this morning i have been busy supporting my friends as they travel down the Mississippi River in a small wooden York that they built here on Wolfe Island this past summer. their goal is to travel the length of the river from the headwaters in MN. to the gulf of mexico, and deliver the boat to the Lower Mississippi Riverkeepper. along the way they are filming a documentary about the state of the river and all her inhabitants, while promoting the environmental health of the worlds rivers through the Waterkeepper Alliance. as a result, Brett Rogers the visionary behind the expedition, has chosen to sail without the use of fossil fuels. at the start of the journey the team encountered several challenges, among them the numerous locks and rocky terrain of the upper Mississippi. before they even got out of MN.  they had to re-evaluate their tack and ended up re-fiberglassing the boat, building new oars and replacing the mast that broke.

you can show your support for the environment and the efforts of the crew of the old man river project, by logging on to their blog. they have a goal to reach 10,000 unique visitors before the journey ends and they set sail at mile marker 195 today, so it won’t be long now before they reach the gulf. log on now at: www.oldmanriverproject.org

The strict discipline necessary to cultivate balance may also be reflected in our ethical practices in the markets. The financial markets are a compendium of mass human behaviour, and, as such, a public place. The yamas aim to purify our thoughts so we may communicate with our environment in a healthy way. If we see the markets as a projection of our inner character, we must ensure that it contains the courage, generosity, trust, respect, understanding, and confidence we hope to see in ourselves. The yamas and niyamas will improve our inner dialogue and develop the qualities required for a life of contentment from an unfettered mind.

For over five millenia, yoga has sparked interest throughout the world in those searching for a cohesive approach to transformation. Translating as “to yoke”, “to unite,” or “to control,” yoga has been found to nurture a holistic state of well-being. True yoga arises with the use of meditation and purification techniques enabling us to experience the non-dualism between such perceived polarities as us and others; body and mind;  pain and pleasure; knower and the known.

Yoga encourages intense and devotional study of our underlying consciousness, promising personal insights that will prove inspirational. The language expressed through ancient wisdom traditions has been subjected to a wide variety of interpretations. Although we may not choose to identify with themes expressed by yogic philosophy, we will, nonetheless, benefit from studying its recommendations on the study of Self. The truth we may glean from past endeavors to transmit the feelings, beliefs and prejudices past cultures identified with may or may not resonate with today’s humanistic and linguistic struggles to communicate the ineffable qualities of spirit. The stillness enlisted in the mind through meditation is only possible once our body is cleansed, ridding the body and mind from suffering caused by bondage to negative feelings and emotions.

As a student of both Patañjali’s Ashtanga Yoga and the futures markets, I have observed the synchronicity between the two philosophies. Both methodologies place an emphasis on a gaining a holistic understanding of the reality we’ve created; the power we have within to sever the unnecessary distractions that keep us from our goals; and the awareness that sheds the layers that conceal our true potential. The self-knowledge we strive to attain may be coloured with a different vocabulary, but it is the same non-dualistic state of consciousness that we seek within and without our bodies and minds. While the final culmination of yoga will transcend the success of trading, or any other endeavor related to our phenomenological world, the steps leading us toward samādhi may merge with a path that reveals the true nature of the markets.

For over five millenia, yoga has sparked interest throughout the world in those searching for a cohesive approach to transformation. Translating as “to yoke”, “to unite,” or “to control,” yoga has been found to nurture a holistic state of well-being. True yoga arises with the use of meditation and purification techniques enabling us to experience the non-dualism between such perceived polarities as us and others; body and mind;  pain and pleasure; knower and the known.

Yoga encourages intense and devotional study of our underlying consciousness, promising personal insights that will prove inspirational. The language expressed through ancient wisdom traditions has been subjected to a wide variety of interpretations. Although we may not choose to identify with themes expressed by yogic philosophy, we will, nonetheless, benefit from studying its recommendations on the study of Self. The truth we may glean from past endeavors to transmit the feelings, beliefs and prejudices past cultures identified with may or may not resonate with today’s humanistic and linguistic struggles to communicate the ineffable qualities of spirit. The stillness enlisted in the mind through meditation is only possible once our body is cleansed, ridding the body and mind from suffering caused by bondage to negative feelings and emotions.

As a student of both Patañjali’s Ashtanga Yoga and the futures markets, I have observed the synchronicity between the two philosophies. Both methodologies place an emphasis on a gaining a holistic understanding of the reality we’ve created; the power we have within to sever the unnecessary distractions that keep us from our goals; and the awareness that sheds the layers that conceal our true potential. The self-knowledge we strive to attain may be coloured with a different vocabulary, but it is the same non-dualistic state of consciousness that we seek within and without our bodies and minds. While the final culmination of yoga will transcend the success of trading, or any other endeavor related to our phenomenological world, the steps leading us toward samādhi may merge with a path that reveals the true nature of the markets.

Sri Yantra by Manytchkine. Source: Wikiimedia Commons. Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0

The observances and ethics of the yamas and niyamas call for a well-guided and conditioned approach to the world without and within us. If our reality is but our mirror, then the markets will reflect nothing other than our physical and mental condition, our temperament, and belief systems. Projecting our anger, frustration and, yet, stubborn determination to make our fortune may not end in a profitable outcome–if these emotions hinder the implementation of our goals. The yamas and niyamas do not aim to suppress our emotions; unnecessary and harmful reactions are naturally detracted with a yogic shift in perspective.

We may consider the markets to be an active, living and dynamic force capable of receiving and giving information in a rapidly changing environment. Although the markets act as conduits for the semblance and transference of mass psychology, they do not interpret information. The markets have no governing or judging faculties whereby some market participants will be rewarded and others punished on account of how good of a person we are, how much time we spend acquiring market knowledge, or the amount of luck we feel is at our disposal. Rather, it is our discriminating awareness that will allow us the satisfaction of being on the gaining side of a trade, without the projection of our preferences on an unimpressionable market.

Once we observe the markets for what they are—without labeling, distorting, or categorizing them—we may also apply this practice to our day-to-day lives, and disallow new experiences from forming  preconditioned responses. The duality in our thoughts, emotions, voluntary and involuntary actions can be observed and changed with yoga to lessen the severity of outside influences on our equilibrium. The potential to choose the factors that we believe will determine our contentment is an empowering prospect. Yoga may enlighten us to endless possibilities as we discover the latent talents that nourish and enrich ourselves, our trading, and our environment.

GOOD INTENTIONS

BE HAPPY – BE HEALTHY

BE WEALTHY – BE GRATEFUL

PASS IT ON! 

David DesFosses

InspireUon

© 2009

It seems to me that old Tiger got busted. I’ve always respected the guy as an athlete, I must say I had high hopes for his societal status as well.  I don’t place many celebrity figures on a pedestal, however…I did think Tiger Woods was going to be the full package and raise the bar on the sport and on celebrity conduct.

If he did fool around on his wife, and that’s the way it looks, did he think that he could really get away with it?  He’s only one of the most recognizable sports figures alive.  There is no shortage of stupidity in this world…That’s for sure.  Who knows what goes on behind closed doors, I’m sure life wasn’t flawless for the Woods family.  People don’t usually stray because things are perfect and everyone is satisfied.

The question isn’t whether Tiger was right or wrong…I’m not God and I won’t pretend to be.  Besides, he who has not sinned should cast the first stone and we’ve all done things we shouldn’t have…No one is perfect.  I must say that Tiger was stupid and while that isn’t a crime…It’s just disappointing.  Tiger…You should read The Asshole Remedy website and distinguish your degree of Asshole-ness.  I’ll still enjoy watching you play the game but there will be a part of me thinking…What an Asshole!

Anyhow, tell me what you think!

If you’re tired of being an Asshole or if you’re tired of dealing with one…Subscribe to The Mindset Email.  It’s free and it’s not crap.  Get a new perspective on life, one that’s based on logic and sound reasoning.  Utilize the action steps to make adjustments that produce ridiculous results.

Matt “The Former Asshole”

As we segue from the season of harvest to the winter holidays, may you enjoy the blessings of Sanctuary. A few days ago, when my daughter was home for the Thanksgiving holidays, we reminisced about our long-ago annual retreat to one of the great rain forests of the Pacific Northwest.

When she was a youngster, we’d go to a lovely lodge on the edge of the forest and enjoy a few days of quiet before the rush of the holiday season. Beside the warmth of the fire in the main lodge, we’d play cribbage, Scrabble, and Yahtze… and spend long hours writing letters and cards to family and other loved ones to honor Christmas and Kwanzaa. As my daughter grew older, she’d take her cello and practice in one of the rustic gathering rooms. We even played their old piano… serenading the staff and the few other guests who, like us, had come to pause and unwind.

That’s what Sanctuary is all about.

During this season of festivities and frenzied shopping, it’s important to pause, reflect on who and what’s important in your life, and take time to care for yourself.

Here are a few simple ways to pause for Sanctuary this season:

- Embrace the holidays with an open heart, mind, and spirit.

- Look at this season through the eyes of a child—filled with joy and excitement.

- Give the gift that keeps on giving—your kindness and a heart-felt smile.

- Reach out to others with a word of encouragement… or a simple prayer, to help them feel better and you feel more connected and joyful.

I hope you enjoy the blessings of Sanctuary and of the season—Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.

Pass It On!

Mindset for the day:
Be Productive…Are you effective at producing what you want? Do you allow yourself to get side tracked? Are you one of those people who get ready to pay the bills and end up cleaning out your closet? Sounds funny…But it happens. If I’ve done it once, I’ve done it 1000 times…I have my to do list and I skip #1 on the list and move on to #2,#3 and #4. I justify my behavior because I am taking care of business. However, I do know that I’m avoiding #1! What’s the point of delaying taking action? The “I don’t wanna” excuse is dead…Get to work!

Action Step:
What are you avoiding? Where are you fooling yourself? Are you being as productive as you would like to be? The Action Step today is simple. Make your to do list in order of importance…Then, do the list! If you want to skip one thing, suck it up and do it anyway. The reward of completing your list is so much greater than the minor discomfort you may feel while chipping away at what you need to do to increase your effectiveness. Have a great day being productive.

Think-Act-Serve

It all begins with a thought…Get your Mind Set by subscribing to The Mindset Email. It’s free…There are no tricks, no credit cards….Just a daily email that makes sense. FREE doesn’t mean it’s crap!!! Subscribe

Be better than you used to be,
Matt

“The greatest gift you can give yourself is to be who you want to be…no matter what.
There is no greater feeling of confidence, power and self control.”

©2009 Matt Brown

Wow as I lay here at twenty to two in the morning dusting off the blogging Cobwebs that have formed due to useless online talents.

I am sorry, I spend a lot of time traveling and doing music and it’s my intention to blog the lot but I always forget.

Arghh god I have an itchy nose.  twichy ichy bitchy nose.  Have had all night.

So god it’s Xmas again!  It really hasn’t been the year I set out for but still an alright year.  I’d say I have discovered some life changing things this year.

I have a gig in two days (thursday) at Slak in Cheltenham.  My hometown.  Has been a fair while since I played here and will be a fair while until I am back, if ever.  So try and make it and i’ll open the jellybabies.

Better go before my nose falls off.

Goose!

I recently read a blogpost by Charles Tart which made a lot of sense to me. In short he says it’s a good idea to remind yourself of your intention at the start of a formal meditation and to dedicate the merit of the practice at the end. So far I came up with a sentence to start with, which I’ll probably change a couple of times in the future, but it got me thinking about why I started meditating in the first place (mainly curiosity) and what I’m still doing it for (learn how to better respond to situations, people, myself).

The past years I’ve come in contact with things like new-age, buddhism, hinduism, yoga and I heard a lot of talk about enlightenment, non-dualism, unconditional love, manifesting, psychic this and that. While all this is interesting and entertaining, I can’t say that the spectacular stories, high goals, myths and whatnot are the things that keep me motivated. However, this whole mindfulness thing has shed light on little unseen things that were going on and made me unhappy a tiny little bit at a time. Silly trivial things like secretly dreading to vacuum the house, cleaning up after cooking, mowing the lawn, … over the years I’ve grown into avoiding this stuff as long as possible, in the meanwhile creating an undercurrent of dissatisfaction in the form of unconscious thoughts like “I’d rather make some music than waste time on chores”. This caused (small but significant) friction with myself and the people around me.

By learning to see things more clearly, I notice these “avoiding thoughts” but I don’t let them control me as much anymore. In short I’m more doing what I’m supposed to, instead of looking for happiness in some near or distant future. Not sure if I expressed all this clearly in this post, cause I’m finding writing in English still a bit hard.

20091201 Update >> Just saw this relevant YouTube movie by my fave meditation teacher:

On Saturday I presented a new work at the Stanley Picker gallery during the Writing Exhibitions symposium. Here’s an outline of my work, which I called Genuine Smiles:

A sheet of paper is attached to one wall of the gallery, and attached just below it is a long piece of string with a sharpened pencil fixed to the other end. Visitors are invited to hold a pencil and do whatever they need to do to muster a genuine smile. As soon as the smile is on their lips and before it vanishes they should begin to draw a line from the smile to the piece of paper, without allowing the pencil to leave the surface, until the line from the smile reaches the most convenient edge of the paper.

The picture above is the piece of paper, which I removed from the wall and kept. Below is the paper on the wall of the gallery, continuous with its lines which also continue onto the floor:



Genuine Smiles follows on from the book of line drawings I made over the summer (more here) in which I recorded places and times by drawing lines from the pages of the book to nearby things. Once a set of lines has been drawn and the book has been put away again, the objects, furniture, walls, floor are still marked with lines, all of which converge about a single rectangular gap.

There are lots of these rectangular gaps lying around the house now. The gaps mark places in the room where the book can be reinserted, with the appropriate pages spread open, to reconnect the detached elements of the record.

The lines drawn in the book are like deictic words, which have a fixed semantic value but a unfixed denotative value (words in English like ‘you’ or ‘here’). The semantics of each line is the way it looks and the way it runs off the edge of the page, and the denotative value of each line is the thing it points at. Taken as a self-contained book, separate from the pencil marks drawn around the room, the references of the lines on the paper are frustrated. You don’t know what they’re saying other than that they mean to say something. Not waving but drowning.

The book that fills all the gaps is safe drowning on a shelf in the hallway at the moment. But even if it returns to one of its rectangular gaps and connects up to each line correctly, the other ends of the lines – the lines touching the objects I wanted to record – are still precarious. As things get rearranged, put away, tidied, nudged, so the lines that reach them splinter and rotate and move until they are pointing somewhere else, or end abruptly, or dissipate in angular ways through the house.

This dissipation returns as the failure of writing as witness that led to the biro line I drew in September, and it comes up again in a different way in Genuine Smiles.

In Genuine Smiles people are invited to draw a line from their smile to the piece of paper on the wall, using a pencil attached by a long piece of string to the paper itself. The line should be drawn continuously along whatever surfaces it takes for the pencil to reach the paper without ever leaving some ground or other. I’ve written before about my intentions for this work, and another day I look forward to writing more about how my intentions affect the work and its participants. But for now I want to focus on the movement of the line itself as it is fractured and carried apart.

I want to think about the line as a visible rendering of the relationship between a word and the thing it describes. The line is constructed from the same stuff writing is constructed from, and because of this the line feels something like an unravelled word. But it stretches and attenuates the possibility of being a word: it doesn’t occupy the same space as a word because it travels to and touches its object, and travels to and touches another object too, which is the piece of paper. At the moment the direction of travel seems less important than the fact that movement takes place. I’m not sure what to make of the piece of paper yet.

The piece of paper stuck to the wall at the Stanley Picker gallery was the place people were asked to draw their lines to. As a result it felt as though the smile was only ‘written down’ once it had touched the paper, and indeed people generally stopped their lines as soon as they’d passed the edge of the page.

Once the line was on the paper the smile was ‘kept’, and while the line was just on the wall, floor, foot, trouser leg, arm, chin or mouth, the smile was still precarious and at risk of evaporating. The line doesn’t change in quality when it reaches the paper, but something changes.

The paper is special because it is temporary and is removable and is the one part that can be kept once the event is over. The wall will be washed over, the people will go home and the lines will be cleaned from their skin and clothes. Perhaps the paper is special because pencils go with paper, so a pencil line is resolved when you conclude it on paper. It’s special also because it’s shared between all the smiles: all of them end there, and so the paper is where all the smiles go to be collected up.

I want to think more about what’s left in the gallery once the people have gone and the paper has gone too. The pencil lines remaining are tethered neither to their endings on the page nor their beginnings at our lips. Just the middle part of the deixis – the blank fact that something’s referring to something. Just smiles in passing.

Mindset for the day:
Be Productive…Are you effective at producing what you want? Do you allow yourself to get side tracked? Are you one of those people who get ready to pay the bills and end up cleaning out your closet? Sounds funny…But it happens. If I’ve done it once, I’ve done it 1000 times…I have my to do list and I skip #1 on the list and move on to #2,#3 and #4. I justify my behavior because I am taking care of business. However, I do know that I’m avoiding #1! What’s the point of delaying taking action? The “I don’t wanna” excuse is dead…Get to work!

Action Step:
What are you avoiding? Where are you fooling yourself? Are you being as productive as you would like to be? The Action Step today is simple. Make your to do list in order of importance…Then, do the list! If you want to skip one thing, suck it up and do it anyway. The reward of completing your list is so much greater than the minor discomfort you may feel while chipping away at what you need to do to increase your effectiveness. Have a great day being productive.

Think-Act-Serve

It all begins with a thought…Get your Mind Set by subscribing to The Mindset Email. It’s free…There are no tricks, no credit cards….Just a daily email that makes sense. FREE doesn’t mean it’s crap!!! Subscribe

Be better than you used to be,
Matt

“The greatest gift you can give yourself is to be who you want to be…no matter what.
There is no greater feeling of confidence, power and self control.”

©2009 Matt Brown

Namasté and Good day to you!

Is your mind as clear as you want it?  If there is any place you would like to go physically or mentally, there is really only one way to get there and that is to think clearly.  I know, I know this may be a pretty bold statement, but I feel it is pretty accurate.  You see my dear friend, if our thoughts are not truly clear about what we shall do, where we shall go and what we shall experience, then we may very well find ourselves pulled along those journeys automatically by the preexisting patterns which have already took root in our very own minds.  This kind of reminds me of an old story I read somewhere where a person who, hopelessly was lost while driving around aimlessly.  This individual finally found a resident in the area to ask about directions.  After a awhile, the resident just simply looked at this individual and said, “I’m sorry but you can’t get there from here.”  What does this mean?  Simply, that the tangle was too great.  Neither then, can we ourselves hope to achieve the new standards we desire if we are muddling around in a tangle of old patterns mixed with tentative new starts.  In fact the Universe is not clear what it is we want or desire to give each of us, if we are not either.  So you see, again I ask this quite simply, is your mind clear?  Take your intentions to the next level and make sure they are first clear before we step out on our journey of what we want to do, where we want to go and what we want to experience.  If you find that your mind is not clear, then I would suggest you quietly clear it of extraneous, frightening thoughts if you are to change your course in the journey.  Remember that new creations need new inspirations, new procedures.  The guidance from God/Spirit is of course always right here and is as close to us as hands and feet.  However that guidance seldom makes its way very successfully through our walls of established fears and resistances.  This loving and compassionate force that is called God, Spirit, The Universe, Creator, Higher Source or any name you want to call it, as it is all the same, will need our very own cooperation.  The old saying goes, “God helps those who help themselves.”  The potentials are indeed present and now we must provide the receptive mindspace.  As such, the clear mind is absolutely the mind that invites new possibilities because it now has room for them.  Again, is your mind crystal clear?  Have a super and wonderful week!

With my Faith, Love and Magik

Blessed be you…

*** ~~~ * ~~~ ***

These times are trying indeed….one pellet, then two, the third sneaks up on you…not full shots, just little annoying hits, trying to take one off course. But my course is clear, it always has been….though the road I travel keeps changing.

And it is this time of year I think of Robert Frost. His words transport me in a lovely and needed way. There is always help. We need just look around and more importantly, within.

I have always preferred the woods.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

BB Webb

Thursday September 17, 2009 #156

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” 

~Mother Teresa

It never ceases to amaze me that people continue to need to be reminded to be civil, kind and caring.  But they do – which means you probably need this reminder too.  Today, challenge yourself in every interaction to be intentionally kind.  While interacting with your families – i.e. look in your son’s eyes and say “Have I told you lately how glad I am that you’re my son?” While ordering your coffee at Starbucks – i.e. let that woman ahead of you in line who seems to be in such a rush.  While in a meeting with your subordinate, find something about their contribution to compliment them on.  Try it – the effort takes almost no additional time or effort but the impact will be priceless.

Well, apparantly I have finally seen how it is that I manifest.  And I find it easy.  The reason I also realized that I have trouble at times, is really because I just don’t want that much.  And it’s things I should want, but just don’t.  It’s very interesting.  When I want something, I notice, it’s based mostly on emotion, which is fickle.  Manifesting, isn’t fickle, but emotion is, I’ve learned that basing things on emotion will end up being chaotic.  Then I was thinking about all this last night, because I realized, I can manifest anything I want, once I realized how I did it.  Yet the issue really is what do I want?

And I suddenly had this thought:
Manifesting isn’t about what you want, it’s about what you intend to have.

When I get to that kind of mindset, then I manifest.  Want isn’t really the issue, want is just a mild desire, it’s when you just are ready for something, you get it.  I’m speaking strictly about manifesting, not what gets you to the place of manifesting, just the act of manifesting in  itself.

…be the change you want to affect….

I look at it like this…intention affects change, and change can happen many ways. If you like to use your breath, your thoughts, or a wave of the hand here are a few techniques.. and during all of them, remember to try and truly FEEL your hearth chakra on FIRE and filled with LOVE:

Blow your intention into the wind with the visualization that it will bump into molecules and particles that will bump into other ones and so on, and so on… and eventually spread across the earth like a love infection, so that every living thing and the elements will eventually be touched!

Use your mind to visualize the spread of your intention across the earth as if a bomb were dropped. Pick a starting point and choose how you want it to explode, with the force and effect of a real bomb, and to spill forth and renew all that its effects had touched.

Infuse your hands with the love and intention for all good and go touch a large body of water, or hold them up into the wind. Turn on your reiki or beam out the visualization from your 3rd eye down into your hands.. hold your hands there for a few minutes… infusing each water/air particle with love, so that it will bump into the next molecule and the next. See the change that will happen in your mind’s eye and know that you played a part in spreading the love on a much larger scale.

These are just a few of the ways we can drop Love Bombs using just a few thoughts and minutes out of the day.