Kategoriarkiv: #English

Podcast 26/52 – on lies

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The TED Radio hour from NPR is great. I haven’t listened to the show for a while but figured it was time to provide a new flavor in my podcast recommendations.

I love TED Talks, and have done for a long time. I’ve been watching them for years and years, and almost wonder if it can be as long as it seems, more than 8 years, I know that for a fact. And I also love getting a bit more depth to a TED Talk, and that’s what the TED Radio hour provides me with.

BoldomaticPost_Lying-is-a-cooperative-act-ThThe TED Radio hour on lies is very interesting to listen to. And interestingly enough, although I am a big fan of TED Talks, here’s a collection of five talks that were all new to me! They all center on understanding various aspects of why we lie, and I had more than one aha-moment while listening.

For instance the realization that lying is a cooperative act. Now. I know I live in the experience of my thinking, but I just never really zoomed in with that understanding to the concept of lying before. So yeah, of course the power of a lie comes with someone believing it.

That makes it really interesting though – am I sometimes more likely to believe a lie than not? Surely. Are there people who’s lies I tend to believe more often than others? I would think so. And when am I more prone to lying than not? What are the factors behind my own lies?

Be reckless

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I listened to Parker Palmer giving this commencement address to the graduating class at Naropa University, and several times I got goose bumps and shivers. For me, those have become telltale signs that there’s something important and/or very true being said/shared.

BoldomaticPost_Be-reckless-when-it-comes-toThe six suggestions Parker provides on living a life worth exploring are simple. And powerful. So powerful I feel an urge to split this recommendation into six consecutive blog posts.

The first suggestion is: Be reckless when it comes to affairs of the heart.

He urges us all to fall passionately in love with life. And to go boldly, not fearing the vulnerability that is a certain companion when living a life worth living. When we give of ourselves, there will be times when we risk getting hurt. But the alternative, of holding back, of not giving of ourselves, of not letting that happen through me, that is mine to give the world. That’s just too sad to even contemplate.

So – go out there, and be reckless. Love. Live. Create! Because if you are anything like me, you are more afraid of regretting what wasn’t done rather than that which was done, when lying on your death bed. Or?

 

Breeze against my cheeks

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Went for a slow walk. Actually, I’ve almost forgotten how to walk fast. Me and my family have been in training to revert to the way we humans are supposed to move, in sync with the ground, rather than opposing it with every step. Tommy Olausson of Runfeeling have been helping us. It’s a process of unlearning the old ways of attacking the ground, and learning a new way, the way of the child actually, forgotten since years and years.

And I’ve been practicing. I’ve added a few of the calf-strengthening exercises to my daily Seven-routine. And I try to walk very deliberately, trying to avoid stomping around, and rather meeting the ground gently. As I’ve become more and more aware of how hurtful it is for my body to stomp around, my walking pace has slowed down.

Yesterday I had to walk a bit faster to avoid getting late for a ferry ride, and it’s like I’ve forgotten how to do it. I guess the reason is mostly because I haven’t learned the skill of gentle walking fully yet, and when I’ve got that down, I’ll be better able to up my tempo while still meeting the ground without jolting all the joints of my body. But so far, if I need to walk faster, it’s very easy to go back to my old way of walking, heel hard on the ground. Cushioned by sneakers, enabling me to continue battering my joints, step by step.But here’s a tip: Put your fingers in your ears, blocking outside sound. And then walk. Normal. I promise you’ll get a shock from hearing the jolt when your heel hits the ground! Then try to walk without making any internal sound. And then call Tommy, to make sure you learn properly!

gentle breezeAnyway, returning to the slow walk of the evening. I stopped to take a photo of the long grass with wild blooming flowers, and heard the birds singing as well. Stood still, closed my eyes, and just took it all in. The sounds. The smell. The faint breeze against my cheeks.

As I am slowing down to the speed of life, I notice more both within me, and outside me. And as I notice more, I enjoy life more than before. It get’s richer, fuller, more vibrant.

When did you last feel the breeze against your cheeks?

Podcast 25/52 – a punch in the nose

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Oops, I forgot. Sundays is my recommend-a-podcast-day here on the blog, and I simply forgot. Luckily, I can make up for it today. And I will make it up by giving you a punch in the nose… sort of. The one doing the punching is life though, and not me.

BoldomaticPost_Life-is-a-contact-sport-Its-aJonathan Fields runs Good Life Project, which is one of my top three podcasts (accompanied by On Being and One You Feed), and I often listen more than once to them. This specific pod first emerged as a blog post and if you don’t have 6 minutes to listen, take the time to read it. It’s well worth it!

So here’s Jonathan with a short riff on how life is a contact sport. If I am so afraid of what the contact might result in perhaps I also shirk away from life itself. I mean, in life, the occasional bruise and blister is certain to occur, and I might be unlucky enough to get a concussion or a broken bone, but I also might not. I don’t know in advance, do I?

Hiding, in a state of non-living, afraid of what might or might not happen if I engage. Desiring a warm welcoming hug. Dreading being punched in the nose.
And when dread and fear outgrows that which I desire and want, inaction is the likely outcome.

Is there anything more sad than a life not lived, on account of fear?

That which we do unto each other

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Jon Stewart is clear about what his job entails, and on my birthday he chose to not do it on account of the Charleston church shootings. And boy does he do a good job of explaining why:

”I honestly have nothing other than sadness that once again we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other and the nexus of a just gaping racial wound that will not heal yet we pretend doesn’t exist. I’m confident though that by acknowledging it—by staring into it—we still won’t do jack shit. That’s us. And that’s the part that blows my mind…”

Like Jon Stewart, I can get absolutely paralyzed from the despair of witnessing that which we humans do unto each other. But I cannot allow myself to get stuck there; I chose not to stay there, because from that place I don’t have the ability to act. I freeze into nothingness there. That’s the place of doing jack shit.

I need to take the leap into hope, to love, because from that place I can act. And we all can. Act, I mean. We cannot save the world entire, by ourselves, but I can do my part. And you can do yours. Perhaps that’s the first step? The realization that my part plays a roll?

 

Selecting a teacher

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Selecting a Teacher 
There are so many teachers in the world and so many theories about life. 
When selecting a teacher, ask yourself… 
Is my teacher a well-balanced person? Is she or he happy? 
Does my teacher reflect and demonstrate the quality of life I desire? 
If the answer to any of these questions is no, move on in your journey.
Otherwise you may become one of the blind, led by the blind.
Sydney Banks, from The Missing Link

You can exchange the word teacher with other words, such as guide, coach, leader, boss, spiritual guide, enabler. The word doesn’t really matter anyway, but oh, how these words ring true for me.

I remember Lama Kathy Wesley stating in one of my favorite podcasts how important she felt it to be to look at the elders of any tradition of faith that you found interesting. By their appearance, health, harmony, you know, whether or not to venture forth into that tradition or not. In a nutshell, she’s stating exactly the same thing as Syd Banks is pointing to.

And at the same time, well-balanced doesn’t mean a person who is ”perfect”, and never gets out of whack. On the contrary, I would say. I do not require my teacher, coach, guide (yeah, you get it! That whatever-word you place here!) to be ”a perfect human being”, in the meaning that they do not live the human experience.

Because that’s part of the trick for me – living life, experiencing all the up’s and down’s of human experience, and doing it with grace, with balance (that is, returning to balance when off-centered for a moment or two), and a lot of love, laughter and light. Tears commingle with laughter, grief with ecstatic joy, boredom with the feeling of flow where time seemingly disappears. All of that is part of the human experience, but how I live into it, or perhaps, how I live out of it, is what tells a well-balanced person apart for me.

BoldomaticPost_Selecting-a-Teacher-There-areWriting this, I just had an insight.

This quote isn’t only about looking for external teachers. It’s also a great reminder to myself, on my ability to be my own guide and enabler.

When I am well-balanced, happy, reflecting and demonstrating the qualities of life that I desire – then I am a good teacher for myself.

And when I am the opposite (off-centered, miserable, definitely not demonstrating the qualities of life I desire, but rather the opposite), it serves me well to remember to take myself a lot less seriously, as it’s as if I am one of the blind, leading myself. And boy does it hurt when I stumble into all sorts of obstacles along the way, attempting to lead my blind self. In situations like that, the best thing I can do is to pause, to stop in my tracks, and wait for vision to return. Go about my day, doing the routine things that I can do blind-folded, staying clear of making radical decisions, and not expecting too much of myself either. It’s not always easy though.

So am I the only one dumb enough to try to lead myself even when I am in no shape to lead?

Podcast 24/52 – I wanna be a farmer!

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Man, this was such a surprising episode with fact upon fact that made me drop my jaw, over and over again. Just incredible! What, what, what, you ask, eagerly, wanting to know what made my mind do cartwheels while listening.

Peak Prosperity on Sustainable farming 2.0 with Paul and Elizabeth Kaiser. That’s the one. That’s the podcast you just must listen to. And I really mean it, even if you have no inkling whatsoever to farming or even cultivating the teeniest carrot in your garden.

I just didn’t know. There’s so much that is wrong with the way humans cultivate the land today, and even though Paul and Elizabeth can only briefly describe some of the things they do differently, the results they are getting speak for themselves. At their farm, Singing Frogs Farm, They gross a whooping 5 times more per acre than the California average gross revenue per acre. Five times. Let me spell that out for you again: FIVE TIMES.

And they do it, possibleby working with nature rather than against it. If I am to sum it up, that’s what I would say. They go with the design of nature, rather than oppose it. Simple eh? Well. Yeah. But apparently not. Since they are a rare exception to the rule. But hopefully, the results they are getting will speak for itself, and will make more people open their eyes to what is possible when we shift from against-ness to with-ness.

After listening to the podcast, I am definitely thinking about what I can do in the garden at home, in the vegetable patches as well as the flower beds and so on. And while I might not pack up and buy a farm, I will definitely be rethinking my current gardening practice. I have no doubt that I will bring some of these things into my gardening from now on. Because it feels like there’s no turning back. I’ve seen something that cannot be unseen. Like cracking the reading-code. Once I got it, it was hard to understand what it felt like before I could read.

Please listen to this episode and let me know if you were as surprised as I. If so – what surprised you the most?

There is no harder

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A tweet made me google for Ash Beckhams TEDx Talk, and to verify it really was the talk I thought is was I started to listen to it. My daughter was sitting beside me, and once she started talking (Ash that is), we both nodded and said ”Yup, this is the one, what a great talk this is!”. So great, in fact, that we listen to all of it. Even though we’ve both seen it before.

The talk is about coming out of closets, and she has a refreshing take on it, Ash, seeing how we all have closets that we come out of, or try to live inside, even though closets really aren’t a good place for a person to reside in. I agree with her.

BoldomaticPost_Show-the-world-that-we-are-bi

But the phrase that made me associate to this talk was another one, where she says that there is no harder, there is only hard. What she’s talking about is the fact that we often end up comparing our hardships with each other, and sometimes fall into the trap of wondering why my hardship is so much harder than someone else’s, and why that is so. And that is a trap. Because what we end up doing is compare our inside with someone else’s outside. We just have no clue.

BoldomaticPost_There-is-no-harder-there-is-j

And regardless, when I hit rock bottom, I hit rock bottom. When you hit rock bottom, you hit rock bottom. What’s the point in comparing our rock bottoms? When I’ve gone as low as I possibly can on the scale of my life experiences, I have reached rock bottom. For me. And the same goes for you. And that’s where the wisdom of Ash comes so handy. Because there is no harder rock bottom to hit, there is only really hard rock bottom to hit. And once it’s hit, it hurts. No need to compare, is there?

 

Podcast 23/52 – the wisdom of tenderness

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I can’t help it. Here’s another On Being-episode that I so hope you will listen to. Krista Tippett in a conversation with Jean Vanier, an episode recorded in 2007 when he was 79 years old. Jean is the founder of L’Arche, just having celebrated it’s 50th anniversary, hence the re-broadcast of the interview. And I am grateful for that, since I might not have discovered this particular episode in the archives of On Being otherwise.

(But there’s a thought – how many other gem’s are hidden in the archives? I might just set my mind to listening through all of On Being, every episode produced…. now there’s a quest!)

Being very interested and involved in the school debate and the educational system, I found this bit especially interesting to listen to:

The balance of our world frequently is seen as a question of power. That if I have more power and more knowledge, more capacity, then I can do more. […] And when you have power, we can very quickly push people down. I’m the one that knows and you don’t know, and I’m strong and I’m powerful, I have the knowledge. And this is the history of humanity. And that is all of what I’d call the whole educational system, is that we must educate people to become capable and to take their place in society. That has value, obviously. But it’s not quite the same thing as to educate people to relate, to listen, to help people to become themselves. 

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There’s something to ponder, for me, and others, of whom I ask the question Why school? The reason for asking, for me, is to get people thinking about the society we create, through the whole educational system (as well as other structures, but for me, the educational system and family are the top two factors.), and if we are creating that which we want to see more of. Like Jean Vanier said, capable people taking a place in society is all fine and dandy. But then what? What else is needed/desired?

L’Arche, which centers on sharing the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, is new to me, as Jean Vanier is. I get intrigued, as I listen to what Jean speaks about, which is the thing I dream of. A world of people becoming themselves, relating and listening, sharing tenderness and love. A culture of welcoming. To and of all.

Fascinating to listen to the wisdom of tenderness this old gentleman has, towards life, all of it, regardless. And to hear him speak of growing older, and absolutely loving it. Witnessing the increasing frailty of his own body, being in total acceptance that his mind no longer can keep up as it used to, that his body demands an afternoon nap and so on. It’s just pure love. Magnificent.

What if…. I met the world from the wisdom of tenderness? What if…. we all did?