Author Archives: Paula Josa-Jones

Oct2

how to reconnect

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On Google+ today, Gwen Bell asked what do we do to stay motivated during difficult times. I think that the answer has to do not with motivation, but with connection.

Because difficult times have a way of disconnecting us from ourselves.  So how to reconnect?

I have a few suggestions:

  1. Move!  Without thinking, without judging.
  2. Change your point of view.  Stand up, look over your shoulder, look between your legs, walk backwards, lie on the floor somewhere new and see what you see.
  3. Breathe.  Intentional, mindful breathing is magic.
  4. Sip a lovely tea.  My current favorite is Harney’s Dong Ding, a lovely oolong.  If you really want a splurge, try their Top Ti Quan Yin. They describe it as a “It is an intense mixture of butter and honey, even honeysuckle flowers, reminiscent of great Burgundy white wine.”

How do you reconnect?

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Sep30

hen pecking

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Jon Katz with his beloved donkey Simon

I had to share this post called The Rooster Syndrome by the wonderful Jon Katz.

If you don’t know about Jon, you are in for a treat.

His blog Bedlam Farm Journal is just one of the best around.

As he says, “come and see.”

 

 

Sep30

big

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Brandi Rivera riding Sanne in the performance of RIDE

Earlier this week for the first time in many months, I rode the Friesian, Sanne.  He is big in every way:  big character, big heart, and big mover.

I thought about the connection with my post on chaos, and how riding Sanne demanded that I find order within the initial chaos of the ride – the feeling of trying to contain all of that movement, and having to find a way to transmit it thought my body, not blocking it, but channeling it, diving into it and finding its rhythms – opening to it.

When I read Susan Casey’s The Wave, I was blown away by her descriptions of the surfers, the ones who seek out the biggest, wildest waves.  Casey is a visceral, brassy writer, and as she  follows the wave chasers around the world, they seems way out on the farthest edge –  playing with death.  The surfers open to the wave, what other choice is there, really?

What waves are you riding?

 

 

 

 

 

Sep28

the spaces between

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photos:  Jeffrey Anderson

dancers:  Ingrid Schatz & DeAnna Pelecchia

 

 

 

I love this sequence of photographs because of what it reveals about the spaces between.  The spaces between the bodies, and more important, the spaces of transition from one movement to another.

Recently I noticed in myself a tendency to not straighten my body, not lengthen into the vertical as I moved from one task to another.  Bending forward to pick up one thing then curving into another movement were blending.  I think it is the remnants of when my girls were small.  My whole body became a forward bending arc of love, protection, readiness to hold, to embrace, to dress, to bring my body around them. I can feel it in the barn too – bending forward to wrap the horses’s legs, to pick up a brush, and somehow the spaces between becomes part of that, rather than having a fullness of their own.

So now I am paying attention to the spaces between – consciously lengthening upward and reaching my legs downward between.  It brings breath in, broadens my perspective outward for a moment before I lean into the next thing.

The word for the space between the cells is interstitial. I love that word because it captures something of the secret hiddeness of those spaces, their subtlety.

How do you feel your transitions?  How do you pay attention to the spaces between?