Tag Archives: travel

For the Love of Creating

This morning I stumbled upon a wonderfully creative, insightful, and funny narrative about creativity. What made this a great journey down “creativity lane” for me is that Matthew Inman (of The Oatmeal) is a VERY funny guy, and his cartooning skills are considerable. For me there were many smiles (and yes, even guffaws!) here. Not only was it inspiring, it was uplifting. What could be better than wisdom honed with wit?

Eight Marvelous & Melancholy Things I’ve Learned about Creativity

One my favorite toys as a kid was Spirograph, which led to free-hand doodling, which led to making and selling art professionally as an adult, which led to teaching art, and going forward I plan to write more books with illustrations. Some of my favorite books as a child featured beautiful ink etchings. I’d like to bring that back into style, because even as adults, we tend to enjoy some pictorial enrichment of words.

However you express your creativity, have fun with it! Play. Smile. It’s time to get our smiles back…

Breaking the Spell

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“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ~ W.B. Yeats

On the face of it, this quote by Yeats speaks immediately to me of honing our sensory processes so we can better enjoy the beauty of life. Perhaps it is because of the word “magic”, which I easily translate in my mind to “magical” – beautiful or delightful in a way that is removed from every day life.

However, in this duality dimension of opposites, there is unfortunately a dark flip side to magic. Just as Sleeping Beauty was cursed to sleep for 100 years by an evil fairy, so is part of humanity at the moment under a spell. The preoccupation with illness that is being purposely perpetuated in society (largely through media) is hypnotizing people into a sort of trance, dulling their senses and patterns of thought.

One of our defenses against this type of attack is to hone acute personal powers of observation. Without our own observations and critical thinking skills in use, we are vulnerable to manipulation. The real truth of anything is to be found in the spaces between what is said and not said, what is done and not done, the ongoing patterns and inconsistencies in any narrative.

Here is a a very good article on improving powers of observation, which goes hand-in-hand with critical thinking: Powers of Observation: 8 Analyzed Ways to Develop it

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The Free Soul

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“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
~ Virginia Woolf

“Dare to think for yourself.”
~ Voltaire

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.”
~ Jim Morrison

“There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask “What if I fall?”
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?”
~ Erin Hanson

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Let Go of Judgment

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“Imagine living your life without fear of being judged by others. You no longer rule your behavior according to what others think about you. You are no longer responsible for anyone’s opinion. You have no need to control anyone, and no one controls you, either.” ~ Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Judgment of others leads to a need to control others. “You must think, say, and do as I do, or you are not acceptable!”

The bigger point may be, “If you do not think, say, or do as I do, I fear that I am not acceptable or have made a wrong choice.” When we become secure in ourselves, we release the need to judge and control others. Think of how much precious energy we all expend on this type of behavior, to one degree or another! What a waste…

Letting go of judgment is one of the most expansive things we can do for ourselves and others.

Castles in the Air

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“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

We need more dreaming as an antidote to the reality that is being thrust upon us. The people who are glued to their phones and mainstream news 24/7 are living someone else’s version of what life should be here on planet Earth. How could it be otherwise? What room do they have in their minds for autonomous thought? Our global society is being reshaped before our eyes, and phones coupled with mainstream media are a big tool for the programming.

Let’s go from dystopian to utopian, just for a moment. What are the higher principles that you would like to see more of right now? More love? More respect? More integrity? Higher principles are the foundation of any good society. If society is crumbling, it is because the foundation is rotting.

We need to start over with new and creative dreams, and from them build a new foundation for a new way of being. Where would you start?