Monday, November 11, 2013

The sea's a magnet...

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When I came across these glorious underwater photographs from Elena Kalis I ached, yes ached to be back at the ocean. My breathing gets slower - in rhymn with the waves maybe - and I have no trouble slotting into a slower pace of living. It's as if the sea takes me back to the essence of me.
 photo underwaterelenakalisd_zpsfe5f55b9.jpg  photo underwaterelenakalise_zps96b3d9e3.jpg The ocean drowns out the internal chatter; cleanses me; let's me just 'be'.  photo underwaterelenakalisc_zps927e7f7a.jpg  photo underwaterelenakalisb_zps3e8da960.jpg
And I love people watching by the sea. It's as if we're drawn to it like a magnet. I mentioned this to a friend and she said maybe it's the desire to 'go home'. The anthropologist Loren Eiseley said it well 'Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.'
Maybe it's time to pack the car and succumb to the magnetism...
 
 

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Halloween Party and Giveaway

Welcome to the Sleepy Hollow Halloween Party. It’s scarey here, but there could be treats if you can cope with reading on....
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frida Kahlo print from my store, ARTDECADENCE
What’s that? Shhhhhh… I hear a voice, a deep and tad menacing voice, drifting on the wind...
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What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path!

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How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! and how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings! (from the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving)
 


Ooooh, I think he’s dropped some treats from his saddle bag! Look there below, it’s any 8x10 print from my etsy store!
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To get your hands on this treat, see below. Don’t forget to leave a separate comment for each entry.
1 Entry – Leave a comment on this post
1 Entry - Follow this blog
3 Entries - Blog, tweet, facebook this giveaway and leave a link. Getting the word out gets you 3 entires! Go ahead and leave three comments. You can do this as many times as you want.

This giveaway is open worldwide and the winner will be chosen by random number generator on November 2nd at 11pm etsy time.

Enjoyin the Halloween vibe? Want more? You're in luck as many bloggers are having Halloween Parties today thanks to our gorgeous host, Vanessa of A Fanciful Twist. Go visit Vanessa for links to the other party hosts. Happy Halloween!

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THE WINNER!
Random Number Generated is No 33 making Butterfly 8)(8 Bungalow the winner! Have been in contact. Thanks so much to all of you for visiting here; it's wonderful to feel connected to so many lovely people across the globe. Blessings to you all!

Monday, October 21, 2013

Another world...

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Behind your image,  photo laurasavaafricangirl640_zps7f55f850.jpg below your words,  photo laurasavamalepierrot_zps6140543a.jpg above your thoughts,  photo laurasavahandsonhead640_zpsbfac069a.jpg
the silence of another world waits.  photo laurasavaglowingheart640_zpsf906a08f.jpg Words by John O'Donohue. Art by Laura Sava.

 Aren't these images and words stunningly beautiful. I hope this week you get time to be still and see the perfection that lies within.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Brainwave....

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I'm sharing an excerpt from Chapter One of a newly released fabulous book, Mindfulness for Health: a practical guide to relieving pain, reducing stress and restoring wellbeing by Vidyamala Burch and Danny Penman, available HERE.
 
Pain always seems worse at night. There is something about the silence that amplifies the suffering. Even after you’ve taken the maximum dose of painkillers, the aching soon returns with a vengeance. You want to do something, anything, to stop the pain, but whatever you try seems to fail. Moving hurts. Doing nothing hurts. Ignoring it hurts. But it’s not just the pain that hurts; your mind can start to suffer as you desperately try to find a way of escaping. Pointed and bitter questions can begin nagging at your soul: What will happen if I don’t recover? What if it gets worse? I can’t cope with this . . . Please, I just want it to stop …

We wrote Mindfulness for Health to help you cope with pain, illness and stress in times such as these. It will teach you how to reduce your suffering progressively, so that you can begin living life to the full once again. It may not completely eliminate your suffering, but it will ensure that it no longer dominates your life. You’ll discover that it is possible to be at peace, even if illness and pain are unavoidable, and to enjoy a truly fulfilling life.
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We know this to be true because we have both experienced terrible injuries and used an ancient form of meditation known as ‘mindfulness’ to ease our suffering. The techniques in this book have been proven to work by doctors and scientists in universities around the world. In fact, mindfulness is so effective that doctors and specialist pain clinics now refer their patients to our Breathworks centre in Manchester and to courses run by our affiliated trainers around the world. Every day we help people find peace amid their suffering.

Mindfulness for Health and its accompanying CD reveal a series of simple practices that you can incorporate into daily life to significantly reduce your pain, anguish and stress. They are built on Mindfulness-Based Pain Management (MBPM), which has its roots in the ground-breaking work of Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in America. The MBPM programme itself was developed by Vidyamala Burch (co-author of Mindfulness for Health book) as a means of coping with the after-effects of two serious accidents. Although originally designed to reduce physical pain and suffering, it has proven to be an effective stress-reduction technique as well. In fact, the core mindfulness meditation techniques have been shown in many clinical trials to be at least as effective as drugs or counselling for relieving anxiety, stress and depression. When it comes to pain, clinical trials show that mindfulness can be as effective as the main prescription painkillers, and some studies have shown it to be as powerful as morphine. Imaging studies show that it soothes the brain patterns underlying pain and, over time, these changes take root and alter the structure of the brain itself so that you no longer feel pain with the same intensity. And when it does arise, the pain no longer dominates your life so much. Many people report that their pain declines to such a degree that they barely notice it at all.
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Many hospital pain clinics now prescribe mindfulness meditation to help patients cope with the suffering arising from a wide range of diseases such as cancer (and the side effects of chemotherapy), heart disease, diabetes and arthritis. It is also used for back problems, migraine, fibromyalgia, coeliac disease, and a range of auto-immune diseases such as lupus and multiple sclerosis, as well as being effective for such long-term conditions as chronic fatigue syndrome and irritable bowel syndrome. It’s also useful for coping with labour pain. In addition to all these uses, clinical trials also show that mindfulness significantly reduces the anxiety, stress, depression, irritability and insomnia that can arise from chronic pain and illness. Researchers are continually finding new conditions that can be eased with mindfulness.

Mindfulness Dissolves Pain and Suffering

Mindfulness-Based Pain Management uses ancient meditations that were largely unknown in the West until recently. A typical meditation involves focusing on the breath as it flows into and out of the body (see box, below). This allows you to see your mind and body in action, to observe painful sensations as they arise and to let go of struggling with them. Mindfulness teaches you that pain naturally waxes and wanes. You learn to gently observe it, rather than be caught up in it, and when you do so, something remarkable happens: it begins to melt away of its own accord. After a while you come to the profound realisation that pain comes in two forms: Primary and Secondary. Each of these has very different causes – and understanding this gives you far greater control over your suffering.
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Primary pain tends to arise from illness, injury or damage to the body or nervous system. You could see it as raw information being sent by the body to the brain. Secondary pain follows on close behind, but is often far more powerful and distressing. Secondary pain can be seen as the mind’s reaction to Primary pain.

Pain’s volume control

The mind has tremendous control over the sensations of pain that you consciously feel and how unpleasant they are. It has a ‘volume’ control that governs both the intensity and duration of the sensations of pain. This is because your mind does not simply feel pain, it also processes the information that it contains. It teases apart all of the different sensations to try to find their underlying causes so that you can avoid further pain or damage to the body. In effect, your mind zooms in on your pain for a closer look as it tries to find a solution to your suffering. This ‘zooming-in’ amplifies your pain. As your mind analyses the pain, it also sifts through your memories for occasions when you have suffered similarly in the past. It is searching for a pattern, some clues, that will lead to a solution. Trouble is, if you have suffered from pain or illness for months or years, then the mind will have a rich tapestry of painful memories on which to draw – but very few solutions. So before you know it, your mind can become flooded with unsettling memories. You can become enmeshed in thoughts about your suffering. It can seem as if you’ve always been ill and in pain, that you’ve never found a solution and that you never will. So you can end up being consumed by future anxieties, stresses and worries as well as physical pain: 
What will happen if I can’t stop this pain? Am I going to spend my life suffering like this? Is it going to keep on getting worse?
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This process happens in an instant, before you’re consciously aware of it. Each thought builds on the last and quickly turns into a vicious cycle that ends up further amplifying your pain. And it can be worse than this because such stresses and fears feed back into the body to create even more tension and stress. This can aggravate illnesses and injuries, leading to even more pain. It also dampens down the immune system, so impairing healing. So you can all too easily become trapped in a vicious downward spiral that leads to ever greater suffering.

But even worse, such negative spirals can begin wearing tracks in the mind so that you become primed to suffer. Your brain begins fine-tuning itself to sense pain more quickly – and with greater intensity – in a futile bid to try to avoid the worst of it. Over time, the brain actually becomes better at sensing pain. Brain scans confirm that people who suffer from chronic pain have more brain tissue dedicated to feeling the conscious sensations of pain. It’s almost as if the brain has turned up the volume to maximum and doesn’t know how to turn it down again.
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It’s important to emphasise that Secondary pain is real. You do genuinely feel it. It’s only called Secondary pain because it is the mind’s reaction to Primary pain and has been heavily processed before you consciously feel it. But this same processing also gives you a way out; it means you can learn to gain control over your pain. For this reason, Secondary pain is best described as suffering.

In practice, you can be in pain but you need not suffer. Once you realise this, deep in your heart, then you can learn to step aside from your suffering and begin to handle pain very differently indeed. In effect, mindfulness hands back to you the volume control for your pain.
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The benefits of mindfulness on overall mental and physical health have been demonstrated in a wide range of scientific studies. Despite this, you might still be a little sceptical about meditation. When the word is mentioned a whole cascade of stereotypes can spring to mind: Buddhist monks, yoga classes, lentils, brown rice . . . So, before we proceed, we’d like to dispel some myths:
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• Mindfulness is not a religion. It is simply a form of mental training that has been proven in countless scientific trials to help people cope with pain, illness, anxiety, stress, depression, irritability and exhaustion.
• Meditation will not trick you into passivity or resign you to your fate. On the contrary, mindfulness boosts mental and physical resilience.
• Meditation will not seduce you into adopting a fake ‘positive’ attitude to life. It simply creates a form of mental clarity that helps you to enjoy life and achieve your goals.
• Meditation does not take a lot of time. The programme in our book takes around twenty minutes per day. In fact, many people find that it liberates more time than it consumes because they spend far less time having to cope with chronic pain, illness and stress.
• Meditation is not difficult or complicated, although it does require some effort and persistence. You can meditate on more or less anything (we even include a Coffee Meditation in our book). You can also do it virtually anywhere – on buses, trains, aircraft or even in the busiest office.
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Highly recommended by me!

Art featured: 1. Glass sculpture from Adrien Art 2. Alabaster candleholder from Brilliant Alabaster
3. Oil painting by Vincenzo Paolucci available through Count Vincenzo
4. Brain cap from Celtic Bubbles 5. Hemp sofa from Croft House
6. Sleep mask from Love Me Sugar 7. Meditation necklace from Love Jadeite 8. Teapot from Vianova

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Jushing up your nest on the cheap...

Some inexpensive home décor ideas from flickr group above and blogs below.
 
Addicted 2 Decorating                     Design*Sponge
The DIY Showoff                                    Hatch
Apartment 132                                                            Remodelista
 
Shanty 2 Chic                                 Apartment Therapy          decor8
 
 
Home Life              Desire to Inspire
 
There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry “hello there, Anne”
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.
All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.
So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning
lest it go unspoken.
The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,
dies young.

by Anne Sexton


Sunday, May 5, 2013

Psychiatric Hospital Memories

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(NB This article is adapted from an article that appeared in Collectors Weekly about six months ago...I accidentally came across it and found it so thought provoking I had to share. I know these events happened years ago and things are different now, but many of us have memories of relatives who spent time in places like 'Willard'; and more importantly many of us have been through times when we could have ended up in similar situations if we'd been born a generation earlier. Thank you for taking the time to read this piece and to share your thoughts with me.)
 
If you were committed to a psychiatric institution, unsure if you’d ever return to the life you knew before, what would you take with you? That sobering question hovers like an apparition over each of the Willard Asylum suitcases. From the 1910s through the 1960s, many patients at the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane left suitcases behind when they passed away, with nobody to claim them. Upon the center’s closure in 1995, employees found hundreds of these time capsules stored in a locked attic. Working with the New York State Museum, former Willard staffers were able to preserve the hidden cache of luggage as part of the museum’s permanent collection.
“There were many patients in these asylums who were probably not unlike friends you and I have now.”
Photographer Jon Crispin has long been drawn to the ghostly remains of abandoned psychiatric institutions. After learning of the Willard suitcases, Crispin sought the museum’s permission to document each case and its contents. Crispin’s photographs restore a bit of dignity to the individuals who spent their lives within Willard’s walls. Curiously, the identities of these patients are still concealed by the state of New York, denied even to living relatives. Each suitcase offers a glimpse into the life of a unique individual, living in an era when those with mental disorders and disabilities were not only stigmatized but also isolated from society.

CW: How did you come across this collection?

Jon Crispin: I’ve worked as a freelance photographer my whole life. In addition to doing work for clients, I’ve always kept my eye out for projects that interest me. In the ’80s, I came across some abandoned insane asylums in New York State, and thought, wow, I’d really like to get in these buildings and photograph them.So I applied for a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, got it, and spent a couple of years photographing the interiors and exteriors of these buildings. When the psychiatric programs moved out and shut things down, they basically just closed the doors and walked away. They left all kinds of amazing objects inside these buildings, including patient records in leather-bound volumes.

In the mid-’90s, I heard that at Willard—one of the asylums in which I spent a lot of time photographing—the employees had saved all the patient suitcases that belonged to people who came to Willard and died there. Starting around 1910, they never threw them out.
“I don’t really care if they were psychotic; I care that this woman did beautiful needlework.”
 
Clarissa's suitcase.
Clarissa’s suitcase.

CW: Do you think the patients had access to their suitcases after they arrived?

Crispin: There were many levels of mental illness in these places. Some people were in really bad shape, and sometimes had to be restrained, completely unable to function in any kind of society or environment. Those people probably did not have access to their suitcases.
“It wasn’t some hellhole where people were chained to the walls.”
But a large number of people at the asylum were ambulatory. They were out and about; they worked at the farm; they did artwork. Some of these places even had their own dance bands. The Utica State Hospital had a literary journal. There were many patients in these asylums who were probably not unlike friends you and I have now. The reasons why people were put in these facilities ranged from everything to serious psychoses and delusions to people who couldn’t get over the death of a parent or a spouse. Other people were institutionalized just because they were gay.
Freda's suitcase.
Freda’s suitcase.
 
Anna's suitcase.
Anna’s suitcase.

CW: Can each suitcase be traced to an individual patient?

Crispin: I have access to all the names, and New York State has the medical records for anyone admitted to these hospitals since the 1850s, so their histories are well-documented. I would like to use their full names in the photographs, but because of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the laws about medical records and privacy, there’s some question as to whether or not I could be vulnerable to a lawsuit by the state.
Anna's suitcase contained an inventory of her glamorous clothing.
Anna’s suitcase contained an inventory of her glamorous clothing.
 
Here’s a weird story: When I do the shooting, my digital photographs are labeled with what’s called IPTC information. It’s all the camera metadata stored with each photo, and you can add whatever you want. I typically add my copyright information, and also the names of the Willard patients for my own records. But when I upload photos to my blog, I strip that out.
For one person’s suitcase, I forgot to delete their name. Two days later, I got a call from someone who’s desperate, saying, “Do you have the objects of —?” and she gave the name of the person. And she said, “That is my grandmother. We didn’t know anything about her.” She had Googled her grandmother’s name and came across the Willard suitcases on my site. But even in this situation, the woman had to prove to the state that she was not only the granddaughter of this person, but that she was legally the recipient of her estate. So, in other words, if the grandmother had willed her estate to the other side of the family, this woman would not have been able to get access to her things.
One of Eleanor's five storage containers.
One of Eleanor’s five storage containers.
 
I’m still trying to figure out how I can name these people, because I think it dehumanizes them even more not to. People who’ve been in mental institutions themselves have said, “Your project is very moving to me, but I’m very disappointed that you have to obscure names.” I think the stigma of mental illness has evolved from something shameful to something that’s much more medical and much more accepted. It just happens to people. But I’ve been very careful at this point in obscuring names, because there are many documents within the cases with names on them. I’m not showing their medical records; I’m only talking about the fact that they lived at Willard.

CW: Why weren’t these suitcases returned to family members when these people died?

Crispin: They tried, and again, the issue had to do with HIPAA laws. Contacting people with the information that their suitcases were in possession of the state was complicated by HIPAA. But the other problem was that a good number of these people were basically abandoned by their families, and their relatives showed very little interest in receiving their things after they died.
A detail of Eleanor's sewing supplies.
A detailed view of Eleanor’s sewing supplies.

CW: Was there any single suitcase that stuck with you?

Crispin: One of the last cases I shot was from a guy named Frank who was in the military. His story was particularly sad. He was a black man, and I later found out he was gay. He was eating in a diner and felt that the waiter or waitress disrespected him, and he just went nuts. He completely melted down, smashed some plates, and got arrested. His objects were particularly touching because he had a lot of photo booth pictures of himself and his friends. Frank looks very dapper, and there are all these beautiful women from the ’30s and ’40s in his little photo booth pictures. That really affected me.
Frank's suitcase included much military-related ephemera.
Frank’s suitcase included much military-related ephemera.
 
Dmytre’s suitcase is another that I really like, it’s the last case I did. Dmytre was very moving. He was Ukrainian and clearly brilliant. He had notebooks filled with drawings of sine waves and mathematical things like that. There’s a wedding picture of Dmytre and his wife, and she’s holding a bouquet of fake flowers, which were also in the case.
Dmytre was interesting because he got arrested by the Secret Service because he went to Washington, D.C. and said that he was actually married to President Truman’s daughter, Margaret Truman. And what’s great is there’s a little Washington monument thermometer in the case, so clearly he bought a little tchotchke on his trip to D.C. and then later got arrested for saying that he was Margaret Truman’s husband.
Frank's suitcase.
Some of the objects in Frank’s suitcase.
 
Obviously, some of the cases were a lot more mundane than others. There was one that had syringes in it that were so beautiful and old, and small drug packets with pills still in them. There were combs, books, bibles, clocks, and an incredible Westclox Big Ben alarm clock in its original box that’s unbelievably pristine.
There was lots of expensive stuff, like perfume bottles from Paris that were worth tons of money. People wonder, how is it that a woman who’s committed to Willard has a bottle of perfume, which even at the time was super expensive? Mental illness doesn’t target any one particular group of people; it takes all kinds.
Dmytre's suitcase contained his wedding photo and the silk flowers carried by his wife.
Dmytre’s suitcase contained his wedding photo and the flowers carried by his wife.

CW: Did stories often emerge from the objects you found inside each case?

Crispin: You could tell a lot about a person by what was in their case. One of the most touching letters I read was written to a woman who had been in another asylum and then released and finally sent to Willard. There was a letter from her sister, saying, “You could come back to Erie, but I don’t want you living in the YMCA because they’re still really upset with you for trying to stab that girl.” That one letter tells you a ton about what this woman’s life was like.

Souvenirs and scientific notes found in Dmytre’s suitcase.
 
But every case was different; I was constantly blown away. It was very important to me not to carelessly rifle through these things and forget that they were somebody’s personal belongings. And I really have a lot of respect for these people as well as the nurses and doctors who worked at the facility. I came away from all of this and the asylum work I did in the ’80s thinking that the state was actually trying to help people. It wasn’t some hellhole where people were chained to the walls. They tried to help, and I think it’s important to keep that in mind. While I was reverent, I tried not to be overly serious. I actually laughed a lot. If you’re ever around people in psych centers or even psychiatrists and nurses, a lot of their experiences are funny. Some of the items were amusing, but some made your heart ache, and others made you go, holy shit, what is this about? I was constantly affected by the items, and that’s my goal with photographs.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

What's hiding in your attic?

Yes I know it’s been ages. I do my best but life is very full and very exciting. It's those 'dares' you see! No more! Today I'll do a little 'sharing' instead. I’ve discovered a great store on Etsy – Papa’s Vintage Photo Box. Jane uses photographs taken by her Papa in the 50s and early 60s as the basis for her artworks. She enhances the old images, sometimes adding new graphics, sometimes adding color, but never taking away from the atmosphere of her Papa’s original vintage photos. You can take a nostalgic journey through time and place as you wander through her store with more images waiting to be uploaded.
   photo papamaximsparis_zpsbdec8451.jpg photo papagirlsboat_zps0f32a5c8.jpg photo papasphinx_zps4b1ea798.jpg photo papamotorbikeridersguernsey_zps580b14ea.jpg photo papapigsireland_zpsff1605a2.jpg
I know many of you are heading into spring in your part of the world; here we’re nearly in autumn. As the first chilly evenings set in I find myself thinking of hibernation, cosiness and comfort. So, in the absence of an open fireplace of my own (airconditioning just doesn’t have the ambience does it) this little gif appealed.
 
And for some other soothing sounds (maybe for snuggling up in bed) here are a couple of videos with sound.
If I don't visit here again before Easter, I wish you a very happy one!  photo PenguinWithBunnyEarsRunningjpg_zps8b2c9eef.gif
 

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Dare 3: dare to be the person you dream of being

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Okay, first off, yes I had a birthday last week, and it was so lovely that I've decided to keep the celebration going for the rest of the year! Friends have been warned to have cake ready. Pretty good idea eh...we'll see how it goes.... Birthdays remind me that time is passing, and I'd better get my butt into gear if I want to accomplish certain things and be the person I wish to be.
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Licence Plate Clock by Platesttrends
(I have to be honest; I'm skipping some sections of the book we've been following - those sections that cover not procrastinating, those that cover career goals. Being the person you dream of being seems more important to me than achieving 'things'.)

When thinking of qualities I'd like to display, I've always found it useful to ask myself questions like, 'How will I be remembered?'.
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Clock Corset from VW Corsets
So here are a few of the qualities I'd like to develop or enhance -  you'll know yourself what qualities you desire.
  • Be able to let go of long held perceptions of myself and gain the freedom to try more new things every day.
  • Become more patient and more forgiving of myself (this is a difficult one for many of us) and others.
  • Not be afraid to share my laughter and positive vibes with the world without worrying about other's perceptions.
  • Be eager to experience new things, making life sparkle with unanticipated experiences.
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Assemblage Clock by The Urban Recyclery
 
Sometimes I need gentle reminders to keep me on track and birthdays are the perfect time to reflect.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Dare 2: dare you to learn something new every day

Photobucket Watercolor, from The Dusty Caravan, inspired by Tom Waits
 
Okay, here's the speel from the second part of Kogan's book of dares for ecstatic living....Everytime you learn something, you rejuvenate yourself and add another dimension to your life. Don’t worry about how what you learn fits into your life; if something interests you, learn about it, invest some time in it, and color your life with what you learn from it. Learning is not just an occasional activity but a way of life, an attitude that keeps our eyes, ears, brains, and heart open to as many new experiences and ideas as possible.  Here are some of Kogan’s suggestions (am sure you can add plenty to the list).
  • Read one magazine or newspaper article every day from sections that you usually skip.
  • Sign up for a daily learning email. For example, check out www.wordsmith.org, where you can sign up to get a daily email with a new word and its definition.
  • Take a different way home and check out new and unfamiliar places along the way.
  • Whip up a recipe you've never tried to cook before.
  • Learn a skill you've always wished you had...plenty of suggestions here!
Now the pics with this post give a clue to what I'm trying to learn...yes the guitar...nothing fancy, just the basic chords.  I think tho that I have a mental block about 'practise' that goes back to piano lessons in childhood. The guitar sits on a chair and seems to taunt me as I walk past 'practise! practise! you'll never learn unless you practise for at least an hour every day' and of course that all seems too hard so I don't do it.  So, here I am after two weeks and I can only play two chords if I'm looking at the instruction sheet. Never mind, suppose as long as I keep at it, by the end of the year I'll have to have progressed won't I?

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