Lessons Learned from 24 days of Bikram Yoga

Well, it's day 24 of 30 days of Bikram Yoga.  Notice I didn't use the word "straight."  I attempted 30 days straight but instead it's looked like 8 days straight, 1 day rest, 2 days "straight," 1 day rest, 1 day "straight,"1 day rest, and then a whopping 10 days straight assuming I go today as planned.

So the first lesson learned was:  Listen to your body and your daughter's body.  If both are absolutely weak and depleted feeling on a rare day when your daughter doesn't have crew practice, stay home and drink tea and read with instead of hot yoga.

Obamacare Up & Running in California despite media reports--what questions can I answer for you?

I keep meaning to let folks know that despite media reports about the feds, the California version of Obamacare, "Covered California," appears to be up and running and doing well.  Here's an article in Health Line that gives more details about that--"Covered California seeing Fewer Problems Than Federal Health Exchange" .

In the meantime, folks have until March of 2013 (the feds extended it, which was the right thing to do, despite rightwing criticism).

Look, I'm a lifelong single payer supporter but I spent the past two years working to implement this law and I'm intimately familiar with the California version.  I've spent some time poking around on the Covered California website the past couple of weeks and looking at what they're offering.    The bottom line is that if you're uninsured in California and even vaguely struggling to make ends meet, there's a decent chance you're eligible for free, extremely low cost or affordable coverage.

Don't let the right or the left-wing fear machines intimidate you from actually buying affordable health care coverage while you can--these subsidies have a shelf life, they are only fully funded for 3 years.   Particularly tell the young adults you know and the people not quite old enough for Medicare or needing "gap" coverage to check it out.

I am happy to answer questions.  At the moment, no one is paying me to have a particular opinion on health care so this is just me trying to be helpful.  Just contact me through whatever way you get this posting.

See Enders Game or Not? Debate flares on Facebook over Homophobic Orson Scott Card

My friend and mentor Edward Viljoen (senior minister at  Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa) posted on his Facebook wall yesterday this tidbit:

 "Orson Scott Card, not one penny of mine will you see. No Enders Game for me. I don't expect you to

change your views to match mine. I just prefer not to help fund your anti marriage-equality activism with my pennies. I'm just a small voice in the wilderness yet when I go to sleep on opening night I will do so knowing I just made a donation to Positive Images instead of to your movie."

This sparked a lively debate on Facebook about whether or not one should withhold one's pennies from artists where you like the product but detest the views they espouse.    I'm a big Orson Scott Card fan.  My kids and I have been looking forward to the movie for a while.   I think it's as simple as this, in the the cosmic democracy, it matters what we choose. This is a person that has opinions and views and he is famous, and he's about to be more famous, and he uses his fame to express these views and push this viewpoint. We don't have to choose to support a platform for hate. And we don't have to hate Orson Scott Card either. We can know that he is brilliant and we can be sad.

Edward also posted this piece by Orson Scott Card from the Mormon Times as reported on Joe My God Blog:

"If America becomes a place where our children are taken from us by law and forced to attend schools where they are taught that cohabitation is as good as marriage, that motherhood doesn't require a husband or father, and that homosexuality is as valid a choice as heterosexuality for their future lives, then why in the world should married people continue to accept the authority of such a government?
What these dictator-judges do not seem to understand is that their authority extends only as far as people choose to obey them.
How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn."

My God, even in op eds, this man writes science fiction!



My daughter says that notwithstanding OSC's homophobia it's imperative to see Enders Game on the big screen and that it will not work to watch illegal downloads because they're such low quality.  The conversation between us sparked an idea of how to see Enders Game without supporting OSC or ripping off the theater:

Go to a multiplex, buy a ticket for another movie and then see Enders Game.  Thoughts?

Day 9 -- 30 days straight of hot yoga?

I didn't want to write anything about this until I was sure that I was really going to do it, and now I am. I have just completed 8 consecutive days of Bikram (aka hot) yoga.  Above is a picture of some random class that has nothing to do with me, although maybe we could just pretend that I'm the blond in the middle because I think we can all agree that she and I pretty much share the same bod.

In some ways it has become prosaic to describe one's 30 day Bikram experiences.  I've read at least one in Oprah (yes, I love Oprah and Oprah) and another in the Sacramento Bee (and no, those links aren't to those articles, just to the publications, sigh).  But this is my experience with it as a 52 year old woman who has been doing "maintenance" level exercise for years on a non-maintenance body.

I'm telling people that I'm doing this because the articles I read convinced me that I might experience a real transformation in my system, get my endocrine and hormonal systems working smoothly (a real plus in the middle of menopause), speed up my metabolism and heal aches and joint pains.  But of course I really expect to come out of this (as one mentor puts it) "wearing a white string bikini" so I have to be suspicious of my motives.  I also have a tendency to start something new rather than concentrate on the business at hand, so this is what's new for me.

So far, I'm struggling to stay hydrated (have added in some coconut water to replenish electrolytes lost--I'm not used to sweating!), to have energy and to find clean laundry.   Yesterday I wore a snappy tennis skirt to yoga, it's come to that.  Also, I'm very sore.

On the up side, my persistent shoulder pain and carpal tunnelish-ness  has either dissipated or can't be felt behind my overall soreness.  Also, I am finding a huge increase in my ability to stay present at least in during the hour and a half of class.  By that I mean, I am not constantly checking my watch or thinking about what comes next.  I'm just in that pose or another.

So, here we go!

To thy own self, contain

If you know me at all, you know that I (ahem) used to be a control freak.  We're going to pretend that this is past tense.  We're going to pretend that I no longer need to have the illusion that people, places and things bend to my will.

Now you would think that even a control freak (recovered or not) would know that she could not control an ACT OF GOD like a raging forest fire which has cost $33 million to get 20 percent "contained"--but no one has yet found the price of getting my mind contained.

All week my family's cabin in Yosemite has been threatened by the so-called Rim Fire.  Last week, while I was 120 some miles away from this fire I had a backpacking trip in the Sierra near Tahoe heavily affected by smoke and ash from this fire.  Nevertheless, I've been under the illusion that my family's Labor Day weekend celebration in Yosemite (which I played a role in organizing) can take place 20 miles from this same fire with little disruption.

For several days, the efforts at fire and smoke containment have raged.  Sometimes my attempt to contain the fire has been in the form of prayer.  Sometimes my attempt to contain the fire has been in the form of questioning our plans and the plans of the 100th Anniversary of Foresta (the community in Yosemite in which  our family's home is).  Sometimes my attempt to contain has been in the form of resentment that I'm not getting my way (like that would help).

What I spent less time on is containing my mind.  As a result, at the end of the week, the fire is 20 % contained and my mind is only at about two percent.  If I had spent the time this week containing my mind instead of my fire the fire could rage on and I'd be fine.

Listening to Lake Margaret

Lake Margaret from my campsite

I just spent 2 night and 3 days up at Lake Margaret in the Sierra near Kirkwood, CA.  By myself.  Mostly.  My teenage daughter and her 3 friends were about a 5 minute walk away but I could see nor hear them (according to plan).    What I could see or hear was Lake Margaret.

I'm procrastinating right now writing a paper for a course I just took called Mind in the Cosmos taught by Dr. Christian de Quincey.  The course has inculcated in me a very real sense that there is consciousness and choice in every single particular particle of the universe, all the way down and all the way out.  de Quincey presented some astonishing material about how ancient shamans had "conversations" with different plants which revealed to them a detailed level of information about the plant which presaged by 100s of years in some cases, the discovery of DNA and the double helix.

So, as I sat there in the protracted thunderstorms Tuesday and hours of smoke and falling ash from the Yosemite fire Wednesday, I was shown to have a conversation with Lake Margaret herself.

Lake Margaret speaks softly as it turns out (and carries a lot of big sticks).  She is gorgeous and is made up of many constituent parts--in fact, on some level, Lake Margaret as an organism functions as sort of an elected representative in "the cosmic democracy" (as de Quincey puts it) of the trees, rocks, water, sky, clouds and animals that inhabit her district.   However in nature there is no carpetbagging.  Lake Margaret is both a representative of her many parts and she is herself the constituent--so perhaps I will call her a natural constituency.

As a recovering lobbyist, I am not used to listening to elected representatives.  They usually listen to me.  However, out of respect for her constituency, I went against type.

She said that she was happy to have me there.  She had no problem with any of my camping equipment except my Deet and my antibiotic hand stuff.  She didn't like the Deet but she was apoplectic about the antibiotic.  We had quite the dialogue about that.  I said that I couldn't wash my hands in her water (after certain events) without polluting her and the water that I would drink.  I said that I wanted to remain alive and well.  She guaranteed that while I was in her district if I would not use the antibiotic or the Deet, she would keep me mosquito free and safe from bacteria that could harm me.

This made me very nervous.  Why should I trust what some small high altitude lake was telling me over what modern science and medicine suggests?  What if our interests weren't the same?  What if it just wasn't that important to Lake Margaret that I be unharmed?  What if she cared more about her constituency than she did about me?  In short, what if Lake Margaret was lying?  Moreover, what if I really don't have ability to adequately discern what a lake was telling me, let alone rely on the promise to my possible detriment?  Where is a good shaman when you need one?

I frankly stated these concerns to her.  She listened and she said that I was right, there was more to this equation than just whether I stayed healthy.  She said that she had a lot of constituents but that I was now one of them and I had a vote too.  She reminded me that I loved her and that I visited her many times and that I would probably want what was best for the rest of the constituency too.  She said that the antibiotic ointment was like a very frightening weapon to them.  She asked me to vote for rubbing my hands in dirt vigorously and then washing my hands in water.

So that's what I did.

The Law of Hubris--it ALWAYS works (knock on wood)

I study spiritual laws because I'm a control freak.   Spiritual laws are really just like scientific laws.  They're about knowing why when I do this, this happens and when I do that, that happens.    In my 10 years of spiritual study I have learned about the law of attraction (focus on what you want, not what you don't want), the law of karma (you reap what you sow) but no one has ever really broken down for me the law of hubris.  In fact, I've never even heard it named.

Yet, everyone is familiar with this law.  We even have a superstitious action that goes with it:

We've all been there:

"Oh, my baby always sleeps through the night"

"this car has never given me a bit of trouble"

"People don't fire me, I quit"

Knock on wood

Hubris is defined as exaggerated pride or self-confidence

The Catholics have always been clear about the sin of pride--it is one.

12-steppers cultivate humility, certainly

Eckhart Tolle and the Buddhists (good name for a band?) would have us let go of "ego identification"

So it shouldn't be a surprise to me that when I brag, I receive a kwick karmic komeuppance (another band?)

I think the problem is I never think of these statements as bragging. I just think of them as the truth.  My baby did sleep through the night (until I said she did).  My car didn't give me trouble; people didn't fire me.  So what was the trouble?  How is that pride?  What the heck kind of problem does the universe have with such statements?  Does the baby wake up and the car break down just to show me whose boss?

I guess the least hubristic (and truest) answer is, I don't know.  I don't know why this particular instant feedback loop exists except that it serves well to remind me not to do it.

Maybe the reason "knock on wood" seems to work is that I'm really knocking on my own wooden skull that can't quite get it that I'm  not the center of the known world and that not everyone wants to hear me tell how much better my baby, my car and my employment history is than theirs.

Yesterday I told a sick friend, "don't worry, you can hug me.  I never get sick..."

Today I have a sore throat.

Four Snouts up for The Way Way Back--Prediction: sleeper of the year

(:)(:)(:)(:) snouts up for The Way Way Back which I predict will be the sleeper hit of the year.  This film is so good it brought me out of unplanned blogging retirement.  Inexplicably,given its provenance, this film seems to have had zero promotion budget and bad distribution.  So if you can find this film (now playing at Tower Theater in Sacramento), you should see it soon and help make my prediction come true.

By the creative team that brought us The Descendants (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) comes this touching comedy set now (but really in the 80's) on Cape Cod but summer anywhere.  Steve Carell plays a jerk--not one we love, just a jerk--with a great girlfriend, Toni Collete, and a gregarious drunk summer neighbor, Alison Janney.  The focal point of the movie is his girlfriend's son, 14 year year old adorable silent awkward Duncan, played by Liam James, alienated by the constant adult assaholics at the beach, runs off to bond with a hilarious character Owen played by Sam Rockwell.

BTW, I'm still baffled by the film's title unless it refers to the fact that we walked to the way way back of Tower Theater and all the way up the stairs to the way way back of the biggest screening room to see it.  The one advantage to that: there is a secret exit out onto very high stairs going directly down to the parking lot--a bit much for this acrophobic.

This one is good for adults and teens.  Very very funny and very very touching.   See it.

The Perfection of Imperfection -- A talk I gave at Center for Spiritual Living Davis Recently

For those of you who weren't able to make it and wanted to hear my recent talk, here you go!  The picture quality is infused by the heavenly light that poured in from the windows behind me but you can see me and hear me.  I AM wearing a top by the way, the color of that tank top seems to blend in with my marvelous tan.

5 snouts up for Master Harold and the Boys at the Sacramento Theater Company one more weekend

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) for Master Harold & the Boys by Athol Fugard at the STC one more weekend.  Before it's too late, get a ticket to this magnificent play, production and performance.  I don't have time to say much more but I will anyway.  Here's the thing, Athol Fugard, the tremendous South African playwright, created this 90 minute play set in 1950 apartheid for you to see.  It's a small story about Master Harold (who is really the boy) and two "boys" (who are really grown men, known as "the boys" by the whites who employ them).  Yet it is not small at all.

The direction, set and acting is pretty close to flawless.  Michael Asberry as Sam is amazing.  Will Block, a senior at McClatchy Highschool plays the 14 year old Master Harold with uncanny power and precision.  This is a play that a director or theater really couldn't begin to pull off without a young actor of tremendous talent.

See it while you can.  

4 snouts up for Hotel Colinas del Sol in Atenas, Costa Rica

(:)(:)(:)(:) for Hotel Colinas Del Sol in Atenas, Costa Rica

"It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under"  Even though he meant nothing like this, Grandmaster Flash (the granddaddy of rap) had it right.  The cultivated jungle feel of Hotel Colinas is amazing.  It actually feels like we're plopped in the middle of one--can't believe it.  Yet we have a heavenly little bungalow room with a porch and hammock and comfortable beds and bathroom for a reasonable price.  The proprietors are helpful and the food is good.

We're using this as the hopping off point to visit our son at New Summit Academy nearby which Nick attends.  Then we're off to Monteverde to visit the Cloud Forest.

Greetings from Costa Rica

Wow, do I only blog in South America?  I hope not.  I have a week off and internet in Costa Rica so it only makes sense to blog.  Well I just tried and failed to take a picture from our hotel room at the Hotel Colinas del Sol--it's paradise basically, hammock, jungle, bird sounds, geckos aplenty.  About to walk over to the school to see our son for the first time since November.  Super excited.   More later.

What Actually Gets Me to Change?

So I'm preparing to lead this "Illness 2 Wellness" support group for six weeks starting Thursday--very interesting process.  I find that as interested as I am in the tools that have worked for me and others to get well (whole foods, exercise, meditation, gratitude, forgiveness, service), I am perhaps more interested in what gets me to do them.

See, it's my experience that many many people (especially in the new thought or new age world) know (or think they know) what works for them to get well.  For example, I knew for years that if I ate smaller portions of food I would lose weight and keep it off--did I do it?  No.  For years I suspected that if I did daily exercise I would feel better, be happier and lose weight and keep it off--did I do it?  No.

I have more than one friend who struggles with chronic debilitating symptoms that are almost instantly alleviated by eliminating one or more foods (such as sugar or wheat or dairy) from their diet--did they do it?  In most instances, no.

We can know everything in the world about what works for us and be self-help geniuses but if we are not doing it, it's not worth anything.  Who is paying attention to what actually works to get us to change habits?  Who studies it?  In anyone other than rats?  Maybe the focus on the next new diet fad is not so much because we want the easy way out but because we want a way we can do.

Would it be all right with you if life got easier?

Several years ago (I think it was 2005), I attended a 3 1/2 day workshop that significantly closed the gap for me between knowing and doing: that was Mastering Life's Energies taught by Maria Nemeth at the Academy for Coaching Excellence in Sacramento, California--and they pose this question:  would it be all right with you if life got easier?  Years and many workshops later this remains the single most worthwhile educational experience of my life, by yards.

In the years since this workshop, I have been released of 60+ pounds of weight.  My diet and exercise habits have been completely transformed.  I have been given a steady and fulfilling spiritual practice.  Every relationship I have has been strengthened and transformed.  My relationship with money has been healed and transformed.

In this workshop, how to be coachable.  I learned how to actually take the advice I was constantly freely given by the universe and do something different.  And, most importantly, I learned that I can't do it alone.  That I must have other people with whom I check in with on a regular basis and I must have accountability.  It takes 30 consecutive days of doing anything to change a habit.  I cannot flick a switch, set an intention and have a habit changed.  I need to break it down into baby steps, usually with someone else's help.  And I need to say, "today I'm taking this baby step."  And then I need to call the next day and say, "I didn't do it.  Today I'm taking this baby step for real and this is what I'll do differently to support myself in succeeding."  And then I need to call the next day and say, "I did it!  I'm going to do the same thing today!"

I'm not saying you have to take this workshop (although God knows I'd recommend it to anyone for whom this gap seems insurmountable), but if I really want change, I do need support, accountability and small steps.  Twelve step programs provide this for free.  Kaiser Permanente and some other health systems have good support groups set up.  Don't try this alone.

Run to the Rockwell Exhibit at the Crocker--last 3 days!

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) for American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell at the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento.    I waited until late in the run to see this.  I  had an intuition I would like it, but I didn't know why.  I kept thinking to myself, is there really anything to this iconic American essentially commercial artist?  But then I thought, I've never actually seen a Norman Rockwell in the flesh.

It helped that I sat next to a docent for the exhibit in the cafe and she talked my ear off about the exhibit.   Prior to the ear-removal, I was not prepared for the raw power of his genius--so many slices of American life captured--incredible emotional range and depth including part of a fascinating series on murder in the South during the civil rights era.

See it--although this is a rare time when this weekend busloads of people from the bay area will be coming THIS way to see art instead of the other way around.  See it today or tomorrow, if possible.

Listen to your body (it's smarter than you are)

They say we teach what we need to learn.  After 2 or 3 years of thinking about starting a support group for chronically ill people, I finally start one--when?  When I'm in the middle of a longterm illness of course.  I'm on the second round of 30 days of sick leave from work (in other words I've been off work a little over 30 days) on doctor's orders.

I have been extremely low energy off and on since October to the point where I haven't been able to work without exhaustion.  Some days i think, this is nonsense, I'm fine and then return to my old level of activity (minus work)--woah, by the end of the day I'm in bed by 7pm unable to string together sentences.

So now I'm preparing to introduce other people to what I've learned about listening to my body, hearing what it was to say and following its direction.  And what do I know about it?  If I'm so good at listening to my body, how come I'm on leave?

Actually, I'm glad I asked.  That's why I'm on leave.  I'm on leave because I listened to my body and to my doctor and this is what I needed to get well.  Now I just need to trust and keep listening.

I create therefore I can

I fell asleep last night with what felt like an insight on the relationship between creativity and ability to manifest the life you want.  Let's see if it can withstand the scrutiny of the light of day.  It's this:  the act of creativity is literally to create something from nothing.   Maybe I'm staring at a blank page or canvass, holding a guitar, sitting at a keyboard with no idea of what I'm going to write, paint or play.  Suddenly, something comes.  Out of "nowhere," it comes.  And I let it come.  I seize it (or it seizes me) and soon I have created a blog post, a book, a painting, a song.

This is my actual experience.  I fancy myself a writer, so not surprisingly I've had the experience with writing.  But the lesson is perhaps even more powerful when experimenting with artistic media in which I don't believe I have talent or ability.   I practically flunked kindergarten art yet I have sat in front of a blank canvass and been led to create a painting that I love.   Recently I was in a short songwriting workshop and I wrote a song out of nothing--I had never done that before (in all my years of singing and fooling around with satirical lyrics, I'd never written a song from scratch).

Now that experience of having created is a real, felt experience.  What could bolster my confidence so much as knowing that out of seemingly nothing, there is a place with me that connects with inspiration?  To repeat this experience is to build-up a sense of security more powerful than any other--out of nothing comes something--the nothingness is illusory.

Take this knowledge to the world of creating relationships, jobs and housing (and combine it with the miracle of the internet) to see its full application.  Because I've faced the blank paper and something has always come, I now trust that it will.  In the same way, I can truly trust that although I don't know where the right house, the right job or the right husband will come from, they exist and they will manifest.  And in my case, thank you, God.  They already have.

3 Snouts up for My Brother is an Only Child on Netflix

(:)(:)(:) for My Brother is an Only Child, an Italian film, 2007, on Netflix DVD.  Despite charming beautiful actors and an engaging plot line (two 1960s era brothers in southern Italy love to hate and hate to love each other as one is a fascist and one is a communist), this film falls short.

I'm in a phase right now where I'm letting my husband's Netflix queue introduce me to a number of foreign films that he has researched and been interested in seeing--he thinks this one entered the list circa 2007 and has only just now wormed its way to the top.  This results in zero expectations--my brother's what? what's it called again?  what country is it from? -- but also a high level of hit or miss-ness.   I don't like mainstream Hollywood that much any more (with exceptions) and find that I really do enjoy foreign language films (for one thing the need to read subtitles force me to set down my laptop and actually pay attention to the movie) but I'm actually beginning to believe that foreigners have a higher tolerance for nothing happening than this slighly ADD American.

This is like the 3rd movie in a row we've seen with good actors, good writing, nice setting and cinematography but where relatively little happens.  Actually, this one had the closest to a plot of the latter bunch.  I think that non-Americans have a much higher tolerance for unhappy endings and not tying up loose ends.

This one could be seen just to watch the hunky Italian boys kiss and moon over gorgeous Italian girls.  Special bonus points for the scene with an all-Communist orchestra rendition of Beethoven's Ode to Joy with special new "red" lyrics.

Part 1: Why I LOVE being tail end of the baby boom

I was just reminded this morning how much I benefit from being tail end of the baby boom.  Sure, reasonable mind can differ about what is the tail end.  I was born in 1961--if you look at the chart above you can see that the birthrate is starting to drop precipitously around then--hence tail end.

But the statistics aren't the money part.  The money part is that being born at the tail end of the baby boom means that about 10 years ahead of me, everything gets changed every minute and I don't have to change it or go through all the sturm und drang but I get to benefit from it.  Boom baby boom.

Some might say, but yeah, you also missed the chance to be a young adult in the summer of love.  Yes, I did.  In the summer of love I was pulled out of third grade and put in the Exploring Family School--a weird place on the edge of San Diego where kids K-12 did "school without walls" (modeled on something called Summerhill in England--or was it Stonehenge, I forget).  This entailed running around building forts and showing each other our private parts behind bushes.  I preferred sitting inside the barn reading algebra textbooks.

But I digress.  The boomers boomed through ahead of me dragging civil rights, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll with them.  I got to peacefully exercise my right to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll without being arrested or sleeping in a park or having my parents disown me.  If my teenagers are reading this, know that I'm speaking hyperbolically of course.  By sex I mean kissing.  By drugs I mean Earl Grey Tea.

to be continued...

Day 40: 40 Day Abundance Meditations--Look to your inner Obama

 I keep my mind and thoughts off “this world” and I place my entire focus on God within as the only cause of my prosperity.  I acknowledge the Inner Presence as the only activity in my financial affairs, as the substance of all things visible.  I place my faith in the Principle of Abundance in action within me.”*

I'm not going to lie, I'm thrilled that this is the fortieth, hence last, day of the Abundance Meditations.  I'd like to pretend that I planned it end on Martin Luther King and Inaugural Day (and what was to be the last day of my leave), but it's all coincidence.  I liked the President's Inaugural address much better than the first address; it was an unabashedly progressive speech and it put gay rights on a par with all the other struggles for civil rights in American history.  It called for "collective action" and focussed on the "we" instead of the "me."  As my husband said, "there is nothing for the conservatives to like about this speech."  That doesn't bother me.

But I digress--this meditation asks me to turn my thoughts away from "this world" and focus within.   Even a passionate political heart can take this advice to the bank.  It doesn't mean that I don't care about the world or have an effect on it.  It means that when I go within, I go where the real power is. 

*If you are just joining our show in progress, meditate on this for 15 minutes today.  You can start the meditations any day, don't worry about the day it says it is, but then do it for 40 days.  At any time you can look ahead or behind and see how it works by going to this link:  How to do the 40 day Meditation Program

Day 39: 40 Day Abundance Meditations--4 Snouts up for Life of Pi!

When I am aware of the God-Self within me as my total fulfillment, I am totally fulfilled.  I am now aware of this Truth, I have found the secret of life, and I relax in the knowledge that the Activity of Divine Abundance is eternally operating in my life.  I simply have to be aware of the flow, the radiation, of that Creative Energy, which is continuously, easily and effortlessly pouring forth from my Divine Consciousness.  I am now aware.  I am now in the flow.*

(:)(:)(:)(:) for Life of Pi in 3D still in movie theaters everywhere due to Academy Award nominations.  I have to confess that I was hoping that today's abundance meditation would track with what I got out of Life of Pi and I wasn't disappointed.  Life of Pi, an explicitly spiritual experience (since the adult Pi tells the novelist to whom he's telling his story that it would make him believe in God), is really one long beautiful abundance meditation.

Since most of you have probably seen it by now (or at least those of you who want to), I'm not giving anything away to say that it's about a boy trapped in a boat with a CGI bengal tiger named Richard Parker for 221 days at sea.  Well, he doesn't know it's computer-generated imagery.  He think it's real.  And thanks to the magic of Hollywood and the beautiful direction of Ang Lee so do we.

The signal narrative moment in the film is when Pi writes in his journal that without the tiger he never could have survived:  my fear kept me sharp and keeping Richard Parker alive gave my life purpose.   Like Jonah and so many other mythical heroes before Pi, only when he stops fighting and feeding his frenemy and surrenders completely to God is he saved.  

His salvation comes in the form of incredible abundance.  He washes up on the shore of an amazing island with thousands of meerkats, abundant fresh water and delicious edible roots.  He and Richard Parker are replenished here until Pi learns that if he stays on the island long enough, it will eat him.  I could come up with some tortured explanation of how God works this way.  The only thing that springs to mind quickly is that we have to keep moving.  God always keeps us alive for us to fulfill our divine purpose and unless our purpose is to be eaten by an island, sometimes we have to be replenished and move on (no matter how much fear we might have).

I guess I'll relate that to my own situation.  I am currently on sick leave from my job as a high-powered union lobbyist.  The meerkats and fresh water on this island come in the form of full pay for no work.  I can stop here until I'm well but then if I want to survive, I'll need to move on.

*If you are just joining our show in progress, meditate on this for 15 minutes today.  You can start the meditations any day, don't worry about the day it says it is, but then do it for 40 days.  At any time you can look ahead or behind and see how it works by going to this link:  How to do the 40 day Meditation Program