Saturday's Bunny Ears

Did you know that etiquette requires individuals to eat the ears first when munching a chocolate bunny? A survey conducted by the Chocolate Manufacturers Association (CMA) and National Confectioners Association (NCA) reveals this information. It also noted that chocolate bunnies are the number one “must have” item in an Easter basket.

I have always wondered about the bunny bringing chicken eggs. Where did this start?  

An Anglo-Saxon myth reveals that the German Goddess of springtime, Ostara, evolved into an egg-toting Easter bunny. According to the myth, Ostara personifies the rising sun. A friend to all children, she amuses them by changing her pet bird into a rabbit. The rabbit brings colored eggs which she gives to the children as gifts. 

In my imagination, the bunny clan and the chicken clan played tricks on one another. They had their territories to defend above and below the earth. One dark night, the bunnies climbed up from their depths in the tree roots and stole all the chickens' eggs. The bunnies hid the eggs in their tunnels that weaves under the ground.

All night long the bunnies painted the eggs a variety of colors, made from chewing daisies, geraniums, and nasturtiums. They popped them up into the chickens' land and hid them behind bushes. The next morning feathers flew as the chickens ran around trying to find their eggs.

What do you think the chickens did when they discovered their eggs had turned a variety of colors?

The Creative Mind

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 thought of 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!

Beyond Cages

How can one cage an animal of such ferocity and determination?

Consider who is caged and who is not.

How do we avoid caged feelings?

How will you move beyond cages and ride life's storms in search of wisdom? 

Write beyond cages. Consider who is looking out, looking in, and write from within.

Get Unhooked

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." 

- Alan Watts

Pema Chödrön promotes shenpa, which is Tibetan for  “biting the hook” with our habitual reactions. Shenpa thrives on the insecurity of living in a world of constant change. 

Tibetans call shenpa, "that sticky feeling." We feel a tightening, a tensing, a sense of closing down. Then we experience a withdrawing. The tight feeling has the power to hook us into self-denigration, blame, anger, and jealousy. Emotions lead to words and actions that do not serve us well.


Chödrön writes, "When someone criticizes us, our work, or leaves us, we may bite the hook of grasping. When something unfair happens, we may bite the hook of rage. When we are disappointed, we may bite the hook of numbness." 


What would it look like not to bite the hook in an action of non-shenpa?




Chödrön's philosophy involves how to grow and learn from experiences. She advises not to waste time berating oneself for supposed sins. Learn and move on. 

If we cultivate clear sight, which Tibetan Buddhists call prajna, we view our life without deceiving ourselves. Once we observe the self clearly, we grow and gain strength for the next encounters. 

Consider how you talk to yourself concerning unhappiness. Do you malign and denigrate yourself to induce a wave of guilt that proves you are unworthy? 

"At moments like that, what is it you feel? It has a familiar taste in your mouth, it has a familiar smell. Once you begin to notice it, you feel like this experience has been happening forever," Chödrön says. She continues, "All we're trying to do is not to feel our uneasiness. But when we do this we never get to the root of practice. The root is experiencing the itch as well as the urge to scratch, and then not acting it out."

Learn to recognize when you get hooked in your experiences. Realize you have the wisdom to see your frustrations for what they are. 

The more you practice that realization the less control outside forces have on you. 

When negative feelings intrude, focus on the breath. Stay in the moment. Relinquish the need to react.

You'll benefit by not biting the hook. 




Feelings of freedom will take over. 

Actors of Spring

How do they know the timing?

Without the benefit of calendars, clocks and watches, who reminds them of their spring performances?



When spring arrives . . . 

News travels from the roots to shoots, bulbs and seeds. 

Green and colorful ones, it's show time!

Did a team of wizards stay up all night to paint these new faces?

Sensitive and alert, they smile and make their entrances.

Sap rises and leaves pulse from the branches. Yellow, oranges, pinks and brights emerge dappled with sunlight and dew. They sway  and bow with the breeze.

Never enough curtain calls will end this performance!

Find the Ordinary

"The beginner sees many possibilities, the expert few. Be a beginner every day." ~ Zen Proverb 

Discover a miracle each day that inspires you to view the ordinary with a new perspective.

Strip objects and experiences of their habitual expectations. Allow them to attract the enchantment you felt before familiarity set in. Observe the way a raven stands on its claws and how rainbows sparkle in its feathers.

Stay ready and eager for an outbreak of curiosity with a burst of surprises and fun.

Tune your eyes and ears to a different frequency.

Explore with fingers and toes.


Around every corner, adventures will enliven the day.

Be aware. Care and share.

Explore an Odyssey into Words

In what ways do you pursue experiences as an odyssey into words? Are you able to leave the comfort of understanding to delve into ways to discover a wisdom of well-being?

This happens by thrashing about in the wilderness, forests, and seas of the unknown.

Which vehicle will you take today?  If you go on foot, by car, boat, plane or fantasy, amusements spring on every sensory level.

Each time you decide on the destination, you will become surprised and distracted by attractions along the way.

Should you stop for a carnival? Sticky your face with cotton candy and a candy apple?

Where will the merry-go-round take your mind if you change to a different lion, tiger or horse to ride? 

Taste a notion like a lozenge. It dissolves and words arise.  They flutter and flicker at the lips and beg for release. 

Taste the flavor of their feathers and sigh. They baffle, energize, and frighten. 



Some hide as ink soaks into a finger.

Ride the train with your face pressed against the window ready to hop off at the first astonishment.

Probe the mysteries of travel in myriad ways.

Explore an odyssey into words.

Revel!

When a moment of awe arouses a reverence for nature, the next level requires an expression in words.

Discover life's thrills in sensory details. When you observe, squint and refocus. Look up and around. Listen to drizzle and wind. Pay attention to textures when using fingertips on surfaces. 

Use your nose like a Bloodhound and breathe in to tickle the nostrils with scents. Let your arms feel changes in temperature.

Notice what surrounds the object you’re viewing.

Ask questions in the abstract and answer them in imagery. 

Life astonishes (in what ways?).  In the flash of reflections blurred in blue and purple feathers.

Nature stimulates curiosity (reveal it). A bee invites an adventure. Search inside the labyrinth of petals.

How would you communicate admiration and respect without using those words?

Find reverence in a moment that takes your breath away or makes 

you stop and ponder.

Revel about life's mysteries. 

Go With It

While we try to avoid, overcome and conquer problems, James Hillman said, "Go with the symptoms."  

Instead of asking, "How can I get rid of this?" he encouraged us to ask, "How can I go further into this problem and find myself relieved and happier on the other side?"

Hillman quoted Wallace Stephens, "The way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it."

Instead of trying stressing about or trying to avoid a challenging situation, get to know it. 

Move into it.

Learn about it from several viewpoints. 

Ask what would a bird of prey do?

How might humor help?

When you move into your situation with a creative approach, you will find relief.  

Play

Plato said, "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation."

Play promotes curiosity, seeks novelty, teaches perseverance, and invites creativity. It even nourishes the immune system. Each person has a unique play personality. When one gets in touch with it, the pleasures and fun abound.

Animals have a lot to teach human beings. If you've ever dangled a string in front of a cat or played ball with a dog, you've seen their playful expressions in action. 

In his book, THE GENESIS OF ANIMAL PLAY, Gordon Burghardt, a psychology professor at the University of Tennessee, reports playful behavior in lizards, turtles, and birds. Even fish have been known to amuse themselves.

Stuart Brown, one of the authors of PLAY: HOW IT SHAPES THE BRAIN, OPENS THE IMAGINATION AND INVIGORATES THE SOUL, believes in the necessity of play for children and adults. His organization, the National Institute for Play, focuses on making human play a "credentialed discipline in the scientific community."

Children have lost touch with tree climbing and scouting for discoveres in nature. Computer games attract them more than wriggly creatures, birdsong or flying clouds. Nagel Jackson writes, "The truly great advances of this generation will be made by those who can make outrageous connections, and only a mind which knows how to play can do that."

Play in a freewriting exercise reveals attracts ideas that will evolve into stories and poems. 

Problems find solutions through activities that have no specific goal. They flow in a fun process. 

In today's fast-paced world, taking time to play - really play - feels frivilous to many.

BECOME PLAYFUL. You may have to work at it.

How will you play in writing today? Dangle words and images, make connections and search for nuances.

A few play starters:

What would you do with a teapot, a jar of maple syrup, a parakeet and a harmonica?

Create a story about a cardboard box you can crawl into, a blanket, a flashlight, bananas and daisies.

Go for a walk and choose five items. Touch, smell, listen and notice their characteristics. Play and Write.

Make faces at someone and write their reactions.

Create a sandcastle with a crocodile.

Invite a cheetah on your morning run.

Get out there and play.

Exuberance of Spring

Within a few years, poppies create millions of blooms that enliven hillsides and valleys. Spring's exuberance for life pulses in every niche. 

Nature teaches us outbursts of joy replenished. It takes over after wars destroy landscapes and fires darken meadows. 

Innate and eager, nature blooms in recovery.

Spring’s messages of growth. This season reminds us not to dwell in negativity. 

We need to move beyond life’s sadness and frustrations. It just requires a twirl of focus to develop curiosity for the marvelous in green, yellows and oranges around us. Contagions of purple and blue enliven the vistas.

This attitude does not mean the constant search for happiness. Rather, a state of buoyancy carries and spreads positive energy. 

Fragilities will always surround us. Our resilience results from enthusiasm as we approach daily life. It’s a choice that soars us beyond the world’s challenges.  

Jump into the exuberance of spring.

Take a walk and give emotions to flowers and plants. How would you enthuse a petulant petunia?  Argue with a depressed dahlia. Encourage it to bloom.  

Rant with eagerness and turn frustration into fun.

March 20 - Spring Awakening

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature—if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you— Thus may you feel your pulse. 

- Henry David Thoreau, from Journal entry, 1850

Dip into wonder for awakening. Delve into ways to enliven your day. 

Use all the senses to write about a morning's examination of nature's delights.

Let nature's way enrich your ability to shake off despair and frustration.

Develop balance word-by-word.

Discover ways to choose different approaches to life's challenges.

Notice what internal change reveals.

Write into spring awakening.

Denotations and Connotations

The basic part of a word interpretation involves its denotation, the dictionary meaning or meanings. A word may also have connotations - what it suggests beyond what it expresses: overtones and meaning.

The science writer uses language to communicate information and attempt to confine his words to one meaning at a time. The poet or literary writer will take advantage of the fact that the word has a variety of meanings by using it to mean more than one thing at a time. The word's meaning becomes enriched as a result. 

Home by denotation means a place where one lives, but by connotation it suggests security, love, comfort, and family

Childlike and childish mean "characteristics of a child" but childlike suggests meekness, innocence, and wide-eyed wonder. Childish suggests pettiness, willfulness, and temper tantrums.

Emily Dickinson uses the power of a book or poetry to carry us away; to escape from our world into a world of the imagination. She has compared literature to various means of transportation, using names that have myriad connotations.

There is No Frigate Like a Book
  by Emily Dickinson

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take
without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the carrot
That bears the human soul.

A word may have ore than one denotation. Spring in the dictionary has 30 meanings such as: pounce, leap, a season, natural source of water, or coiled wire.

Ezra Pound defined great literature as "simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree."  The word charged is roughly equivalent to filled. Yet, it brings more power to the sentence.

Play with a story using the denotations and connotations of one or all of the following words.

rainbow
quilt
spirit
pathway
connection
window


Consider all the dictionary meanings of the words. Check the thesaurus for similar words.

Which emotions, memories or overtones do these words have for your story?

Let your imagination fly.