New Year's Eve

Tonight, many will sing a Scottish folk song written by Robert Burns, They'll sing, “we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne" at Hogmanay, the Scottish New Year’s Eve. Hogmanay derives from a French word for a gift given at the New Year.

Just after midnight, someone scrambles into the house of a neighbor or friend with gifts. This is called "first footing" or becoming the first person to bring good fortune for the new year. The first-footer is a tall dark-haired male. Anything else could mean bad luck.

Customs vary by region within Scotland and include, decorated herrings, fireballs, pipe bands, fruit cakes, song and whiskey. Scottish-American humorist Craig Ferguson described Scotland’s Hogmanay celebrations: “It is a time when people who can inspire awe in the Irish for the amount of alcohol that they drink decide to ramp it up a notch."

Have a safe New Year's Eve. Get to sleep early! Then you will have a clear head to find your way into the New Year on January 1, 2020.

A Seedy Story for the New Year

Two seeds settled side by side in the spring earth. The first seed shouted, "I want to grow and send my roots deep into the soil. Then I'll push my sprouts through the earth above so I can feel the sun on my face and dew on my petals."  She grew.

The second seed whined, "I m afraid. If I send my roots in to the dark ground I don't know what I'l find.  If I push my delicate sprouts upward, I may damage them in the hard soil. I'll wait till it's safe."  She waited.

A hen wandered in, scratched around for food, found the waiting seed and ate it.

For 2020. Don't get gobbled up. Take chances to grow and shine in the light. Avoid procrastination. 

Forget New Year's resolutions. Do it NOW.  Amaze yourself today and every day.

Get Grounded

Do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind let it come in and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are not bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything . . . . If you are not bothered by the waves gradually they will become calmer and calmer.     -  Shunryu Suzudki


Get Grounded:

l. Set an intention. Try:  I seek insight to see my objectives clearly.

2. Let go of tension. Inhale for an intake of five and lift shoulders to your ears. Exhale and release them down your back.

3. Take ten breaths with eyes closed. Find awareness in the sensation of breathing. If thoughts grab you, start over. Keep trying until you have taken ten consecutive breaths without distraction.

4. Return to your intention.

Notice what happens.

Imaginate Beyond the Ordinary

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. 

- George Bernard Shaw.

See the world in a variety of angles, colors, shapes, and sounds.

" I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables me to laugh at life's realities." - Dr. Seuss

Imagine their frowns upside down.

"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. Without it we go nowhere." - Carl Sagan

Observe birds and other animals in different poses. Imagine a story unfolding.

Set yourself free to imaginate beyond the ordinary

Emulate Clouds

"Clouds, the only birds that never sleep." - Victor Hugo

Take time to emulate clouds. Observe their movement revealed on a landscape or reflections on a body of water.  Watch them arrive and leave.

Use their imagery in relaxation preparation.

Breathe in five breaths and out five. Repeat several times. Eventually, as your mind and body lighten, you will feel like you're floating.

Smile and move into your day.

A Treasure in Unwanted Gifts

"People come into our lives without our bidding, and stay without our invitation. They give us knowledge we do not seek; gifts we do not want. But we need them all the same." 

- said by Mrs. Sparrow in The Stockholm Octavo
by Karen Engelman

At this time of year, unwanted gifts create the possibility for story. Did you receive packages, relatives, acquaintances or friends that fit that category? 

Examine gifts brought to you in a variety of ways. Include negative influences that caused positive results. Gifts can include knowledge gained of yourself through the tribulations of a relationship's needs.

People change and needs change. How have you met changes and needs?

Detail the gains from unwanted gifts. Discover a treasure or two.

Christmas Memories

‎"One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six." 
              ~ A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas*

The season stimulates memories in the form of anecdotes, conversations, and relationships. Events turn over and over in the heart and mind. 

Will the memory fulfill itself in the events of the moment?  

Will those who have left return home to celebrate?



What do you wish for to complete your holiday celebration? Would you request a return from a lost friend or relative for the day? Will you return to a childlike self for the festivities?  Do you require a day of youthful pleasures?  Do you recall when someone told you about Santa Claus? 

How might you transport yourself in words over the miles and years?  

Bring memories to the fireside and write.

"Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!" ~ Charles Dickens.

*Full Dylan Thomas text:  http://www.bfsmedia.com/MAS/Dylan/Christmas.html

Celebrate the Book Flood- Jólabókaflóð

Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country in the world. The Nordic island with a population of 329,000, loves to read and write. They publish five titles for every 1,000 Icelanders. That means one in 10 Icelanders will publish. The majority of books are sold from late September to early December. 

On Christmas Eve, Icelanders exchange books during, jólabókaflóð, the "Christmas Book Flood."

Iceland's literary history dates to medieval times. Landmarks of world literature, including the Sagas of the Icelanders and the Poetic Edda, are still read and translated.

Designated a UNESCO City of Literature, Reykjavík has a population of 200,000 people. Within that small group, the city's library's book loans total 1.2 million in a year. A popular TV show in Iceland, Kiljan, is devoted entirely to books.

According to Baldur Bjarnason, a researcher who has written on the Icelandic book industry, "If you look at book sales distribution in the U.K. and the States, most book sales actually come from a minority of people. Very few people buy lots of books. Everybody else buys one book a year if you're lucky. It's much more widespread in Iceland. Most people buy several books a year."

Bjarnason continues, "The book in Iceland is such an enormous gift, you give a physical book. You don't give e-books here."

On Christmas Eve enjoy the power of the book flood. 

Take time to cuddle with chocolate and a fun book.

Stories of Mistletoe

The mystical power of mistletoe and the tradition of kissing under this plant originated with the legend of Goddess Frigga, the Goddess of Love and her son Balder, God of the Summer Sun. 

Balder dreamed about his death. Frightened, he told his mother of the dream. Frigga felt concern for her son and also for the life on earth. She knew that without Balder, life on earth would come to an end. Frigga appealed to every being in air, water, fire, and earth to promise her that they would never harm her son. Every animal and plant under and above the earth promised to keep her son safe.

Loki, the God of Evil, an enemy of Balder, knew that Frigga had overlooked one plant in her appeal. Known as mistletoe, it grew on apple and oak trees.

Loki made an arrow and placed a sprig of this plant at its tip. He beguiled Hoder, the blind brother of Balder and the God of Winter, and made him shoot this arrow at Balder. 

When Balder died, everybody worried as the earth turned cold and life became dreary. For the next three days, every creature tried to bring Balder back to life. Finally Frigga with the help of mistletoe brought him back to life. Her tears on the plant became pearly white berries and she blessed it so that anyone who stood under the mistletoe would never be harmed. They would instead receive  a kiss as a token of love.

The plant’s ability to remain lush and fruitful throughout the year led to its use as a symbol of fertility. The Greek goddess Artemis wore a crown of mistletoe as an emblem of immortality. The plant also played a role in the Druids’ celebration of the Winter Solstice. With a golden knife they cut it from the oak and made potions to boost procreation.

Mistletoe served as the magical ingredient in the kissing ball or kissing bough in Victorian England. This round frame trimmed with ribbons and ornaments often held a tiny nativity with mistletoe at the bottom. The ball hung from rafters or the ceiling. Guests at holiday parties, weddings and other festive occasions played kissing games beneath the ball. The kiss beneath the decoration was said to bring good luck and lasting friendship. 

Washington Irving, wrote of a tradition in kissing beneath the mistletoe in Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving: "The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens at Christmas; and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases."

The custom of plucking berries for each kiss, and ceasing the bestowal of kisses once the berries are gone, has been left behind. Hanging mistletoe and the custom of kissing beneath it remains a popular tradition in Christmas celebrations. 

Enjoy a mistletoe moment on Christmas day.

Human Behavior

Does human behavior fascinate you?  Do you feel confused by individuals who reveal unpredictability?  Does the complexity of someone's inability to change annoy or amuse?

Delve into human nature. Search your mental bookshelves for five of your favorite characters.  What makes them memorable?  Do their strengths or flaws intrigue? How do they experience powerful emotions or overcome tragedies?

Choose five aspects of your favorite characters to combine in one. Now place that character in a scene sitting on a bench at a park.  Your character observes a thief stealing an elderly lady's purse across the lawn. How does your character react?  What if your character sees the thief at a coffee shop the next day?

Play with human behavior.

Celebrate Winter Solstice December 21

"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." - Berthold Auerbach

Winter solstice occurs on December 21st. The Romans celebrated Brumalia as a winter festival. It also became known as Saturnalia (the “waxing of the light") to honor Roman Gods, Saturn, Demeter and Bacchus.

The festival included feasting and merriment to celebrate the victory of the sun over the cold and darkness of winter. 

Everyone celebrated with dancing and carousing.

Enjoy the season's rhythm.

                     Celebrate a winter festival of fun. 

A Time to Rest

When rushing to develop a product, creators often power from idea to solution and avoid the percolation process. Although they accomplish a result, they may have missed insights gained from the incubation period so vital to the creative process. An interval of rest and diversion from thoughts and brain noise helps everyone reach the "Aha" moment with more possibilities.

During a period of not doing, notions and ideas flicker the synapses in kaleidoscopic fashion. With deadlines approaching, it becomes difficult to let that "nothing" happen. Even a short break will prove valuable. After a respite, a feeling of freshness and invigoration pushes one into the final stages of creation.

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed the magic of brain swirl depended on channeling from the Muses. Unknowingly, while leaving it to the Gods, they permitted time for rest to take over. They also enjoyed bacchanalia for diversion. 

Elias Howe, an adapter of the sewing machine, became frustrated with the notion of the sewing needle because he could not determine how to thread and mechanize it. One day he stopped and stared out the window. His mind spun in reverie. 

Later he and told his wife he had a daydream of standing inside a black pot of boiling water in the jungle. A native came to him ready to thrust a spear. He looked up and noticed the spear had a hole in its tip. When he returned to his work, he decided to try a hole in the tip of the needle in his machine. Aha!

It takes courage and resolve to rest. 

Each person has a different way of accessing this place of rest as a springboard to illumination.Take time from a project to investigate your place of silent awareness. 

Does this work during the moments of tranquility before sleep or in moments upon awakening? Do you make discoveries in the flow during a run or walk? Will breathing exercises push you into a calm and tranquil state. Will meditation provide the rest needed?

Define what a place of rest means to you. During a time of frustration, give yourself the permission to rest. 

The Dark and Light of Writing

By moonlight, we see in black and white. We cannot see colors. There is something fascinating and valuable about seeing the world that way. We see only what is essential. We see form emerging from a sea of blackness. . . . We can look at the world so familiar by daylight and see it anew in the black and white of moonlight.  – Ming-Dao Deng, from The Lunar Tao: Meditations in Harmony with the Seasons

In, The Practice of the Wild, poet Gary Snyder says, "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."

Take several photographs and turn them into black and white.

Write into the darkness of shapes and shadows.

Search for new meaning in the areas of light.

Let emotions arise.

What do you find in the black and white of moonlight?

Find writing ideas and emotions cooking away in the warm dark.

Celebrate the unseen powers of the pen.  

                                             
Pay reverence to what's underneath, elusive and uncanny

Flow of Action

As regards the quietude of the sage, he is not quiet because quietness is good. He is quiet because the multitude of things cannot disrupt his quietude. When water is still, one's eyebrows are reflected in it. A skilled carpenter uses it in a level to obtain  measurement. If still water is so clear, how much more are the mental faculties. The mind of a sage is the mirror of heaven and earth in which all things are reflected.  - Chuange-tsu

How would you use water as a metaphor of flow.

"I am not a thing - a noun. I seem to be a verb."  - Buckminster Fuller

Let your identity flow. Find the action. Revise. Invent. Progress.

Inside Travel

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have begun our real journey.  

- Wendell Berry

 ". . . wanderer, there is no path, the path is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again."

- Antonio Machado

Metaphorical thinking helps the writer connect to the secrets and mysteries inside. If one decides to experience what lurks behind the door or deep inside one's own cavern, self-knowledge awaits. 

Robert Frost felt, "poetry takes you to a place you have been and thought you'd never return to."

Return to the darkness. Bring a lantern for revitalization. Illuminate sensitivities.

Take on the night.

Find a bridge

When you cross a bridge consider what's left behind.

What intrigues from the past?

What inspires from the future?

Will you return from where you came from or pick up speed and race ahead to new adventures?

If you stay on the bridge and go to the middle, many vistas will reveal themselves.  Take your time and relax. Lingering will inspire possible transitions ahead.

Sometimes a bridge 

consists of vines

that sway over 
rivers of alligators.

Most bridges
are mental.

Breathe.

Cross over.

Find your
metal and go.

Span a hungry

river with the mind.

Use a thick branch

to cross spans 
that require

a different balance.

The Write Habit

“I’m a full-time believer in writing habits ... You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent . … Sometimes I work for months and have to throw everything away, but I don’t think any of that was time wasted ... And the fact is if you don’t sit every day, the day it would come well, you won’t be sitting there.” -- Flannery O'Connor

Young seagulls learn how to use their flight feathers by instinct and encouragement from parent birds. As writers, we need to develop our talents accompanied by good writing habits so it takes more skill on our part. 

A writer's most necessary habit involves an appointment with the keyboard or writing tablet. It goes beyond the good intentions of: "today I will write." Regardless of demands on your time, set aside a time of day and time allotment. Sit there and work on a current project, begin a new one, or freewrite.

Over time you will discover the habit strengthens your desire to get to the writing.

Read about "Wordling" referenced under PAGES in the column to the right to reinforce yourself in positive ways. If you quit when you can't think of anything to write, you will always fall into that behavior. Write one more sentence and keep going even if it feels like gibberish. Only stop writing when you think you could write forever and do not want to end the feeling. This works with any human behavior to develop discipline to continue. You will want to return to that buoyant feeling of flow.

Become aware of your tendencies to procrastinate your writing. Write about them and develop tricks to ensure that you will write at your defined time. Surprise yourself and write when you don't feel like it.

Write a letter to a friend or your writing demon that prevents you from the page. Name the creature! It also might help to vary your environment. Take a notepad for a walk around the block and write as you go. No matter where you wander, the words will follow along.

No more excuses, just write. 

Push for Positivity

 

In the 1980’s  Martin E.P. Seligman adopted the term, “positive psychology.” After years of studying the “learned helplessness” that characterized depression, he began to study how individuals could learn optimism. Seligman felt a search for “authentic happiness” made more sense than  relying on psychology’s one-sided focus on illness and disorders. 

Optimism, courage and perseverance result in social and civil well-being. Consider how to gather simple pleasures. The process itself will attract feelings of exultation.

When nature provides a feast, take time to savor all the flavors. Everyone needs to awaken to the positivity that explodes in blossom, branch, and sky.

Take a pleasure interlude from your busy life to revel in the marvelous around you. Squeeze out joy and appreciation for the living, growing creatures, plants and trees. 

Robert Louis Stephenson wrote, "There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. Happiness does not need to become the goal. We need a variety of experiences and moods to write about." 

Life throws a variety of challenges at us each day. We can choose to see them as flat lines of negativity or take action to draw a vertical line through the horizontals. Taking action always makes something happen to keep us moving, regardless of mood. Humor colors life with vibrancy.

The next time you feel frustrated or angry, see if you can hold your breath longer than your anger.

These exercises will help you create more Positivity in your life:

1. Focus on your sense of humor to provide buoyancy in all types of weather. Laughter strengthens the stomach muscles and releases chemicals in the brain, such as serotonin, to elevate the mood.

2. To practice laughter, begin with a breathing exercise. Take five breaths in and five out through the nose. After five repetitions, let the out breath go with: ha ha ha ha ha. Notice how energized you feel. Remember this exercise the next time you feel stressed.

3. When a negative emotion crosses your mind, write it down. How often do you write frustration, anger, worry or fear? What emotions counteract them? Give them names and write a dialogue between the opposites.

4. Make three columns and list your three greatest accomplishments. In each column, write ways you accomplished these Feats of Fantastic. Keep the list with you and add to it. Include problem solving techniques, strategies and anyone you contacted for assistance. If you feel frustrated during a challenge, refer to the list to see how you succeeded in the past.

Take time weekly to write about what makes you feel good about your accomplishments. Also probe in writing choices that get in the way of what you want to achieve. Continue to ask what you learned about yourself and how you meet challenges. Bring these talents to a new situation?

5. Who is a Hero in your area of expertise or life in general? How does this person achieve success? How do you suppose this person greets failure?

If you spend time working on the above five areas, you will develop Positive habits that will grow into your Best Friends during times of need.