Notes Left Behind

Elena Desserich



6-year-old Elena Desserich had only a few days to live and was too sick with cancer to speak, so she expressed her love for her family by hiding hundreds of love notes all over their house. Elena's parents "found the first notes in a backpack. Others were hidden between books on the bookshelf, in the corner of our dresser drawers, between dishes in the china cabinet or between photos stacked away in boxes."

The messages of love from Elena, along with a diary her parents kept for her sister Gracie, have been collected and formed into a book called "Notes Left Behind." Elena's family spoke about their experience with the Today Show


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/28/elena-desserichs-love-not_n_336938.html&cp

www.notesleftbehind.com

Story Corp

If you haven't listened to Story Corp, you should. It's easy to forget the best in us, and what's really important. Every time I hear them, this is what I remember.


Mother Teresa once said " We cannot do great things, only small things, with great love."

Here's a few you might enjoy....


Boy Lifts Book; Librarian Changes Boy's Life


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113357239

October 2, 2009 In 1950s Arkansas, Olly Neal didn't care much for school. Then he wandered into the library and stumbled onto a book by author Frank Yerby. The discovery changed the life of a boy who was, in Neal's memory, "a rather troubled high school senior."



A Toddler, An Open Window And An Amazing Catch


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103418413

April 24, 2009 Marvin Goldstein was a toddler in 1945 when he fell out of a window five stories up in Brooklyn, N.Y. Fortunately for him, Sal Mauriello was there. Goldstein tells the story of Mauriello's great catch — and their reunion years later — to his son, Eric.


Memorial Day Miracle At 'The Wall'

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104389637

May 22, 2009 After his son was killed in Iraq four years ago, Allen Hoe decided to spend Memorial Day at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. He was not expecting to meet the nurse who tried to save his son's life.



Cancer Patients Teach Nurse Importance Of Love


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111633198

Eleven-year-old Sarafina Viviano wants to go into the medical field when she grows up. She asks her mother, Dana Viviano, a nurse who cares for cancer patients, what she's learned from her patients and what it's like to tell someone he's going to die.

The Power of Perception

Here's an interesting read called the "Biology of Belief' by Bruce Lipton. He make the argument that perception and environment has the major role in determining your life and health as opposed to the idea the genes determine your fate.




Another gentleman who's done some great work in this same concept is Dean Ornish (check out this 5 minute talk Your Genes Are Not Your Fate & Healing

http://www.ted.com/talks/dean_ornish_says_your_genes_are_not_your_fate.html

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dean_ornish_on_healing.html

This seems true to me, that happiness and peacefulness are our natural state. That we don't need to find it, we need to stop doing things that disturb it.

Luke Hand

Dean Kamen: New prosthetic arm for veterans

Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiJzJ771vDw

Inventor and entrepreneur Dean Camen on his work inspired by Star War's Luke hand.

Where does Hope come from?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltfc6GpLFr0&feature=related

Jon Young helps define HOPE, based on his 25+years experience mentoring & being mentored.

...the best comes from them

"Above all, don't fear difficult moments," she said. "The best comes from them."





ROME – Rita Levi Montalcini, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, said Saturday that even though she is about to turn 100, her mind is sharper than it was she when she was 20.

Levi Montalcini, who also serves as a senator for life in Italy, celebrates her 100th birthday on Wednesday, and she spoke at a ceremony held in her honor by the European Brain Research Institute.

She shared the 1986 Nobel Prize for Medicine with American Stanley Cohen for discovering mechanisms that regulate the growth of cells and organs.

"At 100, I have a mind that is superior — thanks to experience — than when I was 20," she told the party, complete with a large cake for her.

The Turin-born Levi Montalcini recounted how the anti-Jewish laws of the 1930s under Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime forced her to quit university and do research in an improvised laboratory in her bedroom at home.

"Above all, don't fear difficult moments," she said. "The best comes from them."

"I should thank Mussolini for having declared me to be of an inferior race. This led me to the joy of working, not any more unfortunately, in university institutes but in a bedroom," the scientist said.

Her white hair elegantly coifed and wearing a smart navy blue suit, she raised a glass of sparkling wine in a toast to her long life.




Sharper at 100 than at 20, that's unusual, but I don't think it should be. What a great lady.

I'm sure we all have come to fear and despair when the moment is difficult, but this is where we can bring out the best... Or the worst, I think the choice is ours!

March Challenge

MIND
Finish reading:
Coyote's Guide to Mentoring(3 chapters left),
Guide to Connecting with Nature(2 exercises left)
Paleo Diet (still on chapter 2)
Red Cell (not started)
Added books


Fablehaven 1-3,
39 clues 1-3,
Ranger's Apprentice 6,
Um (4 chapters)
Mycellium Running (5 chapters)
Energy Work (2 Chapters)
Septimus Heap Book 1
The Last Apprentice(whole book)
Chi Running (whole book)
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Reread book, have redone 5 exercises)




BODY
Continue to progress with Crossfit. (Have misses 3 workouts, all weekends)
Implement either Paleo or Zone diet.(Zoneish eating for solid 3months 80% compliance, 20% effect from delicious cakes and cookies)
Progress with Parkour basic move training - (no additional training outside of crossfit)
Progess with internal Hung Guar training, from 5 Animals 5 Elements to Hase Fu (sp?) & Iron Wire (5 Animals 5 Elements form has transitioned to ligament and structural changes to my movements, greater efficiency and sensitivity to others movement)

SPIRIT
Thanksgiving Address (every morning from Dec-present, when time crunched-performed on ride to work)
Spirit Plate - implement at every meal (only when eating alone- averaging a little over one meal a day, sometimes I get in two)
Sacred Songs, Hymms, Poems etc - research more into this fascinating and culturally diverse field. Particular attention will be paid to the Native American, Celtic, and Phillipines.(no work in this area)
Religions (read some web sites and wiki info in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam- just general info)


Overall there's good reason for celebration! Everyone's really making great strides and more often than not we've all bit off more than we can chew. Certainly the physical accomplishments have been the most highlighted, but that's no small victory, and in truth all things are connected.

I've been given great mentors, friends and family. The gods have been very kind and the journey has been a great adventure so far. I've toiled and learned much, but much still remains to be done.
From my heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit I give thanks to everyone and look forward to the rest of our journey.

Peace

Leap to Track. Rescue Man. Clamber Up. Catch a Train.

Chad Lindsey, 33, near the subway tracks where he lifted an injured man to safety as a train approached on Monday. Then he went on his way.


March 18, 2009
Leap to Track. Rescue Man. Clamber Up. Catch a Train.
By MICHAEL WILSON
Subway heroes, as they are inevitably tagged even before the grease from the tracks is rubbed off, come along every now and then — indeed, as the story of Chad Lindsey suggests, perhaps more often than we know.

Minutes after rescuing a man who had fallen onto the subway tracks at the Penn Station stop on Monday, Mr. Lindsey managed to melt back into the anonymity of the city, escaping the notice of the police, paramedics and subway workers.

“I’m of many minds of being in the spotlight,” he said after a call from this reporter, whose short account of the accident on The New York Times’s City Room blog on Monday prompted one of Mr. Lindsey’s friends to disclose his identity on Tuesday. “But what the hey,” he said.

Mr. Lindsey, 33, is from Harbor Springs, Mich. He moved to New York City three years ago and settled in Woodside, Queens.

He can take it from there:

“I was waiting for the C,” he said from his office on West 30th Street, where he works as a proofreader. “I’m an actor — shocker.”

He said almost everyone seems to be an aspiring actor nowadays, but in this case, it is a critical point to the story: Mr. Lindsey currently appears in an Off Broadway show called “Kasper Hauser,” in a role that requires him to repeatedly lift a character who cannot walk.

On Monday, as he waited for the train, about 2:30 p.m., he was thinking ahead to the reading he was heading to. “I’m kind of zoned out, and I saw this guy come too quickly to the edge,” he said. “He stopped and kind of reeled around. I felt bad, because I couldn’t get close enough to grab his coat. He fell, and immediately hit his head on the rail and passed out.”

Mr. Lindsey said he sensed a train was approaching, because the platform was crowded. “I dropped my bag and jumped down there. I tried to wake him up,” he said. “He probably had a massive concussion at that point. I jumped down there and he just wouldn’t wake up, and he was bleeding all over the place.”

He looked back up at the people on the platform. “I yelled, ‘Contact the station agent and call the police!’ which I think is hilarious because I don’t think I ever said ‘station agent’ before in my life. What am I, on ‘24’?”

The man wouldn’t wake up, he said. “He was hunched over on his front. I grabbed him from behind, like under the armpits, and kind of got him over to the platform. It wasn’t very elegant. I just hoisted him up so his belly was on the platform. It’s kind of higher than you think it is.”

He stole a glance toward the dark subway tunnel that was becoming ominously less dark, with the glow on the tracks, familiar to all New Yorkers, signaling an approaching train.

“I couldn’t see the train coming, but I could see the light on the tracks, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to get out of this hole.’ ”

He remembered the subway hero of 2007, Wesley Autrey, who jumped on top of a man who was having a seizure on the tracks and held him down in the shallow trench between the rails as the subway passed over them. “I was like, ‘I am not doing that. We’ve got to get out of here.’ ”

People on the platform joined the effort. “Someone pulled him out, and I just jumped up out of there,” he said. With time to spare: “The train didn’t come for another 10 or 15 seconds or something.”

The man lay bleeding on the platform, and the police arrived. Mr. Lindsey soon got on another train. A large group of riders who had been on the platform entered the subway car with him, smiling and clapping him on the back and saying thank you.

“Then I sort of freaked out, and I was nervous and shaky. These five women opened their purses and gave me Handi-Wipes. I was covered in blood and dirt from the subway tracks.”

The fallen man was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan and was later released.

The police identified him late Tuesday afternoon as Theodore Larson, 60, of the Bronx.

Mr. Lindsey, of course, never learned the man’s name. His story told, he said goodbye, adding, “It was quite a New York day.”

Al Baker and Trymaine Lee contributed reporting.

Save the Earth, One step at a time

I you your not familiar with the planetwalker, John Francis, then I highly recommend learning about him.
I must say that I was deeply humbled by his talk (see link below) not only for his accomplishments, but family, friends, and even strangers that helped him along the way. It's given me pause many times over the past few weeks to relearn how to listen (or maybe even learn to listen for the first time). And discover what my own prisons might be. As a tracker, its clear that all of our footsteps make an impact, its that impact that they make is what's important. I need to take a closer look at my tracks...


For almost three decades, John Francis has been a planetwalker, traveling the globe by foot and sail with a message of environmental respect and responsibility (for 17 of those years without speaking). A funny, thoughtful talk with occasional banjo.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/john_francis_walks_the_earth.html

The Unlikely Scrum

If you want to know what sports is all about(or should be), check out the Hyde School Rugby Club.

FOX sports -

http://multimedia.foxsports.com/m/video/21892456/hyde_rugby_a_new_world.htm


NY Time piece (article and video)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/sports/othersports/15rugby.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1226763258-kwuNRQolk0Q0wLYwulehkQ

WASHINGTON — The rugby practice field at Hyde Leadership Public Charter School bears little resemblance to the manicured lawns of the English boarding school where the sport was born. It is more brown than green, and sirens sometimes drown out the shouts of players. Then there are the occasional interruptions, like when play was briefly halted during a recent practice as a man darted about wildly on a nearby street, calling football plays and evading imaginary tacklers.

But this patch of mud and grass is more than the home of what is believed to be the nation’s first all-African-American high school rugby team. It is also where a growing number of students have been exposed to a sport they once knew nothing about and to parts of society that once seemed closed to them....

Creating Moments

Now I see the secret of the making of the best person. It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth.
-Walt Whitman





There is a great little workbook called CONNECTING WITH NATURE - Creating Moments That Let the Earth Teach - by Michael J. Cohen. I picked up a copy off of Amazon.com after reading about it in Coyote's Guide to Mentoring. It's an excellent scientific approach to reconnecting with nature. The exercises are quick, simple, and fun. If nothing else, the listing of 53 senses was worth the price (I got mine for $8 a few months back.) If you've been taught, like I was, that there are only 5 senses, then pages 8-9 can really open up a new field of experience for you.


"The original sin is to limit the desire to be. Don't"
-Unknown

The Cahills are the most powerful family the world has ever known. 39 Clues hidden around the world guard the family's power, and it's up to YOU to find them. It's Cahill versus Cahill in a worldwide race to find the Clues . . . and beat the competition.

To find the 39 Clues:

Read the Books – Each 39 Clues book unlocks one Clue.

Collect the Cards – Game cards help reveal Clues.

Play the Game – Find Clues through online missions.

Win the Prizes – Play and you could be eligible to win prizes!

I'll admit, I'm a huge fan of children's books, ever since I was a child. I love the use of history, mystery, and the internet. Join in! Perhaps we can form an alliance?

Just remember, Trust No One....

Goals- It Only a Game

Having trouble with goals? They may not be esoteric enough.
Seriously, we caught this segment on NPR's "Only A Game" about the Trinity College squash team. Some great stuff and some great motivation.

Listen and tell me what you think, are your goals not esoteric enough?


Trinity College has put together a dynasty on college squash. The Bantams have won the last ten intercollegiate championships and haven’t lost a match since 1997. It’s not even a question if the team will win; it’s a question of if they’ll even drop a point. Bill Littlefield reports on the most successful college sports program in recent history

http://www.onlyagame.org/shows/2009/01/saturday-january-24th-2009/

A Great Selection of...um..books

Here are two books that you might find worth reading. In keeping with the theme of the Hope Challenge, the first speaks to the great potential and marvelous power of the mind and the other a many layered look at not only how we speak, but how we listen. Uh and um exist in every language, even sign language, with its root going back possibly the first sound of the universe.







http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2009/01/daniel-tammet-on-the-mind/

Daniel Tammet’s mind does not work like most. He’s an autistic savant. One of just fifty or a hundred of his rare kind in the world.

He can recite pi out to 22,000 digits, from memory. And, maybe most unusually, he can talk about how he does it. About the lightning-fast associations and textures of reality that leap out at him.

Daniel Tammet is a savant and a great communicator. And his message is this: As strange and marvelous as his mind may seem, it is not that different from yours. You can learn from the autistic savant.





http://umthebook.com/

"...I wrote Um... because I wanted to know what normal speaking is actually like, and I wanted to talk to people who also had an appreciation for this rich slice of life. Along the way, I learned that Thomas Edison’s earliest recorded word is “uh,” that children begin making slips of the tongue at 18 months, and that Kermit Schafer’s TV and radio bloopers are still pretty funny.

You might think, the person who writes a book about verbal blunders must make a lot of them himself, but I’m a normal speaker. I do know how my blunders differ from yours, though, and what they say about me. Do you know what your verbal blunders say about you?" - Author Michael Erard

Jedi Muppet is still Jedi Master

Old School Yoda is the best. There's no school like old school.
On days that I'm out the door and on the road, I often spend the ride to work on the Thanksgiving Address. Certainly when giving thanks, mentors and teachers take up a good bit of time. Thinking back I know I have much the same reaction as young Luke Skywalker and can't tell a master from a muppet. I'm pretty sure the first time I saw that scene I was waiting for the funny little fellow to get on with it so we could see "the great warrior". It makes me wonder how many Yoda's I've failed to recognize and how many opportunities have been wasted. Needless to say, I've got my eyes peeled for muppets.

"Among the Dagara of Burkina Faso these is no distinction between the natural and supernatural." (back cover of OF WATER AND THE SPIRIT). One of the most amazing things in this book is the rituals and practices of the Dagara surrounding the birth of children. Prior to the birth, the Elders and spiritual leaders speak to the spirit of the child in the womb, in order to find out his/her name and the purpose for which they are coming into the world. After the baby is born, the Elders spend a lot of time around the children in order to keep them reminded of their purpose and too find out what its like on the other side. Seems that the two are on opposite ends of the journey; the child having just come from the spirit world, and the elder about to travel back there. Needless to say, I've been spending a lot of time with my son and children in general. They seem to like muppets. Coincidence!?! I THINK NOT!!!

Hmmm...

Good week last week!
Zoney type diet is going well- with the exception of not enough veggies ( 12 cups of broccolli !?!)
Followed Crossfit main page workout.
Monday, Wed, Sat, Sun + 3X 5animal/5elements


Mind
3 Chapters in Coyotes Guide
4 Chapters in ChiRunning
2 Chapters Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

no crossword
no new words

Spirit
3 LF meditations
3 sit spots

daily awareness training for the 5 senses

Even the very Wise can't see all ends...

I find the words of Gandalf the Grey to have great meaning, not only in that as one of the Very Wise I should be humble...but that in creating one's goals it is hugely important to keep open to the fact that no one knows how they will end.


One of the over arching themes for the challenge will be to apply the 5 minute rule from Marilyn Vos Savant. That each day to do at least 5 minutes of activity. This is really effective because the thing that is most often hard to do is just to get started. If you can stop after 5 minutes, you'll likely get started (and usually do more than 5). This should be a great tool for getting around the pressure of performing and burning out.
As my Sifu is fond of saying, "We're not trying to win a revolution anymore, just put drops in the bucket." So minutes a day will add up to a full bucket before you know it.


Mind - The mind is a terrible thing, as Dan Quayle once said. But it can also be pretty cool. My goal is to continue to journal (see 5 minute rule) each day.
There are some specific books I'd like to finish as well.
ChiRunning
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (including all the exercises)
The Zone
A History of the Senses

Here are additional areas of the mind I have goals for:
Poetry- read 1 book , write some poetry- at least once a month
Sunday Crossword- I love the Sunday Crossword and we need to make it a regular thing again
Board Games- at least one night a week should be board game night...I need to reclaim status as House Scrabble Champion

Body-
Continue with Crossfit
Continue with Hung Gar training
Flexibility - need to continue to open up the shoulder girdle
Stretching (see 5 minute rule)
Hand stands(above)
Cartwheels(above)
Roundoff (above)
Parkour (5 minute rule)work on one of the basic moves each day

Spirit-

What is finally the best austerity, what is the best discipline? The best discipline is to enjoy your friends. Enjoy your meals. Realize what play is. Participate in the play, in the play of life. This is known as mahasukha, the great delight. -JC The Power of Myth

Enjoying meals is huge - the Tradition of being mindful when shopping, preparing, and eating meals is huge. We are what we eat, after all. So I'd like to develop a trigger for being mindful of the sacrifice and amazing process that brings us such incredible meals and vitality. I also plan to do at least one Spirit Plate a day, with a strech goal of one at every meal.

Meditation - practice long and short form at least 3 times a week

Learn about religions and spirituality of all kinds. My goal is to learn about a new religion or practice of spirituality each week. Write a small journal entry about each learning.

Sit spot- see 5 minute rule.

Tracking and Primitive skills- see 5 minute rule. This can be as simple as IDing a leaf, to making a bow from scratch.

As they spoke together to ease the rigors of their journey, Taran soon realized there was little that Adaon had not seen or done. He had sailed far beyond the Isle of Mona, even to the northern sea; he had worked at the potter's wheel, cast nets with the fisherfolk, woven cloth at the looms of the cottagers; and, like Taran, labored over the glowing forge. Of forest lore he had studied deeply, and Taran listened in wonder as Adaon told the ways and natures of woodland creatures, of bold badgers and cautious doormice and geese winging under the moon.
"There is much to be known," said Adaon,"and above all much to be loved, be it the turn of the seasons or the shape of a river pebble. Indeed, the more we find to love, the more we add to the measure of our hearts."-the Black Cauldron, Lloyd Alexander




These are the goals in a nutshell.

Where I'm at-

The adventure is its own reward — but it's necessarily dangerous, having both negative and positive possibilities, all of them beyond control. -JC The Power of M yth

It's true that this adventure is necessarily dangerous, but the thing I find most hopeful is that what we do have control over is ourselves. There has been no shortage of tremendous teachers, mentors, friends, and family along the way and I'm looking forward to the adventure that lies ahead.

Adaon, sitting a little apart from the others called Taran to him. "I commend your patience," he said. "The black beast spurs Elldyr cruelly."

"I think he'll feel better once we find the cauldron," Taran said. "There will be glory enough for all to share."

Adaon smiled gravely. "Is there not glory enough in living the days given to us? You should know there is adventure in simply being among those we love and the things we love, and beauty, too.
the Black Cauldron, Lloyd Alexander