PHOTO ART FRIDAY ~ 1 FEBRUARY 2013

I love the word, Minimalist. I canNOT say exactly why, but there is something that connects me like a transatlanic phone conversation to my grandmother’s voice when I was very young.

I have spent my Life BEing a collector of Stuff I Shouldn’t Let Go Of BEcause You Never Know…

And I have moved so VERY MANY TIMES over my nearly 60 years.

My last move, from the West back to the East in 2009, has blessed me with an extraordinary capacity to know connection without Stuff.

In fact I am on some sort of a mission, it appears, with NOT acquiring, NOT holding onto, and NOT BElieving for one more second that THINGS & STUFF have magical palliative properties.

Oddly, my word for 2012, Discipline, was a grand encouragement for me. I Let Go of having a motor vehicle, and learned I could BE strengthened by walking or simply NOT going going going.

Along the way I Let Go of sugar and “treating myself,” instead deLIGHTing in new habits and practises through which I discovered the sheer JOY & Wonder of BEing creative.

Like a runner building to a 10K or marathon, I showed up every day and wrote, along the way learning to digitally fiddle, and discovered really magical things that I could DO with nothing more than what I possessed in abundance: Time, Curiosity, and Desire.

This year, aside from BEing the Year of the Giraffe, my word is Enough. I did NOT “choose” it, nor did I choose Discipline. Both found me and, like best friends, we were just There and NOW Here with one another.

Learning to see myself and my Life as Enough is rather amazing. It feels like I am baking bread and I just have an innate trust telling me how long rising will take. NOT too much. NOT too little.

While the leap from Enough to Minimalist may or may NOT BE clear to anyone else, to ME it is sweet harmony. The Wonder [to and for me] of digital fiddling, which is what Photo Art Friday is ALL about, has opened my eyes to a World rich and overflowing with only the simplest most essential things.

I love the container PAF gives my creative wandering, something I realised even more when we were on a break throughout December. I love the opportunity to meet wonderfully creative people and see what they’ve done week to week. I love the time I devote on Fridays to meandering through, looking, reading, and even spending a little extra time poking around others’ blogs and websites.

I love how simply this fulfills the essential need for human touch in my deliciously solitary Life.

The 3 pieces I’ve  brought to share speak eloquently to me of the simple ways digital fiddling does its  magic. Each one a part of a photograph, all taken in 2006, and all that I have fiddled with BEfore.

Follow me…

This little rock with a hole in it so captivated me in Sedona one May morning with everyone from Healer School, where the 12 of us met and lived together for 21 days. I think I loved this so much BEcause it showed me myself. There was a little opening. In the rock that was me. And I was safe to see what lay BEyond it.

Some leaves on the hillside in the woods BEyond the condo in Tahoe. Little yellow leaves on pine needles. They looked like a table set for a splendid feast. They weren’t in any hurry. All the leaves around them having gone orange and red and gold. They encouraged me to breathe and trust even though I could NOT see HOW.

Little rocks and some sand at Kiva Beach. Gracie was swimming and deLIGHTing in the sticks I’d throw her to catch and bring in. I remember looking down at them. Seeing the way they all were together yet sufficient unto themselves. My Life was about to make a HUGE change. How often I return to this very photo to encourage myself to just keep on as I am…

Minimalist digital fiddling. The sort of “stuff” and “things” that really matter to me anymore. I have none of what I had then. Except Gracie, and she is neither “stuff” or “things.”

I have moved on.

Let Go.

Lived and lived through.

What is essential is invisible to the eye…

ADVENTURES IN MAIL ART

from my Collection of Painted Hearts to gift in 2013

Receiving mail, real mail, what some call “snail mail” is still The Very Best. I think. NOT the bills and the catalogs and the nonsense [I keep receiving offerings for a cemetery plot?!] but the wonder-filled magical stuff that comes from a real live human bean in some other place in the wild World.

This week Artist’s Play Room’s invitation is to create some “mail art” which just so happens to BE one of the new and JOYfull things I am exploring in 2013!! I love how serendipity works, don’t you?!

Anyhow, Jenn found a great definition for mail art:

"Mail art: Sharing art outside the museums, non-juried, welcoming, and no obligation for the recipient to respond. Magical, mysterious, inexplicable, experimental, guiltfree, and ever-expanding." from Chaospost

And I completed and mailed out 2 pieces for an adventure at Mail Me Some Art for Under the Sea. Very exciting and inspiring!! And I am working at another, Head Swap, by utilising some of my 2013 Year of the Giraffe drawings of giraffe heads and faces in a crazy fun way!!

So… having shared all that, whatever DO I have to share for APR #42?! Follow me and BEhold!!

First up is a collage-as-postcard I made from the many [oh so many] bits I have here in the Wee Cottage from the calendar paintings I made for 2012 calendars. It’s always intriguing to see things pop up in my Present work that I’ve used along the way.

This piece is another postcard, again from the oh so many bits of paper I’ve painted with previously. I actually had been thinking of DOing a series of postcards and BEtween APR #42 and MMSA, I think I’m just going to continue moving in that direction Now.

What is also really fun and appeals to me is digitally fiddling with these postcards. I include a piece of my art each morning in my Gratitude post, and I have noticed that digital fiddling is extraordinarily enJOYable when I am still NOT quite awake!!

My last piece for this Artist’s Play Room is something that I think I’m going to BE exploring much more as “mail art” a la Jenn’s definition above. I’ve been DOing quite a LOT with words and quotes and some of my poeming in my Word Art, and I had a go at it here…

by combining my word art & photo art [aka digital fiddling]. The wild thing here was that I also did a little doodling in the word art and this has made Audre Lorde’s words feel more and more like they are my own… 

Hardware... Photo Art Friday 25 January 2013

I'm going to tell you something straightaway here... I woke up at 3-something this morning with my brain scanning whatever to DO with this notion of Hardware.

I know... odd the things that will wake one up so abruptly!!!

Anyhow, I had a day today. I went into it with my eyes wide open and my attitude adjusted accordingly as I spent the better part of 6 hours on the bus or waiting for a bus or taking care of things at 4 places I needed to DO things today.

I sort of thought I'd arrive home this afternoon, earlier than it turns out I did, and write a funny little post about what my 3AM brain decided. But... I am just too tired.

So without further ado...

My "hardware" that allows me to digitally fiddle includes 2 very important things:

My Casio Exilim camera and my HP Photosmart that scans. These two are second nature to me Now, which makes me laugh a little as I thought about them a few times on the bus or while walking. [which I did several miles of]

I didn't understand scanning for the longest time and even when I BEgan to grasp it I still didn't DO much more than "DOing" a scan.

Little by slowly, largely BEcause of fun things like Photo Art Friday, I have discovered its Magic Carpet alter ego.

My camera, though it does NOT get so strenuous a workout anymore, is a replacement for one I got in 2008. Same camera, more pizzaz... But I have so many photographs to work with that I don't spend a lot of my time taking pictures, just making them dance or sing or play well with others.

I played awhile this morning with 2 photos, one of my camera, the other of my scanner bed. I started in Picasa and moved into Pixlr Express and this is what happened...

And Now to a lovely glass of wine and a bit of supper and off to sleepyland for me.

Bright Colours, Giraffes, and The Story So Far

It’s been a curious week. In a good way, mostly. And in some rather bizarre ways.

But here’s the thing: that’s January. I’ve felt this way about this month since I was quite young. By Now I mostly roll with it and let it BE. It’s working and I’m happy.

After December’s daily posts here, it appears I’ve let myself post infrequently. Thus the title… I’m going to combine a couple of things, toss it up, and let it BE a salad of sorts!!

It is wondrous to get swept up in a wave of Something New & Slightly Scary. 2013 Year of the Giraffe with Carla Sonheim has BEcome such a wave. I’ve long proclaimed my inability to draw, drawing giraffes has been telling another story.

And when I take these drawings and scan them to share with others taking this class, I get a real charge out of fidding with them digitally. I don’t think I ever realised the possibilities of digital art BEing what would prove my CAN’Ts are really CANs!!

This morning, while enJOYing the luxury of DOing laundry practically AT HOME [thanks to my front house family letting me DO it while they are off at work and school and whatnot] I started fiddling a bit with some giraffes I’ve drawn.

Kind of like eating M&M’s…

As I was playing I remembered this week’s Artist’s Play Room theme of BRIGHT COLOURS and I was over the moon… This colouring I’d done then scanned and fiddled with a wee bit here…

BEcame this…

. 

Then this... 

And finally this...

Definitely bright colours, definitely giraffe drawings, and last yet nowhere near least, wonderful installments on 2013’s intention to make art every day, play hard, and even get a little “out there” from time to time…

And, just to keep up a tiny bit with The Story So Far… I’ve been savouring Your Daily Rock from Patti Digh and really letting myself imagine and dream and explore and ponder WITHOUT feeling compelled to Write It All Down. This is HUGE and delicious as I tend to think I have to “leave my mark” wherever I’ve been and, imagine that, I don’t!!!

Today’s really set me to thinking, though, as I DO spend so much MUCH MORE time walking these days, and it’s a nice sort of meandering thing to consider. 

As the day has been unfolding I have noticed the little things, the way Gracie chooses for our walks, the ways I think we “should” go when she clearly wants to exercise her right to choose, and how often it happens that we wind up running into someone or having a glad experience simply BEcause of our two wills making an opening!!

Life is full this year. This January. For me.

I am using the month to sift and to sort and to see what happens.

I am letting myself BE surprised.

And most of all, I am simply enJOYing it…

                   

Exit My Heart ~ Photo Art Friday 18 January 2013

Exit My Heart

I think this photograph has its own story. 

And I think it might tell each of us a unique version. 

So in my commitment to simplicity, let me say that I thoroughly enJOYed the digital fiddling process. So much so that I don't know exactly what I did.

Which deLIGHTs me!!

Artist's Play Room #40 ~ A Weather Eye

NOT to BE a stinker, but Delray Beach, Florida, where I have happily resided since August of 2009, is superb in January. 

I might even call this "Perfect" weather. In fact, given Today and the past few, it surely IS perfection!!

While we DO have days that are very cold, sometimes, and others that seem almost overly warm, most days are like this: enough sunshine, breeziness, and warmth to just slap a big silly grin on my face for days and days on end...

This little treasure I've made started out as Word Art. I am finding I love making words of art and art of words. Sort of like having my cake and eating it, too.

Added in using Photoshop Elements 8 were 4 different textures from Kim Klassen, blended each in its own peculious fashion, and then saved.

Next stop, a side trip to Pixlr Express where I tried a little this and added a little that and most of all, added in this photo from a Day at the Beach in 2010. Very much all an Ah-Hah sort of deLIGHT.

I sort of knew I was going to DO this week's APR with Word Art, but until I got into it I really had no idea where the "P" [for PLAY] would take me.

I'm pretty sure that's the really FUN piece of Artist's Play Room and Jenn's little nudges, seeing where it takes me...

A Week+ of Your Daily Rock ~ The Story So Far

I am NOT someone who BElieves in “getting BEhind” or “getting ahead.” Although, I have been both, often at the same time, for much of my wondrous little Life…

Dealing with a cough for 2+ weeks has given me great appreciation for my otherwise truly remarkable health.

The first week of 2013 I was given the gift of losing my voice. That BEcame a “problem” only when I tried to talk ;~D so I just didn’t.

I realised that Someone seems to BE DOing some Work in and on me as some of my friends say…

I hope dearly to encourage in myself that:

Less Talking + More Listening = Better Communication

Losing my voice gave me insight I didn’t have. Until I DID.

I have spent much of this coughing experience noticing my own measure of inner peace.

And Inner Pause.

Turns out I like to BE quieter.

[I often talk BEcause I am so anxious to connect. Or have had no conversation in a Too Long While.]

The loss of my voice and the cough showed me HOW-TO just BE a quieter person.

So, Now, back to the Story So Far and Your Daily Rock from Patti Digh.

I left off after 7 January. Funny that Patti had this quote that day: 

“All I have is a voice.” –W.H. Auden   

These are her questions from the past week. I encourage you to check Your Daily Rock out as they are each really rich and delicious thought-provoking morsels.

How can you let your life be a poem today?

I can keep it short, like a Haiku, fitting it JOYously inside just a few words and 3 lines.

What do you need to “own” about yourself today in order to learn from it?

I talk a lot when I haven’t talked with anyone for awhile. I learned the JOY of quiet when I lost my voice and could NOT talk.

What step can you take toward either creating or strengthening your tribe today?

Realise that the people who “get me” might just BE “my tribe.”

Do you ever allow yourself to get messy?

Indeed!! Messy comes in every shape, colour, and size in my Life!!

Can you let yourself ride that wave without reducing it to words?

[nodding, smiling…]

Can you allow yourself the precious luxury of a nap one day soon? How about today?

YES!!! And again YES!!!

Can you let go of your end of the rope today?

When I remember that what I DO has little to DO with YOU, it’s easier to drop my end.

RESOLUTIONS... Artist's Play Room #39

Sometimes it is best to just let things speak for themselves. 

While I am NOT all geared toward setting goals and making resolutions, I DO respond well to adopting new practises and adapting to Life and the music it's playing.

Last year I accomplished some pretty cool things for myself just by DOing what I said I would one day at a time. 

This taught me more than, well, more than just about ANYthing has ever...

So for this year, I am sticking by these 4 little instructions. Makes Life a whole lot easier to BE "stuck in the mud" over things like this...

That's The Question... Photo Art Friday 1.11.13

I have had and am having a challenging week. I notice that this question is both pushing me and I pushing it. Up a waterfall in both cases, yet with the capacity to make me smile and remind me NOT to take myself so seriously!!!

7 January 2013 ~ The Story So Far

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” — Henry James 

We all need a little help sometimes. And often, we need help but no one knows it. For many of us, it is so hard to ask for help. Or, we may not have any idea what kind of help might be useful. Today, how can you pay attention to what is both said and unsaid in your life (by co-workers, family members, community partners) and make a small gesture in their direction to say “I care”?

How can you be someone’s angel in even a small way today?

Your Daily Rock from Patti Digh 

Perhaps by showing up and following through. 

MayBE by simply thinking a good thought for someone who tends to chafe me. 

Quite possibly by just BEing Present. 

When I am feeling unwell it is all the more important to treat others with love, honour, and respect.

I wrote the above earlier, BEfore Morning Adventure… 

It turned out I was able to BE someone’s angel by listening, making room, and Staying NOT Going. 

It brought up some deep and dark stuff in me and I had to make my heart grow bigger than it felt able to or I felt able to…

“All I have is a voice.” –W.H. Auden

You have a voice.You don’t need to find it.You just need to use it.

What do you long to say?

Your Daily Rock from Patti Digh

Oh I long to say how much I love and cherish and treasure the good and even the NOT-so good. 

To say how happy I am to have made some internal and intentional decisions about myself and my Life. 

And to some I long to say just that I am here and a thought of YOU has brightened my day.

Yet again a later in the day entry... 

I would like the voice in my head to have said nicer things about the people at the laundry and on the bus today in the rain. 

I HEAR that voice like a loudspeaker and I am sure I would like to say to it SHUT UP!!! PULEEEZE!!!

5 January 2013 ~ The Story So Far

 “Creativity consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.” -George Kneller

As you go through this day, be mindful of what you take for granted. This is a big exercise in mindfulness, asking “what else might be true?” at every juncture. That is beginning of creativity, of fresh thoughts, of aliveness.What are you taking for granted?
Your Daily Rock from Patti Digh

Asking what else may BE true has BEcome a new practise for me. I came to this by “accident” realising I was BElieving stuff that I’d only thought about in the privacy and quiet of my own brain. 

I tell myself a story. I don’t challenge the story. 

Nobody else hears that story. 

And Time goes on. 

I remember the “learning” of that story. Again, never even think to challenge it. 

Pretty soon I completely BElieve this story. 

Just yesterday I took Time to unpack one of these stories. I went back to November in my sent emails. 

I was looking for one email and when I found it I immediately could see where I had thought my way into BElieving something that is/was NOT TRUE. 

We are talking 2 months of reinforcing something which was only alive in my own brain…

Thinking fresh thoughts...

4 January 2013 ~ The Story So Far Take 2

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” –Steve Jobs

Ockham’s razor is a tenet I come back to over and over again: a principle that entities should not be multiplied needlessly; the simplest of two competing theories is to be preferred. For example, when I have a bad headache, I go straight for “brain tumor” as explanation; my husband, John, suggests dehydration as the cause—simple, clear. As I enter 2013, I wonder what I can pare down, get my thinking clean about, simplify.

What can you simplify today?

Your Daily Rock from Patti Digh 

Give me a challenge to simplify and immediately I am clear as a bell about what is really important.

Dealing with my health this week has been really simple. I DO what I MUST DO and I rest.

Sometimes “rest” looks like writing. Or making words of art.

It’s unusual for me to BE “sick” though I have been this week, so I’m having to pull out some new tricks.

I have had to improvise. Deal gently with my sleeping weirdness.

When I simply surrender to the fact that I have no voice, am coughing like I work in the coal mines 24/7, and feel like a tube of toothpaste on the Indy racetrack, what else can I DO but smile?!

BEing sick isn’t something I take real seriously anymore. I deal with it. I look for the gifts in it.

Like sleeping for 5 hours without coughing.

Or watching the moon and sun kiss each other good morning.

Or noticing that Gracie is ready to go home rather than taking a longer walk, but NOT BEcause I was grumbling.

Sleep, drink hot tea, laugh, take a delicious hot shower, BE grateful to realise the last time I felt anything like this was in April 2009!!!

Feelings are important. When I listen to them I get it. I don’t need a GPS.

4 January 2013 ~ The Story So Far

“Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.” –Marcus Aurelius

Sitting quietly with ourselves is something we too often forget to do. Why is that? Is it because we are afraid of what we might find in that silence? What might we find if we dig not into the stockpiles of answers outside ourselves, but within, instead? Might we discover the wellsprings of that fountain of good?

Today, how can you dig within to free the goodness and wisdom you possess?

Your Daily Rock from Patti Digh 

I am a digger. I enJOY the process of digging. It’s always a surprise and often sheer deLIGHT. And in recent years, learning to live alone again and creating a new Life in a new-to-me place on the Planet, I have grown immensely fond of going within and encouraging my little bulbs to bloom. They never fail yet they can surely BE unpredictable.

What I know Now that I didn’t know, through the previous years, was that I am Enough for me. [and that has been great comfort since oftentimes the others in my Life found me to BE either TOO Much or NOT Enough] I don’t always know exactly where to look or what to look FOR, but I enJOY the process of finding out. In fact, I seek out opportunities for digging Adventure.

The path to answers zigs and zags and sometimes even nauseates me, like a rollercoaster ride. However, where I have been known to “throw” a tantrum in my impatience, I am Now confident that I can sit quietly with myself for as long as it takes.

And I also ask myself, in the nicest and NOT in the least condescending way, really good questions. [I’m even prone to giving myself a good pat on the back !!!] Just this morning I did this and what a difference!!

Give Me A Word 2013 from Abbey of the Arts

Awhile back, midsummerish I'd have to say, I learned about Abbey of the Arts. I was immediately clear that this was "a sign" along my Path. 

One clearly sent as Inspiration.

I wanted to jump right in, straightaway. My old eagerness kicked into overdrive. 

So I paused.

And I stayed paused a good while.

Along the way of December, as I was enJOYing my Month of Reflection, I was again inspired. 

Enough to participate in Christine's generous gift of an online mini-retreat called Give Me A Word 2013.

I have found my Word for the Year in other ways, and I was actually curious to see how this way would work.

WOW!!!

First was the concept of Letting a Word CHOOSE ME...

ENOUGH is my word and it did precisely that.

Then the notion of CONTEMPLATION, which was in alignment with my month devoted to Reflection.

I spent the last weeks of 2012 really appreciating Discipline, my word for 2012, and discovering how it had BEcome like my bone marrow. I had no idea...

Letting my word RIPEN was another wholly new concept. And yet it felt so good. I was deeply glad for the direction.

Along the way there was much in the way of introduction to and deepening appreciation of writers, wise teachers, and poets. Each day I looked forward to my email and the deliciousness therein.

Out of that I was given the gentlest of nudges to COMMIT to a Word-Rooted Practise and to Seek Out a Spiritual Teacher. 

I have chosen to take a pause whenever I feel I WANT rise in me. 

To breathe into the vast chasm BEtween Wants & Needs.

And to read all that I can of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Such a simple idea that had NEVER occurred to me.

Last of all was the encouragement to write a poem inspired by the word that chose me. 

Here that is... 

Already I have had the opportunity to share my Word in Photo Art Friday as well to Now get to SEE the words of others and how they came to choose them or have their words choose them, as Enough did me.

There are deep things shifting in me this year. I am so very glad they are able to BE shared with others as well sharing in others' gifts...

Artist's Play Room #38 ~ CELEBRATE!!

The last little while I have been making "words of art."  Actually that is just a round about way of saying I'm making words using my paintings as the "fill" for the letters.

It has been fun and is exactly enough for me at Present since I am enJOYing a little something which has taken my voice and my energy and left me feeling pretty puny...

So I did Celebrate, this week's challenge from Jenn, using 3 different fonts and 3 different paintings as fill. 

And Now I am off to the land of nod...

Here is the inverted one... The possibilities of digital fiddling are endless...

Photo Art Friday 4 January 2013

2013: My Year To Know ENOUGH

I’ve been someone who finds a word for my year for a few years Now. 

My first go, in 2010, was really so-so on its best days, but the word seems to have hung on nonetheless!! That was Simplify.

2011 was the year I was going to make this Big Honking Splash in the World with the word Visible. The upshot was that by the end of the year I was really clear that visibility was NOT what I’d thought.

2012 was my first really hopeful experience. My word was Discipline. I thought that was so weird, but it really resonated. Apparently I have lacked Discipline, or at least that is how I see it today.

I did some amazing for me things in 2012, NOT ONE of which could have come into BEing without Discipline. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. Whatever the container the key was Discipline.

And then, of course, there was the Letting Go of 4 wheels which brought on the Discipline of walking, BEcoming mindful about EVERYthing I did [and did NOT].

I am NOT surprised that Enough would rise to the top for 2013. It has so many meanings to me already, but I’m letting it take its time, as I am, too.

For 3 days in this is Quite Enough about Enough…

3 January 2013 ~ The Story So Far

“Life is actually really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ~Confucius

 We are living in a culture of experts, some of whom believe their expert status is assured only if they make their wisdom complicated, so the rest of us will need to rely on them for the answer. I don’t think life is complicated at all—I think it is complex. And in a complexity no one has the answer for you. A complexity is not to be solved; it is to be walked into, embraced, danced with, not solved. This calls on a whole different set of skills—not problem-solving, not drama-based, but internal and quiet and wise and still. The responses to complexities are simple wisdoms, small actions that focus on the quality of the relationship between you and the world, big knowings.

What is the quality of your engagement with others, and with the world?
Your Daily Rock from Patti Digh

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my commitments or engagements with and within Life.

I’m looking at commitments I have Now. 

At those I have recently completed. 

I’m reflecting on the arc of my Life and seeing, without flinching, what I find there.

Most of all, however, I am considering how I want to engage and where I want my commitment to BE Now.

In what direction[s] DO I want to continue, and where I want to stop?! 

Say “when.”

I really enJOY my Life. 

My solitary Life. 

My reflective and contemplative Life. 

My quiet Life. 

My Life of deep JOY shared with Gracie Mae, my nearly 8-year old Golden Retriever.

There is a BIG World out there. Even the BIGness of my small community often feels just too enormous. 

There is such a lot of BEST and RIGHT and ONLY WAY BEing touted there. It overwhelms me like jumping into a river where the rapids are just too strong.

Yet Right Here, where Gracie and I live, it is Enough.

Enough is what defines the quality of my engagement with the World. I Have what I need. I DO what I love. I AM what and who I AM.

I have wants, of course, but they don’t run me or hold me captive in a higher place than What Is.

2 January 2013 ~ The Story So Far

detail of my painting, Santorini, in one of its BEginning phases

 Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” – Meister Eckhart

We hear a lot about beginner’s mind. But I wonder if we let our striving-for-improvement mentality stand in the way of that way of being? Can we reconcile both at the same time: moving forward and having a beginner’s mind? Saadat A. Khan suggests “Beginner’s mind embodies the highest emotional qualities such as enthusiasm, creativity, zeal, and optimism. If the reader reflects briefly on the opposites of these qualities, it is clear to see that quality of life requires living with beginner’s mind. With beginner’s mind, there is boundlessness, limitlessness, an infinite wealth.”

Can you reframe this morning’s new beginning not as lack of progress, but as journey-as-beloved-process? 
Your Daily Rock from Patti Digh 

I love this way of BEing in the World. As a BEginner. As someone without credentials or a reputation to uphold. I don’t need to impress or prove myself. I can simply BE. And I can BE simply. Without airs or attitudes.

I have chosen deliberately to BEgin new practises in this new year. And I know that at the BEginning I have a couple of hurdles to negotiate.

1.      I am NOT well, physically. I hurt. I feel fuzzy in my brain. My body will just overtake me with achiness. I have no voice [this is a blessing and I think it is coming back as I write this on Wednesday morning].

2.     I am still NOT entirely detached from my 2012 Creative Practises. I need to give myself Time to transition. Gently. No loud voices or strident commands. Little By Slowly.. YES. YES.

3.      I am learning to move from Discipline into Enough as my Word for 2013. One prepared me well for the other, yet I am still NOT clear how the new Word, Enough, will play itself out. So at Present it is just here with me always. A friend. Like Jiminy Cricket.

This all seems to me to BE a journey-as-BEloved-process. I think the discipline of 2012 helped to instill the way to BE Enough, to “have” or “DO” or “BE” whatever Enough is in a space and time. I think 2011’s Visible gave me clearer vision and the willingness to SEE myself and my lack of and need for Discipline. And I think, though it was in so many ways very half-assed, 2010’s Simplify BEgan the process I am living out Today.

[I had such a good time blogging daily in December as a Month of Reflection that I have decided to continue into January using The Story So Far as the "backboard" to bounce my thoughts off of. Now that I have completed 366 Daze of Grace and A Year With Myself & Other Characters, my week feels a little loose-endy so I think using BE Currie is going to make those endies a little less loose!!]