making cat cupcakes

I am the first culprit when it comes to what I am going to say now, although I have worked my whole life towards what Confucius supposedly said: "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." In general we need to play more in order to enjoy more.  We are rusty at playing - at least I am.  Much of life seems to be a chore.  So when my daughter made cat cupcakes a few days ago - because she loves cats, and she loves to bake - it reminded me of how little I play.  I am just not silly enough (my excuse is that seriousness is in my astrological profile, something about Saturn I think  - but then the scientists have already proven that DNA is not static and that we can change our nature and our biology).

Martha Beck says in her Finding Your Way In A Wild New World: "...the way to cope with the increasing complexity of the wild new world is to play more."  When we are happily doing and forget about the thinking - whether we dance, sing, make art, make music, play with our children, write a poem, make cat cupcakes - that's play.  Now all we need to do is figure out how to make doing the laundry, or driving the kids all over town, or commuting, or any number of chore-like activities a playful thing.  Any thoughts?

be patient!

We have become used to instant gratification.  Information is now available at the touch of a finger.   We no longer write letters, barely even send e-mails or make telephone calls, we text and twitter.  Our attention spans have become shorter, as teachers have noticed, and the movie and TV industries exploit and promote it, which then self-perpetuates.  On the material side the credit system has enabled us to buy now and pay later, since we choose no longer to be patient until we have saved up enough money.  Besides houses and cars we can also get everything else instantly without paying for it upfront (just pay Amazon an annual fee and you'll get 2-day shipping on all your orders).  We have lost our patience, we live on credit, and we are banking on a better future to acquire today’s perceived needs now.

The belief that this system will work long-term is also coloring our relationship with nature.  Many don’t want to believe - yet, as it seems - that oil and natural gas reserves are finite.  Many don’t want to believe - yet, - that we have a huge garbage problem.  Many don’t want to believe that we have any number of grave environmental challenges to deal with.  We’ll fix them in the future – or so many still like to believe.  Environmentally speaking, we live thus on credit instead of investing now into our environmental future.  From indigenous cultures we need to relearn patience and a long-term outlook on issues.  

Native Americans look seven generations ahead into the future!   We must invest in a viable future for our children, grandchildren, and five more generations out, instead of leaving them to mop up our messes. The Lorax is a good book by Dr. Seuss on what happens otherwise.

why men need women

Women are more generous than men, Adam Grant noted in his NYT article of the same title yesterday.  Yesterday, too, a friend raved about her daughter's female boss, who provides her with benefits and vacation time even though the daughter works only part-time. I am not saying that women make better bosses.  But we are naturally more nurturing and empathetic, while men are more driven and result oriented, the yin and yang of Chinese philosophy.  Yet, we shouldn't want to do away with the guys in business.  Balance is everything, and we need both energies - the driving and the nurturing one.  The article reports that women inspire the men in their lives to greater philanthropy and generosity - i.e. Melinda Gates is the driving force behind the Bill & Melinda Gates philanthropic foundation according to Grant).

I believe that the incoming cultural paradigm is or will be more balanced, more heart based, more sustainable, because we are beginning to realize that strict bottom line capitalistic exploitative yang behavior is dangerous to our health (environmental damage etc) because it is unbalanced.  We need both energies, since they complement each other perfectly.

Women are slowly leading men away from ying domination to greater balance.  The rise of women's empowerment, their greater involvement in business and politics, and their slow and steady recognition as equals attest to that.  Adam Grant concludes his article with the (wise) recommendation that men follow our lead.

why fair trade?

Have you read about the awful recent garment factory collapse stories in Bangladesh?  Do you know what fair trade coffee or what a fair trade banana is? Well, here it is.  According to Elizabeth Henderson, an organic farmer for 30 years who helped organize the Domestic Fair Trade Association, "a fair price is the right price with a triple bottom line people-profit-earth."

Fair Trade began with such crops as bananas, coffee and cocoa from South America because the local farmers were being exploited in the interest of a low sale price and the biggest possible profit for Dole or Chiquita or Chock-Full-O'Nuts or whoever else.  The idea of Fair Trade is a facet of the "new economics," the newly arising cultural paradigm of watching out for all of us, not just some of us  - the health of the farm worker, a fair wage for the farm worker, a sustainable agriculture that does not harm the earth, a healthy product for the consumer, and a fair profit for the banana exporter/importer or cocoa powder maker.  See WFTO and Fair Trade USA for more information.

Fair Trade is a win-win situation, all parties involved profit from it; non fair trade is win-lose, because only one side wins.  Of course this means that the end product costs a bit more.  But what's wrong with that if in the end we all profit from it?

The DFTA (Domestic Fair Trade Association) now promotes the same principles of health, justice and sustainability on a domestic level.  And, to complete my loop to the recent garment factory disasters, through all our awakening to these issues the beautiful win-win principles of Fair Trade will surely make a leap to the garment factories abroad so those workers can work in safe buildings and work for fair wages.

smile, it's free

Not only is it free, as week-end workshop facilitator Cynthia Bianco said to us, it is also highly infectious.  Try not to smile when someone smiles at you - it feels quite awkward.  But it's usually a one-way street.  How often does it happen that someone smiles at you when you put on a stern face?  However, when you directly smile at people, most can't help but smile back at you.  And, lo and behold, the world becomes a friendlier place. Smiling immediately turns your energy around from negative to positive.  They say "fake it 'til you make it. " That's good advice since body and mind are interconnected and influence one another.  The more you gently remind yourself to smile, the more it becomes part of an inner radiance.

One of the women who attends an energy development class I regularly go to struck me because she always has this radiant contagious smile on her face.  It makes the whole room shine and it actually feels weird not to smile back.

Yesterday morning I had a chat with my daughter's camp van driver.  On my way back to the car a worker, who was painting some woodwork on a store entrance, smiled at me spontaneously.  I realized that I was still smiling from my conversation with the van driver and that my smile spread outward like a ripple effect.

Try it sometime - walk down the street smiling and see what happens.

P.S.: Also see a previous post on positive thinking.

wake-up time

I really get irritated when I walk into a store right behind another person, who does not notice me, does not look back, and does not hold the door for me, so that the door basically flies right in my face.  While it is necessary at times to turn inward to ground yourself, you miss what's going on around you when you walk around out of tune, or with music plucked into your ears - besides being an easy target for pickpockets. A few weeks ago I was awaiting the end of my daughter's dance lesson on the parking lot outside the studio and noticed a dad reading in his big car with the engine idling for the whole hour of the lesson - no awareness of the environmental implications.

We awake slowly, gradually, individually, to our own rhythm from this unconsciousness slumber. We all observe it in our own children when we see them growing up, first making the "I-am-connection," then becoming aware of their greater environment (my 12-year-old daughter asked the other day "Mom, what do we actually need Social Studies for when we grow up?  - so it takes some time), and then going out into the "real" world.  Walking through life awake, with open eyes and ears and mind, in tune with what's going on around, adds depth and complexity to your experience, but is also an indication of a deeper spiritual connection or awareness.

A few days ago I was giving my son one of his first driving lessons - in my very methodical and structured way - and then coached him along as he was slowly practicing.  Then he said something like "driving really requires concentration and all 'round awareness." 

Life does in general. When we blindly follow all those thoughts that race through our minds we live in our heads not at the wheel, or holding a door for the next person, or minding the environment and shutting the idling engine.  Being awake in the moment is where living happens.

Also take a look at some previous blogposts on mindfulness.

animal consciousness

I have always wanted to delve a bit deeper into the question of animal consciousness. The death of our dear cat Snowball a few weeks ago became the catalyst for it.  We all know the relationship between brain size and depth of consciousness, awareness and intelligence.  So it might seem that the larger the animal's brain, the deeper a relationship we can forge with it because of the animal's deeper awareness.  I did not experience an animal relationship until we got Snowball, our first cat (I grew up in city apartments with fish and hamsters - no deep relationship there).  He was white with a few well placed black spots, gentle and regal, and sociable to a point.  Sometimes, he would jump up on the bed to snuggle, but he was not a lap cat.   A few years later we adopted Mieze as a companion for him, our little black very assertive female tuxedo cat.  She talks a lot, while Snowball did not, she jumps on our laps, he did not, she'll wake us up in the morning by prancing around on the headboard and meowing by the side of the bed (not out of hunger, but for companionship).  She is very sprite, quick, and playful, a perfect hunter (she even caught bats on two occasions they made their way into the house), he lost a lot of his playfulness over the years.  I learned how individual animals' personalities are, and how they truly become a beloved family member.  Just like with my children, my nurturing gene kicked in, and I made sure the cats get the best holistic cat food and vet care and emotional nurturing.

Yet, René Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher, believed that animals were nothing more than mechanized, soulless, feelingless, rightless moving bodies we have dominion over - a prevailing understanding of his times.  And you wonder about many still prevailing animal practices like dog and cock and bull fights, raising animals for fur, CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), selective breeding food animals so abnormally that they cannot function anymore  (chickens with breast so heavy they tip over, corn fed cows whose intestines scream because the diet is so unsuitable to their digestive systems, etc.).  We have come a long way, though, thanks to animal rights groups and wake-up calls that happen spontaneously when we look an animal in the eyes and see a soul or consciousness staring back at us with meaning.

Coming to the end of reading Cat Body, Cat Mind by vet Dr. Michael Fox, who obviously has a deeply spiritual understanding of life, I regret not having shown our Mieze the dead body of her companion Snowball.  Animals seem to understand the passing of close mates and companions, and need closure like we do.

Now we are working on integrating her new companion Peter Pepper into our household.  Fox says that it is important for animals to have a like companion so they always remember who they are.  We found Snowball on the side of the road when he was 4 or 5 weeks old, and we are not sure he ever totally understood how to act among cats.  Maybe he was always a bit more human than cat.

I am still intrigued and would like to learn more about this collective animal consciousness I read about, that bees or cats or cows are not as individuated as us humans, and are more a fragment of a larger encompassing cat consciousness, or bee consciousness, or cow consciousness.  It may shed some light on our own embeddedness in a larger collective human or universal consciousness, how inseparable we really are of the greater collective consciousness.

shark fin soup and hope

If the Chinese are back peddling on shark fin soup, so ubiquitous at all festive banquets of the past, there is hope for changes in our attitude about a lot of other things as well.  I am thinking of idling stances on such pressing issues as climate change, pollution, animal welfare, GMOs, child prostitution, and many other ugly realities.  It seems to me that ultimately our collective indecisiveness on these issues boils down to the hesitance of wrestling ourselves away from the profit-first model.  If we only realized that the wellbeing-first model benefits us all around. Bonnie Tsui wrote this week-end in the NY Times about the changing attitude of the Chinese on serving shark fin soup at important banquets, previously a sign of "honoring (and impressing) your guest."  I was served shark fin soup at several banquets in my company's honor in the late 1980s when we lived in Hong Kong, and was oblivious of the gruesome practice (which I can't bear to describe here, but you can look it up).    Because it has been such an inherent component of Chinese food culture I was really quite amazed to read that "last summer, the Chinese government announced that it would stop serving the dish at official state banquets."

Here's to change for the better, change towards wellbeing, change towards respect of nature and all living beings.