Joy in the Day

Mind control means anything that happens can be a source of joy.

When your mind tries to dwell on unfortunate situations, sit in a place of peace. Settle the mind's pace. If it continues to ramble, breathe in five breathes and out six for a few minutes.

Consider your favorite natural location. Try a mountain stream with fresh water that cleanses and refreshes. Find yourself watching breaking waves at the sea. Take in the scenery around you. Smell the offerings of flowers from the breeze. Listen for birdsong.

Now wait and pay attention to thoughts that take over. What are the main themes that arrive?

Do you feel an emotional tone? Notice impulses that flare up.  Ignore them.

Try now to imagine your mind as a tree. Healthy branches shine green. Brown ones need your attention by cutting. Those represent your distracting thoughts, emotions, and feelings. 

Name them as you cut. Make a pact with yourself that you will use this imagery in the future to prune distracting emotions.

Take a breath and feel a spontaneous rush of a positive emotions.

Feel your intuition.

Go for Joy in the Day.

Life and Illusion

"Your problem is how you are going to spend this one and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion 

that you have power over circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, 

enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are. " - Anne Lamott

Take an opportunity to consider five topics during your life's decades. Recall memories  to fit into these categories for you.

l. An Amazement  

      2. An Achievement 

           3. An Amusement 

                 4. An Absurdity 

                       5. An Amiable Friend

Begin with a child's eyes and respond from 9 years and under.

Move into adolescence.

Which memories come to mind from years 20-30?

Delve into the 30-40 era.

From 40-50,  provide additional insights

If you respond from 50 and above, notice how your wisdom reigns.

Write one or two line responses.

Then return and detail the decades of life and illusion.

Work Your Worries

Tibetans have a saying, "If there's something you can do about it, why worry? If there's nothing you can do about it. why worry?"

Birds Never Worry. They just do what needs doing. 

If you're a habitual worrier, put those worries to work. Find a container you can close with a lid. For a week, keep a notepad with you.Write each worry that trespasses or rages through your mind.

Put each in the container, close it and let the worry go. Tap the lid. Wave goodby.

In another week, before looking into the container, can you even remember all of the worries?

Open the container and read the notes. How many have happened? How did you deal with the worries that did occur? 

Revisit the worries to discover the creativity and problem solving skills they will generate for you. 

Worries keep our minds moving in aimless directions. We need to harness them as work horses for writing.

Take charge of your worries. 

Consider writing possibilities they will generate. Write them into different characters and dialogue with them. 

How would a bird deal with a worry? 

Bully your worries with humor and laughter.

Find the Light

"You return to that earlier time armed with the present and no matter how dark that world was, you do not leave it unlit. You take your adult self with you. It's not to be a reliving but a rewitnessing." 

- from Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

Ondaatje wrote, "The lost sequence in life, they say, is the thing we already search out." He felt we need to deal with the layered grief of the world as well as pleasure.

In what ways does the past inform your present?

Do you ever wish to remove the ink of the past that blends with you?

Does a learning process move beyond the should, would, or could haves for you?








Explore incidents you would alter.

Find a way to replace situations. Where will you reweave threads or cut strings?

What will you save when you eyewitness the past?

Use imaginative approaches to find the light.

Find Your Best

“To decide whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy,” Albert Camus wrote in his essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus," in 1942, “Everything else . . . is child’s play; we must first of all answer the question.” 

The question stimulates not just as a thought experiment but a challenge with tall possibilities and aspects of living.

How do we awaken, set a goal. and get moving into the day?  Each of us has needs, goals, and a routine.

What if we made different choices that brought us into a another focus?

Where will your creativity lead today?  How might a child's playfulness assist you through the day?



Find your Best.

"This - the immediate, everyday, and present experience - is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe." - Alan Watts.

Sequel of Seconds

"There is nothing to do. Just be. Do nothing. Be. No climbing mountains and sitting in caves. I do not even say: "be yourself," since you do not know yourself. Just be. Having seen that you are neither the "outer' world of perceivables, not the "inner" world of thinkable, that you are neither body nor mind - just be." 

- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

How do we, "just be" when so much to do lurks?  Do we dwell with comfort in ourselves?

It helps to stay in the "sequel of seconds."

May we permit ourselves to stay in the now and observe the sounds, scents, textures, and what goes on beyond the window?

It helps to wander outside and feel the breeze, observe flying clouds, and animation around us.







Stay in the moment, observe and disregard the mind's traffic.

The Marvel of Moments

"The secret of health is not to mourn the past or worry about the future but to live in the present moment wisely."  — Zen Proverb

  

Human beings have such a difficult time just "being."  We are always doing . . . worrying about yesterday, then shuddering about tomorrow.

The natural world has a lot to teach about existing in the marvel of moments. 

When the brain sends out negative thoughts or someone sets you off about events in the past or future, take time to identify with an animal in nature.  

Make time for a walk. Forget about the pandemic, negativity, and even the weather. 

Go for a natural immersion.

Appreciate the feeling of breezes on the arms, a whiff of eucalyptus or a scent in your environment. 

Listen to birdsong and look up to appreciate the miracle of flight.

Let the shimmer on a hummingbird's wings in sunlight activate a peaceful state of mind.

Observe behaviors that fill each moment. 

Enjoy an opportunity to dance, trot, and breathe in, then out.  

Once in a rhythm, you will stop the mind chatter.  

Let laughter stimulate the stomach muscles to tighten.

The magic of minutes in the present will calm your nerves. Find a friend who will remind you to stay in that focus.

In the details you will discover the Marvel of Moments.

What is Love?

"Love calls us to do the things in this world."  - Richard Wilbur

. . . migratory musicians

one last word before 

I go back with wet shoes, thorns 

and dry leaves

to my home:

vagabonds, I love you

free far from 

the shotgun and the cage.

                                             - Pablo Neruda from, "Ode to Bird Watching."

Pablo Neruda, one of the most loving poets, forms an authentic attachment to life. Calling on unlimited sources of inspiration, he writes odes to an elephant, a pair of socks or a bar of soap. He calls them all to life and reminds us of the interconnectedness of all things and beings. Compassion and humor populate his poetry.

At the end of, "Ode to Bird Watching," Neruda leaves in frustration at not getting close enough yet he makes peace with his love of the birds' wildness and inaccessibility,  

 . . . messengers of pollen

matchmakers of the flower, 

uncles of the seed 

I love you/ingrates

I'm going home

happy to have lived with you 

a moment in the wind

What is Love?  Poets and writers have nose-dived and bellyflopped into its lakes and caverns for years. Everyone has experiences and expectations. Which are real? 

How does it transfer beyond the human form?

Peel the Artichoke

Love is an artichoke

all layered in secrets.

Hear the cricket snap of leaves

petals tipped in silky maroon.

White whiskers protect

the heart.

Cook warm,

squirt a tang of sweet lemon.

Push and pull to savor the green, 

see how the leaves fall away.

Once at the heart, 

ah the tingle, oh the sheen.

                      - Penny Wilkes

What do you make of Love? Does the word itself send ripples and thrills? Do memories bring shudders?

Where does Love begin? How do we learn to Love from the inside out free from expectations and doubts?

Think of an approach to Love you have not considered before. 

Examine layers and textures.

Nature Nurture

How do you incorporate nature into your life?

Notice colors and textures of flowers.

Consider the color green as a fresh start. Open to opportunities and self-growth.

Observe how the gravilla flower reaches and smiles.

Let nature nurture.

Look Deep into Nature

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." - Albert Einstein
                                                                                                           
Kay Cowley advises, "If you'd like a therapist but can't afford one, Mother Nature is free of charge. Each day you can spot an endless array of natural wonders that make for grand soul sessions if you look around with eyes open and an open heart."

Search nature for transitions, change, and rhythms to emulate.

"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self," assures Aldous Huxley. 

To the degree that you regenerate yourself, you will improve everyone around you. Your inner work will become contagious. 

Find amazement and calm in the sea and sky.

Use curiosity to discover the human blossoming process.

“The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors because

the whole of nature is a metaphor for the human mind.” 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson       

Discover a smile.

                               

Book Play

Play with book titles.

Go to your shelf to select random books.

How will you arrange them?

Sort the books in a variety of ways. 

Develop a message.

What happens if a book falls open during the arrangement?

Create a story or just a message. 

Let go and play with the flow.

After you have developed your designs, 

take a moment for humor. 

Write a line or two of inspiration.