Week 8, Day 3

[What's this whole Week/Day thing about? Please see my original posting Starting an Exercise Program (again)].

I'm still on vacation at Chautauqua, where it's been very rainy and damp. Hoping for better weather tomorrow.

For the body:
One walks everywhere in Chautauqua. Tonight my pedometer shows 6714 steps.

For the mind:
I attended several lectures today, the most intriging being given by Dharma Singh Khalsa, MD dealing wih scientifically proven ways to reverse brain aging and improve memory using age-old yogic techniques that have unexpected hormonal benefits. Anything that can stave off the ravages of Alzheimer's is worth investigating further and it just so happens that I bought his book, Meditation as Medicine: activate the power of your natural healing force.

For the spirit:
I attended a dharma talk by Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede of the Rochester Zen Center and I'm considering trying to get up for a morning meditation session with him at 7:15 tomorrow. I also walked the Chautauqua labyrinth tonight.

Week 8, Days 1 & 2

[What's this whole Week/Day thing about? Please see my original posting Starting an Exercise Program (again)].

I've been on vacation at the Chautauqua Institution since Saturday. I'm eating very healthy: spinach salads, oat bread ham sandwiches, granola and low fat milk and I'm walking alot to get to the various lectures and symphonies. No formal exericse program, though.

For the body:
Plenty of fresh air, walking and good food.

For the mind:
I attended a lecture entitled "Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business and Bad Medicine" by authors Donald Barlett and James Steele. I also picked up two books at the Chautauqua library: S is for Silence, a mystery by Sue Grafton and Heart Like Water: surviving Katrina and life in its diaster zone.

For the spirit:
20 minutes of mindfulness meditation each night.

Week 7, Day 6 & 7

[What's this whole Week/Day thing about? Please see my original posting Starting an Exercise Program (again)].

Musings: Friday was busy as well, with the additional sad pleasure of taking my student intern, Rachel, out for a farewell luncheon. Saturday was mostly spent being on the Thruway to get to the Chautauqua Institution, so my exercise was abbreviated.

For the body:
On Friday I walked to Wayne Behavioral Health Network to drop off my timesheet for the next week while I would be on vacation. That was approximately 30 mintes of walking. On Satuday, I wore the Eli Lilly pedometer and walked 10,360 steps. (After you unload your car at the Chautauqua institution, you take it off grounds to park for the week. There's little or no motor traffic here. Everyone walks or rides their bikes. I also had the extra benefit of aerobic exercise when I carried our supplies up two flights of stairs to our third floor apartment.

For the mnd:
On Friday I finished reading The Diana Chronicles and continued listening to Tin Roof Blowdown. On Saturday, we finished unpacking and gobbling supper earliy enough to catch the pre-symphony concert lecture by Lee Speers and got to hear directly from the composer of "Night Light", Yanim Leef, and then learned a great deal about Beethoven's use of motif's in his Symphony no, 9.

For the spirit:
On Friday, I fell asleep before completing my mindfulness meditaiton. On Satuday I wouild say that the hour long performancy of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with it's final section "Ode to Joy" more than counts for a true connection to spirituality.

Week 7, Day 5

[What's this whole Week/Day thing about? Please see my original posting Starting an Exercise Program (again)].

For the body:
I was crunched for time today what with working all day, rushing off to get a much needed perm from the Headlines talented stylist, Pat Mac Dougall, and then off to grocery shop and get ready for my week vacation at Chautauqua. I elected to count the 30 minutes at Bob's Big M pushing a shopping cart as the 30 minutes of aerobic exercise needed for today. I postponed today's strength and flexibility training.

For the mind:
I read several more chapters of The Diana Chronicles and listened to more of Audible.com's audiobook, Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke.

For the spirit:
Nothing like multi-tasking! While waiting for the 1st perm solution to set, I used the twenty minutes for metta meditation.

Week 7, Day 4

[What's this whole Week/Day thing about? Please see my original posting Starting an Exercise Program (again)].

For the body:
A day of rest!!!!

For the mind:
I began to explore Facebook in more depth. I invited several more individuals to join and now have a total of 9 friends. Wooo Hooo! I also continued to listen to my Audible.com book, Tin Roof Blowdown.

For the spirit:
A half hour of metta (loving kindness or friendship) meditation, where one begins by wishing for the following for oneself:

May I live in safety.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I live with ease.

After doing that for awhile, one then wishes the above for a benefactor, then for a friend, then for a neutral person (one for whom you have neither positive nor negative feelings) and then for someone disliked. Eventually, one wishes the above for all creatures (self included).

It was a nice change from attempting to watch my breath.

Week 7, Day 3

What's this whole Week/Day thing about? Please see my original posting Starting an Exercise Program (again).

For the body:
Thirty minutes on the treadmill, walking at 2.1 miles per hour while watching the PBS show, Origins.

For the mind:
As I noted above, I watched the acclaimed PBS show, Origins, Episode Two: How Life Began. I found it fascinating to learn that we might owe our very existence to a byproduct of bacteria

"...It's amazing to contemplate, but without cyanobacteria, there would be no oxygen and Earth would still be smothered in noxious gases. Plants, animals and humans would have never evolved..."

(From Origins: How Life Began.)

For the mind:I only managed ten minutes or so of mindfulness meditation. Partly because of our pets and partly because of an allergy headache.

Week 7, Day 2

What this Week/Day thing all about? Please see my initial posting Starting an Exercise Program (again).

For the body:
Two sets of 10 repetitions of strength exercises using a 2.5 pound weight. Two sets of 25 repetitions of situps; two sets of 15 repetitions of back exercises; and two sets of 25 repetitions of leg extensions.

For the mind:
I started listening to another books from Audible.com, Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke. He's the first fiction writer I know of to write about New Orleans and the surrounding area post Katrina and he's doing it with a gut wrenching honesty.

For the spirit:
Twenty minutes of mindfulness meditation with my cat, Zak.

Week 7, Day 1

For the body:
Thirty minutes on the treadmill while watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica on my iPod. (It's amazing how fast time can pass that way!) Flexibility exercises completed as well.

For the mind:
I continued to peruse The Diana Chronicles and have been listening to Librivox's mp3 file recording of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, just because.

For the spirit:
Twenty minutes of mindfulness meditation.

Week 6, Days 6 & 7

For the body:
Thirty minutes on the treadmill watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica on my iPod on Friday. Saturday was another day of rest. Next week the intensity of exercise increases to two sets of strength exercises and additional days of aerobic and flexibility exercise.

For the mind:
Listening to some podcasts from Fora.tv about web 2.0 as well as reading several more chapters of The Diana Chronicles.

For the spirit:
Twenty minutes of Meditation on Hindrances last night and 20 minutes of mindfulness meditation with the cat on my meditation cushion.

Week 6, Day 5

For the body:
I did both the strength and flexibility exercises tonight and tried to convince myself that grocery shopping equated aerobic exercise. (I know that it didn't as I didn't break a sweat.)

For the mind:
I finished listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yesterday and can breathe a sigh of relief that I got through it before inadvertently learning the ending. It was a "ripping good" listen. Highly recommended. I also read several chapters of The Diana Chronicles.

For the spirit:
Made the mistake of attempting to meditate while lying in bed. (P.S. That's a quick and easy method for falling asleep.)

Week 6, Day 4

For the body:
A day of rest from aerobic, strength or flexibility exercises. I also went to bed early.

For the mind:

I picked up a reserved book at the Lyons Public Library, The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown and dipped into it briefly. I'm also on the seventeenth and final CD of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

For the spirit:
I went out to the gazebo with my basset, Zeke, and meditated for almost 20 minutes. He is incredibly hyperactive for a seven year old dog and simply cannot sit still for long, particularly when chipmunks saunter by.

Week 6, Day 3

For the body:
Thirty minutes walking on the treadmill at 2.1 miles per hour for a total distance of 1.05 miles.

For the mind:
While walking the treadmill noted above, I watched the first episode of Origins on WXXI, my local PBS station. I had no idea how far geology, volcanism and the earth sciences had progressed since my 9th grade science class back in 1965. Terms such as "magma ocean" and "iron catastrophe" and concepts such as the bulk of the earth's oceans being created by the impact of huge, frozen snowballs known as comets helped the 30 minutes on the treadmill go quickly.

For the spirit:
Twenty minutes spent sitting on my upstairs meditation cushion listening to my cat meow up at me.

Week 6, Day 2

For the body:
Approximately 10 minutes of strength exercises.

For the mind:
Further exploration of the veritable tome, Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson.


For the spirit:
Twenty minutes of mindfulness meditation on my upstairs cushion. I also found an interesting meditation, "The Way of Cats", given the propensity of my cat, Zak, to want to sit when me when I meditate. It's an excerpt from Interluderetreat.com

Some people make meditation complicated. They think it must be done according to a technical prescription. The posture must be just so. The hands must be held just so. The proper mantra must be recited. The incense must be lit. All the equipment must be placed correctly. Their cats, on the other hand, meditate just fine without any instruction and in the most varied circumstances.

A cat will sit and stare at a spot on the floor or out the window and be completely transfixed. They require no preparation for this. They have total concentration, minds empty of worry or care. Nobody forces them to this contemplation. They have no superego harrying them to do their duty. Perhaps because they are predators, they have the gift of natural, relaxed, alertness and focus.

Cats have the ability to take joy in simple things. They eat. They play. They give and take affection. They do their duty of protecting the household from small moving things, because that is what they are drawn to do.

There is nothing complicated in the world of a cat. No one needs to tell them when to go to sleep, and when they awaken, they stretch their muscles in a natural yoga that no one had to teach them. When they move, cats step softly and move swiftly, or oh so slowly, as the situation requires. Their stealth is the envy of the greatest ninja. As Doris Lessing said, "If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then a cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air."

Week 6, Day 1

Well, I missed several days of exercising, it was just too hot and muggy. And then I somehow threw my back out. Excuses, excuses, I know. I did do my mindfulness meditation, however.

For the body;
I walked just over 1 mile on the treadmill at 2.1 miles per hour and I will do the flexibility exercises after posting this.

For the mind:
I listened to several podcasts from The Classic Tales with B.J. Harrison, "The Lost Phoebe" by Theodore Drieser and Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Redheaded League".

For the spirit:
I spent some time with friends at a chicken barbeque.

Week 5, Day 3

For the body:
Thirty minutes on the treadmill, walking at 2.1 mph.

For the mind:
I stretched my brain muscles by beginning to learn my way around Facebook. I was invited to be friends there by my niece, Robyn, and my student intern, Rachel. I also found another niece who is living in Florida. I planted two flowers in my online "garden" there and will send flowers to Robyn when she accepts the garden invitation.

For the spirit:
Twenty minutes of mindfulness meditation (following the breath) sitting on my library futon between Zeke and Zak.