believe

What are you waiting for?

/ Kennedy Farr / 4 Comments

time-travel-clockWaiting . . . why do we call it waiting when we are always doing something else while we are doing what we call waiting? We wait at the bus stop.  At the doctor’s office.  In the conference room for a meeting to begin.  At the lacrosse field for practice to be over.  At home for dinner preparations to be completed.  At a restaurant for a predictably-late friend to show.

red child shoesWe wait for our friends, our spouses, our partners, our parents, our family.  We wait for children to tie their shoes or to pick up their toys.  We wait for our spouses to finish getting ready so we can get going.  We wait for our friends to all arrive so we can go into the theatre and find seats.

We wait while anticipating what we consider to be predictable outcomes.  The truck to get lubed.  The light to turn green.  The ferry to arrive.  Our grades to be posted at the end of the quarter.  We wait for serious things like test results. We wait for unstable relationships to resolve by themselves.  While in this labyrinth, we wait while we stay and we wait for the other person to go away.

We wait for technology to deliver. We wait for texts, emails, and attachments.  While we wait, we bury our thoughts in our phones and our computers and our iPads.  All in the name of waiting.

Sometimes we are patient; sometimes we are impatient.  Sometimes we are intense; sometimes we are dreamy.

We wait in traffic and in line, while seated and while standing. While we wait, we laugh and we cry and and we grump and we think that we are thinking about nothing.  While we wait, we make grocery lists and we think about how we should clean the bathroom before our guests arrive for dinner that night.  We go for a quick run or we shoot a few hoops.  We tidy our desks or we empty the dishwasher.  We walk the dog while waiting for the car pool to arrive.  We feed the cat while we are waiting for the last few minutes of the spin cycle to be done so we can transfer clean clothes into the dryer.

All of this productivity while we are waiting.   There is a whole lot of energy that goes into waiting.  Waiting is doing.  And being.  And thinking.  And feeling.  And living.

140Do you ever feel as if you are waiting for your life to start?  For it to begin in the way that you once saw it unfolding in your imagination?  Did you see yourself living on Maui or did you think that you would have published at least two New York Times Bestsellers by now?  Did you think that you would have lost all of that extra weight or that you would have been in good enough shape to climb Annapurna?   Did you see yourself having returned to school and then walking across that stage for your diploma?  Did you see yourself being an awesome studio musician or a brilliant politician or an inspirational speaker or . . . ?

121I am aware that life is a swirl of matter and motion and that I am in my life’s vortex.  I very much appreciate the amazing blessings that abound and that allow for me to be living my dream.  My dreams.  If waiting is living, then there is no time left to be thinking about waiting.  It is officially time to set aside the sometimes overpowering notion of waiting and just start being alive.  Am I waiting?  If so, for what?  Time is ticking and there truly is no time like the present to kick up my heels and yell Hallelujah.  No more waiting.

vintage movie cameraThere are several songs that come to mind . . . lyrics that talk about how life is not a rehearsal.  It is an impromptu performance and you are the star.  Yes, you.  As introverted or private a person you may be, you are the principal actor in this play called Life.  There are no second takes, no director calling, “Cut!” or “Action!” or “Roll ‘em!” or “Fade to black.”   It is all a brand new Right Now.  Why wait?  Let the camera roll.

The next time I find myself waiting for anything, I hope that I am reminded of these thoughts and that I will re-direct my Waiting Thoughts into Creating Good Stuff . . . and continue to always believe that something wonderful is about to happen . . . while I am Waiting. toaster oven

believe that something wonderful

Freedom. What is it?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

What is freedom?

When I have asked people this question, their responses have been both delightfully unique and predictably predictable.  Freedom is time for travel, not having to work, doing whatever it is one wants to do, playing music, volunteering, not having to set an alarm clock every night, eating a limitless amount of cheescake and not gaining weight, experiencing no boundaries. . .

Many people equate freedom with money.  Financial freedom has its many perks that allow for choices that can be bought.  Exotic travel, a newer car, a bigger home, a better body that has been nipped, tucked, and enhanced.  A better wardrobe, more shoes, a bigger closet.

But what about those many things in life that do not have a price tag? Like health, love, laughter, respect, integrity . . . many of the things that ask that an active and committed and mindful choice be made.  Choices about the food we eat, how often we exercise, what kinds of supplements we want to add to our diet.  Our choices to extend love, to share, to forgive someone their humanity – even when we truly do not even feel like it.  Our choices to walk through the walls of our ego for a different view and laugh at ourselves and with others.  Choices to not sell ourselves short too quickly for a short-term solution.  Choices to believe that something wonderful is about to happen.  Always . . . believe that something wonderful is about to happen.  Choices to stay on the sunny side and to believe in optimistic outcomes.  All of these choices . . . we have so much freedom to choose in any given second of any given day from an infinite library of perspectives.

But I sometimes think that I tend to oversimplify . . . especially when I am writing at my old, favorite, beat-up library table with a fire going in the fireplace and a glass of white wine nearby.  There is beautiful music playing and it is official: we are on the sunny side of winter solstice.  I am blessed with so much and choices feel easier when life feels good.

I read East of Eden by John Steinbeck many years ago.  The idea of timshel is discussed – the Hebrew word for thou mayest.    We are born with a sense of free will that allows us to make choices for better or for worse.  Timshel is freedom of the mind, but isn’t it also freedom of the heart entwined with freedom of the mind?  I am not sure how to separate the two.  Which camefirst?  The thought or the feeling?  There are neuro-scientists and neuro-psychologists that can surely answer to this.  There is amazing and impressive research concerning our emotional intelligence and what occurs during an emotional hijacking . . . how our emotional brain races ahead of our rational brain.

timshel

Thoughts.  Feelings.  I am convinced that there is an additional element that blends and swirls with our thoughts and our feelings: timshel.  We can accomplish many amazing things; we can meet many goals; we can overcome staggering obstacles.  Amazing and stunning displays of success.  But what came first?  The Thought?  The Feeling that motivates and drives us?  Or the Freedom of Mind that opens the doors that allow our Thoughts and our Feelings to pass vigorously, creatively, and humbly into the worlds and dimensions around us?

john steinbeck quote east of edenWhat is freedom? ” . . . the way is open . . .”  Some definitions of freedom remove obligations but my current definition asks that I embrace responsibility for Freedom of Mind . . . for embracing timshel and understanding that thou mayest means different things to different people.  Defining anything can introduce a wealth of confusion and possibly disagreement.  Words, as wonderful and beautiful and elucidating as they can be, can also limit us in the ways of thou mayest – a blessing of optimism.  “Now that [we] don’t have to be perfect, [we] can be good.”  Simply put . . . what is freedom?  I believe that it is optimism.  Always believing in the possibility that something beautiful has the power to enter into my world. toaster oven

 

What experiences do you consider spiritual?

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

My journaling today led me to thinking and writing about Experiences That I Consider to be Spiritual:

  • laughter
  • happiness
  • charity
  • generosity
  • physical health
  • mental health
  • spiritual health
  • generosity of spirit
  • acts of kindness
  • mindfulness
  • cultivation of mindfulness
  • appreciation
  • love
  • being in love
  • true sharing of the good things in life

I seek peace in my heart’s chambers.  I seek the cultivation of that miraculous moment — the pause — that allows me to seek my Higher Self and to focus on my heart’s horizons.  To believe that “every little thing’s gonna be all right.”

As I wrote, a visualization floated into my mind:

floating leaf 1At first, a little curled-edge leaf boat.  The leaf looked like a small alder leaf with serrated edges.

Then . . . a piece of pale blue beach glass in the shape of a heart: faceted on the edges and surf-scratched to a state of opaqueness . . . I placed the little heart on the curled-edge leaf boat and let it float on a dark puddle that grew and flowed into a current of water with higher energy.blue beach glass

I don’t know where the little leaf will light . . . but where it does, it will be received with kindness and appreciation for my willingness to trust and to allow healing on its journey of hope.

I finished writing in my journal and I thought, Wow! All of this mysterious and unrelated stuff simply from taking 20 minutes to just stop and to listen.  The power of writing and listening to the thoughts in my mind.

Life takes on such a busy and rapidly-moving pace.  It bustles and hustles and sometimes grinds to a halt from a frighteningly-high speed.  When it slams to a stop, we stress and we worry.  We wonder.  We forget to be positive.  And we lose our way.  We are in the forest and the trees no longer feel friendly.  We aren’t having fun anymore.

These moments are part of life.  I remember a conversation I had with two of my good friends.  We were talking about some particular life challenges.  Difficulties.  Stress.  This sort of thing.  One friend felt it best to set everything aside and choose lightness.  Move above and beyond the challenge.  Let it go.  Do not grant it any attention.  It will slip away.  Turn your focus away.   It will disappear ultimately.

My other friend believed that there was healing and growth in seeking a way through.  He saw the obstacle as an opportunity to grow.  And to become strengthened by powering through.  By feeling the discomfort, it would dissipate.  Ultimately.  It would no longer sting because he had invited it into his life.  He was welcoming it.  There was no fear involved.

Wow.  This was good stuff.  I found myself transfixed by the conversation and by their guided philosophies.  Essentially both felt that there was a measure of enlightenment, growth, and transcendence in each of their approaches.  We all could see how both were good strategies for addressing a challenge.

Then they looked at me.  What do you do?  What do you do when life feels challenging?  What is your approach?  Sitting in the midst of such great thinking and spiritualizing, I didn’t know how to answer.  I wanted to say, Well, first I panic a little bit.  Then I might panic a lot. I might start pacing, and I might drink some water to rehydrate my cells.  I might take the dog out for a walk.  Or call my best friend.  Or feel sick in my stomach.  Or go to the gym.  Or tune my fiddle and read challenging sheet music.  Or eat foods that aren’t in my nutritionally-best interest.  I don’t know.

And I didn’t know how to answer them with words or metaphors or images.  The two of them, being my good friends, know me.  They know how I analyze and bob and innovate my way through a problem.  By all accounts, it ultimately feels as if my methodology could best be entitled Distraction Theory to Ascendancy  . . . distracting myself to a place where I can govern the problem into manageable bits by administering tiny tweaks along the way.  Thinking and feeling and loving and hoping and laughing my way through.

Back to my list of Experiences I Consider to Be Spiritual.  It may be a Grab Bag of pick-and-choose, but I default to my sense of spiritual.

Sound complicated?  A little bit like nailing my shoe to the floor and going around in circles?  It is.  My friends’ descriptions of their paths to transcendence were quite inspiring.  And a lot convicting.  I don’t know if I have a fallback philosophy of any consistency, but I do attempt to pursue a state of positivity through my distractions.  While I am walking the dog or sweating on the elliptical trainer, I repeat to myself: Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen.  I jump into the pool of many options and grab hold of what makes the most sense at the time.

always believeAnd the good news about always believing that something wonderful is about to happen?  It does.  Something wonderful always happens.  Eventually.  Maybe not in the very nano-second, but there have been times when it has happened that quickly.  In the midst of my Sea of Distracted State, I am launched into an orbit of transcendence that rids my heart and mind of worry or fear or gloom or overwhelm-ment.

Always believe.  Believe.  Keep hope alive by choosing the positive option.  I want to be that little piece of blue beach glass floating serenely on that curly-edge alder leaf.  Flowing into a current of water of Higher Energy.

My two very lovely friends have both moved to different parts of the world.  And I miss them so much.  I wish that I could tell them about my Lovely Leaf Boat Theory in person over a glass of wine at our favorite place to meet. I would now have a better-defined answer to their question of Your turn. What do you do?  

But they know me.  They know that I will Think Light and stay afloat in the current before I allow my vessel to sink.  I might not be floating above and away from things or powering my way through with amazing discipline and will . . . but I will stay afloat.

I am lucky to have met such friends.  It is funny how friends have no idea how important — how essential –they are in the life of another.  Isn’t this amazing when you think about it?  That they are the hands that are beneath the leaf.  Trimming it in the rough waves and spinning it out of the eddies that tangle me into a swirl of confusion.

Friends.  I forgot to add “Friends” to my list of Experiences That I Consider to Be Spiritual.  And I find it remarkable that everything Spiritual on this list is embodied within my Friends.  For this, I feel abundantly blessed.  To all of my friends, I thank you thank you thank you.  You are amazing beyond wonder. toaster oven

 

Balance in Creativity: “a harmonious adjustment”

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

036Today required some awareness for the need to balance.  Balance requires the art of focus — from my brain, my heart, my body, my soul — and I do recognize that I sometimes choose to focus on that which temporarily tips the scales toward chaotic creativity.  Ideas are large — sometimes enormous — and time and resources are sometimes limited.

This is certainly not to complain.  I have learned that ideas can stay alive and healthy while balancing them to a place that still feels right, do-able, and rewarding.  When I pay attention, I am better able to balance.  Anne Frank wrote in her diary: “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out.  Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart” (Frank, 2001-2010).  Her words.  Wow.  Full Stop.  Re-read.  Amazing, aren’t they?

Although my ideals and subsequent ideas may sometimes appear to be “absurd” or even “impossible” to incorporate into my daily living, the idyllic life-learning environment for me is an amiable, generous, and benevolent experience.  In my own personal learning journey, much of it can be defined as being those sparks in time that have engaged my brain’s limbic system – that most primitive part of the brain associated with basic needs and emotions.  When I link emotional brain to rational brain, all sorts of amazing creativity rises to the surface.

It is then when all creative Hades busts loose.  I am all over the map.  Folders are created.  Documents are saved with obscure titles and then stored willy nilly in the new folders.  Ideas are scrawled on Post-It notes.  My Idea Notebook is flipped open.  I grab a Sharpie and start scribbling on a vision board.  Scraps and notes are slipped into a drawer of the antique fruit dryer.  I text myself obscure reminders.  I eat pasta.  I write on my bathroom mirror in lipstick.  I decide to apply for another degree program.  I go dancing to tame ideas into a basic rhythm.   It is on me alone to skim that which appeals best to my creative hand.  All the while, swimming in ideas that all feel so great at the time . . . but what to do with all of them?  Where to store them for my eventual return?

Vision Board 075James Allen wrote: “A man is not rightly conditioned until he is a happy, healthy, and prosperous being; and happiness, health, and prosperity are the result of a harmonious adjustment of the inner with the outer of the man with his surroundings.”  This quote is in accord with the importance of becoming self-actualized in order to reach individual and unique maximum potential.  Allen’s idea that there is “a harmonious adjustment” between our internal and external worlds is in absolute alignment with my life philosophy.

Alignment.  This requires focus.  This is to say that I must explore both worlds in order to achieve authenticity and balance in my living and in my learning and my believing. We are most convincing when we truly believe what we express to others. When we are passionate about our beliefs, toaster ovenothers respond to the energy we exude.  We live more fully.  We laugh more readily.  We love more easily.

By acting upon our beliefs, we show others that we mean what we say, and our energy ripples outward into the world. We are each given unique abilities and a purpose that we bring to the world. Like a puzzle piece, we each have our own place and are equally important to the complete picture. By sharing our passion with the world, we may help to awaken others to their purpose, guiding them to find their place in the puzzle. (Daily OM, 2010).

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The byline for the day: Just Believe.

/ Kennedy Farr / 6 Comments

The image from this morning left me momentarily breathless.  It slowed me to a halt.  I witnessed an act of beauty – the anatomy of a miracle.

First, the sinking dismay that accompanies preventable, regrettable loss.  And second, the joyful bounce of unexpected prayerful return.  Kill the fatted calf – my long-lost has returned to me.

All of this amazingness – while driving downtown to my favorite coffee shop for my morning joe.  Generally, I prefer to pay homage to the four fundamentals of coffee brewing – freshness, grind, water, proportion – in my own kitchen.  But the clock had been hounding me from the moment my eyes caught their first peep of fresh morning light.  The alarms had done their jobs of multiple snooze . . . still, I had overslept.  I dashed through my morning routine: showering, picking out which pair of shoes would dictate the dress for the day, untangling some knots in my hair born from a fitful dream, walking the dog, feeding the cat, finding my keys.

Rush, rush, rush.  I met with every red light through the downtown district on my way to connect with some caffeine.  All of those courteous drivers who were yielding to pedestrians not at crosswalks or allowing other drivers to get into the lane ahead of them.  I was all but gnashing my teeth while murmuring my own dialect of cussing: toothpicks, trashbucket, rubybum, jesusmaryandjoseph.

I was at my 8th light when I saw a real-world diorama on the northwest corner of Holly and State.  There were three people waiting to cross at the light: a woman, a young-ish boy approximately nine years old, and a little redheaded girl dressed in pale pink tights, yellow dress, and black shiny shoes.  She was at that enviable age where tears can dry instantly and miracles still have the power to go unnoticed.

Life is all flow at that age.  I do remember.  So much stuff – the wheat and the chaff – pours into one vessel when you are three years old.  Entire lifetimes can occur in a single day – a single action – a single moment.  When you are three-years-old, life is in spontaneous mode.  Your awareness of control is underdeveloped.  You don’t exactly wonder how things are going to get sorted out.  They either do.  Or they don’t.  You might hope for the former, but there is the possibility of the latter inspiring some tears.

Movement caught my eye as I waited for the green.  The little ginger was pointing across the street.  Her hands pressed to her cheeks.  Her mouth a perfect O.  There, on the other side of the street was a bright pink hat.  The kind of hat you wear to church on Easter Sunday.  The woman was holding the hand of the little girl while pulling back on the hood of the boy’s green sweatshirt.  A veritable push-me-pull-you in action.

It did not require an advanced course in reading lips or body language to be able to hear their conversation . . . a study in exclamation marks.  The woman: An emphatic Stop!  You, come closer!  Wait!  You, be careful!  From the boy: Let me go! From the little girl:  Hurry!

The light changed to WALK, the woman released her grip on the boy’s hoodie, and the boy made his dash to the other side of the street.  Scooped up the ruby pink hat.  Loped back.  Plopped the hat on his little sister’s head all catawampus.  The little girl looking up at her brother: My hero!  Her hands adjusting her hat tighter to her head.  It was going to be a good day after all.

While watching, I couldn’t help but hope that the light wouldn’t change so I could see the rescue.  Vicariously experience the resolve.  The driver behind me laid on his horn.  His scowl and middle finger in my rearview told me that I hadn’t been paying attention to the light, the traffic, or my hurry.  I had been transfixed by the story.  Me: the one in the big rush, the one who had been cussing at courteous drivers, the one who had been tailgating law-abiding drivers.  Me: holding up traffic while watching something random and amazing.

The colors: the blue sky; the red hair and pink hat and new pale-pink tights; the baggy green hoodie and crayon-purple stocking hat.  The rescue: the heroes in this life.  The miracle: the joyful reunion.  The lesson: life does provide the chariot to our wishes.  The reminder: Hold loosely but hope for the best.  The hope for the return of some things in life is worth wishing for.  The magic: Just believe.  Life is good.  One never knows when a miracle is about to happen.  They happen every single day.  For this, I feel an immense and abiding abundance of gratitude. toaster oven

miracles can happen

“Life. It’s given to you. It’s a gift.”

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

gratitude-rainbowspiral1” . . . life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and . . . laughter is life’s sweetest creation.”                       — source unknown —

Gratitude.  What is it?  So many things and feelings and experiences.  It is simply enormous.  It is a whisper of a breeze.  It is beauty.  It is real.  It is vapor.  It is life.  We all have our own unique way of experiencing gratitude and of returning it to others.  Gratitude makes the world go around.  It is a gift that creates a good day.

always believeI have this quote hanging in my office on the wall near my computer: Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen.  I l-o-v-e this quote.  It is another way of saying that cultivating gratitude matters.  It is important to believe that something wonderful is about to happen.  It feels so great to just give in to the belief and go with the flow.

This video by Louie Schwartzberg is so very very beautiful.   I watch it when life feels absolutely fantastic and again when life feels as if it needs a reminder to look out, look up, look within.  Believe.  Celebrate.  Embrace the incredible gift of today.  Give to others.  And give some more.  Be happy. Cultivate mindfulness of the beauty that is all around.  Smile.  Laugh at the funny and at the absurd.  And at myself.  Live a life of gratitude and appreciation.

“Life.  It’s given to you.”

May “everyone you meet on this day . . . be blessed by your presence.”  Thank you for joining me today and for reading this post and blessing me by your presence.  It makes me supremely happy to know that we are sharing this moment of significance.  Thank you!

toaster oven

 

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?