Silence outside, chaos inside...

I've been round and round with a million different ideas in my head, ways to begin expressing the perspective and understanding that's been coming. Where to begin? Who's going to hear it first: the golfer, the runner, the weekend warrior with a bad back, or maybe the massage therapists, or holistic health practitioners. Or law enforcement. Or business. Or Universities. Or the retiree with too many years of compensating for the dings and dents of a life lived well.

Different contexts, different messages; and yet it's all the same story.

Bottom line: I see things. No, not ghosts or spirits, anything like that. I see what people are missing, what they need to be whole, to be re-membered. Almost always, it's missing context. A lost sense of where gravity really travels through the body, over-focusing on building strength without learning how to move, trying to fix chemistry without a structure that can maintain it. It's a long list.

Our culture has mastered isolation and refinement of knowledge until it is nearly meaningless to everyday life. We know so much about so much, and yet live as if it wasn't there..... Nutrition, Psychology, Physics... Does knowing what a healthy diet is, modify your behavior? Not usually. It's a very rare person that moves as if physics really applied to their body.

It's not the information, it's how we go about thinking, or moving; how we interact with our environment. We don't realize what the whole picture looks like. With the right context, we can take information and recognize its functional or instrumental value: what does this mean to me, standing here, this moment? We can bring it inside so that it becomes a living part of us, something that informs our experience continuously.

Seeing context clearly also resolves many clashes between differing perspectives: alternative and allopathic medicine, different religious systems, schools of scientific thought.

There's this theory and that theory, and then there's how the critter works.

                                       --Deane Juhan

We're all looking at similar pictures; what lenses (or blinders) do we use to filter our perception? (And yes, the nervous system does a lot of filtering all the time.) Looking at a common focal point from different angles can help us see our subject, and each other's perspective more clearly. Learning directly from another's perspective, or a tug of war over whose language is "better"?

The best part? Everything's got context. Can't get away from it. What I'm talking about here, it doesn't compete or override anything. It sees how they fit, how they inform each other, and us, of the larger picture.

Informing is not the same as delivering information. Inform is derived from the verb to form. When you inform me, you form me. You enlarge that which makes me most human: what I know. I am, to some degree, authored by you.

                                        --Doc Searls

Anyway, that seems to be my strength: to see this and that and the other, how they relate and show us something about the world, about living.

My goal: to express this, to share this with the world (yes, as much of it as I can!)

Who should I be talking to?

I'll be out of the office until June 9th, having some fun with this guy. I'll be away from email and phone, so I'll catch up when I get back. Thanks!

I'm doing an intro class over at Aikido of Maine. We'll cover basic principles, conditioning, and go into some foundation drills. Systema is an amazing exploration, and system of movement. Come join us!

May 14th at 7pm

aikido students:free, others:$10

Hello everyone!

It's been quiet on the outside, but very busy backstage here. The next few weeks will see a bunch of new projects and ideas getting out there for you to see. My friend and client Dr. Kevin Ross-Emery has a new podcast site: Web of Light. I've been spending quite a bit of time over there lately, doing some very fun interviews. We get into rolfing, systema, and a bit about body and spirit. Go check it out!

For those in the area, make some time saturday to come by and see what's new! The day starts with Navigating Alternative Health, a look at how to: make the best use of the information that's out there, and make good choices in practitioners and types of work for your individual situation and constitution. After that, I'll spend some time meeting, greeting and demoing some of the things we do here at the Open House. The day ends with an Introduction to Russian Martial Art. All levels of ability and experience welcome. If you're not nearby, look for some of the material to come your way in other forms soon. Look forward to seeing you!