There’s a controversy around the origin of words often attributed to Viktor Frankl and certainly the message is his, but the language may have been modified over time.  The words are attributed to his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, though they aren’t found there.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space.

In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our happiness.

Through the work of Alexander Technique, I’m learning to “inhibit” the habit or first response, giving myself space and time to adjust and choose.  There is ease as environment and I know and honor our relationship as one.

Yesterday, in my seventh Alexander session, I was disappointed to feel fear in my jaw, knees, and hips, all three of which were more tightly gripped than I prefer.  Today I consider what was different in my day.

I’d been reading Obi Kaufman’s book on Water, and though he says he doesn’t want to lead us down a downward spiral when he discusses  “climate breakdown”, I felt myself caught in a drain of fear and panic, even though in this moment, all is calm. Water flows in and out of my home. I have power and plants, electrical power and plant power.

This brings me to a fascinating study on flowers and bees that shows that when flowers hear buzzing bees, they make their nectar sweeter.  Stimulus and response.

This allows me to feel how I need to monitor my intake of the “news” of the day. I need to notice what’s happening with my breathing, and the space and spaces in torso, head, and legs.

I notice, give space.

Am I contracting even when there is no need to protect? Is there sourness, bitterness, anger, and/or fear? Can I give space to response, without judgment of right or wrong?

When I do, I intake what brings and produces joy, ripples ensue; my jaw is relaxed; my saliva is sweet.

My knees turn out with a curtsied bend that hurrahs, “Ta Da!”

“Ta Da, I’m here, gloriously here, delightfully alive in joy-filled response.”

So, rather than the force being with you, which might lead to a battle within, and another without, may your saliva be sweet, and your knees soft streams fulfilling sweet dreams.

I woke from a dream of sitting on the sand, then, walking into the ocean, and standing there until the tide came in and floated away my shoes.  With no shoes, I walked on rocks, exhilarated and soothed by natural stimulation, reflexology, a balance of shifting pleasure and pain.

I remembered being in a park in Hong Kong set up for barefoot walking on different surfaces and textures.  Walking there is meditation and a treat for the feet. I have a rug made up of river rocks and I love to stand on it and lift my feet up and down, moments of awakening, captured and set loose in a pause.

The baby shower yesterday was touching and sweet.  We spoke of how simple childbirth is in one way in that billions of us humans are here, and yet each one seems like a miracle, each of us a miracle.

I’m reminded of the words of Pablo Casals.

“The CHILD must know that he is a MIRACLE, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world will not be, another child like him.” 

And each of us is that child.

I was awake early this morning, still dark, and with my two kitties we watched the world come to light.  Wind blew through in the night, and pine needles are scattered like pick-up sticks all over the decks.

The light is soft with Autumn threading through.

Yesterday I was with people some of whom didn’t know of my brother’s death.  Speaking of it, sharing it, showed me that the wound is still fresh, and maybe it’s also a gathering of family and friends that touches the awareness of impermanence, the fragility and preciousness of life here.

I returned home to these words of Thich Nhat Hanh from his book “No Death, No Fear.” Reading his response to the death of his mother, I was turned on a lathe of understanding, moved to refresh my clay.

The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, “A serious misfortune of my life has arrived.” I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet… wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together, my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.

Surrendering, I remember my family members who’ve passed are always with me, available at any time, like hands and feet.

This morning I woke feeling like a Sea Star, awareness of my torso reaching out through hands, feet, and head, all equally important, all equally renewing and exploring.

Today I go to Menlo Park for a baby shower for my on approach grandchild.  It’s said that the grandmother’s hormones change while the baby is in the womb.  I feel that could be true. Yesterday at the grocery store I saw a beautiful, creamy hunk of gruyere cheese.  I think of gruyere cheese for fondue but I wanted that cheese and that’s all I wanted for dinner – hunks and hunks of gruyere cheese.

That feels a little weird to share but I’m feeling myself as a womb spreading out like a Sea Star, stomach reaching out to ingest what’s here – all children – species – connection, oneness, all gathered together, near and far – 

Last night before bed a friend shared with me the compassion she was feeling around some challenges in her life. I’m re-reading Frank Ostaseski’s wonderful book The Five Invitations, and I’m in his chapter on love.

He writes that there are only two questions that matter. “Am I loved?” “Did I love well?” Since there is no separation, we can include ourselves in that love. He speaks of resting in love, and then concludes the chapter with this.

“When we live from the vantage point of boundless love, we begin to see all the points of connection that join us together. Love breeds love.”

I read those words and come to this video of a horse that knows where he’s needed, a horse that radiates, and is, Love. I’m reminded of Challenger, a horse I worked with when I went through equine therapy after cancer treatment. I remember his presence, his eyes, heart, lungs – huge and healing, and I carry him with and within me thirteen years later. Tears come and heal, liquid Love.