This Morning 6/30/12 Four Agreements Keep

The Four Agreements, a small book by Don Miguel Ruiz, hit the bookstores fifteen years ago.   It was on the  NY Times Bestseller list for seven years.   Ruiz is a Toltec Nagual (shaman).  After a near-death experience interrupted his career as a surgeon, he returned to his roots and learned the spiritual teachings of his ancestral lineage from his mother and grandfather, both traditional healers from Mexico.

These tenets for living are simple and important instructions and, when applied, change our viewpoint of ourselves as active participants in our life's circumstances.  In a relational context, the agreements change the emotional charge we give to others.

Whether a young child or an elder, this book and its teachings rate as "keepers" throughout all stages of life.

The agreements stated by the book are:

1.  Be Impeccable With Your Word.
2.  Don't Make Assumptions
3.  Don't Take Anything Personally
4.  Always Do Your Best

This Morning 6/29/12 Flash

Night dreams woke by
Flash!
Dance of
Thunder Beings
Warning from clouds
Four miles high

They're coming
They're coming dancing

He na waci o we
He na waci o we

Pipe dreams of
White and Black
Birth day of a
Dancer
Young dancer
Graying

copyright SajaMaka Publishing

This Morning 6/18/12 Managing (Part II)

Managing in the context of personal finances makes life easier once you master it, but what happens when the dreaded "pink slip" of unemployment befalls you?

The situation worldwide at this point is dangerous, crippling the economies of formerly thriving countries, like Greece and Spain, where the unemployment rates are 24% and 25% respectively.  People are out of their previously mortgaged houses and squatting in abandoned apartment houses.  Social service agencies are overwhelmed with getting food to families.  The entire Eurozone has an overall unemployment rate of over 10% and it isn't much different here in the States.  Developed countries are coming to their knees with the problems of managing their populations, their finances and their responsibilities.

Managing with the intent to thrive goes into pure survival mode when faced with these kind of circumstances.  One person cannot do anything except keep trying to find work, create ways to make money, or barter services for food or shelter.   I have had to do all three repeatedly over the last three years in order to survive.

This Morning 6/27/12 Managing

I don't mind being managed in the context of work.  I'm very surprised at this revelation.  For over two decades, I have been self-employed almost exclusively, taking direction from only myself.  I haven't been too successful, though, in the context of self-management.  I have gotten by, but haven't been successful in the ways this society demands it - by making enough money to manage my life well.

I'm learning about managing and self-management at my new job.  Managing others involves trust as well as direction.  It requires patience and understanding as well as vision and adherence to a system.  Of utmost importance is a commitment to standards which keep the operational aspects synchronized with the contact or outflow needs of the business.

These same standards apply to self-managing.  Whether applying for grants to create art or maintaining personal finances, there must be commitment to standards which are, essentially, the backline of functionality; adherence to a set of rules created to support a principle to thrive.

(continued in Part II: What about unemployment?)

This Morning 6/26/12 To Be Taller

I have often wondered how I would be different if I were taller.  At 5'6", I'm above-average height for a woman in the US, where the average height is 5'4".  In fact, around the world, with the exception of the Netherlands (where women reported an average 5'7") and the Dinaric Alps region in southern Europe (where the average 17 year old woman is 5'7 1/2"), I am considered among the tallest women.  So why all the fuss?

I like feeling tall.  When I sport my 2-3" heeled boots, I am in an elevated state of mind as well as body.  To see things from this above perspective is enlightening, invigorating and emboldening!  Physically, I can do more things more easily, like reaching upper cabinets, but the real effect is emotional.  It makes me  feel stronger and more attractive to be tall.  It's a very organic response, I believe; a primal sense that being larger than others translates into feeling safer, stronger, better, and therefore, happier.

It can be a conundrum as well though.  When I throw on those boots, I sometimes tower over some of my male friends, which doesn't make them feel very powerful!  However, that is for them to overcome.  It's not my fault they were born below average height for a male!

This Morning 6/25/12 Wharton

It's been a week since I've been back from the hill.  Seven days past now.  It is quite amazing to experience life from this perspective.  Everything feels new and fresh.  The concept of being "bothered" to do something inane is absent.  I'm enjoying my alone time and I'm enjoying my visiting times.  The beautiful weather most likely  has contributed to this sense of ease, but I'm not entirely convinced of that either.  Today it rains, but feels the same.  


I read the Edith Wharton short story, The Other Two.  She is considered one of the most celebrated female authors of the 20th century, and was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel, The Age of Innocence.  Wharton was the daughter of the upper class couple, George and Lucretia Jones, and a product of her family's social status and privileged New York lifestyle which is said to have produced the phrase, "keeping up with the Joneses!"  Her writing is logical and she is a master at building emotional tension within a storyline.  I can see that she paved the way for my favorite female author, Willa Cather, to win the Pulitzer in literature two years later.  Breaking a glass ceiling is no small task.

This Morning 6/24/12 Simply Sing

Last night I shared the stage with a man who lives through a feeding tube to his stomach. At our sit down dinner before the gig, he openly poured his can of Ensure into the plunger connected to his tube.  He plays piano and  banjo, sings and writes songs.  Beautiful songs.  He is 60, but looks 75 as a result of the chemo and radiation he has been enduring for a year to treat head and neck cancer.  He'll never eat solid food again.  He is a certified clown and although, he tells me, he has lost his sense of taste, he won't lose his sense of humor.  

During our break from the Songwriters-in-the-Round format we were sharing at a local music venue, he was making colored balloon hats to wear and give away.  Particularly, he was making a purple, yellow and red one for the other woman on the bill - a dynamic, talented, street-savvy contralto who could easily be compared with Joan Armatrading - who happens to be completely bald from Alopecia areata.  She was born a twin, two months premature, and this predisposed her to a host of autoimmune risk factors which manifested in her later childhood and adulthood.  She wears the baldness without shame or melodrama.  It's just part of her, along with her overtly wandering eyes, a result of the disease, Strabismus.

So here we are - four songwriters - two of whom have apparent disabilities, who are apparently uninterested in anything resembling self-pity.  They want to simply sing.

For all the focus the entertainment culture puts on appearances, I am deeply humbled by the display of  'no appearances' gracing the stage last night.  I had dressed simply in a stretchy, black, above the knee skirt with belt and red cotton tee shirt, white sandals, and minimal accessories.  My hair, though, was overflowing with waves and a beaded peyote stitch tube at the end of a braid.  I always try to look good when I am onstage.

Last night wasn't about this though.  Last night was about the human spirit's ability to transcend physical challenges and appearances; to lift the veil and reveal a story.

The fourth songwriter was a handsome, confident, young man in his 20's, with only five years of road-musician experience, but a musical sensibility and prowess which belied his years.  He played the pants off that guitar and wrote some very strong melodies.   Remarkably free of bravado, he is well on his way to a successful career.

This was one of the most rewarding experiences of a shared bill I can remember.  Although the evening was entertaining and the songs well-written, its real treasure was witnessing and holding precious what is most important:  the soul's thirst to thrive and simply sing its song.