Musing :: Mind : The Simple Happy Place + World Book Day 2016

There is something about a place that is quite simply happy. It differs according to personality. For some that simple happy is found on a deserted road, in the early hours of the morning when the air is still so chilled it wakes you up more and more with every breath, as you take your morning run. For some it is in the arms of a child learning to read two syllable words before bed as you listen to them read you a story. Book stores are just one of these simple happy occurrences for me.

Why are simple happies so hard to remember?

I sat outside a book store the other day and just breathed. The closest display to where I sat housed the new releases and my heart just swells knowing that humanity still reads and writes and loves literature.

I am glad it is not a lost art form. Inside that store, on those shelves sit characters that have changed my life. Who have taught me to love, to forgive, to be meditative, to be aggressive and to be learned. I'll never forget that but more importantly, I wont forget the impression they've had on my entire life and what that means for me as a writer and a reader and a teacher.

Happy World Book Day!

These photos were taken at the #ArtandSoulBooks store. use that hashtag on instagram to see what I'm reading lately if you'd like or just wait for me to tell you on here ;)

Where is your simple happy place?

Peace. Love. Happy places.

Musing :: Mind : Tea Cup Stories.

On an early Saturday morning in February, long past the time the market vendors have made the majority of their sales. When the only people still asleep are the begrudging, ached, working class who cannot bare to move and acknowledge another morning. Who whisper prayers of gratitude to their pillows for their presence. Just past breakfast and a little before 8:30, a small child is screaming obscenities in the valleys of my neighbourhood.

Sitting there, I almost envy his vivacity...

Granted, I've never entertained the opportunity to scream about a kinsfolk's mother's coitus engaging orifice so...practice makes perfect I guess, for him it certainly seems to ring true. For him, his words are probably more easy to say than please or thank you and one hundred percent easier to mean.

This all culminated at the bottom of the hill because they were running down it and one started yelling with much accusation and sadistic pleasure in his tone. He started on about how the one that ate the sausages from the fridge, whoever they were that sad soul, was 'gonna get it' upon returning home. Now that is, from whatever errand turned adventurous, boyhood escapade they had likely just been on.

It's a bit of a valley so UP floats the avalanche of obscenities he, this messenger of pain, was now being wreck with in return.

The sound of their hard flip flops hitting concrete strip still in my ear. It's a sound country folk know well, possibly anywhere. Those slippers are made of a heard, think plastic. They are white and blue and have outlived generations, carrying with them stories of long journeys, both volunteered and mandatory that they will always keep secret because nobody knows that they know where and when those feet have been.

I hear it all the time but especially at dusk, when tired but excited with hearts full of play, children scamper home before the street lights come on. Trying to get ahead of it because then their people will stick head out windows or over banisters, then they will scream for the return of these children to the safety of home. They will insist on it in a way that will bring shame to anyone's street credit. They will demand it before the dangers of darkness cover them like sheets  and smother their unique faces in silence and silhouettes of night.

I hear all of this while I sip tea in the veranda, sitting betwixt mother and grandmother. The memory of the black ram goat; big and tall as a well fed, well bred German shepherd,  leading them down the hill instead of vice versa is still making me smirk. I run one finger slowly, over the rim of my cup. My tea is still too hot to drink so I am tasting the subtle sweetness of this moment instead.

You wouldn't know all this of the story though from looking at the picture I took of my tea cup.

You gotta love country living dontcha?

My Word of 2016

(art by Shellon)

Victory 

I am actually quite a bit intimidated by my word for 2016. I don't know what to do with it. It feels so much bigger than me like a whole sky expanding over an ocean; stretching as far horizontal as it does straight ahead. As deep as it is wide.

It makes me so feel smaller than it and makes me doubt if it really is my word.

I didn't even deliberate on it much. It just kind of came to me one night in either late October or early November and I felt so sure, so at peace in my heart about it as if it had floated right through my window on the waves of the dark night, slipped its shoes off, made itself cosy in my heart, turned the lights down low and whispered goodnight as my peaceful companion for the rest of the year.

I already love it. I feel a strange sense of familiarity with it. As if it were meant for my 2016.

I am trying to remind myself that as 2015 began I became afraid of my 2015 word too. It felt like it was asking so much of me, boxing me into a commitment I felt so pressured to sustain. However, ultimately, it made me better and was the perfect fit.

May Victory too be the perfect fit in 2016 it's going to be a journey!


What is your word for 2016?

Peace. Love. Claim the Victory.

4 Things I Learned from my Faith in 2015

You reflect what you spend time doing.
I spent time in scripture and in prayer like crazy this year and I fed that love for it. The only way to grow in something is to keep on feeding it. The wolf that wins is the one you feed right?

There is an extreme privilege in abiding in service. 
Service is not about being the top dog, it is about achieving a sense of humility that allows you to realise that you are an equally important part of an extraordinary whole. Abiding in service is not a chance to be self prompted or boastful but is an opportunity to feel blessed by the position you hold in life. A position wear you are free, loved and safe. It is an opportunity to share that possibility with others and help them to feel the same. It is a chance to change lives just by being who you are, isn't that a true triumph in such a desperately unfair world?  

I have a passion for ministry, diverse and loving ministry.
As seen in my love for teaching and the many roles I occupy in my life.  I delved a little deeper into service this year. It was a long time coming, I knew it but I hadn't yet realised in what way I could serve most effectively and where. In 2015, as I explored aspects of my spiritual life, how I can use my personality and talents also became clear to me. Now I'm revving to make things happen and I couldn't be more excited to have a hand bettering lives and being a source of God's all encompassing love to my fellow living things.

There is strength in numbers.
This year I sought out community a lot more than I used to and I learned that surrounding myself with like-minded individuals not only strengthened me in times of pain but it also fed my own growth. When I dwelt in a space that I made sacred for myself, simply by declaring it so, I gave my spirit a chance to rest even in the midst of busyness, pain, dissatisfaction, confusion, anger and abandonment.



It's been a wild spiritual journey for me in 2015 and no doubt next year will come with a brand new set of lessons and it's own enforcements of these...either way, it'll be an adventure!

Peace. Love. Believe.

Adulting Christmas

When I was a child Christmas did not mean much to me. So much has changed since then. It has never meant Santa Clause, gifts under the tree, mistletoe or white Christmases. It meant lounging on a holiday and being little moved by the goings-on

Time has morphed that into something very special in my adult life.

It now means sending Christmas cards, special shopping dates with people I haven't seen all year, culturally appreciation by way of seasonal food, spending time with mumzie and even a special outfit for a special house visit.

I'm even doing some decorating this year, minimal though that might be.

Though I've yet to find the perfect tree having a tree and decorations now mean something I have created in a moment in time. It means living in an extremely potent scene of appreciation for the love I have for life and the people in my life.

It is a tangible reminder that I am well and employed and can now cheer my friends on with things that they love and secrets we have shared through out the year via presents!

I am a Christian and for me, though my denomination does not celebrate (it may shock you to know that many denominations of Christianity do not) I do personally. I am reminded around this time of year even more than usual that I should be thanking God for His gift of salvation every day. I often do but never enough as I'd like to and so during Christmas season, when I hear Christmas carols everywhere and see the nativity scene all over town my heart squeezes a little tightly a little more often in gratitude.

Christmas as an adult is very different to Christmas as a child.

Time is no longer spent wishing after the gifts on television but rejoicing in the gift giving process and being extremely thankful that I am of the economical means to give gifts, small as they might be. It means treasuring the parts of my culture that are threatened by extinction and holding them close to my chest and my memory. It means understanding the meaning behind symbolism and accepting that I support which one I choose by choice.

It means an expression of self, my money, my choices, my beliefs my culture. My friends, their gift of love, joy, laughter and attention. It also means my saviour. Though everything always means my savour in my heart.

 What is Christmas like for you as an adult?

Peace. Love. Celebrate the good.

Musing :: Mind : When You Have A Long Transition

Lately I've been having some inconsistencies of emotion; basically I don't know how I feel about it.  I've been devouring good literature and letting it remind me of a part of myself I have long neglected; the unique author perspective that is not the usual or expected norm of today.

Lately, I've been stroking that part of my soul that is not like everyone elses and letting myself be reminded that every good part of this whole needs to be nurtured to thrive. I cannot just starve the bad wolf, I must feed the good wolf. A wolf is savage and territorial and must be fed or it may very well bring havoc in search of food...

Lately I have been putting on profession over creativity and feeling very stuffy in my skin. It is heavy this business of the day to day.

Lately I have been struggling to hold on to my perception of beauty in everyday. Reminding myself that existing in a state of transition is not only depressing or frustrating but reassuring because it means that if I am existing between two points there are two points. Transition means I came from some where and I am going somewhere.

Transition means that even if the corridor is dark and the light is dim....the light exists, Thank God.

Peace. Love. Light at the end of your tunnel.

10 Struggles of Being an English Major

 // Linguistics is sexy, which makes you a little more odd than average as you swoon over the way something is said rather than what is said, making your friends roll their eyes at your strange fascination of how the tongue can bend in ways that hold your interest for reasons completely unrelated to sexuality.

// Text book theorists are usually hilarious, full of wit, sarcasm and irony as they present their theories and are often poets or novelists themselves which makes you feel rather proud because as far as you're concerned your teacher is a literary superstar and you get to be thought by them and read their knowledge even though students of other disciplines just don't get how awesome they are or why you would read your textbooks for fun if you know, you were ever allowed time to breathe.

// Being OCD about either grammar, linguistics, spelling or all of the above. Those disciplines take over your brain until you start hearing everything in punctuation marks and phonemes.

 // Mr. Darcy is basically my fictional equivalent of Trey Songz. In fact everyone has one, a fictional equivalent that is.Mr. Knightley comes in a close second.

// Okay, I had to get over marking on my books it's true and how about them references? Underline? Italicize? SPRINKLE IT IN FAIRY DUST?!  Plus yeah, a literature get the jokes on 97% of this list.

// You dream of getting rich so you can buy two copies of books, one for reading and letting everybody touch and the other for putting on a shelf within view and admiring for its beauty so for now when people touch your books a little part of you screams murder on the inside.

// Beautiful books make you tingle in all kinds of places. I mean has any body seen these?! I am loosing myself hungering for the Pride and Prejudice copy of these bad boys. I seriously almost cried, their beauty near brought me to tears.

// When someone says 'I haven't read the book but I've seen the movie!'with pride, you have to exercise restraint of judgement. It's not on purse that you're judging them it's just your training rebelling.

// There just isn't enough time in life to spend reading Literature before you grow old and die as you have to you know, get out there and live and keep your commitments and all that and this makes you very sad.

// Libraries speak a special language to your soul so they feel like a sacred home and you get well miffed when people do not appreciate the life of its own such a place has.


 There are more but I thinking I'll stop here. Who's your literary Trey Songz?

Peace. Love. Language.

Mini Adventure :: In the Cool of the Day

 (get it because it's a green banana tree?!) 

On Sunday morning before the sun came up my mother and I went for a walk. She's taken up walking again and in mother like way accomplishes it most days along with ten thousand other tasks before most of us have stirred in our beds.

She happened to invite me along one such walk out of the blue and personally I happen to believe the sleep one achieves in those wee hours of the morning just before dawn is the best sleep. The world is coated still in a thin layer of night that makes me smile in my sleep sometimes and appreciate my bed and my window, my sheets and my covers. Most importantly, my safety.

However after getting a mouth full in good gesture from one of my good friends that went a little something like 'Oh please you're still on holiday it's ONE MORNING you can sleep in THE REST OF THE WEEK. GOOOOO spend time with your mother!' I promptly shut up and did just that.

What a thrill in simplicity we can achieve we human beings. We set out while the street lights were still on but I knew that in the blink of an eye they wouldn't be soon. She showed me so many things, frivolous things I hope to always remember. 'Do you know where x lives?' she says 'Have you ever seen a y up close?' she says. 'Look at that, you can see the tail end of the city from here!' she says.

Usually nobody wants to hear their mother nag on, saying the same thing over and over but when she talks like this I think I can stand it ten thousand times.

It was only about an hour long our walk.

By the time we were returning we past the older Anglican ladies on their way to open the church for service. An old stone building, who knows how long it has stood in it's place? Usually I toss in sleep from my bed as I hear them ring the bell to let everyone know church is about to start and I silently praise their willingness to sacrifice this wonderful sleep time for Jesus. Today I pasted their door as they rung it. Oh how sweet to say good morning to ladies who still wear Sunday hats to service. Oh what an uncommon thing!

As we reached just about the top of the first hill I looked across and watched the light of day roll over the darkness and shed it's light upon the earth. It was spreading and coming towards me. I thought of that moment in the book of Genesis that speaks of God coming down to spend time with humanity in the cool of the day. As the clean air of morning hit my lungs, chilled like the sharp but welcomed shock of iced water on a summer day, I stood their a moment in time and marvelled at our world and the way she keeps bestowing beauty upon us. Reminded yet again that all we ever need do is look.


 What unsuspecting beauty has made you marvel lately?

 Peace. Love. Marvel.
You know for some reason my technology always seems to give out around this time. My phone wont let me get my photos off it these days. Sigh, lets see what this does for my little blogging schedule. bare with me?

What Does Inspiration Look Like?

Photo credit: Andy Johnson Photography

I think there must be a very special little daemon dedicated to whispering into the ear of us writers (and maybe his reach extends to other creatives too?) that our inspiration is some kind of well or spring to be tapped into until it dries up...I think the truth is that inspiration looks a lot more like an ocean.

Those other images are far too small a comparison.

For inspiration continues to ride with us through life. It does not simply go away. You do not simply dip into it one day and it has stopped existing. I think that inspiration continues to be replenished as life goes on because life, because our experiences inform inspiration. They are her secret recipe ingredients.

Like the location of a hidden away beach the unpaved road to inspiration can become over grown with weeds and obstructions in need of clearing away but once we push through, even if it's through a wall of that razor grass, once we come upon her again the bottoms of our feet lay flat upon her familiarity. Our eyes fix with hers. The rhythm of her heartbeat, whether tumultuous or calm syncopate to the space in our heart or the speed of our fingers.

Sure, sometimes we have to chase her but like we chase wind in our wanderlust, it is a chase that stirs the dance up from our hearts, from the centre. Propelling us to reach out, grab a firm hold and enjoy.

Piece. Love. Dive In.
Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Island Life :: That Time We Were on Volcanic Eruption Alert

When you live on an island in the Caribbean there are all sorts of unique experiences that come your way like exploring neighbouring deserted islands or traditional slave pens. Oh and maybe the threat that the underwater volcano that is just four miles off the coast of your nation will explode suddenly and cause a tsunami that will wipe out your entire island home and everything you know. We don't put that part on the Boucher though.

Ok, all joke aside because I know I run the risk of having some people read that and take it too seriously, every thing is as safe as can be, don't worry  this was just a random scare. We always take care of our visitors, even more so than ourselves actually haha You don't believe me? You should look up how many beautiful countries are living with dormant or active volcanoes as maintains at this very moment. Not to mention all those other types of disasters looming...

Were I live we have quite a number of volcanic craters, some active some not as much. The main one, active and continually monitored is 'Kick em Jenny!' She resides underwater just four miles of the coast as mentioned above. On Thursday July 23rd Kick Em Jenny Kicked up a small storm of sorts.

I woke up to no internet that day and no cell service on my main cellphone provider. I wasn't too bothered, my body was wrecked by a cold so that was the least of my worries. That is, till I got a call from a friend that went something like 'I hear they say we on tsunami watch?!' Oh 'they' always the bringer of bad news.

Now being in school has taught me the incredible importance of research, I hate it when someone just throws some random scary fact at me without any viable source. I acquaint it to someone throwing a wild animal at my face and saying 'here hold this!' then running away. So I responded with little panic and then 'Okay, well, I have no internet right now and the radio has been on all day and said nothing about that so when you verify it let me know.'

I went back to sleep. After all, if my island is about to be blown sky high girl gonna need her energy right? Or not...either way yay sleep.

About an hour later I heard the radio announcer quarrelling that our national disaster agency was in an emergency meeting and that they need to update the nation. I remembered then that my mother and grandmother had left for that beach I posted about a while ago and had been gone three hours. When I called they were walking into the front yard though so it was all good.

I had to call up my other friend when I realised things were getting more and more panicked, she does love a good conspiracy and what are good friends for after all?  We talked a lot as people tend to in those moments, all the what would happen ifs and the many people we knew that had recently had dreams about a tsunami and a fearful mixture of fact and fiction.

Well, armed with my trusty radio announcer I became privy to the voices of people in the north of the island who alerted us that they were experiencing multiple earthquakes as we speak. A lady from the north of the island called then and said things are pretty bad, so many heavy earthquakes, seconds apart, plus the ocean is turning white she said.

There was finally a brief national update that said everything was fine, just some palatal shift, no tsunami watch anywhere in the Caribbean. More updates after the emergency meeting.

My other friend called back and said the tsunami watch is definitely true.

I updated her.

There was a press conference later explaining that the volcano has been under monitor for some time now and was having tiny eruptions as volcanoes tend to do and in fact as ours often does every year, which caused a few earthquakes in the part of the island closest to it. Some time later someone else released video of the ocean and lo and behold it was apparently not in fact white.

What really annoyed me was the misinformation that ran rampant that day. I was getting messages on my phone when the internet came back of a pictured volcano attached to a message about how dyer things are and how we are one category away from eruption evacuation. The pictured depicted quite a scary notion and people in the group I was in again talked of the fact that we are on tsunami watch not just for us but the entire Caribbean another friend said

Nobody was citing anything though.

There was no system in place to be prepared. We did not know where we would need to go if or what we would need to take with us and that became painfully obvious. Most people I know turned to speculation and their speculations were shared far and wide.

Most felt helpless, there was no internet to validate or sway our fears and little means to reach others via phone for most of the day. I was calm, I had no energy anyway but it taught me how reliant we had become on technology. How before we may have all known better what we needed or where to go from reading it in a book. Now we take for granted that we will always be able to google our troubles away...

A friend of mine said this the day after when everyone had calmed down and all but forgotten how scared they were the day before now that their internet returned and their cellphones worked.

We often joke saying that it always takes a disaster to get us ready for a disaster and as you can tell the volcano didn't erupt, it wasn't much of an alarm, the orange alert just wanted to alert the marine workers to keep the necessary radius as the eruption could cause a change in water density causing boats to sink.

Still, what a reminder that natural disasters don't care about your internet speed or your wifi availability.

3 Ways Anxiety is like a bully

1. They make you feel so sad you can become physically or mentally sick and want to stay that way. 

You are crippled by the intensity of the emotions they both cause as if you've been a big moto accident and have to go through therapy to remember how to use your limbs again. Limbs like... believing in yourself. You don't want to go to school or much of anywhere actually, maybe if you lay in bed everyone will think you are not well, they will leave you alone and you wont have to face that bully on the playground of life today because you're still hurting from yesterdays punches to the gut. You just want to lie still, catch your bearings. You just want to be left alone with your pain until the pain goes away.

2.They build a wall between you and your dreams.

The pain of being stuck in that state of disbelief can become all that you know, almost comfortable, certainly more comfortable than the thought of sinking farther down into the floor, than loosing any more than you already have. New beliefs grow, the belief that your hands are built too short to reach out and catch your dreams. Brick by mental brick goes up until the wall reads sentences that burn themselves into your brain, sentences that tell you that your dream was never meant for you in the first place because dreams aren't real, they are only pretty. Like that moment when you face the bully on the playground, when the school doors seem too far away to run to, like the teacher would never hear you scream from here. Like everyone else has their eyes purposefully averted. Like maybe you were never meant for school in the first place. Like that moment when you feel so small and so silent and so insignificant in the world, staring up at an assailant who knows exactly all of these things that you are feeling.

3. They convince you to settle for almost happy.

 Realising that you have been living in the delusion of a dream can be brought across as very comforting. It becomes easier to believe that you were born weak than it is to believe that nothing is wrong with you except that you're just not strong enough quite yet or for such a long period of time with no explanation that you can currently understand. So you settle for almost defeating the bully today. You almost made it through, that is good enough. You almost pasted the test that would change your life. You almost told the teacher who pulled your hair. You almost told your mother what he said and almost gotten him in trouble. You almost hit him on that playground and shown him whose boss. You almost left that abusive relationship almost....almost....and what else can a person ask for than to get so close to a dream, even if you never actually reached it you are lucky to just be allowed so close to such a pretty thing. Like diamonds.


Maybe tomorrow you'd hit back...maybe...almost....maybe. 

---

 One of the things that really confuses me is the notion that extroverts don't get anxious. People have a way of looking at you and judging that because you have over come one battle or another at a different interval than they have, that the monster must not have been as big or as bad for you as it was for them.

I am a person who often speaks my mind, especially if I am passionate about the topic. I am a person who does not particular whimper at the sign of a room full of people all listening and looking to me for a speech (once I have prepared) this is not because I do not become anxious.

I am also the same girl who has become physically ill because she was invited to a party that she wanted to go to. I have become broken and bent over in crippling tears on bathroom floors as I questioned my ability to walk into a room next door.

Anxiety is not dictated solely by personality. You can be brave, you can be bold, you can be loud and beautiful and popular and smart and good with your words and still be anxious because anxiety is like a bully and bullies hurt you not because they are right.

Bullies succeed because they convince you that feelings are bigger than you are.

They're not.

Peace. Love. Don't Listen to the Bully.

Musing :: Mind : My Word for 2015 and what influenced it.

Mandala from Susannah Conway's Find Your Word Series.

Will.

Definition: Verb, expressing the future tense.

1.  expressing a strong intention or assertion about the future.
2.  expressing inevitable events.
3.  expressing a request.
4.  expressing facts about ability or capacity.
5.  expressing habitual behaviour.
6.  expressing probability or expectation about something in the present.

Synonyms: tend to, have a tendency to, are bound to, do, are going to, must, want, wish, please, see fit, think fit, think best, like, choose, prefer, decree, order, ordain, command.

Will.
Definition: Noun.

1. the faculty by which a person decides and initiates action 
2. control deliberately exerted to do something or to retrain one's own impulse 
3. a deliberate or fixed desire or intention.  
4. the thing that one desires or ordains  

Synonyms: determination, willpower, strength of character, resolution, resolve, tenacity, tenaciousness, wish, desire, decision, choice, inclination, intention, intent, volition.

Supporting words: I (will), God (will/willing), (will) Power, Strong (willed).

 
Layers under this word: Kill self doubt. Believe, Achieve, continue to aspire.

This word makes me feel: nervous, secure, sure, confident and motivated. It inspires a sense in me.

Other thoughts or feelings about this word:
I must remember that I will become the person who steps boldly into the will of God and the will I have mapped out for my life. Though during the year my will may bend it will not break. I may be beaten but I will never be destroyed. 

 " persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; "

 (1 Corinthians 4:9 KJB)

For my heavenly Father has begun a good work in me and he WILL see it through to the end. 

" being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. "

 (Philippians 1:6 NIV) 

For while I am willing He is the author and the finish, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End of all that is was and WILL be.  At the same time I must be prepared to nourish my will so that it does not become neglected and small in the face of difficulty.
   
To me ‘Will’ means: it’s not just a dream, it’s not just the things I want, it is not intangible, it is not a fairy tale nor a star looked upon by reaching eyes and longing finger tips from atop a hill, it is real.

It is not just attainable but it is already in progress. It is not stagnant, it is moving, growing, living breathing and being achieved.  It is not just a feeling, or a goal, it is the future being written as we speak. It is strong. It is beautiful. It will not be broken forever because it is a steady moving course of events, not one thing but many, the very fabric of time, not supremely controlled by the mortal that is me or them but without the shadow of a doubt, guided by thus. It is life itself.


Will is a question, it is an answer and it is a promise.

Peace. Love. Will.

Find Your Word | 2015

I've found my thoughts directed towards the new year for some time now and being quite one to reflect and a planner, I joined Susannah Conway's exercise of finding a word to keep in mind during the coming year. A word that will resonate with me in moments when I walk in difficulty especially, that i can whisper to my soul and remind myself of the commitments I made. Not a harsh reminder, just a hand that rests on the shoulder of sorts.

Now being Christian I already do this but it often takes the form of a prayer or a scripture. I have found it rather helpful lately to remind myself of a commitment I have made to myself.in one word and I think this can only add more goodness to the practice.

While searching my mind and heart for this word of 2015 I found quite a few suggestions coming to mind. Which is great as I was so afraid i wouldn't be able to think of any. I acknowledge that the process of finding that one word can be intimidating so I thought I would share with you some of my considerations before i came to a conclusion in hopes that, if you do venture to adapt this or a similar practice, it might be helpful. This list is what I had at the end of the day compiled and now had to choose from.

Does any word from on my little list speak to you? Also, if you have a word for 2015, do share in the comments, I find the whole thing rather inspiring.

Which word do you think I picked? ;) I will be sharing the what and why soon!

Peace. Love. Brainstorm.

Musing :: Mind : Take Flight

 I don't waste any time when I get days for holiday. Fortunately, this time is likely spent at least doing things that stimulate the creative part of my brain that is often left neglected by school.

One of the things on my list of holiday must have to do list was to visit friends and this week I've had the opportunity to do that at least with one pal. My friend Eli is preparing for another year at the main craft fair on the island. She is an artist with a concentration in chalk pastel and mixed media. You can find more of her work here. She also does nails like nobody's business, her arsenal is so pretty! So i took the opportunity to have her do my nails with the precision and mastery of the artists' hand haha

I also added two pictures from the last time I saw her (thus the pre name change water mark) well over summer time. Our meetings include lots of conversation and often lots of nail polish. I wish I could say what we do when we get together but it really is more of an experience of being. There are some friends with whom you do not need to go anywhere I suppose; when cereal and nail polish is enough for a good time. Well, add a little music, a little food and what more can one ask for?

I truly enjoy simple pleasures.

This little black bird is my favourite of her recent work. Opportune it is perhaps,that this is the one I photographed, for most of our discussion that day was about how we hope to take flight in different aspects of our lives someday soon.

Must be the approaching new year that has got our blood boiling.



What simple pleasure do you enjoy sharing with a loved one?

Peace. Love. Good Times.

The Balancing Act :: Passion vs, Commitment

I think, every creatives' knees knock under the weight of what I like to think of as 'the great balancing act.' How to stay passionately driven towards ones dreams and goals in the face of exhaustion and other commitments...

I am not a person who can easily engage in cleaning on a whim. I've terrible allergies and I am prone to other breathing issues. Coincidently it is tidying things that allows me to solicit from myself a clear head. As though when I tidy my physical surroundings, I de-clutter my brain; I free it from the mangled mess of confusion I have made for myself with my thoughts, fears or anxiety.

Since realising that cleaning could very well kill me I have had to slow it down quiet a bit and that is not a state of affairs I am keen on. The slow movement makes for feelings of being ever so trapped in a situation of ones own making but I digress...On a humid night, at almost 2AM I am up and I am writing. This list comes to mind: Things I've been putting off because I'm busy and have assignments to do:

Tidying my room, that is, beginning to as I explained above.

Listening to music

Leaving the house

Getting on my knees and saying the long, personal, healing intimate prayer like my soul is crying out to do. (Its likely just me but feel like prayer in that position is reserved forces and I have a bit of a consultation to handle haha)

Feeding my craving for The Word.

Everyday I am so tired and that sense of weariness crosses over from the physical to the emotional and spiritual. Often as I lay in the dark trying to figure out how I'm going to get it all done, my core is saying hey, spare me a glance? Yet I am literally incapable; I am so tired all I can do is beg sleep to take me away quickly.

I am thinking there comes a point when you find out not just that you are growing but how you are growing. Are you growing into the kind of person who revels in the problems day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year? Or are you changing into the kind of person who uses the victory of a previous battle as the insight through which you will march on your next?

Lately I have gone on feeding only commitments. Slowly coming to realise and accept the reality of having to say no not just to outside forces but to the parts of myself that demand too much of me, that cross the line only I know how to find.

Now, at almost 2AM at night I am sitting at my computer in the dark. I have tidied my bed just a little bit. I have a huge assignment due tomorrow that I haven't started yet and am very nervous about but instead I am listening to this song on repeat because it soothes me, because the Korean language soothes me.

This is probably the part where I'd be indulging in a glass of whine but I prefer red anyway and I've only white at my disposal and again I digress. Probably for the best, that lack of wine, that might just be too much after all, sipping wine at 2 in the morning haha.

My lungs are very mad at me for my display of heroism and for their distress so dear dependable body I apologise. The thing is, you cannot just keep going, you cannot tip the scale consistently to one side and neglect the other while sustaining a healthy and happy life. There comes a time when you simply must step outside of your plans for the future and savour the breath you breathe now. You must strike this balance if for no other reason than to remember what you are fighting so hard for and why. The key to this being realised successfully I think is to continue to fight the good fight: be passionate, be committed but learn to lean without tipping over. Learn the art of balance; just when to totter from creative to passionate  (or driven to word it better)to commitment to rest.

 It is a lesson that, I suspect, I will spend many years of my life perfecting, in this discipline and many others. Ah...the healthy but hard art...of the balancing act...


Now about that prayer....

Peace. Love. Healing.

Musing Mind :: A Happy Moment : Hey Soul Sister

 I somehow hurt my wrist, looks like I'll be going back to my 3 day a week post schedule by force sooner than i expected guys. It doesn't hurt very much, only moderate discomfort but this writer aint tryin' to make her tools worse for ware.

We lacked eyes in the hallways and exchanged smiles and remembered that we are sisters in the same fight. That as the war rages and the enemy is busy we are encouraged by the same walk. In a moment of stillness we locked arms around shoulders and swelled in the same light of our promise, a promise where we will stand upon solid rock of victory.

Though the noises of the now question our beliefs, though they spit at us damnation we part ways smiling because royalty walks in prestige whether the crown is warn on the head or in the heart.

A wordless exchange that reminds us there is light in the distance...Rock on spiritual soul sister. You are not alone.

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Have you ever had a moment like that when you just wordlessly connect with someone in a none sexual way and feel a sense of encouragement? Tell me about it! So I feel less alone haha

Peace. Love. Encourage.

Musing :: Mind : Believe : A 3 Step Process to Greatness

  (Practising hand lettering in my sketchbook)

Once upon a time I was asked to be a guest speaker at my student’s primary (Americans read: elementary) school graduation. It’s not just a privilege to be asked to address and advice a crowd of young minds, it’s also very scary. What do you say to the masses when handed the mike? This is what I said:

Their Theme: With God We Believe, achieve and aspire to be.

My Speech: A Three Step Process to Greatness

Many of you may have seen me coming in and out of your school for the last few years, saying hellos, sharing a smile and holding classes with a student. Yes, i am a teacher of the visually impaired. I am attached to the insert name of job here; I travel around meeting students who are low visioned, visually impaired or blind to ensure they have everything they need to succeed in the classroom. However, today I do not come to you as all that which I have just mentioned. Today, I come to you as a national who with God, believes, achieves and aspires to be.

When I was introduced to your theme I found myself asking the obvious question. Believe, achieve and aspire to be…What? It did not take me long to come up with the answer as that statement almost finishes itself. It seems to scream of the pages to me, simply and clear that the answer is this, with God, believe, achieve and aspire to be great.

How does one however become great? Listen closely and I promise you, this too is simple. You see, every great man or woman during the course of history has one thing in common; they made themselves relevant.

What I mean is, they did something. Something.. very simple…Something that can unit nations and pull them apart again. Something, that can cause revolutions, something that can make a disciple walk on water, something that can bring about peace, something that can exact change. Something…only they could do and only you can do. Something that starts so small that for a while…only you can feel it. 

All of humanity that has ever been great and relevant to the world at large started by doing this one thing; sewing a seed of belief in their heart. 

Two brothers a long time ago, believed that they had a vision worth trying for and created the air plane. A tired black woman believed that every human being deserved to sit wherever they want on a bus despite the colour of their skin and began a movement that made it possible for you and even me to be counted as of equal worth in this world no matter who our parents were.

I believed, that even if my eyesight was so bad, I could not see the blackboard from where I sat in my classroom, when I was your age, that I could be relevant to this country and to this world, I could make a difference in my country because I have talents, because I can do things. Now some things I can do well, some things not so well but I CAN do things and I can learn.

Someday, that day may be today, that day may be yesterday, it may be tomorrow or it maybe on your first day of secondary school when you look down at a subject you haven’t studied before and feel so very excited to start it… When that happens, when that day comes remember; believe that you are capable of something, there is something you can do well, some things not so well but you can learn so that can change too.

I urge you, do not doubt that feeling,  take that first tiny, easy step towards greatness, that step that only you can take, not your mom, not your older sisters and brothers, not your favourite cousin or your nicest teacher, the step only you can take and believe it.

Believe that feeling inside of yourself, that feeling that will tell you that you CAN help, do, be, something great. Then prepare to take the second step…

Now…this is the part that is not so easy. The second step is to achieve. This will require strength and ‘stick-to-it-iveness’. On your road to adulthood you will find many hurdles that may seek to get in the way of your achieving the greatness you believe is within you; classes will get hard, much harder than they ever were while you were in primary school. You will meet new people, some will help, guide and love you and some will not but in the words of a famous writer by the name of Mark Twain and I quote: 

‘Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great…’

In simple terms, watch the company you keep because if you want to achieve you must a line yourself with those who also seek achievement. Create good study habits, be prepared to work hard for your success because that seed of belief I told you to plant within you self? It will not grow if it is not watered with hard work and diligence.

This brings us to the third step. Aspire to be, once you have come to believe that you can, come to achieve success in your work and by building good character traits such as manners, punctuality and such, that only seek to improve your life, you must concentrate on deciding what you want from yourself for it is not enough to believe you can do something, you must decide what it is you want to do. 

You must also remember to be fair to yourself, no matter how elaborate the dream, whether you want to be the first female prime minister or producer of the first national television series or the best doctor, lawyer or teacher this fine country ever had, decide on the road you want to travel and do not be saddened when people look at you confused at your choice. If people have never heard that dream before, be encouraged for you could be the first; aspire to be the one that succeeds.

Did you notice that as a spoke about the three step process I have not yet mentioned God? That is because just like in your theme He is to be at the front of all of these steps. You need to tangle God around everything you do, as you believe you must believe in His ability to never leave you nor forsake you and praise Him for creating in you the talents and skills you do have. 

As you achieve you must be mindful that nothing is possible without His help and as you aspire to be great you must remember that He breathed the universe into life, he willed it into existence as He will your existence once you keep close to Him and follow His instructions for you.

So grandaunts, as you step out beyond these safe walls you knew so well for this segment of your school lives; believe that you are beautifully and marvellously made by our Father in heaven. Achieve success through hard work, surround yourself with a positive working environment and courageously aspire to be nothing less than great!

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You know what's funny? Back then when I gave that speech all I was thinking about is doing my job and doing it well. I was thinking about delivering a speech I believe is true from an earnest place. . Today, more than a year later what i remember distinctly is that feeling of pride. Of course I was proud of my student, she was graduating! All our hard work had brought us this. Thought that is not the pride I am talking about. You see  my student was very proud of her teacher that day too. How bout that.

Peace.Love. Be Great.