Overview
I created this site to provide context into my work, not only as a teacher|educator but also as a student. Just as in life it continues to evolve and change, I expect this and other portions of the site will continue to do so. My hope is that it better reflects the philosophies and direction I continue to move in and allows others to use it as a context for basing their own lifestyle + training experiments off of.
Principles + Philosophy
I will break this site into some of the principles and philosophies that I filter the world through. This is the operating system of sorts that many of my habits and decisions are based on. I'll continue to update as these continue to change and evolve.
This will allow me to further dissect each category and talk about them independently while still realizing them as a part of and working with the whole. These are an amalgamation of concepts that I've learned from many teachers including Shunryu Suzuki, Paul Chek, Ido Portal, Alan Watts, Frank Forencich, Rudolf Steiner, Thich Nhat Hanh, Chogyam Trungpa, Krishnamurti and so many others.
Here is a conceptual framework for many of the topics I think about and discuss within teaching and my own practice.
BODY | MIND
Life is a measure of movement and movement is a measure in time. Everything in our world is on a spectrum of movement, from interactions at the cellular level to big body movement, thoughts, and emotions.
All of the elements below have a cost if not fully integrated properly, sickness and disease or mental/emotional instability, poor mobility. Understanding that our natural state is for our organism to work in synergy by following basic biological principles will allow us to thrive optimally.
These basic biological principles are:
1.1 (movement): We live in a physical world, we have a physical body. In order to participate fully in this interactive world the body must move, and move well.
1.2 (nutrition): In order to care for the body | mind, it must be nurtured and fed properly. Those resources found closest to Mother Earth in the way of organically sourced plants & ancestrally raised and/or wild animals provide the most amount of detailed, wholesome nutrition. This also allows for a closer relationship with Nature and the closed loop ecosystem that surrounds us, benefiting other life in the process.
1.3 (sleep/rest): In order to properly care for the physical body it must be rested properly. Sleep acts as a natural recharge for our nervous system and brain, our muscular system and all the biological process that need restoration to function optimally.
1.4 (stillness): In order to properly care for the physical body there must also be adequate time for quiet|stillness.
We live in a complex world of ideas|creation|originality|novelty. The mind becomes more fully developed with/through movement and its opposite, stillness. In order to tap into this wellspring of energy and creativity we must learn to connect with mind | source.