Discomfort into Discovery

Emotions rise, crest and splash. With a series of waves, we learn ways to wash away dismay. Distress and discomfort disconnect to delight.

Naivete flows out; in rushes wisdom. Out gushes anger.

Discernment changes. Out goes despair. 

Kindness races in.

With buoyancy, treasures arise from the deep.

Writing with each wave we learn to embrace the rhythm of emotions.They flow in a natural and expansive sea of words.

If we observe and translate the currents, each emotion leaves us healthier than it found us. We move from discomfort into discovery. Writing releases the tension.

Write about emotional ebbs and flows. How do you ride the waves? Develop a metaphor to explain your excursions through emotions.

Nourish Your Gifts

The bird in the forest or the fox on the hill have no such opportunity to forgo the important for the trivial. Habit, for these, is also the garment they wear, and indeed the very structure of their body life. It’s now or never for all their vitalities — bonding, nest building, raising a family, migrating or putting on the deeper coat of winter — all is done on time and with devoted care, even if events contain also playfulness, grace, and humor, those inseparable spirits of vitality. Neither does the tree hold back its leaves but lets them flow open or glide away when the time is right. Neither does water make its own decision about freezing or not; that moment rests with the rule of temperatures. - Mary Oliver

Wrestle away from Worry. Wander and seek Wonder. Find what Works.

Where do habits take you? Which do you fight and need to fling away?

Embrace and develop ideas that energize the spirit, mind, and body. Discover playfulness, grace, and humor each day.

In what ways does nature portray strategies for living successfully?

Nourish your gifts.

A Single Blade of Grass

 

"If you study Japanese art, you see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time how? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying the policy of Bismark? No. He studies a single blade of grass. This blade of grass leads him to draw every plant and then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure." - Vincent van Gogh

Find moments in nature to explore.

Dip into the shapes and colors of petals.

Notice amusements.












Find your wings for flight.

Tortoise Philosophy

 

Harriet, the tortoise, lived for 176 years. She lived at the Brisbane-area zoo in Australia for 18 years. Legend indicates that Charles Darwin carried her away during his visit to the Galapagos Islands in 1835.

Zoo staff marked her birthdays with a pink hibiscus flower cake. 

Zoo officials said Harriet showed no sign of physical decline before the heart attack that ended her life. 

She benefitted from a strict fitness regimen. In the morning, she went outside and warmed up. When she had enough sun, she retreated to the shade. 

With Harriet as inspiration, consider:

In what ways can your future benefit from the past?

Is there a gift or behavior from an ancestor you have not yet claimed?

What can you do to remain in good health into advanced age?

Imaginate

 

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.

Delve into Friendship

"A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind 
of system of dividing people."

 - John Cheese

The poet, Rumi, sought to find truth in competing beliefs. He said, "A life without love is of no account. Don't ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, eastern or western … divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water."

When Mongol armies got close to his home in Konya, Rumi walked out alone to speak with the general, Bughra Kahn. Surprisingly, the Kahn felt such authority in Rumi's presence, he did not sack Konya. Legend has it that the general said, "There may be others like him."

Coleman Banks, who has translated the words of Rumi, speaks of friendship, "However it might be in this violent world, I would rather see us walking along inside the mystery of friendship, with its soul fury and its kindness, to sit down together finally at the table that Rumi, and many others, have set."

Of all the things that wisdom provides...the greatest...is the possession of friendship.” 

– Epicurus

Reach out to a friend today.  

       Use humor and laughter to bridge any communication gaps.
           Reconnect with someone you may have forgotten over the years.  

Write to a friend to resolve issues.  

Send a note to someone who has inspired you because of Friendship.

Everyone has a deep friend
and something that they love to do,
A beloved and a craft. - Rumi 

 

Delve into Friendship.

Just Five Morning Minutes

 

Rather than a jump right out of bed in the morning, give yourself an extra five minutes.

Set your alarm or ask Siri to remind you when the time has expired.

Lie in bed for the five minutes in silence. 

Keep your eyes closed and let favorite colors float in. 

Listen to your breathing as the only sound. Begin with breathing in four and out five breaths through the nose.

Imagine unfolding like a bud to greet the sun. Take in a favorite scent.

Remind yourself of what creates the most fun in your life or the greatest success. Then think about all that you will accomplish today. 

Focus on a joy or passion. Pick a dream or goal. Let them energize you.

Feel one Gratitude.

Applaud yourself when you have achieved the five minutes of bliss.

Feel the joy if you went over the time limit. 

Combine the Unlikely

 

"Behind the cotton wool of daily life is hidden a pattern; all human beings are connected with this.  The whole world is a work of art."  - Virginia Woolf

Try three unlikely combinations and see where they lead in your writing. 

Use an automobile, a force of nature, and a cookbook 

Let a telephone, turtle, and emerald collaborate.  

What will you do with a radio, a chess piece, and pumpkin pie?  

Combine a tuba, fish pond, and pelican.

Choose three other items that might trigger unlikely reactions.  

Let a story or poem emerge.

Wayfinding

Among the first seafarers to use celestial navigation for wayfinding, ancient Polynesians developed stick maps. They charted over a million square miles of ocean. 

While some maps refer to the sky, most chart currents and wind patterns on the water's surface. Wayfinders used shells to mark the locations of the islands.

Navigating with nature's guidance, travelers observe ed wildlife, the position of stars, and the sun and moon to chart their course.

The sun, at sunrise in the east and sunset in the west, guides the navigator without instruments and provides direction.

How would you define 

wayfinding with a voyage into words?

Use the sun, moon, and stars for guidance.

Brake for Humor

"Seven days without laughter make one weak."   -  Joel Goodman

Humor helps to redeem moments lost to pain, fear, despair, and loneliness. Scientific studies have determined that humor makes an impact on degenerative changes associated with neurocognitive decline as we age. Random acts of comedy activate regions of the brain.This neural stimulation changes brain function to improve memory and promote neural plasticity.

Each individual has a unique funny bone. What appears to one person may not engage a giggle in another. Regardless of your tickle sensation for laughter, develop what feels humorous to you. Adding comic relief to stressful situations will add to your talent for observing silliness in all situations.

Stimulate your funny bone. Here's a start:

You awaken ten minutes late. Toothpaste lands on your shirt. Then you trip on a rug landing on your funny bone. You notice a maintenance vehicle in the middle of your street as you back out of the driveway. Someone is pushing wires underground. What is going on? Suddenly the technician starts to jump, wriggle and sing.

Begin with a series of mishaps. Target Negative situations. Give them a twist and add a spark of hope with humor. Create random acts of comedy as you alter the details. 

Brake for humor and laugh out loud at a stop light with your window down. 

Daily practice will enrich your brain power. take a day to rejuvenate with laughter and play.

A Day to Rejoice - 1/21/21

 

Camille Dungy, writer and professor at Colorado State University writes, "I find it necessary practice to look for hope, joy and possibility in most of the situations I encounter. I spend a lot of my life as an environmental writer and thinker, and another portion of my life as a Black activist and student of American history."

Dungy continues, "I must, as a necessity of my survival, find ways to sustain my own sense of hope, of beauty, of purpose and light. That's why I want to start with joy. that's why I am always looking for possibilities, for sources of nourishment and abundance."

Former Wellesley College President, Diana Chapman Walsh, described what "thrillionaires" do when she handed out the UN Declaration of Human Rights to each graduating senior from the class of 2000 - 20 years ago: 

 

“With rights come responsibilities to preserve the institutions of freedom; with privileges come duties to others less fortunate than you; with wisdom comes an obligation to use your knowledge in the cause of justice; with power comes the opportunity to remove that which subverts love.”

 

You become a thrillionaire if you can recall a time when you experienced a real thrill when you gave something away: money, time, kind words, or ideas. You create feelings of a thrillionaire if you light up when you think about giving.

Start your day with Joy. Find possibility and purpose. Fill your world with nature's attractions.

Take today to rejoice in America's possibilities. So many creative, thoughtful, human doings thrive and share their potential in our country. Let's celebrate them each day.