40 Days to Life

I think I see that Green Flash...

2010-01-29T17:34:00.001-08:00

That's it for this one... no more 40... 60... 90... or 100 day moments.

What is...is. What's now... is now.

Thank you for playing.

Cheers!

Day 2 - Night Visitor

2009-11-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

During those times when I conscientiously discipline myself to spend intentional time at creative pursuit a very interesting thing almost always happens... My dreams get weird!

I'm not talking about my daydreams (they're pretty much weird all the time), or my goals, plans, etc. I'm talking about the long theatrically surreal excursions that I take in the nighttime. I have a pretty vivid dreamlife most of the time,and I regularly write down my nocturnal experiences and try to bring a modicum of reflective energy to understanding them on a fairly regular basis. But the dreams I have when I am more intentionally in creative mode, get downright personal... and fast. Thus was it the case last night.

I went to bed at about 11:00 pm with the intention of waking up some time in the wee hours in order to go catch a glimpse of the Leonid meteor shower. However, when I first awakened at around 1:30 I didn't want to get out into the cold and I didn't really want to rise out of sleep, so I spent several hours drifting in and out of sleep with the constant awareness that I wanted to get up and take a look at the sky sometime before dawn. When I finally woke up at 4:30 it wasn't because of needing to see the meteors... It was because I had just been attacked by Kali...a raging green eyed, red-haired kind of Irish Kali!

In my dream I had been discussing new work and travel plans with my seemingly understanding lover when I hesitated and began talking about why I couldn't do the things I was planning to do... At this, the lovely understanding lover transformed into the threatening, raging, terrifying female goddess that even crushes the great God Shiva under her feet. She screamed that I was "timid" as her eyes turned to green and yellow stars and her hair transformed into red flame...

That's when I woke up.

This isn't my first encounter with the Goddess of Creativity and Destruction. I first became acquainted with her when she crawled in and out of my bedroom window in a small hotel in Calcutta. I thought I was being attacked by demons, but over the several days I spent in her weird hometown (with her shrine and Mother Theresa's hospice sitting next to each other on the same block) taught me much about acknowledging and listening to The Shadow, and the experience ultimately launched me into a study of these dark manifestations of the Goddess (both in literature/religion and real life, but that's another story). This encounter also, ultimately, led me to the creation of my first screenplay; interestingly, a story that I thought about returning to and revising only recently. Perhaps last night's visitation was her move to get me to take up the task... Or perhaps she just showed up to do some mental and emotional house cleaning.

What I know about these visitations is that they always come when I begin a new creative journey, and that they are not to be taken lightly.

Like most women... Kali does not like to be ignored.

Once More With Feeling

2009-11-16T10:45:00.000-08:00

It's been nearly 5 months since the last pot on this blog and with exactly 40 days to go before Christmas, I decided this morning that it makes for the perfect time to take this attempt at some sort of personally reflective and semi-disciplined practice into action one more time.

I have decided on a simplified form and - at least for the moment - very little expectation.

I have also decided on several daily elements:

1) Meditation
2) Exercise
3) Daily writing (and a specific time schedule)
4) Dedicated time for personal reflection, recreation, and rest
5) A structured approach to all the daily minutiae that is a clear, necessary, and inevitable part of life.

40 days of practice with the intention of seeing what develops. 40 days

This will be the last time I do this... I've been playing with these ideas for several years, and in public on this blog for a little over a year.

On December 25th, whatever the outcomes, I will finally put this blog to bed.

Music for The Journey

2009-06-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

As a means of assisting myself mentally, and motivating myself emotionally, I almost always have some kind of music playing aorund me. For this most recent trip toward my most recent goals, I compiled a playlist of 100 songs for 100 days. the first song on the list was the tune I used to close the previous post, the finale from Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George.

The last phrase there is one of the things that truly captures my imagination at moments like these.

"White - a blank page or canvas - his favorite; so many possibilities."

To kick things in gear after that I picked two songs that express the desire to get moving and get things done. Bruce Springsteen's Working on a Dream, the title tune from his most recent album, a song about a person holding hope in his heart and a hammer (or some other implement of construction and contemplation) in his hand.

I follow that with the Elvis mashup A Little Less Conversation, a rather ironic song to place in the mix considering the fact that almost everything I do gets talked to death before, during, and after the action. Nonetheless, the tune works for me as a reminder that talking (or blogging) isn't enough. The preparation isn't the race, the cooking isn't the meal. The road itself, the journey itself, may indeed be the destination, but even under that scenario one needs to be on the road; not sitting on the couch, or at the desk, contemplating the journey.

The song also happens to be the foundation of my favorite Nike commercial.

40 Days In... 40 Days Out

2009-06-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

Forty days back, looking at 100 days to my 55th birthday, I set in motion a new plan.

I even included a soundtrack that I called 100 songs for 100 days (I'll post the playlist later.... hell maybe I'll even set it up on iTunes).

Today marks Day 40 of that 100 Day cycle and while I'm still listening to the music for multiple hours of the day while I work, and I'm still working on bits and pieces of the plan, the plan has suffered a bit as well.

But no more.

With 60 Days to go... I am actually left with 8 weeks of 5 day segments in which to conveniently form a routine that can even include breaks (and I have definitely discovered that BREAKS in these series are as vital as focused periods of effort... duh).

For the next three days I am preparing to launch a last 40 day plan on the way to my birthday on August 25.

The plan is going to be unique in that unlike my previous efforts (most of them documented here) I am keeping the structure of the program to Monday - Friday with ALL weekends between now and August 25th reserved for rest, reflection, relaxation, and revitalization. I am going to be working on goals I have set in seven areas (stolen from a talk by Jack Canfield). Those areas are:

Work
Relationship
Money
Physicality
Fun
Personal
Legacy

I'm not going to detail the three goals I have established in each of these areas (at least not right now) but I will do some reporting on the process. Some of these goals are quite long term, some are more mid-range (with target dates approximately a year away) and others are set for 60 days hence with my birthday as the target.

I am also following the advice of some other folks I've spent time with, read, and listened to and laying in a series of things I am going to STOP doing. The most significant of those to be revealed in more detail as we get closr to the date where it takes effect.

The primary point of this entire experiment is not really any different from what I was thinking when I first started this blog ten months ago. When I arrive at my immediate goal of this next 40 Days to Life plan I will bring the whole year long experiment to a close and will, shortly thereafter, take down the blog.

This is it... My 40 Day Swan Song.

Those who know me well, will not be terribly surprised that it begins with Sondheim.

Lent - Day 35 - The Things Left Undone

2009-03-31T12:07:00.000-07:00

This Lenten season is rapidly spinning it's way down into Holy Week and most of my discipline during this year's season has consisted of regular acknowledgment to myself that I have not been particularly good at keeping any discipline.

As usual, I have had many intentions on my list. The most serious (and at the same time most traditional) was to stop eating meat during this time. While I have certainly cut down considerably, I have certainly not remained true to this chosen discipline.

I also had - as with so much of what I have talked about in this blog - many personal and professional goals I was desiring to wring out of my recalcitrant psyche, only to discover that, as my friend George Williamson likes to say, "I was born in sin."

It's my thought at this point that there may be something worthwhile in that awareness. Like the liturgical discipline in which one kneels to ask forgiveness for the things "we have done, and the things we have left undone." My greatest repentance this year certainly lies with what I have left undone and perhaps that's the way the universe really is, most of the time.

I could go on and on with regard to the things in my life (both recent and longstanding) that I have left undone, but I've decided that for my purposes here, I really have a single confession, and step of repentance, to make.

I have not loved writing with my whole heart.

I have spent pretty much all of my adult life imagining myself as some kind of writer, hoping to be that writer, and regularly pretending that I am, or was, or will be... that writer.

But something that I learned a very long time ago is that there is one thing that defines you as a writer and it's not the articles, essays, scripts, poems, and books you've written (and at one time or another I've written a fair share... clearly... I feel the need to find a way to defend myself even against my own accusations). There is one thing and one thing only that makes me - or anyone - a writer.

A writer... writes.

SO... today I am beginning again. I am dedicating myself to a daily "words on paper" (or screen) discipline of writing. From time to time different people have commented here about what I might, or might not, do. More than once it has been suggested that perhaps picking a SINGLE thing to work on would be of help in the process.

This time around, I'm taking that advice.

I've made up my mind on a schedule, a plan, a trajectory and an expectation, but THAT I'm not going to write about. I'm going to keep that to myself.

As I have with the other attempts at growth and discipline that I've delineated in this blog, I'll report back on my progress.

Dispatches, as it were, from the front lines of my personal literary (and disciplinary) war.

Lent - Day 8

2009-03-04T08:14:00.000-08:00

One week of this deep 40 Day season and where am I?

As I sit at my computer, I am looking out at the giant oak tree in my back yard as the sun filters in through clouds and leaves and a lovely sun shower (something that I always remember fondly from childhood, but which rarely happens in Northern California) pelts down on the gables just beyond my window.

On the one hand, I am on the verge of economic panic as I struggle to find a way to pay my rent. On the other hand, I feel an incredible sense of peace.

For much of the last week I have been anything but calm. I have, like much of the culture, been captured during the last week in a frenzy of Twitter and that has done what so much of that type of thing does. It has left me feeling strangely detached and disjointed; much of the time I experience myself in a sort of disembodied cyber-tunnel.

I wonder what it would be like to truly remove myself from technology for a period of 40 days (or even a period of 3 days!). Many of these 40 Days posts have talked about my attempts (more or less successful) to remove myself from technology for ONE day and the fact is such experiences really do seem to help me reconnect to the earth and spirit at the center of my being. I can't help but imagine that a greater separation of the silicon based universe would lead to a greater connection to the carbon based universe. Moving away from the virtual world almost always reconnects me to the real world.

But then, even addressing things in this way raises (or more precisely re-raises) the basic existential questions at the core of everything we are. What is real? How can you tell? What will you do about it?

To me, this is the jewel at the heart of Lenten practice. It is a time for taking a look into the cave of existence to see what might be hiding in the shadows of your life, coaxing it out of it's hiding place and asking it to tell you something you don't already know (or that you have forgotten). It is my deepest belief that this is the heart of existence; this is what brings meaning to my life. It's not the rules I follow, the things I give up, the plans for new work and new goals and new things. It's finding the center and hanging out there for a while.

Then again... I still have to pay my rent.

The Great Journey of Lent

2009-02-25T11:22:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, this whole experiment of 40 Day programs originates for me in the unique choice of 40 days as a time frame for various types of preparation in various spiritual traditions.

Today, being Ash Wednesday, begins one of those 40 day explorations that have been programmed into calendars for millenia.

So I've decided to try another reset-restart moment and begin anew the 40 days I started a couple of weeks ago. The difference this time is that I plan on taking this in a more internal, thoughtful, prayerful, restful direction. I've done a lot of big plans, big changes explorations and they've all met with varying degrees of success.

This time, I'm going to take a bit of E's advice (see... I really do pay attention from time to time) and move things to a slower, more reflective pace.

Personally... I'm curious to see where this takes me.

Act One - Groundhog Day Becomes A Love Supreme

2009-02-13T07:37:00.000-08:00

As The Nord pointed out in his comment on the previous post, I'm now nearly two weeks into this new cycle... so what have I learned and how am I doing... any way?

Two weeks on... exploring the directions that I want to go, the last 12 days have been a definite first act, finding the characters, learning the landscape (again) spending time noticing what the content of my life is really about.

The supremely (the pun was unintended but I've decided to keep it anyway) beautiful "A Love Supreme" by John Coltrane is playing as I write this and the structure which Coltrane places into his musical magnum opus (and in my opinion, the best recording ever made) reflects most particularly what I am feeling at the moment... Acknowledgement is the name of the first movement, and acknowledgement - facing, looking, considering, and nodding at my life as if it is a friend on the other side of a crowded room - is what the last 12 days have been like.

Over the last two weeks I have been extremely busy with a recording project, a set of personal dramas within the local club I am a part of, raising money in order to get through the "new world order," and searching through the ways to put all my plans (enumerated below) into motion. It's been a frenetic, thoroughly unbalanced and only minimally productive period of time. There's a lot going on, but most days it really seems like sitting on a stationary bike, peddling my ass off, and getting absolutely nowhere.

So, yesterday, in the midst of all the craziness, I simply stopped to lift my head up and take a look around.

Acknowledgement:

1. an act of acknowledging.
2. recognition of the existence or truth of something: the acknowledgment of a sovereign power.
3. an expression of appreciation.
4. a thing done or given in appreciation or gratitude.

As in the beautiful pattern of Coltrane's piece, the first act is about recognizing the reality of the life I have. It's about looking, but not just looking, it's about SEEING what's in front of me. Only then is it possible to begin working with what's there. This is really not that different from what I was talking about in the last post. As I think about it, the key to the basic idea in Groundhog Day is that the main character must first notice what's going on before he can begin to transform that reality.

So there we are... Act One - Acknowledgement

Taking the time to look and to see
Paying attention to the patterns as they unfold
Recognizing what feels right
Seeking to find the thread

------------

Thanks again to The Nord. I discovered a new blog this morning by a photographer from San Francisco, Rebecca Jackrel, She is presently out on a true 40 Days to Life adventure, which frankly makes my repetitive attempts at a search for meaning seem like so much cream of wheat (and I really hate cream of wheat!).

From Groundhog Day to the Ides of March

2009-02-02T10:23:00.000-08:00

So here we go again... It's Groundhog Day and as I mentioned in my Quicksilver blog, I've decided to use Punxatawny Phil's annual prediction to jump start another 40 Days to Life.

It's been just over a month since I abandoned the last program and in that time a lot of things have sprung up. It's been a chaotic, crazy, distracting time and I am feeling the need of a focus, a set of goals, and a plan to bring me back to some kind of driving potential that lets me feel like I'm "getting somewhere."

So what do I hope to accomplish this time around?

Here's my Day One list... It's in no particular order, and subject to change without notice.

Physical - I am FINALLY going to start running again - My 40 Day Goal is an across the Bay 12K on March 15.

Creative - I will finish the first draft of my novel, Dan and Dianne and the screenplay for The Reunion.

Business - Finish the incorporation of Quicksilver Amusements, select and begin ONE new production project. Begin the process of finding a new agent.

Educational - Begin learning French (again).

Income - I have an income goal, but I'm going to keep that to myself.

Personal - I will finish and submit my application for Irish citizenship. As with the above, I have other personal goals but I'm going to keep those to myself.

Spiritual - Continue daily meditation discipline - Journal at Bleeding Daylight.

Throughout the process, there are several things that I have picked up over the previous iterations of this process that work and that I intend to keep.

These include:

• A clear and intentional relational connection. I will actively engage and be involved with the people I have been given to inhabit and nurture my heart.

• Daily meditation practice.

• Continued attention to my diet and my health (most people probably do this as a matter of course... not me... I have to focus on it).

• Email/Internet discipline - Email checks three times a day... Weekly Digital Sabbath.

• Volunteer activities and charitable giving.

• A weekly afternoon committed to volunteering, personal growth, education, and friendship.

Here we go!

40.3.30 - Taking a HOLIDAY!

2008-12-30T10:26:00.000-08:00

Okay... I should have known better than to take on yet another 40 day plan during the holiday season.

There's a reason it's called "THE HOLIDAY SEASON!"

Like I said in the previous post, winter is a time of hibernation and despite everything we as humans do to pretend like we are not subject to such "laws of nature" the fact is... we are.

SO... rather than continue battling the inevitable, I've decided to do what I have wanted to do for years. I'm declaring myself "on vacation" until January 15th. Unfortunately, this isn't going to mean that I get to go off to Hawaii for the next three weeks. It doesn't even mean that I will be able to drop out of several of my ongoing work projects, however, it does mean that I am going to take a break from 40 Days and I am going to spend a lot of time reflecting on what I've learned in these three series. I'll probably be blogging on that at least a little bit, so check back in from time to time.

I WILL be taking some significant periods of personal time to read, journal and plan for the new year. I am hoping to spend some days in my own retreat (either with a group or on my own) during this time, and I expect to start a new 40 Day series (or something similar that might grow out of these next few weeks of reflection) on Monday January 19.

In the meantime... HAPPY NEW YEAR!

40.3.20 - Halfway Home... Again

2008-12-20T13:25:00.001-08:00

The third week of the third program was an interesting mix of personal struggle, and good movement forward. The winter tie (especially in a crisis economy) is not exactly the best time for trying to make progress on the business front. To a lesser extent it's also true of the personal front.

There's a reason animals go into hibernation in the winter!

Nevertheless... The up side of the week has been an incredible sense of clarity and groundedness in the midst of what, at previous points in my life, would have been devastating frustration and a likely derailment of everything I was working on.

I am absolutely not there this time, and the primary reason that I am not is because of the steadiness of these 40 Day programs. It certainly isn't magic... it's just forward movement.

In addition to this movement, I am also finding deeper and deeper solace in a wintry solitude. This experience tends to echoed on a daily basis by the readings I am doing in Thomas Merton and by the research I am doing to create a play on his life and death and the greater meanings therein.

With the arrival of the winter solstice I also arrive at one of my long time goals... a mid-winter vacation. It's not going to happen this year, at least not in the way that I might have hoped. However, i will be dropping some of the greater agitation of daily projects to spend more and more time thinking, reflecting, meditating, and writing.

If there is one thing that has come out of the entire 4 months of studying myself and tweaking this process, it is the strength and beauty of seeking, finding, and nurturing the central core of my being.

I feel as if I have once again come to the center of the labyrinth and it is time to stop, to center, and to look inward.

For the remaining three weeks of this series, THAT is going to be my primary activity.

That said... I have some big ideas too. I'll touch more on them next week.

40.3.15 - Safe!

2008-12-15T16:01:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned while I was in the middle of it, the second week of this series has been something of a strange and somewhat frustrating experience, but here I am on another Monday... beginning the third week of this series, and the confusion has lifted considerably.

The weekend, while not as relaxing as most have been of late, proved to be the respite I needed. It was a place to center again, catch up on the stray pieces and settle the dust.

Starting this week, I am encouraged, focused, and excited.

Each step really does feel like it gets me closer... even when, at the time it's happening, I feel like I'm traveling in reverse.

40.3.11 - Channeling Dana Carvey

2008-12-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 4:00 this morning with my brain on fire with things I need to do, hopes I hold, and just on the edge of worry over the near term fate of just about everything.

Somewhere within the 90 minutes between 4 am when I woke up and 5:30 am when I fell back to sleep, I heard the voice of Dana Carvey impersonating George The First, "Stay the Course... Thousand points o' light."

The thing is... I'm thinking that's just exactly right.

WIth this morning's meditation I picked up my small labyrinth and "walked the path" that literally kept me sane during the two years immediately following Katrina. As I moved along the circuit of the labyrinth it was clear to me again that one of the beauties of this discipline for me is the sense that you are going forward, moving in toward the center or out from the center, even when you've made a 180 degree switchback. You are closer to your goal, even when it seems you are farther away. In fact, the furthest point out on the circuit is just a short distance before you reach the center.

This awareness of progress when progress seems invisible is the awareness that really matters, especially when things look bad. Even when things don't work.

Keep moving forward... keep showing up... or as Tom Waits puts it, "Always keep a diamond in your mind."

40.3.10b - It's The Economy Stupid

2008-12-10T19:19:00.000-08:00

This entire program of 40 Day slots has been integrally tied to, among other things, a process of getting my finances in order and following in on a whole collection of ways to plant myself more solidly on financial ground.

For the first series things went pretty well. For the second series enough was still working, and enough improvements had been made that I was feeling pretty strong and pretty positive despite the beginnings of truly dire economic circumstances.

At this juncture, this is no longer the case, and this week has been the perfect nightmare of complete financial, and subsequently planning, meltdown. Accounts that owe me money are not paying, and don't look like they are going to pay any time soon. Projects that were strong and on the table have been canceled or seriously dialed back and other plans that seemed virtually bullet proof two months ago are now hanging precariously off the cliff of "we're not sure what we're going to be doing in the next few months."

The effect of all this is to not only turn my financial plans into turmoil, but my emotional, spiritual, and practical plans as well.

In other words... this week has been something close to a complete meltdown.

So this is, as an old preacher I used to listen to always said, "where the rubber meets the road."

The real test of whether this structure I am trying to build my life around has any validity at all hangs completely on the question of whether I can keep my sanity, my personal strength, and my focus while everything around me is crashing down. Can I keep my commitments? Can I reach, at least some of, my goals?

The proof of whether any of the work I've done over the last 90 days is truly worthwhile will come now.

Will it help me through this quagmire?

Can I make it past THIS wall?

If I can... I think I'm home free!

40.3.10 - Every Human Has Rights

2008-12-10T12:12:00.000-08:00

Every Human Has Rights - Campaign Highlights from Every Human Has Rights on Vimeo.

It may seem strange for me to put this video and this link on this blog (I've got so many other places I could put it), but I have a very definite reason for placing it here.

Today's 60th anniversary of the International Declaration of Human Rights is quite personal to me and it serves to accent one of the main goals that I have held at the forefront of the entire 40 Days program; a goal which I have yet to bring to fruition.

The goal itself is to give at least 10% of my income, and spend 10% of my time in the pursuit of a better way of living in this world and a better life for all. There have been times in the past when I have succeeded in giving away 10% of my income to worthy causes, and there have been other times when I have spent large amounts of time (significantly more than 10% probably) working for things that I believe make the world better.

However... I've had my mind and my time occupied with other things in recent years and I have not done nearly what I believe I should... or I want... to honestly improve the world, to seek the welfare of this blue ball I live on, and to work that all people are safe, and healthy, and maybe even happy.

This anniversary, and the work of those connected to this day, call me again to action.

This is a goal I MUST achieve.

What about you?

40.3.5 - Runnin' Down A Dream

2008-12-05T14:37:00.000-08:00

One week down, and it's been an interesting week.

I've got a number of irons in the fire (not exactly an uncommon reality for me) and juggling those bits and pieces, or spinning the plates so they don't become bits and pieces... Let's just see how many metaphors we can slam into one sentence, shall we?

Beginning this plan for the third time back to back provides an interesting perspective since I don't really give myself time to slack off the basic process. As I have said before, there are some givens:

1) I have created, over the last 3 months, a basically solid platform from which to launch further efforts. This is something that I've never adequately done before and it's kind of startling what a difference it makes in my general mindset.

2) I have also gotten some of the detritus (emotional, relational, practical, and financial) of the last several years out of my way and like crawling on top of a hill to survey the landscape (I have been to the mountaintop! sorry... sorry), I am now able to see where I might go with significantly more clarity than at any time in my life. There's something to be said for getting rid of clutter... My grandmother used to say that if you've lost something, clean up the house. There's a line in one of my favorite films where Bill Bailey tells Bruce Dern, "Your mother always said that when you can't figure out your life... Clean up your nest."

I'm just sayin'.

In any case... the issue at this point in time is, as I have said before, where do I go from here?

One of the things that I'm relatively certain about is that I need to work with the goals and plans I have and set them up in some kind of order that distinguishes them into different aspects of my life.

What I'm saying here is that I have been self-employed in a multitude of activities (with varying degrees of success) for my entire adult life. While that has some serious lifestyle advantages, one of the more problematic issues in that arrangement is the fact that it's generally quite difficult to separate what I do from who I am. For a significant period of my life, that was okay... problematic, but okay. It seems to me that most people have an easier time with this because for them the distinction is already made... the "job" is the work and home is home. For me they almost always squish together.

What I have been learning of late is that there is great value in pulling them apart.

With this new process in which I have begun to figure out how to separate from my work... and separate my life from my work... I find that I need a clearer division, both for ME and for my WORK.

It's also clear that my DREAMS need this division.

There's a sense in which dreams (something everyone truly needs; they are the lifeblood of imagination) need attention and clarity to thrive. Dreams are the soft side... goals are where "the rubber meets the road" as they used to say.

So this is the next stage... the next connection. I am seeking in this phase to separate work and life. I'm not separating them completely (I really don't think I could), but I'm seeking to address them from separate areas of my brain. I am also seeking to set up clear goals with definite temporal targets... distinct objectives along the way... and ways to separate the different things I want to achieve so that they don't all glom together into one big tangled mess.

This is the trajectory for the next five weeks... Intentional and enthusiastic pursuit of the dream.

40.3.3 - Process Is Product

2008-12-03T09:36:00.000-08:00

So here I am at the keyboard... three days into a new set of 40.

What do I have behind me?

I have a solid foundation of work (both creative work and practical/woodshedding work) on a schedule that, while it may sometimes get derailed temporarily by the exigencies of any given day, pretty much keeps me on track.

I have found a way to intentionally (rather than accidentally) find rest and nurturance in my hours, days, and weeks.

I have begun putting several bits and pieces of my life back together after letting them fall apart almost completely after Katrina and I have started work on physical and educational disciplines I keep talking about doing but rarely get around to.

Now I'm ready to do more.

One of my goals (perhaps the primary goal) for this time around is to continue whittling away at that schedule... increasing the time I spend on the creative and expansive while decreasing the time and increasing the productivity of the woodshed work. And that actually seems to be a lot of what this process is becoming across the board; a sort of chipping away at the extraneous material that fills up life without product, enlightenment, or reward, then honing down and polishing what's left in order to bring out the heart of what I want. It's not unlike the process of sculpting something in clay.

There is a very real sense in which it's beginning to look like The Process is the real point of the whole endeavor.

40.3.0 - Even So... Come

2008-11-30T12:11:00.001-08:00

With a great ending to the last 40 days, and some additional elements that feel like they've filled in my foundation, I had planned to take December off and begin a new set come January. Stage Two, while definitely helpful to my process and VERY strong in getting me more grounded (maybe more grounded than I have ever been in my life!), was nevertheless a bit of a frustration and somewhat of a letdown.

But then... Somewhere in the afternoon of Saturday, I realized that today is the First Sunday of Advent, the lead up to Christmas, and the symbolic approach of the underlying creative force of all the Universe, arriving in a stable, in an overcrowded backwater, to two unassuming parents in the body of a crying, probably somewhat undernourished, less than perfectly behaved baby (oh yeah... SIlent Night I'm sure!) and I couldn't allow the moment to pass.

Advent is also the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, which is a worthwhile thing to think about, even if you don't like church, or christians, or religions, or god, goddess, or flying spaghetti monster. I am spiritually and intellectually pleased by the aesthetic of ushering in a new cycle around the sun with contemplation, attention, thought, prayer, and exuberance for, and anticipation of, the future. When confronted by the option of beginning another year with noisy crowds, copious amounts of alcohol and a morning bloody mary or three, a month of hope and dreaming seems to make a lot of sense.

So here I am, preparing for one more crack at the plan. This time I have a pared back list of goals, but that's because much of what I have been hoping to accomplish has in fact come to fruition, and laid the groundwork for now.

I can't think of a better time to start again, or a better way to celebrate Advent, the season of waiting, and preparing, for the culmination of creation.

Waiting and acting together, these are the forces that have set me on this path, and the disciplines that I am sure will bring me to my goal. What better time to be seeking that depth of my own creation? What better energy to apply to the task?

Even so...

Stage Two - Day 38 - Not With A Bang Nor With A Whimper

2008-11-26T14:32:00.000-08:00

Despite the fact that there are two days of this 40 day series left, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and the day after is a day off (at least for me it's gonna be a day off), so this really is... the end.

What have I accomplished this time around?

Not much!

The economic ground I gained in the first series has come crumbling down along with everyone else's economic fortunes during the last 6 weeks. The up side of this is that I developed some disciplines, some connections and some ways to keep paying attention to my finances during both of the last two series and they are helping me weather this storm much mo' betta than I would have otherwise, so that's progress me thinks.

I have finally - as I mentioned yesterday - gotten the DMV/Medical monkey off my back on the epilepsy front. That's not to say all of that is peachy keen, and I still really hate taking phenytoin for that problem, but it seems to remain my best option for the time being.

My biggest accomplishment, for both series, has been the discovery that I work better when I am relaxed. I have found that a dedicated habit of taking significant time off on the weekend, of consistently staying with meditation each day, and finding a way to steadily commit to writing time that is not to be interrupted by ANYTHING has produced the opportunity for more, better, and vitally fulfilling work and rest.

The downside has been that several things I wanted to complete remain still sitting on the table. Several things I started during the first series have been lost to entropy and torpor over the last six weeks... In other words, there've been a lot of ways I've failed in my plans this time around.

But most of all... and perhaps most effectively of all... I have figured out a system for getting myself back, and keeping myself, on track.

That's the greatest accomplishment and in the midst of what is otherwise a fair degree of individual and cultural chaos right now, I feel like I've made some significant breakthroughs.

Gotta think about those some more over the coming holiday weekend. Then I can begin to figure out what the next stage contains.

In the meantime... Happy Thanksgiving!

Stage Two - Day 37 - Free At Last !

2008-11-25T15:12:00.000-08:00

I just got back from an appointment with my neurologist and while I am at least a little bit reluctant to celebrate too soon, I believe that I am finally being released from a suspension on my driver's license that has lasted most of this past year.

The suspension is due to the fact that I have epilepsy and that two years ago on a lovely fall afternoon - an afternoon almost like this one actually - I had a seizure while working in the Petaluma library. I wound up in the Petaluma Valley Hospital and after several hours of lying around doing nothing I had to call a friend of mine to pick me up.

Shortly thereafter I was informed that the DMV was once again watching me and subsequently when I didn't follow up on one of my check ups last year... bang zowie... no license.

Getting a new doctor (my previous doctor left practice early this year), getting my blood tests done, and getting the papers filed to get my license back has been one of my primary goals for this 40 Days.

Today I did it. Now, though there's no reason to think that DMV will present a problem, I am nonetheless holding my breath until the final notice comes in the mail and I am free once more.

The rest of the day has been relatively chaotic and frustrating... but hey... thank goodness for small victories.

Stage Two - Week 5 - What Now?

2008-11-24T10:29:00.000-08:00

The last three days of last week were a near complete melt down of inefficiency and lack of attention. Mostly this is due to the fact that I made a choice to break my pattern, and to let "the tyranny of the urgent" rule the day.

To some extent this was necessary... I needed to get blood tests for my doctor in order to meet with him this week and hopefully get him to okay my medication levels for my epilepsy. But every damn time I break the rhythm, especially the morning writing rhythm, the day just goes to hell. Last week three, maybe four, days went to hell, and this morning, as I look a the goals I had laid out for this current 40 Days I find myself staring in astonishment at a list that is very nearly as incomplete as when I started.

Well Damn!

So I sit here in front of my computer on Monday morning, the beginning of the last week (and a rather shortened one at that), considering again, what is possible... what is necessary... what do I want?

For the moment... what I want is to push on and see what I am able to finish.

After that... it will be time to evaluate, adjust, and ask again... What now?

Stage Two - Days 29 & 30 - Sorting

2008-11-19T10:41:00.000-08:00

I'm once again heading into the last ten days of my 40 Days To Life. A good, productive day Monday, and a bit of a cluster yesterday. The frustration of yesterday came from the need to change things around because of medical appointments and logistical frustrations. What it meant, as it seems to mean every time, was a discombobulated feeling of disorientation that left the day a struggle to get through.

The day ended well though, with a glass of wine and a Caprese salad first and then a terrific port tasting at Sonoma Valley Port Works... Ahhhh... the advantages of wine country.

Today begins things again and a good morning sitting with Merton and Thurman helps (as it always does).

Me reading in Howard Thurman this morning reminded me that times like meditation and sitting (and I would add walks and physical exercise) are the prep work for hearing the spirit. They don't in any way guarantee that the spirit will arrive (or when) but they are the ground work that enables us to be, at least a little bit, more ready when the time comes.

I'd have to add that this is about the same reality with this whole idea of 40 Days To Life. Over the last nearly three months, and two trips around the wheel, while I have achieved many of the goals I had in mind at the beginning, I have also left many sitting on the table waiting patiently to be taken up. The most important element of the process has been the ongoing, intentional, cultivation of daily awareness. A practice of being awake.

By setting up - and at various intervals reconsidering and altering - a specific plan, clear goals, and a structure (namely this blog among other things) for keeping myself accountable, I have moved myself further along the road I want to walk. This is kind of surprising to me, because at 54, and with virtually 40 years of medtation, study and practice behind me, I pretty much thought that I was supremely prepared for anything. Not true. While I expect that at some point along the path I was traveling I would have accomplished most of what has transpired over the last 70 days, I am certain that it would not have happened as quickly or with as much awareness of the process.

Taking the time to pay attention, and to relate to others what that attention has revealed (and continues to reveal) has made it easier to accomplish what I want, has made the process easier, and has helped keep me focused on the tasks... and my life.

If the unexamined life is not worth living, a process like this certainly helps prevent one's premature demise.

Stage Two - Days 27 & 28 - Open

2008-11-17T11:14:00.000-08:00

Saturday and Sunday were open and creative.

Sunday was spent with family... driving, talking, catching a movie, having dinner and hanging out. It was the kind of day that "normal people" have. The kind of day that I have been relatively short on in recent years. It was restful, thoughtful, and good.

Saturday, Karen and I went for a long walk and then had breakfast by the river. After that we took a long and leisurely stroll through town, meandering in and out of shops as if we were tourists in our own home town. It was easy, and relaxing and great. The weather cooperated and our spirits were refreshed.

I spent the afternoon down at the opening of the new office/club house for "Friends of the Petaluma River. During the time I was there, I got to watch a DVD on the organization (headed by my relatively new friend - David Yearsley - whom I met last summer while helping to put together the Petaluma River Fest). The thing that I was struck by most of all, was the fact that the issues involving the Petaluma River are the very same issues involving New ORleans and the Mississippi River. WETLANDS and their perpetual depletion. Seeing this video, attending the event, has made me clear on an issue that I have always been concerned about but never deeply involved in... Environmentalism, and the way it correlates with Justice.

After the event I spent about 90 minutes with a guy I met for the first time that afternoon. He's a Viet Nam Vet and our conversation plugged right into a writing idea I have been tossing around in my brain for the past several years... More on that later... but a point to be made...

In both cases, Saturday afternoon led me in the direction of new thought, and new action. My ripeness for these experiences and ideas was directly related to the state of relaxation I was in because of the way I had lived my week and the way we had spent the morning.

Rest led to Creative Openness which led to Opportunity.

Stage Two - Week Four - It's A Job

2008-11-17T10:16:00.000-08:00

The rest of the fourth week was simply FANTASTIC!

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were days fitting the schedule I have tried to create and maintain for at least the last three years and probably beyond that. This time I actually made it.

For the record, the schedule is pretty basic:

8:00 - 8:30 - Meditation
8:30 - 12:30 - Writing
12:30 - 1:00 - Lunch
1:00 - 6:00 - Business
6:00 - 6:30 - Meditation

The Business time tends to get fragmented between busy work, productive work, meetings, and travel and while it was not as grounded and centered as I would like it still held together pretty well. I had some time where I had to take off but I was able to make up for those times on the back end. Ultimately, the plan went well.

I latched on solidly to my four hour morning writing slot, aided rather considerably by the fact that I presently have enough ongoing (and paid) writing projects (in addition to the ever-expanding list of spec projects I have always worked on) that I could actually dedicate 20 hours of the week to writing and not completely go broke. In other words... this is what I've been working toward and... it's working.

To make it work there are three things that have to happen:

1) I have to want it.

2) I have to make room for it. What this means is that I have to give it something close to inviolable preeminence. Any number of times over the last twenty years I have tried to make a solid writing schedule work, only to allow myself to lose the time because someone asked for a meeting, or because I had important errands, or... well... just because. Last week I put a solid hold on those things and worked the time (one morning I came in later, but I stayed longer to make it up). The key to the process is to not only practice it as a "real job" but truly EXPERIENCE it as such.

3) Along the lines of the above... it's also pretty important for the time to pay for itself. It helps considerably if much, though not necessarily all, of the writing time is spent writing something for which I am being paid.

I have been a writer for over twenty years, but I have only rarely treated myself like a writer and treated the writing like work.

It's an art... it's also a job.

Stage Two - Day 24 - A Look Back

2008-11-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

So the last post I made here was last Tuesday.

One success - or really more like a partial success - on that day was the fact that I spent most of the afternoon at the Veterans Day Parade and following other angles of play and thought... For the most part I did what I've been trying to do for years... Write in the morning, take off a mid-week afternoon for creative expansion and learning (which COULD be another way of saying goofing off, but I'll let that be for now). The reason it was a partial success is that I did in fact do some gainful (and paid) work that afternoon despite the fact that I was really trying not to. But it was the closest I've come... ever... to achieving this medweek "anything can happen" hiatus, so I'm pretty pleased.

What came out of that day was in fact a couple of new ideas for writing and work and as the week went on, these ideas grew more and more toward realization. I'll have more on that shortly; all I have to say right now is that the concept works!

Day 23 - Walkabout

2008-11-11T12:08:00.000-08:00

Today is Veteran's Day and I decided this morning that I would use the afternoon for my "walkabout." This part of my schedule is the time I have been trying (for all of the last two cycles of 40 days) fit into the week where I can stop, reflect, do things that are necessary for growth, take care of items that have to be taken care of, and generally attempt to more fully manage my life.

The time is intended as a moment to reflect; to take in a movie, or an art exhibit, or (as today) a parade. My hope for this time is that at some point during the middle of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday) I can give myself growth time to add into my quiver for knowledge and growth and creativity.

Work and writing still takes place in the morning, but then it's my intention to give the afternoon over to the muse.

Previously, the tyranny of the urgent has always invaded this time and usurped it for other purposes. I think today may be a breakthrough.

Day 22 - What We Have To Be...

2008-11-10T18:56:00.000-08:00

Is What We Are.

An evening reading from Merton echoes precisely the many readings from Howard Thurman that I have been diving into and both of them reflect the precise experience of how I feel at the end of this day.

It's been a good day... very productive, well paced, thoughtful and creative. One of those days that almost makes me feel like I am rising out of my body and looking at someone else's life.

But this is my life.

Like Popeye... I yam what I yam.

Stage Two - Days 20 & 21 - Weekend Wonderment

2008-11-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been reading "In Praise of Slowness" by Carl Honore'. Published back in 2004, it is considered by many to be the sort of introductory course to slowing down and living a better life. For most people (at least in the U.S.) it was the first introduction to the "Slow Food" movement, among other things. I borrowed it a couple of months ago from the lending library at Preston Vineyards (a modern miracle in and of itself).

This weekend, after wrenching my back out of whack by dancing, jumping, twisting, turning and pretty much acting like the five year old kid that Fred LeBlanc commanded me to act like, I spent a lot of time resting and reading and thinking.

Most of Saturday was spent making up a good portion of the work I missed by being out on Monday and sick on Wednesday, but after that I settled into a nice routine that included cooking my favorite meal (prawns over corn cakes with a chipotle butter sauce) for my sweety and her kid and watching a movie that required absolutely no critical thinking to be enjoyed (at least a little bit).

Sunday was all rest and relaxation, with an extra trip to the Petaluma Unitarian Universalist church to hear a sermon by a dear friend of mine (and sometime writing partner). Irish breakfast at Maguire's a SLOW walk around town, and lots and lots of reading.

Good days... restful days... Rejuvenating days.

Halfway through this second term of 40 Days and holding onto some of the lessons I learned in the first session.

Sunday officially began the second half of this second program, but today is the day where "the rubber meets the road."

Things feel like they are working well .... and the Obama glow continues to give me an increased sense of new energy.

I'll let you know how the day turns out... Right now, I'm feeling like I'm on a roll.

Stage Two - Days 16, 17, 18, & 19

2008-11-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

I can barely begin to explain this last week.

Three weeks in... Last weekend a truly wonderful relaxation time and more understanding of what that means for the other side of things. There's a song that I am listening to right now, by a NOLA group that will be playing Petaluma tonight. In the song Fred LeBlanc sings about slowing down in order to speed up.

THAT would be the reality of this entire last week... Well... except for Tuesday!

I'll have much more to say about all of that over the weekend. It's been an astonishing last seven days.

Tonight my sweetie and I are gonna celebrate!!!

I Believe!

Stage Two - Days 13, 14 & 15

2008-11-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

WOW!!! Another two weeks gone.

Another weekend off. I'm taking Monday off as well... seeking again some of that slowness I seem to be in need of. I'm even taking the book "In Praise of Slowness" along with me. A book that opens with a quote from Gandhi that a friend of mine uses at the bottom of all his emails...

"There is more to life than increasing its speed."

See ya on Election Day.

Stage Two - Days 10 & 11 - The Hammer Falls

2008-10-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

One thing you can pretty much count on (or at least I can pretty much count on, I won't speak for you) is that the first hints of Fall... the Halloween/Day of the Dead period... will most assuredly bring me the old post-nasal drip, leading to a full out hacking coughing cold accompanied by little energy and less ambition.

Welcome to late October!

The last two days have been that kind of experience.

The good news, however, is that I've actually been able to stay pretty solidly on the things I'm working on. Work's been a challenge, but it hasn't been abandoned. Life goals sort of fade off into thick haze where my head feels like it's a Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon, but for the most part I am able to hold them lightly and intentionally and keep more or less on track.

Like the song says... I'm still here!

I attribute THAT fact to the groundwork I laid last month, the daily meditation I continue to work with, and a certain sense of openess and humor that has recently become an interesting side-effect of the whole process.

Onward... Through the fog!!!

Part Two - Days 6,7 & 8 Late To The Party... Just In Time

2008-10-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

Another terrific weekend. Time from work. Time to help out. Time to reflect. Time to have fun.

Most people reading this probably think this scenario is pretty ridiculous. What's to be so pleased about in "taking time off?"

Nothing... except... THAT, in fact, would be the point.

For pretty much my entire adult life I almost never took any time off. At the same time, I didn't work a "normal job" like most people. I didn't clock in at 9 and out at 5. I didn't have scheduled weeks of paid vacation, I didn't have health insurance, etc. etc. etc. I was fortunate enough throughout my daughter's young life (and that of my "step-kids" as well) to be the parent who was at home, because I worked at home. The problem was, that while I had the opportunity to volunteer at my daughter's school, to pick her up and take her to friends, to play the music she danced to in the living room, and to make dinner almost every night, I was also the person who basically never stopped working. I almost never took time off. We rarely spent time "as a family." I got up early in the morning and went to bed late at night, sitting at the computer while all of life ran around me. I had one eye on the kids, one hand in the kitchen, and almost never ANY complete presence to the moment. I was spinning plates, and while I only lost a few to spills and crashes and flying saucers, I also missed out on much.

That is probably the greatest sadness of my life.

What began for me a little over a year ago, has, with these 40 day plans, come to full flower. I am finally, for the first time in my life, finding out what all the fuss is about. I am learning that getting away from the work, not only makes your life better, it makes the WORK better too.

Hence, the story of Day 8... a day of long hours and as yet unfinished business, ALL spent doing what I most want to do... WRITING.

Writing... and getting paid for it.

If there is one target goal in all of this (and there really are many, but if there WERE just one) it would be that one. To write for a living.

The dream is in fact slowly coming true. Resting and reflecting and not simply barreling full speed ahead is the process that is making it happen.

Why couldn't I have learned this 30 years ago?

Part Two - Day 5 - Stepping Into The River Twice

2008-10-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

Coming to the end of the first week... a second time around... I thought that things would be mo' different than they are. I have had, just as I did 6 weeks ago, a difficult week of settling into my plans, finding my stride getting things into some kind of orderly and productive reality.

The last two days have both been pretty chaotic, while at the same time definitely being more productive than similar days used to be.

What I'm trying to say is that while SOME things are still pretty much as they were, the differences are significant. The base changes I made have helped me through my weaknesses and I feel like, while I am starting over again, I am not starting over from the same place. The classic saying about not being able to step into the same river twice is clearly at work here. Despite the fact that my days, my work, and my attitudes have changed very little... they have in fact changed much.

What has remained the same, I see ways of altering.

I'm pretty excited about this... I don't quite know where it's all going... but it's definitely going somewhere good.

Part Two - Day 2 - If I am not better...

2008-10-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

So the day did not fit into my beautiful plan... BUT it fit pretty well into the the rest of my life.

Good work... good connections... good plans... and, at least potentially, good income.

It's been a day where I really do feel like I'm working off a new and stronger base. Many realities are still the same, but overall I am better able to handle the twists and turns (I jumped on TOP of the car hood this time).

I've got some new plans for tomorrow as well... But there is definitely momentum and I'm feeling good about it.

"If I am not better, at least I am different." - Jean Jacques Rousseau

40 Days 2.0 - Day 1

2008-10-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

Okay... here we go again.

I spent much of the day (among many other things) pondering what structure to give to an ongoing process to move forward on the things from last month that I still want to work on.

Following the exact same schedule as the previous 6 weeks, and ending in 40 days has the advantage of arriving at day 39 on Thanksgiving Day, and Day 40 two days before the beginning of Advent. this works for me in my weirdly convoluted symbiosis of pagan, neo-pagan, christian, buddhist, and "american" ritualistic constructs.

So.... another 40 Days it is.

I've got some slightly different plans for this go 'round, as well as a sense that I am working from the base that I talked about in the previous post.

Like living inside a sine wave... my intention is to create a congruity that magnifies the resulting wave form rather than countering and diminishing it. That is to say, I want to make the wave, and its subsequent effect, bigger not smaller.

I've got more to say on that... but I think I'll save it for later.

Like we always used to say at the end of the roller coaster.... "Let's go again!!!"

Day 43 - What's Next?

2008-10-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

I spent Saturday and Sunday resting, playing, spending time with my daughter and her hubby, seeing a great play, going to church and staring off at the waters of the bay. Mostly I have rested and thought. The last six weeks have given me much to reflect on and I am trying to find a better way of incorporating that necessary reflection into the daily schedule.

So... What was accomplished in the 40 Days?

• I have improved my meditation practice with at least once a day sitting… Striving for twice a day, but not there yet

• Have begun a more solid reading and journaling routine. Every day reading and reflection

• Have finally begun a true rest and recuperation routine for weekends, removing myself almost completely from the internet dance for two days a week

• Established, and have mostly kept up with a plan to regulate email intake/obsession to three times a day… It is my new goal to reduce this to twice daily

• By organizing my financial and business records I have increased my follow through and income

• To that end I succeeded in covering my rent and bills before they were due

• I have begun paying back some old debts

• I have begun a new running routine, though it did not reach the level I had targeted

• I have begun studying French

• I have improved my diet, though again, more needs to be done to reach my actual goal

• I have begun new medical followup, including having necessary blood tests, and finding a new doctor

• I have been more personally awake and aware and intentional about my daily business, personal, and interpersonal dealings

I did not:

• Complete any of the several writing projects I had targeted for completion

• Seek out a new agent

• Reach my target weekly income

• Complete incorporation, budget and investment materials for new business development

• Start saving or giving to the extent I had targeted

• Start playing guitar again

• Apply for my passport

• Get new health insurance

• Surf

--

From both my own sense of what the last six weeks have felt like, and from looking at the list of tasks I pulled off, started, and didn’t even get to, it seems like this last 40 days has been a sort of ground laying process.

As with building a house… The basics have now been laid out. Most of the architecture has been completed, the framing is mostly there and the foundation has been poured (though I’m not sure that it’s quite dry).

There is, however, no there there.

What I feel is necessary now is to return to the tasks I did not accomplish… study why and why not, evaluate the extent to which they are still valuable and whether there are things I want to either remove or add.

THEN… I want to start again.

What I have not fully decided is when to start again and how to alter the plan. At this point the process feels like the first steps of a small child. It is only by continuing those steps that I feel I will gain the real momentum that I have been seeking over the last six weeks. I must build upon what I just finished. I do not want to start all over again...I want to continue.

It isn’t time to stop… It’s time to keep going.

In the words of one of my all-time favorite television characters - President Bartlett on The West Wing - "What's next?"

Day 40 - The Finish Line?

2008-10-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

So... Here I am... Six weeks later.

For the last several days the biggest thing on my mind has been what do I do now?

I've even given a lot of thought to what to say right here and right now, but I'm feeling uncharacteristically speechless at the moment, so I think I'll just leave the words (and music) to Robert Earl Keen.

As for the rest... I'll have to get back to ya on that.

Days 38 & 39 - Wrestling at Peniel

2008-10-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite stories in the Bible comes from the Genesis 32 where the story is told of Jacob wrestling with an Angel through the night and into the dawn.

In the story, the Angel tries a bit of trickery in order to get the upper hand; he wounds Jacob in the thigh. Jacob, however, struggles on, and when the Angel is frantic to go at the break of day, Jacob demands that the angel bless him. The angel asks Jacob his name and then transforms him with a new one... Israel, stating, "... for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed." Jacob names the place where this nocturnal wrestling match occurred Peniel for, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”

It would seem that, both in "sacred" literature, as well as popular culture, Angels like to do battle with someone or some thing. It's in their nature. It's a metaphor for the struggle of existence... the move through each day... the search for something more. A search that is never really over and which most likely, as with Jacob, defines who we are.

That's been the nature of this whole past 6 weeks, but especially the last couple of days. By virtue of work and life, practical and impractical circumstances, the struggle to keep moving forward has indeed begun to feel like the sun rising over the horizon while I lie on the ground wrestling with some commanding, though mostly invisible, being. A being that I have a hold on, but which also has me; all the while, the outcome remains in doubt.

I don't know where to go from here. I'm pretty sure that it's not really even time to be asking that question, but that's the question that keeps coming up. As I slug through the last bits and pieces of my goals from six weeks ago, as I evaluate what I can still finish and what I will ultimately have to let go of or redefine, the thing that I feel most intensely is the need to remain clearly and intentionally here.. right now. In the battle.

Of course... with the battle... also comes the dancing.

Day 37 - The Final 10%

2008-10-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

As of this morning, there are four days left.

10% of my six week program ahead... 90% behind me.

What have I accomplished?

What have I left undone?

These are the questions that have been running through my brain almost constantly for the last several days.

The fact is that I have FULLY accomplished only a few of the tasks I set out to complete. I have however made major progress on most of them and in most areas of my life. There are another few tasks which I have not even touched on as of today, but one of my goals for this week is to at least touch on even those. I want to have, at least in some way, addressed each one.

What I am looking at this morning is the question of where do I go from here?

In his book "Beyond The Summit", Todd Skinner comments on the challenges of the last 10%. "In the last ten percent of any endeavor, you are asked to do the most with the least resources left. As you approach the summit, you have less strength, fewer supplies, and more hostile conditions." He also makes some very encouraging observations. My favorite is, "... this is a much smaller mountain than the one you started with." He points out that having made it to this point you have learned a lot of new skills that make you a better climber, and while the task may be harder... it is indeed a smaller task.

Now that I think of it... the task really isn't "where do I go from here?" Right now, the task is FINISHING.

Where do I go from here???? Up!

Day 36 - Beginning Badly

2008-10-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

I spent much of yesterday in a strange funk that seemed to have something to do with what I was (or was not) eating, as well as a shift that the pharmacist had recently made in my epilepsy meds. Every once in a while this happens; I can go on for days, even weeks, at a time with my brain feeling like everything's in sync, and then for a whole day (or two) I will be completely unable to focus, I won't be able to stay on any tasks, and my head sort of spins, first one way and then the other.

The most frustrating aspect of the whole thing is that I typically get next to nothing done on a day like that. It would be great if I could schedule such interruptions, for then I would move them to the weekend and simply take them in stride. When they occur on a Monday or in the middle of a deadline driven project... It starts to piss me off.

Some days when it hits me like that I feel as if I am one of the ordinary super heroes in "Heroes", while on other days I feel like The Elephant Man

Yesterday was something in between.

But then... as it did last night... the condition passes, I get my brain back, and I am able to move on.

Days 34 & 35 - Miracle of Miracles!

2008-10-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

Another weekend passed with a lot of activity, pretty much all of it relaxing.

I'm sure that for a lot of people this seems like a really ridiculous element to be focusing on in this program, but with each passing week it becomes more and more clear to me that the idea of rest and recharge for body, mind and spirit, is one of the most central factors in achieving new goals; it may in fact be the MOST significant factor.

Comparatively, it's easy to set goals. It's harder to work productively toward those goals, but it may be hardest of all to rest on the journey. It is the difference between REST and QUITTING that is important here. It is a difference which I have had a hard time seeing for most of my life.

Until about a year ago, I had pretty much lost all sense of what it means to truly rest. I would work incessantly... in the early mornings, late into the evening, all weekend, and during even the little short "vacations" we might take away. I was extremely inconsistent with staying on point with tasks I wanted to complete, but that didn't keep me from staying busy.

BUSY-ness was more of what I was doing. Business took a back seat.

What I had begun to put into practice before I started this 40 day cycle, and which I have gradually developed into a habit over the last six weeks, is the idea of actually resting and rejuvenating whether that is through recreation, family time, cultural enrichment, spiritual pursuit, or taking a nap.

The work requires the rest.

Day 33 - Who Do You Think You Are... Anyway?

2008-10-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

One more week to go.

This is when it begins to dawn on me that there are some things that I am not going to accomplish by the end of this 40 Days and some other things at which I have done very well.

The most significant thing about the whole process, at least as I look at it right now, is the key awareness that awareness is key.

Whatever it is that I have accomplished over the last month, it has been accomplished for one reason only, and that is because I have been paying attention. The most important think I take away from the time, is an intention to keep that focus, that awareness, foremost in my mind. [I was going to correct think to thing in the sentence above, but upon reflection I'm going to let that Freudian slip stand.]

My Merton reading for the day is entitled "Godlikeness Begins at Home" and contains Merton's personal reflection, made in 1958, that the secret to his ambition to "be a saint" is centered and grounded in his basic acceptance of who he is. "Finally, I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be who I already am." He expands on this, not in a way that suggests that there is nothing to be done - the kind of response one might expect from a new age, magical thinking, kind of non-discipline - but rather that the doing is really much simpler than we generally might imagine. He writes, "... I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself - and if I accept myself fully, in the right way, I will have already surpassed myself."

In a separate reading from the collection "Echoing Silence," Merton makes the comment that "... the artist might well be brusquely invited to go home and consider the question: Who do you think you are anyway?" and this to me is central to the whole concept. Each goal, each task, each step along the path of the last month, ultimately comes to this question, and the answer remains the classic Zen conundrum of who is asking whom and is there a self there to answer?

Or to put it more simply still... Perhaps you really are what you do.

Day 32 - Do... Do... Do... Dah... Dah... Dah...

2008-10-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

Winding down toward the last week of this six week program I am inevitably having to face into the reality of what I have accomplished, what I haven't accomplished, what I want to keep working on, what I really don't care about.

To that end, I was working today on a series of "Do Lists."

In his book "Good to Great," Jim Collins discusses the idea that it's as important (maybe more so) to create a Stop Doing List as it is to create To Do Lists. The To Do Lists are easy, there's always more to do, but the real secret to getting things accomplished the way you want to is making decisions and making cuts.

To my mind there are a couple other Do Lists that are important to consider: in addition to the Do and Do Not lists, I have added two more, a DON'T Do List, comprised of items that I do (both constantly and intermittently) that I want to cease doing immediately (as opposed to the Stop Doing List which made up of things I want to phase out of my life on a more gradual basis), and a Bucket List, modeled after the recent film and consisting of things that I consider vital to accomplish sometime between now and when I die.

So that's what I did this morning... I went back to all the things I've been doing (both befpore and since the 40 days started) and compiled my current Do, Stop Doing, DON'T Do, and Bucket Lists.

Unfortunately, in the midst of all this I did, at both the beginning and the end of the day, one of the things on my DON'T DO list; I started and ended the day watching the news... BIG MISTAKE.

Day 31 - Anything Can Happen Day Part Deux

2008-10-08T22:03:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to think that "anything can happen day" just ain't gonna happen. Maybe it's the fact that Wednesday is just too active sitting there right in the center of the week. Maybe it's that I need better discipline on Monday and Tuesday in order to make way for Wednesday.

Whatever it is... I once again missed my "afternoon of creative exploration" because I was slogging away on a work project that I didn't even know was going to exist 24 hours earlier. In addition, this day's activity not only did not fit into the plan, it actually took away from other work that's been coming along. I did a pretty good job of managing the chaos; a far better job than I have done in weeks, months, and even years past. However, this is still NOT my beautiful life.

At the same time... I can't really complain though. IT was good work, I did a good job, and I handled the basic reality of the situation with grounded stability and an open head and heart.

I DID have a surprising and delightful morning. I even got some solid writing done before stubborn reality kicked things up a notch.

Any way you slice it, it was a good day... Not THE day I was hoping for... but definitely a good day.

Day 30 - Free Beer At The Finish!

2008-10-07T09:17:00.001-07:00

As this last section of 40 days comes into focus, it's a lot like running a race. I can see the finish line from here, but there's still a good solid bit of work to do.. some of the hardest work of the whole race. At the 2/3 point of a marathon you are at 17.5 miles and you have 8.7 miles left. That actually means that you still have two and a half miles left before that ultimate 20 mile crux point when so many people "hit the wall."

The first time I ran the Big Sur Marathon I was wearing a relatively new pair of shoes that were not properly broken in, and which had a particularly annoying strap that rubbed against my instep. About a mile into the race I stopped by the side of the road and ripped that strap out of the shoe, but the damage had already been done. It had rubbed a huge blister across my instep and by the two-thirds point of that race my right shoe was making a distinct "squish squish" sound as blood poured into the shoe with each step.

A few miles later - at a definite post-WALL point, I was walking the road, calculating my pace and praying to the Goddess that I would just finish the damn race and not have to be picked up by the rescue van. I saw a man on the side of the road with his shoe off. As I looked forlornly at the poor guy, and he looked forlornly at me, I thought to myself, "if I stop like that, I won't start again." With that internally generated motivation, I kicked back into my stride and began running again.

Several miles later, as I was cruising down a small hill toward the final bridge crossing, a slightly crazed, rather shabby looking dude jumped out in front of me and shouted, "Just cross that bridge and you get free beer!" Well... the beer was Bud Light, but at that point, it was the perfect carrot. For one last time, I kicked up my pace, raised my head and smiled. I crossed the bridge, cruised through the orange plastic chutes of the finish line, got my finisher's medal, my picture.. and my BEER.

There is absolutely no question that those last 8.7 miles were the hardest of the entire 26.2... The were also the most terrific!

Day 29 - The Final Third

2008-10-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

Today begins the last two weeks of this 40 day program.

The final third.

Some time ago, and for a day too long, I was with a partner who ground into my head that I was "two-thirds Thom." The implication and attack in the comment was the accusation that I rarely, if ever, completed anything. The observation was that I was really quite good at getting two-thirds of the way through something and then losing track of the goal.

Like so many statements of this type (and I've noticed lately that we hear a lot of them in political campaigns), it was close enough to the truth to be troublesome but far enough from the truth to be debilitating. The comment was regularly used as an attack and a put down and I sucked it up as a basic reality in my life and accepted it as a declaration of my inadequacy.

Let's just say... it was not facilitative.

As I hit this point today, I feel some of the hesitancy that such a behavioral script tends to load into one's brain and I sort of draw back from the goal ahead. Maybe she was right for all those years. Maybe I don't have what it takes to accomplish anything. Maybe... fundamentally... I'm just a loser, a screw up, a wastrel.

At the same time, I am so pleased with the amount of stuff I have accomplished over the last month (not to mention the last year) that I am really supercharged for this last two weeks... this final third.

Days 27 & 28 - A real weekend!

2008-10-05T23:14:00.000-07:00

So on Saturday I actually made it up bright and early, got coffee and a shower, packed the beer into the cooler, grabbed "my buddy and my girl" and headed of for San Francisco and Warren Hellman's Emmylou Harris Festival.

The day started out rainy but was followed by fog breaking to clear blue sunny skies by afternoon. The music was fabulous, the company was superb. It was a serendipitous Perfect Moment; it was a reminder of why I am diving head first into this whole process.

Sunday was a little bit crazy, but still a solid, restful, creative day that included breakfast, a teenage soccer match, work on the computer (something I try not to do, but this was special... and important) for a friend who was putting together a presentation on New Orleans, dinner with friends (complete with killer rice and Andouille sausage) and baseball on the couch in the living room with Karen and her mom.

There were several times during the day when I wanted to break down, where I was insistent that I MUST break down, and "work," but when it all came out in the wash, a cooler, wiser, more grounded spirit prevailed and I let myself rest... Ready for the week ahead.

Day 26 - Leaving room for life to sneak in...

2008-10-04T08:31:00.000-07:00

I have yet to work out my schedule in such a way that I can really nail it down like the deep Virgo side of my psyche really desires. Intending to facilitate that, I have also tried to schedule in down time during the middle of the week. That time is SUPPOSED to be on Wednesday, but in the last four weeks I have not once taken that time on Wednesday. An alternative approach I have been testing involves allowing myself the half day (or perhaps even more) off during the week to remain flexible... movable... so that if I want to take in a museum exhibit, or a film, or I need to just take care of life's exigencies, I can do so without completely derailing my plans. This seems to work better... more or less.

Yesterday I spent the morning helping take care of family stuff for my sweetie. I then had plans to take in the opening set at The Hardly Strictly Blue Grass Fest in San Francisco, but that sort of fell through. Instead I returned to do some work, run some errands and spend the evening eating pizza and watching baseball. Rather mundane... but exactly perfect.

It's clear that making progress in all the other areas of life requires leaving some space for the mundane, the ordinary, and the serendipitous. It's the same lesson we all heard from Lennon back when he was raising his kid and baking bread, just shortly before he was killed...

Life is what happens while your busy making other plans.

Day 25 - Less News is Still Good News

2008-10-02T22:20:00.000-07:00

I ended my two day "news fast" by watching the V.P. debate which served, more than anything else, to show me how much of a waste watching and fretting over every glimmer of "news" coverage can be.

Juxtaposed against the daily readings that I have been doing in Merton, readings in which he regularly laments the absurd overabundance of pointless and misleading verbiage spewed into the collective mind (and this written 40 years or more ago!!!) I am finding that one of the best ways to move further in what I REALLY want to accomplish in life, may be to spend more time ignoring the crap that is perpetually flying through the airwaves. Now... I have to admit, some of it I find extremely entertaining, but very little of it do I find informative. Additionally, for the first time in my life, I am coming to a place where I have some real questions about how valuable even the "informative" stuff really is.

It's probably subject to the 80/20 rule, in which 20% of what I pay attention to provides 80% of the value... but I'm even finding that a bit hard to believe.

Day 24 - A Day Without Wah Wah

2008-10-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, in the midst of the psychotic meltdown, or at least the pretension of a meltdown, in the U.S. economy I decided that the best process for me was ignore the news. Actually, it went deeper than that; yesterday I chose to AVOID the news.

I went so far as to avert my eyes while deleting emails from my standard news sources, The New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and well-intentioned and/or sarcastic friends. While checking the mail I tried to avoid viewing subject lines in exchange for paying attention to where the email came from. Mostly, I succeeded, though even with a conscious effort to avoid all the input, I still caught bits and pieces of news from the headlines on newspapers on the street, or the ubiquitous television montiors in public places, and I ended the evening deep in a discussion of the economic bailout.

I noticed two things in this... Firstly, my day was not impoverished by not being instantly and perpetually aware of every little detail being played out by the power brokers in Washington and New York and expounded upon by the media priests and acolytes in New York and Atlanta. If anything, my day was expanded to take in more of the world around me, the thoughts in my mind, the work at hand.

Secondly, instead of eagerly running to find out what I missed, I now find myself digging deeper, looking for more softness, more silence, more peace. I am more keenly aware than usual that the random verbiage and the grand declarations, by all sides of the political conversation, serve mostly to keep the rest of us bound and gagged and impotent. While I am normally and enthusiastically a sucker for political alertness and playful disputation, I am this morning more interested in learning how to use my words, my time, and my life for something of real significance.

At least for right now... I don't need no Wah-Wah.

Day 23 - Zydeco Tuesday

2008-10-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a day of more chaos and disorganization than any day since I began this program. I didn't run, I didn't meditate, I didn't even eat. I wrote, but not in the same way, or on the same things, that I try to work (at least a little bit) with every day.

It was a flat out crazy-quilt day.

At the same time... my energy was definitely up and I got a lot of things done. It was probably one of my most productive days in the last three weeks. This is pretty much counterintuitive to the whole idea behind what I'm trying to do, but I guess that's another one of those lessons that I probably need to learn.

The fact is, you can plan your ass off, but no matter how well prepared you are, no matter how rigidly you try to fix the system to work in what you perceive to be your favor, SOMETHING is going to throw a wrench into the system at some point along the way.

When that happens you can fight it (my normal tendency) or you can dance with it. You can struggle to keep things moving in march time, or you can kick up your heels and dance with the music the band is playing.

Sometimes (most times?) dancing is the best choice.

Day 22 - Running For Something

2008-09-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

This morning, I started the morning and the week in a low energy lethargy that I found myself battling in one of those brain fights that are forced on me from time to time. Battles that sometimes I win and most times I lose. When I turned on the iTunes and caught the Melissa Ethridge song "Run for Life," the song she recorded after her battle with breast cancer and her declaration of solidarity and purpose in the struggle against cancer, I thought of friends and loved ones who have had the disease in one form or another and who have both died from it and battled it back to a thriving life, I was laid sideways by a HUNGER for something more than the every day meandering that takes up most of my time.

Paul Newman's death this weekend went by very quietly in the midst of all the other things that I was doing. I heard a brief bit of an interview with him on the radio and I read bits and pieces in passing as I glanced at one newspaper article or another. The thing that I was most taken by was the way he latched on to living and held it. Whether acting, in his marriage to Joanne Woodward, at his camps for kids, as a race car driver, a gastronomical entrepeneur, or just as a good and decent human being, Newman LIVED.

More than anything, THIS is what I am seeking to gain in the remaining three weeks of this 40 Day plan. This is "the bliss" that Campbell talks about.

I want to find MY way back to real life again. I want to know the passion that, at one time, I felt every morning, and that I so deeply desire to feel again. I want to find the energy, the focus, and the intention to get up every morning and pursue THAT each day... EVERY DAY.

Day 20 & 21 - Still Learning to Rest

2008-09-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

I've never been particularly good at settling down and resting. There is a family anecdote that has been repeated often throughout my life that describes how my parents could never get me to rest as a kid, could never get me to lie down for a nap, or stay in bed beyond sunrise in the morning.

This is a behavior that, for the most part, remains in my DNA. Whether it's an evening of sitting around and reading, or a Saturday at the beach, or a weekend away (let alone something longer, like a week), if I don't have something to do, something that gets me moving and occupies my brain, something (often related to a computer unfortunately) that lets me feel productive even if it's actually having the opposite effect, I tend to be jumpy, nervous and scattered.

This weekend was an ongoing attempt, partly successful and partly not so much, at settling into rest mode. I spent time at a couple of soccer matches, did some shopping, some cooking, a little bit of reading, but still on both Saturday and Sunday I found it necessary to move to the electronic vortex and twiddle the keys.

One of the greatest lessons for me in this 40 Days is the need for downtime. My goal is to set Saturdays aside for some rest and some work (most particularly writing), a day for catching up AND settling down, with Sundays dedicated completely to rest, and rejuvenation (physical, mental and spiritual). In my wildest imagination I don't even look at a computer on Sunday, I take a "digital sabbath."

Like most of the other goals in the plan... I am definitely getting better at this... but I'm definitely not there yet.

Day 19 - Halfway Home

2008-09-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of the first half of the 40 days. Tomorrow is the actual halfway point, but considering that my goal arrives three weeks from today, it seems worthwhile in my mind,such as it is, to place myself at the center of the line today.

So where am I?

What have I accomplished... what have I done well... What needs work... What is left to be done?

• I have made great progress on the underlying groundwork for what I want. My personal schedule and my basic discipline at maintaining it is the best it's been in a long time, maybe better than I've ever been.

• I have picked up certain disciplines and behaviors (a regulation on how and when I get email, talk on the phone, write, read, workout, etc.) that are necessary for keeping things moving forward. These are the kinds of things that don't seem like a big deal to people who have to go into the office every day, but when, like me, you've worked on your own schedule in your own way for 30 years it can be very easy to lose that disciplined structure and lose the benefits that such structure provides. I haven't succeeded at dialing this in completely (as can be seen from my last two days of posts) but I'm getting close. I am, however, picking up that "Creative Habit" that Twyla Tharpe talks about.

• I have, on some level, at least begun about 90% of the goals I set up on my list. I expect to nail down the rest of them by the beginning of next week. That gives me the last half of this program to target myself full speed ahead.

• I have learned that it is ALL in your mind.

What I have not figured out is how to balance it all. How do you keep the plates spinning AND live a light hearted, conscious life?

Hopefully I will discover that somewhere in the remaining 21 days.

Day 18 - Living in The Vortex

2008-09-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

Another day that was good but not great. A day where I found myself distracted by the various little things that are lying out there in the grass to snip at your heels as you run by, to trip you up and slow you down.

In short it was a day when I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. At the same time I had some good interactions with new clients that will at least help me keep moving forward. Some days it seems that this is the most you can expect, even when you are hopefully playing toward the top of your game.

As Sam Eliot says in The Big Lebowski, "Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you."

Today I got away with a small nip.

Day 17 - Slooowwwwwwly I turn... Step by step...

2008-09-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

You have to be of "a certain age" to remember the Three Stooges routine I reference in the title.

What brings it to mind this afternoon has nothing to do with The Three Stooges, but with the process of the day.

The week has been a good one so far. I've pulled together a schedule and started on several new goals that were in the list two weeks ago but which I didn't begin to address until yesterday. At the same time, there are other parts of the plan that seem to slip through my grasp.

In particular is a plan that I have labored over for nearly three years; an attempt to turn Wednesday into what it was for the Mouseketeers... Anything Can Happen Day! For me, it's intended to take this afternoon smack in the middle of the week and give me a chance to do research, explore new ideas, go to a museum, or the library... ANYTHING that can push me over the hump of hump day and into the rest of the week, supercharged with ideas and ready to complete important tasks.

What it's turned into (almost every week for the last three years) is a day of pick me ups and catch ups; a day when the things that got lost in the first part of the week get tied up (or at least wrapped in a bow). Frankly, this isn't a bad thing per se, but it isn't what I've been trying to make happen.

What it is, is another part of the process... Each element, each task, needs practice and grace. Each step is only partial. It's a marathon not a long jump.

Slooowwwwwwly I turn... just don't mention Niagra Falls.

Day 16 - The Yin and Yang of The Here and Now

2008-09-23T09:43:00.001-07:00

My reading list at the moment (now that I just finished a biography of Babe Ruth that I've been reading along the arc of baseball season) is an interesting yin yang (what others might perhaps choose to call schizophrenic) of Thomas Merton and Hunter Thompson ("Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail")... my musical choices tend to flip between Springsteen and Bernstein (with a little Cockburn thrown in for good measure)... and my physical activities struggle with each other across the divide between running and sitting.

This is me two weeks in with 24 Days left "...to Life." It's not terribly different from the delicate balance between success and failure, life and death, asceticism and debauchery, or abundance and insolvency that I have struck through most of my life. This time though, I am noticing that the intentionality of examination, and the accompanying attempt to lay it all out in public does put a razor edge to the whole thing. It pushes me up on days when I might be more likely to go under and it forces me forward when I would rather sit on the barstool and have another beer (not that that doesn't still happen on occasion, just to be clear).

I possess a definite bi-polar streak. I believe it to be medically related to my epilepsy, and it tends to be mostly manageable, though I'm really not sure whether the dilantin I take for the epilepsy affects it or not.

The balance tends to be tenuous nonetheless. What works for me though is focus... CONSTANT focus. If I let my guard down I can lose my balance in seconds. What I was working on, so hard and so enthusiastically, only moments before can be lost, forgotten, as if it never existed. The focus keeps me awake... and alive.

Sitting... centeredness... reflection. These things keep me steady.

At the same time, if I become too settled, if I sit on the cushion for too long, or move too slowly (for whatever reason) through the day, a deadening lethargy comes on; my consciousness feels like it's shrouded; my senses go numb. Needless to say, this doesn't work for me either.

Action is necessary. While I am very fond of the meditative suggestion, "Don't just do something, sit there," sooner or later, either to stem off entropy, or obtain sustenance for the body, one must indeed move. At that point a decision is called for, and a direction required. I like the movement. I hunger for action.

When I sit, I feel the glow... When I run, I feel the fire.

What works... is the dance. Balanced between light and dark, action and non-action, running and waiting I seem to be finding my life.

---

There are presently five ravens gathered outside my front door (I am NOT kidding!).

Day 15 - Four weeks to go...

2008-09-22T19:22:00.000-07:00

This day feels like the moment of truth. This week feels like the real time for challenge.

For my "Monday morning meeting" with myself today, I went back through the goals I set two weeks ago (Goals I really do plan on posting here sometime soon) and considered what I've accomplished, what I have at least made headway on, and what i haven't even started.

I came to the conclusion, that actually, I'm doing a pretty good job.

But this week, it's time to turn up the heat. I feel like the two weeks previous have been a sort of "shake down cruise." I've been rooting around in the dirt of my psyche trying to get a better handle on what I feel like matters and how to make it come to life in the real world.

Today I start up on all the things I have successfully put off. I'm definitely a bit tired, but I'm also ready for more.

Now is when I get to see if all these grandiose plans and dreams have any legs of their own.

Days 13 and 14

2008-09-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday and Sunday this week were once again a set of sort of catch up days.

It was both frustrating and engaging on Saturday to have a wonderful event to go to at the vineyards of Roshambo winery up in Dry creek, and event that my daughter and her hubby were planning to attend as well, but to feel like I had to much toehr work to catch up on, too many irons in the fire, to take the day for "the fun of it."

Instead, I stayed home, got some of the online work I needed to accomplish finished and then got involved in a bunch of the typical kinds of things (house cleaning, shopping, washing the clothes) that always interfere with life sooner or later.

It was however a good day for learning the very thing I wrote about two days before. Despite the fact that I had an invitation to an exceptionally fun event that I really wanted to attend, I have to say that I was indeed happy to stay at home, to work, and to get things done.

Sunday went the way I keep trying to make it go... No work, no computer (well, almost no computer) and a lot of rest, thought, spirit and relationship.

Watched the last game at Yankee Stadium and cried.

It was a good good day.

Day 12 - Just Do It

2008-09-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

It's an old, and by now rather tired, ad campaign, but when it was created it was brilliant. Nike's Just Do It slogan cut to the chase and ran right by all the excuses. The idea remains brilliant still.

So much of what I do... is hesitant, second-guessed, over the shoulder tenuousness that it is frankly amazing that I get anything done at all.

This morning I found a piece of paper that I gave as a Christmas present last December. It was the listing of a series of games at Yankee stadium and it was my plan to go to one or more of those games. The trip never happened, the games went on without us and here I sit this morning looking at the paper and wondering how I let that moment slip through my hands.

But that's really not hard to figure out. The moment slipped through my hands because I simply did not fully believe in what I promised to do. This lack of faith led to a lack of vision, a lack of preparation, and ultimately a lack of accomplishment.

The moment passed and the opportunity for something magical was missed.

This is what I see in what I do today.

There is nothing on my list of goals for the remaining 28 days of this program that can be accomplished... not a single thing... without my complete faith in its possibility and my complete commitment to the goal. You don't make it through the crux of a climb when you're looking back at the ground.

Or as Frank says... "Don't dream it... be it."

Follow Your Bliss

2008-09-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

I went out for my walk at lunch (it was actually supposed to be a run, but, well... you know) and as I was tripping lightly down the road, I began contemplating all the things I had put down in the previous post.

What came to my mind was the reminder of Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell discussing purpose and how to find your true calling.

"Follow Your Bliss." (You can find it about 35 minutes in on the video above).

This has never meant what so many people have taken it to mean... namely, some sort of sophisticated attempt at "Do Whatcha Wanna!." It is instead a challenge to look at what you love; seek out what truly moves you, follow the tastes and the tantalizations that your psyche has thrown out at you for your entire life.

What is your soul calling you to?

What captured my imagination as I was walking along was the intermittent joy, the tiny giggle, and the outright joyous laughter that can come upon me at any given time when I am "in the zone."

And so I had this thought... What if I were to only do what truly made me happy?

I know that at first blush this sounds like the most selfish, self-involved proposal that anyone could suggest. But what if it's not that?

What filled my mind, in considering all the things I wrote about in the previous post, was a very simple question.

What if you only did what makes you happy?

Now there are two ways to look at this:

1) What you are doing is genuinely exactly what you want to do right now and it is at the center of what you love (your bliss)... No brainer... It makes you happy. Do it.

2) I really do not like this, it's not something I want to do and it definitely does not make me happy.

If the answer to the specific question/activity is #2 then things get interesting.

1) You can give it up.. simply choose not to do it. The consequences of this behavior could range from doing something else, taking an afternoon off, to quitting (or being fired from) your job (or divorced from your family).

2) You can delegate and send the task to someone else. You may worry about how THAT person feels about it, but it may be (I'm not fully committed to this answer, but it's interesting) that it then becomes their question to ask.

3) You can CHOOSE to find joy in the task because the task is necessary for the goal of achieving something that DOES make you happy (more money, a better relationship, a healthy child, a better world).

4) You can turn it into something that makes you happy because happy is better than angry and there's no other way out.

What I want to propose, as irresponsible as it may be, is that if, for whatever reason, we find a way to make everything we do a joy... a CHOICE for joy... it will transform all we do and it will transform each of our lives and the world as we know it.

So I've decided to add this to the remaining month of my six week program.

If I can't find joy in a task, by one way or another, then I am not going to do it.

What might happen then?

It's entirely possible that this is utter bullshit and the end result of such thinking is a complete meltdown of life as we know it.

I don't know... but right now, it's 5 o'clock somew... actually, it's 5 o'clock right here.

Day 11 - What Really Matters?

2008-09-18T10:45:00.000-07:00

One of the primary failures (perhaps THE primary failure) of my attempt at these programs has been the fact that I spend incredible amounts of time on things that have little or no relation to what I want my life to be like or about.

This has been the case for most of my adult life.

When my daughter was little, I made the distinct choice to figure out a way to work from home and to spend as much time as possible with her. I volunteered at school, went on field trips, hung out at home when she had friends over, shopped for dinner, cooked dinner, drove around for important events... and pretty much messed up completely by having too few resources to do some of the "special" things, or having something that distracted me from the moment, or somehow simply missing out on a whole lot of the very opportunities I had wanted to increase by making the choices I made.

Why did it happen that way? Misplaced priorities and a lack of attention to detail.

Throughout several business ventures, while being engaged in things that I like, I have rarely taken the time (work time, leisure time, friend time) to really do the things I love.

Why did it happen that way? Misplaced priorities and a lack of attention to detail.

I could go on and on in a self-indulgent diatribe on the way I have shuffled my way through much of my existence, but if you know me you already have most of the details; if you don't know me you probably don't want to hear about it anyway.

To use one very simple and clear illustration (and make Hoz happy in the process)... One word... Surfing.

So... what does that have to do with me today on the eleventh day of this forty day excursion?

Choice... Timing... Focus.

What matters most?

For some reason it's very easy for me to spend time working on projects that don't pay anything, or don't pay enough, out of some sort of charitable inclination (or at least that's what I tell myself), but the truth is that something else is going on. These thigs that consume my time in this way are not "charitable" causes, they are rarely the most important things on the agenda, and they are often well down that list. Somewhere I am getting distracted from the real goal. Somehow I'm not asking the right questions.

I have a lot of things I want to accomplish in this 40 days, among them a number of business things that hang around my neck like a half dozen Albatross, tasks I just can't seem to complete, and plans and structures for new activities that I just don't get around to putting in place.

It's time to focus on the central questions. Out of this whole list of things (and the things that aren't on the list but nevertheless impose themselves on my psyche) what is truly facilitative? What brings satisfaction? What provides what I need?

What... is... IMPORTANT?

What do I really want?

Day 10 - Dr. Pepper Time

2008-09-17T16:45:00.000-07:00

The biggest time suck in my (and very possibly your) life is the frigging emails I get on a minute by minute basis.

My junk box intake is over 1,000 emails a day (often twice that) and that doesn't even count the several hundred more that sneak through the filter. On top of that is time I spend having to go back through that "time-saving" junk filter to find the occasional piece of email that I need and that got shunted tot he wrong place.

Tim Ferris makes the case for checking email no more than twice a day: once around noon and once at the end of the day. This of course doesn't address the fact that each time I go into email I can spend an hour dealing with the various issues, but I have tried the plan a few times and it does in fact help.

One problem with the model for me however is that if I wait until noon to make my first email check in the day I can miss certain things that I need to deal with, or people I need to hear from. I'm probably overvaluing this need, since on the days when I have waited, the world has not ended, but this fear remains in my mind nonetheless.

However... I do know one thing very clearly. Email is wasting my life.

On days when I don't force myself into a rigid regulation of the time I spend on email I lose literally hours of time in the black hole of this silently overbearing fascist technology.

So... I'm starting a new plan that I'm calling Dr. Pepper Time.

10 - 2 - 4 may not mean a lot to you unless your a Dr. Pepper fanatic and/or at least 50 years old. For me it stands out in my mind because I am both.

So it's easy to remember (hell, I might even start drinking DP again, though I think I'll have to buy a case of the REAL thing (and I ain't talkin' Coke) first.

10 gives me the opportunity to get some things done in the morning before I risk becoming irretrievably distracted by email. At the same time it gives me a chance to check on people on the US East Coast (or even across the pond) before the day has completely gone away.

2 lets me get through other stuff in the middle of the day, grab a bite, run or workout, yet at the same time it gives me a chance to catch people on the east coast at the end of the day or people on the west coast while there's still time to make things happen.

4 means I get responses from the other interactions of the day, still have time to respond, yet also leaves me with time before the end of the day to make plans, look to the next day, get out last minute material.

All of this serves a singular purpose... improving efficiency while reducing the unbelievable amount of wasted time and energy I've watched email steal over the last ten years of my life.

So... if you send me email and you're wondering why you're not getting instant answers like you used to... just have a Dr. Pepper and give it some time.

Day 9 - Struggling with Chaos

2008-09-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

Like I said, the second week always tends to be the point when things are most difficult. Typically, the newness and excitement of the first week have passed and the drive, gathering, and settling have not fully begun. Plans are in place but the structures have not really been formed.

That's what today was like.

Many of the disciplines I need to make any of this ultimately work are just not formed. I meant to run today, I didn't. I meant to move to checking email twice a day... instead I spent the afternoon checking rechecking and checking again ( a TREMENDOUS waste of time, energy, focus, and productivity). I meant to eat and drink more nourishingly... I ALMOST pulled that off, but not quite.

In general, the day was a bit of a cluster....

What I know - not only from past attempts at this process, but also from life in general - is that it is imperative not to let this trip turn into a major fall. Despite the fact that I didn't make everything work the way I wanted it to, I did accomplish some significant things. Despite the fact that I did not follow my plan in any way, doesn't mean that I can't do it tomorrow.

There's more to this journey than one day.

A Tombstone Hand and a Graveyard Mind...

2008-09-15T19:06:00.001-07:00

After my evening meditation, I read a piece from Merton's journals. The date of the piece was September 7, 1958, a time when he was not so rigid and tenuous as he seems to have been when he first arrived at the monastery 17 years earlier. At the same time he is clearly not as open and free as he would become before his death ten years later.

The piece also comes a day after he spent time with old friends, being a little bold, adventuring out from the monastery and clearly feeling a sense of some of what he missed from his old life.

"I fear to be content with what I have - I fear it is inglorious. In the last few days I have seen what matters is to be humble enough to admit that I am content with just this..."

It strikes me this evening like the whack of a shovel across the top of my head (an experience I am familiar with), commanding me to look straight into the darkness between Merton's "contentment" (or attempt at it) and my own contentment played out against my deep desire to be more, do more, have more, live more.

I tilt back and forth on the fulcrum I have set for myself, yearning for new growth and new ways of being, but also afraid, as Merton, to be either content, and/or not content, with what I have. Afraid of the stretch to something new... Terrified of remaining in one place.

My mind, and my spirit, ask a question about intention and the road ahead... "What is it that you're looking for? Why do you want it?"

Or as the old song goes... "Who Do You Love?"

Day 8 - Moving On

2008-09-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

"Look at what you've done
Then at what you want
Not at where you are...
Where you'll be"

"Move On" from "Sunday in the Park with George"
by Stephen Sondheim

In the past, every time I have attempted one of these 6 week plans, I have run into snags somewhere about now.

Despite my attempts to make it play out otherwise, week 1 has always been a little like the first week of the Tour de France, or the first lap of the Indy 500. It's a shakedown... a jostling for position. The week is largely made up of adjusting priorities, changing the projected schedules, dropping some goals and picking up others. And that is exactly how things played out last week, but this time with a difference. From the very beginning of the week I had a sense that this is the way things would go and while I had a pretty clear sense of direction, and a solid list of goals, I was more aware than in previous attempts that achieving my goals was going to require an openness and a flexibility.

An example:

I always lay out a very rigid schedule with solid blocks of time for writing, and other blocks of time for business. In addition, I always lay out time for the "support disciplines," things like meditation, running, reading and journaling. By the time I get to the end of the first week I am already running about 36 hours behind my intended schedule. There's just too much to fit in. I get frustrated, disappointed in myself, and the stage begins to be se for failure and discouragement.

Last week, I began with the same kind of goals and the same kind of scheduling, but with the sense that the plans required flexibility if they were going to find their own place and their own rhythm. So... instead of running four days a week last week (something that was a bit insane considering the fact that it's basically been two years since I last ran with any serious intent), I ran once, walked my full intended course another day and laid off the other two days. My plan now is to expand that practice each week until, by week 4, I am running four days a week and I can begin to expand the mileage in a way that I can continue to maintain it when I finish my 40 days (Big Sur Marathon here I come... again!).

The same went for my writing discipline. Instead of rigidly locking into my intended 20 hours/week right from the start, I gave myself some room to adjust. I continue to hold the ultimate goal as the place I want to be before the end of the program, but easing into it seems to be working more effectively.

So that's where I am beginning this second week. I have now laid a pretty solid foundation. I have laid out my goals, evaluated them, adjusted them and started working on every one (well every one except learning French, but that will start this week).

Unlike second weeks in the past, I start this second without fretting over what I didn't accomplish, but instead looking toward the expansion of last week's goals into the bigger space of this week on the way to the weeks following (not looking at where I am, but where I'll be).

What I am discovering right off the bat is that I already feel stronger, better, and more prepared to take on the next step.

Sunday... The Day Off

2008-09-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

One of the most important features in my whole plan is the discipline of Sabbath. For me, I choose to take this Sabbath day on Sunday, but whether you take in on Sunday, Saturday, or some other day during the week, the important thing is to take it.

All discipline, whether mental, physical, spiritual, or practical, requires the juxtaposition of work vs. relaxation in order to have its greatest effectiveness. Intense weight training is based on the concept that you stress the muscles and then give them time to rebuild. Other forms of physical training (like running or swimming) require the same kind of stress vs. rest discipline. Even dieting experts suggest that regardless of how carefully you regulate your calories, your mental connection to the process requires that you give yourself some time off from the routine.

For me... that's Sunday, and Sunday is made up of resting, reading, playing, loafing, laughing, light running (maybe), some sort of spiritual discipline (meditation, prayer, church, or a walk in the woods).

The other thing I do with Sunday, at least as often as I can possibly get away with it (which is increasingly most of the time) is make it a day of Digital Fasting. I try to stay completely away from computers, text messaging, and any other forms of high-tech time wasting/spirit sucking as its possible to be. Occasionally, for one no good reason or another, I get dragged back in to the didigtal realm on my Sabbath, but the more I seek to maintain this discipline, the more easy I find it to be. And not only does this discipline give me a much needed respite from staring at my monitor and exacerbating my carpal tunnel syndrome, it also frees my mind and prepares me for the rest of the week.

Today, I succeeded at all of it. Basically, I was a slug.

But a happy slug... and now I'm ready for next week.

Catching Up and Casting Off

2008-09-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

This first Saturday of my 40 Days has been about doing everything that I didn't do earlier in the week. Some of that was simply REST, and some of that has been work, the little extras of work that fall through the cracks.

This afternoon I spent a great deal of time digging into my financial hopes, dreams and plans to create a spreadsheet of Income and Expense (something that I have only done once before in my entire life). That done, my next step is to look at those elements of income and expense and lay down the framework for buying into and planning out the way that picture can work.

If, for example, I'm going to sell audio tour ads during October to begin financing a new set of audio tours, I now have to come up with the sales plan and the related materials. If I'm going to develop a separate set of tour materials for sale online I have to develop the business plan and investment strategy to make that work. Anyone who has done this for as long as I have ought to know this instinctually... Me, I've got to create it out of whole cloth each time I start.

But that's what Saturday is about... Taking care of the stuff that got left on the stack the week before, preparing for the week to come, an, in the midst of it all, trying to find tie to have a little fun.

By all accounts... It's been a pretty good day.

Day 5 - Sliding Into First

2008-09-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

I've come to the end of the first monday - friday of my six week program. In the past, this is the day when things are really difficult. The unnatural discipline of the week and various things that I have not been able to get done, or ways that I have not fully succeeded, begin to grate.

While this week has been more productive and more grounded than previous attempts, I still arrive at Friday a little tired (of course that isn't helped by my staying out late last night) a little frazzled and a little frustrated. I've been more scattered today than the previous four days and several bits of discipline that I put in place in order to function more effectively have sort of fallen by the side of the road. The workload I wanted to complete is not fully done, and the distractions I wanted to avoid have raised there ugly heads more than I would like.

Still... it's Friday afternoon and while I'm feeling tired, I'm also feeling strong.

What did I accomplish so far this week?

• I nailed down my priorities for the period. I reworked them, evaluated them and came up with a set of satisfying (if ambitious) goals which I'll be posting sometime over the weekend.

• I began two separate exercise programs: yoga/calisthenics three days a week and running/walking on four (two of which come up Saturday and Sunday).

• I have paid greater attention to the food I eat and the drink I drink and while the changes I have made are miniscule compared to where I want to be in 35 days, they're still pretty significant for right now.

• I've fulfilled one of my main work goals - that of making at least three new business contacts/week.

• I've begun to put some new, and very necessary, business disciplines in place as a way of beginning to pursue that "inferior function" I was writing about yesterday.

• I've found it possible to operate with a greater calmness, presence, and focus than usual even though I'm still far too scattered to be happy with the way things are.

• I've written (quite a bit actually) every day.

All in all... I'm pretty happy with the progress.

It's Miller Time!

Day 4 - God Is In The Details

2008-09-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

Many years ago a terrific therapist that I worked with in San Francisco gave me a quote from Marie Louise Von Franz that has stuck with me ever since. He said... she said... "It is in your inferior function that you will find your life."

For me, an ENFP person, my thinking and judging functions (those basic realities that get you through the practical matters of life) are very very low. They ARE my "inferior functions" and I have been miserable at making use of them for the first part of my life. There have been a couple of times when I've done well at it, and true to the prediction, they were my most productive and successful moments.

The good news in this is that all the theories about personality function (all derived from and dependent on Carl Jung's theories) suggest that it is in later life that you begin to access and make serious use of those aspects.

Well... at 54 years old, I guess that's where I am.

What this means in the present situation is that the key to this process I have plunged myself into is making use of the detail elements. What I need to do, more than anything else right now, is get the details right.

In re-examining my goals yesterday, I didn't find very much I really wanted to change, or drop. What I did realize is that I need to lay out a course to progress through and that course needs to start with grounding elements like budgets, income-expense tables, and the real details of the basic business elements I want to follow. The things that will provide the foundation for all the rest.

It is THESE elements of the plan that will set the ground for all the rest, and it is these elements that I am the worst at mastering; they are indeed the manifestation of my inferior function.

So... that's where I'm going to start... at ground level, at the base, at the beginning.

I don't really want that much...

2008-09-10T09:47:00.001-07:00

Seriously (or not so)... I just wanna be like Dal and Arch!

Day 3 - Dreams vs. Reality

2008-09-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I completed a long list of goals in four areas of life which I labeled along the lines of the four elements:

Earth - Groundedness, foundational, health and body issues
Air - Spirit matters
Fire - The energy issues, mostly related to money and work
Water - The surrounding stuff - relationship, connection, and personal expansion

Needless to say, with a breakdown like this, and a mind and personality like mine (I’m a 7 in the Eneagram) the list was pretty damn long. One person I sent it to said that a friend of theirs looked at it and said she thought it looked like five year plan, not a six week plan!

I’m not sure that she’s right… But I’m not sure she’s wrong either.

One of my major struggles (and this was pointed out to me as well) is that I tend to take on a pile of stuff: I work on too many committees, I take on too many projects, I mess with too many emails, I subscribe to too many magazines and I read too many books at one time. If I am on-time for an appointment, I will likely say to myself, “Hey… you’ve got ten minutes, go run this errand on the way!” You know where this is going. I run the errand, get stuck in traffic, and boom, I’m twenty minutes late. One night, twenty-three years ago, when I was working on a recording project with several friends, one of those friends (whose phone calls of late I haven’t had the chance to return by the way…) made the comment, “You have the worst sense of time of anyone I’ve ever met.” This was said on the way across the Oakland Bay Bridge from San Francisco to a recording date in Berkeley and we were half an hour – going on an hour – late. I thought we should be right on time.

This morning I’m going to take another look at that list and consider the possibility that I need to whittle it down. I’m not saying that I’m GOING to whittle it down necessarily, but I’m going to consider it. Perhaps it's better to bite off less and succeed at the program. On the other hand, perhaps the very expansiveness of the goal provides a measure of its own energy.

Once I’ve decided, I’ll post both lists so you can decide for yourself whether or not I made the right decision.

Obviously, the ultimate confirmation (or lack thereof) won't be seen for another thirty-seven days.

Words for the Journey

2008-09-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

Tim Ferris' book "Four Hour Work Week" has been a great help and inspiration to me over the past several months, not because of the obvious draw that the title offers (I'm still looking for that, but it's not the real message). Tim's got a truly excellent blog that provides insights into an incredibly varied collection of information and helpful suggestions. In addition, the occasional reports on his travels and explorations leave are pretty motivating all on their own.

Despite my great enthusiasm for Ferris, I was still quite surprised to find this post when I went to the site yesterday. It's yet another synchronistic pattern (the kind of thing that tends to happen more and more as you prime your mind and spirit for growth) thrusting itself into my personal time-space continuum. These words from Dr, King, spoken from his Atlanta pulpit only 5 months before he was assassinated in Memphis, are awe inspiring and motivating.

They make a clear and strong statement about what life is about and what is worth living - and dying - for.

Day 2

2008-09-09T07:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a good day.

In previous attempts at this "program" I usually screw things up somewhere on the very first day. That's not necessarily a terrible and unrecoverable thing, but it is a little like trying to run a race after you've slipped on the way out of the blocks.

And speaking of running a race (a bit of a mutton fisted segue, I must admit), I'm off to my first "run" of the program. The intention is to run Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, with the Sunday being a long (or at least longer) slow (though NONE of them are going to be fast) run.

A journey of a thousand miles...

I'll sleep when I'm dead

2008-09-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

My greatest block to operating with efficiency throughout the day is a huge mid-afternoon slump that I undergo sometime between 2 and 4 pm. Occasionally I succumb to the force completely and lie down for a nap that may last anywhere from ten minutes to an hour, most of the time I just fade to very low energy and keep trying to pound through the work and the day. On occasion, I just give up and go for a beer. This effect is exacerbated by the dilantin that I take for epilepsy, but that's not the whole story either.

Emotionally, this general lethargy tends to be accompanied by some fairly extreme depression, frustration, or anger. Needless to say, it's not a good time for coordinating meetings with clients, or even conversations with friends. It's definitely not a time to talk politics.

No matter what I do, this feeling almost always evaporates and the mood lightens somewhere around 4 and I perk back up, scrambling toward the end of the day, desperately trying to find a way to dig back in and make up for the wasted time and lost productivity.

If I could solve this one problem over the next 6 weeks, my life would be improved significantly.

For now... I'm gonna take a nap.

Book Shelf

2008-09-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

There are several books that I have read and worked with over and over in this process of coming to terms with my life. Moving into these next six weeks I go back to my bookshelf for both practical advice and spiritual sustenance.

At the moment (and this will definitely expand over the coming weeks) those books are:

Echoing Silence - Tomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing
A Year with Thomas Merton - Daily Meditations from his journals
Four Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferris
Beyond the Summit - Todd Skinner
Ultra-Marathon Man - Dean Karanazes
The Creative Habit - Twyla Tharp (this last being a book I gave to my daughter several years ago and then stole back from her sometime about two years ago. I keep meaning to return it, but then I start reading it again).

Go!

2008-09-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning, did my first yoga in quite some time (didn't do a lot, because I'm pretty damn stiff), made some coffee, and sat down in front of the iTunes to create a soundtrack (or at least the beginnings of one) for the coming 6 weeks.

I am a very sound oriented person, and I always have been. When I was training to run the Big Sur Marathon (a renewed part of the plan I am starting today) I not only created a soundtrack I even created a motivational music video... and it worked! When I write screenplays or stories I almost always create a "soundtrack" for them as a way of diving more deeply into the story I am creating... Well, starting this morning I'm creating another story...MY story.

So... the soundtrack, as it stands this morning is as follows:

Long Walk Home - Springsteen
Sunday in the Park with George - Mandy Patinkin
Beautiful Day - U2
Where the Streets Have No Name - U2
Move On - Mandy Patinken/Bernadette Peters
Send Your Love - Sting
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2
Fields of Gold - Sting
Womankind - Annie Lennox
Born to Run - Springsteen
Putting It Together - Mandy Patinkin
With or Without You - U2
Sing - Annie Lennox
Brand New Day - Sting

This will evolve... but this is how I begin my day... how I begin the next six weeks.

Feel free to offer musical suggestions... please.

Ready... Set...

2008-09-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

For several years I have worked over and over in an attempt to take a specific 6 week period (inspired by Jesus' sojourn in the desert and other symbolic transformational journeys). The problem is that either I have not put them together in a way that makes any sense, or I'm too anal about what I lay down as guidelines and goals and when I stumble I fall and don't get up... or something (like Katrina for one thing) happens.

Like Roseanne Roseannadanna said... "It's always something."

Well, tomorrow morning, fresh on the ending of a year long love affair, I have decided it's time to try once more. As part of my discipline this time, I've decided to blog the entire journey. I'll write about what I'm hoping to make happen. I'll write about my goals for the 6 weeks and I'll document the achievements, and inevitable failings, of each part of the journey. With this regimen in front of me, my thought is that, at the very least, I will FINISH the plan (he says hopefully).

If it really works I'll have a map (and maybe a book) that shows the path that got me there.

See you in the morning.