Prompts

Life in 3-D TechniLove

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

 

 

 

 

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beautiful leaves. positively positive. self love.

 

 

 

cropped-osmia-avoseta-bees-nests-solitart-bees.jpg

 

 

Color.  Gorgeous vibrant messy color.

Google’s “define color”: the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light

Love this! “different sensations . . .” [Yes!]  “. . . as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light”

Isn’t this just the best definition of life?  We experience different sensations as a result of the way we reflect or emit light and darkness; happiness and sadness; laughter and anger; love and fear.  So much of life is defined by how we reflect or emit our essence.

Love is the ultimate reflection.  It is eternal.  It never wanes.  It grows before our very soul’s eyes.  We are so richly blessed to be able to reflect and emit love. toaster oven Wow is the ultimate understatement.  Love — like a Jackson Pollock painting — has the power to not only Wow! and to draw you into the details of texture and color, but it also holds the magic to reflect the most intricate designs of light and contrast.

I love color.  Who doesn’t?  Although my closet is full of black, gray, and black-and-white-polka-dot dresses, I do love color.

My favorite color?  If I were to describe the color of love, I would say Sky Blue Pink.  What color would you say describes the color of love?

This video by OK Go is a celebration of fantastical color.  So fanciful and creative and beautiful and just plain fun.  It is my wish that your day today be replete to the brim with TechniLove.

. . . and for those of you who like to understand the technology and background behind fantastical magic:

 

 

What makes you come alive?

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Working hard: What does this mean?  Does a successful life require that we work hard?

I think so.  When I read any Working Hard quotes from the famous movers and shakers, I can read the sincerity in their words.  They believe that they have achieved what success that they have because they worked hard.  But the one thing I am also reading in their words is their devotion to and passion for their work.  [Truly, there are an equally amazing number of quotes linking passion to success.]  These famous and accomplished people all seem committed to high standards, long hours, and the personal sacrifices that reflect their passion for their life work.  And they are having fun while they are working hard.  A great combination in anything: a good sweat while having fun.

057When I saw la Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris for the first time, to describe the experience avec le mot incroyable is a huge and holy understatement. I returned to it several afternoons — just roaming around and absorbing the grandeur.  It took over 100 years to build and the architects, sculptors, and builders remain anonymous.  Wow.  The history of this cathédrale’s construction, destruction, plunder, rebuilding, and ongoing maintenance is amazing.  Its delicacy has survived because of a commitment and vision to preserve its story and its testimony to Passion . . . keeping the beauty and the spirit of Notre Dame de Paris alive.

We are inspired by the most monumental of things.  Edifices.  Sacrifices.  Generosity.  Selflessness.  Grace under pressure.  We notice the grandeur and the beauty and the passion in others’ work, and we are sometimes intimidated by what appears to be overwhelming effort, vision, and success. We question if we could ever create something so amazing or be someone who is considered to be a laureate.

From a young age, we are taught to set noble standards and high expectations.  But what of the infinitesimally small things?  The tiny little gestures that vaporize upon expression yet mean so much in the moment?

Some days seem to require much from us and other days seem to require less.  These less-demanding days, I am content to shake my feathers and take a look around and see what opportunities of need are around me.  Simple things like leaving a sticky note with a positive message for a stranger to discover on campus or bringing someone coffee or telling someone that they look so nice today in salmon pink.  Little tiny things.  Do they make a difference?  I don’t know.  A smile in return is a huge reward for recognizing another’s uniqueness . . . his or her potential for coming alive.

quote. what makes you come alive“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs . . .” This quote summarizes so much simple genius.  Very inspiring: Go do that which makes me come alive.  How could I not want to Work Hard?  It’s a privilege to Come Alive.

What makes you come alive?  Today, what is that one bit of inspiration that makes your day turn from cloudy gray to sunny blue?

Tell that special someone that you love him. toaster oven Listen to that friend who is going through a tough time.  Maybe write or draw or paint or play some music or shoot some hoops or bake some chocolate chip cookies.  Maybe take the time to look out over the water at the sunset and thank the heavens for the message of hope and affirmation. Maybe laugh until your sides hurt.  Focus.  Never underestimate the power of a smile.  Work it, shake it, bust a move.  Re-direct a challenge.  Discover your passion.  Re-define success.  Believe in miracles.  Work hard.  Come alive.

 

 

 

 

Apparently Seemingly Magic

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

music magicWhat’s your magic?

Google’s [define: magic] is as follows: mag·ic: the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural force

I read this definition, and I am certainly not very wow-ed by it.  The use of the word apparently does something that diminishes what I believe magic to be.  I believe that magic is powerful and lovely and serendipitous.  And very real.  It just sort of happens and, when it does, I want to be paying attention.  If my course of events are about to be influenced by a mysterious force, I want my awareness of the experience to go beyond apparently.  

Merriam-Webster defines magic as such: an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source.

I like the use of the word extraordinary here.  Still, that reference of seemingly.  The magic happened or it didn’t?  Perhaps because magic cannot be proven in tangible, measurable, and quantifiable ways, the concept of magic is an ethereal explanation to We have no idea what just happened.  It just happened.  

Perhaps it is the best that we can come up with . . . a word to explain the feeling we have when we have just bumped up against a tangible and vivid part of the Universe.  Magic does influence the course of events and it does cultivate mindfulness in meaningful ways.  It is mysterious and there is some element of supernatural force involved.

But I am a word nerd and I wonder about the words apparently and seemingly.  I experienced magic or I didn’t, right?  Something along the lines of the question “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”   This question is one of those mindbenders that has no right or wrong answer.  As good students of philosophy say, “It depends.”   It is seemingly some sort of separate reality to be wondered about by those of us who apparently take the time to think about stuff like this.  The tree did fall and it surely caused some ruckus.  By my way of thinking, the tree did make a sound.   The tree went down. WhooshCrackleBoom.  By my way of reckoning, I don’t need to be there to acknowledge the end Boom.  And my serendipitous brush with magic need not be quantified, recorded, or heard.

So I try to put things in perspective.  Along the lines of the tree in the forest: If magic happens and no one acknowledges it or makes a connection with it, will the course of events in this thing called life be influenced?  I don’t know.  I really don’t know how we can know this other than to wonder about and embrace the apparently and seemingly factors in life.  Being a linguist, I am a huge fan of “the fuzzy concept” — one by which a concept can vary considerably based on context, rather than being immutable and fixed.  It is easy to understand why I chose the path of linguist over grammarian.
So, what’s your magic?  What’s your mojo?  Mine?  Maybe it is music.  Or maybe it is something else.  I really don’t know because there are too many trees falling around me in a forest that I am not completely aware of.  I am dancing my way through windfalls that apparently fell while I was seemingly not paying attention.  But I am now.  Truly.  I am paying attention.  What’s your magic?

Are you waiting for the right moment?

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

 

Writing prompt: Are you waiting for the right moment to do that exact thing that you want to be doing?  Learning?  Exploring?

If you are waiting, stop.  And then start.  Start.  Do something.  Do anything.  Do one little thing that will point your compass in what you think might be the right direction.  Point it in any direction.  After all, the Universe has no map.  There is no GPS for navigating Infinity.  And it is all out there — all right here — just waiting for you to start.  At the very least, put on a blindfold, spin yourself around a few times, and start moving.  You never know which donkey is going to to get a start from you pinning a tail onto its hindquarters.

 

Simple for me to say.  I was talking to someone today who is wanting to lose weight.  She said, “Something can be simple but still so hard to do.”  I thought that this was a really profound statement.  It can be both.  But it need not be.  Or does it?

A small-scale example: I would love to have one of those garages in which I can park my truck.  The outlines of wrenches and saws and C-clamps all Sharpied on a piece of pegboard.  Bicycles hanging from racks.  Holiday paraphernalia stacked in clear, plastic tubs out of the way in the corner.  It all sounds so lovely.  And so simple.  And so hard, too.

Instead, it is all quite the jumble.  Not entirely unmanageable.  I can get to the fuse box and can find a hammer when I want to hang a picture on the wall.  I don’t know.  I am most likely being too hard on myself.  I tell the people who come to visit, “Don’t look in the garage!” but it does indeed seem like a paradox to be embarrassed by my own stuff.  There is something about this that doesn’t quite resonate with a sense of balance.  It is like wanting to distance myself from the choices I have made.

I clearly do not feel that having an amazingly organized garage is going to make me a better human being.  And it is not important enough to forfeit a sunny afternoon down by the bay.  And the time it would take to sift through the dust, memories, cobwebs, and paperwork isn’t worth not meeting friends for dinner or spending some time playing piano or taking my easel out to the back deck for some color therapy.

Is starting (and stopping) all about listening to our priorities?  Is what we truly want so evident and transparent to our Sense of Priority, that we don’t really have to think in any conscious way when we point the compass in a new direction.  Some call it procrastination, but I am wondering if procrastination is nothing more than your soul allowing your priorities to have control of the throttle.  My overall conclusion: procrastination is possibly being unfairly reviled by those who have all of the plans mapped out.  I am thinking that it is okay sometimes to turn off the Garmin and just do some meandering.

It is tricky to avoid mixing my metaphors when it comes to the universal sense of time and life lessons.  A compass, a map, GPS, a blindfold, a game about a donkey, an airplane’s cockpit.   No wonder I lose my path — my trajectory.   I’m all over the place!  Yet . . .all of these signs along the road.  All of these maps that point us in this direction and that direction. . . when all of what we truly and most dearly want stems from our inner world — our soul, our conscience, our spirit.

So, what is it that you are aiming for?  What is it that would be just so much fun to be experiencing right now?  Be fearless, put your compass in your pocket, don your blindfold, pick up your thumb tack and paper donkey tail, spin around, and start pinning that tail on whatever suits your fancy.  Pull back on the throttle and fly.  You never know.  Truly.  The Universe has a distinct way of rewarding our sometimes-fallible attempts to better enrich and experience life.

Thomas Edison said it so beautifully: “To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”  Love this!  This man would not be judging my garage or my sense of priority!  His words put my garage into perspective and get me outdoors on a sunny day.  Time to quit beating myself up, allow my imagination to soar, and enjoy inventing with the “pile of junk” in the garage.

thomasaedison125362 (1)

 

 

 

Who’s your Inner Baby? What do you love to do?

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

hold-on-to-your-childhood-cause-its-the-only-one-youve-gotWho’s your Inner Baby?  This is a super fun video (1:16) to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfxB5ut-KTs

We have all read and heard a lot about our Inner Child.  But what about our Inner Baby?  Much gets lost in translation between Babyhood and Toddlerhood.  And on it goes.  Toddlerhood and Tweenhood.  Tweenhood and Teenhood.  Teenhood and Adulthood. Some sense of autonomy or responsibility or conscience or something escalates our levels of self-doubt into radical stages of us double-guessing ourselves.  We gain in experience while our increased awareness of Other lends to added confusion of Self.

I am not a psychologist.  I have not researched what happens to us developmentally while we are growing and being alive.  But I do wonder where my Inner Baby went to.  It is as if something really innocent does get lost as the expectations of society are incrementally imposed.  My sense of spontaneity gets diverted into embracing the ways of politesse.  My sense of joyful random has been  funneled into sit-up-straight-and-behave.

Am I the only one that feels this way?  For example, am I the only one who still gets in trouble every time I go to the museum?  I don’t understand this phenomenon, but every. single. time. I go to the museum, I get scolded for something.  That door isn’t an exit.  Don’t get too close to the painting.  Don’t touch the painting.  Step away from the sculpture.  Don’t take a picture.  Now.  I do know that the doors that are marked in bright red as fire exits are not the acceptable way to locate the restroom.  And I know that breathing on and touching paintings are taboo.  And while I might be checking my phone for the time, it does not follow that I am going to aim and shoot with a damaging flash.  It is really kind of exhausting.

Someone once told me that the reason that I get scolded is that I have long, curly hair.  While I am open to this theory, I do believe that there is something else — perhaps some kind of mischief vibe — that I am giving to the museum’s VSRs.  Maybe it is my Inner-Baby vibe being unleashed without me even realizing it?

It is for the betterment of society that we learn these rules of etiquette.  What a crazy mob scene life would be if we didn’t have this cultural structure  to monitor our words and our actions.

But.  I watch this video, and I can see my inner child being mirrored back to me when I am doing something that I love that is fun and spontaneous.  I love to dance, so this video speaks to me very vividly.  And I can see my Inner Baby when I get out there on the dance floor and shake it.

What do you love to do?  

What is it that you see yourself doing in front of a magic mirror such as the one in the video?  I will refrain from MoonWalking my way through Chihuly’s glass series the next time I go to the museum, but I am going to have a good laugh imagining myself doing so past the docents and the stationed visitor reps.  Time to unleash my Inner Baby and have some fun!

 

Are you caught in Yo-yo Land?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

PROMPT: Is there something in your life that you keep doing over and over again — even though you say that you don’t want to do so?  Something that you know is b-a-d for you?  That is blocking your Bliss?  Is there something that you keep returning to, even though you have vowed that you never would? Are you trying to lose weight, and you have fallen victim to yo-yo dieting?  Do you keep going back to that unhealthy relationship that you know will never allow for mutual respect?  Do you return each morning to that unrewarding job with the maniacal boss?  Up and down and all around — going in loops and circles and reversals?

Is there something that you feel mysteriously and inexplicably tethered to — unconsciously or otherwise– that keeps reeling you back in?

We have all heard the metaphor that life is a river.  That you can never step into the same river twice.  That fighting the current expends a great deal of misspent energy.  That if you go with the flow, things will feel easier.  That there are eddies and currents that will befuddle your senses.  That there are drops in the river that will surprise you.  That there are Class IV rapids that will tip your raft and divest you of not only your luxuries but your essentials.  That any ol’ dead fish can float downstream — it takes a live one to go against the current.  Still waters run deep and narrow waters cut deep.  That a waterfall is the unfortunate realization that you have made one helluva big mistake and are in for the ride of your life.

You get the idea.  There are so many wowza metaphors for rivers.  Why?  Because they are cool and powerful and unpredictable and demand a great deal of respect from anyone who ventures into its current.

But a yo-yo?  Is a yo-yo cool enough to be a metaphor for life and its crazy trajectories?  Just look at the names of yo-yo tricks: the Sleeper, Rock the Baby, Breakaway, Braintwister, Man on the Flying Trapeze, Around the World, Walk the Dog, Invisi-Whip, Buddha’s Revenge.  Look at all of this coolness that can identify life’s mysteries, demonstrate really amazing skill of movement, and explain how to resolve personal problems.  Feeling stressed?  Walk the Dog.  Feeling restless?  Take a trip Around the World.  Feeling like life has become boring? Be a Woman on the Flying Trapeze.  Feeling unmotivated?  Crack the Invisi-Whip on your Sleeper.

At this point, is anyone else ready to simply drop everything and go buy a yo-yo?

As impressive as some of these tricks may appear to be, I am not so sure that I want to continually be reeled back to Point A.  Or Point B.  Or L-M-N-O-P.  Wait, I just realized: I don’t want to be the yo-yo.  I want to be the Yo-Yo Slinger.  I want to be the one spinning the yo-yo into cosmic fantastic-ness. InternetSlang.com defines YOYO as “You’re on Your Own.”  Well, we are on our own.  I am on my own, the Yo-Yo Master Herself.  Spinning tricks and following the arc.

Lest I get lost in Yo-Yo Land, I pull myself back to my original question:   Is there something in my life that I keep doing over and over again — even though I say that I don’t want to do so?  I might want to pay attention to this.  Or at the very least, get out of Reversal Mode and distract myself properly by buying a yo-yo and googling some youtube videos on how to learn some of these very cool tricks.  I might not only surprise myself with an aptitude that defies gravity but divert myself from the unhealthier tether points in my life.

So, how does The Art of Yo-Yo actually translate and guide me on the trajectory of

Life Wisdom?

  1. Around the World –> Get rid of some stuff.  A lot of stuff, actually. Be ready to travel.  And travel light.
  2. Double or Nothing –> Become more habituated to taking risks.  Try Something New every single day.
  3. Over the Falls –> While knowing that life has its share of waterfalls, do not fear the unknown around the bend.
  4. Dizzy Baby –> Don’t be fearful of the tricks of the current.  You will eventually pop out of the eddies.
  5. Stop and Go –> Take time to pay attention and cultivate mindfulness.
  6. Hop the Fence –> Jump the grooves in life.
  7. Forward Pass –> Create your own trajectories and work your own magic.
  8. Wormhole –> Be the Yo-yo Master, not the yo-yo.

 

Do you want to turn your Bad into Badass?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

PROMPT: What is the Bad in your life?  Do you have a Bad relationship?  A Bad job?  A Bad boss?  A Bad diet?  A Bad car?  A Bad routine of predictable habit?  A Bad attitude?  A Bad whatever?  Bad, bad, bad. Why do we tend to focus on the Bad?  ayn-rand-quote

Bad can be defined in many ways: something that is inferior, unpleasant, unwelcome, deficient, miserable . . . however your soul defines it, that is what it is.  But how can you turn your Bad into Badass?

The Urban Dictionary defines badass as such:

“The badass carves his own path. He wears, drives, drinks, watches, and listens to what he chooses, when he chooses, where he chooses, uninfluenced by fads or advertising campaigns. Badass style is understated but instantly recognizable. Like a chopped Harley or a good pair of sunglasses: simple, direct, and functional.”

I love this.  It is a defining definition.  It inspires me to get off my patootie and turn things around and in new directions . . . pick up a cool pair of shades and carve  my own path.

When I googled images for Badass, all sorts of violent gestures and expressions appeared.  Vulgar gestures, mean glares, and weapons of minor and mass destruction.  This is not the idea I had in mind for turning Bad into Badass.

far from what I once wasBut I do appreciate the inspiration to Carve My Own Path.  Doing what I choose, when I choose, where I choose — all uninfluenced by trends andunsolicited opinions.  Badass speaks, but does not do so with a megaphone.  It doesn’t take any convincing or wheedling.  It simply is what it is: “. . . simple, direct, and functional.”  I’m getting there.  I’ve got this.

All of this sounds like a recipe for finding your way, discovering your feng shui –> governing your space and details and energy in ways that speak of  “understated but instantly recognizable.”  Sounds good . . . I mean . . . Badass to me.

How does this work in my real Universe?  How can I turn my daily Bad into Badass?  A few things come to mind:

  1. Speak from the promptings of your soul.  Just say Yes.
  2. Do not fear disapproval.  Rather, welcome it.  You just provided someone with the opportunity to do some critical thinking.
  3. Carve your own way.  The verb carve  has many dimensions.  Sculpt.  Create a 3-D version of your life’s Vision.
  4. Step outside your comfort zone.  You never know when you might discover the best (fill-in-the-blank) ever.
  5. Recreate with what is your creativity.  Start with your mind.  Your heart just might follow.
  6. Be willing to laugh at your efforts.  It is sometimes hard to be Badass when you are accustomed to being the Victim.
  7. Be one with your Badass.  “Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says:“Oh, sh#@, she’s up!” 
  8. Frank Zappa had it right: Deviate from the norm.  Make some progress that feels Badass.

without deviation from the norm. frank zappa

What is the natural order in your life?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

Image

PROMPT: What is the natural order in your life?  

What is it that you do first before you think?  

What is that one thing that spontaneously drives you beyond having to stop, think, clarify, justify? Prioritize, verbalize, intellectualize, organize, strategize  . . . ?

What is that one thing that just pops into your mind?

Do you do this thing every day?  Once a week?  A month?  A year?  On Halloween?  On New Year’s Eve?  On your birthday?  Ever?  Never?  And if not ever, what is stopping you from doing it right now?

What is my natural order?  What is it that I do first before I even have to think about it?  It is exactly as Samuel Beckett has written: DANCE.  I love to dance.  I love to dance because when I do, time literally stops.  Any sense of time vaporizes, and I am caught in a moment of no-overthinking, no-planning.  I don’t think about my job, my current relationship, my to-do list, my chores, my student loans and other pressing bills.  I don’t think about having to set the alarm for the morning or needing to feed my kefir grains.  I don’t regret saying no to that someone who is always wanting me to over-commit to yes.  I don’t blame myself for making that mistake earlier in the day.  I give up the guilt that prevents me from experiencing my natural order.

I just dance.  I am no longer thinking and processing.  I am doing.  I am living my natural order.  When the music is really perfect for dancing, I have stayed out waaay too late on a work night.  I have returned to ex-boyfriends because the perfect song caught us on the dance floor together.  I once smoked a kretek after a night of dancing with a really Bad Boy.  [I feel so transparent confessing this!  If you knew me, you would know that this was a really out-there thing for me to do.]

Consequences of living your natural order?  Of course.  All of life has consequences.  What I do creates the experiences that form who I am.  But when I embrace my natural order, I am no longer a human doing; I have become a human being.  I want to be in my life.  I want to respond to my natural order.

What is the natural order of your life?  What is it that you do before you think?

If you were to take at least one chance, what would it be?

/ Kennedy Farr / 4 Comments

PROMPT: If you were to take at least one chance, what would it be?  What would you do?  Take at least one. Chance.

I feel so convicted.  So very convicted.   To the core of my very innards.  Is it simply butterflies that I am feeling?  Is it a massive infiltration of pure fear being infused into my molecules?  Is it a state of confusion that I am experiencing because I cannot answer this question with a single, spontaneous response?

Should it be a single, spontaneous response?  Is this “chance” supposed to look like a pop of color on a canvas or is it part of a plan — all mapped out with color-coded push pins on my vision board?  Am I the only one who feels this way when asked this question? Please, someone. Anyone.

Wait.  There is only one question here.  Only one.  I catch myself wanting to answer in outline form in my Thinking Pad.   I want to get out my Green Trails map and examine the topography of the trail ahead of me.  I want to know how many miles it is to the overlook.  I want to know the point where the trail flattens out a bit.  How many switchbacks are on this trail?  And what is the elevation gain?  Have I brought enough water?  Did I bring enough sustenance?  Wait, is my boot starting to rub a blister?

I write this and know how terribly apprehensive I sound.  I love being alive and having fun and dancing and doing crazy things with friends and meeting new people and learning new music and traveling alone and learning new skills and . . .

A moment of clarity tells me that I am turning all of this into a gale-force force-field analysis.  It is true, in a desire to cultivate mindfulness, that I like to focus on what matters to me: Do I focus on the summit? The next switchback?  The trillium and skunk cabbage along the trail?  And how many switchbacks are on this trail?  What is the elevation gain?  If I knew that there were going to be 49 switchbacks with a 4000-foot elevation gain, would I be tempted to turn around and find an alternative route?  An alternative peak altogether?

Does life really need to be analyzed and dissected, answer by answer, or is it a journey that involves choices that are made one small, sustainable,sometimes risky step at at time?  I think of the time when I hiked up some crazy-steep trail in the French Alps.  It was an epic effort but so satisfying to reach the top. As for taking one chance today?  I’ve got this.  Easy.

Back to the question:

If you were to take at least one chance, what would it be?   

My answer: Yes.  Yes to the summit, the switchbacks, the skunk cabbage, the blisters.  I am going to look to the summit and hang the switchbacks.  I’ll pick huckleberries and identify flowers that are new to me.  I know what it is I want.  I have a vision.  I can see it and I can smell it and I can feel how good it feels to be on the path.  And I want it.  I want to take that chance now, please.

 

 

 

What is your favorite word?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

PROMPT: What is your favorite word?  Is there a word that spontaneously comes to mind?  What are some of the reasons that it is your favorite word?

I love looking up words, so I have a big, fat dictionary stashed under my couch.  It might seem a random place to store it, but it is a very handy location.  I can tug at a corner of its spine and drag it out, dust the cat and dog hair off its cover, and voila: the vast universe of English definitions and etymology is at my fingertips.

The spine of this dictionary is spent from such abuse.  I would place it in a more revered place — but it is so thick, there is no room on my crowded bookshelves for it.  And there is no rational explanation as to why I store it under the couch.  Maybe I was tidying up before dinner company arrived one time, and I wanted my desk to look more tidy.  I can’t remember.  It has remained hidden there long enough to create a habit of storage.  I rarely dig it out to look up a word . . . now preferring the convenience of the “define: whatever” function in Google.

This dictionary has been bumped around by the vacuum, has survived periodic floods of red wine and other beverages, and has had close encounters of the fuzzy kind from the myriad dust bunnies that reproduce at an astronomical rate.  I sometimes feel guilty when I bop it with the vacuum or shove it further from view when company comes over.  There is a wealth of information in this tome.  Just thinking about my cavalier attitude shames me into considering a new place for it to rest.

My favorite word?

 Experience 

I just love this word.  It is so full and enriching and alive.  It is ambrosia.  It encompasses our perceptions, our beliefs, our assumptions, our loves, our errors, our forgiveness, our learning, our teaching.  It projects into the future, embraces the present, and builds on the past.  There is so much time in this word.  So many dimensions of time.  It is simultaneously eternal and present in any given nano second.  It is both creative and stable.  It can be embroidered with lacy fibs to make a story better.  It can serve as a sage advisor.  It can prove to be an insane springboard into the unknown.  It blows our perceptions of time out of the Milky Way.

I used to date a scientist.  One of his hobbies was to sit in his chair in a dark room and ponder the universe and the various dimensions.  In these quiet hours, he came up with a breakthrough scientific theory that I thought was fairly plausible, at least to my neophyte’s understanding of dark matter and ordinary matter and  black holes and universal space and time.

He painstakingly laid out the particulars of how it all worked, and I was really impressed.  Truly, I didn’t mean to blow a hole in his hours and days and weeks of pondering when I asked him, “But what’s the point? What is the meaning of it all if there isn’t any reference of experiential and emotional and personal connection?”

I have to hand it to him.  He didn’t perceive me as one of those naysaying hole-pokers trying to assassinate his theory.  His response to my question was eloquent and beautiful: “Hmmph.”

I saw him a few nights later and, after many hours in his chair in a dark room, he said that he figured out how Experiential Connection figured into the swirly mix of our Milky Way.  He had some kind of answer for it all, about how our experiences plugged up certain holes in the Universe.  I am sure that his more technical language accounted for a more elegant way of explaining how it all comes together, but this is what I took away from his rather long explanation:

our future experiences of connection represent the dark matter

that balances with what is termed as “ordinary matter” throughout infinity

In retrospect, I am sure that my interpretation does not quite embody what he was saying.  But it all makes sense somehow.  I finally asked him, “How can there be ordinary matter?  Doesn’t all matter have remarkable significance?”  He didn’t have an answer as to why it is called ordinary, but I suspect that these questions made for some extra sitting time in his dark room.

It all counts.  The seen and the unseen.  The real and the invisible real. The ordinary and the dark.  I find it fascinating to think that it is possible that there is 10 times more dark matter than visible matter in space.  That is a lot of matter that I am not seeing.  Just thinking about it motivates me to Pay Attention.

I am not explaining it very well.  I am not an astrophysicist.  I am merely a student of life who has learned that cultivating mindfulness matters.  That my experiences matter.  I want to connect.  I want to experience Experience with a capital E.

It is said that there are roughly one million words in the English language.  I would suspect that the world wide web would have a difficult time corralling so many permutations of any single word.  Merriam-Webster chimes in with the following:

“There is no exact count of the number of words in English, and one reason is certainly because languages are ever expanding; in addition, their boundaries are always flexible.?”  (http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/total_words.htm)

In other words, language is expanding as rapidly as my ex-boyfriend’s explanation of what happens with dark matter in the Universe.  Language expands and it is infinite.  There are probably 10 times more thoughts and concepts and feelings and experiences than what the English language can account for.  This makes sense to me.

So today, my favorite word is e-x-p-e-r-i-e-n-c-e.  I embrace the Universal dimensions that this word represents.  Dark matter is like a placeholder in the Universe for us as we face the unknown in our world — the unseen frontiers.  So many experiences to build.  So much dark matter to Experience.