The Way of the Dodo:

Art is only valued to the degree that it is useful.

I used to have that on my fridge to remind me to keep my righteous indignation fresh. It was a statement that seemed to me full of bitterness and despair. There’s nothing like despair and bitterness to fuel the fire of inspired rant. However, I have found if idealism can be tamed, it may be reduced from the conflagration of youth to a comfortable warming hearth central to house and home. And it won’t burn your house down.

Today I picked up a hair pic. It was a pretty thing with squiggles and circles. I couldn’t help but wonder what they meant. My answer came immediately. It meant nothing. It was not a handmade creation. It was not imbued with symbols weighted in significance. There was no Dharma in this item. There was no art.

But at one time it might have been. Had I purchased it differently. Had I made it.

Ultimately the economy is driven by the power the consumer has to choose. It is a powerful place. It shapes our landscape, our societies and our lives.

Wildlife is like art

There are some who would have chosen animals for the ark which were economically useful commercially, like the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals or fashion/beauty trends. If we can’t wear it, eat it, harvest its bits or otherwise exploit it, it has no value. Its value is relegated to the niche that art holds.

If the local neighbourhood association had taken a vote to allow skunks on the ark, they likely would have been left ashore in the new age of shrinking biodiversity.

So, wildlife is something that we visit, the way that we visit an art gallery. But when funding runs out, (I just need to focus for a minute) for the gallery, the gallery closes and the art forgotten or neglected.

Consider your local artists, manufacturers, farmers and merchants like bio diversity, only Commercial diversity. Let’s face it. If you can get drugs, clothes, food, entertainment, furniture, plants, photofinishing, and live animals at Wal-Mart (did I miss anything?) then would we need anybody else on the ark of retail shopping. Don’t kid yourself, the Wal-Mart dynasty is a corporation motivated exclusively by profit. And if it doesn’t have to compete for your dollar anymore, it won’t. A drive through my city ( a GM town) is like a perusal of the endangered species list. The list of extinctions is pretty hefty, too, shells of formerly hopeful businesses. Our local artists, merchants, farmers, manufacturers, and other small biz owners could go the way of the dodo. We do have the power. How will we use it? In my mind I hold an image from childhood of a photograph of the proud man who shot the last passenger pigeon. If we don’t take responsibility for the power we have, we might as well be shooting ourselves in the foot.

The Blank Canvas

I was speaking to a friend who was feeling lost, on a quest seeking self. After I thought about it I realized I believe that your true self is like blank canvas, every life ready to paint on. If you are prepared to recognize yourself this way you take ownership of the canvas as well as the responsibility to paint it. You may also see that in the meantime while you have been growing up and claiming your life/canvas as fully your own (and not that of parents/teachers etc), others have been painting on your canvas. At this point, many people stay stuck in all the wrong of someone else presuming to paint on our canvas. But truthfully, it is only more ticks of the clock passing in which the painter isn’t painting their life. You can, if you like what has been begun, take it from there or you can paint over what has been begun. Some parents are artists and do a beautiful job and others aren’t and still must muddle through.

Another way to look at it is, parents begin with their own money, and bits from grandparents etc to bank money for you until you can legally have your own account. Some who are fearful and without knowledge (hence the fear) will play it as safe as possible with a low interest savings account. Others might invest in bonds as a sensible thing. Others may invest it in other low risk ventures. Then you turn 18 and can make your own decisions. Earn and save your own money. Now, depending on your own knowledge, comfort level, and even values you may agree or disagree with their course of action. You may find that they honestly mistrusted banks and put all your birthday bucks in a mattress then smoked in bed and burned it all up the eve of your 18th birthday. Whether they or you like it or not, they were responsible and like it or not you get what you get. Maybe they were savvy investors and made you a wealthy young woman but you discover all the money was made in dealing illegal weapons to evil despots. Then you have a different drama/story to deal with.

The point is there’s always a story. Although we are blank canvas, one with the universal soup, when we manifest, experience begins painting our canvas. Some believe we agree to the general framework of experiences for the lessons they provide in the handling of them. Regardless, at some point we become cognizant enough to paint with purposeful brushstrokes of our own design. Some start early. Some start late. For some it takes crisis. Some never get it and they continue to the last breath allowing everybody walking by to apply paint. They are lifelong victims. Truthfully, everyone will try to paint on your canvas, even with the most mindful of us. But the mindful will block some, will wipe some off while it’s still wet. Some will paint over when it seems a direction to the painting has emerged unwelcome or wanted. Some will find at the end of long life they are happy with their painting and some will wish they had made changes. But they too applied paint in the best way they could with the skill they had. Sometimes I think of people who purchase the services of a Life Coach as taking art lessons to improve the chances of actually putting on canvas what they intend in their heads.

Here’s the readers digest version.

People fear what they don’t know. One thing you can know is that you will never know all there is to know. Life is a balance of knowing how much is enough to act. Waiting for more info creates inaction. Action without info is hastiness. Ultimately a measure of maturity is being responsible to this balance and it is a personal balance.

Some people paint each square inch in complete detail so the painting emerges like a jigsaw puzzle. I paint in nebulous layers until the details emerge like they are coming into focus. Neither is right or wrong. They are just ways of dancing the path.

Opportunities are Like Raspberries

Opportunities are like Raspberries

I have in my hand a raspberry. It is the most beautiful shade of raspberry red, perfectly plump, flawless flesh. Paperback romance lips never looked so promising. It’s the kind of raspberry that just looking at it you know its exactly ripe and your mouth begins to water just thinking about eating it. Then you pick it up and it gives just slightly to the touch confirming its perfection to you.  You place it confidently, expectantly on your tongue and as you close your mouth around its sweet sun-warmed skin you can’t resist. You press it until the full flavour swells and pours juice into every corner of your mouth, waking every taste-bud. It is without disappointment. Mmmmmm you savour the moment of sublime gratitude for such simple pleasures.

So much for the berry part. Hands up if you know what a rasp is. Its a tool that means business. It ’s like a cheese grater for wood only toothier. Imagine that as thin as a pencil, as tall as me and 10 times as prickly. That’s what raspberries grow on.   Rasp-berry.

Opportunities are like raspberries in that sometimes it can be uncomfortable getting to the fruit.  You have to put up with the prickly bits for the sweet success. Often the plumpest sweetest juiciest fruit is hardest to reach making you really stretch yourself. You have to risk those rasps which can be downright painful. Perseverance and pluck is called for in abundance.

Another thing I notice about raspberry picking is that perspective matters. I can pick an area clean, high and low, reaching deep confident I have exhausted all possibilities of hidden fruit. Then when I move on even 1 step, I can see from my new position berries that I missed.  I simply was unable to see everything from the position I held.

Raspberries, like opportunities are time sensitive. Picked too early they are hard and sour. Left too late they spoil and rot. Being in the right place at the right time means a lot. Of course, chance need have little to do with it. You can patiently observe the ripening and be there when the magic moment arrives.

Finally just like raspberries the world is generous and abundant with opportunities. And something else I noticed, the more I picked the more raspberries there were to pick. It was as if Mother Nature herself was prepared to give me fruit as long as I was prepared to labour for it. I was amazed that my plants bore 3xs longer than I had ever believed was possible . There’s a bonus lesson in there about raising my expectations. I want to be clear though. Opportunities are not to be confused with goals. Just as the raspberry is not the goal.  The goal is eating the raspberry.  Those succulent lips are only the opportunity of  a  kiss,  not the kiss.

Opportunities are indeed like raspberries, freely available to those who will persevere through the thick of it even when the reach is a painful one, to one who understands that a different perspective can change everything, and that patience and good timing can be cultivated as well as any great raspberry patch can.  Life may not always be a bowl of…raspberries but it is always full of opportunities ripe for the picking.

Happy picking.

Lianne

Bliss

I cannot remember the last time I felt Bliss. It had not even in the last two decades occurred to me to attempt it. I do recall a time when I was a member of a small circle of friends who hunted joy. When I consider the activities at the time it was very Castenadian. I have for days, without much exception, done as I pleased. I have done what I felt like doing. I have embraced amongst the chaos that once would have terrified me, the concept of holiday. There has been nothing so pressing that I must do it. Tomorrow I will begin the chosen duties that will bring the results of action, what ever they may be. But today I move about or am still, as I will.  Perhaps it is better to say without will, for I feel neither leading nor lead.  On the advice of a friend, the only intent I hold is to be happy. I light incense for no one but me if I feel like it, or if it occurs to me. The business of occurring in the mind is an interesting one. I recall in kinesiology class, frustrating the instructor for wanting to know where the thought impulse originates. Finally, she threw up her arms in complete exasperation and directed me to the philosophy dept. I still want to know but at the moment, I am content to allow the universe to reveal itself to me. Deepak Chopra speaks of this. He describes Bliss as a stillness of mind in which the universe cannot help but roll at your feet. That is a beautiful image. I see it in my dog when she rolls at my feet. Pure delight. Pure presence. Pure joy. Today I felt peace, but much more. I felt bliss. Every action raised my energy. Every thought raised my joy. I was filled with gratitude for my life and all it contains. There is a physical sensation that accompanies this feeling and it is the swelling of my chest from the inside out. This is the expression of ecstasy on the face of St Teresa. It is the feeling of a feather lifted on the wind. It is the swirl of autumn leaves in a vortex lifted to the sky.  This is my bliss.

Green Goddess’s Tips for Tough Times

 

top 10 reasons why being online saves you money

(and saves the planet)

 

 

# 10    You can stay home. You don’t have to leave the house every day.  You pay for internet service 24 7 already on high speed. It costs less than gas. In fact it costs me about the same to use internet in a month as what I pay to fill up once a week. So to get real value you really should be online as much as possible.  By only filling up once a month, savings

 $150.

 

# 9      When you work from home on your computer you save on the regular accumulated costs of a Timmies or worse, Starbucks. A conservative estimate of $3/day/5days amounts to the same amount I pay for a cell phone.

$60.

 

# 8        Staying home more eliminates the need to pay for that cell phone.

$60.

 

# 7       Why get dressed when you work from home? Computer work is not exactly aerobic exercise. If you can put the same casual loungewear on every day you save enormously on the cost of laundry, soap, dryer sheets, water and electricity.

$10 Estimated savings.

 

# 6       Who cares if you are having a bad hair day. When you wash your hair less, it will recover from the regular damage done by over shampooing to strip the variety of products back out of it. You can cut your shampoo, conditioner and other hair products costs by 75% by letting it go.

$40 Savings

 

# 5       No one will know if you don’t shave every day. Men haven’t you always wondered about growing a beard? Ladies, count the additional savings of reducing your hormone replacement therapy. Savings $20 in shaving crème and blades. Cost of the opportunity to get in touch with the wild man/woman inside: priceless.

$20

 

# 4      Do you really need to shower every day?

$10

 

# 3      Being online also saves on your long distance bill. Any of your friends with a computer can talk to you live online and if you have a webcam, it’s even better than the phone. (not recommended for those following the advice in #5, #6 and possibly #4)

$10

 

# 2      Don’t worry about your social life suffering. Your new online friends will never know how much you weigh or how out of shape you are by being on the computer all day. You can stop going to the gym. And don’t worry about your new online love discovering your true image. 1)They are lying too. 2)They already know. 3)They’re never going to leave their homes either to meet you live.

$99. Savings

 

The Number One Reason why being online saves you money..   

Cyber dating is cheap. Expensive dates are eliminated. It is understood that the select Bordeaux you are sipping is really soggy cereal because you didn’t pry yourself away from the keyboard to cook. Savings on overpriced pantyhose, wine, dinner, movie, contraceptive etc $200. And refills are free.

 $200

 

 Total savings per month  $659.00, 

 

$7908.00/year just by working online!

 

My Destiny is Forgiveness

 

              I have been examining my destiny. When one is unsure of what that looks like, even with the full understanding that we are all the creators of our destinies, stillness helps. I swing between the push pull of busy-ness as a way of producing a sense of progress but it is clear to me that is not going to provide me all I seek. On my door hangs a sign. “Life is not about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself”. If I buy that, and intellectually I do, than it would seem all possibility is available. I may begin again. This is, of course, available to us all day, any day, to begin anew. But let’s face it, it is usually an ending of some poignancy that marks the need for a beginning. In my case, the end of a marriage. It is also the end of a way of being. To say I want to reinvent myself insults the parts of my being that still remain valuable. But the intent, I think is to revisit the parts weedy and weathered with neglect that were once fulfilling. The question is, is it possible to reclaim territory left abandoned? Possible, yes, in the realm of all possibility. But something stands in the way. Forgiveness is needed. We need to ask forgiveness of ourselves for casting aside such precious gifts, gracelessly. It is only when forgiveness is granted to ourselves can we pick up and embrace our selves. In fact, it feels less like territory and more like something with a human face, perhaps many. The land does forgive in time. People may not. The faces of the abandoned hopeful are haunting and each ghost must be allowed it’s say. Each death honoured. Each soul be allowed to pass peacefully. As I write I envision it like the embrace of former selves who  are collapsed possibilities. I see them as they are embraced folding into me and reintegrating.

So there is worthiness in visiting the past. But only by assessing the present can we know what’s missing, what we long for. It is in the stillness. Although there is the push pull of busy-ness calling, it cannot bring forth all I need. It requires the balance provided by quiet being. I wondered if it was drifting but it is not. All else is drifting by on the turning world but I remain still, watching the world mirror me back, listening to hear my voice.  It is from here I dream my future self, a sparkling mosaic.

 

Marriage as a reno project

If a marriage was thought of as a room where you live, and it had a broken window, you’d fix it. If it had fallen into disrepair, and brought you down, you might roll up your sleeves, invest some time, energy, care, and creativity and redecorate. Perhaps it might even need some structural support. However, often in a disposable, consumer society, it is easier to simply move to another room. Or another house. There was a time when that wasn’t so easy. When we had invested years in the growth of perhaps a fruit grove, built the small cottage with our hands and hearts and had roots of our own to the land, a responsibility to be good steward to it for our children. But that is not our lives now.

Suckered by consumerism in a green hat

The Editor of my local newspaper wrote in frustration of how scammed he felt by the new energy efficient bulb conversion. They cost more, but save money on the electric bill and will last 5-7 years. His are burning out in a year and he’s mad. I feel his pain. First I have spent an unprecedented amount of money on new LED Christmas lights, each string costing sometimes 2-3 times the amount I could find mini lights on sale. Let’s ignore the disappointment I felt at the quality of light, pretty like a jewel that is visible in the dark, but casting no practical light to see by. I also ignored the fact the first white lights were to my artist’s eye unmistakably blue. After my $200.00 conversion the company came out with new “whites”. The bitter pill I can’t swallow is the “Long lasting” selling point. In the 4 years I have been using them I have replaced 80% of them. I look longingly at my old mini-lights but the green goddess inside me disapproves.  “Shame” she says. “But I can’t afford Christmas spirit, Festival of lights participation AND green consciousness,” I whine. Energy consumption, peak oil, and human habit are regular topics with a friend. He believed a carbon tax was the only way to cattle prod people into doing the right thing because they would act from their wallets as they always do. I am more an idealist. I gave up central air 3 years ago, turn out lights and installed new windows but I too am feeling scammed.  The hidden energy cost to keep replacing energy efficient bulbs is considerable. I still have the mini lights from my parents’ tree 45 years ago and they work. I wonder what net impact they would have had if my consumerism hadn’t demanded newer, better and more. Perhaps I’ll light lanterns and candles this year if we have enough local bees left to make them.  I make jewellery from the burned out bulbs. Want to buy a nice pair of earrings?

Lianne Snow

Eco cities

I’ve been reading a book. Ecocities. This guy (Richard Register) sees the writing on the wall for the fossil fuel industry. He’s quite clear about the high hidden costs to us all globally to sustain our vehicles. Vehicles which only 1 in 10 people on the planet own but all pay for in innumerable insidious ways. Actually the numbers are closer to 1 in 20 when you remove the very young and the very old. I read and hear about the global impact the car has but I see the effects a lot closer to home. Most of my life I have lived in the suburbs except for the time I lived in Italy. Most of them have been been early 60’s. I never really thought about them as sprawl until the last 20 years I saw more and more cookie cutter homes where it felt like just a moment ago there were cows.  More and more I find myself passing enormous tracts of gated communities. There is an odd thing that happens to me. I swear I can feel myself shrink from it. It is as if my artist’s eye sees nothing but mediocrity. I turn within for refuge as my soul holds its breath. In contrast to this there are the remarkable older neighbourhoods in Toronto that are villages unto themselves. The streets are alive, restaurants full. Upstairs above the shops there are gatherings, quiet dinner parties, yoga classes and life. I’m from a small town and I used to joke I could walk from one end of town to the other in 20 min. I loved seeing familiar faces and being a part of something. My shopping habits made a difference. Cities’ neighbourhoods are like that, at least the successful ones are.  Mixed zoning produces vitality. Mono zoning residential I believe was thought to create quiet refuges for the fifties man and his car to return to after a harrowing day in the core. But really what has been created are isolated but cripplingly dependant citizens. It is a cartoon of community lacking all the dimensions that make up a community in reality. The Eco cities proposed are connected and vibrant. Everything is to human scale, walkable or bikable. The density is high but with a sensibility and aesthetics that connect everyone to natural beauty. Alternative energy is sufficient because we don’t require the car. Each ecocity is connected to another or others by trains that are as much about the journey through farmland then wildlands as they are about the destination.  Except for the glass and steel these cities reminded me very much of medieval citie states, practically arranged.  Often I have found myself doodling as urban planner. I never thought of myself as an urban planner but I sure do think about and even draw a lot of what I’d do differently. Maybe we are what we do and not necessarily what we are paid to do…Ah but that thought will keep for another day. Keep the faith.

God in a Daffodil

One of the gifts my garden provides is an abundantly fertile imagination ground. But it seems much more than that. There are few places that also have the ability to provide clarity and coherence to my thoughts. Perhaps all that is a way of saying the garden provides creative inspiration. But words do not begin to express the reality of the experience. But really, why should I expect less from a context in which something so perfect should be ordered from the chaos of the field of all possibility called life? The ultimate in intelligent organization is happening all around me and I cannot help but feel that I am caught in that flow when I place myself in the garden.  How can one get into the water and not get wet? Images rise in my mind seemingly unbeckoned, or at least without effort. But also I know that what seems unbeckoned, is truly beckoned, or called forth by desire and intent to understand in as much as life and design is called forth from any other seed in fertile ground. More than anything else, life itself is the perfect example of a prime directive of the simplest nature. In fact, perhaps we can’t even speak of it in other words than it’s own name, it is so primal. Desire and intent in a seed is life’s desire to BE, become, exist, ..to be alive. Life. It is for me the Alpha and Omega, the ultimate in profound, awesome, comfort and joy. It is my religious experience. As a child I understood God in the beauty, complexity and senseless diversity of nature. The face of God is in a daffodil. Some things never change. The garden is the ultimate teacher as well. It is comforting somehow on a level in which there are no more words, to see the repetitive patterns that unfold in the microcosm of the fractal, the circulatory system of your body and the macrocosm of the rivers and flow: Bronchioles, to Broccoli to Manitoba Maples. It whispers in my ear “we are one”. I understand I belong. I am Grateful.