Thoughts, the Negative and the Positive

 

While dabbling in thoughts about what today’s topic should be I came across an old thought. A thought about someone I had not seen in what seems a life time. Now it is a good thing I have not seen this person as I do not want too, but just what is in a thought and how do we manifest odd from bad or indifferent?

 

 

I have never given much thought to thought. It occurred to me there was a process for it but I never minded to investigate the process, obviously it occurs in the brain of humans and maybe some animals. But thoughts come in many shapes, sizes and also emotion levels. The thought I had of the person earlier left me feeling somewhat angry as this person had done something to injure me in the past. But it also left me wondering if the old crow was now bald and wrinkled and gave me a good snicker at the mental image I had formed, not a good one.

 

 

As a thoughtful person I try my very hardest to have only good thought about people and for the most part I do. It saddens me to think that there are such toxic people out there that when thought of all the thinker wishes is to expel the thought and move onto something more positive, but there are those people that stand in the way and sometimes hijack our thoughts no matter what we do to remove the toxicity the thought remain. It is a fight within ones soul to eliminate the thought that hurt or is binding us mentally to an incident. I personally like to use the red circle and stroke method and then I shrink into the tiniest of pieces and flick it away.

 

 

My eldest daughter seems to be the target of bullies at school and she struggles with the thoughts they create and the hurt. We have given her a super power to deal with the remaining hurtful backlash that occurs in her mind. We have talked about her bringing forth her inner Velociraptor. I am not sure why she a lines with this creature but she does and her use of this creature in changing her thought pattern works. It is not in violent thought but thought of strengths and agility and an ability to get away from what is hurting and distracting her from her school work.

 

 

It seems to me that we all have our own unique and individual thought patterns and use varied techniques to get through our thoughts and keep them as positive as possible. But is the power of thinking as strong as we have been lead to believe? I have no proof, scientifically anyway about that being true or not, but I do believe that if we think great things it can happen. What I mean is if we constantly look for bad and negative that is all we will find being a pessimist. But if we look to the bright and shiny side of life we could and just might find out that there is a glory out there that belongs to us in a pocket. Something we can own without too much struggle, something we are good at and the world notices, something that is positive. Let’s look at the motivation to loose weight. It takes a thought to get going with the process. It then takes more thought to get to the gym and choose a trainer to help. Then beyond that, we are looking at changing eating habits and relearning to live life without the junk and the television so much and becoming healthy. Keeping those thoughts alive by feeding them with more positive thinking. Yes I do believe that thoughts can and do help us change our lives. The funny thing is though…we must recognize there is a problem to begin with…

 

 

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The Silencing of the Lights - A New Year

 

After a month of parties and bright lights it is time for them to be silenced. It seems so short a time, a time that we prepare for in great length and a time that we live in so briefly. The glory of the holiday is over and now the lights will be silenced.

There are always the stragglers that keep the colours and a glow for some time afterwards that remain with the decorations frozen into the ground as winter progresses and  are waiting for the thaw of March and April to release their Christmas hostages and package them away for another eight months until they are needed again.

I look forward to the quiet of the deepest days of the winter when things inside the house get done and changes in lifestyle are made. Trying to keep up with New Year’s resolutions and fitting in gym time into an already very busy schedule. Health and fitness at the forefront of many changes that people want to make it takes dedications and rest to make these things happen. Clean eating, more exercise, and quitting bad habits seem to top the cake of changes we all want to make. But no matter what we decide and follow through on, the lights will be silenced.

 

Moving forward into a new year with new promise and hope. Well-deserved issues and broken promises left behind in a single night the human race works itself into a tizzy of change in just a few short hours. The old year’s calendars chucked in the garbage and new ones hung in their place bring a glory of the lights that reminds us of the days just past and the promises made to change. It is a time of cleansing the soul and purging the pain of a year that may not have been stellar. Expelling the memories of hurt that were shameful gifts thrust upon us by others and closing the doors on such behaviours. A time for improvement has come.

 

 

Whether that improvement comes from within yourself or is announced and followed through upon with other that support you, we all have a great deal of work to be done. I can feel the excitement in our home of returning to school and the dance studio refreshed and ready to strive for excellence. The last days of the holiday remain as holders of a place in time when we can recreate ourselves as better, improved, learning and striving.

The cold and bleak winter’s day reminds me that one more night the lights will shine bright and then be silenced for the long stretch ahead. The days will come when we all walk in the sunshine and warmth again but until then we must rest, recoup and move forward in this new year. The ability to start over with a fresh slate truly does not exist but we can try and we can hope and do our very best to improve our own corner of the world. Leaving the hurt and disappointment of others and ourselves behind us. There is nothing anyone can do to change the past but taking on a new approach and following through in a new way is always a good start. Maybe the lights are not silenced after all, maybe they just shine a little differently.

Happy New Year and may all your dreams come true!!!

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Why I Use the Title of Writer with Pride

Lately I have been reading several articles on being a writer and the embarrassed feeling people get when they own the title of “Writer”. I have never paid much attention to the public perception of a writer and truly find it strange that someone with such a creative mind can be dismissed as easily as a musician. I mean people like that are usually called flakes because we as a society have made it so very difficult to have jobs in the field of being creative. We gravitate towards work in construction, business or education as the paying jobs. Why are artists not as gainfully employed? Maybe it is just that where talents lie I always see direction when it comes to artistic people like myself.

 

I mean here I sit now with my day totally organized, my new career path as a personal trainer mapping out a little more every day, dinner cooking, dance gear organized, laundry done and in comfy clothes to sit and writer for a few minutes. It is almost a guilty pleasure to be able to spill out the words onto the screen and let it a fall where it may. And I suppose for most artists it is that way as art can never be called work. It is just not able to qualify. It is fun to create art, it is fun to be and artist and draw characters and then write about them. As a musician telling a story set to music and using poetry to balance the two that marry so well together is just not work.

 

Please understand I am not putting down artists I just think they have the best job in the world and feel very fortunate to be part of the creative and artistically strange and misunderstood segment of the population. I guess at this point I could bring up compensation for the jobs of being an artist. For the most part it is little to nothing. I know nothing as I have never been paid for writing and for my other artistic skills I have received very little in the way of finances. That goes for most of us. There is a passion that drives artists and it is not money. Some of the richest artists in the world are not great artists what they are, are masters at hiring the right person to mass market them and hitting a niche market that spends money on the fame. Not always the best, and sometimes the best are hidden away and never seen by the public. Can you imagine if the world was full of artists only? How dull it would become to be a human being on this planet.

Diversity speaks loudly when it comes to artists. The genre is diverse and within each genre is more and more to focus on. Sometimes as an artist it is difficult to find what it is you with to focus on and you want to do everything as most artists are very talented in many ways and can touch on several genres at a time. Be careful not spread yourself too thin. But to call myself a writer I do not feel like a flake. I happen to like flakes, especially snowflakes. And I do not feel that we should shy away from calling ourselves what we are. We are writers and we should be proud. Yes it is a comfy job when it pays and we get to live in our pj’s if we choose. So why are we frowned upon? Using the mind to help create play for others is not wrong, but glorious and entertaining.

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Children are Our Children, Not Kids

I often discuss respect and maybe today is no different but this one drives me crazy!!! Kids….kids….kids. No not my children, they are not driving me crazy, although sometimes other people who do not parent their children and their children are out of control drive me crazy, but not this time. It is the word "kids" and its constant use to refer to a human child.

 

Children in society have very few rights, have little say is the world and are one of our most vulnerable of populations. We often ignore them and disregard what they say as unimportant. So that with standing why is it that we continue to insult them further and not only insult but patronize and demean our most precious asset in the world, our children, by calling them kids?

 

It was my understanding that a kid was a baby goat, not a human child. When I gave birth to my children I do not recall giving birth to goats. I do not recall the sound of Nanny goats is the delivery room and I do not recall the smell of hay, nor do I recall any one calling my new born infant anything but a child, with respect.

 

We deliver such little respect to children in a general sense that calling them something they are not just seems to pile on the ignorance by the adults. My children are accustom to being called a child or the children. We have never addressed them any other way since they were born. It just seemed the right thing to do. After all they are not goats they are humans.

 

After some general research on the web I was unable to find any information as to why we call our children this sad and insulting name. Some of you may find goats cute and baby ones at that might be cute. My best guess as to why, is it came from the days when we were farmers and hunters and food was more scarce and some poor soul went and had some milk right from the goat like the baby did and maybe that stuck who knows? It is only a guess and a thought.

I never liked being called a kid when I was a child and remember fighting over that with people usually my older brothers even at times my parents. I just found it to be something that lowers a human being to the ground. And when we look back at the movies from the past and you can see the older man waving some change at young boy to get him to run an errand and shouts out to him “Hey kid.” That image of the elder taking respect but not giving it to the child runs in my mind and draws me to the present day and hearing people talk and how casually they will use the slang "kids" to describe their children.

 

 

I suppose I am never going to change the world but I hope my little corner has some understanding in this idea of respect to our children. Those who know me know that I stand with integrity and do my very best to be respectful to others. This includes the little ones around me and I call them all children with respect.

 

Give respect to our children by calling them children they deserve that.

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Islands of Plastic

 

It is amazing to me that I do not have anything to complain about and no curmudgeon to report. It actually is a very good feeling to not have a beef and an axe to grind for once. But now that I think of it that is sooooo not ture. I was speaking with a friend last night about the garbage dumps in our oceans. You know the ones we ignore and do not even realize are there!!!!!!

That is right human race we have created islands of garbage that float around in our oceans. There are about 5.2 trillion pieces of garbage mostly plastic according to The Nation Geographic magazine. That is astounding when I was a child the oceans were clean and we as people could enjoy the waters and see aquatic life on TV. Now it is just a dumping ground. So what gives us the right to turn our planet into this dumping ground?

 

Well nothing does, nothing gives us the right to raid the planet and leave it raped of its resources. That reminds me of the movie Independence Day in which the aliens that come to invade earth are really here to take the resources of the planet and use them for their own needs. That is what we are doing here. If you dig into some article you will find that we have out grown the planet as a population and the planet can no longer recover and regrow from what we take from it every day. Tis to me is very distressing. What do we need so much plastic for anyways?

 

I have yet to see the value of a plastic mayonnaise container and plastic pop bottle or even plastic anything for that matter. When the stuff burns it is toxic, it is toxic to produce (go ahead I dare you to do the research into that statement), it is non compostable, meaning it lasts for a multitude of years before it breaks down….well we could say the same thing about glass but at least glass is a natural product made from sand and it 100% recyclable. Oh there is the next rant ready and primed.

 

 

So recycling is it a myth or magic? Personally I believe that it is myth. Why you ask? Well considering I have seen our local refuse collector dump both boxes being grey and blue into the same compartment of his truck it leads me to wonder what happens next. Now I have never followed the garbage truck to personally see this but what really is the truth behind the recycling game? It has been reported by news magazine TV shows that it is not managed the way we believe it is and that it goes into the landfill, which I am inclined to believe as I do not see many products on the market claiming o be 100% recycled material. I am going to encourage you to look that one up too.

 

I guess I am just sick and tired of the human race being so destructive and so ugly over it all. I cannot stand the Kurig cups, plastic water bottles, sandwich bags, individual pudding cups or yogurt, even coffee cup lids and plastic cutlery, the list goes on. We abuse our planet by creating single use items and being lazy over convenience. And this pollution has all taken place over the last 100 years give or take a decade. What is so wrong with doing things far more green? Using a cloth sandwich bag and washing those bags. My family does that, we send real metal cutlery to school and have taught our children to bring home these items. I guess I have an expectation on the human race to be clean and neat and to stop being such complete assholes to this beautiful planet we have. Well maybe, just maybe my expectations are too high. I never though cleaning up after yourself was an issue.

 

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A Name, Is a Name, Is a Name or is It?

Have you ever wondered what’s in a name? Or do names just pass you by as if they are part of the wallpaper? I am the wall paper type …well up until just a few minutes ago when the thought about names came to me. I was just looking about the room and it dawned on me that everything in the room, outside the windows and into the world has a name. And that brought back the memory of my husband (at the time boyfriend) commenting why I gave everything he gave me a name.

Well I did not have an answer for him and I may not have an answer for you either as to why but the most sense it makes is so that we as humans can distinguish between things, people and places. All nouns have names. What brought about the smile to my face was the thought of Dr. Seuss’s Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat. The name of no name, the name that just came the name that was just given to a pair just like that. Sorry I can get carried away. But to understand a name is to understand its origin and the meaning behind it.

If we look at a baby name book we can find all the meanings of the most commons names. Elizabeth - next to God, Michael – who is like God etc. You get the idea. These being of course Christian examples. If we investigate other cultures and names we may find people have given a name not for what it means but given a name to match the spirit of the child, to match the personality. This is how many from our native North American culture have been named or have given names. I so love the idea of being named after truly who I am. Funny though, I may have gone my whole life without as I still feeling I am not fully there yet.

But we subdivide into multiple levels of names. Roses are all roses but then there are many different varieties such as tea roses and climbing roses and long stem and then in that we even give names to the more divided grouping to become the individual such as Woman, Martha Washington, Empress of the Garden and so on and so forth. But still what is in that name? Why do we name everything?

Can you imagine if we did not? What would our communication look like? It might be just a jumble of gestures, or a fragment of speech, even a disconnected gathering of both but would we be able to communicate our wants need and desires (that are even labeled and named), would we be like we are now? We freely communicate using words and body language and in those communications we use names to label what we are describing or what we have done or where we have been and who we have been with. Now back to Thing 1 and Thing 2, what if they have been given different names? What if they were the same but not called who they are? Would the story still be the same for us? I would think not for me any ways as I have an expectation from Seuss that leads me to believe I am going to hear crazy names and tongue twisting poetry that will make all ages giggle. So let’s look at something a little more complex. Toes…..that’s right our toes. They are named a simple and easily said word. It is not a proper noun so it get no special attention like capitalization in a sentence it is just toes. A word we have come to accept as the name for this body part. We all have them in some form or the other to some degree so we just accept that a toe is a toe is a foot with toes. But here is the twist, what if our toes, were in fact, not named toes but the name kumquats was given to them instead? Would we be laughing at such a great name for a body part or would we just accept the name for what it is….the name of a body part and give it respect?

As my children giggle behind me reading over my shoulder, giggling at my rhyming Seuss and me renaming toes to a fruit I come to the conclusion that names matter. They matter as a simple word that delineates a part of something to a name that is given to the grandest thing on the planet…a baby….life….the world…so the next time you use words please choose them wisely and give a small thought to the origin and to why something was named that name.  

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Autumn and the Glory of Just Outside Your Window

 

Well after ignoring the fact that I am a writer for almost four months I can say I am back. I have had the worst case of writer’s block you could imagine. But not only that I have had nothing to rant about. After we left our former dance studio and made the move to a more positive and honest studio atmosphere the desire to be negative and rant left me. I felt as if the clouds of doom had been lifted and we were free. So that left a void of the rant…it was gone but not forgotten. So today I thought I would bring some positive thoughts and images to your mind.

 

I rarely describe where I write as I like to be very private but the scene outside my window today is stunning. I write on the upper floor of our home and can see most of our back yard. The edges of the yard are lined with trees each one different. A red maple in the back far corner as the fence becomes irregular and juts into the neighbouring yard. We are flanked by six other properties as the shape of the yard is odd and long but wide in some places and then folds it’s way to the back where it become bent into a smaller version of itself. The Harlequin maple has dropped all of its leaves and sits waiting for winter to blast its way through and line the branches with snow. This is a majestic tree in the spring and summer. The leaves are a soft green in the centre and then a gentle green yellow towards the outside and the branches are overly full of leaves by the late spring. This tree fill up with so many leaves it looks as if it might topple over from the weight above, but it never has and it stands beautiful every year.

Between these two maple trees is a sugar maple. It has died but not quite. There is a very small amount of green leaves still clinging to it last branches. Sadly, it will need to be removed soon. The beech tree and the other tree that will remain unnamed, as I have no idea what variety it is, are still covered in leaves. The beech tree has not even turned yellow yet. The leaves still cling a brilliant green and rustle in the wind attached as if they will remain for the winter. The unknown tree has turned yellow. A bright and glowing colour that covers the branches with a silhouette of fall and the beauty I see from my window.

The grass remains green and scattered with fallen leaves of many colours and crinkled shapes. The vegetable garden is empty but for the last few pepper plants gaining the last rays of sunshine from the days ahead. Their green presence a reminder of the summer just past. The perennial spices remain too. Sage, thyme, mint, chocolate mint, lovage and rosemary all linger in the cooling weather and ready themselves for the long sleep ahead. I will see you all in the spring as you poke your heads up from your sleep. Thank you for your harvest gifts this year, we are grateful. I could almost smell each one of them in turn as I wrote their names.

 

The glow of the late morning sun sitting low on the horizon brings thoughts of the cold winter days ahead that will set before they awake. The short days that bring the sleep to the world and the refreshing of the land and lakes to come as they sleep alongside and protect the animals that rest over the cold months. But just before that the few days of glory, the days of the bright colours that decorate our landscape just outside our windows.

 

The dance of the leaves as they fall and swirl in the air plucked by the wind and laid down to rest of the soft grass. These leaves coloured so bright in the sun and the dull grey of a cloudy day bring beauty to a time before the cycle of the night. Before me through my window is a large maple coloured in orange as intense as the sun itself giving off the allure of heat it almost tricks the mind into believing there could be warmth there near it. White clouds in the distance give a definition to the depth of the colour and make seem as if it is brighter, more brilliant, more striking. All the while knowing the chill in the air is there and the smell of autumn has arrived as I look out my window to write.

 

All Photos By: Lisa Anne

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