Author Archives: elizatwist

Forget bliss, ignorance is dangerous

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Whenever I hear one of those news stories about a stupid mistake gone bad I wonder if I might have the capacity to make the same mistake and consequently suffer the same ridicule. Today I was reminded of this little idea of mine and by the luck of grace, I am still here.

With the help of other’s hands, I have a couple mobiles to hang from the ceiling for the entertainment of babes and adults alike. While the crafting world is full of ideas for beautiful decorations, I have yet to come across good instructions for properly hanging these works of art. And I must admit that often, these projects get the better of me and take a considerably larger amount of time to complete than to conceive. So it’s been nearly a year and they are finally going up. Or so I thought…

Because it turns out that it’s quite complicated to hang a mobile, even when I’ve already spent a couple hours planning out just how to and made sure to have all the materials at the ready. The space in which they are to be hung is wired for ceiling lights but we never installed them because the wall sconces provide adequate illumination. So I thought that the screws holding the lighting hardware in place offered a convenient solution to my problem of how to go about attaching these beauties to the ceiling. I was well on my way to getting the job done when my sister (who was lending me a hand), said that I’d need to seal off the wires. What? This seemed to be the time to give my very smart and able bodied husband a call.

He arrived concerned that I’d decided to become an electrician. I explained that I had no such intention and that was precisely why I’d called him in the first place. Come to find out that I’d been doing all sorts of dangerous things. Things that violated codes and could have ignited fires under just the right set of unfortunate circumstances. He repeated the lecture many times, I assured him that I understood the error of my ways… in hindsight, of course.

Which is precisely the thing that makes me think that someday I may indeed the be subject of a news story. So, I’m newly committed to always asking for help and for constantly seeking more information. The fight against ignorance will surely keep me busy for a lifetime.

Letting Kindness be my guide

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I was lying on my bodyworker’s table this morning when I had an insight. I’ve been reading this book, and am constantly appreciative of having recently read this one (I am determined to read everything by John Holt since finishing it). Given that I’m often talking to people about their bodies and helping them to find support that works for them with respect to their bodies, I frequently find myself describing the sort of body work that I find most helpful. As my body was doing its thing with helping hands, I realized the common thread that runs through so much of what I attempt to give and am grateful for receiving: kindness. (I could also have written non-violence but I figured best to set forward on a positive note, and so kindness will lead us forward.)

Thanks to reading this book, I’ve been mulling over our combative interactions with the rest of the natural world. I found myself surrounded by nature this weekend which did a lot for keeping the thoughts rolling. Imagining a way of living in this world that is in union with nature rather than in combat with nature is a challenging prospect for me – I am a city mouse who has always fantasized about the country, but most of my time thus far has been under the city lights. Amidst these musings I was struck with the realization of how we live in combat with ourselves too, which I suppose shouldn’t have really been such a thunderbolt since we are part of the natural world. We just seem to think that we aren’t, and because that erroneous assumption is probably my basic framework for considering our place on the planet, I’m ashamed of it.

This gives me the idea that we would have to usher in a different sort of communal approach to our “intra-special” interactions if we are to have even a hope of changing our relationship with the rest of the natural world for the better. In the past few days I’ve been presented with a few opportunities for considering the important potential of kindness, and the common theme amongst these is bearing witness.

Faber and Mazlish describe over and over in their book the power of an attentive and caring witness to the process of addressing our feelings. They encourage us to go beyond the knee jerk reaction of offering solutions to others’ “problems” which I feel necessitates our resisting the tendency to analyze as listeners. To be in conversation and be able to sit in the unknown is the approach that facilitates bearing witness. From that place of unknown so many amazing and surprising possibilities are there for us. With a sense of wonder we can see what others are capable of accomplishing, and I always feel more inclined toward kindness when I’m reveling in the wonder of life.

Bearing witness is what I’ve come to understand as the underlying principle behind all the body work modalities that I prefer. Rather than imposing relaxation upon some area of my body with a lot of forceful effort from the practitioner and a lot of discomfort for me, I prefer the sort of work where the practitioner bears witness through compassionate and knowing touch. It is amazing to sense my body’s self healing with that sort of facilitation. The effects are far more lasting and profound. When I’ve been treated with kindness, it is much easier for me to go out into the world and extend that kindness forward toward others.

From what I’ve read of John Holt so far, I feel that the foundation for his work is in a deep and abiding respect for humans, expressed in his relations with children. It bears clarifying that having respect for others is the same as having respect for oneself. The two can not truly be separated without some sort of serious fracture. Through my work in psychotherapy I’ve come to understand having respect as a form of bearing witness. If we can bear witness to ourselves, we can bear witness to others. Holt bore witness to children and came to learn much about our human ways. Given our tendencies toward combat and violence, I feel that Holt’s work is very important in that it reminds us of ourselves. He gives us the information to bolster our efforts be guided by kindness.

All this leads me to envision circles of kindness in our world. Kindness toward all other species, kindness within our own species. I imagine that so much of what we abhor would be swiftly eliminated if kindness were our guide. After writing that, I feel the need to support the statement because it is the sort that generally would elicit cynical criticism. My quick defense (because I’ve really got to start cooking dinner) is that what I’m suggesting hasn’t been tried, so we don’t really know what would happen. And if one is to sit just with the possibility, rather than considering the how, I’m pretty sure that kindness would win. Because who can turn down kindness?

It is not difficult to find examples of ourselves being contrary to this notion of kindness. I reserve the right to mention those another day, when I’m really desperate to reconnect to the idea of kindness. Then again, perhaps it’s best to make a space for kindness. You know kindness, give it an inch, it’ll take a mile. Wouldn’t that be an inch worth giving?

Introducing…The Enlightened Path

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An ever-growing collection of what I believe are signs pointing us in the direction of the living the optimal human life. I believe that we can do better. I believe that I can do better. I believe that there is a set of practices that are indicative of just how civilized we are; and that we are individually and collectively responsible for making sure that if we call ourselves civilized, we truly are. It follows that I’m not a fan of “good enough”. Sure, it works in a pinch, or as a temporary fix. But it is certainly not my end goal. I wish with all my heart that it was not anybody else’s either.

This past week, a client of mine asked if I knew about the French universal practice of postpartum vaginal retraining. Perhaps it was that we’d been talking a lot about the pelvis lately, or that we are both moms of toddlers, or maybe it was just on her mind. Whatever the reason, I’m so glad that she mentioned this because it was the tipping point for me creating this category and because I am a whole-hearted believer in the importance of such training. I’ve got a peculiar history with my pelvic floor given my tailbone injury, but that’s a topic for another day. Given that I haven’t personally experienced the -very civil- retraining of my pelvic floor, and there is a very informative article already circulating, I’m going to make a very simple point and leave the rest to you, fair reader. The female body is the reason that we are all here, it should be treated with the utmost care and respect. Were this idea the foundation of each individual’s life here on planet earth, I’m confident that we would be further along the enlightened path than we currently are.

Introducing…She’s Crafty

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An ever growing collection of projects which I conceived. Should anything posted here bear a resemblance to anything posted or written about elsewhere, the collective consciousness is the source and I am one of the conduits. Which is my way of saying that I did not nor would not knowingly claim “credit” for somebody else’s idea.

Today, I share a project that is not only crafty, but also nifty and thrifty. Our little bundle of joyous energy recently turned one year old. Given my love for a good party, I went all out which meant that I needed some party favors. Having already enjoyed the first year festivities of some of my son’s friends, I realized that this party favor business is something special. While there are many factors to consider that did not even occur to me, I was focused on the following: our offering must be something that we would like to receive with respect to quality, origin, and usefulness. After much deliberation, I settled on making felted rattle balls. Here’s how I did it:

I got some whiffle balls from The Sports Authority, some very small pebbles from the floral department at Michaels, and some wool roving from our local fiber arts shop. I stuck several pebbles through the holes in each ball and then wrapped them in the wet/soapy wool. Then, I followed the directions for making dryer balls that I read in this post. I ended up doing the last step twice to be sure that there were no bald spots. Now we’ve got a whole bunch of rattle balls (because, of course I made far more balls than we needed.) I just love it when my craftiness yields fun far into the future!

Introducing…Body Sleuthing

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Body Sleuthing is the log of my prevention-based self-care happenings. Were it to be historically accurate, this log would have begun back around the time I was born (and yes, I have started such a log for my babe.). But the record begins here, so from time to time there will be some historical background offered. Which I suppose is appropriate since so much of what happens today in our bodies is the result of some long forgotten occurrence. Because our bodies don’t forget, they store away for another day….

And today I am suffering from yet another all too frequent upper back lock down. Which means that I cannot move too well from my mid-back up to my head. It’s a real bummer for me. When my upper back locks up like this it’s usually a result of something I did while sleeping through the night. As the day wears on and none of my efforts to alleviate the pain have the desired result, my morale sinks lower and lower. Luckily this usually doesn’t last too long. But the question is why does it happen at all?

Which leads me to explain this category’s title. Since my teenage years I’ve experienced all sorts of soft tissue ailments. Looking back I realize that this was probably the best assurance that I would follow a healing arts (further definition follows) path. Like many people, I suffered a tailbone injury as a teenager (pretty much everybody falls on their rump sometime in their youth, right?). When it happened, my mother dutifully took me to the doctor. They told me that it was most likely broken, but that an x-ray was pointless because there was nothing to be done about a broken tailbone save sitting on a donut and taking muscle relaxants. I already knew that I wasn’t interested in drugs of any kind and so I sat on a donut and waited for the pain to go away. But then I was doing an exercise video in our living room and gave myself my first muscle spasm. Which lasted a really long time because I didn’t have anybody with any real body sense with whom to consult. I lived with successive muscle spasms until I met my first chiropractor during my senior year of college. With regular visits, I finally experienced a break in the pain that I’d be having for six-odd years and I began what I believe will be a life-long journey of self-healing and full embodiment of my life. From the first injury, I learned that western doctors had little to offer me. From my first chiropractic experience I learned that pain did not have to be a constant in my life (boy, was I relieved!) and to hope for a complete elimination of pain. Slowly, I began to realize that while I could learn a tremendous amount from the healing hands of various practitioners, I was really the one doing the work. I was the healer. Anybody who was helping me was a facilitator and a teacher. I was the one integrating all the inputs toward an optimal end: normal health (further discussion of this term follows). To sort out what was happening in my body, I realized that I had to be a sleuth. I had to take information from a wide variety of sources to gain a full and complete understanding of what I was experiencing. While I don’t think that this process is necessary for every person -clearly I’m particularly interested in my body given my line of work- I have come to realize that normal health is won only by the person who fights for it. With the many compromises that we’ve made to live our contemporary lives -consciously or by default- normal health is the result of a carefully and regularly tended body.

Normal health is a term that Joe Pilates uses in his book Return To Life. He makes the point that we ought to define normal health as the condition that is free of all ailments. His point is important because most of us are living with at least one, if not many, ailments which are not necessary and which hinder our life experience. Since these ailments are not pathological, they are not treatable with western medicine. So we have come to consider them “normal”. But they are not normal. With simple and accessible treatments we can self heal and usher in normal health.

Healing arts describes a sort of work with the human body which utilizes any number of various modalities to facilitate a person’s self healing processes. The more skilled the practitioner, the more profound and lasting the results. Given my geographical location, I have many practitioners available to support me. I am an enthusiastic receiver of visceral manipulation, cranial sacral therapy, ortho-bionomy, BGI chiropractic, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and psychotherapy.

Returning to today’s question…I have been doing some sleuthing with respect to my upper back for a few years now. This sleuthing process has integrated information from a variety of practitioners and books. I demonstrate a bracing of the rib cage which I’ve come to recognize in many of my clients too. I believe that this bracing is linked to some form of breath restriction and inhibition of spinal articulation. The specifics of these factors and the order of occurrence varies from person to person. Likewise so do the deep internal pathways of tension patterns that underlie the condition. Last week in my session with my amazing body worker a connection between the liver through the umbilical ligament down to the bladder through the pelvis down my left leg became apparent to her. In our previous session, she uncovered a fascial connection between my bladder, my restricted rib cage, and my upper neck tension. While, I am suffering today, I feel confident that we are well on our way to freeing my body of the layers of tension that repeatedly pull me into this lock down state. And as I learned so many years ago, hope is the best beginning for the journey toward normal health.

Out and About

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It has been several hours short of twenty four and I have another Oakland-ish story to share. This is the kind that makes me giggle to myself while driving along. I don’t mind writing that I’m pleased with myself for having this blog because in my pre-blog days this sort of happening would melt from my memory like a dream usually before I could share a laugh with anybody. So sad. But those sad and lonely days are over. Oh joy!

Our neighborhood is a busy one with lots of pedestrians and short little intersections. I first caught sight of this particular man as I yielded to his right of way. Given my penchant for body analysis, I was enjoying watching his somewhat peculiar gait and how high up he carried his well-used LL Bean back back. He was definitely an adult (I’d estimate that he’s circled the sun somewhere in the range of 40-60 years) and yet he had an energetically contrived, walk.

After he took his turn, I took mine and as we were going in the same direction for a brief spot of time, and as he was jay walking so as to shave some time off his trip, he happened to be very close to my open window when he heatedly exclaimed:

“Well I’ve shaven my entire f**king chest down to here…..” (pointing to the base of his chest bone).

And then he turned up the hill leaving me to wonder if he meant to share that important piece of information with me, or perhaps he had a blue tooth apparatus on the ear that was just out of my view. I’ll never know. But now, I’ve had myself a good laugh. And that will have to suffice.

Introducing…Outlandish? Oakland-ish.

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Today is a perfect day to make this introduction. I arrived home from the farmers’ market in a huff, I’m sad to say. The overwhelm of my ambitions coupled with the underwhelm of my productivity is getting to me. And as often happens when my mood is on the south side of happy, things that I see out in the world leave an even less than usual favorable impression.

 

Outlandish? Oakland-ish. is my ever-growing list of sights, sounds, and happenings that make Oakland, California a stimulating home. The idea being that the act of recording / reflecting will ease out the judgement / frustration and usher in the joy / delight that I experience living in this fabulous city.

 

I’m not sure that I can talk myself out of today’s gripe though. It’s littering. When I arrived home my very kind and supportive husband came to help me into the house with my basket full of farm fresh goodness. But he was distracted by garbage in the bushes along our driveway. I wish that I could come up with a justification for littering or a defense of litterbugs, but I cannot. Littering disgusts me. Living in the city I have all too often seen people pull their car up to the curb, proceed to dump all their garbage out onto the street and sidewalk, and then pull away. Once I witnessed somebody do this very thing in our driveway. I protested and he just looked at my blankly then drove away.

 

All I can say is that I have more confidence in my fellow humans. This littering is not an expression of our highest potential. And it’s gross. So it puts me in a bad mood. I’d like to someday have an idea of why people do this. To me it seems like an expression of their unhappiness with their life and their community. I can’t imagine what else would bring a person to dump their garbage in public space.

 

I have high hopes for us all though, that perhaps we may find an alternative outlet for our personal frustrations and that we can also find a way of supporting each other to reach toward our highest potential.

 

Introducing, Adele Ardeeya…

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who is a squirrel, a grey California ground squirrel to be exact. We’ve been getting to know each other for about a week now, and what a week it’s been! She’s still rather shy about photographs (I snapped that first one before she realized it). But given our plans, I know that she’ll warm to the idea eventually.

As it turns out, I was correct last week when I sighted Adele for the first time, she had indeed hitched a ride down the hill with us. And what’s more, she does mean to stay close to us. She’s been working on her domicile in our back yard and she accompanies us on our daily walk our neighborhood shopping district. She seems very interested in our activities. Perhaps it seems strange for me to write this all with such certainty. This all merits more explanation. I had my hunches about this little squirrel, but it wasn’t until yesterday evening that I fully understood what was happening.

A dear friend of ours works up at the park my little guy and I visited last week and she was over for dinner last evening. She and I share a love of animals and we have each devoted a good deal of time to communing with various members of the animal kingdom with the hopes of sharing experiences and insights into living on planet earth. It is a subtle art and one that I mostly find baffling, yet for some reason I persist in sitting and being with non-human animals.

It was a lovely summer evening here and so we were dining outside which meant that Adele was there too, nibbling on her pinecones and other tasty morsels from our garden and fruit trees. Given our common passion, I brought my friend’s attention to Adele, and was surprised to find that they recognized each other. It was then that we all realized that my new friend and the little baby squirrel who my friend had cared for, named Adele, and befriended was one in the same. During her time with our mutual friend, Adele became completely enamored with the ways of humans. Of course I knew the story of their time together well because at the time that this was all occurring my friend had been telling me all about it.

In fact, I’d always been hopeful that I too would have the opportunity to have such a close relationship with a non-domesticated animal. And now, it would seem that such an opportunity has fallen in my lap. Adele came down the hill with us because she yearns to know more about our human ways. By some stroke of grace she’s chosen me to be her guide and after last evening we are all quite sure that she has chosen wisely given my friendship with her original human friend.

And so begins our adventure together. I’ve agreed to take Adele around this town of ours, to show her as much as she would like to know about our human ways. I’ll share our discoveries and stories here.

A day’s dose of relativity

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As I was changing out a load of laundry and thinking about the constancy of leaves on the patio in our backyard, I thought about what litterbugs trees are and how keeping up with them really is a daily task. As I let the notion marinate for a moment, I recalled William McDonough’s 2005 TED talk, Cradle to Cradle Design. It’s been years since I heard his impressively thorough definition of a tree:

“Imagine this design assignment: design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates micro climates, changes colors with the seasons and self replicates.”

But I still remember his ironic point:

“Why don’t we knock that down and write on it.”

And to further his point: wipe our hands and other things on it just to throw it away. But I digress.

Thinking about McDonough’s words gave me an embarrassing pause. (Thankfully I didn’t speak those words out loud. And yet, here I am writing about them.) How often it is that I frame some reality in my own perspective and in so doing leave out so much of what is essential to whatever it is that I’m analyzing. The picture is nearly always so much bigger than I can really wrap my brain around, so I stick with my small view of the world. Which I guess isn’t so bad, right? Actually I think that it is rather dangerous, perhaps one of the most significant foibles of humankind. Take twenty minutes to hear what McDonough has to say and I think that you’ll realize my point:

http://www.ted.com/talks/william_mcdonough_on_cradle_to_cradle_design.html

But there I went digressing again. When I had this initial insight about trees and how amazing they are and how I was just seeing this one little thing about them that was just so happening to cause me a bit of worry (because I was wondering how I’d ever truly be able to keep our patio looking tidy), I realized that this insight surely must apply to other aspects of life and I thought, I really should keep this one in mind.

Within a couple hours I was facing up to another manifestation of my tendency to provide myself too narrow of a view on a situation. This time it involved Mr. Entropy and some dirt. We were at a little farm up in a park near our home. I found myself quite frustrated at my son’s insistence around pushing his stroller in a crawling position. Through the barnyard dirt.

Then there was the oral wood chip inspection.

And the frantic run down the path way with a fall right into a mud puddle.

The climbing up the hill was fine except that I had the precarious job of pushing the stroller up as well all the while keeping a watchful eye on my little guy. I was not happy. But somewhere in the midst of what I considered to be unbearable chaos (I know, it really wasn’t that bad, but this is a post about relativity), I remembered my earlier insight and had a moment of gratitude. Which did a lot to calm my nerves.

So much of what we do as parents could be analyzed in terms of relativity. Sure, we have an idea of how things should go. But often so does the kid. And who is to say whose desire is more worthy of follow through? I’d like to think that I give my little guy a lot of autonomy (for a thirteen month old) and that as time goes on I will continue to give him more room to build his sense of self and personal velocity. But it is a matter of compromise, bearing in mind my respect for him especially in the moments when I feel least capable of doing so, and remembering that all things are relative.

Looking at this notion of relativity through an even more global lens, the stark contrast between the daily minutia and the constant potential for big change which we each embody seems even more amplified in the early years of human life. Because there is so much mess on the minuscule level, and and perhaps the greatest amount of yet-to-be-determined that we ever have- before we even know what we’ve got. We are so fragile, and so strong. So harsh and so vulnerable. So self absorbed and so generous. So eager to learn and so scared of the unknown. So easily blinded to the many blessings bestowed upon us that it seems very important to make a regular practice of remembering all that we have at our disposal. To do with the best that we are able. To me, this is the real philosophical stuff of parenting. I am constantly amazed at what opportunities a day with my son offers me. Aside from my own life, he is the best gift that I have ever received.  And to truly receive him is a moment to moment practice.

A funny thing happened when we arrived home. A little squirrel popped out from somewhere as I was unloading the car. I think that she hitched a ride down the hill with us. She’s stuck close by ever since. As I write, she’s having a snack outside my window.

I’ve decided to call her Adele. Somehow I think that she means to stick around a while….

Introducing…Nifty and Thrifty

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This is my ever-growing list of domestic ah-has, tricks for eating healthy with a busy schedule, and increasing my around-the-house efficiency.

Today I bring you my current way to enjoy a quick and nourishing warm breakfast. While my husband is a sweet-in-the-morning kind of guy, I need to start my days with a solid protein-rich foundation. Eggs are my most reliable morning food. I am very happy to be able to get pasture raised eggs from a variety of sources here in the SF bay area. Clearly I wasn’t the only one to read this book a few years back and so now we have a healthy supply of omega-rich eggs here in our little slice of the globe.

If I’m on my game, once a week I prepare a frittata which I then portion out into seven slices. That way all I have to do is pop it in the toaster oven and I’ve got a healthy breakfast all ready to go. Here’s my (very loose) formula. Obviously there are LOTS of frittata recipes out there. It seems silly to go into too much detail given that I’m not an experienced recipe writer.

Whisk together in a mixing bowl:

however many eggs you’ll eat for breakfast in 7 days.

Some other good stuff, for example: salt and pepper, herbs of choice, finely chopped and lightly cooked veggies of any kind (so that they don’t over cook with the baking and reheating but aren’t raw for the eating), milk, plain yogurt, cream, cheese, you get the idea. (This is a great way to use up something that would otherwise go to waste.)

Warm up a big (size depending on how much you’ve got, but it’s best if it has a lid) pan over low heat with some olive oil, butter or your choice of lubricant.

Pour in the mixture, cover, and leave to cook slowly. This may take a while. It’s done when there’s no more liquid. You can turn on your broiler and brown the top. But since you’re going to reheat in the toaster oven, this isn’t really necessary.

Allow to cool completely. Cut into wedges. Put in the fridge.

Now you’ve got a delicious and nutritious breakfast just waiting for you every day.  Isn’t that nice?

frittata