Change my Beliefs

"If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?" ~ Robert Anthony

Agenda:

1. Read "Present Moment Awareness"

2. Ponder this

3. Ongo Journal

4. Spiritual growth intention

Full Squirrel Moon and Chung Ch'iu

The squirrels are creating great entertainment these days

Today is the start of Chung Ch’iu, the 3-day Mid-Autumn Moon Festival - a happy and beautiful Asian family celebration that comes each year at the time of the full moon in September or October.

And tonight is the full moon called the Squirrel Moon, because now the squirrels are busily gathering nuts for the winter. We are now at the peak of the strong-energy yang phase of the waxing moon, and will soon begin the quiet-energy yin time of the waning moon.

Agenda for today:

1. Take a vision walk
2. Celebrate balance

3. Read "The Sweet Spot"

4. Fall cleaning and Home projects

5. Make moon cakes

6. Make a floating lantern

7. Have a moon-viewing party

Mindful of Needs

Today I finally feel like I am on the mend and caught up with life.

Agenda:
1. Ongo Journal
2. Spiritual growth intention

October Garden

The season is moving along, and I'm trying to catch up. We were out of town for a week, and temperatures dropped and rain increased while we were gone. 

The garden looks pretty raggedy and needs some tender loving care!

I'm still harvesting tomatoes, beets, peppers, rhubarb, and a few beans.

Agenda this week:

1. Finish preparing beds

2. Planting

3. Save seeds

Days of Passion

On Fridays I make a plan for Nature-Culture flow and writing through the next week. My Nature-Culture theme this month is water, drought, plastic and pollution, and rain gardens, and I'm also working on the idea of the intersection of Nature and Culture: Is there a balance point, like a Yin yang, between the two? How can I better incorporate a sense of my wild animal instinctual being into my days, and thinking like an earth dweller rather than a person from mars?

• S: Write about awareness and eco-spiritual practices with bodies of water; how to understand local fishes.
• Listen and advise the EC group; discuss the theme "Our Garden, Our Earth" and bring ideas for ways to stretch ourselves with minimal effort.
• Weed and mulch new butterfly beds, build hugelkulture, plant clover?
• Paint a moon painting in the studio.
• M: Write about rethinking cleaning supplies (because of streams); plastics, oil, what else?
• Plan for my own cleaning supplies and plastics.
• T: Write about Autumn awareness ideas 
• W: Write about celestial viewing; get Moon books.
• Th: Write about plastics advocacy and education, trout-friendly education and craftivism; 
• Th: Plan fall themes, projects, and skills for teaching Nature-Culture to kids - Outdoor preschool!
• Design a new craftivism fish tag
• F: Write about how to be an ally for the water that flows through your land; also stormwater rain gardens and water-wise planting.

Home again

Home again, thank the universe! I will spend today recovering from the trip, catching up with writing and home tasks, and reconnecting to normalcy.

Agenda Today:

1. Read "The Creativity Book"
2. Write a letter about What I Want and What I Will Do to Get it
3. Creative visualization

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1. Read "the Creativity Book":  

A few years ago I started but didn't finish this book by Eric Maisel (one of my favorite writers). The subtitle is "A Year's Worth of Inspiration and Guidance." Who doesn't want that?
I'm on part 8, Be Ambitious, and last week I read Week 29: Want Everything. He talks about the "desire to make our mark, to do great work, and to create like a god..." and asks that my focus this month be to dream big, let my ambitions out of the bag, and to want it even in the face of long odds. He says it's in our nature to want what we want: to use our brains, discover new things, live authentically, and create something.

He challenges me to be precise - to want everything true, beautiful, and good. And then plan how to get it. He suggests that I write a letter to myself.

2. Write a letter about What I Want and What I Will Do to Get it:

Dear self, Fall is a great time to reevaluate my creative goals. I want three basic things this fall:

I want to make things with my hands to give away - useful things, things that inspire and teach, gifts and craftivism.This will be my late week focus, Thursday and Friday, and I will plan and prepare on Thursday morning. 

 

I want to make artworks with a message - things that explore and support my Nature-Culture writing. This will be my weekend focus, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, with at least two hours in the studio, and I'll envision, explore, write, and set out supplies on Saturday morning.

 

And I want to make things with my grandsons - fun things, exploring basic skills, seasonal materials, and folk crafts. This will be my mid-week focus, Tuesday and Wednesday, and I will do all the prep on Monday, gathering all the supplies and making samples.

 

3. Creative Visualization:\

Every month, at the waxing gibbous moon (my last push for action), I call on the practice of visualization to help me to see the next steps towards bringing my goals to fruition.

Today I shine a light on all my art projects, and picture what it will look like and feel like when they are finished.

Creative visualization is a technique that uses my imagination to create change. (Because of my visual and auditory sensitivity, this is the best process for knowing what I'm feeling.) It has these steps:

• First, set an intention: Say, "Today I call on the Spirit of Love to bring me clarity and open my eyes to a vision of my art projects finished and delivered." 

• Center and relax each part of my body: With each breath, allow my awareness to deepen and become softer. No stress. No rush. I walk or float in an imaginary void. Open a connection to Spirit. Feel a soft warmth begin to grow and spread through me, until I am radiating quiet energy.

• Create a clear, detailed picture in my mind, as though the objective has been reached. Paint a vivid mental image of a straw doll or my alter and one in each of my grandsons hands; a butterfly tag kit, with Friends making and taking; a clean water collage / painting with my thoughts and fortunes attached; and put as much positive energy into the images as possible. 

• Lastly, affirm that this is what I want with a short positive phrase in the present tense: "Today I will take the next steps towards manifesting the the art I want to make"

• Give thanks and return: Saying thanks out loud is how I acknowledge the reality of the gift of my vision.

The thought-image is like a signal-flare that guides the physical thing or deed to manifest in my life (and it's a good way to keep my intentions in my mind). I will carry the vision of the completed goal with me, and focus on it often during the day, in a gentle manner.

Mehregan

Mehregan (pronounced ‘meh-re-gahn’), is an ancient Persian festival, older even than Zoroastrianism, that began as a feast for the sun god/dess, Mehr.

Mehr (also known as Mithra) is responsible for knowledge, love, friendship, promises, and the light. The word "mehr" in Farsi means kindness.

When Zoroastrianism took hold in Persia, in around 1400 BCE, Mehr was reduced from a God to an angel, but the festival of Mehregan remained. Now Iranians celebrate it usually on October 1st or 2nd, as a day of thanksgiving and the start of the second half of the year (Noruz, in March, is the start of the first half). People decorate their houses, put on new clothes, and visit their relatives and friends, wishing each other a good harvest, long life, and happiness.

Agenda Today:
1. October thoughts

2. Journal queries

3. Make soup

4. Set the table
5. Fire