experiment

so for forty days, i and some others in our community up here are doing some experiments in truth.

for forty days:
*i will restrict all use of the internet except for essential schoolwork, email and my own personal blog (no online TV shows, wikipedia, other blogs, news, etc.)

*i will sleep for at least 7 hours each day/night, no matter what it takes

*i will meditate & deep breathe for 10 minutes each day

i hope to restore my center during this time...life's rhythms have thrown me pretty out of whack lately.

my sister carrie had her baby a few weeks ago; she's a beautiful baby girl named violet grace prince.

i am about to start an advanced critical care training course at work...which i am pretty excited about.

i am still hard at work training for my triathlon in may....found a new bike on craigslist which is doin me just fine, although i must confess, i have plans to do some mini-stakeouts on 16th & Mission, the purported spot for selling hot bikes.

the continued sunshine is restoring my soul, making me feel alive these days. just biked to sausalito yesterday, one of the clearer days i have seen in this area...sometime i have got to take a camera with me.

the US death toll in Iraq recently reached 4,000....a fraction of the numbers for iraqi civillians. please stop. washing a country in blood will not yield peace. please, no more.

bummer.

my new road/triathlon bike got stolen last night. snap. the feeling that someone was able to break into our garage and steal my bike is a bit disquieting. oh well, i guess i'll go out and get another one. another opportunity to support pedal revolution, a local, nonprofit bike shop that gives vocational training to at risk folks; however, i'd rather not make it a monthly tradition (bikes are pricey these days!).


sis carrie had her third baby two days ago; a perfect, healthy little girl named violet grace. looking forward to seeing my new niece in a few days. carrie had her totally naturally (at the hospital) the way that she wanted to...rock'n'roll.

more good news: bethany's mandolin and guitar are both fixed and in perfect condition, so we are starting to play music together...super fun.

hit a stall in my creative energy these days. thank you, irrelevant, petty and soul-sapping accounting and health systems classes. soon the pain of this master's program will be over. we have started dreaming about what might be next...stuff like learning tropical medicine and agriculture while we finish putting our school debt out of its misery. i'm excited about how the next few years are going to unfold.

that's the update for now.

peace.

one year

yesterday marked the end of my first full year working full time as an emergency nurse at highland hospital in oakland, ca. i am finding it hard to believe that i have been there for an entire year, about as long as i have been living in san francisco. i am so thankful for this job. i feel honored for the opportunity to spend some time in this sometimes dark place. i have learned an immense amount about the human body and the way it responds to disease, trauma and emotional stressors. i have learned about society and its systems which favor some and keep others down. i have been challenged to be a champion for those who are vulnerable and poor in an environment which may actually be hostile toward their plight at times; i have not always been this....there are days that i replay at times, and feel like i failed those whom i could have helped and empowered more fully. there are days when i feel like i am bringing love, bringing life, and there are days when i acquiesce to the darkness which attempts to infiltrate....spitting cynicism and judgment, fearful of what others may think of me if i say or do things differently. may God forgive me for those days.

i have passed a milestone today. bethany & i are going to be completely done with school debt within this year, progressing forward in living into our dreams of doing humanitarian work among the world's poor.

in spite of the beautiful sunshine and crisp, clean san francisco air, i am weighed down today for some reason. i am going to go for a nice long run, let it all go, and enjoy the good creation, breathing in wholeness and life.


that's all for now. peace. i'll post a drawing a bit later.

food, for me, is art.

last night there were several people here for dinner, and i volunteered to make dinner. i decided to do jamaican jerk chicken and homemade naan. as i was in the kitchen, i was struck by how therapeutic, how spiritual making food is for me...especially when i sit down to share it with friends. making food is one of the ways i express my creativity....i have vivid memories of being in the kitchen with my mama , soaking up her amazing skills in the kitchen. anyhow, it was a great night to be with friends and share food together.










thats all for now.


peace.

zinfandel country

just got back from a couple days tasting wine at the base of the sierras with ryan, holly and some other friends for ryan's 31st b-day. tasted some pretty good zins.

the sunshine felt so nice....i feel so much more alive when the sun is shining on me.

i've also been doing a lot of biking around the city; one of the great things about this dense city is that you can see a lot of it in not too much time. just today adam & i rode through the mission to the embarcadero around the marina, past the golden gate bridge, through the presidio, through the richmond district, down the great highway at ocean beach, through golden gate park and finished up through some of the haight and the mission again. it was amazing.

gotta go take a nap...working tonight.

peace.

that's right

goodbye for now, my dear friend....until easter.


peace.

acupuncture

was amazing. i loved it. bethany & i went to the american college of traditional chinese medicine's $5 community ear acupuncture session yesterday. there were about 20 people seated in chairs against the wall, soft instrumental chinese music playing, and a small water fountain trickling in the background.

one of the students comes over to you with the short questionnaire you filled out and asks some additional questions (e.g. how is your energy? sleep? digestion? etc.). Then comes the actual acupuncture. the entire body can be accessed via the ear in chinese medicine. based on what the practitioner deems most important, they will take a small, dull dental-probe looking thing and probe particular areas of the ear to find the most painful/sensitive spot, and then insert a needle. i will say this: it hurt a bit more than i expected it to; even so, the pain was therapeutic...i'm not sure how to qualify that further...perhaps pain is a reminder that we are alive.

i had 6 needles in one ear and 4 in the other. as i sat drinking tea with my eyes closed, i could feel waves of calming energy move down my body, from head to feet. it was awesome.

the serenity of the place was nothing short of striking, especially as i contrasted the way that these professional healthcare providers practice versus the chaotic, compartmentalized, cold and clinical environment of the hospital. i feel like i have a lot to learn from eastern medicine. there are so many intuitive connections, which make so much sense, but are never spoken of in the western medical model (from which i have been and continue to be trained). oh yeah, and they have thousands of years of practice.



peace for now.