Hey, my fellow Zaadsters!:) I've been non-existent around here at Zaadz for a while, although I keep up my favorite Zaadz pods and blogs via rss - sweeeeet. I've also been slack-assin' as an ambassador and hosting my own pod, but no longer! I'm kickin' it in gear and to start off I'm going to mini-cross post....posts...from Integral Awakening, where I've been keeping busy for the last month. 

 Here's to taking the plunge once again into my favorite online community.

Go to Full Post. 

On one hand we have what we do with our time; on the other, how we experience ourselves in time. Between the two there is a reciprocal relationship, an existential loop. Honoring this relationship is expressed through time yoga. Whether or not we experience our lives as meaningful is directly related to time yoga.

Paul Salamone defines time yoga very simply as:

...training oneself in each every moment to ask: "What am I doing right now? Is this the best use of my time?"

As an answer to why this would be important I created a tentative list called the "Five Principles of Time Yoga":

1. What we do with our time affects our mental state.

2. Our mental state influences what we do with our time.

3.  Mindfulness expands our awareness of both.

4. Time management refers to how effectively we coordinate and move through our activities.

5. Time management is secondary to time yoga.

This post explores these five principles and the importance of time yoga. A follow-up post will discuss specific practices to work with different aspects of time yoga.

Continue reading... 

We also spoke about the power of mentors, how important and meaningful role models are and have been in our lives and for others we know. It's easy to underestimate the power of relationships, and sometimes we don't know it until that person is no longer in our lives. I've had an intense longing to connect with an older male role model for sometime and found a wonderful person in grad school, one of my professors, whose impact continually unfolds each day. I also recalled another professor who died last January after a long struggle with Leukemia, although he did do well after a bone marrow transplant and returned to teaching. I had the great privilege of having three courses with this man: intro to counseling, group counseling, and an independent study in Logotherapy.

In actuality, I did not have a close personal relationship with him, like so many of the other students in the program, but I have been amazed as a flipped through old papers and material from those courses: the man had a major impact on who I am. If you read through posts here at IA, you'll notice a heavy influence of existentialism, which is a direct result of not just knowledge of that, but a real life experience with an individual who lived what that means. There is something that we receive from one another, beyond books, blogs, and articles that touches us deeply, something intangible yet so completely felt and known within us it is undeniable. I hope to be alive and awake to that every single day, because it is rare and precious. Let me say that, as an example, reading Viktor Frankl and Irving Yalom has had a significant impact on me, but it pales in comparison to feeling the presence of someone who embodied what they spoke of. And really, relationships affect us in the subtlest of ways, so I don't think we can go searching for it, we just have to be present.

May we all be present and awake to each other, and may we give and receive each other's gifts without losing ourselves in the process.

Life has a way of coming together sometimes, and around the same time as becoming more reflective of relationships and having a great conversation with Aimee', I became more aware of a great Zaadz pod called Integral Relationships. I think when you go there you'll feel this beautiful integration of theory, which is helpful, with what is more important than theory: life, and in this instance, our relationships, particularly with our partners. I'm looking forward to reading and participating in this pod, a very applicable and relevant discussion group for life.

What is aV-Jam? Musicians collaborate over the web and create music, or they have a Virtual Jam Session, hence V-Jam. 

So, do you V-Jam? I play drums and would love to create some v-jams with fellow Zaadsters (I'm down with lots of styles and genres). Who knows, maybe we can make background music for podcasts on Zaadz Radio?:)

 Here are a couple of V-Jams as examples:

V-Jam with ~C4Chaos.

V-Jam with Umguy.

 Originally posted at Integral Awakening

Introduction and Backpack 

In this multiple part series, I'll show you how to create a sleek online organization system utilizing Backpack, Google Notebook, and Google's Personalized Homepage. Having access to your system wherever you are you'll be able to manage your in-box, projects, and actions. This is Part 1: Introduction and Backpack - managing projects and actions.

Part 2: Google Notebook 

In this post you'll learn how Google Notebook works hand in hand with Backpack as a virtual in-box, a research tool, and a way to channel spontaneous thoughts and flow.

Part 3: Google's Personalized Homepage (+Gmail and Google Calendar)

Now we'll see how Google's Personalized Homepage helps you to bring all of these tools together, including Gmail and Google Calendar. 

How Google Notebook and Backpack Could Rock Even More 

Originally posted on Integral Awakening. 

This is a short post on how you can use Backpack with your partner to make life just a little easier and to free up more time for the important things, you know, snuggling and what not:)

Aimee' and I have created another awesome use for Backpack: coordinating the co-tasky things more smoothly and less hectically. We thought other couples out there might find it useful, so enjoy! (Please see A Complete Online Organization System on how to use Backpack).

We set up a shared page to host our grocery list, household list (non-food items), and a chores list or things we want to do around the apartment. The wonderful thing about this list is either of us can add to it at anytime, wherever we're at (we're both on or near a computer for the majority of the day). Also, either one of us could take care of these things when when we have the time, and having the list available makes this possible. Lastly, the obvious benefit with any readily available list is getting things down before you forget, which takes the pressure off of remembering you need to buy milk:P

Both of us are loving this shared list because of how much easier it is doing the things that we really don't enjoy doing. We'd rather be spending our energy in other ways and our time hanging out together.

For added "fun" you can give the page a fun name. We call our's "Team Oelke". This has become rather helpful in our relationship, especially with dirty work. We now shout "Go Team Oelke!" when working on things and getting them done:) In the past we had a lot more grumbling at each other handling such things!

Hope this is helpful:)

Please, give this a read and give it a try!:)

Yes, I'm that excited about coComment. Ever find yourself unable to remember where you left comments in the blogosphere? Forget to follow up on great conversations? Well, I certainly do. Forget no more! coComment is a super-easy way to keep track of all the comments you leave across the blogosphere. The best way is to use their Firefox extension, which automatically keeps track of your comments without you having to do a thing. (Learn More.)

coComment keeps track of your comments and all responses to the blog post in your account. It's a very nice set up and layout. And guess what else you can do? Tag, tag, tag! Yep, when you leave a comment, you get a prompt to tag the comment, which can be handy if you leave lots of comments, or if you ever want to go back and find a specific comment, but forget where you left it. Plus, we tag just about everything else in the blogosphere, why should comments be any different? And frankly, a good deal of the time, that's where all the action is.

Besides comment tracking, you can subscribe to your comments via rss and receive updates when there are responses. Also, you can share your recent comments, and in addition to that, if you like, the responses of others. I am displaying only my comments in the sidebar. I think this is a fascinating way to tune into ongoing conversations around the blogosphere.

Lastly, I think there's a lot of potential in the social aspect of participating in this site. coComment's explore section shows you the most coCommented articles, coCommented blogs, and the top tags, as well as the top coCommentors. Very neat. Only thing is, we need a LOT more bloggers and readers utilizing this aspect of coComment to be of value.

Anxious Living has officially launched today! This is a group blog I help start with Umguy and Dashh. The blog focuses on social anxiety. Please let others know who might be interested, and any shout outs on your blogs is much appreciated:) From the introduction:

Anxious Living is an exploration into the nature and treatment of social anxiety. As the authors of Anxious Living we write based on our own personal experiences of social anxiety, as well as on formal and informal research. Posts on Anxious Living discuss the experience of social anxiety, in addition to techniques and paths of treatment, both in an objective manner and from individual experience of those techniques and paths. We invite you to join us in this ongoing conversation, whether you yourself struggle with social anxiety, you know someone who does, you are a mental health practitioner, or if you simply have an interest in social anxiety. We encourage you to share your experiences, feelings, thoughts, and ideas in the comment section. Our hope is that this will be a supportive and dynamic site for everyone.

I've decided to blog here at Zaadz, exclusively, on my six-week retreat (at least prior to it). I like the vibe here at Zaadz and it feels right for this. 

Two weeks from tomorrow I leave for a six-week Dzogchen retreat. I am a student of Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche and practicing within his Santi Maha Sangha training. This will be my first extended retreat and I'm very excited and nervous.

I plan on writing a great deal about this retreat over the next two weeks, so feel free to join me in this journey:)

Here are my responses to the Friday Five:)

1. Who/what/where inspires you?

I'm glad this question includes people, things, and places, because I'm inspired by all three. Probably most inspiring is seeing someone truly living there passion. It doesn't matter what they're doing with their life. I know people who absolutley love what they are doing and it shows: speech pathalogists, counselors, computer geeks, artists, life coaches, etc. It only matters that they are completely in line with what they are doing.

My wife, Aimee',  inspires me. She has the biggest heart of anyone I've ever known. She gives me so much energy and encouragement to pursue my dreams. 

All of my friends inspire me.

A good book gets my juices flowin'.

Coffee shops are creative hot spots for me.

I love the mountains, but any spot immersed in nature helps me to clear and open my mind. 

2. Why are there moments we feel completely inspired and moments where that inspiration is gone?

Inspiration is more complex than that, I think. More and more ups and downs with anything seem to go hand in hand, a part of each other. Sometimes the downs are actually charging the ups. Sometimes the downs are ups, but we just don't know it. That doesn't mean we can't be consciously creating inspiration within ourselves or blocking it. just that it's hard to tell. If we pay attention to the answers in the first question, we'll find some insight into our current situation, but avoid the desire to "fix it". Inspiration doesn't work that way. it's more like grace to me.

3.  How do you seek inspiration? How do you (and should you) cope on days where inspiration is lackluster?

I wrote a post on creative conducive conditions for flow state, which has a very strong relationship with inspirations. As I said above I don't think we can "get" inspiration nor "fix" something when we aren't feeling inspired. All we can do is try to create conducive conditions to what it's like when we are inspired. And don't try to hard and have lots of expectations. This is an ongoing and hard lesson for me: don't force it.

4. Go to your profile and look at the list of your heroes, teachers, books, movies and music. (if you haven't created your list, do it now!) Pick out a few that you wish everyone could know about. Why do these inspire you? What makes them so great?

I don't wish everyone could know about what inspires me, if that means something like, "You gotta read this....meet so-and-so!!!". I'm definitely all for putting as much as possible into people's awareness to give them the possibility of connecting with someone or something that might inspire them. And, what's inspiring is relevant to where someone is "at", or I'd say it's a bit complicated.

Everything in my profile resonates with me in some way and on some level. I don't want everyone to know about them. What I want is what Zaadz has: a massive collection of everyone's heroes, teachers, books, movies, and music. Let others browse these and explore. Like the name of this site, these lists are seeds. As an example, Aimee' and I have used the Zaadz favorite movie section as our recommendation list:) we've found great movies that way.

5. Go to Zaadz quotes and find at least five quotes that inspire you, and post them here.

What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.  Viktor Frankl

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. Viktor Frankl

Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex. M. Scott Peck

To utter pleasant words without practicing them, is like a fine flower without fragrance. Buddha

Eternity must be a man’s home, moment by moment. Without it, he is lost always striving, grasping at puffs of smoke. A man must do anything necessary to glimpse, and then stabilize, this ever-fresh realization, and organize his life around it. David Deida from The Way of the Superior Man

Thougths in the past are clear and empty and leave no traces behind.
Thoughts in the future are fresh and unconditioned by anything.
And in the present moment, when your mind remains in its own condition without constructing anything,
Awareness at that moment in itself is quite ordinary.
And when you look into yourself in this way nakedly
(without any discursive thoughts),
Since there is only this pure observing, there will be found a lucid clarity without anyone being there who is the observer,
ONLY A NAKED MANIFEST AWARENESS IS PRESENT.

Self-Liberation Through Seeing With Naked Awareness Guru Padmsambhava

Last two are not in Zaadz, but there two of my favorite quotes. 

As I said, I'l be posting about my six-week retreat over the next...14 days and counting (including today).

As I told one of my supervisors, dropping of the face of the planet for six weeks takes a hell of a lot of preparation. This month has been crazy for me, nothing really to do with the retreat, and I still have a good amount of things to do before I leave. All I want to do now is practice and study, ease the transition between here and retreat. But, I'm pushing through, hopefully I'll have everything under wraps by Monday, which will give me 11 days to devote mostly practice.

One of the biggest things I've had to tackle is my returning from retreat. One week after I return I start school full-time at Naropa, and I start my temp job. Before I leave, I'll have everything in order so I don't have to think or do much when I get back.

Also, you have to prepare for when you're gone - email, mail, things that could come up. Luckily, I have Aimee' to help with that.

Last, and most important, is preparing the logistics of a solitary retreat. More on that in the next post. 

Well, they're not mine, but I will be using a couple from Tsegyalgar during my retreat:)

I finalized my cabin situation while I'm on retreat. For a while it sounded as if i would have to switch cabins 3 or 4 times, which would be, needless to say, disruptive to practice. But it's all good. I will be staying in Rinpoche's cabin from July 7-August 5. After that I will move to the Mandarava cabin during the Santi Maha Sangha teaching retreat. I'll complete the retreat in that cabin August 5-20. I'm very relieved! This is absolutely perfect. There is a central bathhouse, which has a fridge, and is shared by all the cabins (they're in the process of building more cabins). Rinpoche's cabin has a four burner, propane stove, and the Mandarava cabin a two burner. I've never used a propane stove before, but I'm guessing it's not hard:P

Unfortunately, I have no pictures to show you of the cabins. I plan on taking lots of digital pics either before or after my retreat. Mainly I think it will be nice for future retreatants, but also to share when I get back. 

Next on my list is to prepare my food list. Going to keep it as simple as possible.  

In upcoming posts I'll get into more juicier stuff about the retreat itself:) I'll share some info with you about Khandroling, the land itself, and of course, the practice(s) that I will be doing while I'm there.