Tag Archives: Human body

Episode # 6 – ‘Thoughts, Think, Idea’ plus Cops and TM

02 Monday May 2016

Posted by in Child development, David Lynch Foundation, LAPD, Parenting, TM, Transcendental meditation

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I have been doing TM(transcendental meditation) since I was 19. And though I have explored other forms of meditation – chi gong, when i was doing martial arts, kundalini and buddhist meditation – TM remained my base. I had only gone back to have a TM ‘check’ twice in all these years.

So, then…

My chiropractor comes into town about once a month and I went to have an adjustment at his latest pop-up location which happened to be, the David Lynch Foundation, meditation center. I got talking with Lynne  Kaplan, who is a TM teacher and she invited me to come listen to a speaker and have a group meditation . Meditation has been such a private thing for me all these years but the women’s group that met once a month felt compelling.

I have been going now for several months and find it to be very nourishing. Lynne starts by asking a question which we all give a quick answer to, then we meditate, then we have a tasty snack and listen to a speaker, which leads to conversation. The time is always charged with honesty, strength and courage of women living on the cusp of their quest.

Last Sunday, I walked in to find two gorgeous women in full LAPD uniforms. They had both recently begun TM and were going to give a talk. So in their Kevlar vests, with their gun belts, wool uniforms and sturdy shoes on we all meditated together. That alone was pretty astounding. Meditating in a yoga class, sure. Meditating in a park, on a bus, in a laundromat, at the beach, sitting on a curb, sure, done and done. But never have I meditated with two fully uniformed police officers.

What does Rumi say “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there”. Well, that’s what happened, and with cops – our cultural’s perfect image of all things right and wrong. That’s the image that invokes fear of being weighed and measured, found guilty and punished that we hold over from childhood. And to go into that field with cops, yeah, it will change you.

Lead officers Julie Nony and Maggie Dillard are twenty one year veterans of LAPD. They told of their journey into compassion, of how just being a woman cop often neutralizes hostile situations and that some cops are assholes.

TM is bringing mediation into schools and it’s helping children. The LAPD is open to offering meditation as a tool to officers. Julie and Maggie bring a whole other kind of courage to their job when they come and meditate with the people they  serve and protect. How about cops and kids meditating together? Hmm interesting.

So for Lynne Kaplan,  Julie Nony and Maggie Dillard I dedicate this podcast to you.

Episode #6 is about our pesky mind and how it is not designed for frustration and worry. Enjoy!

 

 

Episode #5 – ‘Saddest History Ever’

23 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in Child development, History, humour, Parenting, Psychohistory

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When I was a teenager I read ‘Holy Blood, Holy Grail’. It was a retelling of the story of Jesus by three different scholars using historical data. I didn’t come from a religious family but was aware of the basic plot points of the biblical Jesus. The thrill of having my brain scaffolding of ‘what I thought was true’ collapse from factual repatterning is something that I have sought out ever since. Robin Grille’s book ‘Parenting for a Peaceful World’ was one of those books. It is shocking and loaded with information that I feel is important to know. If you dare get yourself a copy.

In the book, Grille, mentioned a man, Lloyd de Mause, as being someone who he was getting information from. So, now this is some ten years ago, I went to New York City and met Lloyd in a coffee shop. He had a soft spoken passion and seemed like a man who was worn from swimming against the main stream. He gave me some literature and I signed up for a year of his newsletter. He was a corner stone for an international movement of historians relooking at all things ‘childhood’.

For many years,  my bedside table Bestie has been the books of Joseph Chilton Pearce. His ground in the truth about childhood development it essential reading. I was honoured to introduce him as a speaker when I hosted the 50th anniversary of the Highland Hall Waldorf school.

So, I present, Episode #5…for you.

You can got to itunes –

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-is-woman-because…its/id1088536792?mt=2

Or just click on the podcast link above.

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Thank you.

Podcasting and Ballet

14 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by in Adult Ballet, Dance, Pete Egoscue, Philosophy, Podcast

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So I have posted episode #4 ‘Inventing’ – If woman had invented the world.

Will post #5 ‘Saddest History ever!’on the weekend and have just recorded #6. It takes a few hours to write each 15-18 minutes piece, the recording is reasonably quick though I do have to work around planes, trucks, dogs, leaf blowers and construction noise. It takes Patric and I about 8 hours to add the music and sound effects. My plan is to string them all together in one piece once it is complete so it plays like a 2 and half hour radio play or rather monoplay that delivers a download from the premise ‘everyone’s first home was a woman’s body so what the hell happened’. Then I am going to get a bunch of people together to get high/or not, lie on the floor and listen to the whole thing. Then I will interview them. Let me know if you want to take the trip when it’s done.

If you haven’t checked it out you can listen below on itunes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-is-woman-because…its/id1088536792?mt=2

or

just go to the podcast link  on this page. thanks.

http://itsabsurdtobeawomanonplanetearthetc.com

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Ballet. Lovely ballet. My body figured out the pain issues with the help of the Egoscue book ‘Pain Free’. A few things  made a huge difference;

1) realizing that basically the entire back of the body is for strength and the front for flexibility – it’s easy to check myself and remind the back of me to hold me as my default has been to ask the front of my hips to hoist me around (psoas) and that pulls on my lower back.

2) my lower spine functions better when allowing it’s natural curve – I had tended to tuck my tail under, even when hiking uphill and I see now how that forced me to use the wrong muscles.

3) the body needs space to naturally find it’s desired comfort place – every chance I get I allow my body to let go and take it’s comfort position as I can get stuck in a holding pattern which is not natural for easy daily movement.

I am going slowly.

 

 

Podcasting

08 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in humour, Podcast, Women

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I decided to expand on the ideas in the book that I wrote from this blog. I had thought a theatre piece was next but it turned out podcasting was the next expansion and here it is. It’s serialized and meant to be heard sequentially. There are two episodes so far, each about 15 minutes long. I plan to launch an episode every two weeks.

If you are curious as to how they turned out you can connect below or click the podcasting button at the top of the page. Your listening and feedback would be much appreciated.

http://itsabsurdtobeawomanonplanetearthetc.com/

 How it all happened.

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 After some research I bought a blue-yeti mike, a mike stand and a mike cover.  That cost about 150 dollars and my husband had a mike stand. It’s important for sound quality to have the mike suspended as otherwise it will pick up noise from your desk and probably computer. I got advice from my brother-in-law John who podcasts and led me to some tutorials and helped with the initial sorting out which turned out to be quite horrible.

I had decided at the same time to rebuild my old website which was floating in the ethers since mobile me stopped operating at the same time I lost my website info on a computer transfer years ago. This created much confusion and the help person on my hosting site would tell me one things and it would screw things up and then tech help at GoDaddy where my domain was would tell me something else. It makes for a very terrible feeling in the brain to sit there hour after hour hitting dead ends and not being able to find that one little thing that is particular to your situation that will enable you to be up and running technically.

Once I was done reclaiming my website, I built my site in an hour and was then able to dive right into podcasting hell where Dean, who was my tech support on wordpress.com actually called me brave, so I must have sounded like I had scrambled brains even on ichat. The trouble with tutorials and people as well is that it is likely that your situation is unique somehow and one missing piece will lock you out of forward progress.

I recorded on the Audacity program which was free and very simple. It took a very few tests to settle on mike volume and how far to be from the mike. Then I sent my files to Patric Caird and we spent about 90 minutes a day for four days adding music and sound effects. It went fairly smoothly and we found that more often than not  the music we pulled from his library would fit perfectly with the dialogue. In each episode there was one place that became a boondoggle and took up the whole ninety minute session. He has a sound effects library as well and we added those as we went along.

Putting it up on itunes was another bit of hell. I couldn’t even find someone to pay to come over and help me get my first one up on itunes. Thanks to Sophie who sat with me through a lot of the frustration, and though she is tech savy was stymied by my particular roadblock. Finally it was solved with Patric figuring out the final piece once my hosting site problem was solved.

I ended up going to my naturalpath doctor who told me my corpus callosum had crashed under the stress! That’s the part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres and a crash basically means your hormones start firing improperly and you feel super crappy. He set me right and am back on track. It took a village! Thank you village.

Once you know how to do something it’s embarrassingly easy. Now I have other problems to solve like adding descriptions and pics to each individual episode and understanding how to spread the word.

Onward.

Adult Ballet.6 – Being in Space

27 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in Adult Ballet, Align Ballet, Bjarne Hecht, Dance, Learning

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My teacher, Bjarne, gave me an adjustment about balancing and it opened the door to many things.

– The exercise I was doing – balancing on one leg with the other leg in front of me, bent at an angle (in attitude).

–  He could see that I was in my head which leads me to struggle for the         balance.

– His solution was to look out into the room, not fixated on a spot, just be in the space.   He explained that when he went into a new theatre to dance he would go on the stage and ground himself in the fixtures of the theatre – the little  red light at the back, the exits signs etc. He would align his geometry  with the geometry of the theatre he was in.

– I understood what he meant and how relaxing it is to calmly be where I am, in the room. So challenging to repeat but a new goal. I could feel within myself a thread of worry that was part of my state of being that when brought into balancing brought uncertainly, and tension with it. Is this worry a result of being a student in a class? More likely, always with me and a habit that has embedded itself in the fiber of my being.

Well, that opened up an exploration of what it is to be in space. Just like our eyes are constantly adjusting their focal point and our feet are giving feedback to our bodies to balance us, our bodies are constantly getting feedback from the world around us. Because this sense ‘spatial awareness’ is not included in the commonly known five senses – touch, sight, hearing, seeing and tasting – we tend to be asleep about it but it is part of our operational package. A blind person is conscience of this innate sense and uses it as effortlessly as we use our eyes.

We are constantly sending out sensors to tell us where we are in space. That is why we can sit in a chair without looking at it, feel differently in a cathedral than we do in a baseball field or an elevator. There is nothing woo woo about this sense, it’s as important as any of the others for our basic functioning. I wonder if our lack of including it in the basic five senses that we teach all school children makes us so obsessed with how we are feeling/doing/thinking/behaving. It keeps us focused on self. We don’t bring to consciousness this skill that is the connective tissue to our world, to each other. It is this sense that reaches us out of ourselves while touch, sight, hearing, seeing and tasting are all contained within us.

I digress.

What I learned from that one correction was that I have a thread of worry/concern that I carry with me. When I am able to be free of it by doing what Bjarne recommended I feel calm and elated and present and free. And balancing is so easy.

I find this extremely difficult to do and the change will happen by building second on second. But the dance is in this adjustment,  the dance of my life.

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Give the Gift of ‘Women Explained’ – Finally!’

02 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by in humour, Philosophy, sex, Women

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What better Gift for a Man, Woman, Teen, Couple or Undeclared Human than to finally unravel the idiotic ideas about women that have been masquerading as Fact.

Don’t allow yourself or a loved one to go into 2015 carrying around the same old crap in their bonnet.

Get the book!

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If you order from me in the next two weeks (until Dec. 16th) I will wrap your book(s) in this lovely pink ensemble;

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And include a message of your choice on this lovely note paper;

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So email me at wendel@wendelmeldrum.com OR in the US go to Amazon;

 http://www.amazon.com/What-Woman-Because-Absurd-Planet/dp/0692245146/ref=la_B00MFRRKQS_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417552473&sr=1-1

OR in Canada you can order it here;

http://www.amazon.ca/What-Woman-Because-Absurd-Planet/dp/0692245146/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417553755&sr=1-1&keywords=pinkyluxschoolforgirls

Onward!

The Book is now Available!

06 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by in humour, Philosophy, sex

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With deep appreciation to all who have been reading the blog, the book is now available in many countries!

 I think the ideas in the book make it a perfect gift. It looks like a Dr.Suess book, each chapter is only a page, there are lots of pictures, built to inspire through laughter, rethinking and the odd fact. Perfect for a man, a woman, a teen, women’s shelters, bridal showers, charities, a bookstore or a bathroom this book is designed to share. Read it, sign it and pass it on – old school viral. As you know it’s my belief that it’s our misperceptions about women that keeps the madness in place.

Here are some locations that it should be available. Please let me know if they are happening. It’s been a bit clunky so far!

In Canada;

http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/176-2598955-2817406?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=pinkyluxschoolforgirls

In the US;

http://www.amazon.com/What-Is-Woman-Because-Absurd/dp/0692245146/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_dnr_1

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/pinkyluxschoolforgirls?keyword=pinkyluxschoolforgirls&store=book

In United Kingdom/Europe;

http://www.amazon.co.uk  or  www.bookdepository.co.uk  or www.thebookcommunity.com

In Australia;

http://www.rainbowbooks.com.au or www.thenile.com.au

Onward, Ladies!

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It’s time to take a look at blood.

09 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by in humour, Philosophy

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 You are reading this partly because your blood is rushing around inside you making trillions of life creating exchanges that your mere mind cannot begin to comprehend.

Makes you wonder why we listen to our mind at all!

Our ancestors puzzled over blood. If someone got cut and too much of this substance leaked out the person would die. When blood stopped coming to a woman for several moons a baby would grow in her.

It’s blood that makes life! Blood staying in a woman is what makes a human! Blood is the juice that creates life!

Now this was a reasonable thing to surmise when sex was a function like eating and crapping, just part of the rhythm of life.

Male circumcision began as a rite to give the pubescent male the power of blood in his nether regions. This mimicked the blood that came to a young woman when her body began to menstruate, the male emulating this ‘magical’ and life creating body change in order to gain power over life.

This view of menstrual blood led to the hope that sacrificing an animal, it’s blood dedicated to some spirit/god/power, would grant wishes. (no judgement)

The bible reads like an endless hack and whack of some lovely farm animals and often people as well. eg: to get rid of leprosy: sacrifice a ram and two sheep, have their entrails read by the priest and their blood wiped on your right side. Rivers of blood flowed in the temples and on alters worldwide.

People, get a grip, it’s just a menstrual cycle!

The next evolutionary Aha! was when someone realized that it wasn’t blood but semen that created life. I wish I could say this was an improvement but alas, no.  Now that men could claim ownership of a child, they wanted to make sure that the child was theirs and began controlling female sexual freedom.

Nothing tampers a woman’s sex drive more than seeing her besties’ head get chopped off for having a child while their husband was at war.

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Give menstruation a break!

Menstruation is the sign of a healthy body. ‘PMS’ is a sign that you need to improve some aspect of your health – unless you think you were designed to go crabbing around, getting all weepy and irrational. This myth gets used to deny women responsible jobs and dismiss viable and needed discussions.

Don’t take pills to stop your flow! The world could learn from the rhythm of the cycle of creation you carry – it’s exhausted from trying to be run like a machine!

This in no way means you should be waving your tampons in peoples faces! Absolument pas! Menstruation is not a sport!

Ride that rhythm ladies! It’s what life requires!

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Eat more veggies! Get sound sleep! Hydrate! Listen to your body!

It’s trying to love you!

 

Why all this ‘work’ to be healthy?

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Philosophy

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You don’t see a gorilla jogging about the forrest or a llama watching her weight. We are the crazy ones monkeying around with the most brilliant design on the planet.

Every human is born with the remarkable ability to stay at around 98.6 degrees. That is a pretty incredible thing considering our outside temperature is very rarely at 98.6.

Whether we get a paper cut or something much worst our bodies instantly start to mend and in my opinion do an excellent job of it.

Balancing – no problem, your body is making millions of adjustments a second to balance you, counterbalancing your every move so you don’t fall over in the middle of a meeting! Thanks for that! It gives you the grace to walk through a room, sensing where everything is so you can do a ‘walk and talk’ with ease.

When it’s time to rest it sends you into a sweet night with a surge of lovely chemicals  which includes paralyzing ones that prevent us from actually running in our dreams!

Day and night our bodies are designed to nourish, repair and build us in an incomprehensibly complex dance of biochemical maneuvers.

24/7/365 is something your body really knows. Without you giving it a thought it breathes for you, pumps your blood around, digests and hydrates you. And while it’s doing all this you are busy having your life in it, chatting, thinking, looking around, listening, touching, sensing, loving and dancing (I hope).

It offers you this gift of health because it wants you to have a great life! It’s saying, I got your back, go do your thing, I’m here for you, let’s get this party started!

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Now.

What do we do? We wake up and before our body has a chance to show what energy it has prepared for us we slam it with a bunch of caffeine and proceed to monkey around with it from there. Starving it, overfeeding it, under watering it, pushing and pulling it to adjust to all our angers, our fears and demands from life. Then we hate it and make it do all these crazy ‘exercises’  because we don’t like the shape it’s giving us.

Oh, no! We don’t know how to have a Bestie!

And do you know what your body does?

It does it’s very best to maintain you. Always. Your health is your lighthouse in a storm. If you get to know your body and listen to it and respond with even a small amount of gentleness and understanding it will respond with true ‘good feelings’ for you. (‘Good Feelings’ are often confused with ones had by overriding the body’s systems. You know what I’m talking about.) 

Continuum is something that a wonderful woman inventor named Emily Conrad invented. It’s a movement modality that doesn’t try to get the body to learn a system but rather listens to the body and says ‘Body, how do you want to move?’

http://www.continuummovement.com/

Ladies let’s get inventing!

Health is the true Beauty!

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