Monday, December 27, 2010

10 4 11

First off, I really like the sound of 2011. I think it has nice ring to it. 11 is such a nice number. It's the same backwards as forwards. 11 seems lucky, and although I don't really believe in luck, I do believe in creating it. 11 is good on the craps table too. That has to mean something.

I hear people say, "I don't believe in New Years Resolutions." I don't know if they are something that I believe or don't believe in. I do believe in miracles, the power of a sunny day, the healing quality of music, and the need to sometimes, every once in a while just stay in bed. I also believe that sometimes you need to just decide how it's going to be from here on out. I think we all get stuck now and again on how it is and sometimes it's nice to just shake things up, make a change, reevaluate. You can do something out there like, say, jump out of a plane, quit your job, or just make a resolution or two. The first day of a new year is as good as time as any.

My 2011 Resolutions/Decisions...

1. Meditate more-

“Meditation means you don’t have to grin every moment of your life. You learn to smile with your bones; you learn to smile with every aspect of who you are. You do not have to necessarily show your teeth. Try, without using your lips, to just smile. Really, without showing your teeth, simply smile. Now see if you can smile with your eyes; just use your eyes and smile. Then see if you can smile with your hand. If even the bones in your body begin to smile, that is meditation”- Sadhguru Spot

2. Start running again- Running took a back seat this year, what with starting a business, moving, and changing my whole life. It was a mistake. I miss running. I'm bringing it back.

3. Make more home made dinners for my kids. That means some advance planning, actually thinking about it before we walk in the door at night.

4. Read more books. I have been jumping from book to book. I can't seem to concentrate long enough to finish out one. I'm going to make it a practice to finish them out.

5. Make sure my kids are reading too. And not just the texts coming through there cell phones either. Books. 

6. Paint. I have already started this in the latest part of '10 but I am not going to let it drop. 

7. Take time to be idle at times, I tend to go a hundred miles and hour all the time. I am going to remember to just chill sometimes. I love this little story...
According to an ancient Chinese legend, one day in the year 2640 B.C. Princess Si Ling-chi was sitting under a mulberry tree when a silkworm cocoon fell into her teacup. When she tried to remove it, she noticed that the cocoon had begun to unravel in the hot liquid. She handed the loose end to her maidservant and told her to walk. The servant went out of the princesses chamber, and into the palace courtyard, through the palace gate, and out of the Forbidden City, and into the countryside a half mile away before the cocoon ran out. (In the West, this legend would slowly mutate over three millennia, until it became the story of a physicist and an apple. Either way, the meanings are the same: great discoveries, whether of silk or of gravity are always windfalls. They happen to people loafing under trees.)” Jeffrey Eugenides

8. Practice more... I teach a lot of yoga so I don't get to practice like I used to. I'm going to fit that in there too. 
Both yoga and art aim at the same thing, that is, to re-establish our personal connection with the world around us according to our own inner creativity. To render body and mind a conduit through which the creative energy can flow freely, unimpeded by outer restrictions, in the trust that this energy, being a part of the universal energy, is ultimately pure and joyful. -Dona Holleman  

9. Write more. This is another thing that got shoved to the wayside this past year. I realized that saying, "I don't have time," is another way of saying, "I just don't feel like it." If you want to do something enough you can make time. 

10. Get up really early in the morning. I'm going to need to to do the rest of these things. 


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