The world as we know it is changing in so many ways…

This flux is not new. The flow from one experience to another is part of the timelessness of our existence. That we have changing needs, changing habits and changes in friendship, career and location is all normal.

And yet it feels as if there are bigger changes afoot all around us right now.

When we feel a new and dynamic form of energy start to affect us, sometimes we embrace it, and sometimes we just want to shut it out. When it’s an unknown sensation, and there’s no one who can explain it to us, the quick reaction would be to ignore it, or to avoid it altogether.

Everything about the giraffe’s body is built for one thing: reaching towering heights. As the world’s tallest land animal, they have an unrivaled reach. With legs that are taller than many humans — about 6 feet — to a neck that weighs over 600 pounds, the whole structure enables the giraffe to eat tasty treats unavailable to others constrained closer to earth.

Yet you don’t see other animals lamenting the fact that they can’t reach what’s easy for the giraffe to reach. The zebra or lion don’t appear to be jealous. You don’t see them being melancholy over the fact that they are height-challenged in comparison.

It seems a purely human trait to compare ourselves to others, only to find ourselves lacking in one way or another.

As far as the sun knows, it is now giving us, the inhabitants of the Northern hemisphere, a little more light every day. Every day will have a few more minutes of sunlight than the previous one.

I wonder if we notice this.

Do you notice this subtle change each day?
Or do you realize at some point that the sun is setting later than it was a month earlier?

Becoming aware of the subtle changes around us, as with the sun’s movement north, is a perfect reference point for an understanding of the amount of attention we apply to all things. What kinds of change attract your attention?

In my last blog, I talked about the first and second causes of disease. The third cause of disease is considered the most important of all, time. “Time” means living according to the rhythms of nature and understanding the symptoms of change, which Patanjali also speaks about in his Yoga Sutras III-13 to III-16. As the sun moves and changes in quality and form, it governs specific functions and abilities. For example, the rising sun and its quality and function of creation; the mid-day sun and its quality and function of sustaining and nourishing life; and the setting sun and its quality and function of transformation. The same sun shines through each one of us, like unique pieces of stained glass, mirroring the same changes throughout the day, season and lifetime. Yoga practice is primarily for balancing the qualities of the mind, and Ayurvedic practice is primarily for balancing the qualities of the body.

Two weeks passed before I felt comfortable leaving my sanctuary to venture into the real world. I plugged the supra-pubic catheter and carefully secured it in my fiancée-designed, custom-made, inside the waistband, semi-sterile (not even) samurai pouch.

I presumed that no one in the restaurant could tell I was packin’ (a catheter, not a pistol/piss tool).

Using my Diaper Dude super powers (Act Four), I began visualizing and imagining all of my fellow diners with a cornucopia of unseen devices: prosthetic limbs, pacemakers, bags for all reasons, transplanted organs etc… When it began to resemble a Fellini film, my mind returned to dinner.

Inspiration struck at the grocery store. I was heading for the checkout counter when my eye was caught by a photo on a greeting card: a darling baby with her bright, sparkling eyes peeping over the top of a bucket, above the words, “Give us dreams a size too big so that we can grow into them.”

I bought that cute card.

Dreams are never meant to be toned down to what is reasonable, comfortable, and in a size that fits you now. Dreams need to be bulky, unwieldy, a bit too big to hold, with plenty of room for a growth spurt or two.

My dear, dear uncle has finally transitioned to his new journey.
The last few months, we spent several hours a week together.
Not the same as when he was staying in my home, but still it was wonderful to laugh together and — being Portuguese — eat together!

The other day on our daily walk, we noticed that our neighbor had just cut back her roses. These are the roses we stop to smell together every morning. Pink, red, white, yellow and — our favorite — mauve, which gives the most incredible scent.

Well, this morning there lay a pile of stems, flowers, petals, leaves. My son was sad, looking at this pile as he questioned why they were cut off. It’s not like he hasn’t seen this before, but at each stage of his life he sees it with a new set of eyes.

What is your breath doing?

We have established previously that the breath is not only vital to the survival of our physical being, but that it is also vital to the sustenance and maintenance of our spiritual and emotional bodies.

When the breath is fluid within us, encountering no obstacles or blockages, we can utilize the oxygen, prana and renewing energy of the breath, unencumbered. In this case, the breath is pure nourishment. It feeds all of our systems, physical and other, allowing us to be ready and available for whatever the day asks of us.

We become ready for physical activity, we are full of vitality for emotional interactions…spiritual openness flows through us. Our intuition is free and clear of encumbrance to its purity and clarity.

Ayurveda’s first cause of disease is a mistake or misuse of the mind, where one observes or perceives incorrectly. When we try to solve it by suppressing or thinking what to do about IT, that creates further fragments and divisions. Observe holistically, observe the whole movement of life as one; then conflict – with its destructive energy – not only ceases but also, out of that observation, gifts a totally new approach to life!

The second cause of disease arises out of its first – mistake of the mind or, even more specifically, the misuse of the intelligence, which is the misuse of objects of the senses. We can also view this as wrong relationships to such objects like people, places, things, activities, and even our own mind, including its thoughts, emotions, perceptions and conditioning.