So yesterday was a great busy day.  Got up Biggie, peed on the new deck in the back yard-Daisy got her tie down wrapped around a pipe, Cole pooped a lincoln log next to the cat box and dad was digging feces from his booty and wiping it on his bed rails.  Sheesh all before 7:30 shoulda gone back to bed at that point.  Cleaned all messes up, gave dad his meds, took blood sugar, made him his breakfast.  Proceded to run around the next hour like a chicken with her head cut off, Kathy our cna came.  We put dad on his comode and I asked him if he had a name for me today, and his answer-"Misfit!" How glorious a day! He called Kathy and my husband Ron, "fart heads" and to top this best day ever off, when I said I love you to him when I got him tucked in, he said----" I love you!" not once but twice and clearly!

by Yo

Some people are raised/cultivated like a beautiful bonsai trees and some like wild flowers. Sometime bonsai tree breaks out or is neglected and adopts to wilderness and freedom. Sometime wildflowers in search of safety surrend to the cultivation and shaping... the form that is imposed on them might be beautiful but they lose freedom...

altruism.......

Form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form. There are no walls in the mind.
—The Heart Sutra

“'What is not given is lost.' These words were spoken by Father Ceyrac, a French Jesuit missionary who has devoted himself to the wellbeing of children in South India for over sixty years. A similar thought is found in Buddhist teaching: 'What is not done for the benefit of others is not worth doing.' Seeking happiness just for yourself is the best way there is to make yourself, and everyone else, unhappy."
—Matthieu Ricard

the illusion inside

I am sorry to break this to you, but it's all in your head
You walk out the door, ignoring your neighbor as if he were dead
"Oh me!" you say if he were dead I would morn his loss
But you never knew him as you defensively cross
You have no clue, you live in a shell, you live in a cave
you are a slave.
You are a slave, to your eyes that don't see and your heart does not feel.
You reel.
Why do you reel?
You reel because of shock of pain and suffering. We all do.
Be here, there is no tomorrow.
Only sorrow.
This shock is aware, it is alive, it is here, in it is
now.

last night

last night was tough to sleep I laid there in shock or more like awareness. My stepson's mom has been dealing with stage 4 cancer since 2010 when she had to have 95% of her colon removed or in other words large intestin. Dealt with almost 12 months of chemo treatments, pet scans, and worried kids (she has 2 and she is I believe 44 this year) Cancer, cancer........blood tests revealed yesterday her cancer markers are extremely elevated. I am selfishly shocked but not surprised, stage four is nasty. She has had at least 1 normal year, everything went back to normal living out our separate lives. What an optical illusion that is, you are effected, infected, affected. Please may I have some way to end her suffering.

from Trouching Enlightenment by Reginald Ray

According to Tibetan teaching, we can quickly and strongly bring our prana to a certain location in our body by visualizing that we are breathing into it. We might do this by visualizing that we are bringing the breath into our body from the outside, through the skin, for example; or, we might visualize that we are just breathing directly into a location, such as the interior of the lower belly. Now here is the key point: wherever our attention goes, the prana goes, and the prana carries awareness right to that point. By directing the prana, we are able to bring awareness to any location within our body.

At first, for example, we put our awareness into our abdomen or into our heart center or into our limbs, into our feet, into our fingers, or toes. Although initially it does feel as if we are putting our awareness into those places, as time goes on we begin to sense that what is really happening is that those places themselves are already aware and we are tuning into the awareness that already exists, not just in these particular places, but throughout the entire body. We begin to develop more subtlety, and we gradually become aware of our tendons and ligaments, tiny muscles in out-of-the-way places, our organs, our bones, our circulatory system, our heart, and so on. Through that practice there slowly comes about a kind of shift in emphasis, a shift in the way we are aware as people. Habitually, there predominates in us a “daylight consciousness,” which most people experience in their heads as a kind of being up front and toward what we want consciously or intend for our lives. This kind of consciousness is really a way of being very focused on what we think, of bringing into awareness things that are in some way important to the project of “me.”But when we are asked to place our awareness in our bodies, something different begins to happen. Often, when we begin to do this kind of interior work, we can’t feel anything at all. Some of us may feel like we don’t even have a body. But through the practices, we begin to be able to see in the dark, so to speak. We begin to become aware that a larger world is beginning to unfold at the boundaries of awareness. The only thing you see in the daylight is what you want to see; when you turn the lights off in the night, you see what wants to be seen, which is a whole different story. It’s not something we can focus on with our usual self-serving consciousness, but nevertheless, this information begins to come to us in a very subtle way. We discover that the body actually wants to be seen in certain ways. This is a rather surprising discovery for many of us. We can’t imagine the idea that the body might be a living force, a source of intelligence, wisdom, even something we might experience as possessing intention. We cannot conceive of the body as a subject.

We may begin with absence of feeling or numbness, but as we continue breathing, the places where we are breathing may begin to show signs of life, and we may become aware of some faint sensation. As we continue breathing into the various locations in our body, we are likely to discover blockages and discomfort. People often uncover vivid pains and discomfort they were only subliminally aware of or perhaps were completely unaware of. They may realize that they feel like throwing up all the time. They may sense they are very, very tight or hard in their lower belly or their throat or their joints. They come to see that nothing is really flowing and that there are certain places where they are completely shut down. While some places feel very hard and armored, others feel incredibly vulnerable, unprotected, shaky, and weak. One side feels shorter or smaller than the other. One side feels alive, the other dead. Everything is out of kilter, and we are filled with distress of all kinds. We want to scream or run, or jump out of our bodies. This initial step involves getting to know a body that is in a lot of discomfort, holding a lot of claustrophobia and a lot of pain. As our awareness develops, we begin to realize that our habitual--if subliminal--response to our somatic distress is an unconscious or barely conscious pattern of freezing: we are holding on for dear life, fearful and paranoid, tensing our body and our self so we won’t have to feel.

At this point, the practitioner is instructed to receive the information of uncomfortable or even painful tension into his or her awareness without comment, judgment, or reaction. When we do so, we begin to notice that a certain area of tension is coming forward, as it were, presenting itself with special insistence to us. It clearly wants to be known, above all other potential areas. In addition, it comes with a very specific calling card, a particular portrait of feeling and energy. More than this, the area of tension comes as an invitation--it calls for release. Now at first, we might find this call painful and frustrating because we don’t see how we can heed the call and act upon it. After all, it is the body’s tension, right?

But the invitation for release, to be discerned in the very tension itself, also brings critical information with it: it is actually us, our own conscious, intentional, focal awareness, that is responsible for the tension in the first place. It is our own overlay, so to speak, that is creating this feeling of freezing. As this becomes clear, we begin to discover that we have the capability to take responsibility for the tension, to enter into the soma, to feel how it is actually us that is holding on. At this point, we can, indeed, release. We have to let go of ourselves, we have to feel that the unpleasant tension is our own paranoid holding on, and we have to open, relax, surrender, and let go. This represents a leap into the unknown.

As we move through the process of discovery, it may begin to dawn on us that the body itself has an agenda that it wants us to follow. The agenda begins with some region or part of the body coming forward to meet our awareness, presenting itself with a certain energy, texture, and demeanor, alerting us to our holding, and then inviting us into the process of release and relaxation. The interesting thing here is that we are dealing with something that is not us, it is not the conscious mind, it’s not like “Okay, I have a back problem, I’m going to use this bodywork to solve my back problem.” That’s imposing our agenda on the body. The body is going to say, “Nope. We are going to start with the arches of the feet. This is where we are going to start.” And then the next day it’s the calves, the next day it’s the neck, and then the next day or the next month it’s under the shoulder blades, under the clavicles, within the interior of the chest. In other words, the body itself actually gives us the routine. It gives us the protocols and it gives us the journey.

In this work, we are called to let go of what we think we want or think we need, and listen deeply; we are invited to surrender to the invitations that come forward from the body to become aware and to open, relax, and let go. Through that process there is a gradual shift from feeling that the body is an object or a tool of our ego, to realizing that the body is the source of something that constantly calls to us with a primal voice that commands our attention and engages us in a process that we find extraordinarily compelling, even though we cannot fully understand what is going on.

When people do this bodywork thoroughly and deeply, whatever personal issues they may have turn up somatically. They appear in a way that is according to the timetable of the body, not of our ego-consciousness. It is amazing how literal it can be. People who have difficulty with self-expression may feel at a certain point that they are being strangled because they sense the energy collecting at the throat and are unable to move. People who are unaware of their emotions may experience their heart as if in a vice. Such extraordinarily literal somatic experiences can be very painful and difficult. It is clear why people numb themselves because basically, who wants to feel that? But when we understand that these sorts of discoveries are part of regaining balance, energy, healing, and a more wholesome relationship to ourselves, it’s a whole different story. We begin to have confidence in the pain that we run into, and the blockages, because we have tools that we feel have some hope of leading us through. In each new experience, we bring awareness to our bodies, feel the blockage, find the invitation to release, surrender our hold, and experience the relaxation, sense of unknowing, and open space that result when we do.

In this process, we become acquainted with our body in ever new ways. As we continue, we may feel almost as if each particular part of our body is opening like a flower. We find a sense of vitality and life and energy in each part of our body. We begin to realize that each part likewise has its own very specific and unique awareness-profile, if you will, its own personality, its own living truth. It has its own reason for being, its own relation to the “us” of our conscious awareness, and its own things to communicate in an ongoing way. With each part of the body there is a similar whole world that opens up and is available for discovery when we begin working with it. With each new discovery, who “we” are grows deeper, more subtle, more connected, and more open and extended. All of this unfolds from that first experience of numbness.

WHEN ASKED “How do you exhaust karma?” Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche simply said, “When things come up in your life, you feel them completely and fully and you don’t hold back. You live them right through until they have completed themselves.” This applies to whatever is arising for us, not just what is painful, but what is pleasurable as well. When we are blissful and happy, we go along to a certain point but then pull back because we are afraid--perhaps it is too much and we feel we are losing our sense of self, or perhaps we are afraid it will slip away. This is because true bliss and true happiness, perhaps even more so than pain, are a negation of the human ego.

In the Yogachara teachings, within the “storehouse consciousness”--what we call the unconscious--are all the memories, all the experiences that we have not fully lived through. This understanding works well with modern psychological thinking. The process of the path to enlightenment, which can be demonstrated from the very earliest texts onward, is allowing the unconscious contents of our life to arrive in our awareness and to allow awareness to integrate what we find about ourselves and about the world. According to Buddhism, the unconscious is the body. Through working with the body in the way that I am describing, we actually are able to unlock and unleash all of these experiences and all of these things that have been insufficiently experienced and are therefore held throughout the body.

That’s why it is said in the Tibetan Yoga traditions that the body actually holds our own enlightenment. Until we are willing to live through some of the wealth of information and emotions that have been offered to us but rejected, our awareness remains tied up and restricted. The way they put it in the tradition is that the experience of working with the body unlocks memories and images and emotions that become fuel. This fuel creates a fire in us, a fire of all the vivid and intense pain held by these previously rejected aspects of experience. That pain is a fire that gradually burns up the structure of our ego--it is a visceral inferno. It is said that this inferno purifies awareness and makes the field of awareness very, very bright. The more we do the work, the more our awareness actually opens up. According to the early tradition, enlightenment itself is when the fuel is all used up. Awareness, no longer tied up in evasionary tactics, is set free and liberated to its full extent.

Through the work, we begin to discover some fundamental shifts in the way we are. There is a rich interior life of the body that we feel and experience, but which also somehow remains shrouded in mystery. At a certain point, we realize that we can’t tell whether something is physical or energetic, whether it is emotion or sensation, and we realize that we don’t need to figure it out. It begins to unfold. The so-called self, that relatively consistent type of person we have always been trying to be, becomes much less important, and there’s a willingness on the part of the meditator, or the body contemplator, to allow the self, the conscious sense of self, to die and be reborn, over and over.
Digging Deep

Reginald Ray

The first step in regaining our embodiment as meditators is to establish a clear, open, and intimate connection with our larger, macrocosmic “body,” the earth itself. In this practice, we will explore how the body can be felt as an incarnation of the earth. Earth breathing enables us to deepen our connection with the earth and to explore our identity with the earth itself. This practice also enables us to feel the support the earth offers us. The more we allow ourselves to feel supported by the earth, the more we are able to identify with the earth, the more room we allow ourselves for the inner journey.

Take a good meditation posture and feel the earth under you. Even if you are on a cushion in a room on the sixth floor of a building, you are still supported by the earth. You may initially want to keep your eyes closed. Begin breathing into the perineum, the region between the genital area and the anus. Bring your breath into the bottom of your pelvis at the perineum. Feel any tension you may have in the perineum. Breathe in through your sitz bones. Let the bottom of your pelvis sink into the earth. Breathe into the area of your anal region and your genitals. With each out-breath, let your pelvis sink more and more deeply into the earth, so that you are sitting completely and without any reservation on the earth. Bring the energy of the breath up into the hollow of the lower belly.

Now begin to breathe into a point that is a few inches below your perineum, putting you in direct contact with the earth. We are extending our awareness beneath our body, into the earth. Bring the energy of the earth up into your body. Now reach a few inches lower and then a foot lower. You are literally reaching with your awareness down into the earth and breathing up through your bottom.

With each breath, let your awareness drop down a little further into the earth. Breathe in the inner breath, the inner energy of the earth. Sink lower and lower into the darkness of the earth, breathing the energy up. On the in-breath, you are bringing the energy up, and on the out-breath, you are dropping further down. As you breathe in, allow your attention to remain deep inside the earth.

Continue in this way, letting your mind sink down into the darkness of the earth with each out-breath. Allow yourself to come right to the point where you feel you are about to go to sleep, but stay present, and take the attitude that you are sinking into a mysterious realm where all the answers you have ever sought are waiting. Try to be awake yet hovering on the boundary of sleep. On each out-breath let yourself sink a bit deeper, and take note of whatever images arise. Try to sense the extraordinary stillness and peace of the earth.

After about ten minutes, let your awareness drop more precipitously, further into the earth: one hundred feet, two hundred feet, a mile. See how far you can reach. Continue to breathe the earth’s energy up into your lower belly, going further down each time. Then let the bottom drop out and let your awareness go in a downward freefall. As your awareness descends, gradually have the sense that the energy is filling your body: into your belly, your mid-chest, your upper chest, and your head. Keep reaching down, deeper and deeper. Continue reaching further and further, while continuing to let the energy further up into your body. We are now receiving the awakened energy of the earth in our entire body.

To conclude this practice session, transition by dropping all techniques. Simply sit in your body, feeling your body as a mountain, still and immovable, and notice the awake and present quality of your mind.

all I want

pain and suffering go hand in hand
wanting and needing like a grain of sand
I pick up the pieces and they fall again
you are grasping for life as I hold out my
hand

Spoke my mind and then some

ok so doctors and offices are potentially overkill on a lot of things. Dad falls and everyone is like take him to the er~ummmm no maybe order xrays and send him to do that? Why cause him stress and upset, his life has plenty of that. Ridiculous I say, you take him to the er it's very scary for someone with dementia. If you don't, "oh you should...." they say~ whatever. Use your brain whenever possible, there are sometimes alternate routes that can be taken. If he was bleeding that would be another thing, bones sticking out, fever, lots of weakness~
I hate this fucking disease, it kills a lot more than just the person with it.

Ok so Tuesday, 5 days ago we got referrels for xrays and Friday we finally hear back from the doctors office. 4 days later~ hmmmm.........calling the ortho doctor on Monday

alzheimers will crush your soul and your familys

ok so we don't know at this point if his collar bone is broken, if it is again then the er will only send him home with a sling and or pain meds with a follow up with a orthopedic surgeon.  It is killing me inside each blow of this disease.  worse, worse, till peace.  If he breaks something every other time he falls, then what? That I don't know if I can take.  I can't be up all night, how do I do this? Do I hire someone to come by every night? What about my time with family? The only time I spend time with them is either when he's home or not and he's not a burden at all it's just tough.  It's just tough.  Last night getting him up from the wheelchair was tough, he walks ok.  I feel like a failure sometimes, especially here.  Ron hugged him last night and wanted to get cussed at by him like he used to.  I wispered in dad's ear, "call him a mother fucker" and he did.  It made my husband cry.  I was shredding paper, when I cam across a card from mom, it read "Dear Ron, thank you for picking us up when we fall~remember what goes around comes around, love Charlotte" ~ this made us cry too.  This disease FUCKING SUCKS ROYALLY!

So the cure for soul crushing you ask? A grand daughter or stepson or anything younger than your parent or loved one. Instant feel betters, I promise. I have the tendency to over react and take my dad to the hospital for everything, I've even called hospice on a Sunday to look at my dads foot in fear it would turn gang green. Kids put you back in perspective of things even if your being silly, or cooking or whatever. Thank God for balance and family.

being non verbal most of the time

I hate the fact my father doesn't talk anymore, this has been the hardest for me to accept.  At times it's nice because he doesn't cuss out loud anymore but being able to answer questions would be nice.  This morning my husband got up to use the bathroom at 6ish and heard him banging on the wall, I went in after he told me and I found him on the floor.  Asking him if he's ok is a challenge because he can't really tell you what hurts, he will only shake his head.  So watching him, the way he moves and acts is the best way.  So say goodbye to the yelling or calling out, it is no more.

This guy~

Unpredictable this disease is, one moment your here the next your not.  One moment your daughter is joking with you asking what kind of chinese food he wants and his reply, "up your ass" - the next minute he's trying to put his feet on the back of the bench seats in the van with his seatbelt connected and almost completely on the van floor!

Note to those with family members, 

I constantly assure my dad he's alright and ok, sometimes they (with the disease) get upset and very frusterated with everything and I mean everything from talking to walking and God forbid you ask them while they are trying to consentrate on something because this makes them mad.  When my dad tries to speak and can't get the words out, I always tell him it's ok and wait till he gets a word or hits or pats me on the back and assure them everything is ok.  Even tho it's not, even tho they might be walking around with a depends full of you know what and are attempting to leave the house naked, ALWAYS gently remind them it's ok.  Just because they can't or don't communicate well doesn't mean they don't feel YOUR frusteration, anger, whatever with the disease.  Remember they are suffering, struggling with everything around them every time they open their eyes.  They are asking who is this person? Remind them.  Why am I walking around the house at 3am with no clothes on? Tell them thank you for checking on me that I came home and ask them, "do you want me to go to bed, now?" GIVE THEM A REASON FOR DOING WHAT THEY ARE DOING, BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHY THEY ARE DOING IT! This reasures and comforts them.  It's like you know when you walk in a room and you forget why your there, come on we've all done that.  Now imagine that you do that with everything, "Why am I looking at the tv, why is that person helping me? what is that food or thing in front of me? what am I supposed to do with that? Then there is the imaginary things that at times during this disease that pop up: Seeing my dad in the kitchen with a butcher knife going to protect my mom from the Afganies? Seeing kittens jump out of boots, seeing people that are'nt there- to be continued.....

every day and there are 365 a year....etc. etc.......

Appreciate all the moments you are given, there is a no refund policy in effect..... Me

Ok so I'm a person with a lot of interests, I'm interested in art, music, other countries, our own economy the many wars we get ourselves into, awareness of things that I like to expose others to, the outdoors, animals, I also am attentionally deficit at times and feel lost with all things that pop into my head.  Like why don't I blog more, too busy living.  I like to watch others and say nothing and then sometimes I do and it's all wrong. I'm human and I have a lot of work to do.  I care about a lot and do nothing about it, makes you feel "help-less" sometimes~ I want to be a better me before I look back and say OOPS! That would be bad, but for the most part I don't see that.  God grant me the serenity to change what I can and accept that which I can not change and the wisdom to know the difference.

Feeling great lately not physically (but I'm working on that one, started exercising again) mentally I feel paings at my heart missing my mom and missing my dad who is here but not the same.  I am sad he misses my mom at the same time I look at that all together differently because it is an honor to do so.  Grieving for another is our God given right as humans, elephants do it do (look it up, if you don't believe me) I am not in pain I am in acceptance.  I regret not having enough of me to have been around more for my grand daughter Angelina.  This brings great pain in my heart.  When I do have her to myself I treasure her presence deeply.  I have my limits, I have to.

My advice for the day~look into the future who do you not see?
Take it how ever you wish..................

just thinking.....................

Ok so this past week, I've had this swine pig flu~Ronnie had it first it is not any fun. But the interesting part is that when your sick you have the opportunity to look at life, relax, reflect and it's not something we usually allow ourselves to do daily.  What's cool also is that you get so bored that you force yourself to plan things and get motivated about doing stuff and when your feeling better you get this burst of energy and get a lot accomplished.  The part that sucks about being sick is that it is very hard to take care of family member that depends 100% on you for everything.  But you can do it or figure out someone to help, in our case the agency we use.  Lately, I am more selfish in taking care of myself & needs.  I have no choice.  Dad is tough as shit, he's the one with the broken collar bone and I'm this whimpy ass!
Start organizing, sorting 15 minutes a day again
Start gardening, cleaning outside 15 minutes a day again
Let's see what happens.
Love to all

sometimes..................

Sometimes ya just gotta roll wit the punches............and then sometimes you gotta fight back~I'm doing neither.  This past week has been interesting and thought provoking at best, you see dad fell Saturday almost a week ago broke his collar bone, Ron & I both got swine flu and dad's kicking our assess! I swear to you the mind has it, if your state of mind is to keep going you'll keep going this guy is almost 86 in like less that 3 weeks and he is as tough as nails!  I mean a broken collar bone is painful and he just keeps going and does his thing.  Makes me think sometimes, do we dwell on our pain too much? Is there an area of the brain that is affected by dementia that doesn't feel it as much? I mean I know that when he has a sore on his foot he can't feel it too bad, but does the dementia help them tolerate better?  Who knows, not me for sure but what I do know is that I'm not worked up about all this because it never helps anyway and sometimes you just get sick or whatever and like my dad used to say you need to slow down.  So we slow down and make some changes and decisions and it's all good.
Been thinking about this mole that has to be excavated or whatever they call it, it was removed then pathology doesn't quite know what it is, April 19 the dermatologist does his thing and wait till I get a call about it.

breathe~

I've had almost a week to do that, resting and healing as well.  I've put a few feelings on the surface, not bad or good just there.  I've learned not to give those too much energy as that doesn't help at all.
It’s me who is my enemy
Me who beats me up
Me who makes the monsters
Me who strips my confidence.
~Paula Cole
I'm quiet in my head and that is fine. Taking time out to be human in all it's elements is a must in what I deal with daily.  People say turn off work and go to rest mode, well I can't because I only have 5 hours during the week and none on Sundays.  What I can do tho, is simplify my days a little and be a bit nicer to myself.  I am grateful for what I have/not and that I can feel pretty confident that I'm doing the right thing.  I used to feel guilty about taking time out for myself, now I know it's ok.  Will anyone stop me when I'm running? Why should they, on the surface it looks like I can handle it.  Should I blame them, never.