Immovable Wisdom

"It is very important to develop a state of mind called "immovable wisdom." It means having fluidity around an unmoving center, so that your mind is clear and ready to direct its attention wherever it may be needed." - Takuan


Conquer distractions today. Observe how your mind wanders.

Watch your mind flow. Do you find the thoughts creative or judgmental?

Find a focus and let your mind run its route.

Take a few moments to feel Gratitude.

Exercise your sense of smell and remain alert to changes during its saturation.









Listen to the day's cacophony. Turn it into a symphony.

What's Right

Once in a yoga class our instructor had us hold poses longer. In the middle of an intense "hold" he suggested we focus on what we were doing right.

It seems rare these days that anyone asks us to do focus on right. The media blitzes us with broken aspects of life and what needs fixing. Has America become a disability culture? Why do we need a disease-based model to describe aspects of our society?  Do we even have a model of right?

Thomas Armstrong in his book, Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia and Other Brain Differences, suggests that instead of calling the above "conditions" dysfunctional, we should view them as aspects of the brain's function. He focuses on the brain as an ecosystem rather than a machine.

Brain differences among individuals become as essential and enriching as differences among plants and animals. He would like to use the concept of neurodiversity to reverse the trend to medicalize and patholgize people who respond differently to life's challenges.

Armstrong says, "Knowing we are all connected to each other just like ecosystems means we need to have a greater tolerance for those who neurological systems are organized differently."

Funding for brain research deals with what's wrong with the left hemisphere of the brain. Armstrong indicates, "Little research, however, exists on an area in the right hemisphere that processes loose word associations and may be the source of poetic inspiration,"

He hopes researchers, teachers and families will assist these "labeled individuals" to discover their places in the web of life rather than to let them exist as outcasts with dysfunctions. They need to learn what they are doing right.

Spend a day acknowledging what's right about your experiences, challenges, and writing.

Focus on what you do right.

Numbers for Football Season

  

With Ducks football season only four days away, I push my creative juices and wander into the numbers game along with writing. Each year new players arrive and I have to discover ways to remember their names. At our house, we use telling time to assist the process.

If you're a football fan, use this technique to learn your players' numbers.

Here's what I suggest to my Duck fans.  

Learn to tell time by Duck players' numbers.

So, it’s 5 am and you used to bound out of the bed Springs. Now you Taj (5) it. You check email by Jaylon Redd (30). At Nelson (6) you are in the shower until about Juwaan Williams (17) or even Royce Freeman (21). Out the door with Ugo (7) and at work or first class by Marcus (8).

Continue on through the day. By Justin Herbert and Ty Griffin(10) it’s coffee time. At Braxton Burmeister and Justin Hollins (11) your stomach is grumbling. Finally with Taylor Allie (12) you grab a meal.

Back to work at Springs (1). By Springs and Mariota (44) you check for Duck news.

The day continues past Tyree Robinson (2), Jonah Moi (3) and Thomas Graham(4). Back to Taj (5) means you’re ready for home.

Play around with the larger numbers to add spice to your communication system.

Start today and ask your friends to meet you at Nelson (6) and Troy Dye (35). They may respond that they will make it by Apelu (39) or it might take them until Throckmorton (54).

When you finally connect, suggest a visit to the Wild Duck to tip a few and figure out ways to learn the numbers after 60.

If you're not a football fan,  have a playful day with numbers in Kre8tv ways.

Artist of Life

The artist of life
         opens shutters
  listens for the shadow bounce
       to taste
           a flight of letters.   

We absorb life in three ways: visually, auditorially and kinesthetically. The intuition gains access through all that passes near and through the senses. Everyone has a natural focus on one area that stimulates before the others.

This shift of awareness into the other areas adds texture to writing.  It assists receptivity and exercises the ability to nudge intuition.

Mix and match and taste the air.

Expand the potential of your authentic voice by spending time exercising the areas you do not normally access first.  

For a week write one day from sight, one from sound, another from body sensations.  Incorporate all at the end of the week.

Become an artist of life.

Kindle Self Esteem

A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke. - Vincent Van Gogh

True contentment ignites from the inside out, regardless of the audience.

Self-esteem kindles and nourishes beyond the insecurities of narcissism.

Arrows of awareness fire toward the bull’s eye of balance.

Life’s opportunities often surprise within an ember’s smoke.

A smile lights the process.

Gifts of kindness and generosity glow with actions to reveal them.

We possess ways to trigger power and intensity to accomplish our goals.

A sense of humor enlightens during stressful events.

Victories in daily life need flames of applause from the interior first. Then we can share the knowledge gained.

Reconceive with Creativity

How many ways could you use a pine cone? Make connections beyond the obvious and pursue innovations. 

In Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson documents how pathbreaking innovations derive from inventors’ ability to notice previously unrecognized connections between related fields.

Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press developed from his understanding of the screw press in wine-making and his understanding of metal-typeface design. When he connected the synergies of two fields, he conceived the printing press.  

Creativity reveals the potential to make connections and conversions. Ideas move from abstract to concrete and weave possibilities.

Reconceive a pine cone and innovate beyond the shape and texture. What productive use follows?

Try for five.

Would the cone's scales become replacements for a disabled turtle's shell?

Turn them into nail files for a group of gray squirrels.

Use them above windows to capture bird droppings.

Tune the scales for a rendition of your favorite song.

Combine with . . . ?

Play with pine cone reconceptions. Recycle. Reuse. Replenish.

The Nature of Language

"Language is crucial to how we perceive the natural world. Help me to find better ways of describing nature and our relationships with it so we can better defend it." - George Monbiot


George Monbiot feels ecologists should recruit poets, nature lovers, and cognitive linguists to find words for what they cherish.

He says, "If we called protected areas “places of natural wonder,” we would not only speak to people’s love of nature, but also establish an aspiration that conveys what they ought to be."

Monbiot wants to stop using the word environment, and use terms such as “living planet” and “natural world." He promotes word pictures of concepts and descriptions so we pay more attention to what we admire. He says, "We are blessed with a wealth of nature and a wealth of language. Let us bring them together and use one to defend the other." 

Robert Macfarlane's Landmarks, described as, "a celebration and defense of the language of landscape," enriches our ways of seeing. To know the words 'currel' (an East Anglian term for a small stream), or 'drindle' (a diminutive run of water, smaller than a currel), Macfarlane moves us into a new relationship with the natural world.

He explains that using descriptive words makes us more perceptive, more attentive. Then we develop the vision to care for rivers, bison, and the windy uplands where our rare birds shelter.  Macfarlane points out, "'Smeuse' is a dialect noun for "Gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal." He says, "Now I know the word I will notice these signs of creaturely movement more often."

A combination of optimism and realistic thinking helps us navigate through life.

Realistic thinking reveals a way of supporting optimism with the action needed to create a positive future.




When you happen upon words that send negative images. Start thinking of a positive idea and find another word to replace the negative.

The next time you hear the word 'climate change,' discover a metaphor to describe it. Rather than considering it as a break down find ways to see it as a evolution. In what ways will human creativity assist the earth to a new level of development? 

When you approach negative words, turn them around. Use sounds and keep going.

Push hate into interrogate and stipulate, then funambulate.

Never flows into whenever and forever to fine.

War shoots into stars and wonder.

View a mess as a melody and sing.

When a word that causes anger or frustration appears, search for the first positive word that you can think of and continue.

Chuckle and push your imagination to its limitless possibilities.

Essence of the Eclipse

The Diamond Ring Effect

"The eclipse brought this country together in a day of celebration. It was a moment when large and small groups of people could gather together for the experience of joy and amazement in seeing the eclipse.The diamond ring effect that the eclipse showed seemed to symbolize the uniting of the people in love and celebration just like at a wedding ceremony." - Jim Leonard, photographer

Photographer, Jim Leonard continued, "People of all religions, races and different political views arrived. It was a nice break in the daily news reports of political turmoil, terrorist attacks and other bad news. The diamond ring effect of the eclipse should remind us of the circle of love that should continue between all the people of this nation and the world. Only Love can overcome hate."

 

The natural world reveals circles in a variety of colors and textures. It helps us focus on collaboration. 

During the eclipse, individuals showed each other ways to see the sun and moon in action. In addition to photographs, they used holes in paper to shine images of the stages. They crafted ways to view in cereal boxes and used selfies to reflect the event. 

Creativity abounded.  

Nature encourages imagination each day. 

Let the eclipse's aura linger by noticing scents, sights, and sounds that nature excites. 

Share your amazement.

Find time to take a walk in nature with loved ones and friends. Keep the conversations focused on what works in nature and how to translate that energy in your own lives.




Victor Hugo wrote, "All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul."

Let Creativity Shine

Begin a day of creative capture.

             Look up to discover shapes and shadows. 

                                Let the FUN begin.

Find a fragrance that's hiding. 

What's a metaphor for a bee on a bud?

Silliness energizes the brain.  
Adapt warning signs to engage laughter.

If you see a hole in 
your life, dig for treasure.

Observations in upward slants and sideways glances provide nuances.         

                            Launch them into a variety of perspectives. 

"We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."  - Abraham Lincoln 

Turn difficult thoughts around for a renewed vision.  

Let the creative ideas flash and fire to diminish frustrations.

               

When sunset arrives, design a creation for what you observed.

Curiosity Calls

The important thing is not to stop questioning. 

Curiosity has its own reason for existing.  - Albert Einstein

At the Seattle airport, I followed a school of metal fish embedded in the floor that led to my gate. One fish appeared with a suitcase. How many travelers have noticed this fellow? I had to take a photograph.

Endowed with curiosity, everything in life becomes possible. Linked with optimism and creativity, curiosity pushes limits.

Ways to heighten your natural gift of curiosity:

1. Stay open to possibilities. Nurture the ability to change your mind, unlearn and relearn.

2. Ask questions like a reporter: Who, What, Why, When, Where, How? Don't feel content with easy answers. Ask more questions.

3. Curious individuals never feel bored. Take advantage of 'empty time' like standing in line. Observe what's going on around you. Notice people's choices and listen.  Wonder about their lives and occupations. Make up stories.

4. Describe in detail your first memory of curiosity. Recall it with all your senses.

5. Read diverse publications and books. Explore what you don't know with a free mind.

Become a perpetual discoverer and learner. Make learning fun and seek beyond the obvious. 

Find that fish with the suitcase.

The Night's Palette

Poet Gary Snyder writes in, The Practice of the Wild," Life is not just a diurnal property of large interesting vertebrates. It is also nocturnal, anaerobic, microscopic, digestive, fermentative: cooking away in the warm dark.”

Examine writing ideas and notions that you have cooking away in the warm dark.

Celebrate the powers of the pen. Pay reverence to what's underneath, elusive, and uncanny.

Explore shadows, dreams, moonlight, and the depths. Catch reflections the instant before light moves into night.

Find patterns in eucalyptus leaves.

Peel an orange and let the scent invite ideas.

Where do colors hide in the darkness?

As eyes adjust to night, how will other senses take over?




Let sounds intrigue. Listen for a shish, wall creak, whirs, and rumblings.

Scents accost in cinnamon rolls aroma find the night.Find cool and texture as fingers tap the keyboard.

Invite curiosity out to play.  

Use the night's palette to arouse instincts.