Category: Inspiration
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Playing the Edge, Finding One’s Spot and Being One’s True Self
During tonight’s Love and Logic class, Cindy Horst encouraged parents to stretch to allow children to experience more consequences directly, rather than being protected or rescued from those consequences. The Love and Logic program can be rather extreme with respect to loving detachment, and while parents may not want to adopt such an extreme approach,…
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The Source of my Breathing Dragon
I alluded to my Breathing Dragon during an earlier post on my Warrior Monk experience. Sally Wilson of Earthwing Pottery, the artist who created the dragon figure, recently replied to my email inquiry about the source of the dragon; she provided some details about the materials, people, processes and inspiration that came together in its…
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Inspiration, Aspiration and Perspiration
When I first started this weblog, my intent was to focus on content relating to my professional activities, which I summarized as "ruminations on people, places and things, and the potential [digital] connections between them" in my weblog catchphrase. I am still interested in these topics, and intend to continue blogging on them, but I…
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Love and Logic: Learning and Growing through Mistakes
The night after reading about the art of making mistakes wakefully, I attended the first class of a four-class seminar on Love and Logic, wonderfully facilitated by Cindy Horst. The premise of this approach to parenting a child is to "empower him/her to make his/her own decisions, live with his/her mistakes and grow through the…
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A Path With Heart: Wakefully Making Mistakes Along the Way
After returning from my Warrior Monk retreat, I started re-reading "A Path With Heart: A Guide through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life", a book written by Jack Kornfield, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center, that offers a path to greater mindfulness and integrity through meditation and other spiritual…
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Boxing and Belly Dancing, Boldness and Dreams
I rarely watch television, but I was captivated by the Ken Burns documentary film, “Unforgivable Blackness”, profiling the rise and fall of Jack Johnson, the first African-American Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World, shown this week on PBS. I regularly listen to NPR (and yes, I’m a member of both KCTS and KPLU), and Wednesday…
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Warrior Monk: A Spiritual and Soulful Retreat
I attended a four-day retreat, Warrior Monk, before the holidays, with the goal of achieving greater clarity, courage and commitment in following my heart. The workshop "welcomes those in transition and those seeking their next level of authentic growth, healing and spiritual connection," and includes a combination of meditation, poetry reading and writing, chanting, singing…
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Oprah on The Joy of Connecting (and Disconnecting)
The December issue of O: The Oprah Magazine has a special section on the benefits of connecting with and relating to one another … and (of course) a number of suggestions for ways that people can connect — or disconnect — with others. I felt more than slightly self-conscious going through the checkout line of…
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Life and Safety, Champagne and Strawberries, Candles and Torches
I took Meg to get her wrist cast off at Bellevue Bone and Joint Physicians recently, where they had the following quotation posted: "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Champagne in one hand, strawberries…
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A New Habit: Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs
A USA Today article today — in their Money Section (?!) — announced the publication of Stephen Covey‘s new book, "The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness", a sequel to "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". The new habit is to "find your voice, and inspire others to find theirs". I find this particularly…