Meaning Basket for a Mindful Holiday Season

We've put up our Christmas tree early this year, two full weeks before Thanksgiving. The plan is to decorate it during the November calm so we'll be able to enjoy it even while busy with rehearsals and preparations for the annual LUNCH Holiday Show next week, and tired week that follows, when we'll be putting away mountains of scenery, props, and costumes.

With all that's been in the news lately, I've been especially aware of the gulf between the attitudes of Thanksgiving, love, community, and gratitude this holiday is meant to represent--with it's intended mindfulness of others' needs--and the actual Season of Consumerism and over-consumption that follows instead. I know I sound like a bit of a Scrooge, but personally I don't need any more things, or hobbies, or toys for entertaining myself. I have much more of everything already, and I suspect that most of the people I know are in this same situation. Our planet doesn't need the impact of manufacturing all this, transporting or storing it. I'm aware of my own excess, but at a loss to know what to do to help the many, many people in this world who have far less than they need for basic survival and comfort.

With all this in mind, I've decided to make a small change in the way I approach the coming season. In effort to change my holiday habits of over-doing, over-wanting, and over-buying, I've created a different sort of symbolic container to place beneath our Christmas tree. It's a second-hand basket--a Meaning Basket--to contain my growing awareness of all the good that already exists in my life, as well as tangible reminders of the material, hopeful, and helpful longings I feel.

To this end, I've cut small pieces of scrap printer paper from the recycling bin, gathered a handful of pencils, and placed these together in convenient places all around our house.  On the slips of scrap paper, As I think of them I'll write the names of the many people, things and opportunities I already have in my life, then I"ll drop these into the Meaning Basket under our Christmas tree. (The piles of paper scraps and pencils all over the house are something I've been using for a long time to capture creative ideas and reminders for my TO-DO list.)

I'll focus, especially, on those people and things I never seem to get around to enjoying as fully as I would like. Then, I'll take steps to do the special things I always intend to do, but never seem to get around to because I'm too busy with shopping, rushing around, or looking through the mountains of holiday catalogs that come in the mail each day. As for my unused possessions, I'm either going to make a point put those things to good use in the coming year or give them to someone else who will. How many of these are things I've asked for and received for Christmas in the past?!

I'll also write down the needs I see in our community, the many things I see and feel drawn to help with. There are so many that I often feel pulled in all directions, overwhelmed, with no plan of action. In January, as I'm looking ahead to the coming year, I'll sort these out and choose something to follow through with, something tangible and manageable to make a start.

Our close family has asked to keep gift exchange simple this year with primarily homemade, handmade gifts, gift cards, and time spent spent enjoying each other's company. This feels right to me.

Mindful of this, I intend to use the basket and scraps of paper instead of spending December thinking about what else I might want and don't really need, or wandering through stores and shopping online trying to figure out what to get for people who've told me they don't really need anything else either. When I see an ad for something I might want, I'll get the scissors and cut out a picture of it, like I did when I was a kid, then drop that picture into the basket where it can sit in the context of all the good that already exists in my life. Thus, my inevitable longings for shiny, new things will find more balanced context, a context where I can better decide which acquisitive longings to indulge.

All this may be asking a lot of a second-hand basket, but such a simple container seems like an appropriate symbol for carrying the Thanksgiving mindset of gratitude and mindfulness forward into the coming Christmas season. It is my hope that the value of my new Meaning Basket and the insights it holds will stay in place long after our Christmas tree has been put away.

Will you join me by filling your own Meaning Basket this season?

©Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

Eric Maisel Does For Mood What Michael Pollan Did For Food

MY REVIEW AND RESPONSE TO 
"Rethinking Depression" by Eric Maisel

“In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” the 2008 bestseller by Michael Pollan challenged us to take back our food supply from the “Nutritional Industrial Complex.”

Another bestselling author, Eric Maisel, psychologist and international creativity expert, in “Rethinking Depression: How to Shed Mental Health Labels and Create Personal Meaning,” urges us “make meaning” in order to take back our mood supply from the Medical Industrial Complex. [my coined phrase, not Maisel’s] 

Maisel encourages us to make a meaningful life in order to combat inevitable human unhappiness, then he tells us how. 

If this book hasn't been on the bestseller list by the time you read this review, I wish it were. It looks at life with an honesty and clarity that is rare, and much needed.

I am fortunate to be among a handful of artists, authors, and others across the globe to be asked to read and respond to "Rethinking Depression" as part of Eric Maisel's blog tour for it's launch this month.

Based on its title, at this point in my life I probably wouldn't have selected "Rethinking Depression" from a bookstore's shelves as my next read, but I'm extremely grateful to have read it.  It's true that you can't judge a book by its cover.  It arrived at just the right time to repeatedly provided insight that I'm on the right path, for me, as I work to make a meaningful life. I saw reflected back to me among its pages a philosophy and approach that rings true.

Maisel writes of his 2012 release with New World Library, “I question whether ‘the mental disorder of depression’ exists or whether in contemporary times human sadness has been monetized and languaged into a ‘mental disorder.’ I follow that discussion with a plan for minimizing sadness and living life with purpose.” 

It is a book in two parts.

PART ONE: Maisel Rethinks Depression
Part One is a well-reasoned look at the medicalization and pathologization of common human experiences of emotional pain and sadness by the pharmaceutical industry and mental health establishment.  Maisel describes how our perception of these behaviors and experiences has been transformed by diagnostic lists of symptoms with an accompanying menu of approved treatments.

I find Maisel’s carefully reasoned arguments to be extremely persuasive. 

Though my reading of “Rethinking Depression”s opening chapters brought to mind many questions—I’m always one to ask, “Yeah, but what about…”—I was moved to speak aloud, “Yes!” when Maisel recommended that instead of the term “depression,” we use more specific and compassionate words such as “sadness” or “loneliness” or “disappointment” or “loss.”  These feelings are not medical conditions. They are normal human reactions to life’s harshest realities.  I won't be addressing those questions or their answers here, but in the course of writing this review I had the opportunity to interact with Eric Maisel directly. I will just say that this book represents only a small portion of a well-reasoned and compassionate conceptual edifice well worth exploring.

And there is great power in naming things as they truly are.

This is not to say that Maisel opposes prescription medication, talk therapy, or even religious practice as help for those struggling with difficult experiences and emotions. He simply wants us to recognize that these options are only that, options.

PART TWO:  We Learn to Rethink Depression
In Part Two of “Rethinking Depression”, Maisel presents another option: the reader can learn to "make meaning" by developing and acting on an "Existential Plan.”

Chapter 4, the first in Part Two, is one of the most beautifully stated explanations of a philosophical perspective—in this case existentialism—I have ever read.  With his customary pragmatic, conversational tone, Maisel lays out the ideas of Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Kafka, Sartre, and Camus in terms anyone can understand. Then he shows the reader how to move beyond the philosophical into the day-to-day application of these ideas to life.

To paraphrase: Life is both beautiful and extremely harsh.  No one can tell you what it all means. You have to take responsibility for yourself, decide for yourself what meaning you wish to make of life, then do your best each day to live ethically according to your own self-knowledge, values, and goals.  Even knowing that you will fall short of this ideal much of the time, Maisel asserts that this is the best way to deal with your own human unhappiness, simply by seeing life for what it is, being true to yourself, doing what you can and making what you can of your life as you go along.

For other more academic explanations of existentialism offering greater detail than I'm able, you might want to look at the following:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism

Here is Jean-Paul Sartre's (b. 1908, d. 1980) own explanation of existentialism given in a lecture in 1949, if you care to wade through it:  http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm

The last time I’d tried to understand existentialism was in college. I attempted to read something by Sartre, perhaps "Being and Nothingness," on the recommendation of a friend, who I later learned had selectively adopted its ideas to justify an assortment of amoral life choices.

All I remember is that it left me feeling deeply depressed—or I should say profoundly unhappy and hopeless.  My father was dieing of cancer at the time.  My dreams for myself were proving to be much more difficult that I’d expected to make real, if not impossible, under the circumstances.  And I was experiencing my first crisis of faith, as the religious beliefs I was raised with longer seemed to ring true.  Sartre’s writing echoed my own dawning awareness of life’s harsh realities, without offering any comfort, at least in its opening pages.  It was too much for me at the time.

I wish someone had placed a copy of “Rethinking Depression” in the hands of my younger self all those years ago. Though, having read this book, I now feel as if someone has.

Part Two of this book begins with the realism of existential philosophy in Chapter 4, then fleshes out an approach to life that puts the power back into our hands as we each decide for ourselves how to be true to ourselves (live an authentic life) and make that life meaningful, even—perhaps, especially—when life seems most meaningless.

MAKING MEANING AND LIVING AN AUTHENTIC LIFE
In each of the chapters that follow, Maisel offers step-by-step guidance on how to do this, all the while admitting that meaning making, though worth the effort, is anything but easy.

I’m a big fan Do-It-Yourself.  I grow a garden each summer so my family, friends, and I can enjoy healthy fruits and vegetables. I bake my own bread by hand, from scratch, and even sew my own clothes when I have the time.  I entertain myself and perhaps offer the same to a few other people by creating original artwork and music from the raw materials of my imagination. And I volunteer for the causes I value most in the belief that making the world a better place is the ultimate DIY project.

Until I read “Rethinking Depression” that I had never thought to use the particular words “making meaning” to describe my DIY life. Now I realize  that’s exactly what I’ve always felt.  For me, Maisel’s use of that powerful phrase delivered a fabulous AH-HA moment, one of many provided by this book.

Maisel’s admonition to “focus on meaning, not mood” was another lightbulb moment for me. Again, this is something I attempt to do, though, for me, having the right words for it brings the practice to a higher level of awareness and choice.  In the face of life’s unavoidable unwanted experiences—and the pain, sadness, disappointment, and anger that inevitably accompanies them—I can choose in each moment to bravely, though imperfectly, turn my attention and actions toward the things I value most, toward creating the life and being the person I most wish to be.

Serendipitously, as I was writing this review, I happened to be working my way back through my personal journals from last summer, looking for bits of insight and lessons learned. After reading “Rethinking Depression,” I read the words I’d written then in a new way. 

I was taking the unavoidable difficulties of life and transforming them through choice and action into meaning.  In this way, I was able in the course of three handwritten pages to move from sadness to strength. I wrote:

I’m still feeling down this morning. What I imagine I’ve lost in the past 10 years is the optimistic boldness of belief that everything would work out as I imagined it would.  Time and again, I’ve faced emotional and physical setbacks that stripped me of my momentum….10 years ago I had no idea that all of this lay ahead.  All I saw was possibility.  I saw my own potential.  I believed that possibility and ability would come together to create the reality I envisioned.  If it were entirely up to me, then that’s exactly what would have happened.  It’s not.  It’s not entirely up to me.  My past, my body, the people I encounter and the things they choose to do, these are outside of my control.  They are the other creative forces.

All I can do is continue to show up.  When I’m tired, when I’m sad, when I’m so discouraged I want to give up, I can still show up.  I don’t have to feel it in order to continue acting on my creative vision. I start with what is, in this moment, and put my hand to it, apply my mind and emotion to it.  Even in sadness.  Even in despair of ever seeing my vision realized.

I am here.
As long as I am here there is hope for what might be.
That is enough.

I've learned along the way that life's obstacles and distractions offer some of the most meaningful adventures, as long as we can learn to walk through the unhappiness of unexpected detours and actively turn them into opportunities for learning and growth. Maisel's latest provides us with the tools and instructions we need to do this for ourselves.

"Rethinking Depression" should be required reading in the great school of living. We are each far more than a set of mental health criteria. We are far more than a diagnosis or the lack of one. Making a meaningful life is simply the best way to take back our mood supply.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF RETHINKING DEPRESSION

Eric Maisel, PhD, is a licensed psychotherapist and the author of Rethinking Depression and numerous other titles including Mastering Creative Anxiety, Brainstorm, Coaching the Artist Within, and A Writer’s San Francisco. He blogs for the Huffington Post and writes for Professional Artist Magazine. Visit him online at http://www.ericmaisel.com. 

RETHINKING DEPRESSION by Eric Maisel

February 15, 2012 •  Pychology/Personal Growth •  256 pages • Trade Paperback

Price: $14.95 • ISBN 978-1-60868-020-7

Mehndi Heart in Hand: FREE DOWNLOAD Bookmarks

On 3/22/11, I decorated myself with mehndi designs (henna) as a way to mark an important rite of passage. I knew that by the time it faded I would be well on my way to better things.

Today, I celebrate the return of spring and a return to health after 4 months of difficulty, culminating in surgery and a brief hospitalization. (Nothing life threatening, just one of those things.) Most of all, with a deep sense of gratitude, I celebrate the broad circle of friendship that has made the Divine more tangible to me through many thoughtful acts of kindness. I'm convinced that the compassion that surrounded me during this time was the best medicine of all.

In celebration and as an expression of my gratitude, I decided to use this occasion to share my first FREE PDF DOWNLOADs. There are no strings attached except for your solemn promise, on the honor system, NOT use them for your own or anyone else's monetary gain.*

At the bottom of this post, you will find links to click to download or print the files and instructions to follow. You will need Adobe Acrobat or some other program for viewing PDFs. These will enable you to make the bookmarks shown above, another of similar design with a more secular theme, or both. Your choice!

They are arranged 5 per page for each design. I recommend printing on card stock or cover stock.

I've designed these bookmarks to be an affirmation that each of us can make a difference for good through our simple, personal acts of kindness.

I created these to send out as a "thank you" to the many friends who were there for me during my recovery. Some provided home cooked meals, others shared DVDs, several stopped by for a chat and helped out when my husband was unavoidably away for a couple of days just a week after my return home. These are equally my way of saying "thank you" to friends and family far away who sent messages of encouragement.

I have friends and family members from many different belief systems and a wide range of religious traditions: Christians of every denomination, Jews, hindus, Buddhists, unitarians, pagans, wiccans, mystics, humanists, atheists, agnostics, and Hare Krishnas. I have learned much from each one. All have in common a desire to make the world a better place through the use of their unique skills and talents. The power of love is their unifying belief.

That's why I chose to include two separate designs.

Yes, I attend a Christian church. That's the path of belief I've chosen for myself, the community I've joined for the work of building lasting relationships, for experiencing and wrestling with the Divine, and doing the work of Love that can't be done by one alone. Still, I don't believe that Truth can be contained in one book or one building.

The "Heart in Hand" Bookmark, the one on the right above with a spiral on the index finger, is the more secular of the two. Since many of my friends are active in the arts, I chose the following quote:

"In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

FREE DOWNLOAD: Heart in Hand Bookmark

The "God's Love Letter" Bookmark, the one on the left above with a cross on the index finger, was intended to have special meaning for my church friends. Its text reads:

"I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world" ~ Mother Teresa of Calcutta

FREE DOWNLOAD: God's Love Letter Bookmark

INSTRUCTIONS

(also also included on each sheet)

1. Select a bookmark PDF, save and/or print it on card stock in your choice of color(s). I used beige. You may need to adjust your print settings for scale and centering. These images were set up for 8 1/2 x 11 inch with very narrow margins.
2. Using scissors, cut just inside the guidelines to make arm shaped bookmarks. Feel free to adjust the shape to your liking as you cut. Punch hole for attaching tassel at location marked.
3. Cut 10-12 inch lengths of ribbon, yarn, of raffia in your choice of color(s). Fold each in half and tie or loop through the punched hole to attach. Then, if you choose, separate the strands of yarn or fray the raffia to make a fuller tassel.
4. Sit down with a cup of tea and a good book! Or pencil personalized notes to friends on the back of each bookmark and give as gifts.

(c)Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

*These are copyrighted images. PERMISSION IS HEREBY GRANTED to duplicate for personal use, to give as gifts, or to raise funds for non-profits supporting social justice and the environment. NOT to be sold for personal or commercial monetary gain. Contact Kay Pere for additional information.

POETRY: Autumn Sunrise

AUTUMN SUNRISE

As I in morning stillness stood

Face pressed against the window sash

To watch an endless feathered flock

Dark silhouettes with dart and dash

Flood across the opalescent sky

Dimly on the glass I saw

Inspired Mystery made plain

My breath inscribed a spectral heart

Upon the frigid windowpane

(c)2010 Kay Pere~Effusive Muse Publishing

[Photo taken at sunrise at Gove Hill Retreat Center, Thetford, VT.

Poem written this morning 10/30/2010 from life lived joyfully. I only wish I had taken a picture of the foggy heart that appeared on my window as I gazed out at birds and sunrise, breathing deeply of beauty.]

REFLECTION: a sigh of relief...

March has been one of the busiest months I've experienced in many years. All of it good busy. Just too much constant activity on top of activity for my quiet temperament.

Too much of a good thing is still too much.

The past two months have been an uninterrupted stream of concerts to perform, retreats to lead, conference mentoring to offer, workshops to present, and pottery shows to manage. All satisfying and valuable, but requiring a steady take-charge alertness and responsiveness to others that is draining when sustained over a long haul.

Today marks a conscious shift toward silence and solitude.

Today I return my gaze toward the projects closest to my heart, projects that can only progress if granted the uninterrupted time, energy, and focus they require.

• recording the next CD, one song at a time
• writing the Creative Compass book, one essay at a time
• pottery making, for artistic discovery and for sale, one lump of clay at a time.

One of my favorite quotes is from the dancer/choreographer Martha Graham, here she is speaking to Agnes De Milne:

[pictured above in a photograph by Barbara Morgan, "Letter to the World (kick), Martha Graham" 1940]

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is on a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

When I'm suspended too much from myself--from my need for stillness and solitude--a sadness, a deep feeling of neglect creeps in. There is only one cure.

I wrote in my journal this morning:

"My tasks first. Others later or they will set the tone for the day.

My tasks first.

Not email.

Not phone calls.

My solitude.

My body. [meaning exercise and healthy eating]

My vision.

First."

"Relationships don't need constant tending. They will be stronger if I am more whole."

"If I am angry and sad and feeling neglected within, no matter how much recreation and togetherness is poured on top it will never be healed. The healing is in my own inward attentiveness, my own setting of protective boundaries around the needs of this center self, my own making of space for its expression and discovery."

"There is always discovery in solitary being and doing. That is what I long for. I will carve out space for that discovery through Soulful doing. Starting today. Starting now."

Less mindless surfing of the internet to read news, or watch videos, or catch up on Facebook. Less shuffling through newspapers and magazines to kill time.

Much more direct engagement in the projects that matter to me.

Starting today. Starting now.

I'll be writing here and on my other, related blogs more regularly, though briefly, to map daily progress.

But I'm shutting down my browser now.

And getting to work.

Starting today. Starting now.

(c)Kay Pere~Effusive Muse Publishing

BAKING: 1st Cake from Scratch!

Yesterday's Creative Output:

1 Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with Mocha Whipped Cream Frosting

2 8-inch round layers

Life can be home schooling for grown-ups.

That's how I see it. I've turned off the TV, where I'd just be watching other people do things, and I've tuned in to learning and doing things myself instead, using my unscheduled time to following my curiosity.

It has been a goal of mine for a long time to bake a cake from scratch. Why? I'm not entirely sure. Sense of accomplishment? Potentially delicious results? Happy husband?

It's one of those urges you don't question. You just go with it. But where to start?

For my first scratch-baked cake, I meticulously went through all my cookbooks and compared all the chocolate cake recipes (no exaggeration). If I was going to put in the effort to bake a cake this way, I wanted to understand what I was doing and what the options were. I wanted to maximize the chances of success. Nothing is more discouraging to a novice baker that an unpalatable result the first time out.

At the risk of revealing the level my enjoyment of detail and depth, and looking a little crazy in the process, here is a picture of the table I created and filled in with ingredient quantities from 18 different chocolate cake recipes (not including the flourless or chiffon varieties).

Earlier this week, when the number of choices and amount of information was feeling overwhelming, I put this chart together so I could look for patterns. I enjoyed imagining each one as I looked over the recipes.

That's probably why I have so many recipes collected and organized into binders on a shelf in our kitchen. I read recipes the way some people read trashy novels.

Though the cake in the picture above wasn't from the recipe I ultimately used, the photo supplied inspiration for the finished result.

Some recipes used powdered unsweetened cocoa, some solid, some Dutch-process, some non-Dutch-process (wasn't even sure what this meant when I started). Some specified butter or shortening or vegetable oil, or milk or water or buttermilk or yoghurt or sour cream, white sugar or light brown sugar, baking powder and/or baking powder and/or salt. And so on. A lot to understand.

Got a wide variety of reactions when I told people I was planning to bake my first cake from scratch this week--everything from "Why would you want to do that?" to "You've got to try this great frosting recipe!"

Ultimately, I took a friend's advice and chose a recipe with buttermilk for my first attempt. She said it would be more moist. For the frosting, I decided on a flavored whipped cream for simplicity's sake--I already knew how to whip cream and add things to it. Other frostings required unfamiliar steps. One can only take on so many unfamiliar steps at one time.

Mixing the cake ended up not being a big deal. Creaming butter and sugar together on a stand mixer? I knew how to do that. Easy! Measuring and sifting together dry ingredients? I could do that. Again, easy! Breaking eggs? Mixing it all together? Putting the batter into the greased and floured pans? All easy!

Why had it seemed to overwhelming to begin with? Too many choices. Multiple steps examined as a whole. The print began to swim on the page. Until I took it all a little at a time.

Choose and do! That's it.

This is an approach that applies to any other undertakings. Face down the feelings of being overwhelmed by choices and the worry about making the best one. Take the time you need to understand what you're about to do, as much as you can without having done it, then choose and do! Or just jump in and try stuff, see what works and what doesn't. Either approach works.

Many kinds of knowledge only come from the doing.

Three years ago I decided I wanted to learn to bake my own bread. Now I'm very comfortable with the process and enjoying experimenting with methods, inventing my own recipes. I would love to get to this point with other areas of cooking.

Cooking is just another thing to know, useful knowledge with edible results. It's a way of relating to the things that us bring sustenance. It's the raw material for an enjoyable experience, sitting down with others to converse.

So many of the other creative things I'm involved in are what I would call "long cycle" activities.

From concept and clay to finished piece to gallery or market is a relatively long cycle, on the scale of weeks or months, sometimes years. From concept to song to performance to recording to distribution is another long cycle of months or years.

Baking is a creative activity with a "short cycle" from beginning to end, just a matter of minutes or hours. The recipe I chose said "2 1/2 Hours Total, including cooling, 25 minutes active." A small investment when I know we will enjoy this cake all week.

Besides, what else was I going to do? Watch TV?

[I have chosen not to include the recipes I used, leaving the fun for you to choose your own. Both cake and frosting recipes came from "A Piece of Cake", by Susan C. Purdy, which has 380 recipes for all varieties of cakes and frostings--purchased used for $3 at last spring's library book sale.]

Turntable Turns the Tables on Time

I've just returned from a trip to California for a family visit and work on a special project.

I dug into the stacks of old 45s, 78s and LPs we listened to as kids.

Took my ION portable USB turntable and converted childhood memories into digital audio files (wav and m4a), complete with all the nostalgic crackle, pop and hiss.  We played those records by the hour, way back when.

The turntable is durable and lightweight, fit easily into my carry-on bag, raised no eyebrows passing through airport security, and was easy to set-up when I arrived.

When I got back, I found an amazing website that has dozens of Kiddie Records and their associated artwork (jackets, books, etc.) from the mid 1940's through early 1950's available for free download.

[I should make it clear that I wasn't around to hear these records when they were new.  They belonged first to my older brothers, my parents and grandparents--already scratched and well loved by the time I came along.]

What does all this have to do with the creative process or living a more contented life?

It's all about reclaiming the vividness of happy childhood memories.

Creative art making is dependent upon the ability to tap into childlike playfulness and curiosity at will.  What better way to access this mindset than to revisit joyful times from ones distant personal past?

For me, the pull of these old recordings was irresistible.  As I played them I found myself wearing an unsuppressible smile.  I finally had to get up and gave in to the urge to dance around.

For me, living a contented life is all about enjoying what is.  Happy memories from my childhood are things that will always be mine to enjoy.   They cost nothing and offer a guaranteed high.  

They also have the added benefit of helping to free my creative work in the present.

When I revisit the things I enjoyed as a 5-year-old it becomes impossible for me to take myself or anything else too seriously.  This sort of time travel enables me to approach my art with the  spontaneity and fearlessness I felt back then.  I can transport those feelings into the here-an-now on the scratchy strains from an old 45.

Now if you'll, please, excuse me.  I'm going to go listen again to my favorite well-worn recording of "I'm a Little Teapot," then the "Hukilau" song,  followed Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians playing "Stumbling" (link to an original piano roll MIDI file).

(c)2009 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

Little New Year's Things 2009

Happy New Year to all!

Here are a few ways I've marked the ringing out of the old year, ringing in of the new:

• In anticipation of Spring, the first seed catalogs began to arrive on Tuesday.  I've started marking things I'd like to grow this year.
• A blanket of snow wrapped up the end of 2008, falling all day.  We worked together to keep the woodstove going.
• Baked apple brownies and oatmeal raisin cookies while the snow fell
• Continued with the studio reorganization
• Took time to reflection together about the best parts of 2008 and things to look forward to in 2009
• Celebrated with a toast of locally grown sparkling cider and a SciFi movie night at home

ECO ACTION: Sustainable Happiness

The pursuit of happiness has been transformed into the pursuit of consumer goods and energy hungry lifestyles that damage our planet.

Visit HERE to browse a large selection of articles about pursuing lasting happiness while consuming fewer resources and reducing your environmental impact.

It's a lot more fun than it sounds!

I hear the politicians talk a lot about "getting our economy moving again."  Does a "healthy economy" automatically mean, by definition, that they expect us to resume our old habits of consumption?  If so, we need to rewrite the definitions.  We need a new vision.

We've grown used to a world bulked up on the steroids of excess consumption.  Like a weight lifter who's steroid built muscles are damaging his liver and heart, we can't expect to keep this up over the long term.

Someone needs to rewrite the economics textbooks and redefine the tools by which we measure the health of our economy to take into account the long view of things.

I wonder:  Can we find a way to shifting our world economy and our individual lives toward a more sustainable and equitable model?

What would that look like?

QUOTES: "To say that she had a book..."

"To say that she had a book is to say that her solitude did not press upon her; for her love of knowledge had a fertilising quality and her imagination was strong."

~ Henry James, "The Portrait of a Lady", Chapter III (1881)

GAIA LUNA: Harvesting What Isn't

Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;

It is the centre hole that makes it useful.

Shape clay into a vessel;

It is the space within that makes it useful.

Cut doors and windows for a room;

It is the holes that make it useful.

Therefore profit comes from what is there;

Usefulness from what is not there

~ Lao Tsu, From Tao-Te Ching

Health brings life filled with activity.  Illness empties time to its barest essence.

Health allows forward motion.  Illness stops the wheel in mid-rotation.

It was the emptying, the resting, that brought clarity about the perpetual motion of my healthy life.  This was the useful outcome of two months of illness;  once I was able to get past the first heat of frustration and anger (at not being able to do everything I'd planned for myself), I began to see with vividness and gratitude the small things that could happen.

Back before I got sick, I'd planted corn from seed for the first time, started indoors before the soil had warmed, then planted out in early June.  When the corn went untended, with little rain for many weeks, I gave up hope of growing anything more than bare stalks.

Even so, in late August I harvested a dozen perfectly formed ears of corn.  The stalks where spindly and short, but they had overcome adverse conditions to fulfill their potential.

The lesson learned: Plant the seeds.

Don't worry.  Just do it.

Within each seed is a powerful will to become.

Even if you're unable to tend it something will still come of it.  If nothing else, you'll learn that you can plant a seed and watch it grow.  You'll get the joy of experience.  And you'll either learn what it takes to make it produce, or what can stunt it.  

Knowledge is the most valuable harvest.  It's yours to keep no matter what the outcome.

Ideas are an artist's seeds. An artists plants ideas by beginning the process of realization.

Even when the process of realization is interrupted,  the artist may return to find the idea has produced something useful.

It's up to me to begin.  It's up to me to do what I can.  And I've also seen clearly that things can become what they're meant to be even without my direct involvement.  

I can let go and my dreams won't fall apart.

At times, my role in the creative process must be simply to sit still and watch the seeds of planted ideas unfold and grow as they will.

HEALTHY: Cup Much More Than Half Full

Cup says:

The Way I See It #291:

"In a world where celebrity equals talent, and where make-believe is called reality, it is most important to have real love, truth and stability in your life." 

~ Bernie Brillstein

Film and television producer.

Tiny print at the bottom says (ironically):

"This is the author's opinion, not necessarily that of Starbucks.  To read more or respond, go to www.starbucks.com/wayiseeit."

Though I'm not a big fan of Starbuck's as a corporate entity and would rather patronize a locally owned establishment, this is what's available.  After exercising several times this week (yeah!) I've stopped in for a cup of Tazo herbal tea (very cool website) and some writing time away from the distractions of home.  Somehow, writing in a public place has allowed me to dive deeper on the page, saying and hearing things that I might not have gotten to otherwise.

Cup quote, above, relates directly to one of the life's lessons brought into sharp focus this summer.  Real love, truth and stability really are the most important things in life.  Everything else is frosting.

As an artist/musician, when I'm working on a project I can become highly focused and goal oriented, to the exclusion of other things, like eating and getting enough rest.  Being sick this summer forced me to stop everything completely, to let it all go and realize that I wasn't really falling behind.  There is no behind or ahead, only now.

All we really have is the way we treat each other.  Money is a useful illusion, necessary, but temporary.  Accomplishment, the same.  Even health will sooner or later fail each of us.

What we ultimately leave behind us are the small ways our lives have touched each other's, for the better or not.  Even trying to do good for another may have unintended consequences.  We can only do the best we know how.  The rest is up to Someone greater than ourselves.

Think of it this way:  when you're not feeling well you may long to get back to doing the things you enjoy, the things that give a sense of accomplishment and offer a chance to make a useful contribution to others through your skills, but mostly you long for kindness and tender companionship, you long for someone who will share their strength with you until yours is restored.

It all gets whittled down to this--the way we treat each other.

Kindness is the most lasting and most needed form of art we can create.

PS-If you visit the Tazo website, try out "Consult the Tea Leaves".   Fun!

HEALTHY: Best Foot Forward

I'm back.  Dipping my toes back into the pool.  Toes painted with hearts (I did this myself) in celebration of health restored.

What a summer it was!

Didn't go at all as planned.  I planned and planted, but fate had other designs.

I won't go into details here.  Enough to say I was very sick for over two months.  Couldn't garden.  Couldn't do much of anything but read, sleep, teach my lessons, stay out of the heat, and try to figure out how to get well.

In both the literal and figurative sense, weeds overtook the garden while I was dealing with this extended illness. 

My greatest emotion now is gratitude.  Gratitude that I'm well again and able to do the ordinary things of life, like laundry and grocery shopping, without a struggle.

My heart goes out to those who live with chronic illness.  My struggles are just a shadow by comparison.

Coincidentally (or maybe not) an artist friend, Sarah, recently had something to say about both weeds and illness on her Art Calling blog, in two separate, lovely articles/reflections on these topics.  

After reading what she had written, I thought it might be of value to jump back in here and, over time, share some of the things I've discovered during this recent detour.

It's easy to post when things are going well.  Not so comfortable to write for public view when all my best intentions and efforts are lost in a tangle of weeds.  

The choices I make for many years to come are likely to be influenced by the lessons learned from this difficult time, now past.

Not going to say it all today.  Just glad to be back.

Peace!

Kay