Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

YOGA Inspirationals, 25th Installment, based on ritual studies, “Three Steps to a Yogi’s Transformation.”

inspiration

July 20, 2015 DoYouYoga.com/the-three-stages-of-a-yogis-transformation-59820-97291/

July 2, 2015 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/peace-just-a-pause-now-accepting-practice-yoga

June 20, 2015  elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/relinquishment-how-a-trip-to-India-can-redefine-our-lives

June 12, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/why-bad-prayers-are-good-prayers/


June 5, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul

2015 Yogi Timeshttp://www.yogitimes.com/article/yoga-covenant-agreement-vow-commitment

Marach 2015 elephant journalhttp://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/03/how-yoga-makes-us-kinder/


February 21, 2015 DoYouYoga.comhttp://www.doyouyoga.com/why-yoga-should-bring-us-to-social-action/


February 15, 2015 Yogi Timeshttp://www.yogitimes.com/article/who-moved-the-yoga-mat-practice


January 6, 2014 DoYouYoga.comhttp://www.doyouyoga.com/4-reasons-teachers-should-use-touch-in-yoga/
December 27, 2014 elephant journalhttp://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/the-yoga-pose-that-healed-my-lower-back-injuries/

December 11, 2014 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/story-of-yoga-poem-parable/


November 24, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/favorite-quote-practice/


November 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/mantra-the-power-of-word/October 22, 2014

 

The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/doing-yoga-30-years-now/

 

October 16, 2014  elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/10/ego-injury-10-questions-for-yoginis/

 

October 2, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/find-silence-yoga-practice/

 

Sept. 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/how-yoga-moves-from-it-to-it/

 

Sept. 17, 2014  elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/09/mapping-yogas-breathcentric-diamond-body-gregory-ormson/

 

Aug. 15, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/take-inventory-yoga-yoga-like-aa/

 

Aug. 2, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/08/the-savasana-cloud-gregory-ormson/

 

July1, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/07/the-importance-of-living-in-alignment-gregory-ormson/

 

March 12, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/yogas-hidden-benefit-unconscious-mind/

 

Feb. 3, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/365-days-yoga-completely-changed-life/… read more...

Yoga Inspirationals #24 Peace a Pause Away

24th Installment Yoga Inspirationals.  July 2, 2015  

Peace just a pause away. July 2, 2015 

http://www.yogitimes.com/article/peace-just-a-pause-present-now-accepting-practice-yoga

With thanks to the following, where these articles first appeared:

TheYogaBlog.com, elephant journal.com, DoYouYoga.com, and YogiTimes.com

June 12, 2015 http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/relinquishment-how-a-trip-to-india-can-redefine-our-lives/

June 5, 2015http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/why-bad-prayers-are-good-prayers/

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul/

April 12, 2015 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/yoga-covenant-agreement-vow-commitment

 

March 11, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/03/how-yoga-makes-us-kinder/

 

February 21, 2015 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/why-yoga-should-bring-us-to-social-action/

February 15, 2015 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/who-moved-the-yoga-mat-practice


January 6, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/4-reasons-teachers-should-use-touch-in-yoga/

December 27, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/the-yoga-pose-that-healed-my-lower-back-injuries/

 

December 11, 2014 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/story-of-yoga-poem-parable/

November 24, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/favorite-quote-practice/

November 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/mantra-the-power-of-word/

October 22, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/doing-yoga-30-years-now/
October 16, 2014  elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/10/ego-injury-10-questions-for-yoginis/
October 2, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/find-silence-yoga-practice/
Sept. 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/how-yoga-moves-from-it-to-it/
Sept. 17, 2014  elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/09/mapping-yogas-breathcentric-diamond-body-gregory-ormson/
Aug. 15, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/take-inventory-yoga-yoga-like-aa/
Aug. 2, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/08/the-savasana-cloud-gregory-ormson/
July1, 2014 elephant journal  http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/07/the-importance-of-living-in-alignment-gregory-ormson/
April 5, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/reality-check-yoga-teachers/
March 12, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/yogas-hidden-benefit-unconscious-mind/
Feb. 3, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/365-days-yoga-completely-changed-life/
… read more...

Yoga and the Place of Soul. Yoga Inspirationals #21

Published June 5, elephant journal. Link below.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul/

Yoga and the Place of Soul.
Via Gregory Ormson Jun 5, 2015

On a recent trip out of state, I attended yoga class seven days in a row with no duplicate sessions. Some featured music, some included chanting near the end and some used scented oil.

I was surprised that being in an unfamiliar place and experiencing new forms of practice created an opening within me that I hadn’t previously experienced. In one situation, during a slow-moving class, I was connecting in a new way. Afterward, I realized that is what yoga was made for: to tune into a deeper and more authentic self.

I think I briefly touched what I can only describe as my soul. The music, scented oils, meditations, slow movements, breath work, chanting and bell-ringing were new vehicles that helped me find previously untraveled roads. In those few moments, a fresh mantra came to me, which I now use in meditation. It’s a spiritual mantra, helping me focus on being a better person and presence in the world, both to myself and others.

B.K.S. Iyengar also wrote about how yoga goes beyond mere physical practice: “My own body was the laboratory in which I saw the health benefits of yoga, but I could already see that yoga would have as many benefits for my head and heart as it did for my body.”

I’ve had more than my share of spiritual experiences, including spiritually focused sweat lodges, Andean mountainside pyramid building and centering rituals, Indian prayers and meditations at the Gandhi Center in New Delhi, Gestalt doctoral-level group practicums centering on spirituality and psychodrama, spiritual retreats, peace center events, drum circles, church choral gatherings, 14 years working as clergy developing and leading a variety of rituals, and even an encounter with a shapeshifter in India.… read more...

Midwest

My arm was sore, but over and over I pulled the rope. The Evinrude sputtered and coughed. After a few minutes, it kicked into idle and spewed out blue clouds of exhaust near the water. The old boat motor had an ornery sound, like the voice of someone when their car doesn’t start in winter.

Finally, I rested and caught my breath while the engine warmed. I carefully cut back the motor’s choke, hoping it wouldn’t stall. After a minute, I reached down and pulled forward and into gear a small lever sticking out from the upper left portion of the propeller stem. I motored around the the 3.2 miles of shoreline on Big Casey Lake turning the rubber handle clockwise with my left hand on the steering lever, then cut the engine near the lily pads on the south shore not far from the Bald Eagles nesting in a tall jack pine.

I’m starting an old motor and riding around the lake in a metal boat in order to engage with the concrete and physical, to balance my life of academic work: teaching, grading, writing and going to meetings. That’s why a manual-start motor is the perfect remedy. It starts not with a button, but only by work of arm and hand, shoulder and elbow, and it reminds me of a time when life had more physical work and less mental clutter.

I go to the Old Style Place for exactly that… less clutter. In the cabin’s main room, there are three chairs, one kitchen table, one small metal stand for a toaster, one wooden seating bench, a few magazines and a radio — radio with a cassette player — and a small box near the wood stove filled with kindling.… read more...

No Stinkin’ Electric Starters Here

My arm was sore, but over and over I pulled the rope. The Evinrude sputtered and  coughed. After a few minutes, it kicked into idle and spewed out blue clouds of exhaust near the water. The old boat motor had an ornery sound, like the voice of someone when their car doesn’t start in winter.

Finally, I rested and caught my breath while the engine warmed. I carefully cut back the motor’s choke, hoping it wouldn’t stall. After a minute, I reached down and pulled forward and into gear a small lever sticking out from the upper left portion of the propeller stem. I motored around the the 3.2 miles of shoreline on Big Casey Lake turning the rubber handle clockwise with my left hand on the steering lever, then cut the engine near the lily pads on the south shore not far from the Bald Eagles nesting in a tall jack pine.

I’m starting an old motor and riding around the lake in a metal boat in order to engage with the concrete and physical, to balance my life of academic work: teaching, grading, writing and going to meetings. That’s why a manual-start motor is the perfect remedy. It starts not with a button, but only by work of arm and hand, shoulder and elbow, and it reminds me of a time when life had more physical work and less mental clutter.

I go to the Old Style Place for exactly that… less clutter.  In the cabin’s main room, there are three chairs, one kitchen table, one small metal stand for a toaster, one wooden seating bench, a few magazines and a radio — radio with a cassette player —  and a small box near the wood stove filled with kindling.… read more...

Midwest – from the Old Style Place. Cabin Writing

Notes from The Old Style Place                                            

Everything at The Old Style Place
remains upright, anchored in stubbornness. Its steadfast preachment to tenacity
has denied gravity its victory. This stubbornness was earned by hammer and saw,
shovel and plane, elements of willful ambition. Having endured tornado-force
winds, the yearly push and pull of cold and hot, nearby forest-fires and
electrical wiring that’s older than the oldest goat, somehow it’s still
standing.
It’s also resisted
“updates.” There is no indoor plumbing or bathroom. To leave it all
behind, I walk outside to a small outdoor toilet where I encroach upon the
world of bugs.
Spider webs hang over the
doorframe. On a narrow window sill facing north, dead flies pile up forming a
grizzly pyramid to mortality.
First built in 1945 as a simple
framed hunting cabin, it remains a testament to quality. The two by four framing
boards really are 2 x 4, not the cheap sticks sold now that have been shaved
over time until what we call 2 x 4 is really more like 1 5/8 x 3 5/8.
Here, work finds me and tattoos
its truth upon my bones, and I unmask the lessons to absorb what I need to
learn. I sit at the metal table in the cabin’s main room and I’m reminded of
the hours my brothers and I sat here. We argued and competed. I cheated by
moving game pieces or hiding cards.
For hours,  we challenged one another in Stratego, Clue,
Battleship, Five Straight, Password or Jeopardy.
… read more...

Midwest BLOOD TRACKS

I’ve been traveling for two days and I’m tired of being treated like a number. I’m finally at my destination, a cabin in northern Wisconsin. I’ve come a long way to be here, and I know my journey from Hawaii was worth it.

Opening the door, I grope to find a light switch. In a few moments, I’m listening to the crackle of a wood fire in the stove. A sustained loon wail rises from the lake. Mystical and high-pitched, it’s a sound that could be interpreted as pain.

The loon speaks in four calls: wail, yodel, tremolo and hoot. Tonight they wail. But the loon’s elegy is music to me. They’ve recently flown back from the Gulf of Mexico, a nearly 3,000 mile journey. Their call in the dark is half mariachi. It’s an eerie sound over water, something like mourning and something like a high note from a Mexican trumpet.

The Ojibwa of this area once spoke of the loon as mang, which meant, “the most handsome of birds.” It’s also the most ancient of birds, existing long before humans. North American field guides list the loon first.

The wail keeps echoing over Big Casey Lake and it’s loud, much louder than summer calls when leafy trees mute the decibels and their haunting. The loon sound abates; I step outside to see new snow. I haven’t formed a snowball in years, so I make one about the size of a baseball and fire it at a tree.

I miss wide right, and it surprises me. My right arm has grown stubborn, like everything here.… read more...

Midwest Old Style Place (Am Writing)

I tune to WOJB for an in-breaking from another world. The indigenous
people speak in even tones, softly on the microphone, nearly a chant. Their
idiom camouflages a humor I sometimes get. 

Dead air, then a night-time jock speaks with refreshing lack of pretense, clear and simple. She says, “Good evening everyone. It’s Tuesday and I hope you’re having a good night. It’s Tuesday isn’t it? Wait a minute, let me check…. Oh, it’s Thursday. Ok then, I hope you’re having a good Thursday.”


I’m here to listen and to put my hands on all the stubborn things: the old Evinrude motor, the long-handled red pump, the Dixie stove, the Gibson refrigerator, the cast iron frying pans and then fish filet knives. “


I lift the pan and feel its weight, I
swing the knife from side to side
and feel its balance. I smell
leather casing for the J. Marttini
Rapala filet knife; I will test the
blade against a hair on my
forearm. Is it sharp enough to
slice arm hair? If not, I will whet the sharpening stone and slide that knife in one direction, over and over, making an arc like a roller coaster. The Rapala will resist at first, but metal will yield and raise its edge.

WOJB turns its broadcast menu to music with Mountain Stage, and I love the songs. I wait for the next program and the dry unmistakable voice of
Garrison Keillor as he spins tales of life on The Prairie Home Companion.  I listen for his opening line, “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Woebegon.”


He speaks of Norwegians in a cold land, sharpened
by hard work and manners.

… read more...

Yoga “O Rings”: 21st Installment Yoga Inspirationals.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul/

                 Yoga and the Place of Soul
On a recent trip out of state, I attended yoga class
seven days in a row with no duplicate sessions.  Some featured music and some didn’t, some
included chanting near the end and some didn’t, some used scented oil and some
didn’t. I was surprised that being in an unfamiliar place and experiencing new
forms of practice created an opening within me that I had not previously
experienced.  In one situation, during a
slow-moving class, I was connecting in a new way. Afterwards, I realized that
is what yoga was made for, to tune into a deeper and more authentic self.
I think I briefly touched what I can only describe
as my soul. The music, scented oils, meditations, slow movement, breath work,
chanting and bell-ringing were new vehicles that helped me find previously
untraveled roads. In those few moments, a fresh mantra came to me and I now use
it in meditation.  It’s a spiritual
mantra, helping me focus on being a better person and presence in the world, both
to myself and others.
B.K.S. Iyengar wrote about how yoga went beyond mere
physical practice too, “My own body was the laboratory, in which I saw the
health benefits of yoga, but I could already see that yoga would have as many
benefits for my head and heart as it did for my body.”
I’ve had more than my share of spiritual experiences,
including spiritually focused sweat lodges, Andean mountain-side pyramid
building and centering rituals, Indian prayers and meditations at the Gandhi
Center in New Delhi, Gestalt doctoral level group practicums centering on
spirituality and psychodrama, spiritual retreats, peace center events, drum
circles, church choral gatherings, 14-years working as clergy developing and
leading a variety of rituals, and once an encounter with a shape shifter in
India.
… read more...

Midwest

Paging through the album, I stop at a photo of a dark-haired, bespectacled 50-year old
wearing an orange hat and brown flannel shirt, suspenders resting off his
shoulders and to the side. His blaze-orange pants are unbuttoned at the waist
and stained with blood.

He stands with two other hunters and they smile in front of
three deer hanging from a tall oak tree, brown leaves covering their November
hunting ground. Deer tongues are sticking out and their necks are stretched
upward like a branch. His trophy 8-pointer hangs by a rope tied over the
antlers. I walk to that tree and remember, dare I say portal those soggy boots,
that unshaven chin, that stern visage, that wry smile.  
… read more...

Midwest (Old Style Place)

But this message reverberates in the fabric of the
pine-wood cabin. It’s the soul inhabiting each inch on the property. Feeding
off stubbornness alone, The Old Style place continues to stand against the
encroachment of modernity and change. Its motto could be, “Fight Gravity.”
… read more...

Midwest This is how Illusion Works (Bear in the woods of Wisconsin)

Up here, a bear comes and goes as it will, so even a faint resemblance near the woodpile can trick one into thinking its real. My parent’s scare tactics worked, and the wooden carving of a black bear head tricked my brothers too because the chance of actually seeing a bear was lodged in the back of our minds. This is how illusion works: You believe through suggestion that you see what you don’t see but believe you have seen.

That bear was here. It walked past the pump next to the front door, and a photo proves it. Its tacked on the old Gibson
refrigerator with a sales magnet that says, “Patty Berkes, Edina Realty.” The Realtor’s photo on the card expresses dreams people have for lake front property
in the north woods: foreground birch trees and a winding trail with tall grass
leading to a log cabin, its dark wood corners joined in dovetail notches. This isn’t Edina, but the brokers are
here and they’re busy selling a dream. 

This is how illusion works (Bear in the woods)… read more...

Yoga 20th Installment Yoga Inspirationals.

21st installment YOGA INSPIRATIONALS

Yoga and the Place of Soul, elephant journal June 5, 2015
Below are the online links covering yoga and:

Rabbit pose at Bikram Yoga in Kona, Hawai, photo by Yolanda used with permission

Inner truth
Appolonian Alignment
The Big Ease
The Teaching Yoke
Unconscious Impact
The Savasana Cloud
Breath and The Diamondbody
The Deep Silent
Ego & Injury
Yoga and Your Healthy Future
Mantra/Power of Word
A Yoga Parable
I-IT
Who Moved the Yoga Mat?
Adopting a Rabbit (for back pain)
Yoga’s Touchy Subject …Touching
Becoming Your Own Inspirational Quote
Social Responsibility: I Am My Brother’s Keeper
The Yoga Community and Bad Behavior
Yoga’s Covenant: The Bendable Arc of Change
Yoga and the Place of Soul

With thanks to: The Yoga Blog, elephant journal, DoYouYoga.com, and Yogi 


June 5, 2015 elephant journal

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul/

April 12, 2015 Yogi Times
http://www.yogitimes.com/article/yoga-covenant-agreement-vow-commitment

March 11, 2015 elephant journal
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/03/how-yoga-makes-us-kinder/

February 21, 2015 DoYouYoga.com
http://www.doyouyoga.com/why-yoga-should-bring-us-to-social-action/

February 15, 2015 Yogi Times
http://www.yogitimes.com/article/who-moved-the-yoga-mat-practice

January 6, 2014 DoYouYoga.com
http://www.doyouyoga.com/4-reasons-teachers-should-use-touch-in-yoga/

December 27, 2014 elephant journal
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/the-yoga-pose-that-healed-my-lower-back-injuries/

December 11, 2014 Yogi Times
http://www.yogitimes.com/article/story-of-yoga-poem-parable/

November 24, 2014 The Yoga Blog
http://www.theyogablog.com/favorite-quote-practice/

November 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com
http://www.doyouyoga.com/mantra-the-power-of-word/

October 22, 2014 The Yoga Blog
http://www.theyogablog.com/doing-yoga-30-years-now/

October 16, 2014  elephant journal
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/10/ego-injury-10-questions-for-yoginis/

October 2, 2014 The Yoga Blog
http://www.theyogablog.com/find-silence-yoga-practice/

Sept. 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com
http://www.doyouyoga.com/how-yoga-moves-from-it-to-it/
Sept. 17, 2014  elephant journal
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/09/mapping-yogas-breathcentric-diamond-body-gregory-ormson/

Aug. 15, 2014 The Yoga Blog
http://www.theyogablog.com/take-inventory-yoga-yoga-like-aa/
Aug. 2, 2014 elephant journal
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/08/the-savasana-cloud-gregory-ormson/
July1, 2014 elephant journal 
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/07/the-importance-of-living-in-alignment-gregory-ormson/

April 5, 2014 The Yoga Blog
http://www.theyogablog.com/reality-check-yoga-teachers/


March 12, 2014 The Yoga Blog
http://www.theyogablog.com/yogas-hidden-benefit-unconscious-mind/
Feb. 3, 2014 The Yoga Blog
http://www.theyogablog.com/365-days-yoga-completely-changed-life/
… read more...

Arc of the Covenant: The Promise of Yoga

If one strikes a covenant with yoga, they do not inherit guarantees and neither are there predictable outcomes; but a time-tested truth demonstrates if the yogi bears their weight of the oath, the yield will be rich. Yoga will always do its share in this bendable arc of change.… read more...

Midwest Guns R U.S. who is the boy inside the man holding the gun

Article published today by The Good Men Project.

GUNS R U.S.

The good men project focuses on issues relevant to men and boys, helping them to be more aware of both their power for bad and good. It’s also a support site with advice for men, offering encouragement to boys and tips for everyone on the power of mentoring and mutual support. Check it out at The Good Men Project either on Facebook or on their Website.

My article might be called brief Social commentary on guns and the American fascination with them. Brief article includes reflections on hunting, guilt and fascination with guns, the mesmerizing power of a trigger, and the gun’s mystical draw, its polarizing reality. Link below and thanks for reading and passing along.

My son with the .16 guage Mossberg bold-action shotgun, the subject of this article.

guns r us 001… read more...

YOGA AND SOCIAL INTEGRITY: I Am My Brother’s Keeper

Our yoga teacher told us to gaze at the edge of our towels as if they were the most beautiful things we’d ever seen. I did. It was. That edge was beautiful because it took us away, in that moment, from everything.

For centuries, the practical core of yoga’s wisdom has been relinquishment, and on this foundation many have found peace. We are capable of peace, especially when we can shut down anxiety and worry, but Western practitioners struggle with a void. We need a focus and that’s the beauty of softly gazing at a towel in meditation.

It’s tempting to find a comfortable meditative cocoon in yoga, and once there, ignore social problems. One ne just criticism of yoga has been its escapist tendencies. And it’s true that the reality of crime and bad intent is not welcome in a meditative cocoon.

Truth and Yoga

But social problems and the world’s bitterness exist. Writer Aimee Lin’s words, diagnosing the human condition, are honest and wise, “Truth contains beauty, balance, empathy, mercy, love and insight, but also horror, brutality, and desperate need.”

Getting away from the world and its ‘desperate need’ during yoga, and seeing the edge of a towel as a beautiful thing, is something I look forward to. It’s a good way to recharge my spirit and optimism.

I’m not alone in my wish to be hopeful, to find the beautiful, and to invest in better ways of living. This is illustrated by more people taking responsibility to tend to their own health and growth through new modes of self-care and positive thought: acupuncture, natural medicine, organic food, yoga, self-generated health investments, life-coaching movements are growing.… read more...

O Rings Teaching How to Catch

Teaching is talking and showing. A teacher can’t be stingy. Teachers share their energy by demonstrating, illustrating, explaining and giving examples.

A teacher invests, gives something of him or herself, and a good teacher is aware of pacing as they give  … stopping frequently to listen. Did this sink in? I just wrote … stopping frequently to listen.

It’s a silly pet peeve of mine, really. And I suppose if anyone really wanted to annoy me they would, at my final resting, throw a football back and forth while dropping it on purpose. If I am watching you from the great beyond,  I’ll be saying, Dammit… don’t reach for the ball, touch and cradle.

That’s my saying as a catching coach, touch and cradle.

Touch and cradle arises from years of playing ball and watching people throw to one another. What I’ve noticed is catching technique. People, when you are getting ready to catch something like a ball, don’t lunge, or reach out for it. You let it come to you.

In the act of catching, it’s okay to extend your arm(s), but not very far. Let the ball make contact with your hands (touch) then cradle it softly into into your arms. Once the ball is in your hands and arms then bring it in to your body. The movement of both your arms and ball are coming into your body as you catch.

This is a weird post I suppose, but I write this after I watched people throw and catch at the beach. I watched what appeared to be a family of two adults and two children.… read more...

MUSIC It’s an Endless Summer on the Dance-Floor

[contact-form][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Website’ type=’url’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form] The Endless Summer band-members grew up with vinyl. They remember hits of the 60’s though 90’s and they rock them. “I guess you could best categorize our music as Beatles to Doobies,” said Kurt Jarvis, lead guitarist and band leader.

Going to an Endless Summer show, listeners will hear some bluegrass and country with the band’s rock staple, and an occasional surprise like “Sweet City Woman,” with Jarvis on banjo. “Our music is an eclectic mix of recognizable songs and dance tunes,” he said.

Other numbers that show the band’s appeal are called “medium paced rockers,” by Jarvis. These are former hits like, “Why Can’t We be Friends,” by War; “Hummingbird,” by Seals and Crofts, and “Draggin’ the Line,” by Tommy James.

“We don’t do any Reggae because there are a lot of other bands here that do a good job with that and it’s just not part of our background,” Jarvis said.

Endless Summer formed in Kona when Jarvis’ friend from Oregon, Russ Kendall, moved to Ocean View in 2012. “We had played together in 1974,” Jarvis said, “and when Russ arrived in Hawaii, we started amassing equipment. My wife, Serena (Jarvis) started singing with us a couple years ago, and then we all decided to be a band,” he said.

Two years later, they are a band and their name, Endless Summer, captures the essence of what they want audiences to experience when they play. Jarvis said he would be happy if audience members came to their show and said, “Wow, those guys are having a lot of fun up there, let’s do it too.”… read more...

Writing My letter to Philene, published today by Cutbank online. Thank you Cutbank.

LONG WAY FROM, LONG TIME SINCE: Letter to an Admirer of Whitman

Long Way From, Long Time Since features letters written from writers, to writers, living or dead. Send us your queries and inquiries, your best wishes and arguments, and help us explore correspondence as a creative form. For letter submission guidelines, visit cutbankonline.org/submit/web. To submit to our print edition, please see cutbankonline.org/submit/print or email cutbankonline@gmail.com.
George_C._Cox_-_Walt_Whitman_-_Google_Art_Project
Dear Philene –
I never did answer the question you asked in New Delhi. You probably forgot about it when we ran from the police station after they tried extorting me for reporting the pick-pocket. But your request has haunted me, “Tell me more about Whitman’s genius.” Volumes have been written about Walt and my letter, sketched on this train to Agra, may not give you what you want to know but I’ll try.
I’d say, he knew how to pause, how to observe, how to synthesize his deft observations into a written micro view for an intuited macro view. To use the description of Wordsworth on what poets do, “write strong feelings recollected in tranquility.”
This required a piece of his soul, less dramatically, a primary ability to feel something. My professor once said that most of his counseling clients fell asleep telling their own story. They couldn’t feel anything about their own lives, let alone anyone or anything else.
I mourn that inability in an emotionally blunted American culture. Perhaps it’s different in Holland. Empathy and the ability to feel is important not just for a poet, but for a person. I read that some communication scholars believe empathy is the most important communication skill.
… read more...

Writing A Writer’s – to be – List

1.Write.  
Revise, annotate, punctuate the negative, put
it down, parenthesize it. Change the script, compose a new story, create a
path, follow the crumbs, depict a new vision.
Trace the arc, endorse the
light, follow energy, create curiosity, register my stamp. Trust the way, chart
a new course, chronicle another title, engrave my name upon it.
Autograph my
correspondence, dream and draw-up revelation. Deliver my rap, savage the
critic, curse the blow-hard, kill the perfectionist.
Cherish my cloud, bless my
colleagues, enroll my allies, edit all lists, extract all good.
Publish my creed, remember
and advocate, strip away adiaphora. Sing a new song, exalt all heroes.
Chose to do, walk in sure
steps, chose to be, hold my own. Honor each word, speak my truth, love
creation, write my project, and accept what appears.
Repeat.

… read more...

Thoughts on completing a 200th session of Bikram yoga in Hawaii.

           June 8, 2014

      

       In
Heated Ardor

Mircea
Eliade in YOGA: Immortality and Freedom,
writes that the Indians, in the Rg-Veda, called the practice of using heat and
ardor in ascetic effort a tapas. He
also described how North American Medicine Men effectively used heat in Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstacy,
his authoritative tome published in 1951.
To
me, the tapas is found not in the
company of shamans or Vedic volumes, but in my flesh and sweat practice of
disciplined asana. I’ve wrestled this
fire 300-hours over the past 17 months. In doing so, I’ve perspired gallons of
sweat. No, seriously, I’ve perspired gallons of sweat.
I’ve
strengthened my will, endured physical distress and slowly leaned into ease and relinquishment. I’ve sharpened my focus, strengthened my spine,
refined my habits, softened my step and clarified my boundaries.
I’ve
noticed others too. How can you not notice others? I’ve honored my classmates’
struggle, and I feel privileged to witness their resolve. I respect them and
watch them build their hard-earned strength, flexibility and health.
I
bow to my teachers for their verve and dedication; I’ve learned their lessons,
and I thank them.
Tapas has taught me
to absorb my pain and come to balance, taught me to control my breath and pay
attention to everything. This
ardor… this heat… a fire cracking open my heart and spine. It’s a flame I’ve
embraced as it leads me to deeper awareness, growing surrender and focused
ardor.
I
stand as witness to metamorphosis and grow strong in the broken places.
… read more...

Yoga Structuring the Unconscious With Conscious Practice

Yoga’s Hidden Benefit,
Structuring the Unconscious
Yoga works on restructuring our bodies and our conscious minds, but I’ve been thinking
that yoga’s more profound and unexplored impact is in what psychologists’ call
the deep consciousness or the unconscious. That may be surprising to some, for
most writing about yoga does not treat the unconscious.
While our active American style dutifully focuses on posture improvement, meditation,
physical health benefits or some other aspect of self-improvement, a great deal
of psychological health and wisdom – the notion of the unconscious – is
overlooked.
Ever since Freud began exploring dreams at the turn of the 20th Century, most
people have accepted that the unconscious is a factor in behavior. One minor
testament to this thinking that everyone can grasp is the Freudian slip. That
is, when we unwittingly say something that we didn’t mean to say.
Some believe that those little ‘slips’ are really the truths of the unconscious trying to
make their way into our consciousness. You could almost say that a Freudian
slip is really a hidden personal truth.
If you believe this notion, then think about how your yoga instructor’s comments,
during your Savasana or during your practice, are taken in and stored deep down
in your consciousness. This is true whether your instructor’s comments are
uplifting or demeaning.
I believe one of the hidden benefits of a regular practice is how the affirmations and
encouragements in class are taken in and stored in the deep consciousness. It’s
almost as if you are filling up a well of positivity that will be arranging
your new beliefs and behavior even when you are not aware of it.
… read more...

Three Hundred Sixty Five Days to Reclaim my Truth and Lift my Heart to a New Embodiment

I was a bit apprehensive, hoping I wouldn’t collapse, but also quietly confident about what I would experience. One year ago, December 8, 2013 I was in a very hot room in Hawaii. My path to Bikram Yoga surprised me…but there I was.

My journey to yoga didn’t come without doubt; nor did I engage it without openness to enlightenment. My story, in part, is one of adherence to and departure from orthodoxy; I served as a Lutheran pastor for 14 years, but I’ve moved beyond that framework and am no longer a practicing Christian.

With no formal background, and limited knowledge of yoga, I jumped in. My conscious goal one year ago was to attend for as many days out of 30 that I could handle. I thought a 30-day intensive yoga treatment would either make or break my back and the experiment would be over. I was wrong. My experiment exceeded expectations. My will galvanized, I continued practicing.

During this last year, I took notes after each of my 141 visits to the studio. I felt it was important to track and reflect on my experience. After 30 days, my conclusions were quite simple and clear. I asked this question: “Feel good, convinced yoga is the way to go for healing back and other health issues. It’s so simple, why don’t more people do it?”

I decided to keep attending because I had also learned that dedication to this disciplined and intense practice of asana in a heated room would benefit me in other ways. I was eager to discover how.… read more...

Of Gardens and Graves: Birthday Reflections on Dan Fogelberg’s, “The Last Nail.” 9/23/2013

              
For 38 years, I played and sang that tension-filled
song. It was always a song I enjoyed, but not one that that could be considered
a dating manual, nor did it contain any hopeful teleological arc. I never
thought it helped define my, or any human-beings’ gradual and sure
“slip-sliding away.”
I listened to the lyrics of this song while traveling
across the U.S., Canada and India from 1978-1979, when I was part of a music
and mission team. I used to play guitar and sing that song a lot! It brought me
a sense of comfort and connectedness, even though the lyrics move to a gradual
resignation.
  *                  *  
          *
This weekend, our friends rented a vacation home on the
ocean as a birthday gift to me. I am amazed, and I am grateful for their
generous gift. I am also happy for the two days of bliss that hanging-out near
the ocean can bring and content to have shared that time.
We played music and sang, frolicked at my favorite
swimming hole, ate food and told stories. We were beneficiaries of laughter,
community, sunset, chickens, a full moon spirit and the strong, steady sound of
water crashing over lava rock.
The weekend vacation home is situated close to the
Pacific, at a place officially known as Keoneele Cove. Most people here call it
two-step. It’s a popular place for diving, snorkeling, swimming and hanging
out. The two-step beach though is not what most people imagine as the perfect Hawaiian
beach, with wide expanses of white sand and a long, shallow, sloping shoreline.
… read more...

Book Review of Misfit Hearts by Russell Thorburn

GREGORY ORMSON
Misfit Hearts by Russell Thorburn
(Rocky Shore Books, 2012) 90 pp. $16.00 (paper) ISBN 978-0-9823319-6-5.
In Thorburn’s five poetry works, I explore the poetic credo arising from his well-structured presentation of human tempest.  In Thorburn’s first work, Approximate Desire, I saluted him for bringing both gravity and grace to us with words that moved me between blissful memories and heavy adult responsibilities. Some of the characters he chose to enliven those memories were Ty Cobb, Albert and Mileva Einstein, Apollinaire, Rilke. The baseball images are stunning: oracles rattling in the catcher’s mitt and the shame in baseball bats blindly stroking for the ball. Maybe they’re not on the field, but baseball leads to tears and I saw them in Approximate Desire.
Reviewing a second work, Father, Tell Me I Have Not Aged, I bowed to him for “bringing it,” to use the sport show cliché. There, he portaled his ancestral stories through music, risk, generational angst and triumph. The poems celebrated many deaths, while along the way highlighted the erotic and its inner physics. His theology and psychology of the generation gap as the first spade-full of dirt that excavates family story, made sense to me. I’m familiar with a shovel, know how to dig, and feel the generation gap turned to bite. I understood his presentation of erotic quivering as the petite mort moving the world, I followed his sport and music angles, and my theological training alerted me to take seriously any writing working to exposes that gap (the generational one) as the first letter in the alphabet of the human condition.
… read more...

Songs

Three sound files include tunes from my Wisconsin Irish Band, The Magees (Jon Shea, Nick Hoen). Five years playing with Jon and Nick remains a warm and satisfying memory.

Song one: Road to Erogie

Song two: Roddy McCorley

Song three: The Patriot Game (Jon)

The following four songs I’ve been writing with Russell Thorburn as we build a collection of songs about rock legends. These back stories reveal stage fright, tender moments on the beach and the unmitigated grief of suicide.

John Lennon haunts with demolition chords; Levon Helm deals with a lifetime of suicide grief attempting to turn back the clock; Rick Danko’s stage fright forces him to borrow a coat and flee into a cold Ontario night.

Samples are single takes recorded on a cellphone; it’s the lyrics that speak in these songs, not necessarily musical talent.

Dylan Thomas is the subject of song four.

Song one: Silver Beatle Come Back (John Lennon)

Song two: Levon and the Mountain (Levon Helm)

Song three: Danko’s Last Song (Rick Danko)

Song four: Send Dylan to the Country (Dylan Thomas)… read more...

Leadership, being, technology: a teacher’s Rahner.

Me – First used a computer in *1983. I’m not enamored of what the machine has delivered.   
Rahner – Theologian specializing in short, compact statements to summarize major categories of orthodox theology
Quote  From Paul Tillich’s conception of the existential task of man [sic].
Deep consciousness – what Carl Jung referred to as the collective unconscious, coined by many, taught to me by Dr. Robert Moore of the Chicago Theological Seminary.
Technology – I’m referring primarily to the computer and its use as a teaching tool.
Prolegomenon – meaning the word before the word; the starting assumption to a philosophy or frame of reference.
                            Leadership, Being, Technology, a Teacher’s Rahner 
Absence is strangely, yet intimately related to its human complement – presence; and with its transcendent opposite – availability.
Presence is intimately connected with its human complement – leadership; and with its transcendent fulfillment – mastery.
Egocentrism in leadership arises from insecurity and is therefore vulnerable, while its transcendent complement – vulnerability – appears weak but is paradoxically masterful in authentic leadership and conscious availability.
Continuous availability is not leadership; it is insecurity driven by the need to look busy, by a grasp for control, and by its fear of being the targeted envy.
Focused presence, without egocentrism, is masterful leadership in its selected availability, in its lack of ego, in its dismissal of envy – all of which is authentic leadership.
Mastery of the self – the first step to leadership – occurs through a process of overcoming ego and personal vulnerabilities and by embodying a vulnerable, yet masterful presence, true presence.
… read more...

MAGEES trad. Irish music album available Dec. 17, 2011

Five years with Jon and Nick. We’ve practiced, studied, watched videos, listened to traditional music and now finally put together our first cd. While not perfect, we’re pleased with reaching a new milestone as musicians. We’re grateful for the opportunities to share this music. It’s what we do.

BRIU, by The MAGEES.

It’s a variant spelling of a Celtic and provencial Italian word; it means verve, vivacity, vitality.

It’s how we play it and it’s how we’re trying to give our due to the masters.

It reminds me of Salvador Dali’s comment about how to grow into an artist: “Copy the masters, copy the masters, copy the masters and then do what you damn well please.” And while we’re not doing just what we please, we’re working on following the masters and then hoping to create our own masterpiece some day.… read more...

PEEL THE ONION – if you dare.

Father, Tell Me I Have Not Aged by Russell Thorburn. (Marick Press, 2006) 99 pp. $14.95 (paper)41FAOXAVNML._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_You can imagine the poetry in Russ Thorburn’s, Father, Tell Me I Have Not Aged, if you can fathom poems set to attack or expose the myriad complications of the generation gap. “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” While that’s from the Old Testament Chapter 31 in the book of Jeremiah, the sentiment is expressive of these poems from Thorburn.

 

I can’t help but think back to my study of theology, listening to one of my instructors discuss the correlation between sin and the generation gap. Those words must have stuck, because here, much later, I’m thinking back to the correlation of sin and generational tension when reading these poems.

 

These poems feed you with a large dose of yearning for innocence mixed with a liberal dash of courage. Note well Thorburn’s hefty presentations of cultured intellect, mixed with existential honesty. A heaping  spoonful of this doesn’t make any sugar sweeter, but equally as poignant they beg you to peel the onion one layer at a time.

 

Thorburn wants readers to travel back to a time when all things were innocent and good; but the reality is that they never were. Our memories trick us. But those tricks can serve us too, for they are the necessary deceptions that help us stay with the journey in the midst of disappointments.

 

By the third poem in this collection, innocence is notably shattered when in “Renoir’s Nude and The Gentle Thief,” Thorburn and a friend are robbed of a Renoir print they bought at the downtown Detroit art museum.… read more...

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