Weedpatch, California - Hospital Screen Window, aged + Cemetery monument close to the home of W.E.B. Dubois.
Lately I have been experimenting with taking my photos and
layering them, taking moments in time from one place I have visited and
layering it with another, much like how memory of the past and the experience
of the present sit on top of one another rather than side-by-side.
What do you think: are your memories inside you, tower like
with one upon the other or are they linear, like a path from birth to now to
death? Maybe you think of it differently.
The image here tends more toward the layers.
My favorite image from this week is one of those examples of
layers, both from the same month but from very different places.
Where is the connection? Where does the story of the people of Weedpatch - primarily refugees resettling in the agricultural lands in California from Oklahoma and Arkansas during the Dustbowl era - meet the story of the people of the Berkshires, buried in this idyllic cemetery there?
Where does your story meet up with these two seemingly opposing places a continent apart?
One of my creative tasks today is to live those questions - so throughout the day I will allow this curiosity to seep into the rest of my life. I will give room for my subconscious to play with the images so that I may focus on other things. I will write again tonight and see what comes and then write again tomorrow morning and see what appears.
Please join me either with these images or with your own.
I don't know anyone who wouldn't like more passion, joy and pleasure in his or her life. These five methods are so easy to incorporate into your life and yes, even though simple they will make a significant difference. You will be able to take your life today and make it better for tomorrow. Keep repeating until all of a sudden you notice your life has improved without much an effort at all. This stuff is easy!
Let's start now -
1. Show up wherever you are with all your senses turned on. Sometimes practicing using the less dominant senses – for example, sense of sound rather than using vision for all your information – will help you observe life differently. Remember the sense of smell is our most ancient so its memory power is incredible. Your first grade teacher’s perfume on the first day of school is probably tucked away in there. Plus taking a deep breath to smell it all in will also help you learn to practice calming down through using your breath.
2. Keep your eyes on the metaphorical ball while scanning the horizon. There was an old saying when I was in Drivers Ed back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. “Aim high in steering” they told us. I think to this day I get some of my best insights and a-ha’s while driving because my eyes are constantly scanning and my brain is constantly engaged. Wisdom just floats in. Sometimes I even pull over to take notes other times I tell my brain, REMEMBER THIS! And guess what? It does!
3. Listen to all the sounds around you – the most surprising messages may be there.There is a famous book called “Do what you love and the money will follow”… I say "If I'm not having fun, its not getting done,"because my philosophy is I can make anything fun by simply being creative. Yes, even washing dishes and doing laundry can be fun. If you can’t change what you do, change your attitude about it. Be more childlike - remember how children make everything fun?
4. Don’t be a creature of habit! Simple things like taking a different road will open your eyes to wonders right in your neighborhood you never knew were there. When you hear yourself start to say, "Well, you know me I always do it..." stop! Replace with, "Well, you know me. I love adventure and discovering new places, people, activities... you name it!"
5. Devote yourself to trying something new as often as possible. Give yourself a weekly goal, perhaps, and a challenge goal of two new things a week. It can be simple, like eating a new veggie or a new flavor of ice cream. It can be big, like actually volunteering to learn the hula in front of a bunch of strangers. Always wanted to rock climb? Take a class! Never been to an art opening? GO! Dress up! No one will point and laugh at you. I promise.
Here’s a bonus example from my life just this week:
I woke up way too early yesterday morning. I opted not to go back to sleep since before I knew it I would be getting the kids ready for school. What did I do? Some small chores, some writing. I took the trash out and on the way to the outdoor trash can I looked up.
I was instantly awestruck. The sky was more beautiful than any painting I had ever seen. The day was dawning at a time I was normally asleep. If I had kept my head down, focused only on my tasks and to-do's, I would have missed it completely.
It took less than five minutes to have a complete transformation of mood because I was alert to life and I took what life spooned up for me. I didn’t get angry about waking up too early, I took care of business and noticed the beauty of nature right outside my front door. It doesn’t get much better than that… and you can do this anywhere, even in the middle of an urban area you will hear crickets or hear dogs barking far away or see stars or notice how differently the neighborhood smells in the fresh new, before sunrise day.
I will remember August 21, 2012 for the rest of my life simply because I agreed to stay awake rather than go back to sleep.
I wouldn't change waking up early for anything now.
Would you gain benefit in applying any of these principals or just make your life more fulfilling? Call for a complimentary coaching session now - 661.444.2735.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield.
I found a new playground to make new friends -Aloha Friday
I learned this from our lovely hostess Kailani. “In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too.”
So, with that in mind, she continues “Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response. If you’d like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your Aloha Friday post link below. Also, please consider linking back to this post so that others can join in, too!”
And then…. A question, any question is asked of those hopping blogs making new friends, too. If you would like to link up, too (hopefully after you read my question!) Visit Aloha Friday here.
So my question is what is something you have been saying you wanted to try but haven’t yet? (Optional Bonus Question – what’s stopping you?) + a quick Pre-S for the folks from Aloha Friday - for some reason a lot of wordpress blogs block my comments... as they have from many of your blogs I have visited. Please check your [email protected] boxes... because I have enjoyed answering your questions & hope to get to know you.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
Last week we started our road trip in Houck, Arizona: a town on the edge of the Navajo Nation where my eldest daughter Katherine helped work on houses all Summer Long. She came back to me quite capable with many tools I have no clue how to use.
She also still has blue house paint in her hair.
The other skill she has that I wish I had was a belief in herself as capable with power tools.
For whatever reason, I have bought into the “Real Women Don’t Use Power Tools, We Delegate that to Big Strong Handsome Mans Who Do Our Bidding.”
No more.
I want to use those power tools, too. I did use a sander this winter before painting in my living room, but I want to learn more. I want to build stuff, I want to repair stuff, I want to feel capable instead of unable. I want to feel confident of my ability to learn instead of thinking “oh, I could never do that.”
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
I hear dust from the days before the Vikings falling through the forest. I hear branches, creaking – born before the printing press – being torn from the body that had supported them for so long.
I see confusion.
I see stained glass.
I see awe on the faces of those who look upon her now.
I step into your veins and feel like I am stepping into every cavern I have ever visited. I become one with every nightmare and every pipedream I have ever breathed not into existence.
I feel my breasts fill with milk even though I have not had a baby in eleven years. I feel the urge to feed the babies, the ones who cannot speak or walk for whom there is only hope.
I see Moses’ mother and sister, waiting for safety for their little boy.
I see my mother and sister, giggling as I struggle to slide my feet into my short sheeted bed when I couldn’t translate their giggles and my complete confusion and heart pounding fear to be responding to the same thing.
I touch your protective coating – splintered and your inner coating, smooth. I notice the hands, the others, reaching out, and another other, speaking as if expert but knowing nothing, after all.
I touch inside you with my camera.
I feel miniscule.
I feel incapable to communicate who, what, how you are.
I want to bring people here, to sit with you, to engage with you, to come to know you intimately instead of sitting back and looking at photos or watching videos or thinking they know when they don’t know what it is like to touch the inside of a Sequoia’s bloodstream and suddenly understand how similar you are, only the tree is infinitely wiser and infinitely more capable to communicate even without the benefit of translatable language.
“All afternoon it rained, then
such a power came down from the clouds
on a yellow thread,
as authoritative as God is supposed to be.
When it hit the tree, her body
opened forever.”
In the spring it rained and the stream, as always, moved alongside these twin trees, standing tall like the twin towers had before they fell.
Somehow, they surmise, the life blood of the trees brought death to these two. Like all grief, it isn’t completely understandable yet how it happened. Scientists are in wonder, still now – and don’t logically try to explain it all away.
What I know is the tree and her innards touched me, my mind, my heart, my chest, my fingers, my awe has now opened forever.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
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