Mark Foote

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Posts posted by Mark Foote

  4. Posted

    ...and the Nobel Prize this year in Linguistic Logistics and Haiku Chain Re-Integration goes to:

     

    apepch7!!!!!!! Yeeee!! Haaaa!! B):D

     

    eat the grapes of wrath

    slowly move them round your mouth

    bittersweet 'til love

     

    bittersweet 'til love

    blossoms there: fill the body

    energize the soul

     

    energize the soul

    dust bunnies underfoot, do

    your shoe-leather thing!

  16. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    The Sage pulls the notepad from his pocket and reads it to the seekers.

     

    After a period of discussion they decide on:

     

    a state of well-being and contentment

     

    except they want to change “well-being” to “peace”.

     

    So they agree on:

     

    a state of peace and contentment as an acceptable definition of happiness.

     

    The Sage announces, “Now, we had some earlier suggestions as to what happiness is. Give me a little time to gather my notes and present these to you to see if we should modify our definition. Let’s meet back here in half an hour.”

     

    The Sage got up and set off at a brisk pace down the road toward the library, in the direction Bunny had gone. "Peace and contentment", he thought to himself; "I wonder, who it is, that has peace and contentment?

     

    Turning a corner, the Sage was suddenly confronted with a very odd sight, indeed; a man was hanging upside down by a rope tied around his feet, the other end of which was tied to an iron gate. A crowd was gathered around the man, watching as he struggled to breathe.

     

    Without breaking stride, the Sage pulled a machete out from underneath his coat, severed the rope neatly, and continued up the path toward the library. "Peace and contentment", he muttered to himself; "where's that at!" Walking onto the library grounds, he sat down on a bench in the sun, and pulled a sheaf of notes out of the inside of his coat from the pocket where the machete had disappeared.

  18. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    marigolds,candy...

    creation and destruction-

    gift for my girlfriend

     

     

    A Valentine haiku B) . Marigolds repel nematodes, a microscopic parasite that destroys roots in plants. The candy is of course made from refined sugar :o .

     

    I had the great pleasure to watch a husband and wife from a small village in Oaxaca build an altar to their ancestors for "la dia de los muertos" last fall- the smell of fresh marigolds was very strong, with fruit (plastic) hanging below the marigolds in an arc held by willow branches over a table loaded with candy and soft drinks.

     

    gift for my girlfriend

    love with all my heart, only

    softly, as she goes

  21. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

    the process (connecting the upper thighs and the perineum) is difficult to describe, because the fundamental is the occurrence of consciousness, and how the occurrence of consciousness resounds in the stretch of the fascia. The lion is totally relaxed, and enters into motion totally relaxed, because the action comes out of feeling generated by the impact of consciousness on stretch. The lion does not intentionally stretch, yet the presence of stretch is evident in the relaxed, tenacious movement of the lion.

     

    The top of the thighs and the perineum, myself I look for the stretch from the sacrum to the sit-bones to generate activity in the obturators, which rocks the pelvis side to side on the hip bones. The obturators run under the pelvis, and can lift the pelvis off the hips slightly as they contract. I look for stretch in the sacro-tuberous ligaments running diagonally from the sacrum to the lower front of the pelvis, and activity in the piriformis from the upper legs to the sacrum as a result. There is also activity in the PC as a result of this, and likewise as a result of the pivot of the sacrum on the wings of the pelvis. Fundamentally the place of occurrence of consciousness and the stretch occasioned by the place of occurrence develop feeling.

     

    I confess my mind is not in the tan-tien that much. I do practice a lot with sensing the coordination of the motion of the sacrum in the muscles of the abdomen where my little fingers touch, doing the mudra of soto zen; side to side, diagonally from the thighs, and up from the pelvis, both little fingers on the lower abdomen.

  22. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

     

    (...once I connected the perineum with the top of the thigh the meridians started opening well...)

     

     

    the process is difficult to describe, because the fundamental is the occurrence of consciousness, and how the occurrence of consciousness resounds in the stretch of the fascia. The lion is totally relaxed, and enters into motion totally relaxed, because the action comes out of feeling generated by the impact of consciousness on stretch. The lion does not intentionally stretch, yet the presence of stretch is evident in the relaxed, tenacious movement of the lion.

     

    The top of the thighs and the perineum, myself I look for the stretch from the sacrum to the sit-bones to generate activity in the obturators, which rocks the pelvis side to side on the hip bones. The obturators run under the pelvis, and can lift the pelvis off the hips slightly as they contract. I look for stretch in the sacro-tuberous ligaments running diagonally from the sacrum to the lower front of the pelvis, and activity in the piriformis from the upper legs to the sacrum as a result. There is also activity in the PC as a result of this, and the pivot of the sacrum on the wings of the pelvis. Fundamentally the place of occurrence of consciousness and the stretch occasioned by the place of occurrence develop feeling.

     

    I confess my mind is not in the tan-tien that much. I do practice a lot with sensing the coordination of the motion of the sacrum in the muscles of the abdomen where my little fingers touch, doing the mudra of soto zen; side to side, diagonally from the thighs, and up from the pelvis, both little fingers on the lower abdomen.

  23. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

     

    (Been reading Genghis Khan's biography and discovered that his warriors, another superhealthy breed of humans, didn't believe in being sober at all -- ever -- a real man was supposed to be always drunk, at all times. No impact on motor control in their case, they were legendary riders who never fell off their horses.)

     

     

    Let me get this straight- Johnny Dep was really portraying a member of the mongol horde, in 'Pirates?

  25. Posted · Edited by Mark Foote

     

    A good internal image would be that Youngquan is eventually travelling right up through the legs into Dantian. Once you reach that point, reverse it, let the physical movement gradually subside until you reach the border between physical and energetic, virtually no physical activity at all. And then cross the border to where there's no more intentional physical movement, yet you continue to, how do I put this correctly... nurture the energetic movement. Nothing really changes except that the only movement left is Qi movement. Remain very relaxed and alert through the entire meditation.

     

     

    This is my experience, although I am coming from a different perspective. I can sit the lotus or half-lotus now for 40 minutes most of the time without losing significant feeling, whereas even two years ago most of the time I lost significant feeling. There is motion at the sacrum, and that motion projects into the balance in the abdomen. The real trick is that the stretch of ligaments and fascia generates muscular contraction, and the activity is side to side as the fascia from the sacrum to the sitbones stretches, around left and right as the fascia from the sacrum to the bottom front of the pelvis on each side stretches, and forward and back as the stretch at the hips and between the sacrum and pelvis coordinates with the motion of the sacrum. The mind does indeed go to the area where balance can utilize the cranial-sacral rhythm to open blockages. Feeling throughout the body to the surface of the skin is the best intention, and any other intentional activity prevents the reciprocal activity out of the stretch of ligaments necessary to a fluid alignment and feeling. That's a western understanding, of experiences I have that match with Soaring Crane's description; I have diagrams of the principle muscles and the fascia from the sacrum at the mudra of zen, as here: fascial triggers. Hopefully my written descriptions are straightforward, if the diagrams are somewhat primitive.

     

    a p.s.- it took me years after I understood this, and knew the anatomy involved, to realize that I had to open my mind to feelings that were close to painful in order for the reciprocal activity out of stretch to develop. Let me rephrase that; I had to open myself to the experience of consciousness in places where the associated feeling was close to painful, before the stretch in the ligaments was sufficent to generate muscular activity. Once I got the hang of it (literally), the ability to feel opened up for me, as though part of me trusted that I would let the mind move and allow feeling to arise appropriately.