Wednesday, August 25, 2010

My 10 favourite feelings

In no particular order:

The “aha!” moment
When your mind clicks and your heart resonates and you just know something is right, because you can feel it

The elusive, hard to describe soul-filling feeling akin to elation but not that. I myself have experienced it only twice in my life.

Peaceful calm – inner and outer, like when I was at my yoga retreat last year. We were in a beautiful wooden house and the lounge was shaped like a hexagon with windows all around four sides. The house was surrounded by bush with a view of the ocean, with no tv, no radios, no cellphone coverage, so quiet. We meditated a lot. It was bliss.

Wonder and delight at a new human being – watching them see the world for the first time, and finding joy in their experiences.

Laughing with friends at private jokes and secrets that nobody else understands

Feeling special and loved (my mission farewell, I never heard so many nice things about myself in my life).

Falling for someone.

Mass enthusiasm – the high of being surrounded by people who are happy and cheering. I figure being a spectator at a sporting event could be like that, but my most memorable experience of it was at a Tony Robbins conference in Sydney. At the beginning of each session they had dancers and music and do everything they can to get everyone hyped up, moving and feeling good. I’ve never seen or felt anything like it in my life. The excitement was infectious.

Inspiration
When you put pen to paper and feel like what you’re writing is not so much coming from you but through you, like an unseen being from an invisible world is guiding your creation.

Awe
Seeing something greater than myself that evokes humility and admiration.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Unrighteous Dominion

The scriptures tell us that we are both significant and insignificant, made in the image of God, his sons and daughters, while at the same time being lower than the dust of the earth, or even ‘a little lower than the angels.’ So where do we stand really in the scheme of things?

We are made to have dominion over the beasts of the earth. Does this mean that the beasts don’t matter? That they have no feelings and are insentient beings? Does ‘dominion’ mean domination, or something else, more akin to stewardship?

I was reading a magazine article this morning about how animals are more intelligent than we give them credit for – (really? How much credit to people give to animals?) - I thought it sounded really arrogant on the part of humans considering we really can’t see into the mind of animals, we can only guess based on their behaviour.

Apparently a lot of people cite “moral belief” as a major factor in becoming vegetarian, which I would take to mean the belief that its cruel to kill animals. The word of wisdom, depending on how you read the particular verse that relates to meat, either says ‘don’t eat meat except in times of famine,’ or as my friend said to me when we were having an argument about meat, “Read the word of wisdom. Meat is good.”

She wasn't listening to me when I told her about the famine part, then our other friend reminded us that they didn’t have fridges back in the day when the World of Wisdom came out, so they could only eat it in winter when it was cold and wouldn’t go rancid in the sun. She said that since we now have fridges its ok to eat meat all year round.

I can’t claim to be a vegetarian, but I don’t eat meat hardly ever, maybe a couple of times a week. The article talked about this primate, related to an orangutan but I can’t remember the exact name of the species, which can talk using pictures on flash cards. Can even form simple sentences using the words. Uses and understands past and future tenses. Was raised by humans and has used these cards since it was little. Uses the words ‘be’ and ‘happy.’

The “awareness of self” test, where the animal is shown a mirror and they either preen or touch themselves rather than reaching out to the creature in the mirror. Only monkeys, dolphins and elephants passed this test, suggesting that they have a higher level of intelligence than other creatures, such as cats, rats and houseflies.

There has been a lot over the last year or so, about cruelty to animals, inhumane murders of dogs and such and it got me thinking, about the unrighteous dominion exerted by humans over the entire animal kingdom, and whether or not our feelings of superiority over them are justified. I don’t believe it is.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

One of my favourite stories

The Old Fisherman by Mary Bartels
Taken from the Instructor May 1968

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs room to outpatients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking old man. “Why he’s hardly taller than my eight year old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face – lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and theres no bus till morning.” He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. “I guess its my face. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments…”

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me. “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.”

I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch meanwhile, Then I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you. I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take long to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body.

He told me that he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; every other sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.

At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the childrens room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little old man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favour, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have to have a treatment? I won’t put you out a bit – I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.”

I told him he was welcome to come again. And on his next trip a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought us a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so they would be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4am and wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this.

In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery: fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and how little money he had, made the gifts doubly precious.

When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next door neighbour made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away. You can lose roomers by putting up such people.” And maybe we did, once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him, from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers we came to the most beautiful one of all; a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old, dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, if this were my plant I’d put it in the loveliest container I had. My friend changed my mind.

“I ran short of pots,” she explained, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting in this old pail. Its just for a little while, til I can put it out in the garden.” She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the fisherman, “He won’t mind starting in this small body.” “But that’s behind now, long ago, and in Gods garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand!!”

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Maturity

I went to institute last night, where we had a discussion about maturity and immaturity, and the characteristics of each. Stephen Covey talks about dependence, independence, and interdependence as a maturity continuum. Dependance being “you take care of me, you do this for me, I blame you for the results,” namely the way a child behaves towards their parents. Independence is the paradigm of I – I can do it, I am responsible, I can choose. Interdependance is the paradigm of ‘We’, ie we can do it, we can cooperate, we can combine our talents and abilities and create something bigger together.

We didn’t talk about Stephen Covey last night, but we did talk about the two in relation to selfishness and unselfishness. Dishonesty, mocking, not taking responsibility, blame/victimization, judgemental and easily offended on the immature side, and honest, owning up, proactivity, accepting differences, being able to laugh at oneself, giving others the benefit of the doubt on the mature side.

We did a quiz on how we would react in the face of particular circumstances, eg if someone said something offensive, or if we were cut off in traffic, and it occurred to me that I’ve regressed in the last few years. I used to have a much more lenient attitude towards people who annoyed me, especially crazy drivers.

I would suppress my emotional reaction to the situation by discussing possibilities in my head, eg maybe theres an emergency at home and that’s why he forgot to indicate before he swerved into my lane, because he’s busy thinking about what he needs to do once he gets there. Maybe that person just got their restricted, or they’re new to the area and that’s why they were in the wrong lane, coz they don’t know where they’re going and Auckland traffic is confusing anyway.

Lately I just find myself getting annoyed in situations that wouldn’t bother me before, and yelling at people (they can’t hear me of course) and being delighted when people overtake me (while going at the maximum speed limit) and then I come around a corner and see that they’ve had to slow down due to a massive plodding truck. Vengeful and over aggressive. I’ve become much less patient and more apt to judgement and anger, which, while feeling justified, doesn’t really help my outlook on life.

So this is my new goal for the next week. I’m hoping that if I practice it for a while, it will once again become a habit. Everytime I get annoyed at someone, look for a logical madeup or hilarious reason, why they would be doing the thing that they’ve just done. One that paints them in a better light than “what an idiot.”

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Gut Instinct

I've been reading a very intriguing book this week by a french man, Pierre Pallardy about ones abdomen being a vital tool for preventing various health issues, being the "epicentre of life."

Apparently he intuitively suspected what research has now confirmed - there is an independent nerve mass in the gut which helps regulate your system, produces immune cells, molecular neurotransmitters and interstitial cells, just like the upper brain.

He attributes all kinds of ailments back to a malfunctioning abdomen - fatigue, digestive problems, IBS, insomnia, headaches, diabetes and ageing.

A persons two brains need to work in unison, or chaos in the gut and upset in the mind will occur. Theres some sort of interconnectivity between the two, via the vagus nerve, and emotional disrupts can sever the link they have. Which goes a long way to explaining why lots of emotions such as stress and anxiety can be felt first in the gut. A number of health workers have told me that my digestion/liver are not working efficiently, so the book was like a godsend for me.

His recommendations were quite simple, and i'd heard most of them before:
- deep abdominal breathing, getting oxygen into the gut to aerate and massage the intestinal organs
- eating slowly in a peaceful environment
- exercising at a moderate pace to improve the mind-stomach connection
- abdominal massage and locating tension in that area
- being tuned in to your body

A couple of weeks ago my chiropractor told me my vitality was low due to an emotional component (anger and hate). I'm going to try what Pierre says and see if it makes a difference to my current state of wellbeing.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Talking in church

This week I have a speaking assignment at church about the Book of Mormon. I'm the last speaker, which I think means I should write a really long talk and be prepared to cut it into a really short talk, just in case everyone else goes overtime, or someone doesn't show up. Fun fun.

I've never had to give a 20 minute talk on anything, but since I am, I think the BoM is probably the easiest thing to talk about. Sometimes I wonder how I got a testimony growing up in a semiactive semifunctional home. But looking back, I think that the gospel offered me the things I was lacking in my home life - security and a feeling of peace I couldn't find anywhere else.

Even now reading the BoM i still get that feeling of peace and reassurance. My BoM reading has been haphazard at best over the last year or so, and I've noticed a definate decline in my spirituality, which is something that I'd like to rectify. The answer is simple I just need to do it.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

The Strangeness of Dreams

Having weird vivid dreams lately - & some of them feel like deja vu. Last night I dreamed I was on a hiking expedition which headed underground - literally. Through caves, rocks, squeezes, stalagtites & stalagmites, and finally came out through an underground waterfall. Also had the creeped out feeling that someone or something was following us as we travelled.

I've been having lots of dreams lately about the bush - beautiful scenery, I wish I could remember it better. This one recurring place that I've never seen before in my life but i'd like to go there. It has an awesome deep swimming hole, linked to a river heading downstream on one side & a waterfall feeding it on the other. It had a great picnic - meadow on the other side, sloping steeply down into the water. I think in my dream we came across it accidentally while heading somewhere else.

Going to see Inception tomorrow. Maybe thats why my minds been dwelling on dreams.