I want you to be out front, SEEN, and appreciated. Here are seven tips you can employ right now that will help you be more brilliant than you already are. Are you writing, podcasting, or delivering webinars? Amongst a million others, how are your presentations so brilliant that people remember you and your ideas for […]
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Tag: inspiration
Be A Fierce Bear about Your Art
You have to know the value of what you create. To me, whether it’s my visual art or my writing, it is the Divine Voice speaking with my voice and hands. Its value is incalculable. Never let anyone dissuade you from regarding your art as valuable. When my kids were little, they’d join me in […]
What Inspires You?
I was taught that “great artists wait for inspiration to come to them, and then they create.” So obviously, if I wanted to become a great artist, I needed to wait for inspiration to come. Well that’s just total BS. Smart me! I didn’t believe it. Life moves faster than that. And I don’t wait […]
Practice
I discovered that practice meant giving up trying to achieve perfection. What it really gave me was a calm, quiet belly. Many long years ago, I practiced Tai Chi Sword, and Naginata, a women’s sword-fighting art, where the sword is bound to a six-foot bamboo pole that extends the reach of the sword. There was […]
The Squall of All Squalls
I used to love to fish. Down at the dock, I’d dangle my feet off the end, feeling the outright peace being saturated with sun and calm and things-are-just-right brings. Sometimes I’d row a skiff out, and float around in the shadows under the piers, throwing in my line to see what I could catch. […]
Fishies and Buddies at the Bottom of the ...
I always think of my underwater scenes as reflective of our human life above the water. . How, at the very same time, life is so full of kindness and compassion, even as it is fraught with rampant killing and imminent danger, with safe and neutral territories and scary streets you’d avoid if you could. […]
Feed the Lot (A Dream that I wish was rea...
In a dream, I’m the manager of a catering company. We get an order to cater The Cattleman’s Association Annual Stockman Gathering. 800 people. I’m thinking, wow, 800 people! That’s a lot of people — I didn’t even know there was a group called that, much less that there were so many of them! So […]
You Know I Love Cats . . .
A long, long time ago, I had a black cat named Oedipuss. . He used to strut into the room where we were sitting, come stand by our feet, look around, and then oh-so-casually reach up and swat the dangling foot of the one with crossed legs. He’d then shrug like he’d done his dirty […]
“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?”
Have you ever wondered where an artist gets ideas from? I’m asked all the time where my designs, illustrations, paintings and sculpture come from. Well, here’s your answer! The simple answer would be, The Dream World. The more complex answer would be: dreams, flashes of insights, phrases I hear in conversation or on the radio […]
Comments, Connectedness, and Kindness
I wonder why people feel so free to be outright a-holes, mean sons of bunches, and screaming ranting judgmental karens out to intentionally destroy some innocent person’s reality. I’m thinking about the comments we all make online — on Medium, Substack and other article sites, social media — from Facebook to X to instagram and […]
I Had A Tantrum Yesterday, and It Wasn’t
Finding out I had zero choice set me on fire. I can usually put up with automated customer service, whether on the phone, or online chat. But this time? Oh my. We bought a new mattress/box-spring set from a company we found online. It was delivered, unpacked and set up; the delivery guys left; I […]
Are You A Writer or Author?
Do you know where to publish your articles and stories? I’ve added a rich list of various places to publish at the end of this note — you’ll want to bookmark and save this — lots of good info. Maybe you already know about websites where you can publish your articles and stories. I didn’t […]
Meet DAWG.
I bet you don’t know that there are dog-aliens. They look and act like our dogs, but you can tell at night, because their eyes gleam green when the moon is full. Dawg is a silly, fun-loving, very tall, very fast-running critter who came from the planet Outlandia, which is covered with very high mountains […]
Teachers: Make Money Selling Your Lessons
Here’s something that surprised me recently – did you know you can sell your lesson plans? You can! And people pay dearly for them! You can also sell your worksheets, class exercises, reading guides, and other helpful educational resources! ARE YOU A TEACHER/INSTRUCTOR/PROFESSOR? Why teach one group of kids in school, when you can teach […]
What’s Your Destiny? Mine Is Scary.
I’m assuming that I’m going to live to be 100. So I’ve been thinking about what I want to see happen in my life in my last 22 years. On the one hand, most of me just wants to disappear to a small hideout on the beach somewhere. I want to putter in a thriving […]
Get Your Audience Settled, whether Live o...
You’re about to lead a workshop or presentation. You want to begin, but your audience comes into the space full of energy, busy-busy chatting, walking around, chaotic. This is for you. What I’m about to show you works for in-person, online, and zoom events. The first thing I do is bang on my podium. Or […]
Sailing with Giants
27 Days Sailing from KAUA’I to CALIFORNIA, Part III As we began to plod our way through the Doldrums, I started having a recurring dream when I settled down in my bunk to sleep after my night watch was over. My habit was to lie in my bunk fully dressed, because I didn’t trust James. […]
How the Voice of Dreaming Saved My Life
Isn’t it funny how, even though a period of time was one of the most painful ones of your life, later on you can look at it as one of the most fortunate? It’s January, 1999. After returning from visiting a friend back east, I’ve been homeless for months because I can’t afford to rent […]
My Mind Starts Eating Before I Do
I’ll be sitting here writing, or doing some other task, and in the back of my head I’m busy preparing the juicy makings of a delicious tomato salad, or a nice spicy wrap around some cheese and micro-greens, or some yummy curried lentil soup… Or making art of some kind…. If I don’t get up […]
You’re Always Late! You’re So Annoying!
It was Sara’s 40th birthday party. I had barely walked through the door when she pounced on me, screaming. Right in my face. Behind her, the casual low-level murmur of party-din dissolved into a ragged silence. Every head swiveled toward us, mouths agape with surprise. I was so taken aback I almost turned around and […]
Unity-ness. Loch Ness. Lock-ness. Open-ne...
From a Dream, Narrated by The Voice of Dreaming: Word play. Philosophy in Silli-ness. The Doctrine of Jest. Farcicality of Foolery… Starting here and ending where? Unity
Last Does Not Mean Loser
(Published in Small Craft Advisor Magazine) We were in the last part of the first pack. The finish line seemed impossibly far away. It was right then that I made the most colossal mistake. I had been so proud! I’d been invited to be one of two kids to represent our local sailing club as […]
Why I Didn’t Follow You On Medium.com
And … a huge thank you to all the folks who have steadily supported me and liked, commented on and followed my stories. I appreciate you so much! 500! Never in my wildest dreams a year ago would I have imagined I’d be writing over 100 stories in ten short months, and be honored by […]
My Queendom for A Bag of Cookies
Yesterday, I was graced by the help of a young man who had no clue how much his assistance meant to me. Due to a funky situation with my back, I don’t walk — I hobble. And it hurts. All day, every day. So when I had to actually get a ride and go to […]
GIVE IT UP!
(Published in Small Craft Advisor Magazine) Sailing is more than ‘just a skill.’ It’s a life-and-death adventure every time you go out, and if you have even one smidgen of smarts in your head, you know you have to be prepared every time you go out onto the water. Since my parents took me sailing […]
TULE MAMA
A week camping near a lake, lava tubes, a mountain of chunks of beautiful black obsidian and volcanic tufa resulted in this carving… I never liked walking, so any time friends asked me to go hiking, I’d say no. But when my friend Bee, who lived all the way across the world from me, said […]
My Garden, My Angels
I kind of felt bashful, and laughed as I opened my eyes. I realized right away that I was expecting some kind of white-robed, human-shaped being to come into my view. Pretty silly of me – I know that angels take many shapes. It was slightly overcast that morning, the light mellow, muted. As I […]
Ten of the Strangest Fears You Ever Heard...
Tonight, when I was reading about fears, I saw this word: Kakorrhaphiophobia, so I decided to play google search. I love googling weird things. I’ll type two unrelated words in the search bar and hit go, just to see what comes up. Much to my surprise and delight, not only did the definition of Kakorrhaphiophobia […]
The Spirit Door
Suddenly, the plastic sheet in my hands quivered a little, and there! There it was! The Door! In a dream, I was with a man who was kind of Tibetan looking, but not. He was showing me a piece of sheet plastic — about a foot square, clear, shiny. He was shifting it around in […]
What Happens to You When You Watch Scary ...
Sometimes I do things that drain my energy. I forget to stop, and end up an emotional mess. Have you ever done that? A video I watched a couple of days ago that a friend sent me was one of those really well-done, 2-hour videos outlining how ‘they’ do this bad thing and ‘they’ do […]