Much about Non Ado

Found some medicine between my toes 

 I've found a number of moments where I can squeeze in a little time for nothing.  I find it's easiest for me to practice non ado when I am also grounding.  I think it's great that other than making sure my feet are in the dirt I don't have to be actively doing in order to benefit from grounding.

I have also found Che Qian Zi (Before the Cart Seed) at my feet on a number of my respites.  It's really amazing to me to be able to spot the herbs we use in our medicine out in our environment.  It's even the broad leaf variety and not the narrow leaf European variety of the plant.

another day, shoes off

another strain of medicine I think,


06/23 One of my favorite loafing non activities is getting a shower and then sitting down and  putting int the plug and turning it into a bath.  This is what I did this evening.  I oscillated between warm and cool water.  Let my body soak in a number of positions and just let my mind wander where it would.  It felt like the perfect way to wind down from my work week before starting the school week.

06/24 Today I spent time in the garden, I am putting it under the heading of non ado because I didn't plan on spending time the garden and I didn't go into it with a plan.  I just felt like being outside and it seemed a pleasant option.  My garden bead is full of blooming Chamomile and Calendula.  I ended up harvesting many flowers, then decided to prune back the plans from where I harvested to day as well as some other days.  I think this also allowed me to carve out some space for some purple basil that was growing underneath some of the other plants.  I also harvested some savory herbs. I bundled it all up and took it home to dry.  I also took a wandering bike ride home as well.  Just went with the traffic lights, if it was green I went forward and if it was red then I turned right.  It was a very relaxing afternoon.

Wk 6 Biology - The Patterns of Life

WOAH!!!
Podcast about Complexity & Systems
Check this out, Sam's fiancé is kinda the rad.  I have listened to like 3 or 4 of these podcasts now, it's rad how relevant they are to what we have been talking about in class.... and also some sound/music things that i am into, that i didn't expect to find others into.

Here are your Assignments for "The Pattern of Life"

Your Blog Assignments:

• How would you distinguish between living and non-living systems
• “If you live in a city, you may not be able to get to a forest easily, but taking off your shoes in the park and feeling the grass will help you de-stress.”(Getting back to nature: how forest bathing can make us feel better)
  - what are your own experiences?
• And please keep up the blog dialog, and post a comment to a classmate's blog

Check out the following links:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/plants/cell/
Plant Cell Anatomy

http://www.life.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/plantbio/cell/cell.cgi
Virtual Cell

http://mandalazone.com/wordpress/thinking-through-the-mind-and-the-mandala/
Thinking Through: The Mind and the Mandala 

Wk 4 Biology - The Pattern and Complexity of Life

1. Post your thoughts on Semaya article.

It is difficult for me to address the Semaya article solely from the stance of competitive sports. But that is what I am going to attempt to do for this blog. Competitors are always going to be pushing to gain an edge on one another.  This includes ways to disadvantage their opponents as well as ways in which for the competitor to excel in their own physical prowess.  This is what I see being played out with the ruling that Semaya is fighting against.  What I find to objective is that this ruling is seeking to change the natural state of the competitor in order to control the limits of a natural occurring hormone in the body.

Let's take a moment to tie this into our readings on Complexity.  Let us also assume that Semaya has also not doped her system in other ways to gain advantage (I personally believe that a majority of international level competitors, that have access to the ability to dope are likely to) Semaya didn't become the athlete that she is today in a vacuum.  All that is Semaya has to do with a very complex interplay of her parts that are her.  Change one thing and you don't just modulate the system, you could very well destroy it.  Think the butterfly effect. I think it is an error to approach the human system with this type of linear thought.  

Having competed in a very small version of international competition in roller derby over the last decade, I feel like I have had an opportunity to interact with a number of different competitor personality types.  What I have walked away with is an personal understanding that athletes wreck their bodies.  In order to be extraordinary they tax their bodies in an unsustainable way.  I believe this is a reason why we do not see many athletes with 40 year long careers where they are top in their class.  I accept this as part of being an athlete and competitor.  I think it would be interesting to have less rules than more rules.  What would happen if we allowed the athletes to make the decisions on how far they wanted to push their bodies with full access to chemical enhancements. I do not think it is healthy, but is playing collision sports healthy? I think of the traumatic brain injury incurred by football players.  I think it is at least an interesting thought experiment. 

- Comments on the "Gaia Theory" - is this now a commonly accepted theory? 

- Respond to classmates blog

2. Check out the following links