Launder the Mind

Who likes to do laundry? Although the process seems tedious, it feels satisfying to have fresh clothes.

Writing into, around and beyond frustrations helps launder the mind. 

Enlightenment and freshness result. 

Choose three areas of cleansing to explore. 

Suggestions:

Write into anger.

Identify the people or situations that irritate and cause anger for you. Write suggestions to avoid similar events in the future.  How might you approach them in creative and humorous ways?

Write around negative memories.

Write a list of negative memories that bother you. Review each memory from a distance. Imagine the memory as an observer. Add colors and scents. Write what you learn from each memory from those perspectives. 

Write beyond self-criticism.

Write about the ways you criticize yourself. Don’t censor. Dive in to discover the origins of your criticism. Take a break. Distract yourself by listening to sounds in the environment (the sound of a refrigerator, clock ticks, passing cars, birdsong). Return to the keyboard or notepad. Write three of your strengths.

Write into Positivity.

After you have determined your three concerns or have written into the above suggestions, take another break.

When you return, finish the laundry by writing a positive memory of successes you have enjoyed, seeing what you saw at the time, hearing what you heard, and feeling what you felt. 

Delights of the Unknown

Poet Renee Ashley writes, "I am drawn to what flutters nebulously at the edges, at the corner of my eye just outside certain sight.”

Glimpse what is beginning to occur.

                                        Find possibilities.

Stay alert for delights of the unknown.

Find Fun and Play

Edith Hamilton wrote, “to rejoice in life to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in was a mark of the Greek spirit which distinguished it from all that went before."

Greeks loved to play. They pursued fun for its own sake. All over Greece games existed for athletes, dancers, musicians and other performers.

Find playfulness and fun today.

Leave Three Things Undone

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. - Lin Yutang


Any perfectionistic traits I showcase result from inheritance. Both parents felt everything had a place and items should find themselves there. My father knew how to plan and proceed with excellence. He made certain my room had a neat appearance before I went to school. Surfaces must shine clear of clutter. I learned to cram items in drawers and closets as a result when I whirlwinded around the room to make the place presentable.

My mother had it both ways. Her surfaces and drawers promoted perfection. 

When I get ready to take a trip, I whirl around the house, cleaning, fixing, emptying, scurrying. After I read the above quotation, I decided to let three "things" go. Leave a dish in the sink, a sock on the closet floor, towels not washed. After a few two and outs, now it feels right.

The plan of leaving three things undone has lightened my spirit. 

Notice how and when you can do this each day. If you are a get things done person with way too too much "perfection" and obsession, try my experiment.

Now, if you are a procrastinator, try this challenge. Accomplish three more things.

Always let positivity and humor race around along with you. Laugh at your challenges.

Moments of Beauty

 

A silver bowl filled with snow, a heron hidden in the moon.—Dongshan 

A rebirth of the arts occurred in Japan during the Muromachi period in the 14th century. Poetry and painting flourished and a form of theater called Noh developed. This form used carved masks and combined mime, dance, poetry, and song. 

Derived from the Japanese word for "skill or talent, Noh is a form of classical musical drama. Developed by Kan'ami and son, Zeami, Noh tells stories of human passion and struggle from an otherworldly perspective with masks and gestures.

Actors train for a lifetime to communicate universal emotion to the audience.

Zeami wrote the book of dramatic theory called the Kadensho. He shares the secrets of achieving the highest accomplishment as a non actor. With nature images as a metaphor, he refers to various levels of artistic achievement in the performing arts as hana or flowers.

Zeami indicates one of the highest levels of accomplishment occurs when an actor captures a moment of beauty:

. . .  piling up snow in a silver bowl . . . the hues that derive from a pure, clean white light, an appearance that gives rise to a real sense of gentleness. Can it not be said that such 

represents the Flower of Tranquility.

Find your moments of beauty.

Happy Gratitude Day

“For each new morning with its light, for rest and shelter of the night, for health and food, for love and friends, for everything thy goodness sends. I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and new.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Research confirms the importance of Gratitude when felt and also shared with others. Subjects were asked to write for what they felt grateful. After ten weeks in the study, they exhibited major increases in their happiness scores, felt more optimistic, and better about their lives. 

They also reported exercising more and had fewer visits to the doctor following the experiment. The second group wrote about daily problems and situations that left them unhappy. These individuals felt comparably unhappy as a result.

"If [thankfulness] were a drug, it would be the world's best-selling product with a health maintenance indication for every major organ system," said Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, head of the division of biologic psychology at Duke University Medical Center. Oxytocin, the social bonding hormone, floods the brain and body with euphoria during moments of happiness and feelings of security that can result from a hug.

Gratitude helps us discover the wonders in life. Happiness and contentment result as by-products, especially when gratitude is shared.
Enjoy a Grateful Thanksgiving Day.

Liberate Your Inner Awesome

Take time to release and enjoy a break from life's demands.  Let yourself go beyond the ordinary.

Dance like Snoopy with extreme joy regardless of your skill or grace.

Romp, tumble, roll, and cavort.  Yell Whee!

In this way you can begin to explore the frontiers of amusement and bliss.

Experiment with fun and rowdy to penetrate playfulness not yet explored.

Liberate your inner awesome.

Childhood Wonder

 

"Give me the mind of a child." - Pablo Picasso

All children share delight and curiosity in discoveries.  They seek direct experience of the world as it unrolls. The joy of adventure becomes stimulation for their creative exploration.

A writer's intuition requires a similar sense of wonder. Writers begin with awareness and write to expand and explore the images that flow. They climb trees of possibility and feel the crust of bark with their hands as they spiral into the branches. 

A new world opens for playfulness with words.

Reflect on an event you observed in the past week with freshness and a twist. Take a mental stroll to a familiar place and observe it for the first time with a child's attitude and insight.  Notice the ocean as more than water and waves. See color in variety and subtlety of gradation.  Hear a bird's music and the wind's roar.

Write about a moment of pure joy experienced with a child's mind. Or, write about the remembrance of a first gift received. Get into a rhythm a child might use to explain the situation.

Color An Alternate Reality

 

                                                      - Rene Magritte

Rene Magritte created a variety of subjects this way. He painted a rock suspended over the sea, fish people on a rock. a locomotive coming out of the chimney under a clock. How did he make the ideas work to get our curiosity?

We need enchantment, fun and wonder in life. A mix of illusion with every day happenings helps. 

Let unlikely images collide. Weave dreams with logic. We can energize our imaginative motors by reading science fiction or fantasy and observing elements in surreal painting.

Andre Breton felt dreams can open us to a "superior reality." His ideas created a definition of surreal. He called it, "psychic automation" and encouraged free writing to discover the connections.

We need enchantment, fun and wonder in life. A mix of illusion with every day happenings helps. 

Let unlikely images collide. Weave dreams with logic. We can energize our imaginative motors by reading science fiction or fantasy and observing elements in surreal painting.

Andre Breton felt dreams can open us to a "superior reality." His ideas created a definition of surreal. He called it, "psychic automation" and encouraged free writing to discover the connections.

                                                                                            - Andre Breton

Leap into ponds of possibility by exercising new muscles. Search for untouched areas you have never explored. Move beyond the regular, expected and known imagery.

Color an alternate reality.

The Color Blue

What if

midmorning sky

sneaks into cafe tableware

tricked by the color blue.

Clouds dance on plates

grazing the toast and jelly

like newborn lovers

whose toes never

touch the earth

until familiarity

vacuums the crumbs

sending clouds back

to where

they are supposed

to belong.

               - Penny Wilkes

Discover Inspiration

 

It is what I was born for -

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world -

to instruct myself

over and over . . .    

                       - Mary Oliver

The inspiration you seek is already within you. Be silent and listen. - Rumi

Nature's scents, sights and colors provide an interlude and exhilaration away from the rush of life's activities.

Entering this world releases us into a slower and tranquil way of living.

We can instruct ourselves, as Mary Oliver says, by observing the patience of a black phoebe or a blue jay's hunt for lunch.

Humor arrives as an osprey entertains.

Joys abound when we lose ourselves while learning nature's life skills.




Keeping the ears open and the smile widened makes the day.

Discover daily inspiration.

Mine for Mystery

“

The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer. They think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.” 
- Ken Kesey

Move from the actual into fun and fantasy with words.

What if you planted a garden in which bizarre plants grow?  How would you describe them by colors, textures, scents, and sounds they make? 

Imagine an orchestra or a wild concert of blooms. Discover magicians within the petals. How will you choreograph the dance?

Place yourself into an encounter of strange. Delve into the wonder and magic.

Flavor your writing with mystery and see where it leads. 

Unexpected Adventure

"Today my winged horse incoming, and I am carrying you off to the moon, 

and on the moon we will eat rose petals." - Shirley Jackson

What will such an invitation to wander on a fanciful or mysterious adventure encourage?

Even if you are not whimsical with notions, the time is favorable to do so now.

Follow a squirrel's lead.

Feel energized with unexpected adventures. 

Make Resilience Rock

 

"Anxiety is the interest paid on trouble before it is due." - Dean W.R.Inge

Human beings are the only creatures in nature who complain and feel anguish about a situation before it happens. When met with obstacles, other animals, insects, and plants just keep doing what needs to be done. They stay in their process toward progress. moving beyond what gets in the way.  

Consider aspects of resilience. Check out eggs hatching, roses unfurling, or seeds sprouting. Imagine if they wasted time with anxious thoughts.Nothing would hatch or bloom. They benefit from not having the brain cells necessary for worry.

Most researchers argue that pessimism has its place. It offers a more realistic way to positive results. Barbara Held, psychologist at Bowdoin College, believes healthy doses of pessimism become crucial in overcoming obstacles and achieving goals. If we accept the fact that things can go wrong, we can prepare for them. It's the best offense for a positive outcome.

Become a balanced optimist. Rather than thinking like the defensive pessimist, use your imagination to work for you in creating the best and worst cases. Ask, "In what five ways can I achieve success."  Scribble notions as you consider all pathways and rocks in the road of your desired destination. 

Preparation enables you to have a variety of responses ready You have choices and do not need to persist with unsuccessful routes. These ideas will move you beyond the emotional reactions of the moment. Your healthy resilience will develop.

Write five ways to reunite with resilience.

Make resilience rock.

Cloud Play

Air travel provides a time, removed from the earth’s pull, to detach and focus among the clouds. 

Close the eyes and feel an expansion and awe of this machine defying gravity and taking you to a destination.  

Feel the lightness.  Play in your childlike mind.  

When you arrive at your destination, notice with all the senses.  

Take in nuances of the arrival moments in scents and sounds and energies in the air.

Make chasing clouds a daily favorite. Discovery creatures at play.

Clouds come from time to time and give one a chance 

to rest from looking at the 

moon. -Basho

Find the duck.

Into the Night

"If the moon comes and goes through its cycles but the stars always shine for us, constant and true, we should honor them more."  - Janie Chang, The Library of. Legends

Night represents a powerful source of energy and inspiration. During moonlight, the earth opens to moisture and germination. 

Regenerate with insights about what Sjoo and More call, "the great cosmic dance in which everything participates. Celestial bodies move, tides pulse, blood and sap circulate in plants and animals."

Consider the night's benefits for insights and creativity. 

            

        How will dreams stimulate productivity the next morning?

Gardening's Benefits

"Every day is one more reminder from Mother Nature that I'm not in control." 

- Joe Lamp'l creator of Joe Gardener  https://joegardener.com/about/

                                        

Gardening provides a way to practice acceptance beyond perfectionism. No perfect garden exists. Bugs and birds eat plants and poke holes into leaves. Creatures come in to nibble. Weather challenges. Plants grow faster than others, then just wilt. Others sprout and create color and scents. 

Change in a garden occurs all the time. A garden helps us learn to go as it grows. Joe Lamp'l says, "pursuit of perfection is a waste of time—especially in the garden. So don't bother!"

Acceptance in the garden or in other situations does not mean giving up. We bring our best efforts to what we can control and release the rest. With gardening that means "preparing the best environment you can possibly make for your plants," says Lamp'l, "and allowing nature to take it from there. Your garden (like your life) is in bigger hands than yours." 

With a growth mindset, we're constantly learning. When something doesn't work out as planned, it serves as a learning opportunity rather than a "failure." Mistakes mean more learning and more growing. We can even look forward to our mistakes and create onward. 

"I love making mistakes," said Lamp'l, "because I look at them as a chance to learn something new. Through those mishaps, you can understand what happened and why, and you can be empowered to relate that learning to new things." 

The Japanese expression "shinrin-yoku" means "forest bathing." It captures the experience of being immersed in green. Research has found submersion in natural landscapes helps with depression and illness recovery. Looking out on a green landscape lessens anxiety and promotes other positive effects. 

Doctors have started writing prescriptions for "green exercise." This includes nature walks which reduce blood pressure and mood improvement more than strolls long the street.

Mindful presence happens in a garden. The garden serves as a protected place where we practice doing what we're doing; focused in the moment.

Lamp'l described finding his "Zen moment" in his garden, where he tunes in to his experience.  

"That's sacred time for me," he said. "When I'm out there weeding, I want to hear the birds."

A garden provides a place to move away from negative news or computer activity and experience nature's offerings.  

With vegetables grown there, a garden provides fresh and healthy foods. Studies in this area tend to find benefits of the "Mediterranean" diet and similar types, which emphasize consuming minimally processed whole foods. Items that your garden will yield. Growing your own food provides an added positive.

Connections with others happen in a garden offering advice and sharing benefits of techniques.

Make a plan to start a garden. If you enjoy one new, keep it growing.

Begin with flowers and plants. Add others as you discover scents and colors of interest.  

Bring the outside inside. 

Add greens and blooms to all your rooms.

More on gardening: 

Joe Gardener's site:  https://joegardener.com/about/

Toni Gattone, The Lifelong Gardener, Gardening with Ease and Joy at Any Age.