Knight of Pentacles

  Lately I've been trying to be more conscious of glimmers.  If you don't know the term, glimmers are the opposite of triggers.  Whereas triggers are danger cues that make us feel threatened, leading us to fight, run away, freeze or fawn, glimmers are internal or external cues that help us to feel joy, safety or connection. Since reading about them, I've been noticing those little moments where I see something and feel a spark of joy.  I try to take a picture of it, but at the very least a take a second to appreciate it.  I guess you could call it part of gratitude practice. "Aha" moments in Kung Fu are turning into pretty big glimmers for me.  When one of the instructors explains something and it suddenly clicks, or points out something I'm doing that just needs a little tweak.  Or I'm listening to Sifu Brinker tell me stories about the history of our school.  Those moments are really special to me. And then sometimes it's just seeing a flower gr...

 I'm currently reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, by Mark Manson.  For a book with such a provocative title, it's truly one of the best philosophical books I've ever read.  There was a section I just finished called "The Responsibility/Fault Fallacy, and it was so very pertinent to my previous blog post that it prompts an addendum: <begin quote> "With great power comes great responsibility." It is true.  But there's a better version of this quote, a version that actually is profound, and all you have to do is switch the nouns around: "With great responsibility comes great power." The more we choose to accept responsibility in our lives, the more power we will exercise over our lives.  Accepting responsibility for our problems is thus the first step to solving them. ... A lot of people hesitate to take responsibility for their problems because they believe that to be responsible  for your problems is to also be at fault for your p...

I didn't realize that blogs shouldn't just be about personal epiphanies, but also memories to track milestones and progress.  But that makes sense. So, today we did a lion dance and dragon dance for the Cultural Campfires, where " storytellers share stories from an array of cultural backgrounds around the campfire. It is a place where culture can be shared, understanding can be built, and connections can be nourished." (source:  https://www.stonyplain.com/en/play/cultural-campfires.aspx) I wasn't sure what to expect, but I felt honoured that Sifu Brinker asked me to be the back of Sidai N Csillag's Lion.  It was a great community representation opportunity, and a great opportunity to delve more into the practice of lion dancing.  The crowd was really into it!  They asked questions and were genuinely curious about the art of it.  I could see them looking at Noa and I as Sifu Brinker was talking, they'd obviously figured out that the 2 people in the bright, ...

  I have rewritten this blog many times.   I’ve started out usually by listing all the things I’m currently responsible for, which is a lot now, compared to 10, 20 or 30 years ago.   But the list was boring and not helpful to the reader.   It was slightly interesting to me, to see how things have changed for me.   But the gist of it is this:   whether we realize it or not at first, pretty much every decision we make comes with responsibilities.   When we decide to take a job, have a child, adopt a pet, we take on obvious responsibilities.   When we go out partying, or eat certain things, or live our lives a certain way, those affect our responsibilities, too.   When we make mistakes, one of the most important things we can do is take responsibility for them, whether we meant to make the mistake or not.   If that’s the case, then I think responsibility is about being conscious of how your actions affect everything.   If you take ow...

  Progress.  It is there.   My blogging has been slipping a bit, I know.  I'll work on that. My plan at the beginning of June was to focus on my consistency rather than the volume of the numbers.  That has only recently started becoming a success, so my goal for July is to continue the streaks (but also try to increase the reps). It has been a good month, though.