Finger Painting with my Right Brain

"The Universe is your mirror. It is always reflecting your Self. There is nothing else it could reflect. It is continuously revealing what you most need to know for your soul's highest awakening. Your job is simply to discover this and relax deeper into the beautiful, powerful, radiant being that you already are."

- Anonymous

 Early in my ipad finger painting experience, but not long ago, I began to let my nondominant hand play too. Some painting apps make it just as easy to use either hand or both, and after all, it's not like you are holding a pencil or paint brush. (Stylii are silli!) 

So before long, I notice that my left hand, 'Lefty', is taking alphabet lessons in an app designed for toddlers, just to improve its' handwriting. Fun! I feel thrilled and vividly remember being two again!

Pretty soon, Lefty begins to help paint and draw as well. At first it happens the way you might type, hunt and peck style, with whatever hand and finger that's closest pitching in. If I happen to be sitting with ipad in easy ergonomic use of either hand, I may notice Lefty helping draw. This just did not happen in pre ipad days of pencil and paint. Just didn't.

Recently Lefty has been doing drawings of its own, mainly in those once in a whiles when the right hand is occupied. It seems to have not so much its own style (shaky) as its own sort of emotional take on things, a mood or flavor. (Below)

'Haptics' is an area of study which includes the interactions of touch, hand movements, and brain function.

(Some more benefits of using your non dominant hand:)

Coining Unitics

“There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.” ~ Deepak Chopra

There IS such a thing as a post politics. It's coming. I call it "unitics." If poly-tics stands for more than one party striving for power, unitics honors the awareness that we are not fundamentally separate in the first place.

To understand unitics, think of the most simple group of people possible, two, in a situation requiring a decision. From a political point of view, a compromise  of the separate interests of each is called for. 

But if they are coming from a unitics point of view, they each spontaneously desire to help one another. They also intend if possible to benefit the highest good of all life everywhere forever! And why not consider the all, have it all, at least have it as a guiding intention in our each and every decision?

Together we can be wiser than any of us can be alone. We need to know how to tap that wisdom. Can you imagine a time when a critical mass of people have reached unitics consciousness in their daily life to the extent that politics begins to shrivel up? How can you help the meme-waves of unitics thinking and actions overwhelm the shrinking realm of politics? (from Unitics)

(Some wonky guy has also coined this word, but with a slightly less drastic definition than mine:)

Good Greens

"There are two types of people; 

those who eat kale and those who should." 

~~ Bo Muller-Moore 

(From a kale blog)

To be perfectly honest, I'm not really that into eating greens. But I know they are good for me. So I always have to be looking for ways to trick myself into eating them. Otherwise I would probably just live on fruit and nuts.

Kale is popular now. This is one of the best greens you can eat. Dinosaur kale, the kind that looks like reptile skin, has superfood status. You can chop it up, put it in the fridge overnight, and by the next day this fresh raw food has changed its chemistry in response to the chopping and is now even more supercharged with vitamins.

Here is a recipe for a big kale salad that keeps for days in the fridge, getting more delicious every day: 

                             Treasure Box Salad

    Dice: red onion, green onions, red bell pepper, celery, parsley.

    Roll a stack of kale leaves tightly, and slice into thin ribbons, then chop.

    Add chopped walnuts, olives, dried&soaked or fresh cranberries, whole cherry tomatoes

    Season with salt and pepper, tamari, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and lemon juice.

    Toss, and pack it tightly into a jar in the fridge for later, or enjoy right away!

D.I.Y. Body Maintainence Tune Up

"The subconscious mind is one million times more powerful than our conscious mind as an informational processing machine, processing and digesting forty million bits of data per second which is warp speed compared to the poor conscious mind's forty bits of data per second." Bruce Lipton.

We must take time to tune up a machine, to tidy up the house, so why not body and mind? Meditation is of course good for that in the realm of mind, but what I want share with you is a self guided meditation for the body.

A good time to do this is when you are already sitting down to relax. Pick any place in your body to begin with, and plan to cover the whole body, top to bottom or whatever. Now, put your attention on that body part, seeing it with eyes closed, perhaps from the inside. Take a look around with your imagination's eye. How does it feel there to you?

If anything is sore, inflamed, or just not quite right, fix it, right then and there. Use the tools in your infinite imagination tool belt. Use any imaginary tool you are familiar with in real life. Don't think about it, just grab that hammer, or paintbrush, or bit of computer code. Change the color, replace the furniture, switch out the motor. 

Sprinkle with fairy dust, spray it down with a hose, turn up a dial, dig it up, bless it, throw it in the trash, whatever comes to mind.  Or maybe you use a made up tool you once read about in a sci fi book. It's ok for things to be as silly or absurd as a dream. Instant psychic brain transplant? Sure! Just make stuff up!

When you are satisfied with your work, move on to the next "room" in your body, until you have finished your tune up. You're good to go now! Your subconscious mind will now maintain your renovations and changes.

I know people who have successfully employed this technique to heal themselves of really serious conditions. I think the best use of this meditation is for regular self tune ups because prevention is the best cure.(more guided healing meditations:)

I Hear You

"It's truly time for humanity to move beyond a world of separate little egos fighting for their slice of the pie to a world based on our deep interconnection, and infused with grace, magic, and beauty." The Shift

I hear you.

This is music to our ears. All the world is alive with vibration, and when we can speak, and be heard, we feel we belong in the cacophony of it all. We need to hear, and be heard.

People who regularly practice singing together with others report the highest levels of personal happiness. Harmony feels really good. Singing out loud together viscerally confirms the joy of being centered and aligned with universe and life force.(singing together changes your brain!)

I never put my cordless phone next to my head. This is not only because I wish to avoid the inside of my head getting microwaved. I really like to open up the sonic space of one place to that of another. I like the feeling of everyone in the room being sonicly together with everyone in the other place.

It feels like the incremental beginning in our time, of such a vast expansion of communication that it might better be called communion.

Ipad Art

"The privilege of a lifetime is to be who you are."

- Joseph Campbell

I'm a lifelong artist who just recently started playing with an iPad, (or any kind of computer.)

What fun! Now I have infinite canvas, paper, and art supplies! The first thing I have noticed about this is that it really loosens me up. I no longer need consider the issue of wasting paper on an idea that may turn out to be a dud. Now, I can pursue any dumb idea that comes to mind!

Soon I realize that the endless sky of possibility is fanning out before me, presenting more choices than I could ever follow up on in a lifetime, or a million lifetimes. The issue, then, indeed the art itself, becomes the art of choosing. What direction to go in the fractal maze that forms itself at each choice point as I go along...

All is finger painting. With a stroke of a finger, I brighten, change the colors, change everything, tap, tap, now I have all of those versions to mix, match, merge. Try 'Art Set' if you want to draw and paint and have it almost feel physical. (Art Set)

I hop from art app to art app on my iPad, mixing drawing and painting freely with photos from my pocket device.

 Some of my ipad art is on my website. It can be seen by as many people as want to, online. Sometimes I print it out, on to canvas or fine paper. (To see:)

Wow, wow, wow! 

     

Be Loving In

"You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly."

 

What do you believe in?

I've always had trouble with the word 'belief'. I mean what use is a belief if it's not true? Then you're all invested in a fantasy, how embarrassing! And since beliefs often conflict, they can't all be true, right? Then I found out that the original word more resembled the word 'belove'. It means compassion. 

So a belief in, is really what/who you love! So when you believe in someone, for instance, you put your love in them. This is all different to me, as I know that when I love you, that is real and true.

.

 So what then, is faith? An investment in your belief. That would be beloving in someone. You love them and believe in them even when, in your opinion, according to your likes and dislikes, they are wrong. Investing your love with faith means you are committed to loving them anyway.

That would also apply to the future world we would like to create. If we want to co create a more beautiful world, we can invest our love in the form of our attention in the now. Thus we express faith in our vision, helping to bring about the very conditions in which the vision can become manifest. For example, we invest in the organic produce we would like to have in the future by paying our local organic farmer extra today so next year there will be even more of that planted.

Compassionate faith then is to orient oneself by dedicating our intention toward to love in each situation. This is actually a recipe for personal joy as well as planetary transformation. It is a natural response to 'interbeing'.

The Present is Forgiving

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." African proverb

What are you focusing on right now? (Deep breath)

Can we slow down enough to be present for each other? 

What is so important that we rush around in steel boxes, faster and faster, waiting anxiously in traffic or in line, ostensibly to acquire 'presents' 'for giving'.

Is this not the best gift, our presence together? And is this not the best present, forgiving?

How little time we actually spend with friends and loved ones, even when we say we want to. We tell each other that we can't afford the time, we are so busy. 

How did it come to this? What are we working so hard all day all year all our life to save up for? 

People used to hang out together and play most of the time. Who took away that inborn right? When did we agree to relinquish this right?

Have we become so individuated, so sequestered, that we have come to believe we actually are separate little islands? Did we check ourselves in to this imprisonment in planet-degrading metal isolation boxes? Is this working for us?

Tell Me a Story

So what's your story? That would be how you think of yourself, the meaning you have found or created from the experiences you have had. Your story lives in your left brain; the other hemisphere is more devoted to just being in the now. 

We are heavily wired for linear narrative. Before there was writing, people stored all of their shared memories in stories. Some of the most important things I know, I learned from children's stories. 

If you want to memorize something, just make a story out of it. Imagine that you are going about in an environment where you deposit bits of your memories along the way. It is amazing but even in this imagined story, you can go back later and pick up your memories where you left them. So stories run deep. They imprint our minds and shape our thinking.

That is why our shared stories are so powerful. Right now we are dealing with a turning of the ages. All of the lines of change are going exponential, our world is burning, and it seems people can't agree what to do about it. Our old stories are failing us. And, if we don't change the way we're going, we will end up where we are headed. Off the cliff!

We are ripe for a paradigm shift, a new story.  It is a confusing time, as are all times of GREAT TURNING. It is not clear what is unfolding, endings are messy and beginnings are still shrouded in the mist of dawn. The forecast is change, abnormal is the new normal. But we are not in the dark without a compass. We have one another, and the ancients left us their wisdom teachings, often in the form of story, often encoded in the language of spirituality.

We get to write the new story ourselves. What will your part in the new story be?

(More about the new story of the people:)

Peace

"If you are depressed you are living in the past.

If you are anxious you are living in the future.

If you are at peace you are living on the present."-Lao Tzu

This is solstice time, the longest night, the solar light now begins to return. Also it is the new moon, so now too the moon light grows brighter. It is a good time to be very still and quiet. Listen to the dark quiet, nestled in the cradle of the new sun cycle. What would you like to plant and nurture in the new year? 

The sacred dancing tree meditation for this moment in the year is stillness, in the dark. You may stand simply like a tree whose leaves have all fallen. Your tree roots are tucked in for the winter beneath the mulch blanket of leaves. 

Or you can sit with your body curled into some semblance of a ball, like a seed. Seed consciousness is situated here, protected by an outer shell designed to be destroyed when the seed begins to sprout in dark damp earth.

In this peace of possibility, wait for a vision.

Smootheroo!

Smoothies are pure love in a blender. You can make them super fast and simple, or elaborate and fancy. My first smoothie recipe: juice or peel an orange or two, blend in a half banana!

Fruit is the true, natural and perfect food for humans. It is more or less comparable in content to human mothers milk. It has just about everything you need to keep your body healthy and strong. Add some fat to your smoothie in the form of seeds and nuts, and you have a time release complete meal that will keep you going for hours.

Strictly speaking, a smoothie is just fresh raw food, else it's a 'blender drink.'Some people also add green foods to their blender drink. This is great because we do not live on an unpolluted garden planet (anymore, or yet again) so we also need veggies and greens for medicine.

I heard someone complaining about how technology has replaced work we used to do ourselves, and they exclaimed, "what will we have next, machines to chew our food for us?! "  

Uh well, yeah, as a matter of fact..

I usually run all day on my smoothie, sipping as I get hungry. You can develop your own favorite blends, using whatever fruit you can get. Nuts and seeds can be soaked overnight then rinsed before using. A coffee grinder can come in handy for some things you may want to put in. I pre grind flaxseeds, bee pollen, dried gogi berries, and pumpkin seeds.

When you find your personal balance of fruit and nuts and seeds, blended to perfect creaminess, you will experience true comfort food. It is really like nursing from the Beloved Great Mother Earth in the primordial paradisiacal garden! And indeed the fruits and nuts of the trees are offered to you from the bountiful land freely and lovingly, and without need of violence. Caring for these trees benefits all the beings of the earth, providing not only food but also shelter, habitat, oxygen, soil improvement, climate cushioning, erosion prevention, water conservation, and so much more!

"Refrain at all times from such foods as cannot be procured without violence and oppression." ~ Thomas Tryo

Here's what's in my smoothie today:

Oranges, strawberries, dates, papaya, peaches, pineapple, gogi berry 

Walnuts, flaxseed, pumpkin seed,

Bee pollen, probiotics, algae oil

Plant fruit trees!

(Best natural food store on west coast: http://sundancenaturalfoods.com/)