SpaceAgeSage

Have you ever been caught between the light and the dark?

… between extending a kindness and opting to remain silent?

… between a hope and a fear?

… between a step toward a dream and an excuse to stay put?

… between a friend and a new opportunity?

… between accepting the magical moment and staying in stress?

… between growing beyond the current you and letting the status quo be good enough?

Our power and our lives hang between the choices we make.

In both ancient texts of wisdom and self-help books, you will find insights on the ramifications of choices made in the now, the right now. Yes, past experience has value and vision gives guidance, but the act of deciding between options A, B, C, or Other in the present moment holds the most effective power in our lives.

We can’t change the past; we can’t jump ahead to alter the future. Today — this moment — is the constantly moving “point of origin,” the forever crossroads, the once and future starting place.

What we say and do now may not make or break us or alter the course of the world, but it will change us forever. Choices that are made, not made, or ignored affect our timeline. Doing something or doing nothing — it all creates repercussions, ripples, and reverberations in our lives.

That is why the now is where our real power lies.

And lest we become too serious about all these deep thoughts, we must remember humor is a choice as well. Mae West understood this when she quipped:

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.

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- - - -Photo credit: speech path girl

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{NOTE: This post has been submitted to the Killer Titles — Group Writing Project. Please check it out!}

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Tags: choice, humor, Mae West

I heard something interesting last weekend that I’ve allowed to roll around in my mind for awhile. The gist of this person’s perspective was that ingratitude prevents us from truly moving through our own personal growth. Now I know the value of gratitude and its ability to impact the world, but I never viewed its absence as being so powerfully negative that it can hold us back.

According to Wikipedia:

Gratitude, appreciation, or thankfulness is a positive emotion or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive.

Well, that’s a nice definition, but what is gratitude, really?

Melody Beattie put it in this wonderful way,

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.

Wow. That is strong stuff.

In comparison then, ingratitude, like the anti-matter on Star Trek that explodes when it comes into contact with regular matter, holds so much negative power that it can counter and thwart our dreams, relationships, love, creativity, and passion.

Why is ingratitude so powerful? Because when we are ungrateful, nothing can make us happy, motivated, or at peace. Being unappreciative makes us hungry for more and never satisfied. Not being thankful leaves us constantly trying to fulfill an unquenchable thirst. A neediness exists that never gets met, and this perceived lack taints us down to our bones and marrow with an ever-present thought: It is not enough. This thought is one that often creates dis-ease within us, whether we know it or not.

The amazing part of the grateful and ungrateful mindset is that gratitude is a choice, and we can learn to embrace it more and more. Like a muscle that needs exercising, we can start any time on working to become more grateful.

For example, I am grateful to have Joanna Young up and running at her newly updated blog, Confident Writing. Welcome back, Joanna! (And readers, please drop by and say “hello” to her.)

This morning I was also grateful to see this on the horizon before sunrise:

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May your day be filled with moments of gratitude!

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Tags: appreciation, gratitude, ungrateful

I set my alarm for 5am today, eager to start something author Julia Cameron calls morning pages. For the next 12 weeks, I plan to write my way to “accessing my creativity and realizing my dreams” using her three-page-a-day writing method.

Unlike journaling, morning pages are for awakening the mind to creativity. As the introduction states:

Intellectual capital - ideas as money, money as ideas - is today the real currency of the business world. This capital is more than technical knowledge or bits and bytes of data. It is a wide range of social, emotional, intuitive, and interpersonal skills that together comprise the creative spirit. It is our goal to bring those skills to fruition, integrate them, and reawaken that spirit.

The book I am working from is “The Artist’s Way at Work - Riding the Dragon. Twelve Weeks to Creative Freedom.” One of the three authors is Cameron, who is best known for The Artist’s Way and The Vein of Gold.

How can writing a few pages of musing in the morning help any level of self-actualization? The authors call it a “guided encounter with your own ingenuity.” After reading the first pages and beginning the process, I’m filled with expectation because I intuitively know this writing ritual, as outlined in the book, will unblock major limits for me. I also like the idea that it will be playing to my strength — writing — to work on my weaknesses — those self-limiting aspects of my psyche and personality that pull me down.

From the book:

The power of daily reflection improves our listening capacity so we become more aware, first about ourselves and then about others … Think of your morning pages as a sort of pre-dawn rendezvous where the many parts of yourself that constitute your Inner Mentor can confer on the plans for the day.

Whether it is a book, a sport, martial arts classes, a college class, seminars, talking with a trusted friend, or counseling, we can all use bridges to help us past the blockages in our lives. This book will help with mine. It already has.

What have you found to be the most productive ways to break free from blockages in your life?

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Photo credit: Paul Worthington

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Tags: blockages, Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way, writing

When I first read the book The Prophet in my teen years, I thought, Wow. This is deep. I want this kind of depth, wisdom, and insight.

The Prophet is filled with 26 poetic insights written by philosopher and writer Khalil Gibran, (January 6, 1883 - April 10, 1931). Gibran writes as a prophet, answering “the people’s” questions about various great and meaty matters of life. For example here is the first part of his writing about our inner knowing:

And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge,
and he {the prophet} answered, saying:

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well that you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

For the longest time I felt that intense ache and longing to have “the treasure of {my} infinite depths … revealed to {my} eyes.” I yearned to know who and what I am, to understand and apply my talents, to reach deep inside and tap the “boundless sea” to fulfill all my dreams and goals. It has been an amazing journey, and yet, I also tried to find the “scales to weigh {my} unknown treasure.” I kept measuring myself against others, wondering where my limits were, and never being satisfied with the knowledge that the “well-spring of {my} soul” isn’t about size, shape, or depth.

Only recently, I’ve realized that the self really is “a sea boundless and measureless.” We don’t need to grab onto, hold fast, or pin down our inner selves; we need to let go, release, and sail upon the waters free of limiting restraints. The Chinese have a proverb that says, “Raise your sail one foot, and you get ten feet of wind.” Just think what full sail will get you!

Can you raise anchor, put up the canvas, and let the wind fill your sails?

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A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
~William Shedd

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Photo by tiarescott

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Tags: Khalil Gibran, Self-knowledge, The Prophet

During my childhood years in Oklahoma, where I lived deep in the heart of Tornado Alley, I grew up with tornadoes more common that rainbows. I spent hours with my family in basements, underground shelters, or in the man-made cave on my grandparent’s farm waiting for the danger to pass. I’ve seen three funnels dancing up and down in the air a mile away and, at another time, a single funnel that seemed to my childhood eyes to be half a mile across, but none of those ever touched down near me.

I even caught a tornado with my camera (making the cover of my local newspaper) in a part of Colorado where we don’t usually get tornadoes. But a few weeks ago, I completely missed what looks like a funnel right above me as photographed some interesting clouds. I just downloaded them onto my computer and realized “that cool looking swirl” was more than wind.

Here is the first photo — look at the center:

Now here is an enhanced version purposely overexposed with my photo software to bring out the contrast more:

And enlarged:

This cloud swirling was over in a flash, and the storm brought a lot of wind and hail, but nothing more.

I wonder: If what looks to be a funnel had become stable and big enough for me to really notice at the time, how long I would have stayed out there taking photos of such an amazing event — a tornado recorded from below as it happened?

Hmmmm … that would have been too cool, but I probably would have had to change my writing name from “SpaceAgeSage” to “TornadoPhotoWacko.”

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Now a question for you, dear readers, what makes you want to push the envelope and do something crazy?

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Tags: funnel, photo, photograph, storm, tornado