And now for something completely different

Sunset

---

Even obscured by overcast

Contours and definitions define by fire.

Lowering, nearness accents with assurance.

North of the westerly Impeccable manners

Comes the irrefutable time to give

To the eve

Definition of a lie

A wonderful woman, Wendee Mason, taught me a better definition for a "lie" than I'd known before:

"A lie is information given or withheld (or omitted) that would have affected another person's choice."

For years my definition was too simplistic or easily rationalized. There was way too much wiggle room for me and I abused that fact. Thankfully I no longer do that, at least to the best of my ability.

This comes up for me when I hear current events where the information given is questionable. I really feel disappointed when it happens with elected representatives.

Necessary changes in relationships

I was listening to a good friend of mine telling me how they had to cut ties with their parent(s). Some of what she went through was tragic, absolutely horrific. I likened the final letter that they received from the disappointed parent to something written by Stephen King. Gross.

When my friend wrote back a clear, well reasoned letter signing off on the relationship, I was overjoyed! To have a break from a relationship that was intrinsically disrespectful and malicious -- it made me so happy.

I've experienced dramatic changes like that in the past. The quality of the relationships in my past aren't important. I won't even say that I could relate to my friend other than in what I'm about to describe.

It's become clear to me that there are times when it is wholly appropriate to make changes, sometimes wholesale and dramatic, to relationships. This doesn't necessarily mean that the relationship is over per se, but different in that as it stands, the dynamics no longer work.

For example, I fully expect my daughter to change as she grows. I want her to (even though I also relish the thought of her always being "my little girl"). It'd be irresponsible of me to insist, let alone force, her to stay the same. Frankly it'd be impossible for that to happen and, in turn, insane for me to think so. Thus, at some point, I'll have to stop seeing my daughter as my "little girl" and instead like my "teenage girl" or my "adult daughter".

I've changed jobs in the past for various reasons. Those, too, require that the relationship change. Similar to a previous post of mine, I sometimes have to ask myself how willing I am to change the nature of the relationship. If I'm unwilling, I might get bitter and resentful and that never helps. If I'm fully willing, then who knows what the relationship can change into.

I've also experienced situations where a person has seen me in certain ways for so long that they expect me to continue being those same ways regardless of whether they work for me or whether I want to. I've been more successful than not when pointing out that their expectations of me are bound to be disappointed as I was no longer interested or willing to be the same person they wanted me to be. Thankfully, most of those people were more interested in me being myself than in me being what they wanted. That's some love and acceptance from my friends, and I'm eternally grateful for those people in my life.

I fully expect my friend to experience freedom from all the emotional burden that they had been carrying for so long. Hoping and/or expecting someone to change is hard. Letting go of that fantasy for whatever reason offers profound freedom.

Dream about an out of touch loved one

I had a dream the other night. Vivid as hell, a rarity for me. It crystallized something for me that I had been clear of in my head, but obviously not as much in my heart as I felt such calm after the dream that I must have been unresolved more than I realized.

In the dream, I was practically screaming trying to convince someone that I loved them. They just didn't believe me. They had easy access to a whole litany of complaints that I couldn't fully refute for various reasons -- some where subjective to her perceptions, some were inaccurate, some were true. The dream didn't last long as I've become (very!) quick to realize that if I'm trying that hard to persuade or convince someone that there's something else in the way that is beyond my simple reasoning.

In this case, I believe (and I could be wrong) that this person simply didn't want to believe me. From that perspective, there was nothing I could do except continue to live with integrity and not to repeat any of the issues from the past that I was responsible for.

When I awoke, I felt agitated but peaceful. It was intense to have that screaming match in my sleep, but I became absolutely clear that I'd done all I could do as far as I knew and that, if there were anything else for me to do, I'd have to wait until it became apparent. Until then, I was okay.

Vectors at any given moment

I heard someone quote the following:

"It doesn't matter where you are (in life). What's more important is your direction."

When I was a teenager, I learned that the definition of a vector was twofold. A vector represented both direction and velocity. When I wonder where I'm headed, my second thought is to ask myself how fast I'm moving (or am willing to). When things come up in current events, I wonder first where we are relative to the subject and then which direction we're being led. For my part, I wonder if I'll take the same direction or go some other way.

Then I'll ask myself how fast I'm willing to move.

Meditation - what, when, why, how?

Ever mulled over the notion of giving compulsory philosophical challenges to political leaders? IIRC, it's a forgone conclusion as it is, as of yet, too difficult to quantify and, in turn, judge results relative to qualification.

I've wondered how various leaders would answer the question above. I mean when it comes down to it, there's gotta be at least quiet deliberation for difficult choices, right? Maybe that's sufficient for some, but meditation means more to me. For me, getting quiet means I have less distraction in the way of my more intuitive thoughts. When I tap into my intuition, I seem to make the clearest decisions possible, at least at that point in time.

So, I'd love to hear people respond to the following questions, openly or in private:

1) What does meditation mean to you?
2) When do you meditate?
3) Why do you meditate and/or what do you get out of it?
4) How do you meditate? What's it look like?

I'd flip to hear Obama's response. Anyone close enough to him to ask the question(s)?

A note on depression medication

Someone asked me to share some of my experience with being treated for Major Clinical Depression. Here's what I wrote:

Dear friend,

Thanks for your response. Your note brought up lots of ideas for us to share! Dealing with MCP was incredibly helpful for me to grow in many ways, often dealing with the primary focus of this class in fact -- that being to get to know myself better.

The fact that you are as in tune with yourself as to notice "that feeling" creeping in is fantastic. There was too much time in my life where I blew off those recognitions and/or they were too faint for me to acknowledge as important. One simple, but powerful, tool that was given to me was rating my feelings on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is "overwhelmed by" that feeling. A crucial part of that tool, though, is the fact that if I'm rating something over a 5, that I'm probably being controlled by that feeling rather than the other way around.

For example, when I was active in my med therapy, especially when I went through med changes (before the changes stabilized), I would have swings in my numbers. There were times when, even though the meds stabilized, my numbers were still consistently above a 5. When those were the case, I knew that there wasn't much I could do through self will, but that I needed to get more care and maybe have my meds adjusted by my doctor.

I would record these trends and show them to my doctor. He'd almost always be able to make an adjustment that, 10-14 days later, would stabilize my moods.

The fact that my numbers were consistently below 5s (often 0-1!) meant that I could wean myself off the meds (under the care of my doctor, of course!) until my brain chem was operating on its own steam.

My point is that if you're having trouble with your moods/feelings being stable, then maybe you need to discuss this in more detail with your doctor. You should _not_ have to struggle so much with moods that swing wildly due to mild experiences. People with healthy brain chemistry don't.

The reason I think this is so important is that, until I was able to get my brain chemistry moderated, I couldn't successfully make lasting changes in other aspects of life.

It was like trying to improve the performance of my entire car with my engine running on only a few of its cylinders. Bolting on a turbo would not make a big difference as the non-working cylinders would be working _against_ the engine itself. In fact, the turbo would most likely make my engine damage itself further. Getting racing spark plugs wouldn't help nearly as much since they simply wouldn't be addressing the primary problem with my engine. Getting all cylinders to work properly was fundamental to all my other changes being able to integrate properly.

This is all my experience and not doctrine. I'm not a professional, so please take this note as such. If you have any other questions, please ask. I'm happy to share my experience or just be available to hear what your experience has been like. Many others made themselves available to me as such. Maybe I'll have a chance to "pass it on".

Talk to you soon, Burt

Thanksgiving 2008!

Greetings, all.

I just wanted to take a moment to touch base with everyone. I was thinking -- I've got this day, this moment. It only lasts for a moment, and then I'm on to the next. There are forces in this world that can affect the moments that I have. Thankfully, those forces are showing me grace and beauty.

For today, I've been blessed with moments that include watching my daughter eat in front of a video that we're watching together. We've got our dog resting next to us. We've got dinner with friends ahead of us and a nine pound ham heating in the oven that we'll get to share. We've got the chance to see Sarah's cousin later today. I have a phone that gave me a chance to call many people in my life today, including my mother and step-dad. I've already had a chance to see 191 other people this morning to talk about and share our journey together. I have a half tank of gas and a beautiful and reliable car. I have a healthy body that let's me walk in the rain today. I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I am surrounded by people that love and respect me. I have brothers and sisters in my spiritual family all over the world. And, I have a chance today to make that grow and deepen with each person I spend time with.

I used to take life for granted. I spent years being reckless or spoiled, lavishing my sense of entitlement. Today, I find so much more joy and satisfaction from a sense of gratitude and appreciation for what I have.

I'm grateful for each and every one of you receiving this. Happy Thanksgiving!

With love,

Burt

p.s. Sarah wants to say: "You people are awesome!"

Do you meditate?

According to Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned, "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. Meditation often involves turning attention to a single point of reference. It is recognized as a component of almost all religions, and has been practiced for over 5,000 years.

So, for me, I've learned to use meditation as a chance to find what's true within myself. I used to worry that what I'd come up with would be unworthy, so I'd just glom onto whatever truths were handed to me that sounded good, that resonated with me. That turned out to be pretty limiting, though, as I was heavily dependent on others to articulate my truths. As that became a habit, I ended up being completely dependent on others to provide my sense of self worth.

Thankfully, all of that time wasn't lost, but rather inefficient towards my inevitable goal of self realization.

The reason I felt compelled to post about this is that there seem to be far too many issues or events where we, as humans, often react without attempting to "get beyond the conditioned, 'thinking'" and we often dismiss or ignore the more thoughtful alternatives. I've have often found myself saying "I wish I had handled that differently" in the past. I've felt that with impulse buys, flashes of anger, and instances of following a crowd.

While there have been many cases where my gut reaction was appropriate and desirable, I've seen that I almost always could have afforded a few moments, or "sleeping on it", before making the same decision. A friend responded to me, "well, what's the point, then? Why spend the time to meditate?" My thinking is that I've hardly ever been in a life or death situation that demanded instant response, so what's the harm in being even just a little more deliberate?

And then, what about those more difficult choices? Take Proposition 8 for example. In the past, I could have taken the thoughts of others (leaders, ministers, friends, etc...) and acted on those. In the past, I've often felt afraid of bucking the status quo, of disappointing friends and family, of standing out in a crowd. I've found that those fears have often cost me my sense of self and of my living an authentic life, one true to the depths of my soul. I find that meditation helps in this regard and, in turn, makes my life a whole lot easier to live.

Mystery School

Here's an article from an intrepid reporter.

Sounds cool.

Lessons from a "broken" back

Last week, I strained a muscle during a training session. I felt it happen and, while I slowed down and finished the session, I didn't really address the problem for another two days.

If you know me, you know how much I love my car, yet I had reached the point of lusting for an SUV. At that point, I decided to get help and saw my standby body helper, Dr. Chad Wells at The League Chiropractic. He helped me during my marathon run in 2006 and he totally pulled through again.

Why am I telling you this? Because this taught me a lot and if I can pass something on to someone, I'm gonna do it.

Lesson #1: Trunk Strength -- it's important, and I hadn't been paying any attention to it. So, my back gave out. With a broken back, a person once told me (when I broke my pelvis) that you're basically broken in half. Well, I was close to 50% anyway. Bad news.

Lesson #2: Muscles "strain" and ligaments "sprain" -- I'm grateful as heck that I didn't get a sprain. AFAIK, soft, connective tissue takes way longer to heal than muscles do.

Lesson #3: Cold for two days, then heat and motion -- Temperature therapy can help. Applying cold ≈controls inflammation and was recommended to me for the first two days after injury. Applying heat increases circulation which, while exercising gently, can help the muscles to repair quickly.

Lesson #4: Homeopathy works for me -- I was given the suggestion to try Arnica 30c for pain and discomfort. This was my first time trying homeopathic remedies, but it worked for me! My skepticism of homeopathy has been present for some time but, after this experience, I can buy into it even based on the placebo effect. If that is truly the mechanism for these remedies to work, then it simply affirms the power of the mind. I'm cool with that.

Lesson #5: Isometrics can be done anytime -- With as uncomfortable as it was moving around, I had to find some way to deal without injuring myself further. I found that simply tensing my abdominals took away most, if not all, the pressure and pain on my strained muscle. I started sitting straighter and I was more conscientious of how I maneuvered my body, all while tensing my stomach. I ended up tensing my abs more and more throughout the day and, in a couple days, I felt surprisingly tighter. This has also helped to ease into crunches. Cool.

Lesson #6: Three sensations -- I recognized three different feelings while recuperating: 1) the tear itself, 2) an intense cramping, and 3) soreness. While on the mend, the last two are okay, and this can be a guide to how much activity is too much. The cramping is a natural response where the body tries to cease all motion to avoid further damage. The soreness is from working a weak muscle and (maybe) from surrounding muscles compensation for the same amount of work without the participation of the injured muscle. The tear -- don't do it again, duh.

That's about it. More later, I'm sure. Time to put Sarah to bed.

Dubious?

I was moved by a petition to act against the Mormon church due to their support of Prop 8 here in California. I feel no malice towards Mormonism, but I do think these actions warrant a response. This website taught me of IRS code which helps to separate church and state. I'm glad this law exists.

I don't have all the time I would want for this datacheck, but I did use the Cal-Access website (state website that discloses contributions made and received, plus...) to verify the numbers for the Knights of Columbus entry on the Californian's Against Hate website which declared KoC's donating of $1.425M to protectmarriage.com.

This article declares that 59K "Mormon" families donated $17.67M out of the total monies given to Prop 8 ($26.5M to protectmarriage.com alone! Who knows how much more to other orgs...). I don't know how they were able to match families to the Mormon denomination, though.

I'm out. It's getting kinda gross down here.