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November 27, 2014 In appreciation, art, design, inspiration By Patricia Saxton

A Humble Thanksgiving

One more for this season of gratitude… I think I had my Dad in mind when I made this simple poster. The wheat reminded me of his upbringing, a time when they lived off the land ~ worked from sunup to sundown, ate the crops they grew, made butter and cream and drank the milk from their cows, had appreciation for a good harvest. Nature was kind or troublesome from year to year, but they never went hungry (something to do with my Grandmother being a good cook?!). There were some very hard years, yet he claimed they never “wanted” for anything. An orange for Christmas, some hand-knitted socks. He never lost his humility, love for land nor respect for its bounty. There was a lot to learn from that.

May we all be grateful for our blessings.

October 29, 2014 In art, color, creativity, design, imagination, inspiration, poetry By Patricia Saxton

Things That Go Bump in the Night (… boo!)

I’ll be missing the trick-or-treaters this year, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get into the “spirit” of things. So I present you with some art and prose to keep the spirit alive. (oh, yea, I said that) Just remember to keep the little ones safe, stir your cauldrons slowly and never take candy from a goblin you don’t know.

……………………………..

All Hallows 
By Louise Gluck

Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
sleep in their blue yoke,
the fields having been
picked clean, the sheaves
bound evenly and piled at the roadside
among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:
This is the barrenness
of harvest or pestilence.
And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment,
and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling

Come here
Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

……………………………..

Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I
by William Shakespeare

Three witches, casting a spell …
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights hast thirty one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

……………………………..

And a song to sing:
to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”)

If you’re a monster and you know it, wave your arms.
If you’re a monster and you know it, wave your arms.
If you’re a monster and you know it,
and you really wanna show it,
If you’re a monster and you know it, wave your arms.

……………………………..

……………………………..

And off I go then.

But first I will leave you with this link to some really cool, very spooky art created by artist Don Kenn. Happy Halloween…. !

October 24, 2014 In art, craftsmanship, creativity, design, inspiration, presentation By Patricia Saxton

Vintage Vogue

These fall into the “they don’t make things like they used to” category. Not just because they’re well illustrated, or because of their artistry and creativity, but because of the cleanliness, the sheer un-clutteredness, the freedom from too many headlines and too much text vying for attention. They’re a breath of fresh air, courtesy of the early 1900’s.

Aren’t they wonderful?

vogue.year

September 11, 2014 In appreciation, art, design, leadership, life and the universe, philosophy By Patricia Saxton

September 11: Hope and Remembrance

At 9:00 a.m. on 9/11/01, I’d just come back from dropping my daughter at kindergarten. The sky was robin-egg blue, the air a perfect September calm. A neighbor screamed to me from her car, and the rest of the day was sheer horror. I will never forget. Shock. Agony. Grief.

Forty minutes away. Too close. Much too close.

That night we all gathered on my front lawn, a circle of candles and hearts and prayers.

You just don’t forget.

If anything good came from that awful day, it was that for at least a brief time we were one United States of America. We were all Americans. We all felt a pain in the pits of our stomachs, the lurching of our hearts, the constriction in our throats and tears in our eyes. We loved our neighbor, near and far, from cities to remote little towns, black, brown, white, yellow, red, gay, straight, male, female. We were family, a wounded family, and we grieved as one. Red, white and blue became the new black. We were proud, we were strong, we were one, honoring the brave and the lost and the taken. They were us, we were them.

Our hearts may have softened towards each other, but I also think how sad that we couldn’t sustain that sense of pride and family. Things calmed down, we went about our routines. Fell back into old patterns. Terror still threatens this world of ours, and yet we fight our own small fights, our petty snits, our egos drowned in the latest trend, the latest news, the latest gossip, the latest celebrity sighting. As if we can’t sustain loving our neighbor without tragedy to bring it about. Oh, but that’s human nature. Weddings and funerals. Drama brings people together.

We argue on the right, on the left, and we suffer the idiocy of politicians. I hear a lot of talk that doesn’t walk. I hear each news cycle replacing the last. Like some strange reality show, yesterday’s unanswered wrong overrun by today’s, and today’s by tomorrow’s. We numb. We stay medicated on electronics. Opinions aren’t debated, they’re spewed. We don’t listen. We don’t really see. The world is in shambles. We seem very divided. Something is wrong here.

But for one day, maybe just an hour, maybe only 10 minutes ~ we’ll remember 9/11 and that flood of love and hope and “don’t you dare” will fill us up. We’ll be a family for 10 minutes. We’ll remember why we love this place and the people in it. But maybe, just maybe, we can nurture that love and hope and integrity a little longer? Might the foundational idea that we are a free people nourish and inspire us, just a little longer? That it’s worth fighting for?

Can we recognize that there is light and that yes, there is also some very ugly, very dark scary shit in the world and it’s up to each one of us to know the difference and take up the torch right where we are with a battle cry to spread a little more light, a little more love, a little more courage?

There are some amazing people in this world, and I’m lucky to know several who take up that torch every day with all their hearts. We all know them. They are sincere. Let’s all be more sincere. Let’s honor the brave, the lost and taken with some blessings. Be the blessing in someone’s day. Be present. Be good.

And I had no idea this piece of writing was going to go the way it did, but I hope we can use this memory to remember that at the end of the day we’re all in this together. At the base of the fallen towers let’s plant hope, and water it well.

August 26, 2014 In appreciation, art, creativity, design, drawing, inspiration, intelligence, life and the universe, philosophy, words and language By Patricia Saxton

A Plethora of P’s: #72 / Pioneer

proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.

– ♥ –

When I was little, we lived on 7 acres of land, much of which was rich, thick forest with babbling brooks and scampering deer and a million sounds ~ a virtual chorus of bird calls, rustling leaves, frogs and crickets chirping ~ surrounded by all shades of green under a canopy of blue high above the tallest trees. I loved taking it all in. And I liked imagining how I’d get back if I wandered too far. Of course, I knew I’d find my way by remembering this particularly shaped boulder alongside that creek, or twin fallen logs a few feet from the fence ~ but it was the idea of the adventure. And I was an explorer, a pioneer!

Sometimes I pretended I was Lewis or Clark on a special expedition, discovering new lands, befriending Indians, looking for food, calming wild animals, dodging peril! Or I might have been Rebecca Boone, minding the homestead while Daniel was out doing good deeds on the frontier. Maybe I was Daniel on a mission with Mingo. Never knowing what would come next, if I’d get lost, how I’d survive, if anyone would hear me. This was exciting stuff.

But I realize now that being a pioneer doesn’t necessarily mean you’re navigating foreign lands, or inventing the next transistor radio or happening upon a never-seen-before animal on the Galápagos ~ or landing on Mars, for that matter. It can be as simple as adding some wild to your thought process, a little crazy and untamed. “Out of the box” as they say.

We can all be pioneering. We can walk the unbeaten path. (And there we might even find very cool things like this P-shaped branch!) We can chart a new course. See what’s around the next bend. Seek adventure. Write a new song. Open a new door. Inquire. Inspire. Lead. Teach. Dream a new dream.

We can delight in discovery. Big, small, personal or worldly ~ there’s always more to see than meets the eye, always more to learn than what we’ve been taught.

Life is the adventure, and not one of us has seen or done it all. There’s always more treasure to find, whether within ourselves, down the block or in the great out there. And I, for one, hope to never lose that sense of excitement from stepping now and then, even gingerly, into unknown territory.

(see our ongoing Plethora of P’s here)

July 18, 2014 In appreciation, art, creativity, design, drawing, inspiration, intelligence, life and the universe, philosophy, words and language By Patricia Saxton

A Plethora of P’s: #71 / Portals

proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.

– ♥ –

There are moments ~ sometimes big and unmistakable, sometimes just pinpoints in time ~ where we step through a portal from one world into another; from old to new, from shadow to light, from closed to open, from veiled to aware, from childhood to maturity.

Passages are inevitable. Still, we sometimes have the choice to walk through or stay behind, and we have minds and hearts to guide us towards those that are good and right and to turn away from those that are not.

And so, whether figuratively or literally, for the better or even the temporarily or seemingly worse, we find keys, turn knobs, open doors, step through. With little outward fanfare, and often imperceptibly, we learn, we grow, and are forever changed. And our experience here becomes all the richer.

(see our ongoing Plethora of P’s here)

July 10, 2014 In creativity, design, life and the universe, philosophy By Patricia Saxton

Hey, Um, Yea, Uh-huh

Distractions abound. Pictures. Ads. Videos. A constant hum of information. Noise.

Everywhere you go. Millions of people glued to their phones, checking messages, emails, texts, loading pictures to their social media favorites. Where is the luxury of time to ponder private thoughts or digest what’s being delivered virtually non-stop, 24/7/365?

And it’s not just our kids. Granted, they seem more obsessed, but it’s us, too. The adults. How many times when we’re with someone are we put in second place to an incoming call or text? How many nuances are missed, how many moments?

As a breed, we’re plugged in. But are we tuned in, or tuned out?

I, too, love the access. I love knowing I can reach loved ones at any time. I love the ability to seamlessly promote a business, to reacquaint with old friends, to make new ones around the world, to write this blog so that anyone on the planet might read it. I like the ease and unobtrusiveness of a text message. I like that I can shop without fighting crowds. I like finding information quickly. There’s some really cool, inspiring stuff out there. It’s a marvel. It’s a blessing and a curse. All of that.

But what starches my shorts about all this is not just that as a people we are “being distracted” and seemingly succumbing to it quite happily, but that “being present” is being threatened. The art of listening. The richness of conversation. The act of undivided attention.

Yet ~ I see glimmers of hope in the rise of things like meditation and yoga practices. It tells me that people don’t want to lose touch with their core. They want to slow down the “go go go”. They don’t necessarily want to be tethered to an electronic source, as much as it’s become almost essential.

I also find hope in the fact that there are still people who read books; and based on the sheer number of blogs out there, the realization that people still want to write. There’s a hunger to be heard, a desire to share.

And I think ~ I think ~ that within all the technological wonder, despite distractions, the “quick fix” and the instant everything, and even as some seem to be more awake and others falling asleep ~ there’s a real thirst for what’s genuine. For the organic. For the painting done with hand and brush. For the acoustic. For the face to face. The touch and feel. The messy. The unscheduled. The engaged. The spontaneous. The uninterrupted. For the very humanness of being human.

Let’s not forget! (What was that? Oh, sorry, just kidding…)

July 4, 2014 In art, creativity, design, imagination, inspiration By Patricia Saxton

A Plethora of P’s / #28: Patriotism

proactively punctuating life with the plausible, powerful possibilities of positive thought presented through a plethora of “P’s”.

– ♥ –

Patriotism is like a giant batch of team spirit… loyalty to your own, devotion to shared values, an overriding love of country, flaws and all. It’s a heartfelt high-five for freedom and a star-bangled banner ever waving o’er the land of the free and home of the brave.

~ Happy 4th of July, America! ~

July 3, 2014 In design, illustration, leadership, life and the universe, philosophy By Patricia Saxton

Celebrating America ~ With Eyes and Ears Open

Art by Kinuko Craft, from "Starts & Stripes"

Art by Kinuko Craft, from “Stars & Stripes”

(Note: I realized when I finished writing that this is a bit of a rant. Not a full-on, seething kind of rant; more a tempered one. Regardless, you’ve been warned, so bear with me ~ or not!)

I love my country. It’s home. Much of it is stunningly beautiful. It represents freedom, liberty, and opportunity; and comes with an intense desire to better oneself, to help others lift themselves up, to lend a hand when needed. We’re hard-workers with a fierce independent streak. (We’ve also got, in my opinion, the world’s best plumbing. Not to be sneered at!)

Sure, I may stray to my British and Scottish roots now and then, via my ridiculous love for tea or my way of slipping in and out of accents, or appreciating a certain dry humour (see? oops, that would be humor). I sometimes long for the large, open piazza’s found in European cities, and the marvel of living alongside history reaching back thousands of years instead of hundreds. Still, I’m glad to call America home. We’ve made our share of mistakes, but we are a good and generous people born from all around the world.

So I celebrate the 4^th of July with pride and gladness. It is, to me, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

But I am worried for us. Maybe it’s always been so ~ the way each generation worries about its youth ~ to be concerned about where the country is headed. Maybe it’s because news outlets and social media make everything so much more “in your face”; things we might have been oblivious to before. But maybe it’s valid to worry. There’s an awful lot on the table.

I have felt, for quite some time, a greater and greater divide growing amongst us ~ a divide which is proliferated by the media and polished off by our politicians (or maybe it’s the other way around). I find it extremely disturbing. It’s us or them, left or right, right or wrong, with each side cock sure of their stance. It becomes Righteous. Zealous. Fearful. Even Hateful.

These are highly charged times, igniting harsh debate – debates that are often shot down before they begin, because folks are so convinced of this or that, which of course doesn’t encourage intelligent conversation but instead shoves ideas aside where they stew with electric-like fervor.

I keep pretty mum on this kind of topic unless with trusted friends, and will most likely revert to that after this post. (This blog is a no-politics zone. Even this may too much!) But I will say that I feel we’re being manipulated on a grand scale. Before you shake your head yes, or even no, let’s remember we really don’t know – and if it’s true, we don’t know by whom or for what. We have our theories, we have bits and pieces of a massive puzzle, but I’m telling you this; it has not felt right ~ at all ~ and continues to feel worse. I’ll also say that ignorance can be bliss! But I worry that that bliss could find us in a place no one fathomed if we don’t pay attention.

I’m not talking about the emotional hot buttons that are used with increasingly rampancy as tools of persuasion, or to get votes or that turn you against your neighbor or family member who may feel otherwise. I’m not talking about who has what material thing when someone else does not. I’m talking about the grander element of personal freedom, and aspirations, and achieving greatness of your own accord in a country governed by leaders with principles who want to see you ~ and all of us as a whole ~ succeed, who will keep the roads and bridges in shape, and will fight with conviction and courage to uphold our freedoms.

So, with that larger picture in mind, this means reading articles from all points of view. Listening to opinions from all points of view. Watching news from all points of view. And it means you read, you listen and you watch, directly. Dig a little. Don’t base what “you hear” on what others say “they heard”. It’s all too easy. It’s all too convenient. It’s all too messy. And we’re all too busy being distracted by a million things, some worthy, some truly not at all.

This isn’t about specifics right here. I just ask that we be present and use our own fine brains. It can be a little tricky, because there’s “power in numbers” but there’s also “crowd mentality” where others are thinking for you. So I say, don’t be a voice in a chorus of voices unless you’ve done your due diligence. If you care about your freedom, as I care about mine; if you love this country, flaws and all, for all its glory, for all its beauty, for all its people; for all our hopes and dreams, for our children’s hopes and dreams ~ you will pay attention. Don’t let the magnificence that is the United States – that place you call home, that place that let’s you speak your mind and stand up for what you believe in and walk in protest and that sends every child to school and has kept us safe from harm ~ don’t let it slip away or be whisked or whittled away right in front of our eyes. Don’t submit to letting someone else make your decisions, or tell you that you can’t succeed without them or that someone knows what’s best for your child or what you can eat or not eat. Don’t even go there.

We are not the sins of our fathers, any more than Italians are all plundering Julius Caeser’s. We have lived and learned, and will keep on doing so. And right here and now is where we go from. Yes, there’s a co-mingling of deception, evasion and truth and it’s hard to take it all in, much less figure it out. And it’s all moving fast. This is the world of 10-minutes-ago being yesterday’s news. But yesterday’s news can have ramifications that last much, much longer. Pay attention!

Split or no split, division or no division, we’re still all in this together. And I believe that at the end of the day we all want basically the same freedom, liberty and justice for all. Please don’t fall asleep at the reality-show, America. Celebrate our birthday with joy and fireworks and commitment. If you think we should be like some other country, you can live there. If you live here and like it here, we may just have to fight to keep it strong.

p.s.: One thing that has kept me from falling into complete dread, came from watching the movie “Lincoln”. I was amazed at the contentious fighting, back-stabbing, hateful and divisive rhetoric between parties. Then again, we were in the middle of a civil war. And maybe those in positions of leadership have always been and will always be angry, aggressive and self-serving. Still, I’d rather pay attention than blindly follow. Maybe it’s just my genetic disposition (I am rather independently minded!) but I hope we’ll all keep our eyes and ears open.

July 2, 2014 In art, communication, design, inspiration, life and the universe, philosophy By Patricia Saxton

Outrageous Happiness #2: Super Powers

Seeing as the Outrageous Happiness Experiment has just kicked off, thought I’d check in with a quick update.

As if on cue, life decided to throw some curve balls ~ or, because it’s not uncommon for life to do that, maybe I’m just aware of them in a slightly different way. That doesn’t make them any more fun, but now that I’m consciously armed with an unrelenting turn-lemons-into-lemonade approach, I’m thinking I might be handling them with less angst. And less angst = more happy.

And yet, when staring down a sidetrack that clearly did not feed my happiness quotient, I almost went off course. I felt somehow responsible, put myself down, and got a little stuck there. But I rallied. It was yet another lesson learned (gotta love those lessons…) In fact, just this morning, I felt my super powers kicking in. (You have them too. It’s where you’re strongest, and truest. You’re lifted up.)

Here’s the thing though, before they kicked in, I sat down and had a serious conversation with the Universe. And I made sure to not just talk, but listen.

You might talk to God, you might talk to Divine Intelligence, or to your Higher Self, your Spirit Guides, your Mother or Father, sister or brother, a trusted friend. Guidance is available in many forms, and none of us, no matter how wise or experienced or content, is outside the realm of needing some now and then. In the process it’s key that you listen; you have to hear not only what you’re saying and thinking, but what you’re hearing in reply. Then listen to your heart and find what’s true. (And then, don your cape.)

How’s your Outrageous Happiness going?