BB How does your book support individual inquiry into one’s deepest Self? QMc Raw art journaling is the deep-rooted, authentic heart work you bring to your journal. Raw art is what heals and restores, and requires only an open mind and heart, not a pile of equipment or years of talent. Raw art is the GPS system for your journey, and like the GPS you use in your car, it is intensely personal to your journey. How you create art is up to you–from drawing to painting, singing, dancing, writing or performing music or parenting, comforting people or leading a team–and putting your talent to practice is always deeply,...
Expiate — To extinguish guilt or to atone In his essay, Self Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson says “I don not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.” Let’s live today. Let’s pause and recognize this moment is different from the previous one and different still from the one yet-to-come. From our bones and from our Soul, let us express this moment as who we are without apology. Let’s decide to be ourselves fully. Let’s speak what is ours to give voice to and be quiet where it doesn’t matter to us. Let us do what is ours to do and let others make their contribution with equal conviction....
Parched The parched know — real thirst draws rainwater from an empty sky. By Ivan M. Granger (1969 – ) One of the quickest ways I reconnect with my Center is through poetry. Ivan Granger (above) hosts a website www.poetry-chaikhana.com featuring daily sacred poetry. With permission, I am posting Parched for your enjoyment. Peace,...
Make Peace Brothers Singing Thank You Make Peace Brothers (www.makepeacebrothers.com) singing Thank You June 1st I posted my intention to write thirty thank you cards in thirty days. I was inspired by Patti Digh saying she writes one thank you note a day. I gave myself the challenge, and this is what I learned about myself: 1. Writing thank you cards created internal space — with each card written I had more energy. I discovered a thank you note felt like completing a transaction. It was like adding punctuation to a sentence. 2. I felt as though I were ordering more Grace from the Universe with each card. There is...
Yesterday I read God Theory, The: Universes, Zero-Point Fields, and What’s Behind It Allby astrophysicist Bernard Haisch not one or two but THREE times. My body consumed it like manna taking in the message through my mind and absorbing the essence of it as a transmission through my body. There were three points in the book he made which when I read them produced a smile and a YES exclamation throughout the quiet walls of my home. I will share the other two insights in future blogs, but today I wanted to share what I learned about Dimensions of Consciousness. It is important to preface I was raised in the belief...
Today I added my Summer Reading List to my blog site. As I posted the books I am nurturing this summer, I felt a bit naked. I became aware that what I read informs me and others quite a bit about who I am, where I’ve been, what I dream about, and where my interest lies. I feel I am splayed open with book in hand and an inquirer staring on. I hesitated for a moment about posting my reads. I share them with my closest of friends, but putting them on-line for the world to see? Taking a deep breath, I reminded myself the world isn’t currently reading my post; just smart, hip, loving people (wink). ...
Today is day four of a nasty cold. Up until this visitation I had been happily writing a book on the Soul and feeling terrific about my discipline. I would pat myself on the back at the end of each day and smile with a warm sense of completion. Then, on a 108 degree day in Phoenix a cold got me. “How can this happen?” I am shouting aloud in my house. Then, the shouting stops as my throat begins to swell. I don’t know who is winning the race, running faster, my nose or eyes. My ears begin plugging up and my head is out of commission. The first day...
My dad, my three-day old sister and me at age three Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there!! Today’s blog is to pay homage to my father. Babe Ruth hit his 700th home run the year my father and his twin brother arrived. His family lived in a dirt-floored home complete with outhouse in rural Oregon. A wood stove would attempt to keep his family warm in the winter, although the cold would often win. The only plenty in his family was love. Poverty and Eagle Scouts principles would become my dad’s greatest teachers. By the time I was born, my grandparents had built a comfortable living for...
An article in the Harvard Business Review states the following about multi-tasking: A study showed that people distracted by incoming email and phone calls saw a 10-point fall in their IQs. What’s the impact of a 10-point drop? The same as losing a night of sleep. More than twice the effect of smoking marijuana. Doing several things at once is a trick we play on ourselves, thinking we’re getting more done. In reality, our productivity goes down by as much as 40%. We don’t actually multitask. We switch-task, rapidly shifting from one thing to another, interrupting ourselves unproductively, and losing time in the process. This article is a fun...
Most mornings for me begin with a several mile walk to a coffee shop, sitting in an overstuffed chair with an herbal ice tea in one hand and a book in the other, and then walking back home. Throughout this “me” time I am provided with an onslaught of insight about my life. I may remember who I’ve been or I experience being pulled into who I’m becoming. More often, I am practicing being present with each step and each breath. This year I turn fifty. I see this as permission to strip away and shed all voices except my One True Voice. Maybe they aren’t stripped or shed, but they...
In the midst of it all she chose color I sat listening attentively, taking in the message of the room when the speaker read a poem she’d written celebrating her daughter’s pink hair. At first I felt a gulp in my throat followed by shallow breathing. With my stomach in knots and my heart aching, guilt began rising. I witnessed contrast. Where this loving mother had celebrated the bright colors of her daughter’s hair, I had criticized mine. Yes, my daughter also was one of the many with bold hair choices in her teen years. Beginning with her natural soft brown mane, she became pink, dark blue, and midnight black. ...
My two years in solitude were really about two years of shedding. I started, pretty much at ground zero, and invited a continuation of digging and purging in consciousness; the most honest way I knew to honor the already demolished self. The process wasn’t really linear. Not like demolishing a home so a new one could be built on the same site. It was a process of allowing death to happen simultaneously with new life. This is where I choose the metaphor of shedding. Even that, I’m not sure is quite right. Anyhow, as I begin leaving the quiet dark and venture out into the Land of Doing, I...
I was introduced to Patti’s work through a stranger. I was visiting Cannon Beach, Oregon less than one month after my dad died. I was raw with grief and entered a spa with a book in hand about writing my emotions. I was greeted by a perky Lisa who asked me what I was reading. I shared with her the book was on Sark’s book recommendation list and her enthusiasm upleveled. “Have you read Patti Digh? If you like Sark, you’ll like Patti.” She wrote Patti’s name on a piece of paper with the name of her book Life is a Verb. She said “Patti’s stepdad died after being diagnosed...
The past two years for me have been about “Birthing My Soul.” I had gone through a very extended rough patch which I celebrate physically living through. I worked with a team of doctors, spiritual coaches, therapists of many genres, to support this transformation. My Energy Doctor told me early on in the disintegration process that I would be well the day I had more of “Me” in my body than “other people.” This comment resonated within me as I stripped away all of my relationships, most of my books, and many sources of opinions, that I may listen the still small voice within. I moved out of town...
