à la carte spirit by ilona fried
Obsession
What’s Crazy? Who’s Crazy? On Feldenkrais, Israel, Self-Image
How would you protect yourself if a crazy person attacked you with a knife? It’s a question many of us have never needed to consider. But it was a question Moshe Feldenkrais had to answer when, as an early settler in what was then Palestine, Arabs frequently attacked Jews, who were forbidden by the British Mandate from carrying weapons. … Continue reading
Feldenkrais and Food: When Old Habits Die Hard
San Francisco, a foodie paradise, is the location of my Feldenkrais program. The training venue is sandwiched between two streets, Geary Boulevard and Clement Street, both chock full of food, mostly Russian grocery stores and bakeries, mom and pop fruit and vegetable markets, and a plethora of ethnic eateries (Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Burmese and more), many of … Continue reading
Budapest: Beauty or Beast?
It’s Halloween, a chance to contemplate what is more creepy: a truly beautiful person masquerading as a hideous beast, or an attractive costume that camouflages beastly hate? Two very different news items on Hungary, one on beauty, the other on beastliness, grabbed my attention in the last week. The first, the results of a Conde … Continue reading
Diagnosis: Spiritual Whiplash
What’s “spiritual whiplash”? In my case, snapping from deep gratitude to intoxicating greed in less time than it takes to say namaste. The gratitude: As I wrote here (“Cents and Sensible Shoes”) I worried I’d be stuck wearing closed-toed shoes all summer since I need to use orthotics all the time. When I learned that … Continue reading
What Does Your Wallet Say About You?
Around ten years ago, at a networking event for life coaches and those curious about the field, the facilitator asked us to exchange wallets with a partner. Then he instructed us to, after a brief inspection, share our intuitions and insights about each other. Whether the wallet was the finest grosgrain leather, a synthetic knockoff … Continue reading
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