Hyacinth bloom. Focus.

 Another week passes. The hyacinths at my sti spot have started blooming and smelling wonderful. I'm working all the time these days on the papers that are due, and the other projects that are due, week by week and day by day. Busy, but getting it done. Not much time for extra things though.

That said, I'm also traveling to the east coast to be with family for Passover. Another reason I'm focusing intently on getting things done now, so I can actually spend time being present with them.

That's all for this week. Maybe another week and a half and I can come up for air.

All the best!

-Isaac

The unnatural second layer of being. Beautiful plants.

 Also here's last weeks post, because I'm trying not to fall more behind than the six or so blog posts I'm already behind.

It's pretty great seeing all the plants blooming and growing and leaves budding out. My favorite time of year. I really want to eat some dandelion greens while they're still young and tender, but I've got to be careful because we sprayed around the house for ants (Suzannah's prerogative) and we have cats (which like to pee outside in the mulch, one of the places the dandelions grow). Pee I can wash off, but pesticides I really don't want to mess with. The unfortunate complications of a modern forager.

One thing I'm thinking about (but won't have time to elaborate on here): I've been noticing... for lack of a better word, the masks we wear. That's not quite the right word, but it's like a layer on top of and covering the real person. It seems like it has something to do with being self conscious, worrying what other people will think about you, judging yourself based on external standards, deciding to do things based on external standards. It makes people have stage fright and act unnatural in many ways, vs. just being true to their nature, like animals and small children are good at. But it's more complicated, because adults are more mentally complex, and that can't be avoided, and shouldn't be.

I think it's linked to the 'felt sense' stuff as well. all tied together.

OK, that's all for now.

With love to you, dear friends and family

-I

Death and Taxes, 2025 edition.

 Two papers and taxes due right around April 13th-15th, so this is a particularly busy time.

That means, this is this weeks post.  Hah!

Frozen Buds. Meaning. Karma Yoga.

 Alright, new week, I am at least not going to get further behind.

As I get better at being organized, focused, prioritized, and productive, something else becomes more clear: doing all those things is not going to make my life feel meaningful. It's useful to have those skills and habits, but it's unwise to do them with the expectation of fulfilment and happiness, though they can reduce stress.

So what is it that I can focus on, that will lead to feeling like I am living a worthwhile, meaningful, purposeful life. That just fundamentally, feels good?

Current hypothesis is a mixture of the habit of following my felt sense of rightness (talked about in some previous posts) and the approach to action ("karma yoga") advocated for in the Bhagavad Gita. Haven't talked about that so much recently, but I should probably do a post on it, as much to clarify for myself, as for anyone reading.

OK, that's another short one for the week. Spring is here but it's going back to winter each night, the crazy storm system mostly left us alone, aside from some heavy winds and a bit of thunderstorm, thankfully. I wonder what the fruit trees will do, with all the highs and lows in temperature. That might end up freezing the buds or flowers, and then they wouldn't have fruit.

Happy spring to all,

-Isaac

Budding

 I wonder what it was that got me so behind on my blogs. It wasn't that I had especially less time than usual. It seems more like, when I'm really pushing to add something new into my life, like integrating a realization, adding in a new habit, pushing to complete a big side project, that a lot of my regular optional things tend to get pushed to the side.

I've been working on a few things, which I think have been bearing fruit, and which have been taking that energy and focus. I've been trying to work through a bunch of my little miscellaneous small tasks that fill up my todo lists. I've also been trying to work with more rigor. That just means, instead of spending time goofing off, I'm spending it on things that matter. If I'm taking a break, I'm doing something good, like playing or quality time with a friend or Suzannah, or a walk outside, etc. I'm not just 'killing time,' like on an app or solo game or fun but not actually that good book or a netflix series. I still do it, but I'm doing it less and less, to a satisfying degree. Most of the things that are currently 'wasting' my time, are not conscious choices I'm making anymore, but things I accidentally get sucked into and then go "whoops" once I surface for air. And even those, I'm getting better about. Though I still do it all the time. Lots of distance to travel yet. But feeling movement.

The key difference is when I have a break or something (like spring break which just happened), a good chunk of time. Rather than squandering my days, I'm spending more of that time, working on tasks that I've put on my lists, as important things I really want to get done. It feels fantastic, to be focused and checking off my lists and choosing what I work on intentionally. And it's not cutting into my quality fun and rest time. In fact, somewhat the opposite, as I'm practicing being more disciplined about wrapping up work at a set time, so it doesn't bleed over into time I've set aside for quality connection or play.

There is a whole mix of factors that I've been working on, and may be helping me with this (hard to tell which or which combo is actually making the difference). Practicing with my 'focus' mental muscle. Challenging my beliefs about 'not having enough time,' exerting/practicing my willpower, self-control, leading to more willpower and self-control. Practicing my love, self love, trust, and faith. Connecting more intimately and lovingly with Spirit, the Higher Consciousness. And what I mentioned earlier, connecting to and letting my felt sense of rightness guide me. Whatever it is, or all the confluence, it feels good.

Maybe some of it is just how nice spring feels though. It's beautiful out! Sunshine, refreshing breezes, birds chirping, new plant life budding and sending up green shoots.

The Silver Maple catkin buds have opened, probably sending out the little baby seeds, but too far away to see. I identified two songs of the bluebirds we have around, which was a treat. usually I don't get to see clearly which bird is making which sound. Bluebirds have a really unusual song. And then another, more crow 'caw' like bird call. I think a magnolia tree on my morning run route, is getting ready to open its buds. There is so much going on now after the months of hibernation, it's hard to keep track of it all, but fun to try.

OK! Two blog posts down, six to go. 🤣

-I Out

Amazing Levels of Behind-ness

The level of behind-ness on my blog is kind of amazing. I don't know if I've ever been this behind. Or maybe it's just that I've got a task manager keeping track of it and adding a new one to my list every week. In any case, it's super behind, so it's definitely time to use my handy escape clause that I built in right when I set the weekly requirement for myself: my blog posts can be super short. They can be one word, I think. Maybe I should check what that original post said. In any case, something like that.

This was originally from when I was thinking about habit formation, and the idea that just doing a tiny thing, consistently each day, was a great way to form a habit, that could then turn into something I did automatically, and which could then be expanded to take a little more time.

In the spirit of that, perhaps instead of doing a whole bunch of blog posts one after another, I should just try doing one every day for a bit, to catch up. Then some will be shorter.

Though often, once I get on a roll, I have additional ideas and so I end up writing more. That's perhaps part of the problem, as I shy away from writing when I've got other stuff I want to get done, because I know I can lose a lot of time to it. I think that's one of my strength/weakness things, where it's just a feature of who I am, and depending on the situation, could be either a strength or a weakness.

I think that we should find those things in ourselves, and try to shape our lives so that they end up acting as strengths, as much as they can. (And that we do so in service to something bigger than ourselves, and something that brings goodness to the world and those in it.)

Snow, Stir-Friday (Wednesday), Time Flies

 I looked at my task manager, and it had like 5 entries for "Blog" listed (it automatically creates a new one each week) and I thought, "no, that can't be right, it hasn't been that long since I blogged last." and then I looked at the date for my last blog and realized, oh, yeah, it actually has been that long. So... I should get on that, I suppose. Sorry for the long delay in postings. Somehow it's been hectic enough that I haven't found time to do it? Seems so. There's been a lot of things like that, and it doesn't really feel like things have gotten less hectic, but I do feel like I've finally caught up a bit. Some of the fullness of time has been doing Pancha Karma with Suzannah, and traditional and kind of intense Ayurvedic health regime and cleanse, which was kind of all consuming, with school still going on in the background. Honestly, this has gone back so far I don't really remember why I was so busy. But, I'll try and do a series of rapid fire blog posts like I did last time, to try and catch up.

Interesting to reflect that somehow that is what my life is looking like these days. Not sure what that means.

Hey! it's snowing! right now! It hasn't snowed like this (at all?) this winter, so I'm enjoying the beauty of it.

The view outside my office window:

Thought it's a snow day for many school children, my school is on zoom, so we still have class, and my work happens at home anyways, so it is not slowed or reduced.

I think I'm going to make a mandarin orange sauce Chinese style stir fry tonight, to celebrate being off the Pancha Karma restrictive diet. But I'll have to venture out into the snow to get some ingredients before can make it. And I have to get the brown rice cooking now, so it will be ready in time for dinner. Brown rice takes a long time in the rice cooker.

More posts to follow shortly I hope. But maybe not this weekend, as there is still a bunch that needs to get done by Sunday.

Stay safe and warm out there,

wishing you joy, love, connection, and meaning,

-Isaac

Accepting the limitations of my time = peace, self-awareness, effectiveness

Continuing on the theme of aha moments via "felt-sense navigation and self-analysis," it recently hit home more deeply, how my time issues are creations of my own mind. Not that I'm making up the idea that there isn't enough time in the day to do all the things I want to do, that's pretty true. But the suffering associated with that.

It struck me, that I'm living in a fantasy land, where maybe if I try hard enough or use the right strategy, I will be able to get all the things done in the amount of time I have. But of course, that's not likely. And me clinging to that fantasy and trying to make it happen, isn't very productive. It means I'm spending a bunch of time trying to 'figure it out' rather than just doing what I can, in the time I have.

It also makes me mispriorize stuff, because I'm clinging to the delusion that I can get my huge list done today, so I might as well just start wherever and work my way down. If I was being more realistic, I would look at what is most important to get done, and start with that, because I know it's unlikely I'll get most of it done. The at least I'll have gotten the important parts done.

This makes me think of the idea behind the book "Four thousand weeks" https://a.co/d/3Sp9sJM

Which is in part about accepting our limitations, especially in terms of time.

Working from a more realistic expectation about time, how much I have, and how much things will take to accomplish, makes for better planning, and confronts me with the tradeoffs I have to make, beforehand, when I'm still big picture and thinking clearly. Rather than trying to adjust when I'm entangled in the middle of something and feel the need to finish it in an overly-attached, muddle-brained state. Or choosing my next task from a tired, narrow focus perspective in the middle of the day when I'm in doing things mode.

I think a lot of my planning about my day-to-day routine comes from a wishful thinking perspective. Then at the end of the day when I'm confronted with failing to follow through again, I feel like I'm lousy, rather than seeing the truth: I doomed myself to failure from the start, like a bad boss who insists on a project deadline that's half of what you know you actually need, because he either doesn't understand your work at all, or is just thinking about what he wants, not what you need.

This understanding, plus the additional self-awareness check-in's throughout the day ("how did that go? What would I do differently if I could?") Prompted by my "felt-sense navigation and self analysis" mindset, feels like it's nudging me towards more useful practices and choices. Sometimes it makes me stop beating myself up, because when I ask "what would I do differently?" I realize it actually was a decent choice, and it's my "should voices" coming from external sources that are making me think otherwise.

OK, that's another blog done, almost caught up. I think I'll stop for the day, time to do some other important work that I'll feel good about doing in hindsight 👍😊🙌

With love and wishes for your happiness,

-Isaac

Definition: Felt-sense navigation and self analysis. En-Theos.

 I started talking about this two posts ago, defined it in last post, but figured I should create a post that just gives it some definition in case people are wondering about this term I just made up. To start with, for the longer explanation, just go to this previous blog post:

https://teaandcrumpetswithisaac.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-feeling-of-things-vision-aliveness.html

If you want a quicker summary:

First off, this long, unwieldy phrase, which I'm already shortening to "felt-sense navigation" doesn't, I think, really capture the essence of what I'm talking about, and that is kind of related to the thing itself, which is operating in a realm mental mode different than our normal, verbal sequential logical mode that western culture sometimes thinks is the only valid mode. I've heard left-brain vs. right-brain used to describe this difference in functioning, though I think the neuroscience of it is a little less clear-cut in terms of brain regions. In any case, it's not so much verbal. It's more about feelings, images, sensations. Even though it can accompany words and sequential logical thought, it's different from it.

"self analysis" is perhaps more useful to job my own memory of what I'm talking about, because I am using it to self-reflect and gain more self awareness, and even analyse myself, though somehow it doesn't feel "left-brain" analytical. For example, looking back at my day and analysing it for what I could do better, to take lessons away for next time, doesn't happen by me trying to remember all the things and then think about how I could do them better, it's me actually remembering the day visually and emotionally, being drawn to any moments that didn't feel good, and then kind of imagining I've got a magic power and get to go back in time and do it again, and seeing what doing it in a way that feels better, more congruent with my own values, looks like. It gets me to a similar place, but feels significantly more impactful, useful, and easier, than the more step by step logical analysis method. Maybe that's just me.

This phrase also has the theme, again from that first blog post I mentioned above, of asking about what lights me up, makes me come alive, connects me, plugs me in. That is a specific kind of feeling, one of the best ones. I think of it as strongly related to the indigenous idea of "Vision" that I've been introduced to, as well as somewhat to some of the connotations of "Dharma" or 'rightness.' Though the podcast I mentioned earlier has a number of other questions to feel into as well, that have been on my mind: if x and y light you up, what flips the switch off? what makes you feel disconnected, saps your energy? What are your gifts and strengths (and other people who know you well can be good sources for that info). What are the major turning points or stepping stones in your life path? What are the synchronicities in your life and where do they lead you? and what are you doing when they show up most frequently?

So to summarize that: there is a subtle connotation and connection, to what brings you alive and lights you up. The word enthusiasm comes from "en" and "theos" which means 'the God within.' That is this energy I'm talking about, though if your not theistic you could just call it the life-force, or the energy of life itself, within us.

OK, one more post down. My task manager says I've got two more to write to be caught up, but I don't always check them off when I write them, so I don't know if it's accurate. I'll try and do it anyways, as I appear to be enthusiastic ;-) and on a role.

Wishing you the feeling of being lit up and alive. 

A saying I've heard recently (I think from Jon Young, though the internet says it's an African proverb, which would make sense given his background.) 

"When death finds you, may it find you alive."

-I out

Figuring out a soothing bedtime routine through felt-sense navigation.

 I am quite a bit behind on my blogging schedule, so I'll do a second one now.

This is just a short experiment I ran last night. It ties in with the previous post, as it was kind of inspired by this feeling-directed, unusually effectively self-reflective mode of operating that I've found my way into.

When I'm by myself (such as this week, when Suzannah is visiting family in another state) it can be hard to get myself to go to bed early. This has always been the case, and the reason is almost always one of two things:

1) I feel emotionally unsettled, empty, or otherwise bad.

2) I'm doing something that I don't want to stop.

And #2 is often linked to #1, as stopping is made harder by the thought that, if I stopped, I'd be left with these negative feelings. Though this attachment or compulsion to do things that aren't really important is a whole other topic, which is again related to this overarching thing I've got going on (it would be handy to give it a name so it's easier to talk about, even if it's not sufficiently descriptive... how about... felt-sense based navigation and self-analysis. Not great but I'll go with it for now.)

So, last night, I just decided to try and feel out what a gentle, settling evening routine might feel like. I slowed down a bit, and would pause and take some deeper breaths, almost sighs, letting myself sink in. I was a little hungry, so I had some hot milk, which was actually really nice, that one's a keeper. I thought about listening to a book on tape as I got ready for bed, but when I thought about it (felt it out) I realized that actually wasn't so great, although it was enjoyable, it kind of... how to explain...it was like a pleasant distraction, but didn't actually soothe me, so as soon as I would stop, I'd not only go back to feeling a bit bad, but it's almost like there would be added negative feelings to it. Like water pressure building up because the outlet has been stopped. Instead, I just let myself continue to be present, take relaxed breaths, and enjoy the slow process of winding down. At some point, I think brushing my teeth, I did want to listen to something, but I felt out what would actually be soothing, so I listened to a very relaxing and uplifting spiritual talk, nothing deeply heady, with some nice background music. Almost a guided meditation.

And then I went to sleep, feeling quite good. Oh, I think I did a little journaling as well. It was nice!

I suppose the thing I'm figuring out here, is that letting my felt-sense guide me can be used imaginatively, to more accurately predict how various things will make me feel, in the future. Referring back to my friend Ben's idea about letting pleasure guide you, this seems similar. Maybe it's the same principle in action, with idiosyncratic surface differences.

I also wonder about Dan Gilbert's research 

about how we are lousy at predicting what will make us happy. I wonder if this is either a different, more effective approach, or if it is still not doing a great job. I think it is relying on accurate felt-sense recall of previously doing something though, which makes me think it likely is more accurate, but perhaps limited, if what you are thinking about isn't like anything you've done before.

Alright, this post is also already long, and I've got more to catch up on, so I'll stop this one as well, and continue on to the next topic, in another post.

The feeling of things. Vision. Aliveness.

Something good is going on.

It’s hard to put into words, but that kind of makes sense, because this thing that’s going on has to do a lot with navigating life by feelings, visuals, non-linear-or-lexical methods.

It’s related to the annual review process I’m doing, which is something adapted from Jon Young and Tom Brown Jr. (and Grandfather, Tom’s teacher) that is a little different than a more modern idea of an annual review or new-years resolution session. It actually seems more related to the idea of “Vision” and vision quests. Connecting to your higher purpose, but in a very practical way. The first of the series of questions/investigations, is something along the lines of “what lights you up? What are you doing when you feel really alive/connected?” And the prompt that really got me with that was, “really relive these events/times when you felt connected and alive, feel them.”

I’m familiar with this approach from various classes I’ve taken with Tom, but for some reason it really hit home, and navigating the answer to this question became so much more vibrant and powerful, accessing the answers this way. If I’d just tried to remember such times, it would be easier to confuse myself. Did that actually really light me up, or did I just think it was supposed to? And going by the feeling, it’s more likely I’d uncover something surprising. “Oh yeah, I guess that did feel really good, I didn’t even think of that as something that could count as a thing that lit me up.”

It also makes it much clearer. There’s no questioning, is it, isn’t it? I’m reliving the memory and either I’m feeling it, or not.

Another thing that came out of this-

(much of it comes from a specific podcast episode, I should include that here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tracking-connections/id1738301682 )

-was the idea of looking back over your day, or even a practice session or some smaller chunk of time, and asking myself: “if I could live that, do that, over again, what would I do differently?” And actually, to some degree, reliving it. Like practicing doing it the better way. Rather than just intellectually identifying the better way. As teachers of young children, we often do this, “ok, let’s practice lining up the right way again.” And another thing I remember Tom and others talking about, is experiments where basketball players would very vividly imagine practicing shooting hoops. The imaginary practice was actually quite effective at improving their technique, as long as they did it very vividly, with lots of details, as close to actually doing it as possible.

I don’t think I’ve actually done that myself, weirdly enough, but just the idea of it has gotten me to slow down, in the moment, and be aware of what I’m doing, and weather it’s what I want to be doing, in a much more naturally, deeply, and powerfully self-reflective way. It’s been genuinely changing my behavior in positive ways, to an unusual degree, enough that I’ve noted it down to remind myself that this is a powerful tool for me, that I should remember. 

One of the weird things though, going back to the beginning of this post (I’m actually writing it in my journal first/currently) is that I don’t really understand logically how the teaching (reflecting on your day/a practice session and asking/visualizing what you could do differently/better, if you had the chance to do it over again) somehow turned into this self-awareness and reflection leading to better, more mindful choices and actions in my life. But I do feel how one led to the other. There is specific feel, that the one had, that I then transferred over to how I’m going through my own life, even though I’m not doing the specific action suggested.

As I said at the beginning, it’s a little hard to explain in words, because the whole thing is happening from a non-word place. Or at least... perhaps more precisely, there is a non-word conveyance, that is riding along with the words, that is what is powerful and being translated to something different from what the words are saying. It seems kind of like... some metal bars, with scented air currents flowing along around them. Metal bars = the words, and the scents are the non-verbal feelings somehow related. But the metal bars are changing for some wood beams, while the scents are staying the same, flowing uninterrupted from one to the other.

Weird image I know. As I said, words are a bit of a translation. Poetry might be a better medium than simple description.

Reflections on insights from the past year. Hi Ben!

Hi Ben! If you're reading this, I'm thinking about you and some of what we've talked about.

I'm reflecting on lessons learned this year, and here is a big one that is hard to describe, especially in a useful way to other people: 

Doing what feels right, vs. what I think I should be doing.

Let me try and unpack that a little. My friend Ben talks about something (and I'm probably going to butcher it and get it a bit wrong) like 'following the pleasure principle' to direct him. To hear him describe it, it's not so much what you think of as hedonistic, but a bit more like the primal eating fad, where you are just listening carefully to your body, and what it wants, frequently pausing to check in, when you start doing something, to see if it feels right to your body, as you actually do it.

I suppose my framing of it leans a bit more spiritual, with the ideas of intuition and energy playing a bigger role in how I think about it. But I think both approaches are tapping into a similar thing, some understanding about what we actually want, both on a basic body level (more where he Ben seems to be focusing on it's application) and on a intuitive, 'know without knowing how you know' level (where I lean in a bit more.) And even on a desire level, what you actually want, vs. what you think you should be doing, because you got that impression from society, or parents, or peers, or a book, or etc. Which I think you can get to from either direction. Frankly, I often tune into my intuition through my bodily felt sense, and my gut will tense up or release, or other feelings will go on, to give me distinctly non-body related information.

I've been reading (listening too) a very interesting book called "Behave" that talks a bit about experiments illustrating this weird but very true phenomenon, where feel and understand abstract concepts in a physical way. Like being physically cold makes us feel more emotionally distant. Kind of the world being a physical metaphor, and that being pretty deeply wired into how our brains work.

Anyhoo, Ben mentioned something about my direction with counseling, that makes me think of this a bit. Am I doing what actually feels right (I think yes in general, but in specific I'm still hazy.) or what I think I should be doing.

Related to that, another big insight gleaned from my winter vision quest: the perspective that my life is already designed to be exactly what I need to grow. 

This probably also could use some unpacking: I often look at other people, and wish I was them: more willpower, doing more, more passionate, more focused, more clear about my life, and on and on. I also frequently (not so much these days) wish my circumstances were different. I used to wish I had a girlfriend, I wish I had a more personal relationship with my spiritual teacher, I wish I had more contact with spiritual teachers I respect in general, I wish I had more contact with my spiritual community for support in my sadhana, and on and on.

But the realization that came through in my quest (one of many) was 'don't you think God knows exactly what you most need to grow, and is giving it to you?' And the answer was, yes, I do. And that means my mediocre little life is not me failing to what I'm supposed to do, it is what I'm supposed to do. If I do it well, then maybe I get to the next level, and if I keep doing that, then maybe it won't be mediocre any more. I know some of you are going to say I'm being mean calling my life mediocre, but come on, I'm no Gandhi, let's not pretend otherwise. Being willing to accept that, and accept the lessons that are mine to learn and master, feels like a healthy dose of reality. 

I suppose it's like that saying 'you've gotta learn to crawl before you walk.' I need to learn the relatively simple lessons that I've been served, before I learn more advanced, flashy looking ones.

Related to both these realizations, is another, that what I care about, what I'm passionate about, what I'm interested in are seeds planted by Source in my soul. Those are not random, to be forcibly overwritten with the 'right' things to want, they are part of my life plan, and it's ok that what I'm interested in isn't the same as what other people are interested in, even if it's less flashy or somehow marked as not the 'right' things to want or be interested in.

A caveat as always that it's a bit more complex than 'just do what you want.' as there are things that part of me wants to do, that make me feel like crap afterwards. I still need to discriminate between those. Sometimes what feels 'good' in the long run feels unpleasant in the short run. Discomfort is not necessarily a sign you're doing something wrong, potentially it just means you're doing something difficult, and without challenge there is not much growth.

Anyhoo, those are some of my reflections for the year, this post has definitely gone on long enough, so I'll end it and write another if I've got more to say. I think the reflections are as much for my own memory as for anyone else who reads this. I don't know that you can get these insights just by reading them from someone else, they've been slow and hard won.

In any case, to all my friends and family, love and blessings to you. And I suppose to the random stranger who somehow found your way to this, love and blessings to you too. How did you even find your way here? Fascinating.

-I Out