Liveliness | Bonnie Barnard - Part 9

Home » Liveliness

As Long as We’re Breathing, We’re Learning

Guess what? I’ve gone back to school. I’ve prepared for it all week beginning with a conversation with my Starbuck’s barista. Brian welcomed me with my venti, Passion, no sweetener, iced tea informing me “school has started.” “I know,” I tell Brian, “I am taking a class, too.” “Really? Now why would you take a class?” He says with twenty year old curiosity. “To learn,” I respond as he begins laughing. He sees the world in semesters and degrees. I see the world in chunks of learning. I signed up for a three credit English class on magazine writing. I don’t care about the credit. After twelve weeks I want to hold up a portfolio of pitched and in process articles I’ve written. I drove up to the campus, very comfortable, as I’ve worked on college campuses and enjoy the sensation of being surrounded by individuals interested in the discipline of learning. After getting my parking permit and mortgaging my house for the purchase of two paperback text books...

My God is Love

I sit today with more questions than answers; rich in potential revelations open receptive slightly curious recalling. An Indian guru this week said with reverence “God is really feminine in energy as She creates, giving birth all of the time.” I wonder, why then, are women diminished hated, brutalized, used throughout the world I occupy. Is it a statement really toward God and potency, not women? I pick up a book by Alice Walker Anything We Love Can Be Saved, its title. I decide I will love all that is feminine, masculine, and alive. My world will change. My God will be Love. I change the tense to the present. My God is Love. I have a new prayer. Bonnie Barnard,...

Drinking In Emerson

The last two years have been full of taking Emerson breaks. Not coffee or tea breaks, well maybe those to, but taking time by myself to sit quietly and ingest Ralph Waldo Emerson. My favorite is of his essays is Self Reliance. Many years ago, maybe ten, I took a trip to Concord Massachusetts and toured Emerson’s home where I touched his black robe when no one was looking. I am not sure what I expected to happen, it wasn’t like Jesus touching the hem of the woman’s garment, but I touched it none-the-less and for a moment breathed deeply. In my imagination I was indulging in an energy transfusion. I went on to take a “Transcendentalist Tour” and was the only one who showed up, which meant I had a history professor turned tour guide all to myself. Did you know the Transcendentalists believe God is an inner experience and connected with through intuition? This, now, commonly held belief was revolutionary at the time. Concord was a hotbed of...

Raw Art Journaling: Interview with Quinn McDonald

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, richly, personal. BB Tell me more about making through making art. QMc My life changed entirely when I realized that we don’t find meaning in life, we make meaning from life. We don’t pursue meaning, we develop it over time, each of us in our own journey. Creativity is what makes meaning in our complex lives. The act of discovery...

To Live or To Expiate

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. I often speak to the “how” one lives their life and the “what” one does through their life’s actions when officiating a memorial service. These are two different ways to examine a life. For example, I can Google my father’s name and pull up a portfolio of his work left behind. This is the “what” is done in life. And then there...

What Are You Reading?

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). Plus, I’m practicing transparency. Haven’t we all thought the same thing or shared the same emotion at some point? Shaking and hugging myself simultaneously I began posting. One of the books I’ve recently read is Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life where he chronicles his life journey through his love of various books. Where the Wild Things Are The Five Chinese Brothers (Paperstar) and a...