projects and support groups promoting creativity, educational opportunities, other people’s creative efforts
I like watching Judy Bruder be. She is one of those people who seems to be comfortable in her own skin – what Hawaiians call being “pa’a”, grounded. It does look lovely on her. Judy loves art. She has a “good eye” for it and a warm tendency to nurture, celebrate and take delight in the people who make good art. These tendencies of hers have stood her in good stead as she continues to develop and build her shop,…
Lately I keep tripping over people who are either “building a legacy” or are trying to convince me that I should be doing one too. It’s beginning to make me all kinds of grumpy. These strangers are telling me that my life will only have “meaning” if I do stuff that will somehow “impact the future” after I’m long-gone. That one makes me scratch my head. It’s even a bit intimidating. Me, I’m still walking towards my dream and I’m…
Very often it is the little things that make a big difference in lives that are lived on the edge. In poorer parts of a city, where people’s homes often do not have access to reliable electrical service and where windows that let in light might be a bad idea in terms of home security, people either spend a lot of time outside their unlighted homes or use open fires, candles or oil lamps as light sources. These can be…
Poet, artist and musician Joy Harjo is a member of the Mvkoke (Creek) Nation. (More usually, that word is spelled “Muscogee.”) Harjo became the first Native American to be appointed as a Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the American Library of Congress in 2019 by Librarian Carla Hayden. In case you didn’t know, the Library is America’s oldest federal cultural institution and is said to be the largest library in the world. As well as other things, national poets…
It’s a perennial bit of advice from most of the entrepreneurial advisers and advocates of DIY bootstrapping in the world to get yourself organized by working out routines and systems of routines that will help you get ‘er done and help facilitate your making that run towards your dream. It does work. It has occurred to me more than once that we humans are routine-building fools. For some of us the whole routine-building thing may even be automatic. We can…
Maya Angelou’s life story always reminds me of a quote by William Blake that never fails to lend me heart when I’m feeling low: “No bird soars too high if it soars with its own wings.” The woman probably qualifies as a “force of nature.” What can you say about someone whose first autobiography, I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, which was published in 1969 when she was 41, has gone through 154 editions so far?
I have some most excellent, scientifically correct news: We humans are a lot more than big old naked brains riding around in vehicles that are kind of like animated meatballs with feet. I have to admit that is a bit of a relief. (I like albondigas in their place, but life, it seems to me, is more than a tapas bar.) All during my growing-up years, I was dragged kicking and screaming into the prevalent paradigms that told me that my…
I didn’t get it; really, I didn’t. It took a long time, but finally a light dawned. The whole pseudo-argument about Life being a “journey” rather than a “destination” is a crock. I mean, think about it. How can you have a “journey” without having a “destination?” It’s sort of a package deal. If you’re a tourist yearning to go traveling, you’ve got all kinds of professionals – a whole industry — trying to help you find a way to…
[Update: This was written shortly before the Bitcoin troubles began ramping up. The story continues. We will see where it goes….] If you’ve been following me, you know that the last time I did this I was recovering from a whole-brain information overload after my latest foray into Crypto-World. It was a bit messy. I retreated into my comfort zone, taking solace in the Hawaiian real-old style, a beautiful self-indulgence, I thought. (I sure enjoyed it.) You can dive into…
[Writer’s Note: This post was written at the height of the Bitcoin madness, before it imploded and left gaping holes all over the place. It seems to me that I’m not the only one who got confused by the Bitcoin virtual world. Makes me feel less stupid, that.] ACK! I’ve been wandering around, lost, in the Bitcoin virtual currency world these past few weeks in (another) failed attempt to understand what the heck is going on with that. I chose…