Upside Down Kris

Newness, Week One Highlights from the first week of my newness challenge... Day 4 *      I took a different street home last night, riding through the heart of the city instead of on the "heartless" bike trail which trailed after cars. The "heart" was still throbbing with students drinking outside of a joint fused with an old city gate (what would the old architects think of that!), pedestrians walking home, people twisting their pasta on a restaurant plate... *     I ate at a student's house. It was nothing new (rice and vegetables), a part from the splash of white wine that I don't usually get to sip with lunch. It was my friend and her son's company that was extraordinary because I normally eat alone. Day 5 *     I made a new recipe. (I've been doing that a lot lately.) The aroma of coconut mixed with curry...out of this world is the only way I can describe it, totally filling my senses...The taste of slow cooked chicken with spices and zucchin...

The Newness Challenge This morning, I awoke with: what if I tried something new everyday? Would that help me to feel alive, to add spice to "normalcy"? New creates excitement and stimulates. I know routines are necessary–they help build good habits and align life–but novelty opens up new pathways in the brain. Challenges–as long as they're not too heavy–can cheer you on, help you to set new goals. So, then I thought: what if I dare myself to do something new everyday, like my challenge to find "magic moments" in my daily life? I immediately felt the idea prickle under my skin, but doubts also stung me: is it really possible to find something extraordinary in the commonplace? And will I be able to see it as I stumble upon it? What constitutes "new", anyway? Is it because you've never done something before or because you've never seen it in a certain way before that makes the difference? I think it was Jim Kwik who said "novelty helps neuron...

The Boon of Recovery Everyone knows there is a great abyss between a cold and a heavy duty operation: the first is just plain annoying and the second can be edifying. I'm sure you've had head colds that cloud your brain and numb your taste, putting you into a general state of malaise. Maybe you've even groaned: "When is this going to end?!" The truth is you know it will last a week or two at most, but you crash onto the couch complaining: "This is the worst cold ever !" An important operation, on the other hand, is, well...important. I'm not talking about something like removing a mole, mind you, but one that throws you into a different ball park, one that launches you into the air only to leave you lying on the ground for an indefinite amount of time. It's the temporary loss of self and the not knowing how long it will last that rockets the experience into the realm of "life change." And change your life if does. It leaves you asking q...

Resolutions Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong: the new year's bells are chiming, and the old year's bells are clanging, already dissonant with new resolutions. What do I hear? Well, last year's bells aren't tinkling and merry. I imagine them heavy and thick like those of many ancient church towers. They have booming voices and need a good push to start swinging. I am my own bell ringer, shoving off and riding the bells, not knowing when they will lose momentum and weigh too much to ring.  What if I switch up the bells this year? I imagine them much smaller and round; not bells at all, really. The fascinating vibrations of Tibetan bowls has always soothed me. Actually, I think they're called "singing" bowls because each one truly does have a unique voice. When I hear a bowl sing I stop, enraptured by the sound. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say I become infused with the reverberations and can do nothing else but listen.      That's my resolution for the n...

Dream Day vs Daydream My dream day wouldn't dawn with a yawning daydream. No, it would begin with my eyes open, the soft sun peeking through the blinds. I would pull them up and catch the day waking-fuschia overlapping a fierce light blue. How can such an innocuous color be fierce, you say? Because the day is fierce-fierce in its firey pride, fierce in its focus, fierce in its effervescence. The window creaks as its frame shakes off the night. A rush of welcome chilliness greets me and I shiver-more from the pleasure of its tingling than the bite of its breath. I have no daydreams in my dream day because I am fully awake in the  the day I have created.  Maybe daydreams keep me occupied when I need an escape, when I don't want to be where I am. I must admit most of the daydreams in my life grabbed me while I was at school. Well, the good news is I'm more where I want to be now. My dream day in reality is very radicated in reality. It's about strolling in the park, devour...

  Christmas Stream of Consciousness Lighting, lights, relight, Christmas lights, flashy ones, sparkling ones, shimmery ones... Down the chimney he goes, chocolate chip cookies, crumbs, dusty beard, ruby smile, puffy lips, pearly teeth, pearls, laugh, jolly roll, cinnamon roll left for Santa. He eats the sweets and washes them down with hot chocolate and mini-marshmallows that in reality my mom used to drink. Maybe they sat together, my mom chatting about her children as she stayed up with Santa, he listening with half an ear as he grabs for another cookie (fortunately diets never interested him and he kept his belly and jolly zest for life and cookies) cookies with icing, cookies with red and green sprinkles, cookies cut into Christmas shapes by ingenious cookie cutters... How I loved baking cookies with my mom, licking the batter, bantering about nothing...or did I? Perhaps I didn't speak at all. Instead, I followed my mom's instructions of levelling out the flour (which I do...

  Reflections on Air What if we were all breathing–breathing into each other, into the world, and back again... like a hot air balloon propagating itself through space and time, never really stopping anywhere but giving the illusion it does. We pump air in, fuelling it, and it, in turn, fuels us. What if all there is is breath, flowing in and out in an eternal cadence, even when our physical form ceases to be? Respiration moving molecules that we can't see... What if our spirits were made of air and that's all there truly is and all we truly are? Even music is just electrified breath streaming with vibrations, perpetuating sound and silence. It weaves invisible notes into our skin and then transpires into ultimate glory. Perhaps, then, we are all just music infinitely playing to the attentive feelings that grasp it. Our cells are always singing to each other to make their intentions known–we just can't hear them. It's been proven by science. I'd like to think that m...