Manifesto of Encouragement

THE MANIFESTO OF ENCOURAGEMENT
By Rob Brezsny

Right now:

There are Tibetan Buddhist monks in a temple in the Himalayas endlessly reciting mantras for the cessation of your suffering and for the flourishing of your happiness.

Someone you haven't met yet is already dreaming of adoring you.

Someone is writing a book that you will read in the next two years that will change how you look at life.

Nuns in the Alps are in endless vigil, praying for the Holy Spirit to alight the hearts of all of God's children.

A farmer is looking at his organic crops and whispering, "nourish them."

Someone wants to kiss you, to hold you, to make tea for you. Someone is willing to lend you money, wants to know what your favourite food is, and treat you to a movie. Someone in your orbit has something immensely valuable to give you -- for free.

Something is being invented this year that will change how your generation lives, communicates, heals and passes on.

The next great song is being rehearsed.

Thousands of people are in yoga classes right now intentionally sending light out from their heart chakras and wrapping it around the earth.

Millions of children are assuming that everything is amazing and will always be that way.

Someone is in profound pain, and a few months from now, they'll be thriving like never before. They just can't see it from where they're at.

Someone who is craving to be partnered, to be acknowledged, to ARRIVE, will get precisely what they want -- and even more. And because that gift will be so fantastical in it's reach and sweetness, it will quite magically alter their memory of angsty longing and render it all "So worth the wait."

Someone has recently cracked open their joyous, genuine nature because they did the hard work of hauling years of oppression off of their psyche -- this luminous juju is floating in the ether, and is accessible to you.

Someone just this second wished for world peace, in earnest.

Someone is fighting the fight so that you don't have to.

Some civil servant is making sure that you get your mail, and your garbage is picked up, that the trains are running on time, and that you are generally safe. Someone is dedicating their days to protecting your civil liberties and clean drinking water.

Someone is regaining their sanity. Someone is coming back from the dead. Someone is genuinely forgiving the seemingly unforgivable. Someone is curing the incurable.

You. Me. Some. One. Now.

Crowns Around a Campfire.....

The Crowns were a great success!
I hung them on a chandelier and everyone chose the one they wanted.
When I was making them, I had no thought as to who would wear what, but of course, as it turned out, each crown perfectly reflected the head upon which it sat...all evening long.
Last night was one of those moments in time when I am hit by the realization that life is so good.

Crowns for birthday friends....

Tomorrow evening we are having a gathering of friends with the intent to honor 7 friends who are having birthdays.....so I decided to make them each a crown.
I took wire and colored electrical tape and reached into my jars of goodies.
It was quite fun creating these. I think I'll let each person select the crown of their choose.....with my husband getting first choice, of course.

Check back to see how the crowns look on people instead of hedgehogs. :)

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

Creativity

Creativity blends all the best elements of human nature: perception, imagination, intellect, courage, intuition, and empathy. We need to be able to see, feel, taste, hear, and smell the magnificence around us, lifted from "the no of all nothing," as e.e. cummings puts it, into "everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes." We need to take in this magnificence at more than face value, imagining its innumerable possibilities: a scarlet tanager takes wing in a poem, a bowed oak trunk becomes a cottage A-frame, that view down the valley assumes immortality through strokes of a paint brush. We need to shake our minds free of ruts and clichés and sing a new song, tell a vibrant story, envision a unique way, offer counsel with fresh clarity, even if we seem to be faced with the same material we've encountered hundreds of times before. Only the strength of our hearts -- aided by glimpses into the hidden meanings of things -- makes such a feat possible. And we need to know that our creations flow through us for the sake of all: humans, toads, tigers, trillium, storm clouds, suns, galaxies, and even the stones at our feet.

We have the grand honor of being conduits for divine imagination. Thus not only do we embrace all that's freely given to us -- the very definition of gratefulness -- we also magnanimously participate in developing and fulfilling this gift. As we share in the creativity which emanates from Ultimate Mystery, we experience perhaps the greatest gift of all.

http://www.gratefulness.org