Author: Kennedy Farr

Fearless or Irresponsible? Living In the Overlap.

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

For whatever reason, I was thinking today about a time in my life when I was acting quite irresponsibly.  At least that is how it must have appeared from an outsider’s perspective.  To me, and with a goodly measure of hindsight, what felt to be intrepid was probably pretty rash.  And maybe even a little naive and dumb.

I was also thinking today about times in my life when I was acting quite fearlessly and how life was just one long ride of incredible excitement.  Every day was new and different and challenges abounded as a result of this fearlessness.  I was riding a big wave and somehow managing to stay on the board.  I look back and think, Huh.  How did that even work?  

Fearless?  Irresponsible?  Is there even a line between the two?  Maybe life is one big Venn diagram . . . a symbol of where we place our confidence in life, in love, in ourselves.  I don’t know.  In that we are never completely aware of the full consequences of our actions, it is unclear as to how willy-nilly my behavior truly was.  And continues to be.  Still, it seems to be true that all kinds of crazy and dumb can lead to positive outcomes.  It sometimes comes down to the question of What we are willing to do for the pursuit of love and happiness?  What kind of risk are we willing to take?

Click on the link below and print out this journaling exercise.  Do some free associating with the diagram.  I’m not suggesting any empirical outcome.  I am simply asking you to consider that what you might carry as a regret might not have been as dumb and irresponsible as you think it was or is.

Life happens.  Consider the alternative.  I’d rather be living in the Overlap or even the Outer Fringes . . . knowing that I am willing to take the risk to try.  Just try.

Fearless or Irresponsible. Living in the Overlap.

[Three-hole punch this exercise and put it in your special journaling binder.  It is so rewarding to look back over writing that is honest and that encourages you to grow.  My journaling friends all say that they are glad they have saved their writing in one binder or notebook.  They also say that they are happy that they dated their writing and recorded their location.  You might be in the park, at your desk, or on a ferry.  You might be on an exotic vacattoaster ovenion or you might be waiting for your laundry to finish drying at the laundromat.  No matter where you are when you are recording your thoughts and feelings, when re-reading your entries at a later date . . . your spatial memory will trigger the Feelings of Epiphany you felt when you were discovering your Voice and your Truth.  Happy writing!]

 

Follow Your Own Heart

/ Kennedy Farr / 3 Comments

Almanac Directions . . .

“From my own experience, I want to say that you should follow your heart, and the mind will follow you. Believe in yourself, and you will create miracles. Kailash Satyarthi

Journal prompt for today: It’s time to create some miracles.

Click on the link below:

You can’t get lost if you follow your own heart. Journal prompt

Print this prompt out, 3-hole punch it, and start your True Directions binder . . . or simply write your three things down in your journal.   Take the journey and listen . . . you can’t get lost when you are following your own heart.  After all, you are the only one who can hear what it has to say.  The only one.

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Crossroads

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

 

Robert JohnsonI am listening to Robert Johnson tonight and wanted to share these songs with you.

 

“But much of Johnson’s life is shrouded in mystery. Part of the lasting mythology around him is a story of how he gained his musical talents by making a bargain with the devil: Son House, a famed blues musician and a contemporary of Johnson, claimed after Johnson achieved fame that the musician had previously been a decent harmonica player, but a terrible guitarist—that is, until Johnson disappeared for a few weeks in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Legend has it that Johnson took his guitar to the crossroads of Highways 49 and 61, where he made a deal with the devil, who retuned his guitar in exchange for his soul.

Strangely enough, Johnson returned with an impressive technique and, eventually, gained renown as a master of the blues. While his reported ‘deal with the devil’ may be unlikely, it is true that Johnson died at an early age.”

[http://www.biography.com/people/robert-johnson-9356324#career-highlights]

 

The Bigger Picture

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I was out walking the beach today at that time of day when the very last winter light is slipping behind the islands across the water.  I spied this last little bit of sunlight hidden away on the beach.  It felt as if the sunlight wanted to linger just a bit longer on this gorgeous winter day.

Sometimes it feels as if my ideas, hopes, and fantastical schemes are sinking beyond unknown horizons along with the sun. But I know that nature has a way of keeping me both humbled and blessed.  There is nothing like solitude and tranquility and beauty to discover and re-discover who I am and what I am capable of and how much I want to be part of the larger whole that brings peace to my part of the world.

On days when the sun is setting and it feels to be a daunting effort to keep on the sunny side, my memory harvests sunsets like this.  Takes it in and tucks it away.   I am reminded to keep sight of the bigger picture.  And to not let go of the beauty that graces every single day.  Every single day.  Like the aperture on my camera, I have the ability to make it very very tiny and block out the essential parts that add to the beauty and to the panorama of Hope that feeds my desire to grow and to contribute.

Every day I pray for a little miracle.  And today this sunset was it.  It reminded me to appreciate the quiet and to still the voices that do not feel to have my better interests at heart.  It reminded me to be in the moment and look to the present — which is my true daily miracle — one heartbeat at a time.

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The Mindfulness of Hotcakes and Trapdoors

/ Kennedy Farr / 1 Comment

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I made hotcakes this morning.  I mixed up a batch of my special hotcake mix last night using the ingredients that I had on hand. There were a few essential things I was missing, but I feel that I more than made up for these by adding almond meal and toasted coconut.  These hotcakes would never be on an IHOP commercial or in a photograph on the menu. They always pour into odd elliptical shapes — unbecoming to any self-respecting advertised hotcake.  Depending on how well I have managed to pre-heat the skillet, they turn out perfectly golden or unappetizingly pasty-white or sometimes simply compost-worthy.  Today was a good day, and they came out pretty close to just right.  Goldilocks would have had no complaint.

While I was cooking them, it struck me that making hotcakes requires a great deal of mindfulness.  You can’t heat the griddle too quickly.  You need to whisk the batter just so, leaving the correct proportion of lumps.  You have to test the griddle with droplets of water and listen for the sizzle before you pour the first hotcake.

Then comes the waiting.  First, there is a test of patience that rewards you with hotcakes that are just the right color and just the right doneness before you flip them.  Then you wait some more.  It is always tempting to walk away from the stove after you have flipped them.  There are bowls to rinse, syrup to heat, butter to be put on a plate.  More coffee to be made.  Compost to be taken out.

When I do not maintain the necessary mindfulness, the bottom gets too dry or too dark or too crunchy.  These pancakes go to compost pile or to the dogs — who absolutely looooove burnt hotcakes.  I know that it is best to wait.

This morning I waited and was rewarded with the loveliest of hotcakes.  I thought of that maxim “Good things come to those who wait,” and I thought, Yes, this is so true.  About the time I am ready to despair of ever realizing my loftiest of dreams . . . or the time when I feel I am just about ready to touch one of my goals, and it simply dissipates before me . . . or the time when I feel as if all is linking up just so and then something comes along and blows the line up . . . I must remember to think Patience . . . think Hotcakes.

Life always has its twists, turns, spirals, and trap doors.  I would rather keep my eye on the prize and fall into a trap than be warily looking down at the path before me, wondering where the next booby trap is and hoping that I will somehow miraculously avoid it.

I was reading about trapdoor snails and came across this excerpt on why to keep these snails in your pond [http://aqualandpetsplus.com/]:  “All the pond books recommend these belly foots (gastropods) for ponds.   Theoretically, trapdoors make excellent algae eaters.  However, we’ve never been able to measure their effectiveness — even when kept in mass quantities.” 

So, basically, we know that these belly foots work for the reasons we want them to in the pond, but we just can’t measure their effectiveness.  The correlation of gastropods to hotcakes and mindfulness might seem to be a bit of a stretch, but it clicked for me internally.  Perhaps it is the usefulness of maintaining a dream, even when I can’t measure its effectiveness in the present moment.  In other words, keep the dreams in the pond — in mass quantities — and hope for the best end results.  Give up on measuring and simply believe that all is working as it should be.

One more thought: “Trapdoor snails (like most snails) slam their trapdoors when picked up or pestered.”  And some more food for thought regarding dreams, goals, hopes, and opportunities . . . all excellent reminders when keeping goals at the forefront:

  1. When pestered, slam the door.
  2. When obstacles block your path, scoot away as quickly as your belly foot can take you.
  3. Protect the essence of your shell and always maintain mindfulness.
  4. Keep forward progress in motion, even if it feels to be a snail’s pace.
  5. Don’t look back.  Throw away the rearview mirror.
  6. Keep flippin’ hotcakes, don’t mind the burnt ones, and shoot for the moon.

No Hesitation

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

Please, watch this five-minute video of Candid Thovex skiing.  It is nothing short of amazing.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/01/watch-the-gnarliest-ski-video-ever-made

What struck me about this video is not simply the skill, commitment, dedication, and fearlessness that Thovex has devoted to his skiing.  What struck me is that there are many moments on the video — if not throughout its entirety — where it feels that if Thovex had hesitated for one micro-second, he might have crashed into a tree or gone flying off the mountain into a rock wall.  Mission Not-Accomplished.

I am not and have never been one to seek thrills by daredevil skiing down the mountain or by catching air on my kiteboard in ultra-cold seawater or by jumping out of an airplane.  I love to hike the trail but am not interested in rock or ice climbing.  Still, I was thinking about how this incredibly gutsy video parallels my life.

I actually can see how it does apply to my fiddle playing or my writing or my positive intending or my Thoreau-esque sauntering down the road through the forest or . . .  you get the idea.  Not exactly the stuff of thrills, spills, and chills to an observer.  But this is my life.  It matters to me how I feel as I absorb and interpret the environment that I have chosen to live in.  Without hesitation.

Hesitation.  It has its merits.  I have certainly jumped all willy-nilly into certain situations and have not emerged with what has felt to be at the time the best of outcomes.  And before I am too quick to judge a crazy outcome, I do realize that there is a bigger picture I cannot see.  An unfinished play that has not been yet written.  A dance that is still being choreographed.  An elaborate tapestry that only allows me to see the underside — the side with the knots, the threads, and the inevitable slubs — all the while knowing that there is a gorgeous pattern seen from above.  There is fate and there is destiny.  There are many metaphors, allegories, analogies, and similes that I have read and that I have tried to apply like a Band-Aid to my wounded soul when I have really mucked up.  Depending on the degree of mucking, these word pictures have provided temporary solace and have gotten me through to the next time I did not hesitate.  And knowing me, the opportunity would certainly be there.

leap of faithI have thrown caution to the proverbial wind and plunged into relationships, jobs, adventures at random.  My brother and I are still laughing about the night that we got frozen out of our March camping trip without a tent in the unexpected snow and had to seek free hospitality à la couch surfing (we were broke: hence why we were snow camping) from one of the Lower Tavern’s regulars (stranger to us), Duane.  Not exactly flying down a mountain at incredible speeds like Thovex but a leap of faith, nonetheless, that resulted in a high-speed Dukes-of-Hazzard car chase up an S-curved gravel road (we were actually the pursuers, not our host Duane).  Yes, a leap of faith and a lengthy journal entry and a re-affirmation of my knowing that angels do exist.  At the very least, I can say that we were not in Hesitation Mode.

Still, hesitation is not all that it is billed to be.  It can really mess life up.  If there are Band-Aid moments when I have not hesitated, I am thinking that there are exponentially more times when I have hesitated.  Waffled.  Procrastinated.  Buried my head in the sand.  Dinked around.  Hoped it would go away or resolve on its own.  I didn’t know what to do, so I hesitated.  At the time, I simply didn’t realize that not making a decision is still making a decision.  I am wanting to grow my awareness of this now.  To hesitate or not to hesitate is not the question.  They are exactly the same thing.

leap-of-faith1Although I am mightily aware of my propensity to jump first and think later, my perspective has changed slightly.  There is the juxtaposition of spontaneity and hesitation.  And there is the contrasting effect of believing and knowing.     We believe with our minds, but we know with our hearts.  We say what we think, but we act with our hearts.  And . . . “Sometimes your only transportation is a leap of faith.” — Margaret Shepard

I have a research-oriented mind.  And a creative heart.  Maybe this is the challenge I create for myself.  Perhaps I am so busy dissecting experiences into rational bits of mind and body and soul, I am creating moments of hesitation that would be best lived by just allowing my knowing self to have the wheel.  Put my believing into the back seat — certainly invite it along — without the benefit of a spare steering wheel.

Can there really be so many complex parts to such a simple whole — this thing called life?   Believing is important.  Knowing is important.  Really knowing. When I allow the seamless marriage of these two . . . Pilgrim, look out and hold on!  Things are going to start happening in ways that my mind could not have ever imagined on its own.

One of my favorite quotes is “Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen.“  This has been a guiding quote through some challenging times in recent history.  I have this quote scattered throughout my house.  It is written on the front of my journal.  I really value this quote.  But I am adding to it today:

Always know that something wonderful is happening right now.  Right now.  

Walt Whitman wrote: “To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.”  There are feelings of comfort, peacefulness, appreciation, and joy in not only believing this but knowing that this true.

Miracles happen.  They do.  Every single moment.  I KNOW this to be true.  My awareness of an “unspeakably perfect miracle” erases the seam between my believing and my knowing.  Embrace the moment.  Ski the mountain.  Know the miracle.  Without hesitation.

 

 

Hope: Helping Other People Evolve

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HOPEHope.  What is it?  I like the acronym for Hope in this image: Help Other People Evolve.  What a great way to make hope real in my life: helping others.  When I help others evolve and express my caring, I become witness to the promise of growth or change.  This is not only exciting, it is inspiring.  When I see someone else’s success or joy or delight as a result of their willingness to take the risk to evolve, I am blessed with hope concerning my life as well.  It all comes full circle in the simplest and most elegant of ways.  Hope gives back hope.

Hope keeps us alive.  Without growth and change in life, I tend to lose focus of why I am on the planet.  When I do not feel hope burning inside of me, life feels more than hopeless.  It feels pointless.  When I lose my sense of direction and feel utterly lost in a fearful place, I can feel hope being extinguished by despair and worry and fear.

These emotions disable my forward evolution, instead I am spiraled into a hopeless state of devolution.  While a modern scientist might state that there is no such thing as devolution, I believe that my spirit and my intuition would disagree.  I know, internally, when I am evolving into a new state of “advancement” and when I am devolving into a previous primitive state — those experiences that we sometimes refer to as being 2 steps forward and 3 steps backward.  I like to feel growth and positive movement as a result of hopeful living.  I have an aversion for devolution.

I like this acoustic version of the song “Despair” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  It is one of those songs that is both sad (with the potential for the self to be swallowed by overwhelming regret), yet it is hopeful.  It speaks of wasted years, tears, and fears.

What sometimes feels like the path of least resistance can lead to “wasted years.”  There have been times when I have given up hope and “settled” for various “hopes” that were not real: financial security, available opportunities, self-limitations on skills or resources — all perceptions and oftentimes a poor assessment of reality.

In January of 2014, I met a man from Jamaica on the beach in Hawaii. He said he was almost 80 years old, but he looked like he was in his early 60s.  Life on the island was treating him well.  His name was Cliff.  We talked.  He had a lot of interesting things to say.  He asked to take some pictures of my hair before we said good bye.

Cliff told me that I was going to have the best year of my life.  At the time, I thought that it was so kind of him to say such nice things.  I wanted to believe that he was a prophet and that he could see things that I could not see at the time — things that I had lost complete hope of ever realizing or enjoying.

We parted paths, and I remembered his words throughout 2014.  His words gave me hope.  True Hope.  Based on his prophetic words, I stopped settling for second or third best.  I changed my game.  I looked for better when things were just okay.  When “bad” things happened — like getting laid off from work — great things kept happening as a result of these fear-inducing negative things.  My life shifted into Amazing.  Really great things presented themselves as a result of research, reaching out, staying alert, moving forward without fear, and hoping.  Dreams that I have held for many years have grown into reality.  Who would have thought?

Today?  I feel like a Public Service Announcement for the Do-Not-Give-Up-Your-Hope campaign.  Don’t stop hoping.  Own your hopes.  Act on your dreams.  Don’t settle for second or third or fourth best.  Don’t settle.  “If it’s all in my head there’s nothing to fear . . . Nothing to fear inside . . .” Let me be your Cliff and hear that 2015 is going to be the best year of your life.  The Best Year.  toaster oven

Partial lyrics from “Despair” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs:

“Don’t despair, you’re there
From beginning to middle to end
Don’t despair, you’re there
Through my wasted days
You’re there through my wasted nights

Oh despair, you’ve always been there
You were there through my wasted years
Through all my lonely fears, no tears
Run through my fingers, tears
They’re stinging my eyes, no tears
If it’s all in my head there’s nothing to fear
Nothing to fear inside

Through the darkness and the light
Some sun has got to rise”