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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 @ 19:19
[excerpted from DoingIt!, November, 2006]
My friend Vicki summed up what I believe is the general quest of us all—the carrot at the end of the stick however we are maneuvering toward attaining it-- with eloquence and a simplicity that really drove the point home.
She was relating an experience that came within a recent meditation. “Three seconds of bliss! I had three seconds of bliss. As soon as my mind noticed how great it was, it was gone. But for those three seconds…”
Just a few moments of being in the present, the now. Freezing the mind. Refraining from asking that next question, holding onto something from two seconds past, worrying about some concern a couple of seconds hence. Three seconds. A lifetime.
I so understood her ear-to-ear smile as she recounted this sacred blip of time… out of time. More >
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 10 Apr 2008 @ 18:38
[upon releasing the "I am a Blank Slate..." article in DoingIt!, in September, 2006, I realized it was the culmination of a number of pieces intended to rally artists of every sort (with each of us being the artist crafting our own life)...
...to raise the bar of their work, beyond what I have coined "The Age of Commisseration"-- similar to what Caroline Myss termed "woundology", not unlike the "Four Yorkshiremen" skit from Monty Python-- where we function more from a place of competing for the saddest story prize, and embracing and creating from the "illusion" of the misery of life...
... over the more spiritually enlightened perspective and place of accumulated wisdom, where we can each support and inspire us all on to the Truth beyond the illusion.
As a self-proclaimed "Cheerleader for Humanity", Pollyanna, seeker on the path for 47+ years, I have always felt I cried out for such from the wilderness, waiting for more people to climb on board. In past articles I have urged activists to be FOR more... than they are AGAINST. And with each successive year under our belts, I believe this is the same awareness that more and more of us are coming to.
Toward this end, please enjoy:
- I am a Blank Slate on Which God is Painting my Life
including A Challenge to Artists
Healing the Tortured Artist
You're Only as Good as Your Last Day
More >
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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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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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