Replacing Feelings with Words

Note to self: Let me daughter wonder sometimes too without putting words to everything.

“Culture replaces authentic feeling with words. As an example of this, imagine an infant lying in its cradle, and the window is open, and into the room comes something, marvelous, mysterious, glittering, shedding light of many colors, movement, sound, a tranformative hierophany of integrated perception and the child is enthralled and then the mother comes into the room and she says to the child, “that’s a bird, baby, that’s a bird,” instantly the complex wave of the angel peacock irridescent transformative mystery is collapsed, into the word. All mystery is gone, the child learns this is a bird, this is a bird, and by the time we’re five or six years old all the mystery of reality has been carefully tiled over with words. This is a bird, this is a house, this is the sky, and we seal ourselves in within a linguistic shell of disempowered perception, and what the psychedelics do is they burst apart this cultural envelope of confinement and return us really to the legacy and birthright of the organism.” Terence McKenna

The Discipline a Child Brings

A Dad’s Morning Schedule in the First 6 Months

A Child is the ultimate disciplinarian. With our daughters grand entrance, we have been forced to change our ways. Where there was disorder, there is now order. Where there was order, there is now disorder. And, we would not have it any other way.  I want to spend so much more time with Lila than is feasible, so instead I have had to become more disciplined.

The morning schedule:

5:30 to 5:45AM: Wake up and take Lila to her daytime crib. We do this so Sarika can get 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

5:45 to 6:45AM: Coffee; Meditation; Read something positive (right now it is Brian Johnson’s Optimize +1); Be a paranoid parent and keep checking to make sure Lila is okay

6:45 to 7:15AM: Morning movement

7:15 to 7:30: Shower and get ready

7:30 to 8:15AM: Wake Lila; Change diaper; and, Feed

8:15AM: Hand off Lila to Sarika

So far, the above schedule seems to be what generally is needed, but everyday things change. Sometimes Lila sleeps in a little, and other times not as much. I am learning to roll with the changes, and cultivating acceptance where I can’t do what I want to do.

I am lucky, Lila is a sweet calm baby, and Sarika somehow takes care of so many things with her epic multi-tasking skills.