Cliff Jumping Made Easy

"When you stand at the edge of a cliff,

jump to fly, not to fall."~Unknown

Courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu/

I went to the edge of the cliff. I looked down to see how far the fall would take me. I looked at the magnificent scenery surrounding the cliff. I watched the sunrise on the horizon, wishing I could touch it. I prepared myself to jump, knowing I could fly…just not yet. I liked the feeling of the ground beneath my feet. I liked the breeze running through my hair. I wasn’t ready yet but then the whisper came, as it always does on the cliff. “Are you ready now?” it asked. It always asks, never tells. It forewarns, but does not threaten. It urges me to fly, as if I have a choice. It wants me to choose to fly, but will not make me.

The ground rumbled around the cliff last week and the winds are bringing change, as they always do. I have always wanted to be a writer. I remember wanting to write a submarine novel in high school. I started it but soon moved onto other things. I now stand at the crossroads I found last Thursday. Laid off again, for the second time in 18 months. I don’t believe in coincidences. I think all things happen for a reason. I may not understand the reason but I don’t need to. Spirit, God, the Divine, whatever name you use flows through each of us. Spirit finds us where we are, and not always in the ways we expect.



Spirit has found me standing on a cliff looking for the change I want in my life. Looking for the adventure my life’s designed to have. Spirit didn’t push me off the cliff but sure is making it uncomfortable to stay where I am. This blog is dedicated to my path of finding myself, and part of that includes jumping off a few cliffs to see if I can fly. I was born to give. I was born to write, to speak…to teach. Call it destiny, purpose, providence or any other word you choose, it doesn’t change it. We all have a purpose, mine is still being discovered. I suspect our lives are really about discovering who we are. It’s the journey, not the destination that matters most. But to find it, I must jump off the cliff.

I made choices about my health that hurt my body. I’ll be uploading pictures documenting the change I am choosing. I am choosing consciousness over unconsciousness. My journey is more about my profession or how I earn income for my family and myself. Its about living a full life, a balanced life. Claiming my body and honoring it is as much a part of my journey as any other part. This cliff is about admitting weakness, jumping off of it and accepting without owning the judgment that may come with it. Some of you will judge me for this, and that’s ok. I work out at the YMCA five to six times a week, and have been a regular since right after the New Year. I hit a milestone today that I wish to share. I am under 300 for the first time in a few years and I intend to never see it again…ever! Your thoughts and opinions, good or bad are welcome. Ill document the journey and share my celebration with you as I hit my milestones.  

Happy flying!

10 Things Guys Should Know Before Trying Yoga...With Your Wife

                                                                                            Photo courtesy of www.sxc.hu

 

Part of my journey includes trying new things, finding things my wife and I can do together and claiming my body. I’m not losing anything, I’m simply claiming what is waiting for me!  In the spirit of encouraging each other on our journeys my wife and I looked at the class schedule our YMCA offers and found a yoga class on Tuesday nights. So in celebration of our yoga class I offer my top 10 things guys should know before trying yoga…with your wife.

10.       You might not be the only guy in the class. This doesn’t mean you have to compete with the other guys for who can hold the pose the longest or go the farthest, but it’s fun to do.

9.         You probably won’t understand everything the instructor says. There’s a whole new language to learn, and a lot of it sounds like Mr. Miyagi talking to Danielson.

8.         The instructor is probably going to be hot and flexible. It’s ok to look at her while standing next to your wife. Just remember not to stare too much and to do the movements and poses too!

7.         Leave your wife’s Wii Fit Mat at home. We know you bought the case and the accessories for the Wii fit for your wife. Don’t walk in with the Wii yoga mat as if you already have your own gear…It doesn’t count.

6.         Tuck in your shirt. This isn’t the place to pull out the plumbers crack and let the gut hang out when you have your hands and feet on the floor and your butt in the air!

5.         Your wife is better at this than you are. She just simply is more flexible than you and probably has been doing it a lot longer. It’s ok, let her win this one.

4.         Yoga doesn’t need a sound track. Many of the poses are named after animals; you don’t have to bark when you do the downward facing dog or meow when you do the cat. However, it might be fun to try.

3.         Yeap there are muscles there too! You might find muscles you didn’t know were even there in the first place. Try not to hurt yourself.

2.         Just because you are doing a warrior pose doesn’t mean you are a Jedi. If you’re still stuck on number 8 maybe imagine the instructor as Obi Wan, or better yet Yoda so you can get some poses in too!

1.         Your wife will think it’s hot that you did yoga with her. Just offer to help her out with some extra “positions” later on and let the sparks fly!

Have you tried yoga?   

Let me know your thoughts and how it went!

Civil Rights and Brazil Nuts

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.~Martin Luther King, Jr.

***Warning, I use a controversial and offensive word. My intent isn't to offend, just to dis-empower the word.***

Very few people I know have watched the entire “I Have a Dream” speech. Most of us through history classes or other places have heard his echoing words. I am not a black man. I am mostly a white man, although not completely. I grew up in a middle class white home in rural Wyoming. This town only had two black people in the entire town. One was a professor at the local college; the other was his daughter, who had a white mother. The town I grew up in was right on the edge of the Wind River Indian Reservation. I knew more Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe people than I did black people when I was a child. Part of my heritage includes Cherokee Indian. I still remember my Great Grandmother’s face as she knitted a blanket for my newly born baby brother. It’s one of my earliest and fondest memories. The racial dynamic of my early childhood was primarily white with a few Native Americans and some Hispanics. I don’t remember witnessing any racial tensions or inequalities as a child.

I do remember being told a joke by an older boy. This joke was a stereotypical racial joke about a parrot making remarks about black people and watermelons. Had the joke use the term black person instead of n***er I might have understood it and would have rejected it. I didn’t know what a n***er was. I honestly thought a n***er was a type of tree because I had heard Brazil nuts being referred to as n***er toes. I just knew they were part of the mixed nuts my mother would put out at Christmas. I remember repeating this joke to my father. He didn’t get angry with me, nor did he laugh at it. He stopped what he was doing, and took me aside. He asked me why I thought it was funny. I explained that I thought a parrot would talking about a tree eating a watermelon was funny. To my 8- or 9-year old mind, it was a silly joke.

My Father explained to me what a n***er is and I felt very sad that I had told him the joke. We talked about how I would feel if someone made jokes about Indians that way. I thought back to my Great Grandmother and how I would feel if someone made a joke like that about her. That moment became the foundation of my racial beliefs. Today, I had my two daughters watch the entire “I Have a Dream” speech. It occurred to me half way through that they might not understand what a “Negro” is, so I stopped the video to ask them. Neither my 6 year old nor my 10 year old knew what Negro meant. We talked about segregation and how the struggle isn’t over. How it isn’t just their struggle. Freedom and equality is everyone’s struggle. As a white man, I do not know what it is like to grow up as a black man in the south, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a responsibility to protect his freedom, his rights or his opportunities.

If you haven’t watched the entire “I have a dream speech”, take 18 minutes out of your day and watch it. Or even better, take 25 minutes and watch it with your children and talk with them about it.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

A Single Step

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."~Confucius

This begins my first of a thousand, or maybe ten thousand steps. I have run from my life’s calling enough. It is now time to begin running towards it. Not that my life’s experiences have been bad, on the contrary they are magnificent. If anything though, they were not always intentional. Perhaps this is how it is suppose to be. How do you know what you want, if you have not experienced enough of what you do not want? I believe knowing what you want is very different than knowing what you don’t want.  My journey includes discovering what I truly want, what my soul is called to be. 

My intention here is to be open with you as I take this journey, knowing I will be judged. It’s ok, I have let go of my fear of judgment. As a wise man once told me, “What other people think of you is none of your business”. You do not have to agree with me. Your truth and my truth do not have to agree, and they still both can be truth. Your truth is welcome here! Ill share myself openly with you and you are invited to do the same. Part of my journey is fixing those things that I find fixable, like my weight. It’s more about claiming my body than it is about looking good for someone else, or because I “should do it”. It’s an integral and spiritual part of claiming my life, so it’ll be part of what I share. 

I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I will. Please follow if you’re intrigued. Feel free to leave a comment or more if you are inspired.  See you on the journey!