A friend at the library recommended I read Two Old Women by Velma Wallis. This is a tiny book and a quick read, so I picked up a copy and settled in for a bit of time travel back to ancient Alaska. The cool thing about working in a library is that you’re exposed to so much knowledge on a daily basis. Here’s some of what I learned from this gem of a book. Continue reading
The planet’s health is your health
A key component of being organized in a Zen way is to maintain good health. If you’re healthy, you can do anything. If you aren’t healthy, don’t expect to be organized! You have a bigger task at hand.
You might think about your health in terms of a doctor’s visit. Or maybe relate it to what you eat. But how important is the health of the planet to your health? It’s vital! And yet it’s so easy to ignore. Continue reading
10 tips for healthy eating
What you eat is at the core of how you feel. And how you feel has a direct impact on your ability to get good work done.
As we head into the first of the big holiday feasts next week, food is going to be coming at you fast and furious. You can’t fight it, but if you want to survive the holidays and still feel healthy and clear-headed, to have energy and not gain 10 pounds, practice mindfulness. Be sensible. Be picky. And use your head over your gut to make decisions.
Here are 10 healthy eating tips I originally posted in 2017. Today seemed like a good time to pass them on again as a reminder to me, and to you, to stay on a healthy-eating path as delicious smells start to fill the house next week. Continue reading
Honoring synchronicity
Don’t you love when you ask the Universe a question and you get a clear answer? It doesn’t happen all the time. When it does it reminds you of a few things.
- It’s cool when mysterious stuff happens.
- We have guides everywhere. Some we know; many we do not.
- There is a plan for us even if we have no idea what that plan is.
- When cool stuff happens, it’s a reminder to be aware and be grateful.
- When you ask for help, help is there.
As you may know, I’m headed off on a big writing trip at the end of February and that decision has stirred up all sorts of other changes. This has made the world feel a bit tilted and chaotic for me. I love the high energy of the decision but it’s honestly been hard keeping the organizational challenges of this from feeling like an impending tidal wave. I have a few questions! Continue reading
15 Toasts
If you’re planning a get-together, the place you meet should match the purpose of the meeting. People act and interact differently in different spaces. So begins a great new book, The Art of Gathering; How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker.
Before you meet, at home or at work, make sure you’re clear about the purpose of your meeting and who needs to be there. If you don’t get that down, the rest of this doesn’t matter!
Then… Continue reading
Are you a Stranger in the Woods?
I just finished listening to The Stranger in the Woods; the Extraordinary Life of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel. This is a non-fiction account of Christopher Knight. At age 20, Chris ditched his car and walked away from an apartment and a dead-end job, preferring to live by himself in the Maine woods rather than conform to the demands of a society he did not feel part of. When Chris fled to the woods it was out of a desperate need to be alone. To have the quiet to contemplate. To be outside. Twenty-seven years later, he was arrested for burglary and sent to jail.
There is so much interesting thinking here for anyone trying to craft a life that fits with who you are. And the book reminds us that we are all different, that what works for one person does not work for all. This includes a conventional education path, climbing a ladder, to-do lists, and that ever-present push to “succeed.” If that makes you happy, great. But if it doesn’t, what then? Continue reading
Creating a vision of the future
I wrote this post last Wednesday. Then we had a massive wind storm and lost power for two days! I have a generator but we had no internet so I just did art stuff for two days. Sometimes it’s fun to be forced offline. But now back to my previously planned thoughts… :).
If you’re looking to make a change in your life, it helps to be very specific about what you’re looking for. At times in my life, I’ve desperately wanted someone else to make a decision for me to help me head off in a new direction. And you know what? That never happened. When I’ve made big changes it’s because I pondered them at length and then came up with an action plan. Continue reading
