SPF 365 Experiment

Day 365: The Soul Play Family East Coast Adventure

done-is-good — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 20:05:09 -0700

This is it: Day 365 of our Soul Play Family 365 Experiment! We spent a long but enriching day here in New Bedford, MA at Connecting for Change for our celebration, exactly one year after MyCrownShift. We are immensely grateful for this year of experience and it has been a truly transformational time in our lives. We have gained precious clarity on who we are truly meant to be both as individuals and a family. We have acted on each message from our souls as it was revealed to us, even up to moving our whole family across the country to a new community and a new school.

So what next? In one sense, we don’t expect much to change. Back on Day 8, Jung wrote the following about her experience after the first week of our Experiment:

“…here we are! Experiencing JOY, ABUNDANCE, and GRATITUDE as we practice flying with our new-found wings. This is the place I had wanted to be, and live in: a place of exquisite mystery, magic, and manifestation.”

We completely intend to keep living this way! In addition, although when we began 365 days ago, we may have been thinking in terms of arriving at some goal by the end of this Experiment, we recognize now that it was not about acheiving anything. This experiment was an education for us in Experimental and Experiential Living [E2L]. It was a 365 day apprenticeship to letting go of expectations and learning to take life as it comes, living each day to it’s fullest and having faith that we are already enough to meet whatever the future may bring!

We’ve been asked if we will keep writing, and we probably will, but we’re going to take a break from the daily blog. Just like we did 365 days ago, and true to the spirit of MyCrownShift, we are making room for new creations in our lives and our work. For the time being, if we have anything to share, we will post it on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/soulplayfamily. We want to keep this blog as an archive dedicated to our experiences of this past year, so we do not envision posting again here, unless it is to announce a blog site for new posts from Soul Play Family. Until then, please visit us on Facebook.

Thank you one and all for following us on this journey. This past year has been an unbelievable ride for us. If we had known in advance what we were going to experience, we may not have gone through with it at all! Taking it as it came, one day at a time, however, it has been a year chock full of gifts and blessings and we will forever be grateful that we made this leap. Our work is not over; in many ways it is just beginning here in our new community, and we look forward to sharing more with you as Soul Play Family continues on its East Coast Adventure.

May all of us, our beloved Mother Earth, and the entire Universe be blessed with Peace, Joy, and Love.

Day 364: Our Ending is Our Beginning

done-is-good — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 23:52:00 -0700

Tomorrow will be the final day of our Soul Play Family 365 Experiment, but it certainly won’t be the last day of our “experimental and experiential living” [E2L]. We’ve discovered that having spent a year in E2L we are hooked and we never want to go back to living by default on autopilot. That said, we want to mark the end of this year and so tomorrow we are going to be attending a local Bioneers’ Satellite Program: Connecting for Change, here in Massachusetts.

This feels like a perfect ending/beginning for us because less than two weeks before we began our Soul Play Family 365 Experiment we made a family trip to the main annual Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California. Last November, Jung wrote about Bioneers and that trip, and later that month I also wrote about our experience there.

At the time we knew we were on the cusp of making a huge leap of faith, but there was a lot we didn’t know about what E2L was going to look like. That trip to Bioneers was very much a time of exploration for us, especially for me and our daughters who had never been to a Bioneers Conference before, and it opened our eyes to whole new ideas and ways of working in the world.

This being a first time for all of us to attend Connecting for Change, we are not entirely sure what to expect (which is how we like it), but we have an inkling that our daughters will be able to participate more at this conference than they were able to at the conference in California last year, and Jung and I are hoping to make some local connections with like-minded tribespeople. Whatever we learn and discover, we feel confident that this will be the perfect “bookend” for our year as well as a perfect springboard into the next!

Day 363: Patience Haiku

done-is-good — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:37:38 -0700

We try many times
Before we reach our summit.
Patience is the path.

Day 362: Knowing What We Want

done-is-good — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:47:32 -0700

One of the gifts we have gained from our Soul Play Family 365 Experiment is the gift of knowing what we want. We used to spend hours wondering and agonizing over what we wanted out of life and how we should be spending our lives. By going through the process of “getting REAL”, we developed our internal compasses. We’ve also become less afraid of experimenting and trusting our intuition to let us know if what we’re doing is bringing our soul more alive or not. We’ve become better attuned to our internal energy and can sense its rising and falling like a barometer predicting how we will feel if we continue on our current path.

We’ve also learned to live in the now: we only concern ourselves with what we want to do today, because honestly, we can’t know what we will want to do next month or even next week. And we don’t need to know. We have learned that next week’s agenda will reveal itself when it is time; if we are to be successful, we must focus all our energy and concern on today.

We are grateful for the gifts of clarity and acceptance which free us from “shoulds” and “what-ifs” and which help us to stay focused on our work here and now.

Day 361: Fruits of Success

done-is-good — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 19:45:38 -0700

Yesterday we received a heart-warming letter from the new owners of our old house in Washington. They thanked us for leaving the house in good condition, but more important to us, they told us that their young daughter loved running around in the house. When we first contemplated selling our house, we envisioned selling it to a young family — a family like ours was when we first moved in. Our Washington home suited us well for many reasons, and we have many happy memories and gigabytes of photos of our children growing up there.

Of course, when it came to the reality of selling the house, there were no guarantees. We couldn’t be sure who would be both interested in the house and feel the need to embark on the next phase of their lives there. Still, we held our vision in our hearts and hoped that there was a young family out there for whom the house would be their next home.

Now we truly see life as a flow: just as we enjoyed our years in that house, it was time for us to let go and for another family to come in. Our only hope was that the joy we experienced in the house would remain and grow with the joy of a new, young family.

We’re grateful that our vision for the house came true and we feel touched that the new owners took the time to share the beginning of their new life there with us. Yesterday I wrote about Being Clear on What Defines Success, and for selling our old house, this was truly how we envisioned success — not by getting the best deal for the house, but rather by participating joyfully in the flow of life through passing the house on to another young family.

We wish the new owners many, many joyful years in their new home and hope that their young daughter grows as beautiful and strong there as our daughters did!

Day 360: Being Clear on What Defines Success

done-is-good — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 20:01:58 -0700

When we were looking into moving to the MetroWest region, one thing we wanted to know was how vibrant the arts were there. After a little searching we found many arts centers and organizations, and at one of them, The Center for Arts in Natick, we saw a familiar name on the calendar: Beethoven’s Wig.

Beethoven’s Wig is a project by the lyricist and musician, Richard Perlmutter, who has written new words for many of the more well-known pieces (and some less-known pieces) in the Western Classical Music canon (as well as at least one ragtime piece). We had been listening to his CDs for a few years already and loved his witty lyrics so even though it was still May and we hadn’t begun preparing our house for sale yet, we made sure to put the October 21st concert on our calendar.

Today was the day and although I became a little worried that the show would be too young for our daughters when I saw some little kids going into the theater, my fears were assuaged by my daughters’ smiles and laughter at the wonderful lyrics. Richard Perlmutter is a truly fun live performer and he had stellar musicians from the Walnut Hill School for the Arts backing him up on stage, including a soprano with a voice far beyond her young years!

We all had a wonderful time at the concert and I walked away with some important lessons about performance and about life from the experience. First of all, not only did he provide a wonderful performance opportunity for those students from Walnut Hill, but he also showed the young kids in the audience that they could be performing music like the Walnut Hill students were, if they wanted to. It was truly inspiring! Secondly, he was clearly having a ball performing his re-composition of the music. He led us all with an example of joy! Finally, the way he handled slips in the performance had lessons for all of us.

For whatever reason, Perlmutter had some memory slips today, mostly with his own lyrics which was, by his own admission, rather embarrassing! He didn’t let the memory slips stop him, however, but he was honest with the audience and also assured us that he believed the best of us — that we would still enjoy the show even with his memory lapses. I found his actions in the performance to be a wonderful example of honesty and compassion. The reality was that in a couple songs he did struggle with the words and ideally he wouldn’t want that to happen — but it was happening and it was obvious. So, he came right out and admitted it. He didn’t try to cover it up or pretend it wasn’t happening. I think that was wise because otherwise it can be insulting to audience members who have observed exactly what is going on. At the same time, he rolled with it in good humor and kept it all in perspective. We were all there to have a good time and he did what he needed to do in order to keep the performance humorous and fun. He let us in on his own humanity and fallibility while also taking responsibility for the quality of the performance — and keeping that quality high despite his slips.

In the end, I think his success came from the fact that he was focused on what was most important — entertaining the audience with humor and music — and he didn’t let his ego get in the way of that. He didn’t let himself get distracted by thinking that his performance needed to be perfect or that he had to impress anyone with his memory or musical skills. Most of all, he was honest with himself and with us.

His success was solely predicated on his ability to create a shared experience of joy, and to create that shared experience he had to allow himself to be vulnerable through his honesty with the audience. Looking around at the audience towards the end of the concert, I think everyone else felt the same as I did — that the concert was a roaring success.

Day 359: Gratitude for Proximity to Family

done-is-good — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 19:51:50 -0700

When we lived on the West coast, people were often surprised to learn that we had no family close by. Although we did our best to stay in touch with our family out East, it wasn’t easy. Travel was expensive and even phone calls were trickier than we expected because of the time difference. We were often eating dinner when our family was available to talk, and they were asleep by the time we could talk!

Today we’re grateful that we live near family again. It was wonderful to be able to have lunch with Jung’s dad for his birthday, and then have a visit from Charles’ sister and brother-in-law dropping off their daughter, who is close to our daughters’ age, for a sleepover. We’re grateful to be in the same timezone as most of our family now so that phone conversations are easier — just picking up the phone to chat requires much less planning now!

Our busy lives will still probably keep us from seeing each other as much as we’d like, but even just knowing that we’re closer to each other now makes us feel happier and more connected, and for that we are truly grateful!

Day 358: Boxes Haiku

done-is-good — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:12:52 -0700

End of a long week;
The boxes still wait for us.
Maybe tomorrow.

Day 357: What is School For?

done-is-good — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:04:31 -0700

We read Seth Godin’s book, Stop Stealing Dreams, back at the end of February and into early March. As I wrote at the time, we had been struggling with many of the educational questions which Seth addresses in his book and it was empowering for us to read that a parent and a businessman like Seth had similar concerns. Our inquiry that Spring, which included reading and discussing Stop Stealing Dreams, is what ultimately led us to move back to Massachusetts so that our children could attend the Sudbury Valley School.

They are finishing their sixth week there and in addition to making friends and having fun, they have already begun to involve themselves in the democratic process of the school, feeling out what it means to be responsible for one’s own life and one’s own community. The school is working out very well for our daughters and thus it seems fitting that today we heard that there was a video of Seth Godin’s recent TED talk at TEDxYouth on Stop Stealing Dreams.

If the education of all our children is something that concerns you, we encourage you to take the 17 minutes to watch Seth’s talk. He distills his thoughts around education into a very entertaining if breakneck and provocative presentation. If his ideas in the talk interest you, go to the Stop Stealing Dreams webpage and download a free copy of the book in whatever format is convenient for you. As Seth writes in Section 21 of his book:

“School belongs to parents and their kids, the ones who are paying for it, the ones it was designed for. It belongs to the community, too, the adults who going to be living and working beside the graduates the school churns out.

Whether we have any direct connection to schools or not, the education of today’s children affects all of our futures. The survival of our species depends on today’s schools’ preparing our children for that future, not for the world that has passed.

Day 356: We’re Official!

done-is-good — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 19:11:16 -0700

Today, along with the adventure of going through the process of transferring our car registrations and licenses from Washington to Massachusetts (which included driving from one Massachusetts RMV branch to another), we also registered to vote — just in time to be able to vote in this November’s election. It felt significant, like we were finally “official” residence of Massachusetts, and helped to raise our energy after a long day of driving, waiting, and filling out forms.

This election season we’ve been enjoying having political discussions with our daughters and have encouraged them to sit with us while we watch the televised debates. They’ve already complained about how long they have to wait until they are able to vote, but we’re grateful that they have plenty of chances to participate in democracy at their school.

As much as we believe that it is not enough to rely on our elected officials to solve all our country’s and our world’s problems, we also don’t believe in throwing up our hands and giving up on politics either. Like with everything else, it’s not either/or but rather both/and. We need to be active participants in our electoral process, flawed as it may be, and direct participants in creating change, first by being the change we want to see in the world.

Day 355: Reclaim Your Birthright!

authenticjung — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:47:51 -0700

Imagine a world where past, present and future are all melded into one — a world where you are one with the World, and every day when the sun rises, your renewal begins. Because you are one with the World, as the World turns, you also turn with the flow of that universal energy. As the World engages in becoming, you also engage in the process of becoming. No more struggle or strife or stress: you are riding a wave of energy flowing into unlimited possibility, potential, and power as you paddle in that river of life and vitality with your Creativity oar, a Divine Gift from the Creator, on which your name is engraved in gold.

In this imaginary world, there is no segmentation of time as we know it today where every second, every minute, every hour counts — no finite chunking of time, labeling it as second, minute, hour, day, month, or year, depending on what the man-made time clock or calendar indicates. It’s no wonder, that this mind frame naturally directs us to organize our lives around finite time segments through various time management tools and practices, fitting them into a defined box, where we can neatly stack them, organize them, and ultimately control them to construct a higher and taller tower of accumulation, filled with “stuff:” things, educational and professional degrees, credentials, job titles, objects of desire, you name it.

The world of the finite, by definition, is defined and limited — no matter how large you believe that world may be. It has a ceiling, a ground, and four walls — not unlike a giant, humongous box. And each of us creates an individual box for ourselves — a box within the Meta-box, if you will. Some may embellish their boxes with all of the stuff they have accumulated with their voracious drive, sacrificial effort, and premium on knowledge. Some may feel impoverished and frustrated with the size of their box, or the lack of volume of stuff to fill their boxes. No matter where in this continuum you land, you are never satisfied because the name of the game in this world of the finite is “Bigger the Better, More the Better.” It doesn’t even matter what you want more of, or want to be bigger. We forget that we can never have enough of the things we do not need.

Because we believe in “Bigger the Better, More the Better” in the finite world, the competition is on! For me to have more, I need to take from you and others. There are only so many resources in the world of the limited, and I need to get to them before anyone else takes them and stuffs them into their boxes. Everyone strives to make their tower of boxes taller or bigger. In their limited vision of the limited world, it is inconceivable to them that they could simply take the lids off of their boxes and rise above the tallest tower in the world into the infinity where there is no ceiling, no limit, no “ScareCity.”

When we live in a box, believing that the world is finite, how are we different from a living dead in a coffin? In the world of the finite, productivity is the mantra: how do we squeeze the most out of a limited __________ [fill in the blank]. Every morning we get up and begin our autopilot day, starting with whatever the first thing is that appears on our calendar, getting from one place to another, one task to another. We rearrange “stuff” within a box and call it “problem solving” to feel as if we are actually using our creativity. We’re always running against the clock, hurriedly and busily so as to feel a sense of accomplishment and fill the void of meaningless activities we call “work.” With tired body and mind, we go to bed at night and check off the tasks we accomplished with a sense of relief rather than deep fulfillment, and make another to-do list for another time we label “tomorrow.” We have run another loop in and around our individual box and the Meta-box respectively, and we measure our success by the size and height of our boxes as we turn and twist into a sleeping dead, settling into the same coffin that carried the living dead during the waking hours.

What if we dreamt a dream — a new dream where we lifted the lid and saw a blue sky with infinite possibility beyond the blazing sun, or a velvety night sky in infinite space adorned with bright stars and constellations, each star with our name engraved in light, calling our names and reminding us to remember why we chose to come to Earth in this particular time, in this particular body with a unique, one-of-a-kind gift, and our no-one has-ever-seen-or-will–ever-see talent?

What if we shifted our vision to see beyond the finite definition of the box, and saw the vast, open space with unlimited possibilities, potential and power that is ours to claim as our birthright?

What if we catapulted our souls onto the Milky Way to take on our heroic journeys?

Uncertainty surely exists in the world of no limit. Uncertainty and Unlimited go hand-in-hand, and they are both essential ingredients to unleash our Creativity. In this world of unlimited potential, creativity, not productivity, is what we want. Or, to paraphrase Seth Godin, productivity is creativity in this world of unlimited potential! It is no longer about Bigger the Better, or More the Better. It is no longer about rearranging the stuff in our boxes. It is all about creating something new and different, authentic and ingenious, magical and phenomenal that no one has ever seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted before or after our time on Earth. To unleash this power — your creativity — you venture into unlimited territory and uncertainty is par for the course. No hero has turned away from an adventure because they were afraid of uncertainty. No hero made sure they had enough money in the bank account or worried about their retirement. They already had all they needed to embark on their heroic journey and complete their quests — just as Dorothy had her ruby slippers to return home, Scarecrow had his brain, and Tin Man had his heart, and Lion had his courage all along.

Each of us is here on a hero’s journey. It is up to us to lift, shift and catapult from the box, the coffin, we have created around us, to initiate our hero’s journey with conviction, as voiced by the 19th century English poet, William Ernest Henley at the conclusion of his poem, “Invictus”:

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Each of us has the power to rise from the dead, step out of the coffin, and reach out to the shining star that calls out our name. We can shift into the river of universal energy flow, as we navigate the currents of uncertainty and unlimited potential, with the Creativity oar that has our name engraved in gold. We can choose to thrive in the world of unlimited potential where we become one with the Creation, the Creator, and the Created. Then we will arrive at reclaiming our birthright, live the life we came here to live, and create the works of art we came here to leave behind as our ultimate gifts to the World.

Day 354: Joining Authentic Creativity with Schooling

done-is-good — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 20:10:00 -0700

Today Jung had a meeting near my old stomping grounds when I was a graduate student at New England Conservatory. Her meeting was to be short and the weather was lovely today, so I drove in with her so we could talk on the way in and out and have lunch together. Seeing all the students walking around the various schools in the area reminded me of my student days. I was a “good student” in school and without a doubt I learned a lot, but as I’ve written before, the more schooled I became, the more I lost touch with my creativity.

As Jung and I talked about this over lunch, she remarked that authenticity and creativity go hand-in-hand. It’s really not possible to be truly creative if you do not know, embrace and live who you are. Likewise, it is difficult to live an authentic life without being creative — almost by definition, it is difficult to live your true individuality in pre-packaged ways. To truly live an authentic life you have to make it up as you go — and be creative!

When I was a kid, I remember spending a lot of time doing things merely “because they were fun.” Much of that time I spent making creations that didn’t previously exist, whether they were mechanical creations of cardboard and tape, sonic creations of music and sounds, architectural creations of Lego or epic adventures played out by my toys. At some point my motivation shifted from “fun” to “praise.” The voices of judgement became louder to me than the voices of play. Eventually I internalized those voices of judgement and found it increasingly more difficult to hear my intuition — the voice of play. I began to compare myself with others — usually idealized others — and saw all the ways I fell short. Even if I received accolades or awards, I felt I didn’t really deserve them. I was never good enough.

I believed the only way I could get better was to watch, listen and learn from others. I became better and better at doing that to the point where I wasn’t paying much attention to myself at all, if you don’t count the self-centered self-deprecation and ego whipping I engaged in. I was so wrapped up in judging myself that I didn’t see the burnout coming on. I first really felt it during my senior year in college, but it didn’t hit hard until I was into my Ph.D. program. When getting my work done felt more and more like I was trying to run a marathon through molasses while wearing cement shoes, I stopped to look around. I saw how I had spent far too much of my adulthood following and emulating others and far too little of it developing my own voice. When I stopped listening to others and turned my ear to my own, inner voice, I heard only silence. Much like what had happened to Jung during her education and corporate career, my inner voice had atrophied and went dumb when I wasn’t paying attention.

For a while it was like I had kicked the oarsman out of my boat and decided to row myself, only to realize that I didn’t know how and I didn’t even have an oar of my own. I felt adrift for a reason! Looking back, I see that during these past few years, I have been learning to row again — starting with carving my own oar. My intuition — my voice of play — is strong again and so I have married it with my schooling to create my art. I now feel whole and free in a way I have never felt before.

I know in my heart that this was a journey I needed to take and I have no desire to go back and change a thing. That said, as I walked among the students in Boston today, I thought about all those hours I spent “being taught” and I brainstormed ways to teach which would marry schooling with guiding the students in their individual genius. One example I had in my own life was my college electronic music professor, Ivan Tcherepnin. I learned a lot of practical skills of creating electronic and tape music, but I also learned lessons about the joy of creating from both my head and my heart. Ivan guided me to discover more about who I am as an artist — discoveries which have come back to me as I healed my intuitive voice.

Given the pressures and expectations on teachers in most schools today, I recognize that Ivan had a special freedom to teach in his own way which is not afforded to most professors — certainly not most professors at Harvard! It doesn’t look like there is room for that in our current educational system — primary, secondary, or post-secondary — unless a school were willing to take the bet that its students would be better prepared if they were provided with more than the skills and knowledge of their teachers — that their students would be better prepared if they spent an equal amount of energy on understanding and valuing their authentic selves and learning to create out of that authenticity.

I believe that those who marry learning with authentic creativity are the ones who can change the world with joy and power. I also believe that any school — particularly in higher education — which is visionary enough to create an environment to nurture their students to do so, will be on the vanguard of the educational future.

Day 353: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

done-is-good — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 19:55:18 -0700

Jung discovered a wonderful film which we watched, just the two of us, last night and then watched again with our daughters this morning. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, is the fictional tale of a group of British retirees who become the first residents of a hotel in India whose business plan involves “outsourcing” the care of retirees. It is a wonderful story of taking chances, starting fresh, learning to be who you are (no matter what age you may be) while reinventing yourself and your life, and in the end living life to the fullest.

It is at once a very humorous and very moving film starring one of our favorite actresses: Dame Judy Dench, and her performance is only one of many wonderful performances in this movie. We were so pleased that our daughters chose to watch this with us (a live-action movie full of old people is not their usual fare!), and even more pleased that they enjoyed the film right through to the end!

Two quotes sum up the spirit of this movie. One occurs near the end of the movie:

Evelyn: Nothing here has worked out quite as I expected.
Muriel: Most things don’t. But sometimes what happens instead is the good stuff.

and the other recurs throughout:

Sonny: Everything will be alright in the end, so if it is not alright, it is not yet the end.

We feel that these quotes also reflect our experiences during this SPF 365 Experiment. We certainly have experienced a lot of “good stuff,” most of which was unexpected, and although we know very little for sure, we do know that it is not yet the end!

Day 352: Nature Nurtures Us

done-is-good — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 18:32:14 -0700

During our Soul Play Family 365 Experiment we’ve often written about how nature’s visitors inspire us. When we were planning to move from our mountain home in Washington back to Massachusetts, one thing we were worried about was losing that connection. We expected to miss our encounters with wildlife in our backyard and on local walks.

As it turned out, in the short time we’ve been in our new home, we have had a number of surprising encounters. Last weekend we had a visit from two young deer grazing in our back yard, and during the week a trio of deer passed through our front yard. (We think it may have been the same two young ones along with their mother.) This morning a beautiful red fox spent a surprising amount of time grooming herself in the bright mid-morning sun just outside the treeline behind our house. That visit alone made us feel truly blessed in our new home here. But that was not the end of our encounters today.

Today was the first day which truly felt like a crisp, sunny New England Fall day, so to celebrate we went for a long afternoon walk in a wildlife sanctuary which is just in the next town. The freshly fallen leaves crunched under our feet and gave off that the New England Fall smell which we hadn’t experienced for eight years. Every so often we would stop and point out a grand tree or listen to bird calls coming from hidden singers. It was a beautiful walk and we enjoyed yet more of nature’s visitors. Our first stop was at a marsh where, after commenting on a pair of ducks, J spotted a turtle swimming just under the surface and as we began to look around, we saw more turtles out sunning themselves, barely noticeable due to how ingeniously they blended with the logs they were sitting on.

While passing by some old millstones we spotted a pair of dragonflies, reminding us of a time that a dragonfly practically led us down our street in Washington as we went for a walk one day. We watched them for a while, admiring their delicate wings while S told us about how their wings worked more like birds’ wings than most insects, and that was why dragonflies could hover as well as fly backwards like hummingbirds.

Our most touching sighting was probably the red-tailed hawk that was circling high above the field in the photo accompanying this post. We have found particularly strong guidance from hawks during our journey, beginning with the hawk that sat on our fence in Washington and stared at us while we were sitting on our backyard bench, discussing our future, the summer before we began this 365 Experiment. We have striven to embody the awareness of a hawk, in observing our own lives and staying awake to our own reality.

When we moved across the country, we truly didn’t expect such gifts of visiting wildlife to not only continue, but also to grow! We invite the energy of all of nature into our new adventure here on the East Coast and look forward to more visits from our local fox, who we feel is guiding us to bring more magic, quick-thinking, adaptability, ingenuity, and wisdom into our lives.

Day 351: Gratitude for Connection

done-is-good — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:13:00 -0700

Years ago, a friend of Jung’s in Seattle introduced us to a woman in Massachusetts who she thought we might connect well with. The woman, Cheryl, studied music like Charles, as well as law like Jung, and was spiritually awakened like both of us. Jung talked with Cheryl on the phone at the time, but it wasn’t until today that we were able to meet Cheryl in person.

We had so much fun sitting in Cheryl’s living room, sharing experiences and life lessons, that we completely lost track of the time! When the subject of education came up, Cheryl mentioned that along with all the gifts of learning that the Internet has to offer, there is a special energy that comes from sitting in a room with another person.

Jung and I certainly felt that energy today and we are grateful to have been able to spend “real world” time with Cheryl. We are blessed to be able to connect with so many of our tribe around the globe, but when we can, we will strive to experience this special energy that is best shared when you can be in the same room with another human being who groks you!

Day 350: Here in the Year 02012

done-is-good — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 20:43:03 -0700

Elves preserve the land
‘Cause they live hundreds of years.
It’s all perspective.

Our daughter S told me today that she recently read that the reason that elves don’t cut down trees is because elves live hundreds of years. Whatever short-term benefit they might gain from cutting down the tree cannot match the hundreds of years of enjoyment they would gain from the living tree.

We humans, however, live relatively short lives and our modern perspective all-too-closely reflects that. This doesn’t not necessarily need to be so. The Great Law of the Iroquois holds that we should think about whether our decisions will benefit seven generations into the future. (This is now referred to as “seven generation sustainability.”) This is quite a stretch from our more typical three-month horizon based on quarterly profits, or if we’re lucky, the only slightly longer horizon based on the election year cycle.

One organization trying to shift our perspective as a species is the Long Now Foundation. They have projects and education aimed at encouraging and developing long-term thinking. They have added a fifth digit onto their designations of the year, explaining their practice as follows:

“The Long Now Foundation uses five-digit dates, the extra zero is to solve the deca-millennium bug which will come into effect in about 8,000 years.”

That’s a very practical (if far-thinking) reason, but for me, I find that when I think to add the fifth digit in my own date-stamping, it reminds me of just how far into the future our species could go and that if we treat our environment, our cultures and our fellow humans right, we could have a continual, recorded history that extends out another 8,000 years or more. Sticking that extra leading zero on the date reminds me that the decisions I make today could affect a world that will be as “science fiction” to me as our connected smartphones would be to Jules Verne.

A simple act, adding a leading zero, shifts my perspective to think much further forward into the Long Now, when I make decisions. What simple act could shift your perspective beyond the small here and the short now?

Day 349: We Got REAL!

done-is-good — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:45:54 -0700

There are sixteen days left in our Soul Play Family 365 Experiment and in recognition of that, I decided to go back and look at what Jung and I wrote back on Day 16. I found special meaning in Jung’s Day 16 post where she encouraged all of us to “Get REAL,” by which she meant:

REMEMBER who we truly are…to RECLAIM our birthright.
EMBRACE who we truly are…to EMBODY our values.
ALIGN with who we truly are…to ACTIVATE our light.
LET our LIGHT truly shine…to LEAVE our legacy.

I felt warmed by her words as I read them today because I see in retrospect that our journey over the past 349 days has truly covered each of these processes: Remembering and Embracing who we are, Aligning our lives with our new understanding and acceptance of who we are, and Letting our Light shine, partially through this blog!

“Getting REAL” is not a destination, however, it is indeed a continual process and so we will continue to Get REAL, and in particular we will continually strive to Let our Light truly shine to Leave our Legacy long after these 365 days are complete.

To paraphrase Jung’s closing words on Day 16: thank you everyone for partaking in our journey. We deeply feel your support and kindred spirit as Jung, my daughters S and J, and I continue to “explore, experiment, experience and expand” through the final days of our SPF 365 Experiment and beyond!

Day 348: Truths Lived via Experiential Learning

authenticjung — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:59:24 -0700

We are free when we love ourselves exactly the way we are, and honor all parts of ourselves: good, bad and ugly.
We are most powerful when we live true to ourselves and practice authenticity faithfully.
We are most joyful when we allow ourselves to satisfy our soul’s yearnings first and foremost.
We are most wanted and valued when we make our unique gifts and singular genius visible to the world.
We are most wealthy when our hearts are filled with affection for, and by, those whom we love.
We are most alive when we live wholly with our heart, head, and hara in alignment.
We are most safe and secure when we surround ourselves with sustainable ecology and economy grounded on the principle of sufficiency.
We are most creative when we are authentic, playful, and relaxed.

These are some of the truths we have lived, learned, and leaned toward, in our Soul Play Family 365 Experiment.

Day 347: Everything is Perfect

authenticjung — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:26:26 -0700

One of many practices that we have picked up along our Soul Play Family 365 Experiment is accepting, and even welcoming, whatever comes our way as “perfect.” It has a peculiar way of shifting our perspective instantly, which in turn helps us redirect our energy from hemorrhaging on useless worries, complaints or regrets. When we resist unpleasant process, outcome, or task with, “Why do I have to do this?” or “Why me?” or “Why now?” or any number of variations of these unwilling inner voices, it does not make things any easier for us. In fact, we often use more energy fighting or resisting the wall that we ourselves put up in front of us, than we would on the process, outcome or task that we find unpleasant, undesirable, or at times even unfair.

Instead of getting upset or frustrated at unpleasant surprises, undesirable occurrences, or unfair outcomes, somewhere along the way in our journey, we started to see them as “perfect.” Sometimes we even say out loud, “That’s just perfect!” or “It’s happening perfectly!” or “Perfect timing!” Once we accept whatever comes our way as “perfect,” then we can focus our energy on dealing with a given situation as is, in the moment, to the best of our ability, because we have already accepted the perfect nature of a particular challenge embedded in that situation. We can then even look for the benefit in the situation. It is a much lighter, more joyful and fluid way to live. Instead of spending our precious energy to change unpredictable currents of Life, we can change our approach to Life by embracing any Life’s current we encounter as perfect, and channel our energy to respond with creativity, maturity and synchronicity.

Day 346: Sitting with our Child

done-is-good — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 20:46:00 -0700

Being a parent
Sometimes means you do nothing
But sit with your child.

J was sick last night and couldn’t get to sleep. She became very frustrated and maybe a little scared. There truly wasn’t anything we could do but sit with her and tell her that this was temporary. It’s frustrating for us, too, not being able to our child to physically feel better. All we could do was to share the experience with her.

She could have been up all night, but thankfully a little after 2:00 am she finally dropped off to sleep. There will be times, we’re sure, that our daughters will go through emotional trials as well. Then, as now, we won’t be able to cure their ills, but we will still be able to sit with them and share the experience, and perhaps that’s for the best. As our children mature it seems more-and-more important to allow them to figure things out by themselves. That doesn’t mean we can’t still be with them to share the experience, telling them that we are confident that eventually, they will feel better.