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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
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  8 Apr 2008 @ 16:47
[excerpted from DoingIt!, October, 2005]
It was a morning on the cusp. One zig where I could have zagged and the day might have been lost… or at least very different. Not as productive, not as… zen. Certainly not as fun to observe myself being moved around the gameboard.
It was the day after a pretty peak day, and I know that sometimes such days are letdown days. Knowing this I also know I do what I can to not devote any energy to them having to be that way.
This being a couple day’s after a long journey… prior to a job requiring my complete attention… and with more than enough nervous energy devoted to each, I allowed myself to sleep-in a bit before even thinking about diving into my relatively long “to do” list.
My head was in a place I recognize, generally: with an awareness of the universe swirling around me and possibilities present to coax me with their almost imperceptible touch should my senses be tuned finely enough to move with that energy. I was beginning to feel much like the wooden planchette that group energy moves around the Oujia board; which was ok, since I trust that only benevolent spirit directs me (and usually doesn’t just mess around and make me spell out cuss words!). More >
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 8 Apr 2008 @ 16:40
[excerpted from DoingIt!, September, 2005]
As I was working this morning on a freelance article for another magazine I really found myself loving what I get to do in this life. I get to visit, talk to people, see them in their environments, hear their stories, and be a professional buttinski!
As a writer, photographer, maker of documentaries, scribe of many past lives, etc.-- all of which boil down in my mind as coming from the same perspective of observer, appreciator and librarian of sorts-- I get to not only record the peak moments of my own and those of others … but I really get to get in there and dissect and experience them in microscopic detail.
Like the angels in the Wim Wenders film “Wings of Desire”-- who note moments of life in their journals… moments of sadness, doubt, joy, peace… all of human experience as relayed through the running monologues of the earthbound --I have somehow always been fascinated with it all; the highs and lows, and especially, what facilitates lows into highs, less light into more light. Like those angels I, too, feel pangs of something missing when the scales are out of balance between too heavy on my observing and too light on my participating (without ruining the film-- which also got remade by Hollywood, in color, in English, as “City of Angels” with Nicholas Cage-- one of the angels decides to “fall from grace”, with the mindset that feeling anything-- pain included if need be-- is better than not feeling at all).
Beyond the normal experience of picking snippets out of life and savoring them, I really get to get in there, and see and hear things that might have otherwise escaped me, repetition after repetition after repetition. More >
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 8 Apr 2008 @ 16:32
[excerpted from DoingIt!, August, 2005]
Darkness ("evil" in the parlance of some) is only light disguised. No more, no less.
It is here and real and necessary… up to the point that everyone will have chosen to not be tempted or tested by it any longer, and thus have chosen more light over less in every instance. At that time all may drop their disguises and reveal their true spiritual essence. This will be the time of ultimate celebration and final return to Oneness…
… and one might presume… will be the downtime before the next play or level of “the game” is gleefully launched.
The work is for each to find their true connection with Spirit, to stand in/for their largest Self, to undergo every last test and temptation to choose to live smaller, in less light… and come out the victor.
All the imagery—archetypal imagery—is ingrained in us as a set of clues (breadcrumbs, signposts) on the way back to Source. Through such myths and fables, stories and metaphors, we know of battles—symbolic or otherwise-- waged on our behalf. We resonate to these because they mirror the battles we fight deep in our own souls. We have an array of experience of deeds done and lessons learned by family, friends, characters in stories, books, films, our younger selves, etc., that illuminate the direction of our paths and speak to our movement and progress along those paths. More >
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 8 Apr 2008 @ 15:55
[excerpted from DoingIt!, July, 2005]
As sort of a part II to last month’s article written from the place of “in the soup” in the wake of the France trip, I wanted to delve into what I consider some common nuances of peak moments as I have experienced them—this perhaps as a means of distilling them to the point of being able to reproduce them on a more consistent basis (for all of us).
Where I have, on occasion, written certain pieces for DoingIt! while listening to a piece of music repeatedly (really repeatedly, as in programmed on the cd player or iTunes to just keep playing the same song over and over), my article on France (and this one on the heels of it) was written under the influence of the first track of the “Motorcycle Diaries Soundtrack”. “Apertura” is a kind of sweeping piece that slowly builds from sparse acoustic guitar strains to bold passages that feel to me like—flying, having broken free of a body, triumphant, liberated… in other words, in that unfettered place I have been in about all of the peak experiences of my life, whether back to the fast downhill bike rides or swingset incidents of my youth; near weightless immersions into pools, lakes or oceans; peak sexual experiences; the epiphanies of various healing excursions; or other mind-altering events of pure and natural causes.
I have to believe that such places are common to the experience and memory of each of us. They are individual expressions of where we get to on the wings of divine revelation, artistic fervor, from the runner’s high to the symphony to that crème brulee’ or event that takes you out… for whatever timeframe… and remind us that perhaps beyond or underlying the individual aspects… is the more profound common creative source point to which we all yearn to return. More >
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8 Apr 2008 @ 15:39
[excerpted from DoingIt!, July, 2005]
["What's Working" is a regular feature from the magazine-- that includes uplifting accounts, success stories, etc.]
One of my favorite teachers is Sandra Ingerman. She continues to be one of the most authentic, intentional, powerful yet basically egoless people I have met. Her “Medicine for the Earth” book and workshops are causing much positive change to be initiated in the world by any who wish to contribute to transformation and transmutation of toxins, internal or external in the world, on however large a scale to which one might commit.
Once, in a class I attended, she introduced the concept of allowing the “spiritual pressure” to build in oneself during a peak experience. I found myself really drawing upon this lesson recently, during work of my own that broke me through to a deeper connection with Spirit in my own life (outward manifestation) and a greater awareness of who I am and what I came here to be and do (inward manifestation).
In using the example of a Native American power dance—in which one sits still, invokes spirit, listens to the power of the beating drum, and waits to see if a power song will come— Sandy conveyed how any rocking of the body or making of sounds or squirming by participants… would most likely dissipate the energy attempting to come forth, and ultimately lessen or prohibit that experience. More >
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8 Apr 2008 @ 15:18
[excerpted from DoingIt!, June, 2005]
“Let the World Change You…
and You Can Change the World.”
-- from the DVD menu of “The Motorcycle Diaries”
Place. A sense of place can impress itself upon us whenever we give it a chance. It can be a familiar spot we visit each day, or one faraway, but it needs a still and willing audience to allow it to do its magic. Place needs to be in partnership with one willing to see things differently, one willing to hang out with those differences for however long their significance takes to reveal itself.
“In the Soup”. A place I feel myself consciously walking through on occasion, when numerous related or unrelated events are working, swirling, congealing, sometimes inter-connecting like random puzzle pieces, some passing through consciousness without perhaps tying into the whole, others striking certainty broadside, most not the moments or snippets one would believe would be the life-altering ones.
It is a space I feel coming on slowly, as a reality or awareness incrementally dissolving into the fore, as pre-conceived notions, in agreement, fade to black. Food I eat, paths I walk, stimulus I feed upon—all are dictated by “the soup”, and my willingness to comply, built on the trust that this process has always yielded consistent value, benefit and context to my being. Sometimes these bouts lead to epiphanies and changes in the contours of the map that is my life; others glance off and veer tangentially, having served as feints, teases, the odd red herring… or time-released conclusions only to achieve their maximum strength and effect at later dates.
The symptoms of oncoming or ongoing excursions “in the soup” can include: lightheadedness, flashing light from hidden corners of the mind, the awareness of a deepened heartbeat, a lump in the throat, welling of tears of any sort in the corner of the eyes, a steadfast and reverent breathing/walking/ attention, ever-cautious of continuing to “get out of the way of it”. They can portend of exhilaration, resonance, clearing; dark emotions resolving themselves into new dawns or starry skies; stillness in the face of awe or a knowing that any movement—physical or mental—might upset the delicate balance needed for fragile and tentative meaning to slip from whatever other world into this, from the sigh of potential into wispy existence. More >
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 7 Apr 2008 @ 23:28
[excerpted from DoingIt!, May, 2005]
This month we are proud to bring you a chat with Bill Griffith, creator of the “Zippy the Pinhead” comic strip, philosophy and fine line of quaity cleaning products (okay, so no cleaning products.. yet). Since discovering the strip over 20 years ago I have always appreciated the feeling that comes across-- that life is to be enjoyed, savored, played with and turned inside out. In this, I feel Zippy (and Bill) are living the lives they’ve been given to the fullest! Zippy asks, “Are We Having Fun Yet?,” and out of his surrealistic observations we gain a bit of wisdom and are able to see our world differently and anew.
DoingIt!: The two-sided Griffy/Zippy conversation is within a lot of us. How would you best characterize it, and who is winning inside of you?
Bill Griffith: Zippy and Griffy are essentially two sides of my split personality-- not that I limit myself to only two sides. Zippy is my accepting, happy, uncritical nature, Griffy is the neurotic, insecure, analytical side. The Zippy daily strip is, in one sense, my attempt to join the two and keep from going crazy. Neither side is winning, because that would be the death of both my delicate persona and the strip. Griffy without Zippy on his own would be, I think, a big blowhard and a bore. Zippy without Griffy would be like eating only cotton candy for eternity. Something fun to do, but best in small doses. Griffy is aware that his cynicism masks a desire to be happy and he literally asks Zippy, on occasion, for help in getting in touch with his "inner Pinhead". I've done this in a few strips. Zippy has reciprocated in a few other strips, becoming suddenly "rational", but only when he’s frightened or angry (rare states). In general, Zippy does not yearn to be like Griffy. In fact, Zippy rarely yearns at all. He’s too busy absorbing and recycling sensory and psychic input.
DI: One particular Zippyism—“Adopt my lifestyle or I’ll have to press charges”—really stands out with me this month. There are seemingly a lot of self-appointed hall monitors in the world today spending more time keeping track of the goings-on of everyone else than appreciating and playing with all of the "godstuff" strewn about, and really enjoying things, differences, each other, etc. Do you foresee anything that can shake people out of that beyond the short-term and keep us in “the moment” longer?
B.G.: Comedy (and the act of laughter) is the only thing short of brain surgery I know of to release us from the stresses and illusions we live with on a daily basis. All response to humor, from the belly laugh at a pratfall,
to the appreciation of cosmic absurdity, snaps us momentarily out of our socialized selves and allows us a glimpse of what’s behind the curtain. More >
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7 Apr 2008 @ 23:12
[excerpted from DoingIt!, April, 2005]
It seems much of the world has brought itself to a state of either-or.
Blue/liberal/democrat state or red/conservative/republican . My “one” religion or your blasphemous, misguided, imposter religion. Sadly, much possibility, variety, imagination, toleration has gone out the window for an us vs. them (U.S. vs. them), dug-in, black and white mentality. And we’re just the ones to clear it up. In this I see an immense opportunity.
“All living souls welcome
whatever they are ready to cope with;
all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous
and wrong, or deny to be possible."
--George Santayana
"Let us welcome controversial books and controversial authors."
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Where the world we all knew innately as children-- fueled by (questionably authentic) parental urgings to “play nice with others”-- was full of unlimited potential, novelty and worth based on all of the diverse people, creatures and opportunities “God” put on Earth in all “His” Glory, Omniscience and Bounty…
… somehow some of us have come to believe that: More >
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7 Apr 2008 @ 19:29
Maybe I am just a numbskull.
I have a problem… but I believe it is a good one. I love it and hate it. It is the best and worst of me. In all of it there doesn’t seem to be a resolution. A minor war rages within. And it’s cool with me, most of the time.
It’s just that I get interested, enthused and excited… about everything. Well, many things. This has contributed to me being a jack of all trades, master of none. It keeps me perpetually interested in learning something new. It has me jumping from thing to thing. It makes me question my focus. It helps me to be a good “big picture person”, but to also appreciate and admire the “detail people”. It got me a shot once on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” with Regis. And I know enough to be dangerous on a lot of subjects, but am never really able to craft detailed arguments and stories that don’t ramble or ping-pong into all kinds of other areas. It helps me “get” the references in just about any Dennis Miller rant and to understand the nuances within most comedy and appreciate a lot of Charlie Rose interviews. It’s a real pisser when it comes down to answering someone’s question of, “So, what to you do?”
When listening to music I want to immerse into this genre and be able to play each instrument that comes forward with a solo… until the next song, that is of a different genre and highlights other instruments. On Saturday mornings I can find myself switching between the Topeka and Kansas City PBS stations, delving into the garden shows, home improvement shows, art classes, quilting shows, and cooking shows… and to then chastise myself for having spectated the morning away as opposed to having participated in one of these or any of my other interests during the same period. I think I sometimes freeze amidst maybe too many choices. At times I hear the echo of my feisty, New Yorker roommate from Annapolis, chiding me to, “Do something… even if it’s wrong.”
This universal interest in things makes me lose myself in front of a magazine rack or in a bookstore or on internet searches that take me from A to D to J and back to B, and 12:45 to 4:30 pm, without my having known how I got moved around the gameboard.
“Fires can't be made with dead embers,
nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men.
Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and
turns even labor into pleasant tasks."
-- James Arthur Baldwin
"Catch on fire with enthusiasm
and people will come for miles to watch you burn."
-- John Wesley
“Charisma is the transference of enthusiasm."
-- Ralph Archibold
More >
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7 Apr 2008 @ 18:32
[excerpted from DoingIt!, November, 2004]
I pull back from the immediacy of the world and try to sense what is in the wind. I do this a lot, and have sensed it as an especially important task these past days in putting the presidential election (the lead-up and now in the aftermath) and pulse of the country in perspective in these weird times.
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
-- Hunter S. Thompson
I feel the swing of the pendulum of popular opinion. It is always in motion. It signals the ebb and flow of the tide of the collective consciousness. It foreshadows times of embracing more light and periods more intent on hiding from that light.
These days the pendulum of morality is swinging back, the tide of fear is washing in, attempting to hold us to dry land and ward off increased attempts to test the depths of the waters of our truest (and greatest) nature. Ironically, the moral backlash taking hold in our society… is a direct response, proportionate to equally great fear… of realizing exactly that which would lead us to removal of all such fear. Not so ironically, history repeats itself and the pendulum has returned on its appointed rounds, such as it has as any given civilization or culture arrived at the dawn of a new age, a new paradigm, change seemingly for the better, but change nonetheless. 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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