Changing Places

Nice thoughts on creating life versus getting stuff from Christine Kane.

Creating vs. Getting | Christine Kane

The laws of creativity apply to everything – not just to works of art.

The gift of practicing art is that it teaches the creator how to create, and how to be a creator. Over and over again, the artist learns the process of making things – including the obstacles that arise, the futility of forcing the flow, and the joy of allowing inspiration. This practice has been nothing less than revolutionary in my own life.

That’s because I grew up learning more about Getting than I did about Creating. And I’m not alone in that. Most of the life lessons we’ve all learned are about Getting.

We gotta get rich, get approved, get things from people, get a job, get a life, get laid, get publicity, get someone to do something, get approval, get high, get married, get a loan, get good grades, get a clue, get into college, get up, get down, get out.

Get it?

Getting is an epidemic. It makes us grab at life. It takes us out of the present moment. It makes us powerless. It forces us to manipulate our own spirits so that we can manipulate the situation. Getting requires that we use our precious creative power to get, rather than to use it for its primary purpose, which is to Create. When we misuse this power, we become contorted. We block the flow. The focus is on “out there” rather than “in here.”

When we become Creators, we turn the whole thing around. Everything becomes an inside job. We experience true power. We create our lives.

I didn’t know Tippi Hedren was responsible for starting the Vietnamese on the path to nail industry dominance. Interesting.

Vietnamese nail down the U.S. manicure business – Los Angeles Times

The story of how the Vietnamese fell into the nail industry is one of pure chance — of how 20 women who fled their war-torn country happened to meet a Hollywood starlet with beautiful nails.

The women were former teachers, business owners and government officials who came to America in 1975 after the fall of Saigon and landed in a tent city for Vietnamese refugees near Sacramento called Hope Village.

Actress Tippi Hedren, drawn to the plight of Vietnamese refugees, visited every few days. The Vietnamese knew little of Hollywood, so Hedren showed them Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and pointed out her face on the screen.

Hedren was captivated by the refugees’ stories of their homeland. They were, among other things, fascinated by her nails — long, oval, the color of coral.

“I noticed that these women were very good with their hands,” said Hedren, now 78. “I thought, why couldn’t they learn how to do nails?”

So Hedren flew in her manicurist once a week to teach the women how to trim cuticles, remove calluses and perform nail wraps. She persuaded a nearby beauty school to teach the women and helped them find jobs.

Thuan Le, a high school teacher in Vietnam, passed her nail licensing exam four months after coming to Hope Village…

Hmm, interesting – guess we need to think in terms of “if-then-else” statements instead of “do-while” loops, to use the software development metaphors….

Does your brain have a mind of its own – Los Angeles Times

Even though our short-term desires are pretty good at grabbing the steering wheel of our consciousness, our more recently evolved deliberate minds are powerful enough to regain at least some measure of control. Consider, for example, the difficulty that most people having in sticking to abstract goals like “I intend to lose weight” or “I plan to finish this article before the deadline.” Nice thoughts, but not formulated in terms that your ancestral, reflexive brain might understand. The work-around? Translate those abstract goals into a form your ancestral systems — which traffic largely in dumb reflexes — can understand: if-then. If you find yourself in a particular situation, then take a specific action: “If I see French fries, then I will avoid them.” As Peter Gollwitzer, my colleague in New York University’s department of psychology, has shown, even simple changes like these can markedly increase the chances of success. Our conscious, deliberate systems will never have total control, and our memories will never be perfect, but as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, recognition is the first step. If we come to recognize our limitations, and how they evolved, we just might be able to outwit our inner kluge.

Indeed. Gee, two oil men got in office and oil company profits all skyrocketed over the last eight years. What a surprise. And some idiots will still vote Republican…..

Hoffmania!: Simple Enough for a Non-Hoosier or a Non-Tarheel

Since the gas-tax holiday has become the cornerstone of McCain’s and Clinton’s campaigns (Clinton is flooding the airwaves with it), let’s break it down to this extremely easy-to-fathom progression of events. Please feel free to pass it along to your friends who will be voting Tuesday.

Gas drops 18c a gallon (from the tax, not oil company profit).
People drive more.
People buy more gas.
Oil companies win.

Demand goes up.
Supplies go down.
Oil companies raise prices.
Oil companies win.

Summer ends.
Gas goes back up 18c a gallon.
People still have to drive to work.
Oil companies win.

Oh, and all summer long, American bridge and road maintenance crews will be unemployed.

If that’s what you want, vote for McCain or Clinton.

“Ownership of the sublime is not like mastery. To own the sublime is not to have and to hold forever, till death do you part. Ownership of the sublime is service rather than mastery: less like the love of a possessive husband for his trophy wife, and more like the love of a mother for her children: a nurturing love, stewardship rather than dominion. This non-possessive love takes delight in the least trace of the beloved, whether the laughter of a child, received as a gift even though not given as such, or the last rays of a sunset streaming magenta over the horizon after the source is long gone.

Even death can be sublime. We would be so much less sad if we learned how to let go of the things we love. Then they might become truly ours for the first time, in this non-possessive mode that the sublime demands of us. When you go to the movies or read a novel, you invest only the tiniest fraction of what that artwork cost to create. Yet the benefit you derive is immense, despite the fact that you cannot have and hold these artworks as Howard Hughes possessed his millions and kept them from others. This nonpossessive adoration, like the love of parents for their children, combines service, nurturance, stewardship and finally a letting go.

Yes, the earth is ours, our only home. But she is not mine in a personally possessive sense. Yes, my dying friend is my friend in the most intimate and private sense. And I will miss her when she is gone. But I do not love her better while she is alive by refusing to share her with others. We would be so much less sad if we learned this letting go.”

– Living Without a Goal, James Ogilvy

McCain to Disabled Veterans — who cares what you think?

Disabled Arrested At McCain Office, 20 Protestors, Many In Wheelchairs, Seek Senator’s Support Of Expanded In-Home Care For Medicaid Recipients – CBS News

At least 20 disabled activists, most of them in wheelchairs, were arrested outside Sen. John McCain’s offices Tuesday after being refused a meeting with the GOP presidential nominee-to-be over a bill to expand Medicaid coverage to more people who want in-home care.

“If he should be president, it would be ironic that he comes from a party that talks a lot about family values,” said Bob Kafka, national organizer for ADAPT, a group advocating for passage of the bill. Without the legislation, many disabled and elderly people don’t have the choice to apply coverage to anything other than institutional care, he said.

“Families are devastated because they don’t have a choice to keep people at home,” Kafka said.

McCain was not in his office during the protest. He was campaigning Tuesday in Florida on his health care plan.

The bill, S. 799, stuck in committee since last year, would amend the Social Security Act to allow people who are eligible for Medicaid coverage of nursing home costs to spend it instead on home-based, or community care.

Sponsored by Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., it also would grant extra money to states that participate in the program, according to a summary of the bill.

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, are co-sponsors of the bill, but McCain is not.

Beltane Fire Festival

A roundup of a few Beltane posts:

Beltane is a cross-quarter day, marking the midpoint in the Sun’s progress between the vernal equinox and summer solstice. Since the Celtic year was based on both lunar and solar cycles, it is possible that the holiday was celebrated on the full moon nearest the midpoint between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice. The astronomical date for this midpoint is closer to May 5 or May 7, but this can vary from year to year.

From The Zoo:

Going A-Maying & Bringing in the May — Merry-making and Nature communion. * Midpoint between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. * In Pagan Rome, Floralia, from April 27-May 3 was the festival of the Flower Goddess Flora and the flowering of Springtime. On May 1, offerings were made to Bona Dea (as Mother Earth), the Lares (household guardian spirits), and Maia (Goddess of Increase) from whom May gets its name. * Roman Catholic traditions of crowning statues of Mary with flowers on May 1 have Roman Pagan roots. * Marks the second half of the Celtic Year; one of the four Celtic Fire Festivals.

From Owl’s Daughter:

Beltane is a reference to ‘Bel-fire’, the fire of the Celtic God of light (Bel, Beli or Belinus). He, in turn, may be traced to the Middle Eastern God Baal.

Whatever you choose to call it, this is our celebration of the approach of Summer, when the breezes are scented and the evenings are getting warm. Today we honor and emulate the divine union of the Lord and Lady! Celebrations include the obvious pleasures of ecstatic coupling, like most all of Nature is doing around us!

We also celebrate symbolically, by weaving a web of life around the Maypole and leaping the Beltane fires for luck. Lilacs and hawthorn can be brought inside on this day, along with flowers of all kinds to represent the fertility of the earth. This is our great festival of love, lust and fertility. This Sabbat honors the great life force in all things. All life forms! All forms of love!