Discover Potential

Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. 

By flowing with life I mean acceptance - letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire not, fear not, observe the actual. You are not what happens to you, you are to whom it happens. 

Ultimately even the observer you are not. You are the ultimate potentiality of which the all-embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression.  
                    - Nisargadatta Maharaj

Every morning, even before I open my eyes, I know I am in my bedroom and my bed. But if I go to sleep after lunch in the room where I work, sometimes I wake up with a feeling of childish amazement — why am I myself? 

What astonishes me, just as it astonishes a child when he becomes aware of his own identity, is the fact of finding myself here, and at this moment, deep in this life and not in any other. What stroke of chance has brought this about?  
                  - Simone de Beauvoir 

Open the mind and spirit to discover an amusement, an astonishment, and an amazement. 

Get unstuck. Move into the flow. 

Delve into nature to notice what happens. 

Ask questions about chance and motivation to make something happen.

Find your child's eyes and ears. Engage with aromas sent by the breeze. Explore with the fingertips.  

Invest in your potential for what amazes. 

Discover amusement with a playful attitude.

A Labyrinth Walk

In Greek mythology, Daedalus designed the labyrinth in Knossos for King Minos of Crete. It functioned to trap and hold the Minotaur.

Unicursal labyrinths appear at a variety of locations for a contemplative walk. They provide a place for meditation with therapeutic benefits. Walking among the turnings, one loses track of direction and of the outside world. The mind quiets.

Labyrinth at Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine

When approaching the labyrinth, I experienced energy of light captured to the left of the first photograph.

Around the spaces I journeyed to discover heart rocks.

Once in the center, I saw the movement of a creature into a future heart. Another heart begins at its tail.

My walk filled me with gratitude and creativity to pursue the love of life's possibilities.

Friendship's Benefits

  

Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time. - Georgia O'Keefe

What does it mean to become a friend? How does one develop a friendship? It takes skill and risk. Anticipation and expectation can destroy more relationships than misunderstandings.

Friends remain realistic in their needs. They give what they want to get. They take time - a lot of time, for one another.

Designing oneself to become the friend desired requires listening skills, empathy, compassion and reciprocity. 

A friend arrives like a cool drink on a hot day. 

An understanding glance and hug can do more than medicine to cure illness.



Laughter and play become necessities in all situations. 

Respect and restraint help friends walk in different directions, yet side by side. 

Friends build a two-way street of give and take. One way street signs do not exist in their relationship.

How do you survive friendships? Can you be there and be fun?

What friendship survival skills do you have to share? What three talents do you develop in yourself as a friend?

Have you shared an unlikely friendship?  

Dragonfly's Tale of Collaboration

The sky, river and land quarreled over colors to represent them. The sky claimed blue, but the river roared in disagreement.

Land demanded multicolors: greens, yellows and browns. That decision angered both the sky and river.

Then sky shouted also about needing ambers, crimsons and gold.

They quibbled daily. Only darkness ended the fighting. With the next dawn, the arguments surged anew.

One day the dragonfly interceded. "Why not collaborate and exchange colors throughout the day," she said.

To encourage their alternation of colors, her clan of dragonflies wove a variety of darks and lights into a collage to present for their view.

They also invited birds, ladybugs, bees, and other insects to add hues.

Members of the animal and plant kingdom arrived to convince land, river and sky about the intermingling and sharing of color.

Finally, land, river and sky agreed to trade and mix. The dragonfly danced in triumph.

 

A Flight into Fun

Writing with a hummingbird mind requires free flight. Words flutter in all directions and investigate possibilities. With the twirl of wing movement, the ability to make quick choices and changes depends on curiosity and mind currents.

Notions that flow from the fingers flap letters into words and sentences. Intention gains power. It involves filling an entire page without stopping to edit.

The need to control relents to the outcome of the writing. Success arrives by the ability to permit one word to flutter into another. The unexpected evolves from word flight in its twists and turns.

Engaging in this playful process uncovers the joys of self-acceptance.

Find your own branch with a view. Bring a notepad and pen that flows.

Consider the sounds and colors around you. Begin with a feeling of flight and flexibility as words move across the page.

    Release the hummingbird spirit with freedom. 

                  

          Fly into fun.

Awareness

The artist of life
         opens shutters
  listens for the shadow bounce
       to taste
           a flight of letters.          

We absorb life in three ways: visually, auditorially and kinesthetically.  The intuition gains access through all that passes near and through the senses. Everyone has a natural focus on one area that stimulates before the others. 

I tend to hear and smell first. My eyes take over in response to those messages. Photography stores my visual cues for later. I search for musicality and discover the silences. 

This shift of awareness into the other areas adds texture to writing.  It assists receptivity and exercises the ability to nudge intuition.

It's a thrill to mix and match and taste the air.

Expand the potential of your authentic voice by spending time exercising the areas you do not normally access first.  

For a week write one day from sight, one from sound, another from

body sensations.  I

ncorporate all at the end of the week.

Find Fields of Wonder

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'l meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' don't make any sense."  - Rumi

What happens when one becomes so engaged in an experience that time has no meaning?

Discover a different self as you try on a new attitude, approach, or fresh outlook.

Imagine an immersion in the tangerine, green, and aubergine.

Breathe in the scents of floral varieties.

Notice how blossoms sway and rock in the breezes.

               Examine the outlines and textures of nature's art.

Jump into a field of wonder. 

Build on ideas to create the day.

Toss Away Troubles

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. 

Some come from ahead and some come from behind. 

But I've 

brought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. 

Now my troubles are going to have troubles 

with 

me!”  

- Dr. Seuss

What troubles will you knock down with words today? 

Challenge your weaknesses/

Expand strengths. 

Pick a fight with troubles. 

Spark, joust, wrangle with words.  Jump into the fray.  

Become a cowboy, Ninja or Samauri.   Move into action.

Tangle with troubles and downplay any weaknesses you feel.

Engage with words and blow a few bubbles,

     Write until you have conquered your troubles.

            Smash 'em, slice and swarm until you agree,

When writing with vigor, troubles will flee.  Toss them away.

Expore Bridges

 

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.

Find a bridge to explore. Ask questions of nature.

Find Thoughtfulness

If one word could act as a standard of conduct for one's entire  life, perhaps it would be thoughtfulness. - Confucius

Questions for thoughtfulness.

Where do we find thoughtfulness?

Does it arrive as our minds surge and focus?  



Will it help to stop and look and listen?



What if we act without expectation?

How does thoughtfulness reciprocate?









Where does marvel fit?

Elizabeth Gilbert references the poet, Jack Gilbert and writes, "He seemed to live in a state of uninterrupted marvel. He didn't teach how to write poetry but why: because of delight. Because of stubborn gladness. He told them they must live their most creative lives as means of fighting back against the ruthless furnace of this world."

Stay thoughtful, ask questions, and marvel at nature's reminders.

In Honor of Thich Nhat Hanh

Grateful for the teachings and writings of Thich Nhat Hanh. He will continue to influence the world with positivity and possibility. RIP

A Question Stalk

"Literature stops life for the purpose of examining it." ~ William Faulkner

Writers have posed and pursued questions since Socrates who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living," 

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, ". . . and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

American naturalist, John Burroughs wrote as he traveled. He claimed, "I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think. All the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see."

Discover ways to stalk the questions in discussions with family and friends.

Let longing and curiosity serve as a rallying cry.  Consider how to define "examine"?

How might you be, see, and do everything you love to do in writing?

Choose a writing quest where you ask questions that push to the limits and beyond. 

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.