Entries this day: barefoot-course today-early-work,-expanding-barefoot-course,-late-work,-zzzz

barefoot course

Barefoot 1: walking

Will you carry your shoes?
How will you carry them?
Do you need to wash your feet? Where will you do that?
How will you wash them?
What if you get injured?
Do you have a helper to remove splinters or glass?
Do you need to bring socks?
Where will you walk?
Can you abort in the middle?
Is it likely safe?
What's the temperature?

Let's walk!  How does it feel?
Is it like you expected?
What did you expect?
Flex your toes. How do they feel?
Do different surfaces feel different?
Are there differences you didn't expect?
How about different materials? Textures? Colors?

(White paint and black asphalt are quite different temperatures in the summer!) Some surfaces can have surprises, so keep a close watch where you are walking, at least until you are comfortable with the area. Some surfaces (flat black tile along Roppongi Dori) can be surprisingly hot in summer.

Some are sharper than they look. Pebbles missing from pebble-paved area? Yeouch!

Grassy areas are not always nice! There can be hidden pointy things like thorns, thistles, dry stalks, all of which will readily pierce or scrape skin!

Barefoot 2: grounding

Now that you've gotten some experience walking barefoot, how does it feel in shoes versus without? Ground yourself into your body, starting with your feet. Feel your soles touching the ground. Find your body connected to your feet. Feel energy coming up from your feet into your legs.

Allow this energy to continue upwards. Feel the energy in your 腹 coming up from your legs. Breathe into your stomach, using your diaphragm. Imagine allowing the grounded energy to fill your stomach and lungs as you breathe.

After a few slow deep breaths, let your breathing go back to normal. Allow the idea of grounding to allow awareness of your breath. Notice how you breathe. Notice your thinking while you notice your breathing. Can you stay connected with the grounded feeling? Try standing barefoot meditation.

Notice your energy while you sit. Notice your energy while you stand. Are they different?

How about your thinking while you sit or stand. Are they different?

Notice your energy mindfully for fifteen minutes max each day. Notice old messages and new ideas in your mind. Write down new messages.

Write down everything at first. Stream of consicousness writing. Let your pen go and let the words flow. Or let your fingers go and ignore any typo. Might try writing with your non-dominant hand. This allows easier access to learning and awareness.

Notice if you can detect multiple sources for the inspiration of writing. Are there different tones to the langauge at different times? For me, there are at least two voices. One is my nagging spell-checking inner bully,

The other is from a different space altogether. There is no need to make the leap that it comes from God. It could be sufficiently advanced science. In any case, there is a voice I can become aware of which is always available, always genki, always on tak, always speaking positively always in the present moment. (see my other course on the Ever Present Present)

This other voice is always available, and always ready. I am not always able to hear it, but I can if I try. It's this voice that holds the key to level 3 and beyond.

Dealing with pain

Pain can be addressed in any number of ways. Here are a couple that have worked for me.

Allow myself to notice the sensation of pain as distinctly as possible. Imagine becoming really small and getting inside the painful tissue. Be an investigator at a factory watching how the workers deal with this situation.

Of course, if there is blood leaving your body, get it fixed on a physical level, not just with mental awareness. Stop the bleeding and go to a clinic!

Barefoot 3: inspiration

Write down new messages while meditating. Write down new messages while walking. Notice messages while barefoot vs while shod.

Start a list of these notes of inspiration in a notebook you can keep with you, or on your phone. Move the icon to that game to a back page and put the icon for your sparks note taking app in its place on the front screen of your phone.

Do you hear them more or less at different times of your day? Different phases of your energy/activity?

Open your sparks notebook each day to review entries and see which ones are coming to fruition.

What is the overall thrust of the income messages? Are there enough messages in one general direction to call it a project? Are you excited about moving it forward? If yes, go for it!

What's a step you can do toward accomplishing the project? What scares you about moving forward to accomplish it? (If nothing, it's probably not .)

What support do you need to do the step?

Barefoot 4: creation

You are in charge of the quantity of your creative output. Some of what you produce may look terrible to you. Keep producing.

Have you seen paintings from the Blue Period of Picasso? They were not accepted by the public at the time, but he kept painting and kept going and now they have their own Wikipedia entry! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso%27s_Blue_Period

Take the next step. And the next. Allocate some time to take more steps. Keep on stepping forward.

today early work, expanding barefoot course, late work, zzzz

Sometimes I end up with several itty bitty entries with more meta data and title than content. This entry is designed to be used all day. As of this writing, the title does not include the date, so I will add that. brb. Hmm that reads weirdly, but not too bad.

Hoon 101

This morning I said hello on Hoon 101 chat board on an Urbit planet, and just now got sidetracked reading the messages about people excited to join and just how to join the notebook. Urbit is not yet meant for the masses, and it's hella fun to be with other explorers in the optimism of creativity as opposed to the whatever of FB.

early lesson

I am on the train from 登戸 to 川崎 stations. I sit on a train that departs from Noborito, which offers me an extra 30 minutes to sleep, or in this case play on Urbit and write journal entries

barefoot course

I wrote a draft last night of my barefoot course. I am planning to work on it for 2 hours this week.

chat with Mo

3pm Mohammed asked if I had done astral projection. He found a video online explaining one way to do it, but it invokes helper spirits, which violates the rules of his religion. I suggested it was only white magic because it did not violate anyone else's free will.

late work

5:40pm I have just finished two lessons for kids. First with Ryunoske, Ryosuke, Ranka, Ayana, and Haruna. Then with Toshiro and Kanta. In the first class we practiced counting dates of the month to practice ordinals, which are useful in saying what grade they are in, and the order in which the classes were held. In the second class, we practiced making variants of "when (person) wants to (verb), s/he goes to (location)."

later work

Hide came at 6pm and tbh I was distracted with an email I had gotten from AB. He stayed for 7pm lesson, and we actually had a full house. Hide, Akiko, Yutaro, Shoichi. We each told our latest stories. Akiko mentioned some kinda posture-fixing footwear which Yutaro explained how it works in Japanese.

zzzz

0:29am next morning but still awake, dealing with client stuff and then playing with Urbit.