You have just 250 milliseconds to catch a fall

You have about 1/10 of a second to catch a glass of water when you knock it over.

You have 1/4 of a second  to catch a fall. That's the minimum time the brain needs to regiater that your body's off-kilter and to do what it takes to avoid a tumble.

"Anything less than 250 milliseconds--you're probably not going to catch yourself," says Daniel Ferris, a University of Michigan professor of kinesiology. In a recent study on balance, Ferri's team homed in on the left sensorimotor cortex,

an area of the brain thought to be responsible for coordinating motion. When you realize you're falling, this region responds first, sending out the neural signals that set your body in motion to (ideally) restore stability--all within a quarter-second. Now that's what we call quick thinking. - Spirit Magazine, March 2014

(Thank to Susan Fink for this tidbit.)

Tao Te Ching Chapter 40

Returning is the motion of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
The ten thousand things are born of being.
Being is born of not being.

What's the Enneagram?

Shih Fu Eileen introduced Body Balance students to the Enneagram many years ago. Local practitioner Marion Gilbert has spoken many times to the Lotus Study Group. Shih Fu Tina teaches Enneagram workshops.  So, I was really pleased to see that the Enneagram Institute has upgraded its website.

It's much easier to explore the nine personality types, take tests that would help you assess your own type. There's even a great feature comparing the relationships between all the types.

The Nine Types of the Enneagram

Marion Gilbert teaches and affiliates with Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. That organization is different from EI.  Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition also has a good website to explore the personality types, take a test to determine your type and find trainings and workshops.

What's the Enneagram? Here's an answer from the Narrative Tradition group:

The Enneagram is a powerful tool for personal and collective transformation. Stemming from the Greek words ennea (nine) and grammos (a written symbol), the nine-pointed Enneagram symbol represents nine distinct strategies for relating to the self, others and the world. Each Enneagram type has a different pattern of thinking, feeling and acting that arises from a deeper inner motivation or worldview.

The Enneagram fosters greater understanding through a universal language that transcends gender, religion, nationality and culture. While we are all unique, we share common experiences. As representatives of each type tell their personal stories in the Narrative Tradition, we see that the ways people meet life’s challenges and opportunities fall within the nine personality types.

Enjoy exploring the Enneagram!

From one point of view, the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. It is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself. This is your basic personality type.
Everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. This is one area where most all of the major Enneagram authors agree—we are born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment. It also seems to lead to certain unconscious orientations toward our parental figures, but why this is so, we still do not know. In any case, by the time children are four or five years old, their consciousness has developed sufficiently to have a separate sense of self. Although their identity is still very fluid, at this age children begin to establish themselves and find ways of fitting into the world on their own.
Thus, the overall orientation of our personality reflects the totality of all childhood factors (including genetics) that influenced its development.
- See more at: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works/#sthash.KvECcBUt.dpuf

Everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. This is one area where most all of the major Enneagram authors agree—we are born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment. It also seems to lead to certain unconscious orientations toward our parental figures, but why this is so, we still do not know. In any case, by the time children are four or five years old, their consciousness has developed sufficiently to have a separate sense of self. Although their identity is still very fluid, at this age children begin to establish themselves and find ways of fitting into the world on their own.
Thus, the overall orientation of our personality reflects the totality of all childhood factors (including genetics) that influenced its development.
- See more at: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works/#sthash.KvECcBUt.dpuf

From one point of view, the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. It is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself. This is your basic personality type.
Everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. This is one area where most all of the major Enneagram authors agree—we are born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment. It also seems to lead to certain unconscious orientations toward our parental figures, but why this is so, we still do not know. In any case, by the time children are four or five years old, their consciousness has developed sufficiently to have a separate sense of self. Although their identity is still very fluid, at this age children begin to establish themselves and find ways of fitting into the world on their own.
Thus, the overall orientation of our personality reflects the totality of all childhood factors (including genetics) that influenced its development.
- See more at: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works/#sthash.KvECcBUt.dpuf

From one point of view, the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. It is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself. This is your basic personality type.
Everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. This is one area where most all of the major Enneagram authors agree—we are born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment. It also seems to lead to certain unconscious orientations toward our parental figures, but why this is so, we still do not know. In any case, by the time children are four or five years old, their consciousness has developed sufficiently to have a separate sense of self. Although their identity is still very fluid, at this age children begin to establish themselves and find ways of fitting into the world on their own.
Thus, the overall orientation of our personality reflects the totality of all childhood factors (including genetics) that influenced its development.
- See more at: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works/#sthash.1QyZr0RW.dpuf

From one point of view, the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. It is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself. This is your basic personality type.
Everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. This is one area where most all of the major Enneagram authors agree—we are born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment. It also seems to lead to certain unconscious orientations toward our parental figures, but why this is so, we still do not know. In any case, by the time children are four or five years old, their consciousness has developed sufficiently to have a separate sense of self. Although their identity is still very fluid, at this age children begin to establish themselves and find ways of fitting into the world on their own.
Thus, the overall orientation of our personality reflects the totality of all childhood factors (including genetics) that influenced its development.
- See more at: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works/#sthash.1QyZr0RW.dpuf

From one point of view, the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. It is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself. This is your basic personality type.
Everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. This is one area where most all of the major Enneagram authors agree—we are born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment. It also seems to lead to certain unconscious orientations toward our parental figures, but why this is so, we still do not know. In any case, by the time children are four or five years old, their consciousness has developed sufficiently to have a separate sense of self. Although their identity is still very fluid, at this age children begin to establish themselves and find ways of fitting into the world on their own.
Thus, the overall orientation of our personality reflects the totality of all childhood factors (including genetics) that influenced its development.
- See more at: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works/#sthash.1QyZr0RW.dpuf

From one point of view, the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. It is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself. This is your basic personality type.
Everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. This is one area where most all of the major Enneagram authors agree—we are born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment. It also seems to lead to certain unconscious orientations toward our parental figures, but why this is so, we still do not know. In any case, by the time children are four or five years old, their consciousness has developed sufficiently to have a separate sense of self. Although their identity is still very fluid, at this age children begin to establish themselves and find ways of fitting into the world on their own.
Thus, the overall orientation of our personality reflects the totality of all childhood factors (including genetics) that influenced its development.
- See more at: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works/#sthash.1QyZr0RW.dpuf

From one point of view, the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. It is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself. This is your basic personality type.
Everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. This is one area where most all of the major Enneagram authors agree—we are born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment. It also seems to lead to certain unconscious orientations toward our parental figures, but why this is so, we still do not know. In any case, by the time children are four or five years old, their consciousness has developed sufficiently to have a separate sense of self. Although their identity is still very fluid, at this age children begin to establish themselves and find ways of fitting into the world on their own.
Thus, the overall orientation of our personality reflects the totality of all childhood factors (including genetics) that influenced its development.
- See more at: https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/how-the-enneagram-system-works/#sthash.1QyZr0RW.dpuf

Artist Reception at Body Balance June 13, 12-3pm | Linda Byrne & Tina Heck

Beautiful Art in a Beautiful Space

Absorbing the natural beauty around us in Nevada County, come and see how two local artists have translated what they see, feel, and experience into art.

Linda Byrne, a professor at Sierra College, works mostly in acrylic and printmaking media, often combining the two on canvas using woodcut, monoprints and collagraphs, sometimes printed on handmade papers. By mounting prints, on canvas, she develops images using paint and color to extend or change meaning. Woodcut images from multiple blocks and collaging new elements cut from other prints tell new visual stories. Painting over the prints with acrylic adds directness and the sensuality of color, allowing her to put flesh on the black and white bones of the woodcut, and add layers of meaning through obscuring or enhancing various areas.

Linda's art on the left, Tina's on the right

Tina Heck, working with acrylics on canvas, focuses primarily on Sierra landscapes. She works with color, form, and light to capture both concensus and discord in the complexities of the Sierra Nevada terrain in these larger scale pieces.

An avid followers of the American Arts and Crafts movement and the woodcut prints and lithographs that emerged in the 1920's and 30's, a small series of paintings are reflective of those earlier styles of printing in flat colors and hand-drawn shapes.

Art is on display at Body Balance Academy from now until July 31, 2015. 

Join Linda and Tina for an exclusive showing of their artwork and a chance to meet the artists at the studio on Saturday June 13th from noon until 3:00pm.

Tai Chi is not poetry, but listen to this...

When I heard Wendell Berry's reading of this poem, I immediately thought of Tai Chi. Not just the form or the experience of practicing the form, but the entire Taoist way of life. Berry has lived much of his life close to the land, stewarding a family farm in Kentucky. He thinks, writes and speaks about this relationship to the earth, and to each other, with reverence.  Listen to the poet reading and maybe you will agree.

Poet, novelist, farmer Wendell Berry

 
HOW TO BE A POET
(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill — more of each
than you have — inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.