I watched a TED talk last night that has stuck with me all day long. It’s a 20-minute share-out by a Harvard professor named Amy Cuddy, and she has some valid things to say in the world of social science. Her talk was entitled “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are”. When I started watching it I had no idea where she was going, what was she really getting at. Well, from what I inferred, studies show that people who strong non-verbals do better in careers then people with closed off non-verbal’s. A bit of it has to do with power and dominance, which quite frankly turns me off, like if someone walks around like they own a place. However, I can learn from this. We need to fake a little bit of strong non-verbals in order to gain confidence, and this is where our bodies can change our minds. By holding our body postures in a way that exudes confidence and presence, we can gain mental confidence. Makes sense, huh? “It’s about opening up”, Cuddy says. I think yoga is a great outlet for people to use their bodies to shape their minds, not just with heart openers, but just gaining confidence through movement. It’s about opening up, having control of our bodies, being bigger not smaller. So no more of this hunched over stuff or playing nervously with my hair. It’s time to use strong non-verbals!

Alright, so Day of the Dead made me write this…No I’m not morbid. Just thoughtful. Who doesn’t think about these things eventually…Also it’s completely party of the cycle of birth and death. Death happens to us all and it’s fair to think about, and write about for that matter. Or maybe I wrote this after getting the Edgar Allen Poe quote tattooed on my arm: ” All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream”. Without further suspense, my somewhat morbid poem that I fear will make you worry needlessly about my mental state.

To Where We Wander To

Where do we go after

when our lives are done. 

Are we only buried nine feet deep and each day sinking,

falling a little deeper

into the desiccated desert earth.

Where nothing grows,

Hardly a chance of regeneration now.

All is dormant

“Slip silently away my friend…”

The pallid moon speaks softly in our sleep

She beckons us into the arid night

Past the rocky ravines and spiraling zeniths

Where darkness gets colder,

Where does our heart go? 

Does it to fade farther into the hostile west

Where it learns to circumnavigate the world’s most barren landscapes

These landscapes that envelop us until we can no longer remember

No longer remember how we used to wander

Through pine and juniper

Smelling their sweetness

Their newness. 

their tender breathes of life. 

Earlier this week I tried out a new hiking trail that my friend Kirsten helped construct a few summers ago while she was on a trail crew. She brought her boyfriend Joe along and we started out after I got off work. The afternoon air was cool and we needed jackets and hats but it felt perfect. We stopped at the top and scoped out the old petroglyphs on a flat side of boulder, there were several basic images etched in stone of deer, frogs, and people. Its amazing these things last and endure the weather here. On the way down we encountered an elderly woman and her large shepard mix walking towards us. I was suprised she was starting out on a trail so late in the day, the sky was pink and hazy, the sun was going down. She seemed timid and scared to approach us because she said her dog would pull her so we stood talking from afar for several minutes. She was strong and lean but told us she was 92 and has lived in Prescott since the 1930’s. Her name was Olive McKinney and she said we could find her number in the phone book. So now we’ve arranged to be walking friends and I hope to call her next week! It’s been awhile since I’ve reached out in the community like this and I’m glad I offered to walk with her. 

Jaipur

I ate a mango on the sidewalk and watched the gypsy boy with his magic tricks

“The ball goes to Bombay, the ball goes to Chennai” he says,

making them disappear, I wish he would make me disappear too

to someplace else.  Like me.

I gave him ten rupees

His face told me he was expecting more,

Like the time I was in the taxi in Delhi and the little girl did somersaults at the stoplight

Darting in between traffic, her little bare feet course from this daily routine

Her eyes glance my way after her last twirl through the air, waiting

The waiting for me to do something,

I’m supposed to do something.

Do I offer her a sad smile.

What good is a smile when it’s not what you’re looking for.