I once had a friend say to me "if you can learn to be truly greatful, then the rest will come." Indeed, gratitude seems to be the thing that the divine energy of the universe responds to most. When you say a prayer of thanks and really mean it, how good does it feel? When you work your butt of to make something happen, and it finally does, doesn't it feel better than getting things you don't deserve?
Saying daily affirmations is supposed to be a good way to get your energy going and set your mind in the right directions. It's interesting, though, that almost every affirmation site I've come across says to express them in the present tense and be greatful that you have those things-- act as though you already have those things that you want, and express your gratitude for having them. This way you are acknowledging that the universe has already set in motion for you to have your needs met.
On that note, here's some of the affirmations I say while laying in bed:
I have the perfect job for me.
I am financially secure.
I am courageous.
I have meaningful and well-maintained friendships.
I have a good relationship with my family.
I am healthy and becoming healthier every day.
I am wealthy and becoming wealthier every day.
I have the ability to realize my goals.
I have the commitment to realize my goals.
It's weird, but so are plenty of other really helpful things: like the fact that your microbes do most of your digesting for you.
23.1.07
Freecycle(TM): or how to make a gift to the world a registered trademark
Back in May of 2005, a lot of my friends were moving away and something revolutionary happened... My friend Mitch said, "I'm going to freecycle my stuff." I had never heard anyone use the word before; "freecycle" is both beautiful and magical. I instantly knew that he meant he was giving his things away instead of throwing them away. Throughout the summer my friends took his cue (and my inquiring about their things), and freely gave away many things that could have easily been sold. As a direct result of that and my having no roommate for three months, I accumulated a new set of dishes, new coffee tables, a new desk, and a new TV, and more small stuff than I can begin to remember. At the end of the summer, I was talking with a friend about how cool it would be to start a freecycle group specifically for our neighborhood. There's one for Los Angeles, but the whole of LA is just too big. I'm not going to drive to the home of someone I have no connection with in order to find out if their free couch will actually fit in my living room, or to riffle through the junk they're throwing out to see if they have junk I was intending to buy (like C batteries, or what have you). So I started throwing freecycle barbeques.
Almost everyone I know uses freecycle in the exact same way that the word recycle is used. I freecycled my old desk when I got a new one. That hippie got all of her clothes through freecycling. Freecycle your crap: stop sending it to landfills! Freeclyclers reduce the need for landfills, and the energy consumption required to make new goods.
The whole idea of having freecycle be a tradmarked word is RIDICULOUS. The whole idea is to create a gift based economy, which does require you to loosen your ideas about ownership. Just because someone else one used it, and possibly in a radically different way, doesn't mean isn't still good enough for you to use the way you need to use it (my new desk for ground-sitting was Mitch's coffee table). Just because you used to own it, or because you made it doesn't mean you'll own it forever (you're not a pharoh, you can't take things to the afterlife). So, Freecycle(TM) Network, why don't you give the world the greatest gift us all and allow us to freely use the term freecycle...
Almost everyone I know uses freecycle in the exact same way that the word recycle is used. I freecycled my old desk when I got a new one. That hippie got all of her clothes through freecycling. Freecycle your crap: stop sending it to landfills! Freeclyclers reduce the need for landfills, and the energy consumption required to make new goods.
The whole idea of having freecycle be a tradmarked word is RIDICULOUS. The whole idea is to create a gift based economy, which does require you to loosen your ideas about ownership. Just because someone else one used it, and possibly in a radically different way, doesn't mean isn't still good enough for you to use the way you need to use it (my new desk for ground-sitting was Mitch's coffee table). Just because you used to own it, or because you made it doesn't mean you'll own it forever (you're not a pharoh, you can't take things to the afterlife). So, Freecycle(TM) Network, why don't you give the world the greatest gift us all and allow us to freely use the term freecycle...
19.1.07
12.1.07
A Photo of Me by the incomparable Traci Matlock
This photo was taken by Traci Matlock... of
Rose and Olive
Rose and Olive do the Unthinkable. They make money from photoblogging. They are true bohemian artists. They live in neighboring colorful and almost unbearably messy apartments in the heights. They have seemingly endless volumes of poetry and literary theory books laying around their homes... Rose and Olive are completely light-hearted individuals who aren't afraid to explore any aspect of humanity regardless of how unnerving it may be. And most of the photography is actually disturbing and beautiful, which is a difficult feat to accomplish...
And then there are Olive's photos of me. and I don't quite understand them in the context of the body of her work. Maybe it's because we don't know each other very well... But just as she adds muses in the form of comments around her photo blogs that are completely projections on to what she thinks I am like, I project onto her that I bring out the light and playful side to her otherwise darkly sexualized work. From the outsiders point of view, distinguishing Olive's work from Rose's (or Traci's from Ashley's) is like trying to tell two drops of water apart. Their collective photoblogs on both nerve.com the online sex magazine and on flickr are both filled with shame, humiliation, pain and sometimes even the grotesque. And yes, sex does frequently evoke those emotions...
And then you see the photos of me. They are light, playful and mysterious. And where does it come from?
Rose and Olive
Rose and Olive do the Unthinkable. They make money from photoblogging. They are true bohemian artists. They live in neighboring colorful and almost unbearably messy apartments in the heights. They have seemingly endless volumes of poetry and literary theory books laying around their homes... Rose and Olive are completely light-hearted individuals who aren't afraid to explore any aspect of humanity regardless of how unnerving it may be. And most of the photography is actually disturbing and beautiful, which is a difficult feat to accomplish...
And then there are Olive's photos of me. and I don't quite understand them in the context of the body of her work. Maybe it's because we don't know each other very well... But just as she adds muses in the form of comments around her photo blogs that are completely projections on to what she thinks I am like, I project onto her that I bring out the light and playful side to her otherwise darkly sexualized work. From the outsiders point of view, distinguishing Olive's work from Rose's (or Traci's from Ashley's) is like trying to tell two drops of water apart. Their collective photoblogs on both nerve.com the online sex magazine and on flickr are both filled with shame, humiliation, pain and sometimes even the grotesque. And yes, sex does frequently evoke those emotions...
And then you see the photos of me. They are light, playful and mysterious. And where does it come from?
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