fashionRIP: gifting the world

Showing posts with label gifting the world. Show all posts

Friday, December 23, 2011

Give Presence

Photo site: 45th and U Dist Library, Seattle

Empathy and nonviolent communication for healing relationships as described by Dominic Barter in the Empathy Documentary Project, really got to me.

Consider the gift of being present this holiday season; for empathy can transform the person being truly "heard" and that encourages growth. When we reflect back another's presence we can empower them to see for themselves how they are able to change. We hear ourselves better when others hear us. That is beautiful.

This is a gift, a new tool that we can share sustainably. As we understand more the limits of our current situation we need new tools and practices. (Einstein law of repetition -"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".)

We are a civilization in need of responsive adaptation to a reality that was unknown when we started building the systems that now control our very lives. If the super food of life is our giving of presence to each other then go forth and give abundantly. This is about living in an understanding of connected reality and that changes the paradigm.

I am personally coming from a place of not being heard aka, being misunderstood. I felt i was rarely validated for who i was, but for who i appeared to be, even though i was the one that set up that persona.

I tried to reflect in life a collage person of fashion and glamorous decadence. i pieced myself together from the sound bites, movie clips and images that i responded to. But when i was perceived as such, i felt very alone. I fought back by looking for cracks in everyone i cared about. I thought that way i would find the truth but instead i just broke things.

Then i tried to assert my transforming self and that made matters worse. I think i came on like a shipwrecked alien, people, men especially, couldn't relate. I started to experiment with life because what i had believed in proved to be lossy, and there had to be more. I had faith in 'the more."

If being truly heard can evoke healing and if listening emphatically to others helps us see our common beingness, then that means we can transform at the rate needed to overcome the wrong mindedness that appears so dominate and deadly. This transformative action is something we can all do every day.

We can transcend our primitive past and come towards our becoming. We can bloom in spirit, love and gratitude.

I am challenging myself and others to start gifting the world with presence. Lets experiment with it, and share our stories, let's see what happens. Cheers!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Happy Winter Solstice

fabric scrap cards for Winter Solstice,
i delivered them right after this picture was taken.

On the threshold of 2012 let us move forward with Heart. Gifting the world, passing kindness, compassion and joy we will co create the new paradigm that resonates with the connected, interrelated reality we now understand.
Peace and blessings this holiday season.

Video by Life Vest, enjoy the heart.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Gifting the World

Tacoma bus stop, on the way to my evaluations at TESC, i had a Banksy moment. Propped against a concrete pillar was a framed print of a still life landscape. Highly romanticized, i am guessing it was circa mid 80s, in great condition.

I had to take a shot and in the process a tall gent told me I could have it, he had rescued it from a dumpster. I told him i was on my way to school or i would take him up on the offer. Then we spoke of recycling and as he walked away, i thanked him for gifting the world. When he turned around and grinned, we shared a beautiful moment of being. I am so thinking the sun came out!

The silence of others broke as well and humanity touched grounding. We are made for this.

Oh and my evals, excellent. My prof gets me now, though suggests i slow down and walk people through my ideas. Turning the paradigm from "profit" to nurturing the potential of everyone releasing the amazing possibility of life, got me a thumbs up.

Thank you Dr S. (science base) I needed that!!

Why it Matters

What's the matter with more and more fashion choices?

It sounds good; we love to be able to pick the perfect outfit. You wear it once or twice and then ....what was the real cost here?

Your time to shop and the money spent, not so much ....go a little deeper and consider the fiber source, the dyes and chemicals used, the health toll on the workers, the energy to run the machines, the transporting carbons...and now it just takes up closet space. But so what? It's been going on for-almost-ever and you didn't make the rules.

In fact we are told this is what a "healthy" economy looks like.

You will recycle it after all, give it to charity or your sister. This is more transportation and more release of those greenhouse gases. We are using a lot of our personal energy and the resources of this planet to make, use and dump "trash" Some rags, remnants and tawdry bits will molder for eons in landfills, as nature's microbial actions are hampered by our normalized, everyday toxic lifestyles.

This goes beyond dumps as the breakdown cycle that nourishes the life of this planet has been sorely challenged by GMO crops, fertilizers, pesticides, antimicrobials..RIGHT!!. All the "living better through chemistry" propaganda after WWI and II- AKA how to sell your "garbage," is our legacy. Well no more, not on my (our) watch, we are seeing things quite differently.

As we now carry 298 toxins in our bods that weren't there in the 1930s the toxic residues of normal are haunting us more and more. Ironic, no? Advanced is merely a word.

Go to the So Whats the Point blog in February for the numbers.

fashionRIP posts are copr at time of posting thank you

Extinctions ...So What?

Life evolves, some species survive some don't. We like to allude to Darwin's "natural selection" or Herbert Spencer's "survival of the fittest" because we are so good at reproducing and taking over this planet and justifying that side of our natures. The fact that we are wiping out the food chain by destroying habitat, fouling air and water and generally behaving like arrogant, tinkering idiots, is called business as usual. .....Well I and others are no longer buying that "sell."

We are wising up to the idea that we too, are dependent on these resources. We too, are physically an organic species and we really don't know what little extinction will be the start of the chain reaction that collapses the structure that we too, are dependent on.

Is this the price we are willing to pay for a pair of plastic shoes?

I say no, that despite the focus on the physical, we are more. We are heart and soul, mind, body, spirit. We are born of stars and we can and will leap over this world view based in old, untrue beliefs led by a science of isolation and religions of patriarchal, hierarchical constructs (your basic dominating Dad- with self reflective rights to rule). It is time to come together and heal. To transition into our fuller expectations and open the new possibilities. We are born with genius...let us help each other get to where we all can shine.