You have probably noticed that it just feels good when you hug someone, opening yourself to love and trust him or her. Whether it be family, lover, neighbor or an open expression of empathy, something inside us changes.
Paul Zak, the speaker in the following TED Talk, tells us why. His prescription for you is eight hugs a day. Who would you hug to fill the daily quota?
Nov 2, 2011
Aug 24, 2011
So Easy
Ready to give up.
Not give.
Selfish, selfish thoughts bring pain.
Choose another?
No, there is no other.
What to give?
Give a shit.
Have hope. Believe
in happiness.
Believe in Love.
Make this easy, please?
Not give.
Selfish, selfish thoughts bring pain.
Choose another?
No, there is no other.
What to give?
Give a shit.
Have hope. Believe
in happiness.
Believe in Love.
Make this easy, please?
Jul 4, 2011
Slow Separation
I've lived in Denver for two months. I love it. It's been the start of my personal reinvention-- a rite of passage, if you will, into my 30s, adulthood, a concerted mission to live my life true to my soul's purpose or die trying.
Spiritually, personally and mentally, it's been a huge success.
However, measure the past two months of my life in economic constraints and you will think my life has taken a turn toward the worse. I ditched my consulting job (that I loved) for a part time job (that I also love). I sold hundreds of dollars of items from my home and reduced my posessions to what feels like next to nothing. I quit drinking alcohol, which I have done numerous times in the past, but this time it represents a reduction in the luxury of wasting time. Though on a global scale, I am still ungodly rich.
This is the first of three three stages of a rite of passage. Separation, transition, and re-incorporation are phases that define socialization, according to anthropologist Arnold van Gennep.
My separation began with the purging of the former self. Somehow I was surprised that this process wouldn't happen in a year. I traveled the U.S., shifted my career focus, cut off my hair, returned to a more modest lifestyle and moved two time zones across the U.S. The symbolic separation from my former self is obvious.
On to the other half of separation, the shedding of illusions, habits, mental tricks and cloudy thinking. This cleansing is a like shoving weed whacker down a plant's stem, and ripping the roots then tilling the soil. It expels thought patterns and delusions incompatible with a more enlightened self that pursues its purpose.
Spiritually, personally and mentally, it's been a huge success.
However, measure the past two months of my life in economic constraints and you will think my life has taken a turn toward the worse. I ditched my consulting job (that I loved) for a part time job (that I also love). I sold hundreds of dollars of items from my home and reduced my posessions to what feels like next to nothing. I quit drinking alcohol, which I have done numerous times in the past, but this time it represents a reduction in the luxury of wasting time. Though on a global scale, I am still ungodly rich.
This is the first of three three stages of a rite of passage. Separation, transition, and re-incorporation are phases that define socialization, according to anthropologist Arnold van Gennep.
My separation began with the purging of the former self. Somehow I was surprised that this process wouldn't happen in a year. I traveled the U.S., shifted my career focus, cut off my hair, returned to a more modest lifestyle and moved two time zones across the U.S. The symbolic separation from my former self is obvious.
On to the other half of separation, the shedding of illusions, habits, mental tricks and cloudy thinking. This cleansing is a like shoving weed whacker down a plant's stem, and ripping the roots then tilling the soil. It expels thought patterns and delusions incompatible with a more enlightened self that pursues its purpose.
Nurturing and Stabilizing
In order for a potted tomato plant to maintain stability, dirt in its pot should support the stalk up to the lowest stems growing from the base of the plant. At least, that's according to a friend of mine, who suggested this as we were admiring my fledgling plant's progress. Today I added just a bit more dirt around it, and saw there are more than a dozen flower buds. It's about a foot tall and thriving. If I hadn't added the dirt, it could have began to topple over. The extra dirt should keep it straight as it extends toward the hot July sun.
Mar 14, 2011
Brainstorming a fashion, music, artistic collective
"Some call it environmental activism, I call it living simple so that someone else can live." -Ed Begley Jr.
This is the founding principle behind [a]... collective. This is a lifestyle, suggested as one that fortifies a philosophy based on what needs to be. There are no assumptions, yet we, as the collective, can suggest as methods or ideas that counter those suggested by the corporate media and greed-driven person(hoods).
This is what's next.
We are making this world AND it can be whatever we want.
[[“Where did my mind go … I'm suffering in silences; it's just not happening.” - Beardyman]
You suffer in silence no longer; the collective is your voice.
We need to be smarter, stronger, more resourceful and better at managing this world's resources.
What I say is so important to me that it makes my heart ache for what is next, there is a threshold we must pass, but after that we will thrive and survive much more efficiently than before.
Feb 24, 2011
Killing the Ego
Among the 18 prayer pouches I created and set free into the sacred Winter Solstice fire was an intention to become aware of my ego.
Ego is taking control at the moment. I'm getting my hair bleached and it burns. This is sick, silly, stupid.
I awaited the appointment for a few moments near the shampoo sinks and watched the hair stylist-savior apply highlights to two women at a time. He and his assistant marched to and fro dispensing foil strips and dollops of bleach in modest rows of female hair follicle.
They marched one by one whipping in tandem plastic measuring bowls squirts of lift, lighten, glow and ego boost.
It was my turn and we discuss the risks of going blond: my original albeit spontaneous intention. Brown was every other day of the past 30 years. Apparently it's my intention to call attention. Blond, I decide.
He worked the purple goo into my scalp and covered it under plastic to keep it warm. It tingled at first then the sensation ceased.
He left me to write, to literally reflect in the 30-foot wall-to-wall mirror.
Gone was some of the anxiety that had been churning my stomach this week. Gone was the fear of being mistaken for the beaten and bruised trailer park whore twin of Eminem.
"The state of bliss is constant, unaffected by gain or loss." That's what a tiny piece of paper propped against a model of the Sears Tower inside my medicine cabinet reminds me every time I open it to brush my teeth.
Tehro, the stylist-savior, checked on me.
"When your natural color starts coming in," he started, then I interrupted, "I'll bring it back to brown."
"You don't want to go blond one more time?
"If you let me take some pictures of you for my portfolio we'll have Mandy put some makeup on you and take a few pictures. I'll do it again complimentary."
I never even considered that after my bestie gave me a very poor bleach job that I would receive a silver lining of a modeling gig of sorts.
I am feeling better already.
Funny how that works. I'm just completely immersed in the material world. A silly hair dye gone wrong rocked my superficial world and sent me into a plummeting malaise.
And now I'm going to let my self worth skyrocket because I'll look edgy and someone wants me to smile for a camera.
Ah, the irony of Maya.
Ego is taking control at the moment. I'm getting my hair bleached and it burns. This is sick, silly, stupid.
I awaited the appointment for a few moments near the shampoo sinks and watched the hair stylist-savior apply highlights to two women at a time. He and his assistant marched to and fro dispensing foil strips and dollops of bleach in modest rows of female hair follicle.
They marched one by one whipping in tandem plastic measuring bowls squirts of lift, lighten, glow and ego boost.
It was my turn and we discuss the risks of going blond: my original albeit spontaneous intention. Brown was every other day of the past 30 years. Apparently it's my intention to call attention. Blond, I decide.
He worked the purple goo into my scalp and covered it under plastic to keep it warm. It tingled at first then the sensation ceased.
He left me to write, to literally reflect in the 30-foot wall-to-wall mirror.
Gone was some of the anxiety that had been churning my stomach this week. Gone was the fear of being mistaken for the beaten and bruised trailer park whore twin of Eminem.
"The state of bliss is constant, unaffected by gain or loss." That's what a tiny piece of paper propped against a model of the Sears Tower inside my medicine cabinet reminds me every time I open it to brush my teeth.
Tehro, the stylist-savior, checked on me.
"When your natural color starts coming in," he started, then I interrupted, "I'll bring it back to brown."
"You don't want to go blond one more time?
"If you let me take some pictures of you for my portfolio we'll have Mandy put some makeup on you and take a few pictures. I'll do it again complimentary."
I never even considered that after my bestie gave me a very poor bleach job that I would receive a silver lining of a modeling gig of sorts.
I am feeling better already.
Funny how that works. I'm just completely immersed in the material world. A silly hair dye gone wrong rocked my superficial world and sent me into a plummeting malaise.
And now I'm going to let my self worth skyrocket because I'll look edgy and someone wants me to smile for a camera.
Ah, the irony of Maya.
Cleanse of Spring
Discarded remains of human waste, infrastructure
and transportation
slowly disappear behind leafing tree branches
and creeping forest undergrowth.
Soon the forgotten roads, long-ago fallen bridges, stray garbage
and abandoned houses and autos will go away
until autumn reveals their jagged lines once more.
Through this season and the next,
we can pretend
this earth is cleansed of our influence.
June 7, 2009
and transportation
slowly disappear behind leafing tree branches
and creeping forest undergrowth.
Soon the forgotten roads, long-ago fallen bridges, stray garbage
and abandoned houses and autos will go away
until autumn reveals their jagged lines once more.
Through this season and the next,
we can pretend
this earth is cleansed of our influence.
June 7, 2009
Feb 16, 2011
Forgive me if I seem furious
Open Letter to Virginia Senator Stuart, my representative to the Virginia Legislature:
I am curious what you had in mind when you voted in favor of SB 1025 last week.
Was it your constituents? Clean water and land? Lobbyists for the coal industry? This is 2011 and elected officials who obey the coal industry are so 1900s.
Votes like this belong in the last century.
As one of your constituents, I am extremely disappointed that you voted for this bill. It will make it easier for mountaintop removal sites, and their associated toxic mining waste dumps known as "valley fills," to get permits.
The bill will tie the hands of Virginia officials, restricting their ability to use the effluent testing and water quality monitoring necessary to protect Virginia's waterways and communities from the severe impacts of surface mining.
The bill also repeals the State Water Control Board's authority over an important category of pollution discharge permits, eroding the authority of this board of citizen experts.
To do their jobs, Virginia regulators must be able to use all tools at their disposal to assess water quality impacts when evaluating and enforcing permits. This bill will unnecessarily restrict their authority to gather and consider evidence, leading to dangerous leniency in permitting and enforcement.
Finally, SB 1025 sets a bad precedent by creating an exemption in state implementation of the Clean Water Act and repealing the State Water Control Board's authority over a critically important category of permits. Similar measures could be proposed to create loopholes for other pollution sources.
In the future, I hope you will vote to INCREASE protections of Virginia waterways, and the people of Virginia, not to allow easier destruction of Virginia's precious natural resources.
I am curious what you had in mind when you voted in favor of SB 1025 last week.
Was it your constituents? Clean water and land? Lobbyists for the coal industry? This is 2011 and elected officials who obey the coal industry are so 1900s.
Votes like this belong in the last century.
As one of your constituents, I am extremely disappointed that you voted for this bill. It will make it easier for mountaintop removal sites, and their associated toxic mining waste dumps known as "valley fills," to get permits.
The bill will tie the hands of Virginia officials, restricting their ability to use the effluent testing and water quality monitoring necessary to protect Virginia's waterways and communities from the severe impacts of surface mining.
The bill also repeals the State Water Control Board's authority over an important category of pollution discharge permits, eroding the authority of this board of citizen experts.
To do their jobs, Virginia regulators must be able to use all tools at their disposal to assess water quality impacts when evaluating and enforcing permits. This bill will unnecessarily restrict their authority to gather and consider evidence, leading to dangerous leniency in permitting and enforcement.
Finally, SB 1025 sets a bad precedent by creating an exemption in state implementation of the Clean Water Act and repealing the State Water Control Board's authority over a critically important category of permits. Similar measures could be proposed to create loopholes for other pollution sources.
In the future, I hope you will vote to INCREASE protections of Virginia waterways, and the people of Virginia, not to allow easier destruction of Virginia's precious natural resources.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)