Creativity with Summer Travel Packing

Creativity reigns when packing for summer travel. Planning with fun avoids the frustration and boredom of the suitcase stuffing.  

Here are a few ideas that relax challenges during travel adventures. As you read through, let your mind wander to other notions for packing ease. Often the silliest solutions work wonders. 

See-though containers make it easy to find items. These save space in a suitcase. School supply bags work with most clothing items. 

 Take a variety of plastic bag sizes.

Smaller see-through zip bags help with large toiletry items.

Packages of shower caps can serve a variety of needs. They also assist by wrapping shoes to keep your suitcase clean.

Dryer sheets can freshen the suitcase. Tuck them in shoes. Use them for quick cleaning.

Travel stores provide lines to use for drying clothes with or without the use of hangers. You can also design your own.

Purchase small packets of laundry detergent.

Make a container for wire earring travel. Cut a plastic soap bottle in half, poke holes, and decorate. Add it to a bag and earrings will travel with ease inside. 

When ready for use, put the earrings outside for quick access.

Let creativity take over to discover other ways to save space in your suitcase. Roll clothes into tight bundles. Place socks in shoes. Combine items that fit inside one another.

Once you have obtained the above, make a list of necessities to pack. Think about what you do not need on your trip to avoid excess packing. 

Don't forget to take a box or two of handiwipes.

When you arrive at your destinations, play to recover from travel lag. Toss the packs into the air. Juggle. Open drawers and see where gravity sends your items. 

Happy Travels. Keep pursuing solutions to travel challenges with creative thinking and playfulness.

Slip Away

The weather changes

    Socks lose their mates

          Flu and colds annoy

Tastes fade

   Friends lose interest

           Ideas wander

We notice a slide

    a dwindle

         or a drain

Without looking

    backward

       or forward

One moment

    lingers

      for attention

   

Buoyancy lifts us

      as we marvel

             at sunset

Discomforts

      slip away

           into the sea

Inspiration of John Muir

 

John Muir’s words inspire us to explore and connect with the natural world.

Muir’s lyricism and enthusiasm for nature propelled the revolutionary concept of environmentalism into the mainstream consciousness of American society.

His legacy continues, woven into the history of our national parks and the creation of a National Park System.

A Scottish immigrant, Muir felt the fascination of the American wilderness. He delved into the interconnectedness of humanity and nature.




Muir experienced the splendor and healing power of the wild in the timeless truths he shared.

By describing the glories of nature, he ignited a movement.

Find your true nature.

Hiking Lessons

When climbing mountains of uncertainty
take a compass. Meet each moment as a friend
along the trail. If you're lost, sing.
Remember sunscreen and eye shades.

Take a compass. Meet each moment as a friend.
Taste the breeze. Put on your bug spray
before sunscreen and shade your eyes.
Bears smell you long before they hear those bells.

Taste the breeze. Oh, you forgot the bug spray?
Worry isn't progress. Drink water.
Bears smell you long before they hear those bells.
Find your hiking rhythm.

Worry isn't progress. Drink water
if you're lost. Sing louder and louder to
find your hiking rhythm.
when climbing mountains of uncertainty.

No Advice

Benjamin Franklin said, "Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it." Charles Shultz might have adapted Lucy's sign in agreement. 

Most of the time no one heeds advice and would pay to avoid it. Active listening supports family and friends but individuals gain skills in problem solving by trial and error. Everyone needs experiences to gain knowledge.

If you must delve into the depths of another's concerns try these suggestions:

Avoid jumping in to solve another's problem.  

Ask questions instead of providing solutions. Help someone think about the issues.

Share experiences and lessons learned without offering advice. 

Emphasize how your experiences could be different or similar.

Encourage rather than judge. Avoid negativity.

Refer to professionals to impart knowledge about life skills. 

Suggest resources in articles, books, or web-based information.

Communicate with encouragement.

Become an example and shine your light rather than direct with it.  

Ask for five cents for no advice.

June Nights

June twilight shivers. 

Spindrift speckles the breeze, 

shimmies droplets to shore.

Beneath

the quilt of foam,

a golden snuggle.

Day's work done

          for a hummingbird and peregrine falcon.

What do they search for in dreams?

Search for Inspiration

Wolfgang Pauli and Niels Bohr, Nobel prize-winners, presented many counterintuitive theories. Once while Pauli presented his ideas about a radical new hypothesis, Bohr came out of the audience to the stage and interrupted his colleague. 

Bohr said, "We all agree that your theory is crazy. What divides us is whether it has a chance to be correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough."

Consider your ideas and possibilities. Could they be crazy enough to be true?  Go on an unpredictable quest to free trapped vitality.  

Try an experiment to awaken sluggish magic.

Look into nature for nurture. Try combining creative ideas to develop music, literature, and another art form.

Synthesize and coordinate all aspects of life you do the best. 

Express yourself with a flourish.

Notice with renewed awareness areas of life you take for granted.

Look.

      Listen.

          Locate

                inspiration through

                              imagination.

From the Prickly Side

Do you become baffled by the behavior of your "other self" - the prickly side?  This personality procrastinates, arrives late at appointments, leaves dirty dishes in the sink, and clothes cluttered about?

Often this character feels disorganized, devastated by clutter and frustrated by deadlines. Writing projects stay in the computer or hide in the writing journal.

Writing helps to keep you in the moment. Push your Positive self to write a vision of accomplishments. Begin by writing objectives in a special journal and set time limits.

Examples: Take fifteen minutes for clearing your desk. Use fifteen minutes to write your goals. Stop at the time limit, do not go over or under. You may need to begin with ten minutes to avoid frustration.

Identify the messages your prickly side sends. Name this persona. Write three to five items you wish to confront and begin a dialogue.

Add what you will do with clutter, unused items, and overstuffed shelves or closets. What will you do about files of ancient paperwork?

Stow or throw. When you grab an item make an immediate decision. If you must, store items of questionable need in a box. In two months, if you haven't needed the item, toss the box without peeking.

Learn how the prickly self stops you from doing what you really want. Write about it.

Live in the moment to allow your conscious mind to set the agenda. When you focus on the now, you avoid your prickly side. It can't lead you astray or back to unfocused patterns.

Celebrate tiny steps. Applaud yourself for beginning the changes you wish to pursue.

Try this for a week and write your observations.

A Taste of Writing

What could an apple do for your writing? Pay close attention.

Discover the colors that circulate around an apple: red, yellow, orange, a tinge of green. Does the stem pull out or must you twist it several times? Hold it to your nose and breath in its scent. What memories arise? Feel the skin texture when you take an apple from the refrigerator beaded with moisture.

Bite into it and observe the impression your teeth create on the white flesh. Do you see red veins inside? Feel the texture and the squirts of saliva as your cheeks suck inward from reaction to the tart flavor. 

Observe the change in fragrance as you chew. Notice a liquid release, then the after taste. Let your tongue mingle with the apple's skin bits and succulence. 

Feel the texture on your teeth. Examine a swallow. Notice the apple until you lose its sensation as it enters the stomach.

Consider a variety of apple experiences. What if you bit into a mushy apple or one with a worm's tunnel? Will you eat around a brown spot? Sprinkle slices with cinnamon and clove. Do you prefer a Delicious, Granny Smith or New Zealand?

What could you combine with the apple to enhance the flavor? Will cheddar cheese raise the taste buds and coat the tongue? Add raisins and cranberries. Describe ways sweet intervenes.

Try an orange or peach. Experience them and write with connections to early memories. Write about discovering how to peel a banana. Imagine the first person to eat pomegranate seeds.

A Day's Wonders

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. 

- Vince Lombardi

We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already." - J. K. Rowling.

What would it mean to chase excellence instead of perfection? If we live from the inside out to discover our powers of insight, the magic will appear and engage creativity.

Living from the inside out involves curiosity to capture details by observing what others miss. The eyes, ears and nose perk. Fingers search for sensations. Letting words wander trains the mind to open to possibilities and nuances. 

Consistency in a writing practice requires time each day to stimulate awareness and write.

Notice the heart shaped petals reflected by hearts on the stamens. Imagine how an ant might stretch its legs. Textures offer a twirl of designs in the flow of mystery.






Excellence abounds in nature.  

In the unfurling of a poppy, a few imperfections exist to give it a personality.

Do you see a dancer about to twirl as the shades of pink unfold?

Investigate the patterns.

What does a bee's eye view reveal?

Examine details of the day's wonders and write about it.

Imaginate

Most of us live in this paradox: we are trailing glimpses of insight, knowing why we are here, and not knowing. We both remember and forget. We are imbued with wonder, and sometimes consumed with loss, from childhood on; we pursue our purpose in a thousand ways.

        - Christina Baldwin, The Seven Whispers: A Spiritual Practice for Times Like These

The Seven Whispers

  Maintain peace of mind

  Move at the pace of guidance

  Practice certainty of purpose

  Surrender to surprise

  Ask for what you need and offer what you can

  Love the folks in front of you

  Return to the world
                 - Christina Baldwin

        

Opening into imagination enables a suspension of judgment. A move into a state of the true self occurs where reverie takes over. 

Fantasies fling us along paths to observe obstacles. We marvel at aspects of self forgotten or not considered.  

The journey enlightens and enriches.

If lost, we acquire new ways of trail-finding while listening to our inner voice of dreams and passions. 

A step off the path merges into possibilities without fears.

Smell the colors, taste the breeze.

Attitude and Awareness provide the guidance.

Rocks along the road lead to wonder and design.


Imaginate.

Listening Skills

They don't listen
when he says he travels with ghosts
his head down, alone with his tracks.

They don't listen to his needs.
He rejects an engineer's view
since sunset's glare blinds him.






Learning listening skills requires patience and silence. Using the voice does not always work to fill empty spaces in conversation.

Sit in a friendly chair. Focus on your breath as it moves in and out. Listen to sounds with full awareness.

At first, you will classify sounds as an airplane, car passing, or bird's chirp. Listen beyond the harshness of garbage trucks and jack hammers. Defining the sound removes you from it. If you concentrate long enough eventually you will let the labels go and notice only the energy.

Imagine listening to another person in this way without judgment or the need to push your views before the other finishes speaking. Try it!

Spend fifteen minutes listening to one side of a conversation you usually interrupt to clarify your view. What happens when the other speaks without your comments?

Write about the experience.

Discover the True Self

Sail forth - steer for the deep waters only,

Reckless O soul, exploring, 

I with thee and thee with me.

For we are bound where mariner 

has not yet dared to go,

And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.     

                 -Walt Whitman

Do we travel away from who we really are because of the many roles we play? A few of the characters we inhabit during our life experience might include: spouse, parent, sibling, friend, employer, employee. 

As a result, our true self may stay hidden. Or, we haven't taken the time to study the authenticity of ourselves because of the myriad role responsibilities.

A quest involves the process of discovering an authentic self. It takes a lifetime to explore and delve into the depths of one's inner world in writing beyond the chaos of daily life.

Take time for curiosity. Investigate beyond mistaken identities for an inner voice.

Describe with concrete details what this voice sounds like. 

Where do you come from?

Where do you belong?

What is your contentment?

Do questions arise about the real you?

As you delve into your depths of discovery, listen for a haunting voice of your true self.  What "other self" keeps you company as you dive deeper into your self-enlightenment process?

Start a dialogue and respond to it when frustrated, angry, needy and happy.  

Return to ask and answer questions.

Write about something not considered before that might define you.

Thoughts on Friendship

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

In Celtic spirituality, the anam cara friendship stimulates the richness and mystery of life. The Irish believe an individual blessed with anam cara has arrived at a sacred place. Friendship becomes an act of recognition, response and reciprocity. It involves belonging. 

John O’Donohue, author of his version of Anam Cara, celebrates the soul that shines like a cloud around the body. He feels that when you become open, appreciative and trusting with another, your souls flow together.  

O’Donohue borrows Aristotle’s notion of friendship and stretches it to a more expansive understanding. He writes, "Friendship is the sweet grace that liberates us to approach, recognize and inhabit this adventure."

Writers often delve into friendship's concept using abstract descriptions. What does C.S. Lewis mean by his notion that friendship has a, "value to survival"? 

Photographs and cute sayings abound in the search for an explanation of friendship. To communicate, a writer must show instances of emotion and affection.

A friend is a loved one who awakens your life in order 

to free the wild possibilities within you.

Examine a situation of friendship to demonstrate its intensity and meaning in a scene that shows how individuals connect. Write to reveal how a friendship looks, feels, and sounds. Let taste and scent have meaning in a relationship. Reveal how humor and play energize friends.

With words, share meanings.