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“in the same way that we metabolize food, we metabolize experience. Experience becomes our character, as we have seen earlier, just as food becomes the cellular makeup of our bodies. You are your experience, in certain ways. It shapes you and forms you, metabolically. You take food in, then break it down into what is usable, and what is not. Your body takes the good part of the experience and keeps that to make new cells, energy and the like. ..in metabolizing experience, the process can break down in the same way. Taking in the good parts of a losing experience means that we learn what we can from the experience and take that forward as new “cells” of our character, meaning wisdom. Also, through persevering and continuing to go forward and reengaging life, we develop strength, patience, hope, optimism, and a host of other important character traits that we will need to make things succeed.” -integrity: the courage to meet the demands of reality, henry cloud, page 163
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My framework or/and topic reminds one of my friends an NPR radio show talking about puppies, which are part of a multi-purpose transition program called Puppies Behind Bars. There are two phases of the program. First part is the education of these smart dogs either for service dogs for veterans or as bomb-sniffing dogs. For education, they assign each puppy to an inmate who carries certain qualities and who is close to her/his release . The program can last six to twelve months, but during the process, the dog becomes an intimate and natural way for these inmates to transition to the outside world. They become the compassionate partners that do not judge or stigmatize their teachers. The education of dog at this phase becomes a service itself, helping inmates facilitate their transitions. but wait it is only the first phase.
once they finished their education, they are assigned to veterans who have returned from military service(mostly iraq) with some traumatic-disorders or phobias like claustrophobia. These soldiers probably had terrible experiences in uncanny corners or crowds in the battle field, and lost their trust to their environment. Puppies intervene into this type of loss and become friends or care-givers, checking corners or closed spaces and let their partner know it is ok to move on.
It does sound a little bit teddy bear – the utmost cliche transition object- when you first heard, however, it is much more elaborate, elegant, and experiential; it also hints at the education topic as a strong companion and variation for transition topic…
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Stress eraser as its name suggests aims to decrease stress, facilitating people’s (growing a) meditation habit. It uses a simple biofeedback therapy method by leveraging haptic input and providing visual feedback. here is a definition of biofeedback from their booklet:
Biofeedback is any technology that non-invasively monitors your body’s functions – such asblood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, or muscle tension – and conveys that information to you in real-time. Biofeedback has been clinically proven over 30 years of research to help people learn to use their body’s voluntary functions – such as breathing, focusing, or contracting muscles – to have an immediate and positive impact on their well being. By communicating your body function in real-time, a biofeedback machine increases your awareness of a particular bodily function and allows you to exert greater control over these functions.
what makes this product tempting for me is its transitional strength. it may be one of primitive yet efficient transitional products, which aims to increase quality-of-life by its simplest means, intervening in people’s breathing rhythm. It is perceptive rather than socially interactive, trying to reach at habitual through behavioral means. Company suggests using the product before going to bed, trying to intervene into bedtime rituals-if people have any. I would cast this product as a perfect ritual product, emulating eastern traditions of meditation and awareness…I’ve discovered a similar product called emwave, i will think a loud more may be next time with emwave…
I attended an event the other night, featuring current projects going on in Pittsburgh, or concepts aiming for better Pittsburgh futures. The projects are diverse, from arts to education, health to infrastructure. Presenters include Susan Everingham, director of the RAND office in Pittsburgh; Scott Faber, a developmental pediatrician at the Children’s Institute; Raymar Hampshire of sponsorchange (.org); Sean Jones of the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra; Alexi Morrissey, a poet; Priya Narasimhan from Carnegie Mellon’s Mobility Center; LaVerne Baker Hotep from the Center for Victims of Violence and Crime; Hilary Robinson, dean at the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon; Jon Rubin, artist, and the man behind The Waffle Shop; and Janera Solomon, executive director of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. Each of the presenters took 3 minutes to present their concepts/projects. Concepts have different approaches how to facilitate social change, from the arts to the education. People from arts express strange ideas, like constructing huge fans in downtown Pittsburgh to create a climate change or creating a local Maoist revolution sending academia to the city-field. I found these defamiliarizations quite witty to open up a discussion space or re-framing of possible visions. Among these concepts, I like the LaVerne Baker’s holistic approach best. She is trying to create a five year community program, aiming at changing diet (food habits) of a community gradually, to decrease the (tendency of) violence. It sounds bizarre when you first heard it, but she has conducted some research showing that people consuming healthy and less meat-type products have more calmness than the ones who consume meat. This reminds me Eastern religions diet/fasting practices, especially Buddhists and Sufis a lot. I am looking forward to see more programs from City-Live initiative in the new year..
]]>“man is a living creature of varied, multiform and ever-changing nature.”
But what is the purpose of all this? That we may understand — since we have been born into this condition of being what we choose to be — that we ought to be sure above all else that it may never be said against us that, born to a high position, we failed to appreciate it, but fell instead to the estate of brutes and uncomprehending beasts of burden; and that the saying of Aspah the Prophet, “You are all Gods and sons of the Most High,” might rather be true; and finally that we may not, through abuse of the generosity of a most indulgent Father, pervert the free option which he has given us from a saving to a damning gift. Let a certain saving ambition invade our souls so that, impatient of mediocrity, we pant after the highest things and (since, if we will, we can) bend all our efforts to their attainment. Let us disdain things of earth, hold as little worth even the astral orders and, putting behind us all the things of this world, hasten to that court beyond the world, closest to the most exalted Godhead. There, as the sacred mysteries tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy the first places; but, unable to yield to them, and impatient of any second place, let us emulate their dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be inferior to them in nothing.
But how can anyone judge or love what he does not know? Moses loved the God whom he had seen and as judge of his people he administered what he had previously seen in contemplation on the mountain. Therefore the Cherub is the intermediary and by his light equally prepares us for the fire of the Seraphim and the judgement of the Thrones. This is the bond which unites the highest minds, the Palladian order which presides over contemplative philosophy; this is then the bond which before all else we must emulate, embrace and comprehend, whence we may be rapt to the heights of love or descend, well instructed and prepared, to the duties of the practical life. But certainly it is worth the effort, if we are to form our life on the model of the Cherubim, to have familiarly before our eyes both its nature and its quality as well as the duties and the functions proper to it. Since it is not granted to us, flesh as we are and knowledgeable only the things of earth, to attain such knowledge by our own efforts, let us have recourse to the ancient Fathers. They can give us the fullest and most reliable testimony concerning these matters because they had an almost domestic and connatural knowledge of them.
must do in our turn, who, I ask, would dare set muddied feet or soiled hands to the ladder of the Lord?
The Paradise of God is bathed and watered by four rivers; from these same sources you may draw the waters which will save you. The name of the river which flows from the north is Pischon which means, `the Right.’ That which flows from the west is Gichon, that is, `Expiation.’ The river flowing from the east is named Chiddekel, that is, `Light,’ while that, finally, from the south is Perath, which may be understood as `Compassion.’ ‘
Scrutinizing, with greater penetration, that harmony of the universe which the Greeks with greater aptness of terms called sympatheia and grasping the mutual affinity of things, she applies to each thing those inducements (called the iugges of the magicians), most suited to its nature. Thus it draws forth into public notice the miracles which lie hidden in the recesses of the world, in the womb of nature, in the storehouses and secret vaults of God, as though she herself were their artificer.
w means the same as our word “reception.” The precise point is, of course, that the doctrine was received by one man from another not through written documents but, as a hereditary right, through a regular succession of revelations.
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