Chaya is such a good puppy.  She really has been only a minimum of trouble.  And well, that really is a very good thing given she is 7 1/2 months and weighs 75 lbs!  I knew what I was getting into, but I’m still a little amazed that she will grow as much as double from the size and weight she is today.

Chaya has been with us three months.  I’m shaking my head as I write that because it seems like she has been with us so much longer than that.  I mean that in the best way… as in she just feels so naturally and completely a part of the family.

These two are so much fun to watch play because they have so much fun playing.  I went out on a walk with them yesterday afternoon and just smiled and giggled watching them.  They are very happy and that makes me very happy!

I borrowed a book from Ahmis, Awareness Through Movement by Moshe Feldenkrais.  There is a lot of fascinating material in this book… but some of the very first words in the book made it difficult for me to go any further.  While I read more, I wasn’t really able to take in more.  Apparently, I’m having to deal with first things first.

It started with these two sentences:

We act in accordance with our self-image.

Each one of us speaks, moves, thinks, and feels in a different way, each according to the image of himself that he has built up over the years. In order to change our mode of action we must change the image of ourselves that we carry within us.

Feldenkrais is talking here from the context of the educational system he created called the Feldenkrais Method.  I know next to nothing about it… but what I’ve gathered so far is that how we move can influence how we are and who we are.  There is a level of awareness about our lives that becomes available to us as we become aware of how we move physically.  The method is used by athletes, dancers, artists and those simply interested in personal development.

Back to the two sentences above and let me add one more:

It should further be realized that as changes take place in the self, new and hitherto unrecognized difficulties will be discovered. The consciousness previously rejected them either from fear or because of pain, and it is only as self-confidence increases that it becomes possible to identify them.

I told Ahmis in an email today… after read this, I was impressed with three things:

1. We are whole and every way that we eat, think and move influences our minds and spirits… and vice versa.
2. We can be transformed in being aware.  Feldenkrais is teaching about doing this through physical movement.  I am struck that movement needs to be present in all aspects of ourselves… physical, mental and spiritual.
3. Journey! It’s all a journey and it’s good. There is no sudden arrival, quick fix, magic bullet or what have you. It’s a journey. I resist that idea, because I want instant results and transformation. At the same time, coming to grips with that truth, I can see an incredible amount of freedom and peace.

This has me thinking about where I am today.  When I look at my health, my flexibility, fitness and agility (or lack thereof)… I see so much how my self-image has informed and created where I am today. When I look at my creativity and spirituality, I see clearly how I have acted out my self-image.  It’s a make-me-sit-down-in-my-seat kind of realization.

I’ve allowed my self-image to sit in the corner, unattended to and neglected.  Even worse, I’ve abused, shamed and humiliated it.  I’ve been unaware and without movement. My health and my weight, my lost teeth and my lack of physical fitness, my tentative and squandered creativity, my lack of spiritual connection…  it’s all clearer to me why these things are what I’ve become over the last 10+ years.  I’ve chosen to not have a life of movement (in the literal and figurative senses).  It has allowed me to avoid certain fears and pain, but at a deep cost.

It’s interesting.  I started working out again 3 days ago after being away from it for a very long time.  My muscles are oh-so-sore and my body aches.  What kick started me back into exercising was a small but startling experience.  I was cleaning our kitchen and wanted to hop up onto the counter to clean the window box behind the kitchen sink.  I mentally began the hop and then physically felt my body say, “No.  It’s not going to happen.”  I might of been able to do it if I tried again.  I don’t know.  I was just so shocked that I couldn’t do it on impulse.  My body couldn’t physically support what I wanted it to do.  I haven’t been moving and so I couldn’t move.  I haven’t been practicing movement that allows for strength, flexibility and grace.

Your difficulty and my difficulty and the difficulty of every individual who ever desired to achieve something worthwhile, comes in the movement.

- Peter Nivio Zarlenga

I don’t think I would have seen it for what it was, had I not read what I did.  What happened right there was the physical truth revealing the spiritual one.  The literal became the knife that sliced clean through the stiff hoary hide of my self-image’s creation and what it has wrought.  I wouldn’t have seen it had I not been made aware.  My movement, even my inability to move, made me aware.  And now it has, as Feldenkrais said it would, brought up a whole new set of difficulties.  But these difficulties, these are the ones that make a difference (inside and out) as to what my life will be.  A part of me is both hestitant and daunted.  Yet, a larger and greater part of me feels excited… that excited you feel when you’ve bought your ticket, you’re buckled in, and you are at the tippy-top and you know the real ride is about to begin.

I loved all the thoughts I got back on my labels post. My mind is still turning over the various concepts and perspectives that you shared.  Michelle posed a question:

“My question back to you would be when does something go from being a description of a person/characteristic to a label? Is there a difference?“

It’s a good question.  I think it’s tricky thing.  My first thought is it becomes a label when that’s all we see and the person becomes that to us.  The description or characteristic becomes something of permanence.  Hmm, I’m not sure how to word this.  Let me keep trying.  What I mean is this: a characteristic or description becomes a label when we can no longer see the person as anything other than that label.  When we can’t see the possibility of that person (or again ourselves) as anything but that - it’s no longer malleable and the person is reduced to that label.

I think about it in relation to Amira a lot.  I work to be aware of the descriptions and personality traits that I describe her with.  I notice myself being tempted to label her. It’s something that I want to be conscious of so that I can watch my language.  My descriptions of who she is have a powerful impact on her.  I want to always be present to the fact that she is so much larger than the words I use to describe her (or in reality, more than I, even as her mama, can know!).  I’m clear that my descriptions can be empowering and give her an opening into the amazing possibilities of who she can be in this world.  But if I become overly attached or settled on a description (aka turning those descriptions/characteristics into labels), no matter how seemingly positive, it could have the opposite result of limiting her, her imagination, and her possibilities.

Labeling does indeed seem to be something we are saddled with by our very nature.  There’s no way around it.  The work is, it seems to me, to be conscious and listening to what we are labeling — always ready to tear that label back down if it becomes too entrenched, too solid, too immovable.  By just practicing that, I think our world, our friends and family, and even we ourselves have the ability to stretch out, shine and be persons beyond all our imaginations.  That’s where I start to get excited about this conversation.

In being mindful of our descriptions-turned-labels, we have the ability to tear down and create, create and tear down, and tear down and create yet again a new possibility, a new future, a new way of being in ourselves and with each other.  There is a promise and hope of being far more than we ever hoped for.

I had a lot of fun painting these.  Completely therapeutic.

I woke up “in a mood” this morning.  I’m certain it’s related to a week plus of not getting enough sleep.  That’s a lesson you’d think I would learn by now.  I’ve been averaging about 5 to 5 1/2 hours a night and this girlie just can’t function well on that.  I wish I could, but it’s plain that I can’t.

I self-medicated by painting.  Quick and fun pieces with color, texture and play.  It helped.

Since the beginning of this new year, I’ve been thinking about labels. Labels that we place on ourselves and labels that others give us (whether we welcome them or not) — and how we allow them to define us. Increasingly, I notice the lack of authenticity between who I am and what labels are resting on me.

I’ll confess to a hesitation though. I feel a reluctance to release or lose affiliations and alliances that I have with others because of shared labels.

Shy. Happy. Moody. Encouraging. Procrastinator. Weak-willed. Loyal. Stubborn. Conservative. Liberal. Heterosexual. Homosexual. Bisexual. Religious. Iconoclast. Talented. Talentless. Unique. Common. Interesting. Boring. Loving. Hateful. Quirky. Bland.

All these labels often bring with and create communities and relationships.  I’m afraid of being left by those who identify with me because of my labels.

Still, I’m shedding labels like a snake sheds its skins.  Once I wriggled out of one, a biggie, I discovered an entire layer of labels that no longer apply… either inherently or by choice. In an ideal world, once a shiny dazzling me emerges from the dry, crackly and dull skin, no labels would be pressed onto me by me or anyone else.  I imagine having a dizzying freedom from all labellings.  Free to just be.

Deal is - I’m not sure it’s possible. It could be a striving but only with the understanding that it will never be absolute.  Labels are going to land on us because our world derives meaning through its language… through its labels.  Maybe my goal is to wear them loosely, like a cape that I can shrug off my shoulders at will. Either that, or I wear the labels intentionally, picking and choosing each one thoughtfully.

I’m curious. What do you do with labels? Do you even think about them? Do you craft them or let them fall where they may? Who are you and do your and other people’s labels of you match that person?

When I take long breaks from blogging, I tend to end up in a cycle of ennui and writer’s block.  It suddenly becomes “a thing” to write a post.  And then I start down a ridiculous mental road about how I don’t know what to write.  Sheesh.  Silly.

I have finally kicked the flu bug that I caught at Christmas.  What a tenacious and stubborn bug that was.  I think my body was finally able to kick it to the curb when I started eating more raw again.  My body definitely feels best when I’m eating around 75% raw.  Yesterday Paul & I both noted how much our bodies craved, just craved, vegetables.  As we drank our “green lemonade”, drank green smoothies and ate a delicious huge salad for dinner - we talked about how it all tasted and felt like medicine (in the best possible way).

The snow finally all disappeared last week.  I love being able to get out and about without difficulty - but I miss the beauty and magic snow brings to the landscape.

The last few days, we have traded the snow for moody and mystical fog.  Where the snow brought magical wonder and beauty… the fog, hanging in shivery cold pockets, the fog holds in it a hopeful mystery.

Okay, that’s the first post after being away… should be easier again from here on out. 

I have the sick that won’t let go.  It teases me and lets me think I’ve turned the corner.  But no.  And it’s the particular kind of sick that leaves my brain rummy and not able to string together two thoughts in a row.  I miss blogging… I have lots to share and say… I just can’t think straight.

Hopefully soon…

Until then.