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Category: Life Notes

values, mindsets, finding your own meaning and mana

jars of seeds
HELP SEEDS FULFILL THEIR PROMISE

HELP SEEDS FULFILL THEIR PROMISE

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One of my favorite quotes about seeds comes from writer-filmmaker-cum-social entrepreneur Kenny Ausubel who co-founded Seeds of Change with his wife Nina Simon in 1989.  The seed- growing company’s mission, “to restore ‘backyard diversity’ into the food web through marketing organic, biodiverse heirloom seeds to gardeners,” continues to this day. Around the same time that Ausubel was doing that, he was also helping to put together Bioneers, a non-profit group that holds an annual conference which, it says here, functions…

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sailing ship on choppy sea at dawn
TRANSMUTE THE ANGER TRIFECTA (Another IPS)

TRANSMUTE THE ANGER TRIFECTA (Another IPS)

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Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom):  an understanding that anger energy can be used to unify rather than divide.  [Anger is a wake-up call, a signal that change is needed.  If you can respect other people’s ways of dancing while working towards making room to do your own dance, the anger can lead to more understanding, communication, and caring.  Not easy, but doable….] Three ‘R’s make up the Anger Trifecta:  Resentment, Rage, and Regret.  We all know that.  And almost every…

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balancing rocks illustrating the theme
OTHER VOICES: Grace Iwashita Taylor

OTHER VOICES: Grace Iwashita Taylor

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New Zealand’s Grace Iwashita-Taylor is a Shaper and a poet. She lives her life as a single mother, as a loving daughter trying to deal with the realities and challenges of her beloved mother’s decline into dementia and as a youth worker in a place that is one of the most expensive places to live on the planet. She is also an award-winning spoken word and published poet, playwright, and performer. The poet’s upu (words) circle around and around the…

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attitude of acceptance
SHAPING IS BUILT ON ACCEPTANCE

SHAPING IS BUILT ON ACCEPTANCE

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Okay.  Almost everybody agrees:  we humans can shape our own worlds.  All we have to do is make the choices that help us get to our own bright and happy place. Making choices, deciding where and how we want to go, is our best and brightest super-power, it says here. So, why does it keep going glongy?  Every time we use this supposed super-power of ours, why is it that the options we choose rarely transport us over the threshold…

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SMALL TOWN * BIG ART ON THE ISLAND

SMALL TOWN * BIG ART ON THE ISLAND

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One time a friend asked one of the old-timers who had lived his whole life on the island of Maui through the decades that made up the beginning of the end of the twentieth century what it was like to live his life in this place.  They were digging holes for pasture fence posts at the time. The island had gone through numerous transitions during that one lifetime.  Henry Burns had seen many of them. The laconic old man stopped…

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illustrates the poem title
SWEET DRINK OF WATER

SWEET DRINK OF WATER

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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,…

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LEGACY-SCHMEGACY, KEEP ON WALKING

LEGACY-SCHMEGACY, KEEP ON WALKING

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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…

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rooster on a table
LET THERE BE LIGHT (The Power of Small)

LET THERE BE LIGHT (The Power of Small)

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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…

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old rustic park bench in tall grass with backpack set on it
MAKE ROOM FOR CHANGE (Another IPS)

MAKE ROOM FOR CHANGE (Another IPS)

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New year, new start, new plan, but same old you.  Ai-yah!  It’s the perennial conundrum that! At the start of every new year, it’s “traditional” for those of us who follow the 365-day Gregorian calendar to make some sort of list of resolutions at the start of the new year.  Many of us do. We start the process by reviewing our actions and our lives over the past year. Self-flagellation ensues.  Some of us pull out special whips for the…

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painting with buffalo (symbol) of abundance, generosity, and manifestation)
OTHER VOICES: Joy Harjo

OTHER VOICES: Joy Harjo

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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…

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