Doing something feels good, just the doing of it.

As my first assignment of Kamana One I wrote a note to a man who had learned to hear the birds, but then was discouraged that he could not tell them apart.

The words that I would tell him are now my bookmark, and I am to read them to myself each day as I open the book and discover what delicious assignment awaits me. It is a fine way to encourage myself, to reward myself for each day's work. To remind myself that even though the road ahead is long, I am further ahead today than I was yesterday, and that the journey is the thing.

My words are not as eloquent as Tennyson, and I will keep them to myself, and thus give them the power of Secret Words.

Therefore here are some far more eloquent than mine, though perhaps the sentiment is the same.


"We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. "

Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Hope Challenge: Spirit & Mind
Today I will begin Jon Young's Kamana One (Exploring Natural Mystery).

I will play like a child.

I will broaden my awareness.

The first section of Kamana One is a daily two-week program, but he recommends that you do both sections at the same time, or at least do both with a six week time frame.

I can do that.

I have put this off because the natural environment here in Florida is not my favorite, having grown up in the woods of CT...that then is part of my challenge!

mmmmmmm day one of a new Adventure! What could be more fun? Anything might happen today!

"Well," said Pooh, "we keep looking for Home and not finding it, so I thought that if we looked for this Pit, we'd be sure not to find it, which would be a Good Thing, because then we might find something that we weren't looking for, which might be just what we were looking for, really."

Saw a movie this past week, want to recommend it to all.

BELLA

It is about hope. It is an absolutely amazing movie. Try it. Let me know what you think.

Brother T recommends writing what you don't want to happen to remove the negativity that stands in the way of your goals. So then, what are my anti-Goals? Certainly they must have changed as I have matured/gotten older.

I don't want...

~ to not be able to participate in combat because I have let my physical readiness go kaput.

~ to be a bad example of how to live your life

~ to let my myriad of injuries and chronic pain keep me from enjoying life

~ to let my friends down

~ to let myself down

~ to give up before its done

~ to do the same old thing I've always done

~ to fail to appreciate every breath, every ray of sunshine, every drop of rain, every step into the woods

Well, I don't know if that's going to help my goals, but as I write I can feel the heaviness of the negativity o these things. They are my dragons and they must be slain. How shall I slay them? These then must be my goals.

To the slaying of dragons:

~ I shall plan a program for physical training and execute it weekly. It will include cardio and strength training. It will be fun and it will challenge me. This I will complete by Friday.

~ I shall continue this journal, that it may keep me on track, and by the telling of my deeds they might become more than they would be otherwise. This I will do at least three times weekly.

~ I shall meditate and ruminate and postulate and germinate on Three Rules to Live my Life, that I might do it well, & live the way that is right for me. This will have to come in its own time.

and I shall hope that this is enough to slay the dragons.

The Hope Challenge

As to the the 2 parts to this latest challenge...

1) have a journal(s) established and be in the habit of putting entries in at least 3x per week. Entries on things your are learning, workouts you are doing etc

2) Establish a few goals in each category

How shall these be addressed?

1) Journal begun, only the daily execution remains to be done, which I shall endeavor to do, filling this journal with something that I hope might pass for prose enlightening, intelligent, thoughtful, or at least amusing. Most likely it will instead be mundane & inane, but not profane.

2) Goals goals goals...

How shall I strengthen my MIND? This is going to take some serious thought, and I dont have any answers right now I'm afraid.

How shall I strengthen my BODY? Exercise, surely. Cardio, yes. Strength training, yes. Fighter Practice? Yes. My good friend Casey has shown interest in learning to fight, in the next few weeks we will begin some training. To that end I will need to produce another full set of armor...

And let me not forget DIET! I need to continue to shift my diet, it is altogether filled with nonsense and foods I don't need to be eating. I shall begin with BREAKFAST! It is, after all the most important meal of the day. Then I will move on to Second Breakfast, then perhaps Elevensies...

How shall I strengthen my SPIRIT? I think I will start by finishing reading the Dalai Lama's book, How To Practice. We'll go from there.

Now get to work, Charles.

Journal Entry #3

Here it is, December, 2008. Time is passing by at the incredible rate of 1 second per second for god's sake! Sometimes it is truly panic inducing.
But the Hope Challenge begins.
Hope
It is the best of religions, really, Hope.
Today I will tell my body that I am beginning on this journey. Some pushups and crunches and squats should do nicely.

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' "
W. Shakespeare, Henry V