Mike is back. Yay!
It’s been a busy day. We had Laser Eagles. Mike was not the tracker – I worked with Jennifer Marr who is a fabulous tracker! Mostly I was collecting together the paintings that I intend to exhibit at the ROM so that Kimberly can drop them off at the CAVE office. This is where Paul and I are collecting them, where Andrew will photograph them, and where we will make our plans for shaping the exhibit so that its message is as powerful as possible.
Oh yes, Kimberly is back too. Yay! The impact of her absence hasn’t been as obvious to me because she did an excellent job of replacing herself while Mike and she were away. But just the same, lots of things went on hold, like some fundraising, so it’s wonderful to feel the energy picking up again.
I spent a large part of today getting a cat from Hamilton to the northernmost reaches of Toronto. In all, eight people were involved in moving one cat. Mike and I got to do the actual driving and delivery of a yowling and frightened feline. On the one hand, it’s truly bizarre, and as Mike was reflecting as we drove, nothing of this really has anything to do with the cat itself. He simply wasn’t wanted where he was and I knew someone who did want him and Mary and Gloria did not want to see him killed and there you go, grown adults spending a day and a good bit of money moving an animal across three municipalities!
It was good to see Gloria and Mary again as well. I spent a lot of today handing out happy faces and stars. I have discovered in the past few weeks that it is a wonderful thing to surround myself with stars and happy faces. I have been using them to keep track of the twelve projects I am creating so as to keep on track and to keep motivated. The “unintended” result is that it has become ever so clear to me that I made a decision when I was very young, probably four, that I did not want EVER to cry again when people hurt me. It certainly was a simple enough and obvious enough decision for a four year old to make in the kind of situation that I found myself in as a child. Never could I have imagined that by having such a determined focus to be stoic and invulnerable that I would powerfully shape myself into a person who struggles to be compassionate both with myself and others and who is unwilling to be emotional and touched.
Of course, that has shifted a lot over the years but this Third Cycle has powerfully revealed to me that I carry the tightness and the burden of the decision to be encased in a shell. My own shell has way more shaped my body and my heart than did the plastic shells that the doctors encased me in when I was a teenager with a growingly twisted body.
At the same time, while happy faces and stars came into my life to support my desire to shift the world towards giftedness, the same happy faces and stars have cracked the shell and helped me discover a child who deeply longs for affirmation and who responds to affirmation with joy and laughter.
So today I decided to give it away, bought some packages of stars and happy little Easter chicks (actually, one of them is kind of grumpy!) and gave them to nearly everybody I ran into today. Is this something I would do every day for the rest of my life? Probably not, but then again, who would have ever thought I would be exhibiting at the ROM?
Showing posts with label youth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label youth. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
January 17, 2011
At about 4:50pm EST I was sitting with Helen and Dad in a branch of the TD bank watching the black computer screen of the burly, sometimes surly, financial officer as she set up a joint line of credit on the GIC that Dad has willed to me on his passing. The intention was to pay off the loan on the trailer that Gabor, Jason and I lived in on the WPI Tour up until Sept. 22, 2009.
Suddenly a clear white sentence appeared in bold letters near the bottom of her screen. TRANSFER APPROVED LOAN PAID OFF.
I nearly cried, fainted and stopped breathing for two seconds. The enormous unshiftable burden – the physical sign of my failure to manage my life during those seven months, the unending anxiety of a responsibility I can’t meet yet must meet every month – in a split second dispassionately disappeared.
I had no idea of the extent of the weight on my spirit until it was gone. And when it was gone, it was just gone. A pile of papers to sign, two managers to say “Yes”, an electronic ritual to complete precisely – and the white letters simply appeared at the bottom of the computer screen.
Forgiveness has been dispensed.
This does not mean I have no financial concerns. It means I have a path to getting from “red” to “black” to being once again free to powerfully impact my and other’s circumstances with my own money, not just other’s on my behalf.
I owe so much to my parents I cannot fathom the depth. My Mother’s relentless saving reaches from beyond her grave through my Father through his love of me and of manipulating his GIC’s to release me from the shackles and the shame I incurred for throwing my hat over the wall in 2008. I am blessed.
My sense of mission is once again reinforced. Why am I so blessed, so lucky if not for being yet again showered with opportunities to keep on bringing Inclusion. Forward – go forward!
Today I met a young research student, and in a nutshell, a feasible research project is emerging around measuring the impact of the WPIT inclusive video games on the peacefulness of the children and youth who play it. A new “Yes”, a different “Yes”, a powerful “Yes”! Forward – go forward!
Jen was here this morning. Together we explored the nature of standing. For me it was more like having a conversation with my body about the experience of standing – the being of upstanding – of leadership and courage. I am stretching and parts of my body are turning and curving differently. The body of Judith is discovering how to support her stand.
I, Judith, am leading the world, through a planet wide team of young people, into an international culture of abundance, inclusion and peace. It is my destiny and I choose to fulfill this dream.
Suddenly a clear white sentence appeared in bold letters near the bottom of her screen. TRANSFER APPROVED LOAN PAID OFF.
I nearly cried, fainted and stopped breathing for two seconds. The enormous unshiftable burden – the physical sign of my failure to manage my life during those seven months, the unending anxiety of a responsibility I can’t meet yet must meet every month – in a split second dispassionately disappeared.
I had no idea of the extent of the weight on my spirit until it was gone. And when it was gone, it was just gone. A pile of papers to sign, two managers to say “Yes”, an electronic ritual to complete precisely – and the white letters simply appeared at the bottom of the computer screen.
Forgiveness has been dispensed.
This does not mean I have no financial concerns. It means I have a path to getting from “red” to “black” to being once again free to powerfully impact my and other’s circumstances with my own money, not just other’s on my behalf.
I owe so much to my parents I cannot fathom the depth. My Mother’s relentless saving reaches from beyond her grave through my Father through his love of me and of manipulating his GIC’s to release me from the shackles and the shame I incurred for throwing my hat over the wall in 2008. I am blessed.
My sense of mission is once again reinforced. Why am I so blessed, so lucky if not for being yet again showered with opportunities to keep on bringing Inclusion. Forward – go forward!
Today I met a young research student, and in a nutshell, a feasible research project is emerging around measuring the impact of the WPIT inclusive video games on the peacefulness of the children and youth who play it. A new “Yes”, a different “Yes”, a powerful “Yes”! Forward – go forward!
Jen was here this morning. Together we explored the nature of standing. For me it was more like having a conversation with my body about the experience of standing – the being of upstanding – of leadership and courage. I am stretching and parts of my body are turning and curving differently. The body of Judith is discovering how to support her stand.
I, Judith, am leading the world, through a planet wide team of young people, into an international culture of abundance, inclusion and peace. It is my destiny and I choose to fulfill this dream.
Friday, December 31, 2010
December 31, 2010
It seems fitting to end this tumultuous year by writing about a tumultuous day.
There has been a lot of flu going around so when I developed a wheeze and 1 (and only 1!?!) swollen hand and forearm two days I took steps to increase the amount of non-caffeinated fluids I drink, reduce my sugar and carb intake and increase my time lying down. Of course this is no fun for my personal assistants and means that everyone’s sleep is interrupted.
Well Peter’s increased fatigue level interacted with Helen’s misunderstanding that her desire to not work this evening had NOT been reflected in the schedule meant that 4:30pm arrived with no one confirmed for the shift that started at 5:30pm. A flurry of phone calls and the generousity and flexibility of Mike, Kimberly and Peter and it all worked out.
I started today with the commitment to not be grumpy and several times today the memory of that promise came in handy!
In the end I got today a lot of what I wished for last Saturday. I got to have New Year’s Eve dinner with a personal assistant I love being with, with a family I love being with and to come home to a green Christmas tree made from a rosemary tree that a friend brought me last Tuesday when she learned how much I struggled with the tin can sculpture. Now the home where we had dinner could be accessed only with my ramp, but it wasn’t too steep, and with several burly guys around, felt safe enough. Also, like Cinderella I had to leave early because that was all that Mike and Kimberly could give. In addition my computer would not start this morning but somehow tonight it decided to go on the second try and so I get to come home to blogging and Farmville.
To backtrack, a staff member of the ROM arranged for me and some friends (whom I didn’t really celebrate with at Christmas with because they got flu) to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibit. It was eerie and magnificent – both. I came away with the following impressions:
- I am going to die someday; (a fundamental principle in the Chinese culture of the day was that a well lived life demanded careful preparation for one’s life after death),
- one person can change an entire culture,
- a healthy economy can sustain a lot of waste of resources, and human life and effort,
- the idea that war leads to peace survives massive evidence to the contrary,
- history takes no account of the lived experience of ordinary citizens, and,
- many lasting historic impacts, for better or worse, were made by teenagers,
- the same sort of things have happened everywhere, at one time or another.
In other words it reinforced for me that the world needs a new idea about how to foster and sustain peace and I had better get on with spreading the word about transformation to peace through Inclusion.
So, Happy New Year, and let’s continue to do the work!
There has been a lot of flu going around so when I developed a wheeze and 1 (and only 1!?!) swollen hand and forearm two days I took steps to increase the amount of non-caffeinated fluids I drink, reduce my sugar and carb intake and increase my time lying down. Of course this is no fun for my personal assistants and means that everyone’s sleep is interrupted.
Well Peter’s increased fatigue level interacted with Helen’s misunderstanding that her desire to not work this evening had NOT been reflected in the schedule meant that 4:30pm arrived with no one confirmed for the shift that started at 5:30pm. A flurry of phone calls and the generousity and flexibility of Mike, Kimberly and Peter and it all worked out.
I started today with the commitment to not be grumpy and several times today the memory of that promise came in handy!
In the end I got today a lot of what I wished for last Saturday. I got to have New Year’s Eve dinner with a personal assistant I love being with, with a family I love being with and to come home to a green Christmas tree made from a rosemary tree that a friend brought me last Tuesday when she learned how much I struggled with the tin can sculpture. Now the home where we had dinner could be accessed only with my ramp, but it wasn’t too steep, and with several burly guys around, felt safe enough. Also, like Cinderella I had to leave early because that was all that Mike and Kimberly could give. In addition my computer would not start this morning but somehow tonight it decided to go on the second try and so I get to come home to blogging and Farmville.
To backtrack, a staff member of the ROM arranged for me and some friends (whom I didn’t really celebrate with at Christmas with because they got flu) to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibit. It was eerie and magnificent – both. I came away with the following impressions:
- I am going to die someday; (a fundamental principle in the Chinese culture of the day was that a well lived life demanded careful preparation for one’s life after death),
- one person can change an entire culture,
- a healthy economy can sustain a lot of waste of resources, and human life and effort,
- the idea that war leads to peace survives massive evidence to the contrary,
- history takes no account of the lived experience of ordinary citizens, and,
- many lasting historic impacts, for better or worse, were made by teenagers,
- the same sort of things have happened everywhere, at one time or another.
In other words it reinforced for me that the world needs a new idea about how to foster and sustain peace and I had better get on with spreading the word about transformation to peace through Inclusion.
So, Happy New Year, and let’s continue to do the work!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
November 24, 2010
Today I was asked if I thought certain items of my writings were poems. I replied that I thought they were a bridge between poetry and prose.
Specifically, when I write – or speak – I start off saying something I want to say. Prose. At some point – frequently – I am saying what wants to be said! Poetry.
Actually, it’s the same with painting.
I guess I am saying that to be an artist is to be willing to start the – dance, statement, picture, dialogue – and to ALSO be willing to have the process taken over by a deeper, more eternal process and to allow oneself to be the vehicle.
I am willing. Much of these writings have been about the history and the flavour of that willingness.
I met the only man I have married and divorced in 1980. Laurence and I were friends for seven years before our two years marriage. Laurence was very interested in how I think. He would ask me questions and very often my answers came from some fount of knowledge or experience that I was unaware of before I heard the question. When we broke up among the elements of our relationship that I missed the most was this searching dialogue that revealed to my own self a well of understanding that by myself I don’t typically access.
Both Gabor and Mike have this effect on me, each in different ways. This has the magnifying result that WPIT is moving from being a concept I could barely articulate in 2006 to being an organization with new and growing capacity.
I have a similar experience when I am speaking in public. This week I have spoken to a class of about 20 student nurses and another of about 30 student video game creators. In the first class I presented by myself and I went into the “zone” shortly after the introduction and was essentially there for about forty-five minutes. In the second class I was part of a presenting team of 3. Zoning in didn’t occur until we were bantering back and forth with the students and later in the parking lot with the professor about what an inclusive video game might look like.
I usually can’t remember what I said after such situations. I am always glad of the times when someone has written down or videoed such moments so I can find out how I came across and what I actually expressed. Painting, of course, is better for leaving behind a more permanent record of what “Judith as vehicle” has been up to!
I am not saying that I am some kind of psychic or medium. As I have written before, it is more like I am personally involved in the creation of an articulated or painted expression yet the ultimate source is connected to me from beyond me.
So now “the cat’s out of the bag”. There are at least a dozen people who read these writings and they all know by now just how weird I am.
As if they didn’t know already!
Specifically, when I write – or speak – I start off saying something I want to say. Prose. At some point – frequently – I am saying what wants to be said! Poetry.
Actually, it’s the same with painting.
I guess I am saying that to be an artist is to be willing to start the – dance, statement, picture, dialogue – and to ALSO be willing to have the process taken over by a deeper, more eternal process and to allow oneself to be the vehicle.
I am willing. Much of these writings have been about the history and the flavour of that willingness.
I met the only man I have married and divorced in 1980. Laurence and I were friends for seven years before our two years marriage. Laurence was very interested in how I think. He would ask me questions and very often my answers came from some fount of knowledge or experience that I was unaware of before I heard the question. When we broke up among the elements of our relationship that I missed the most was this searching dialogue that revealed to my own self a well of understanding that by myself I don’t typically access.
Both Gabor and Mike have this effect on me, each in different ways. This has the magnifying result that WPIT is moving from being a concept I could barely articulate in 2006 to being an organization with new and growing capacity.
I have a similar experience when I am speaking in public. This week I have spoken to a class of about 20 student nurses and another of about 30 student video game creators. In the first class I presented by myself and I went into the “zone” shortly after the introduction and was essentially there for about forty-five minutes. In the second class I was part of a presenting team of 3. Zoning in didn’t occur until we were bantering back and forth with the students and later in the parking lot with the professor about what an inclusive video game might look like.
I usually can’t remember what I said after such situations. I am always glad of the times when someone has written down or videoed such moments so I can find out how I came across and what I actually expressed. Painting, of course, is better for leaving behind a more permanent record of what “Judith as vehicle” has been up to!
I am not saying that I am some kind of psychic or medium. As I have written before, it is more like I am personally involved in the creation of an articulated or painted expression yet the ultimate source is connected to me from beyond me.
So now “the cat’s out of the bag”. There are at least a dozen people who read these writings and they all know by now just how weird I am.
As if they didn’t know already!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
November 23, 2010
I am almost too tired to do this, although it has been a momentous day, more than worth writing about. My mind has dissipated to the level of playing Freecell for an hour, knowing I want to write and that have lots to do and respond to. I am just tired – in a very satisfied and somewhat overwhelmed way.
Sometimes – tonight – I imagine myself when I was 30 or 45 years younger and try to figure out if I could have ever predicted my life as it is now from the perspective of those days. I was with Mike at supper. He is 36 years younger than I am (as I often remind him!) and I was losing myself in a reverie about IF I could have believed then that today COULD even happen.
Some things are clearly enough in a line to have been comprehensible. Four walls, table cloths, stuff like that. But much beyond this mind numbing simplicity and clearly my life has leapt into so many dimensions that the child and young adult Judith had no imagination of. A simple example – I have many ceramics – very beautiful pieces – given to me by the artists who made them, and more than one each! I could not have permitted myself at 25 to imagine that I would have such friends. That I myself would be an artist was certainly not in my purview.
Tonight Mike, his friend Kevin and I presented a potential WPIT project to a class of young students who are learning to design and develop video games. The idea is to create a series of video games that require the players to build inclusive solutions to the games’ problems. Without getting into details (perhaps in the near future!) we were met with focussed interest and enthusiasm. Some twenty students and the teacher signed up to find out more and to start designing and writing the required code.
When I was twenty-five I had spent a summer coding data onto charts printed on legal sized paper so key punch typists could create the cards that fed an apartment-sized computer.
Three professors had at that same time showed off to me their personal computers and proudly demonstrated how to play Pac Man.
I understood Inclusion to mean that I should be fighting for the right to share an apartment with someone who had quadriplegia and with whom I had no particular relationship. In this apartment and ONLY in this apartment I would be able to get six hours a day of personal assistance given to me by someone I did not hire who was trained by someone else to “take care” of me. It was the best I could hope for at 25.
I understood that I was lucky to hope that someday I would be employed by some corporation to do something like HR work. I had been told by knowledgeable professionals that I would not live past thirty and that I would have few if any friends.
Tonight Mike and I were talking about a certain quiet feeling, almost like a let down, that one can have after a very successful event. In this case we are having the kind of experience that hard work, good luck and a really good idea are coming together. In one sense it should be perfectly obvious that such a thing as Inclusive video games can be created. On the other hand I think we both know that this evening and this project could easily go the other way.
I said to Mike that I recognize that quiet feeling as being different from enthusiasm. For me, it is about passion and gratitude. Enthusiasm is a cheap high that easily dissipates when circumstances change or even when it’s just the next morning. Passion is a long term energy and one is very fortunate indeed to be able to live inside the space of one’s own passion.
And this is where gratitude comes in, at least for me. I am deeply moved that my life has been given so many opportunities to extend beyond anything I could or still can imagine. Not only am I someone who gets to do what I love to do; I am also someone who is blessed with unique surprises that take me well beyond the kind of life I would have created for myself if it were all left up to me.
Call it God or call it whatever makes sense to you. My life is clearly in the hands of a power greater than myself and in my opinion that is a very good thing!
Sometimes – tonight – I imagine myself when I was 30 or 45 years younger and try to figure out if I could have ever predicted my life as it is now from the perspective of those days. I was with Mike at supper. He is 36 years younger than I am (as I often remind him!) and I was losing myself in a reverie about IF I could have believed then that today COULD even happen.
Some things are clearly enough in a line to have been comprehensible. Four walls, table cloths, stuff like that. But much beyond this mind numbing simplicity and clearly my life has leapt into so many dimensions that the child and young adult Judith had no imagination of. A simple example – I have many ceramics – very beautiful pieces – given to me by the artists who made them, and more than one each! I could not have permitted myself at 25 to imagine that I would have such friends. That I myself would be an artist was certainly not in my purview.
Tonight Mike, his friend Kevin and I presented a potential WPIT project to a class of young students who are learning to design and develop video games. The idea is to create a series of video games that require the players to build inclusive solutions to the games’ problems. Without getting into details (perhaps in the near future!) we were met with focussed interest and enthusiasm. Some twenty students and the teacher signed up to find out more and to start designing and writing the required code.
When I was twenty-five I had spent a summer coding data onto charts printed on legal sized paper so key punch typists could create the cards that fed an apartment-sized computer.
Three professors had at that same time showed off to me their personal computers and proudly demonstrated how to play Pac Man.
I understood Inclusion to mean that I should be fighting for the right to share an apartment with someone who had quadriplegia and with whom I had no particular relationship. In this apartment and ONLY in this apartment I would be able to get six hours a day of personal assistance given to me by someone I did not hire who was trained by someone else to “take care” of me. It was the best I could hope for at 25.
I understood that I was lucky to hope that someday I would be employed by some corporation to do something like HR work. I had been told by knowledgeable professionals that I would not live past thirty and that I would have few if any friends.
Tonight Mike and I were talking about a certain quiet feeling, almost like a let down, that one can have after a very successful event. In this case we are having the kind of experience that hard work, good luck and a really good idea are coming together. In one sense it should be perfectly obvious that such a thing as Inclusive video games can be created. On the other hand I think we both know that this evening and this project could easily go the other way.
I said to Mike that I recognize that quiet feeling as being different from enthusiasm. For me, it is about passion and gratitude. Enthusiasm is a cheap high that easily dissipates when circumstances change or even when it’s just the next morning. Passion is a long term energy and one is very fortunate indeed to be able to live inside the space of one’s own passion.
And this is where gratitude comes in, at least for me. I am deeply moved that my life has been given so many opportunities to extend beyond anything I could or still can imagine. Not only am I someone who gets to do what I love to do; I am also someone who is blessed with unique surprises that take me well beyond the kind of life I would have created for myself if it were all left up to me.
Call it God or call it whatever makes sense to you. My life is clearly in the hands of a power greater than myself and in my opinion that is a very good thing!
Saturday, November 20, 2010
November 20, 2010
It is just past 10:00pm and this is the second day that I have not gotten out of bed – or washed either. Yikes! What has become of me? (Ha, ha) A drugged, slovenly old lady!
I’m kidding – well mostly. It has actually been another busy day. I worked on my Wisdom phone list this morning, responded to e-mail and made some calls. Between lunch, dinner, pain breaks and mutual naps Mike and I worked on the presentation we will give to video game developers next Tuesday. Throughout it all there have been talks and explorations – ranging from funny to emotionally intense - of Inclusion, WPIT, Laser Eagles, the design of a good interactive presentation, how we will organize ourselves, what inspires us and frightens us – a strong flow of interchange.
Mike has been at work for some 10 days on www.wpit.org. It has to be a working website by Tuesday evening for the students who design video games. It will be.
There are some strong similarities between my time with Mike and the more than a year with Gabor. Mike wants to know, wants to drive Inclusion and WPIT, wants to read the years of writing I have done, wants to push me! Gabor was and is very different, but he continuously caused me to examine and expand the metaphors through which I think about Inclusion and all that I am trying to articulate and create.
Mirror, mirror on the wall! Often people meet me (or anyone) as if what you see is all there is or was or will be. It is an inexpressible joy to be met as an unfolding mystery, with depth and untapped directions to grow into.
The question of my legacy is often on my mind. When I am with Mike and Kimberly I feel a direct connection to a distant future that I will not personally be present in. This is a profoundly satisfying work to engage in.
Throughout the day I searched out old documents and PowerPoint slides. I saw that just nine years ago World Peace was not something I thought or wrote about. Not so very long ago I had not imagined the BMX Model of Inclusion. I was still working on articulating Giftedness and personal support. I have fundamentally altered my direction between then and 2008. This realization takes some power away from the metaphor of 30 year cycles that forms the basis of these writings.
Even seven years ago there was no painting and peace activism. At that time I began to engage in an intensely explorative and creative time – a six year span from 2004 to 2009 – ages 54 to 59 in chronologic time.
This was the time I also engaged in the Landmark Education Wisdom Unlimited course, Partnership Explorations, Power and Contribution in which I invented World Peace through Inclusion, and several Year End cruises, seminars and teleconferences about discourses. I also was and am still on the Toronto City Team – the group of volunteers who work with the Landmark Education headquarters, consultants and staff to produce the Wisdom Unlimited course in our area.
I transformed myself and my creative nest has been the transformational work supported by Landmark Education.
It’s funny to look back this way because I have felt that I was “me” all along. Without reflection I would have said that I had changed, but not THAT much. Now I see that Judith took some fundamental shifts – in particular I have moved from being a rights and services advocate to being an artist and peace worker.
This seems to be akin to moving from caterpillar to butterfly. And now this beautiful creature is laying her own eggs.
I’m kidding – well mostly. It has actually been another busy day. I worked on my Wisdom phone list this morning, responded to e-mail and made some calls. Between lunch, dinner, pain breaks and mutual naps Mike and I worked on the presentation we will give to video game developers next Tuesday. Throughout it all there have been talks and explorations – ranging from funny to emotionally intense - of Inclusion, WPIT, Laser Eagles, the design of a good interactive presentation, how we will organize ourselves, what inspires us and frightens us – a strong flow of interchange.
Mike has been at work for some 10 days on www.wpit.org. It has to be a working website by Tuesday evening for the students who design video games. It will be.
There are some strong similarities between my time with Mike and the more than a year with Gabor. Mike wants to know, wants to drive Inclusion and WPIT, wants to read the years of writing I have done, wants to push me! Gabor was and is very different, but he continuously caused me to examine and expand the metaphors through which I think about Inclusion and all that I am trying to articulate and create.
Mirror, mirror on the wall! Often people meet me (or anyone) as if what you see is all there is or was or will be. It is an inexpressible joy to be met as an unfolding mystery, with depth and untapped directions to grow into.
The question of my legacy is often on my mind. When I am with Mike and Kimberly I feel a direct connection to a distant future that I will not personally be present in. This is a profoundly satisfying work to engage in.
Throughout the day I searched out old documents and PowerPoint slides. I saw that just nine years ago World Peace was not something I thought or wrote about. Not so very long ago I had not imagined the BMX Model of Inclusion. I was still working on articulating Giftedness and personal support. I have fundamentally altered my direction between then and 2008. This realization takes some power away from the metaphor of 30 year cycles that forms the basis of these writings.
Even seven years ago there was no painting and peace activism. At that time I began to engage in an intensely explorative and creative time – a six year span from 2004 to 2009 – ages 54 to 59 in chronologic time.
This was the time I also engaged in the Landmark Education Wisdom Unlimited course, Partnership Explorations, Power and Contribution in which I invented World Peace through Inclusion, and several Year End cruises, seminars and teleconferences about discourses. I also was and am still on the Toronto City Team – the group of volunteers who work with the Landmark Education headquarters, consultants and staff to produce the Wisdom Unlimited course in our area.
I transformed myself and my creative nest has been the transformational work supported by Landmark Education.
It’s funny to look back this way because I have felt that I was “me” all along. Without reflection I would have said that I had changed, but not THAT much. Now I see that Judith took some fundamental shifts – in particular I have moved from being a rights and services advocate to being an artist and peace worker.
This seems to be akin to moving from caterpillar to butterfly. And now this beautiful creature is laying her own eggs.
Friday, November 19, 2010
November 19, 2010
As I was checking dates today I realized that I have been writing for more than a continuous month. This will be the 34th posting in this blog. I am “chuffed” as I somewhat expected that I would have missed a day by now, or written less than 2 pages or given it up all together. So far so good for me. I’ve never run out of gas either since owning my first car in 1980 (a yellow Fiat), except for the time that a block of ice severed the fuel line and the gas all ran out in ten minutes –I don’t count that one!
A funny thing happened today… Sometimes the Morphine hits me more than others, especially the evening dose. Tonight I was listening to some Moody Blues in my I-Tunes on my laptop. When Jay was here from Phoenix during our birthdays he left about 22 days worth of music in my folder. I’m not a big listener to music anymore and Jay likes a lot of stuff I don’t it seems, but at supper in bed tonight I found this familiar album from the late ‘60’s.
I realized that the last time I listened to this particular album I was likely stoned too – much more stoned than I am tonight and on a very different, non-prescription drug – but still in a recognizably similar state. Ah, it takes me back!
It felt humourous and good - a recognition and a bridge to a very different yet familiar version of myself. In many ways I am happier now than then, and I NEVER could have imagined today from the perspective of that day. The similarities are there, though. I am still idealistic, searching, self-centred and committed to making a real difference.
My circle meeting was intense last night, leaving Mike and Kimberly put off to some extent. Thank God Gloria was here today. She got sick last night and missed the circle meeting but came today to collage and lunch with me. She has a great connection with Mike and I expect a growing one with Kimberly. We talked together and told many stories about Scott and his supporters, trials and joys of previous trips to Georgia, and of the kind of clashes people have when they care, when they are confronted and when finally they are honest with each other.
Of course both Mike and Kimberly are 25 years old. I am frequently and stereotypically confronted with the depth of their passion, energy, creativity and intelligence and how differently they look upon or simply are unaware of how I, and now my circle, see risks, fatigue, areas that need more careful attention or even some potential directions to take. To me my age shows up most around them. I both want to and don’t want to think and be like them. It seems both wonderful and exhausting.
I guess that it is a blessing that I am not young and they are not old. So far we have been able to work out an amazing variety of ideas and issues. I will do my best to keep it clean and good, not because of either them or me, but because the possibility of World Peace through Inclusion will do so well in their hands.
I am writing this while I am still in bed. Nick and I finally rigged up my laptop and Morse Code so I can use my interface while I am semi lying down. All the pieces that are necessary were in my bedroom. I just didn’t see the last essential part until this afternoon. How often we can’t see what we are looking at!
The collage I did today is about me being reluctant to stick out. Of course I love to have everyone’s attention too. But there is a fear that shows up when I get close to noticing I’m a leader.
After I finished the collage I saw that it has many eyes and points of light in it. It’s hanging over the foot of my bed. I hope I dream about it tonight.
A funny thing happened today… Sometimes the Morphine hits me more than others, especially the evening dose. Tonight I was listening to some Moody Blues in my I-Tunes on my laptop. When Jay was here from Phoenix during our birthdays he left about 22 days worth of music in my folder. I’m not a big listener to music anymore and Jay likes a lot of stuff I don’t it seems, but at supper in bed tonight I found this familiar album from the late ‘60’s.
I realized that the last time I listened to this particular album I was likely stoned too – much more stoned than I am tonight and on a very different, non-prescription drug – but still in a recognizably similar state. Ah, it takes me back!
It felt humourous and good - a recognition and a bridge to a very different yet familiar version of myself. In many ways I am happier now than then, and I NEVER could have imagined today from the perspective of that day. The similarities are there, though. I am still idealistic, searching, self-centred and committed to making a real difference.
My circle meeting was intense last night, leaving Mike and Kimberly put off to some extent. Thank God Gloria was here today. She got sick last night and missed the circle meeting but came today to collage and lunch with me. She has a great connection with Mike and I expect a growing one with Kimberly. We talked together and told many stories about Scott and his supporters, trials and joys of previous trips to Georgia, and of the kind of clashes people have when they care, when they are confronted and when finally they are honest with each other.
Of course both Mike and Kimberly are 25 years old. I am frequently and stereotypically confronted with the depth of their passion, energy, creativity and intelligence and how differently they look upon or simply are unaware of how I, and now my circle, see risks, fatigue, areas that need more careful attention or even some potential directions to take. To me my age shows up most around them. I both want to and don’t want to think and be like them. It seems both wonderful and exhausting.
I guess that it is a blessing that I am not young and they are not old. So far we have been able to work out an amazing variety of ideas and issues. I will do my best to keep it clean and good, not because of either them or me, but because the possibility of World Peace through Inclusion will do so well in their hands.
I am writing this while I am still in bed. Nick and I finally rigged up my laptop and Morse Code so I can use my interface while I am semi lying down. All the pieces that are necessary were in my bedroom. I just didn’t see the last essential part until this afternoon. How often we can’t see what we are looking at!
The collage I did today is about me being reluctant to stick out. Of course I love to have everyone’s attention too. But there is a fear that shows up when I get close to noticing I’m a leader.
After I finished the collage I saw that it has many eyes and points of light in it. It’s hanging over the foot of my bed. I hope I dream about it tonight.
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