have been really struck by how things can be provided for you. I am off to Burning Man festival, a gathering of some 50,000+ people in the world's largest temporary city, and have had the majority of my kit provided for me by a cool guy I met only last week, a ticket come together from a friend and have fallen in with some guys who have an RV and 10 BMs under their belts. This all materialised through connecting with the couchsurfing community (www.couchsurfing.org) here...
I have been staying with Gabriel Posner - awesome guy, see his site here - a somatic educator. He was reminding me what Thomas Hanna (whose work somatics is) said about the difference between habitual response and spontaneous response, the latter being where how you respond arises spontaneously. If your right response is anger, feel anger and then let it unwind; if your right response is joy, feel joy and let it unwind. Gabriel also mentioend Bill Plotkin (see his book here), whose has worked extensively as a depth psychologist. His view is that we are so separated from nature that we do not know how to listen to the innate wisdom of the universe. Which Paulo Coelho would agree with, whose book The Alchemist, which explores this, I re-read in Vancouver.
Other things put on my radar this week - Diana Chapman, coach to extraordinary leaders (www.dianachapman.com) - due to be meeting her next week; Besant Hill (www.besanthill.org) whose founders include Aldous Huxley and Krishnamurti, so I am sensing those kids are getting some cool ideas; Science and Nonduality conference (http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/) which I may look to go to. These latter two came from a woman Devon White (http://humanoperatingsystem.org/) whom I have been corresponding with introduced to me to, whose team have pre-qualified to be 1 of 12 bank branches launching in the USA for Unified Field Bank, a conscious bank - www.unifiedfieldbank.com. Curious that when you start looking into things, in this instance, raising consciousness, there are a lot of people playing in the space, which is encouraging.
I have been enjoying reading some Jon Kabit-Zinn (http://www.mindfulnesscds.com/author.html), who is Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. I took this from his book, Full Living Catastrophe:
'As eddies and waves, our lives do have a certain uniqueness, but they are also the stuff of a large whole expressing itself in ways that ultimately surpass our comprehensiveness.'
He then points to Einstein, known to most for his genius as a thinker and less for his interest in consciousness perhaps, who writes: 'the true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and sense in which he has attained liberation from the self'.
So some good books have come across my path to coincide with what life seems at times to be reflecting back at me.
No communications in the desert which will be an experience in itself, alongside the trademark BM values of radical self-reliance and self-expression.
Be in touch on other side,
Jack
[ps - sorry the links aren't quite right in this post - not finding the blogger interface completely intuitive to get things lined up :)]
