Calm Space Ambient Music | Cosmic Harmony for Stress Relief, Meditation,...

Spiegel im Spiegel

Sir John Tavener was an English composer born in 1944 who I first heard when his first recording was released on The Beatles Apple label. All of John Tavener's works conveyed a sense of the 'spiritual,' of something divine even though he didn't convert to the Russian Orthodox Church until he was in his early thirties. His composition 'The Protecting Veil' is probably my favourite piece of Taveners for it goes beyond being just Christian embracing a universal sense of peace found only in silence. Composer John Rutter said of Tavener that he had a "very rare gift" which was the ability to bring audiences to a deep silence.

"Go placidly among the noise and haste and remember what peace there is in silence." from Desiderata by Max  Ehrmann. 

Tavener was not alone. He said that he and the Estonian composer, Arvo Part, were kindred spirits. Arvo Part is the worlds most performed classical composer. The above is his work which, like Tavener, draws you into a deep sense of silence but, again like Tavener, Part's music speaks of something beyond words, beyond The Koran or the Upanishads or The Torah or The Bible and I think for very good reasons. Words, mighty than the sword maybe, can only convey a limited understanding of what the writer is trying to say but not so with music which has the ability to lift the spirit, bend the mind to tears or convey that deep-seated sense of being. This piece speaks of 'God' without needing to mention 'God,' it is a universal acclamation of our unity with each other and with all creation or, as Cara would say, our One Love.

Arvo Part was born in 1935. John Tavener died 2013.

Deep Relaxation Ambient Music ~ Space Music ~ Study ~ Sleep ~ Meditation

Calm Space Ambient Music | Cosmic Harmony for Stress Relief, Meditation,...

Meditation

I am going step by step into what is meditation. Please don’t wait till the end, hoping to have a complete description of how to meditate. What we are doing now is part of meditation.

Now, what one has to do is to be aware of the thinker, and not try to resolve the contradiction and bring about an integration between thought and the thinker. The thinker is the psychological entity who has accumulated experience as knowledge; he is the time-bound center that is the result of ever-changing environmental influence, and from this center he looks, he listens, he experiences. As long as one does not understand the structure and the anatomy of this center, there must always be conflict, and a mind in conflict cannot possibly understand the depth and the beauty of meditation.

In meditation there can be no thinker, which means that thought must come to an end—the thought which is urged forward by the desire to achieve a result. Meditation has nothing to do with achieving a result. It is not a matter of breathing in a particular way, or looking at your nose, or awakening the power to perform certain tricks, or any of the rest of that immature nonsense. ... Meditation is not something apart from life. When you are driving a car or sitting in a bus, when you are chatting aimlessly, when you are walking by yourself in a wood or watching a butterfly being carried along by the wind—to be choicelessly aware of all that is part of meditation.

What K is saying here is that when you meditate the 'you' need not think, not to have thoughts but rather to clear the mind, or allow the mind to be clear. To have a mind free of thought so that the mind is silent. K draws us to see that meditation and mindfulness are one and the same thing and by having a silent mind you are not only meditating but mindful, that is aware. You fulfil your oneness with 'God.' iNot the conceptual 'God' but the reality.

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NaHaiWriMo 2018 #8: Monkeying Around + The Fight Against Perfectionism

Notes:

Click the image to enlarge.

"So then I artistically blurred my photo to give a sense of moving back through time."

Nah. I moved my hand while the photo was being taken.

"But why would you want to use a photo like that? Any photographer worth their salt would delete it forthwith!"

I don't really consider myself a photographer. I'm a person who takes pictures because I enjoy it. 

This blurry photo isn't without its merits. It inspired me to create this Haiga of questionable quality.

Nobody is ever going to consider this to be a high-fallutin' work of art to rival the classics. But it is fun, and it illustrates the idea that you can make your mistakes work for you.

I have been battling perfectionism all my life. Embracing my mistakes is helpful for me. Perfectionism is an extremely destructive quality. I would like to share the ways in which it has harmed me from various perspectives.
In this post, I would like to share how physical perfectionism has caused untold harm to me and many others. Some of what I share involves my own perfectionism, and some of it involves the unrealistic standards which society imposes upon people.

On a physical level, we live in a society which demands that Number Twelve Looks Just Like You. We are supposed to aspire to a certain standard of beauty and fitness, and, if we fail to achieve such, we are deemed failures not worthy of even basic decency in the way we are treated by others.
However, rather than inspiring everyone to become super duper supermen and women, this attitude has a tendency to backfire. You end up with people who do not trust doctors because doctors continually shame them for their physical appearance or failure to be compliant with regimens that it may be impossible or intolerable for them.
So, instead of engaging in a program of regular visits to the doctor for preventative care and maintenance of chronic health issues, people avoid going to the doctor until they experience a critical problem. This helps no-one.
When my current doctor addressed my slightly elevated triglycerides (a common issue for diabetics) with "have you been indulging in treats?" I snapped. I said "I make twelve thousand dollars a year and generally eat only one or two meals a day. I eat what I can afford to purchase. I do not 'indulge.'"
In spite of the fact that this doctor is by far the most effective doctor that I have ever seen, I am considering going back to the guy who was burned out and had no fucks to give, because my current doctor has given me ample reason to mistrust her. The 'indulging in treats' bit is mere sprinkles on the body-shaming cake.
This doctor presented herself as offering a 'safe space' for larger people, and, during my first visit, appeared to live up to her promise. Thereafter, she suggested weight loss surgery and blamed my abnormal endometrial thickening on "obesity."
If you want your larger patients to believe for a second that you have any respect for them, you need to ditch the "o" word. "Obesity" is "other." "Obesity" is a pariah. "Obesity" is shit. "Obesity" is always said with a sanctimonious sneer. If you use that word, I do not trust you.
Abnormal endometrial thickening is correlated with a larger body type, but correlation is not causation. It is also correlated with being over fifty (guess I need to step into an age-regression machine), white (guess I'd better start tanning), and diabetic.
A larger body type is also correlated with type 2 diabetes. Again, correlation is not causation. I am inclined to think that abnormal pancreatic function is a strong contributing factor in both the tendency to gain weight and the endometrial hyperplasia. There may be a third factor which causes all of my endocrine issues. A heavy body type is correlated with endocrine issues, but it did not cause these issues. In fact, the reverse is true. None of my endocrine system works properly. It would be highly unlikely for me to have a thin body unless I were to become deathly ill, regardless of how little I eat or how much I exercise.
So, having a bench in your waiting room rather than just chairs with arms does not constitute offering a "safe space" for people of all sizes. I don't trust you, and that makes for an ineffective doctor/patient relationship, regardless of your ability to diagnose and possibly treat health problems.
People are not inclined to take care of things they hate, and that includes their bodies. While cleaning out my storage unit, I found numerous artifacts from the many years I spent trying to hate myself thin. Looking over the awful things I wrote about myself, thinking about all the money I spent playing a game that almost nobody wins, realizing that I caused wear and tear to my body equivalent to the harm done to it by the many years I spent working long hours at physically punishing jobs, thinking back on the times when I was sometimes spending five hours at the gym when I should have been spending that time with my son, I became extremely depressed.
To top it all off, none of this shit brought me to the goal of Magical Thinness, which would have won me the Handsome Prince with the Exactly Correct Body Fat Percentage, a billion dollars for every pound I lost during my incredibly successful "weight loss journey," fame and adoration of the masses, or anything but a far thinner wallet and a soul filled with self-loathing.
Thinspo is crap. Fitspo is crap. Dieting is crap. It's all harmful. None of it will bring you happiness, and it won't even bring you health. It will bring you self-loathing and turn you into an awful person that nobody likes.

Dieting is not about health. It is about perfectionism. The pressure to be perfect is purely for profit. Stop paying into a system that doesn't give a damn about you and thrives on your failure.

"In the long term, dieting is a spectacular waste of time for everyone except statistical unicorns." --Louise Adams

~Cie~

What Does It Mean To Live in the Now?

I understand perfectly what is meant by living in the now but fail, I think, to express properly what it means and why I practise it. When I tried explaining what it means and why I do it I find myself, especially when feeling, even if I'm not, as though I am being confronted.

This from Psychology Today, a site anyone can visit which has no agenda apart from the health of the mind and certainly no allegiance to any religion, faith or philosophy. 

"Life unfolds in the present. But so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized, and squandering the precious seconds of our lives as we worry about the future and ruminate about what's past."

This from the Huffington Post. "When we’re not being mindful, life moves by in the blink of an eye. Tendencies to overstuff our schedules, to stay plugged in as slaves to technology all hours of the day, and to constantly strive for more can and will rob us of our precious presence. We’ve glorified busy and achievement. It’s our culture. And, as a result, people, overall, actually feel less happy and connected than ever. (Just look at stats on depression, anxiety, and stress-related illnesses."

I think the best way I can explain it, why I practise living in the now or the present moment is how Alan Watts described it. Imagine you are on a boat far out at sea. There is no land in sight and behind you is the wake created by the boat's passage. The further you travel the more the wake fades. This illustrates how the past, a period we can learn from adding whatever happened to our life's experiences but slowly the wake (the past) fades. I lost my father thirty years ago. I still love him but the pain of losing him is diminishing. As life goes on so the past pales.

Still on the boat, as it plows its way over the ocean of life there is no sign of land. The future has not happened and can never happen by thinking of it. When it arrives it is today, the now, the present.

Now, this doesn't mean you can't prepare. I regularly prepare by purchasing glucose drinks to ensure never being caught low in sugar when out walking. It doesn't mean you shouldn't save for the next holiday, pre-book it even nor should you not prepare in advance for the family members birthday or your anniversary. What living in the now means is not living in the past or future. Not constantly re-living a conversation or argument you had, not constantly thinking how life will be better when the future arrives. The future never arrives it is always the present.

This from Psychology Today...

"The excitement of awaiting something out of the ordinary or special is easily understood, but by focusing so heavily on what’s to come, you miss out on what’s in front of you. And for something big that’s approaching, this usually means that you wish away the present time rather than savoring the excitement leading up to the big event. Then, before you know it, the trip has arrived, you have the experience, and then it ends and is in the past. By being present in the moment (and savoring the time leading up), you obtain a higher level of satisfaction, allow yourself to have a better experience, and feel more fulfilled as the event has not come and gone as quickly."

This from Exploring Your Mind regarding the past...

"Something that only exists in our imagination cannot be changed. You cannot act on it and so to  undertake actions now to modify past situations does not make much sense."

This from psychologists at Harvard University...

"Human beings have this unique ability to focus on things that aren't happening right now. That allows them to reflect on the past and learn from it; it allows them to anticipate and plan for the future; and it allows them to imagine things that might never occur," said Matthew Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology and lead author of the study. "At the same time, it seems that human beings often use this ability in ways that are not productive and furthermore can be destructive to our happiness," he added.

From my experience this is true. I am less happy when using Facebook or when thinking of what might be if only than I do by being present. The present moment, the now is for me vital for my mental well being.