“Make Good Art!” – Neil Gaiman

Much thanks to Joel Zaslofsky from The Value of Simple  for turning me on to this:

Neil Gaiman addressing the University of the Arts (Philadelphia) Class of 2012…

“Make Good Art!”

Neil Gaiman is only one of the most brilliant, original, life-inspiring fiction writers I know of … He wrote among other things: “Coraline”, “American Gods”,  “Neverwhere” (with Terry Pratchett), and DC’s “Sandman” comics.

This message is for everybody, not just “artists” or “creatives” – we ALL could benefit from spotting our mountain and heading for it on purpose, every day of our lives.

If  you’re sleep-walking through your life (like I did for so many years) I hope this helps to inspire you to Wake Up!

 

 

Aaahhh! Fairyland…

Cast some eye-ttention on these marvelous photos ~

http://digitalphoto.cocolog-nifty.com/digitalphoto/cat4164851/index.html 

I found them on Pinterest, thanks to Beth’s comment at Bridget P’s Color of the Year post. One of these is on her board, and I followed *it* home

The source-site seems to be in Japanese, so all I know (for sure) is that they were taken with a Nikon camera.

Beth captioned it as a “Long exposure photo during firefly season in Okayama, Japan.”  That’s no doubt a fact… though I see Fairyland, as captured by Gustav Klimt ~

Do remember to come back to earth eventually, please …

 

Happy New Year!

(Truth be told, this is as much for me as for all of you ~ and it’s swiped from a wonderful sales page(!) that Ariane Benefit sent out this morning. )

Every new year brings with it an opportunity for a fresh start.  As you are reflecting, I hope you find yourself delighted by the progress you have made in your life in the past year.

My personal benchmark is to look for not only “what” I’ve accomplished, but also at “who” I’ve become.

Have I become

• a little wiser?  more peaceful?
• a little more patient? more compassionate?
• a little kinder to myself and others?
• a little more accepting of my new normal as each year of aging affects my body?

I know I’ll never be perfect and in fact, I no longer even want to be!  I’ve found that what I used to think of as my weaknesses (like not having a biological clock, or not following orders well) are actually what makes it possible for me to deeply connect with people and be forgiving and compassionate.  They are actually my sources of strength.  Each little struggle makes me that much stronger.

There is no healing for the holes in your soul like being able to see yourself as you are and liking what you see.

In 2013, my deepest wish for you is to have lots of moments every day where you stop for a minute, pause the endless stream of what isn’t done yet, and just give yourself credit.

• Credit for all that you are putting up with.
• Credit for all that you are going through, and
• Credit for somehow still being a caring, giving, creative and generous person who is always ready to help someone in need.

Find out more about Ariane and her new AgiliZen program at arianebenefit.com/agilizen/

~~~

My wishes for us all in 2013 ~

• May you feel the Love you are surrounded by with an open heart
• May you be Gentle with yourself and with others
• May you see the Beauty that is in the World with new eyes
• May you Grow in wonderful and unexpected ways

Bright Blessings, my dears!

 

 

 

The Hooker’s Hundred Bucks – a parable

This was originally posed as an economics question, about “Who made a profit?”   My take on it: This is a quintessential Win-Win-Win! (and a parable about ‘spend local’, perhaps? … and how money moves.)

A business man walks into a hotel, puts a hundred dollar bill on the counter and says “Id like to see a room, to see if it’s suitable.”

After the man goes upstairs, the hotel owner quickly takes the hundred dollar bill and goes to pay a debt to a butcher who supplies meat to his restaurant next door.

The butcher takes the hundred dollar bill to his feed supplier and gives it to him for feed for his pigs.

The feed supplier then takes the hundred dollar bill to a hooker he’s been seeing and settles his debt with her.

The hooker owes the hotel owner money for rooms she’s been renting. She immediately goes and puts the hundred dollar bill on the counter.

The business man comes downstairs and takes his hundred dollar bill back because he didn’t want the room.

~~~

The business man got his hundred dollars back; 4 people are out of debt; and

- the butcher sold his meat for more than it cost to raise
- the feed supplier sold his feed for more than it cost to grow
- the hotel made money when it rented the room to the hooker
- and the feed supplier got his money’s worth in pleasure.  Hooray!

I was trying to think of this story, just before I read Dave Kaiser’s Dark Matter blog. Delightful serendipity, don’chya think?

 

It’s Time to Find Your Color…

Bridget Pilloud just announced the ground rules for her annual “Color of The Year” readings ~

http://www.intuitivebridge.com/color-of-the-year-2013/

It’s easy:

1) Find your color (there’s a guided meditation, if you’d like, at her place)

2) Make a donation – anywhere you want

3) Let her know all about it, on her December 31st post

4) Let other folks know about it, too, wherever you hang out in the www-world…

The first 50 commenters will get a color reading posted in the early weeks of January.

 

The Birthday Story

‘Tis time once again for Unka Ioseph to tell

    “Hey! Wake up there!”

The Fool opened His eyes, stretched, and rolled over on the soft grass of the Summerland.

“I suppose you’re talking to me?” he murmured.

“I certainly am!” The Lady, shimmering in Her Aspect as the Goddess of Love, smiled at Him. Had He been human, that smile would have sent Him into a transport of happiness. As it was, He felt a little shiver of joy run on catfeet down his spine.

“What’s up?” He got to His feet, brushing back his hair.

“What’s up? WHAT’S UP?” The Lady looked at Him in disbelief. “Dummy! It’s almost Your birthday!”

The Fool looked puzzled for a moment. “My birthday? I thought We have been…..for always…..We don’t -have- birthdays, do we?”

The Lady grinned, shifting into the Nymph for a delightful moment. “No, we don’t, but Humanity likes to give Us birthday parties, and yours is probably the biggest…..so you need to get moving!”

“So I do! And this Aspect is probably one of my favorites!” The Fool jumped in the air, landing on His hands in a perfect handstand with a jingling of bells. Then he took His hands off the ground, and hung suspended, upside down, in mid-air. One leg was folded at the knee.

“Can You stand on Your head?” He grinned.

“Not with -this- dress on!” She laughed.

Humming a tuneless melody. the Fool strode thru Summerland, and thru the cloudy space between the Worlds of the MultiVerse, finally ending up on a small, very green-and-blue planet that the natives called “the Earth.”

“It’s My Birthday a-comin’!” He shouted, and there was a stirring, and a movement. The Life that was locked in the grip of Winter remembered that Spring would come, as it always will, and the half of the world that was in Summer gave a little quiver of happiness.

He went to a Place, and put on the suit, and the Aspect to fit it. He hitched the nine animals to His sleigh, grooming them with loving hands. Then He loaded it with gifts for all the people of the Earth. He was helped by quite a lot of the smaller elves, who found the game most enjoyable. Most of these gifts were toys, but many of them were practical, useful things.
Some, like Love, and Peace, and Happiness, were quite insubstantial….but they were His Gifts nonetheless.

He laughed. No longer slim, but chunky (if not fat), and dressed in a red suit lined with white fur, His laughter was a “Ho! Ho! Ho!” of gladness that rolled over the Earth.

He spent the next instant of Time (“And what a clever concept Time is,” He thought in self-congratulation) delivering His gifts, riding the sleigh to the music of tiny bells thru the night.

“Good Yule! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukka! Io Saturnalia! Hail Mithras! Welcome Cernunnos!” He shouted.

“And a Happy Birthday to Me,” He added under His breath, with a grin.

He landed the sleigh, and unhitched His animals. Each one was Named, and each one nuzzled Him as an old friend. The last was younger than the rest, and full of energy, bounding across the Place like a puppy in a warm kitchen. The red light from his nose reflected on the snow, and gave a joyful light that lit the sky in a glowing aurora.

The Fool laughed at the sight, and hung up His suit. Still smiling, He took off the Aspect, and returned to the Summerland over the paths He knew so well.

“Well,” She said, “Did everything go all right?”

The Fool leaned back against a tree and watched a butterfly land on His nose. “Yep. Got all My presents delivered. Did the usual sleigh- and-reindeer thing with the red suit and all…..great fun! I sure like to see the children happy.”

“Well, You sure are bass-ackwards sometimes!” The Lady shook Her finger at Him in mock anger.

“Huh? Whattya mean?” The Fool was puzzled.

“Well….everybody else -gets- presents for their birthdays. You gotta reverse it and give presents away!”

The Fool giggled, and said, “That’s my Nature, dearest. By the way, your fly’s open.”

The Lady looked down and reached to zip up Her fly, and then did a perfect double-take.

“But….I don’t -have- a fly!”

And the Fool leaned back against the World Tree and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Thus it was, and so it is, and evermore shall be so!

~~~

J. Bethancourt
Uligershin

www.WhiteTreeAZ.com

 

Collected Wisdom for Friday 12-7-12

Another “Just DO it” post … not giving myself time to second guess and then postpone posting!

A couple of verrrry interrrresting-looking books:

“The Luck Factor” by   Dr Richard Wiseman

http://www.actionablebooks.com/summaries/the-luck-factor/

Written by my friend, Joel D Canfield: “…most of us believe there’s nothing we can do about {our luck}. And Dr. Richard Wiseman is here to tell you that’s wrong.

Luck, it turns out, can be changed. It can be controlled. Luck is a skill you can learn and a tool you can apply in business, in life.

~~~

From the same site (Actionable Books. com) ~ http://www.actionablebooks.com/summaries/brand-it-aint-the-logo-its-what-people-think-of-you/

“Brand: It Ain’t the Logo…” by    Ted Matthews

This one jumped out at me because I’ve been running into questions and classes and doubts about “Personal Branding” all over the place, lately. It also helps answer that perennial question: “What d’you do, anyway?”!

~~~

I honestly cannot remember how I first came to Lia’s place – just last Tuesday! Following commenters home again, methinks…

http://theotherviewfromthewindow.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/basic-rules-for-any-society/   What do *your* Basic Rules look like?

~~~

“Frame it as a prototype or “beta testing” and you’ve got permission to start the thing you’ve been putting off.”

~ From Michael Bungay Stanier, via his inspiring Great Work Provocations: http://www.boxofcrayons.biz/free/great-work-provocations/

~~~

And a Friday Funny from Nancy at Spirit Lights the Way: http://nrhatch.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/ponderable-ponderisms/

Love and Bright Blessings, all!   ~ Karen

~~~

Whoops – forgot one!  http://TheSoulMap.com/ The bee-you-tee-full all-new launched-last-week site of my Stars-Mentor Lissa Boles. Good for all you/us Aspiring, Growing and even Established Entrepreneurs out there – If you’ve ever wondered what “the stars” have to say about and do with what’s going on around you, but don’t want to “learn a whole new language” in order to understand it, Lissa’s a fabulous resource! She does the translating (behind the scenes) and just tells us ‘what it means’. No geek-speak unless you really want it, and then it’s kept to a bare minimum. Love this Lady!

 

 

Resentments and Distractions…

I resent the costs (time, energy and/or money) of living within both my values and my limitations – a lot.

Of course, I also yearn to Avoid Overwhelm, but the over-thinking that I do – in order to ACHIEVE that – leads to its own special kind of Overwhelm.

And then, I resent how easily distracted I am. Talk about yer non-productive roundy-rounds -

~~~

The list of things that I’d choose to do or not, if given the choice (which means I have to decide every time!) is huge. I’m trying to systematize my decision-making {link to Joel’s post} more of these, but so many come under “It depends…”. And my ADD-ish brain keeps coming up with more conflicts that add to the ‘it depends’ list.

~~~

Intellectually, I *know* all the tips and hints and platitudes folks talk about do work. But I need to be able to see the minute, step-by-step, check-off-able “what do I do next?” bits, and trying to figger ‘em out for myself often leads to reinventing the wheel. (Then I catch myself doing that, and go through a session of ‘beating myself up’ for not skipping it in the first place, and then ‘accepting that I’ve done it again’, and, and … now it’s 5 hours later, already!) Do ya see what I did there?

~~~

I’m easily distracted by: feeling cold. being hungry. being thirsty. feeling inefficient (causing duplication of effort – mine or others’). needing sleep.  being confused. not understanding the why, the how, or the priority of a project.  too many “high priority” parts. not enough time. no “extra” money. not enough money to begin with. clutter (visual). clutter (energy). the “stingies”. other people’s issues. “I wanna do (something else)”. “I don’wanna do (this)”. technical difficulties. wandering thoughts. dirty dishes. too many decisions to make before I can even get started. forgetting where I was, before I got distracted.

~~~

… This post is a direct result of wrestling with somebody else’s spreadsheet-as-delivery-route, with DIY maps. That I only deal with quarterly. AND that isn’t accurately updated (by them) in between. So, I have to re-create/re-do most of it, every damn time! (Boy-howdy, do I resent the hell out of that!) 

I’ll probably edit the heck out of this later, but I want/need to feel like I got *something* done today, even if it isn’t what I really *need* to get done, so here it comes…

 

Scatter Joy

Reblogged from Spirit Lights The Way:

What is Joy?  Where can we find it?  How can we share it?  Is it Peace?   Harmony?  An overwhelming feeling of complete and utter well-being?

In this tiny Treasury of Wisdom, the editors of The Secrets of Joy share quotes from around the globe and across the millenia to encourage us to find Joy for ourselves and share Joy with others:

Read more… 157 more words

This beautiful book cover caught my eye, and the post has caught my heart ~ Thanks, Nancy!

 

Self-Care Rocks! (and Pays, too)

This week, I really wanted to spend some time with a friend who was coming through town for a couple of hours, on a day I was scheduled to work. (Part time, temporary, important, but I’m essentially a cog).

I didn’t actually realize how much my Soul needed to see him, until I was relating the “but I can’t because of work…” to someone else, and started crying!

Wise Jessi said “Wow! You really do need to have some face time, don’t you?” Me: “Yes!!! And an organic hug, not just a virtual one!”   “But it would cost me a lot of dollars that I need, to take the day off.” (Notice the true-but-fuzzy-ness of that objection?)

When I got off the phone, I decided to count what it would *truly cost* (wages + parking or train and bus + lunch = $75) and weighed that against how bad I was feeling at the prospect of missing him, and gave myself permission to give “calling off” a shot.

Within 20 minutes of making that calculation (hadn’t even made any phone calls to find a replacement, yet), I got a call from a client asking what I’d charge to do a tiny job for her, very soon.

“I’ll be coming into the city tomorrow anyway. Why I don’t I bring my kit and do it on site? Does $25 sound like a doable price for you?”

“Oh yes! That would be terrific!” Plans were made, and the dollar-cost of my day off was down to only $50 already.

I talked to the boss then and he said that “We actually have extra people scheduled for Thursday, so Go! Do what you’ve gotta do.” (This was an ‘Unexplained No’ on my part, BTW – I didn’t tell him it was a mental health day or anything of the sort, just that I needed to go into the City in the morning. ) (The gist: “No is a complete sentence. You don’t have to explain or justify or apologize. Just say it when you mean it” ~ Jon Acuff)

When I walked into the coffee shop, G hugged me and held me tight for a long time (first Score, and the original point of this exercise, remember?), then handed me $75 cash, as my percentage of his CD sales last month (second Score! and I’m now up $25 for the day). A delightful day was had (Caribou Coffee is excellent, for the record), and I was reminded of how much I enjoy the energy of the Loop. I made a donation at the cashier, and later gave the kid who asked for a dollar to “help get a ticket home” the whole ten bucks he needed so he didn’t have to keep begging (clearly painful for him). (What goes around comes around, you know?)

When I got to Julia’s, her partner greeted me with “I have another commission for you, if you’re interested…” (totally Bonus Score! + the $25 for the original project). “Yes!”, plus I made a time-line-commitment that won’t strain my schedule.

~ And had dinner with another friend + left-overs for tonight.

~ Plus a blog post, too complete in and of itself to put into Drafts.

All-in-all, Thursday was a huge WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN ~ mentally, emotionally and financially, for me and my friends. What a wonderful world.

~~~~~

Thanks to Shanna and Cordelia and Erin and Dave and Ken for the constant blog-reminders of these truths.
Have you proven something beautiful to yourself lately, that you’ve been resisting? Feel free to crow about it ~