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"Honoring the Talents, Abilities and Uniqueness in Each of Us,
as Strengths
that can Benefit
All of Us"
"... because we have more in common as a world, than we have differences between nations."
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Sites:
-One World Flag
-Hyphenate Productions
-DoingIt!-- a journal of positive living
-Joan Clark's Palais Aromaetica
-Powerful Passionate Women for Peace
-New Civilizations Network
-PenMark Potions
-Rock and Roll Stories
Blogroll:
-Joan Clark's Palais Aromaetica
-Joan Clark on BoomerGirl.com
-Powerful Passionate Women for Peace
-Flemming Funch: Ming the Mechanic
-Rock and Roll Grandma on Boomergirl.com
Syndication:
 ![[Valid RSS]](http://www.newciv.org/pic/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")
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 10 Apr 2008 @ 17:28
[excerpted from DoingIt!, August, 2006]
The heart of forgiveness-- of oneself and others—beats in time with my new mantra— everybody is doing their best all the time.
Try it for yourself. Repeat that phrase. Over and over. And let it unfold layers and layers of its wisdom in the asking.
It may be hard to accept. “Surely, with the state of the world as it is, we all can’t be doing our best?,” you might grumble. It may feel foreign or inauthentic as you mouth or think these words again and again. But swirl them around, play with them, chew on them, and just see if you don’t begin to feel a wave of relief, a deepening of the breath, a relaxing of the immediacy of that situation you are applying this phrase to, as something in the words begins to sink in.
There is power here.
Everybody is doing their best… all of the time. Regardless. Irregardless (yes these are the same. Check Webster’s. It’s Ripley’s!).
When we know we need to eat right… and cheat with that special sugary or fast-food treat (Hey! Why are you looking at me?)… we are doing our best at that time. Yes, we could beat ourselves up for knowing better, for lack of will or fortitude, for choosing the comfort food over the nutritious alternative or nothing. But, in that moment, with all things considered… we grabbed for the yummy and it was the best we could do… at that time. Let it go. Set a goal to do better next time. More >
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10 Apr 2008 @ 17:13
[excerpted from DoingIt!, August, 2006]
I happened to watch “Almost Famous” a couple weeks ago-- for the first time since I saw it in the theatre-- and have had this nebulous phrase from the rock movie swirling around my head ever since— “It’s All Happening!”
Then I got involved in this curveball of a friend’s temporary life-trauma. Add in some residual effects of recent conversations with Joan on the subject of spiritual madness… and some great and soothing synchronicity has congealed from the ethers.
Joan and I speak regularly about this weird place we are in-- where we do all of this soul/energy/spirit work on behalf of ourselves, others, carnate and discarnate souls who might need it in whatever disjointed world they might be occupying… but may never know whether any of it might be having any effect.
Maybe you can relate to this phenomenon of being called to pray, meditate, contemplate, send your love and your best to people and areas crying out for healing… and those tugs of the heart that question whether any of it is doing any good?
How do you prove a negative? How do you know what might have happened had you not involved yourself, your thoughts and prayers?
We have written a smidge about it within these pages and have commented on the delicate balance between thinking we are doing too much or not enough, and the quandaries that sometimes stem from the not knowing
Spiritual madness, to whatever degree, kicks in as we work to strike that balance. Opening ourselves in faith to the following of guidance that has us doing all kinds of well-intentioned oddball stuff, and having to release any promise of feedback on, or reward from, what we are doing… can be a thankless proposition if that faith gets shaken the tiniest bit. Duh!-- It is exactly the not knowing that defines these as acts of faith. More >
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10 Apr 2008 @ 16:59
[excerpted from DoingIt!, August, 2006]
I told a friend a while back that I thought she was a living saint. And caught her before she told me I was crazy or tried to prove me wrong, and described the definition as I see it.
I have been seeing a lot of living saints these days. Joan is one on most days. I guess I am seeing them because I am looking for them. On any given day, for any given spell… you might be one. And I am doing my best to be one too. To me it boils down to a function of batting average. And it is for us only to try to extend our hitting streaks.
In my world I see us all as works in progress, and can basically assign a mental batting average to how well any of us might be hitting, as a percentage of how we are playing with others on this playing field in comparison to our potential at a given moment.
In professional baseball guys get paid millions for batting not much over .300—getting on base only 3 out of 10 times. And we, then, must be doing pretty good if we are getting things right 3 out of every 10 attempts, right? Would it be that we could be so lenient on ourselves.
More >
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 10 Apr 2008 @ 16:48
[excerpted from DoingIt!, July, 2006]
Right now
rampant and increasing anger, fear and uneasiness
is causing the "beast"
to stir.
In a secluded glen of old forest, where the hoot owl’s cry and the concept of time is muffled by a blanket of moss and diffused through an aura of magic, Merlin councils young Arthur on the spectre of… the dragon.
I must have seen and read as many versions of the tales of King Arthur in my life as anyone not currently role-playing or serving up oversized turkey legs to tourists at some Medieval Knights buffet attraction. And the mysterious concept of the dragon—everpresent, ethereal force—has always intrigued me as one of the legend’s most potent archetypes.
People within the lore are always working to understand or tame the dragon, or at least to work out a chivalrous gentleman’s agreement whereby the tiny hamlet is not in so much peril of being razed by the dragon’s breath. Yet while understanding it as a force to be reckoned with few within or outside of the yellowed pages of these stories have ever really gotten a handle on articulating what it is exactly.
Well I got a glimpse of the workings of the dragon this weekend, and feel it has immense relevance for us all at this time, for it is raising its ugly head—fueled off of the fearful energies of a good number of us—and only we have the power to calm it.
The dragon is a living, metamorphosing, waxing, waning force, alive by definition as is fire by most scientists’ pre-requisites of life. It is the collective consciousness on one level, and on another we are also able to disengage and observe and work from within it.
We are each part of it. Our emotions fuel it. More >
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 10 Apr 2008 @ 16:36
[excerpted from DoingIt!, July, 2006]
I have this image that pops in my mind of some of the people who just might have things— whatever things these might be— figured out.
I see a bunch of expansive European men.
By expansive I mean— in their generous bellies that they are extremely unconcerned about displaying… protruding as they do under, and sometimes out from under, white ribbed t-shirts and/or an over-layer of an unbuttoned silk floral print that frames said belly below, and perhaps some gold around the curly-haired chest hairthat waterfalls over said ribbed t-shirt above.
By expansive I mean in their laissez faire (“let do, let go, let pass”) attitude (regardless of actual nationality I believe they are all laissez faire, but you can correct me on this) as they sit spread-legged in wrought iron chairs, in front of cafes (and there are always sidewalk cafes where these men gather— which leads to a chicken-and-the-egg line of questioning that I sometimes allow my mind to entertain with respect to these said men and cafes).
Spread-legged and with feet firmly planted. Large feet. In dusty leather shoes long worn into comfort, and in no danger of being replaced… as these fellows always have among their kin… amazing European, laissez faire cobbler friends, able to re-sole without removing said shoe’s sense of everlasting familiarity (unlike those other kinds of shoe repair folks who give you back unrecognizable, new-feeling representations of cobblery). More >
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10 Apr 2008 @ 16:24
[excerpted from DoingIt!, June, 2006]
And it was as if I had crawled out of the desert, stumbled upon a pump from which to drink and had not the energy left to pump it.
But someone was there to pump for me.
And so I drank.
I drank.
I drank my fill. I rested. And was replenished.
With the energy to carry on again, I first happened to look over my shoulder.
Others were coming out of the desert, heading toward me… and the pump… and the life-giving water.
And so now it was I who pumped.
I stayed, in service, while they took their fill.
And all not only survived, but thrived.
***
Often we wish to help… to do… to be in service… before we have ourselves been replenished. This is not the way it was intended. More >
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   10 Apr 2008 @ 15:53
[excerpted from DoingIt!, June, 2006]
“I Can’t Stand It!”
Joan uses this saying sometimes when she is so excited about something that she is about to burst.
In receiving a great present or treat. Being in France. Being amidst flowers and beautiful smells and beauty in general. I see her rock and shake until she can’t contain the joy of a kid at Christmas… bottled and aged to perfection… and then, pop!, a giggling, “I can’t stannnd it!!”
This buzz is like medicine to me. The non-bitter kind which we have dedicated ourselves to releasing into the world in any and all ways that might reduce or counter the amount of spirit and soul-killing toxins ready to latch onto any one of us in a given moment. The spoonful of sugar that hopes to help the reality go down.
I get excited about things as well, but it is only when wound and keyed-up to that next level of exhilaration… that I realize how much broader my joy quotient could be stretched; how much stronger my own medicine could be.
Thankfully, the stars have aligned, and one of these special, thrill-inducing occasions (a month-long injection of rocket fuel for my soul) is before me now, as I am once again being enlivened by the World Cup! More >
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 10 Apr 2008 @ 15:34
[excerpted from DoingIt!, June, 2006]
I just watched the movie “The Family Stone” with Joan the other night. It contained an occurence that I find common in family relationship movies-- the Oddball Cathartic Episode (O.C.E. according to Bartholomew’s Dictionary of Made-up Medical Terms).
It seems, in film, conflict must rise and rise until only the O.C.E. must, indeed, ensue to relieve the pressure, and allow all to come to love and understand one another. In this case a much-anticipated frittata is dropped, and people slip and slide and basically come out on the receiving end of a good food fight, without having had to suffer the tendenitis that the cast’s out-of-shape throwing arms might have incurred.
Everyone laughs (all the harder on their empty stomachs), and floods, famine, pestilence and hurt feelings all evaporate. The Stone’s hearts now beat as one. The end.
My family being no less odd than the Stone’s... and life imitating art imitating life as it does... I have my own version of a warm fuzzy of an O.C.E. that my own family-- me as the brother, two sisters, brother-in-law, and our dad playing themselves-- experienced, and it went down like this. More >
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 10 Apr 2008 @ 01:20
[excerpted from DoingIt!, May, 2006]
We need to be for... more
than we are against.
May 1st. May Day. Traditionally a day of workers and the downtrodden of many cultures standing in unison against oppression and inequities of all kinds. A good day to be playing with the following concepts.
Earth Day. Martin Luther King Day. Bastille Day. Demonstrations, rallies, boycotts. Many days, many festivals, many protests… many occasions for the socially-conscious to show their support of the world and each other… by exposing that which they are against.
I have really been looking harder at current practices and ways of being in the world of causes and activism, how their effectiveness in many ways seems to be lagging, and how the well-intended and action-oriented seem to be chasing off a significant number of the like-minded. Of late, I have really felt myself leaving events organized by these well-intentioned ones with much heaviness, and fighting a sense of having less hope than that which I came in with. I support the ends of these, my people, but see that there is a disconnect between these and their means, that needs to be remedied here.
In seeking to create our shambhala, our place in the sun, our heaven on Earth, our peace… we need to remember to begin first with finding that peace within ourselves and bring that forward. More >
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 10 Apr 2008 @ 01:03
The Battle of the Lightworker: A Challenge to Continue Dodging Fear in a Fear-Filled World
[excerpted from DoingIt!, April, 2006]
Joan and I were talking one night recently—having one of those long, rambling talks that don’t necessarily end up where you think they would have based on where they started. Where neither is trying to be right and both come out with a new understanding and an entirely new perspective. Almost like an archaeological dig where the team knows there are some bones and fossils and shards present—without knowing what those might be or having any at-stakeness in what they might reveal-- and new knowledge of the past is achieved based on unearthing and piecing it all together.
We came up with what feels—deep within me—like an awareness of what goes on with us “lightworkers”—any who fall under a heading of maintaining a focus on possibility and betterment for the human race, the planet and beyond-- and why we, as a group, tend to feel the urgency to change for the better as swiftly as possible.
You can try this on by first remembering where you and/or others ever voiced something to the effect of—“I am doing everything I can to get it right this time… because I am not coming back into a body for another reincarnation.” Or something like that.
I have said this. I have felt it. I have had conversations with numerous others and overheard even more spiritual folk, workshop junkies, healers, etc., voice this motivation, this drive, to shed every degree of attachment and resistance, small living and karmic debt… from deep places of seeming exhaustion, having gone through countless lifetimes of what is absolutely no longer desired. Been there, done that. Bought the t-shirt.
Joan and I wound our way through a lot of backstreets and alleys of dialogue before she stumbled back on what I consider a main thoroughfare toward some degree of enlightenment on this subject when she began recounting her sense that…
…perhaps our urgency to get “there”, is based first on remembrances of where “there”—home—is; then on numerous recollections of times we were “almost there” and didn’t quite make it; on the disappointment inherent in each round of having to begin again at square one, like a kid on a limited allowance having to drop another quarter in a pinball game upon the flashing red of another “game over”. All of those accumulated points and tokens… gone. Back to level one. Dejection. More >
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An International Symbol of Diversity.
A "Bigger" Flag to Fly.
Since 1996.
Here you will find
postings from
the One World Flag
website and
articles excerpted from
DoingIt!--
a journal of positive living...
... each aimed at raising
the World Joy Quotient
one way or another.
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