An Hour A Week
Twice this week I’ve been gently reminded by two very different but equally dynamic women, both busy mothers, that spending an hour a week expressing your creativity is fundamental.
It’s important to nurture and feed the artist within, period. No guilt, no compromise. Set aside the time every week and commit. Whether it’s writing, painting, sculpting, the list goes on, it’s important for our overall balance. When the artist is fed, feelings of resentment decrease. When resentment is gone, there’s more space for joy, health is improved and we emit a higher vibration to our loved ones. This positive ripple effect is felt by everyone. Our children learn by watching us that creative play is an important part of life and we model commitment to our overall wellbeing.
One of the women is an artist who put painting on the back burner while raising her family. Now that the children are older she is picking up a brush again. Her art teacher commented, ‘imagine where you could have been if you’d just spent an hour a week.’ If she could do it all over again, there would be no back burner. It’s her only regret. Another women, painter as well, describes it as feeling dark when she’s not working on her paintings and everyone notices a change in her so she keeps it up to keep herself feeling alive, patient and vibrant.
I’ve been guilty of starving my artist but after these gentle nudges, I’ve taken the message to heart and will dedicate an hour (or two!) to my creative expression knowing it’s good for me, my daughter and the planet! This usually means waking up during the paperroute delivery hours but it’s absolutely worth it.
I hope this encourages you to keep life delicious through dedication to nurturing your creative being.
A Promise To Our Children
I promise to be the very best version of me
And guide you along to be the best you can be
I promise to nourish my mind, body and soul
And teach you to love yourself whole
I promise to honour you, treat you with respect
Be kind to myself and others, the example I will set
I promise to listen to you when expert advice conflicts
Co-parent with divine guidance, to sweet surrender submit
I promise the planet to clean up and protect
Fresh air and water you will have, not toxic effects
I promise to build a strong foundation of love
May you blossom my joy, a gift sent from above
- anne marie daniolos
Installing The ‘Love’ Program
This is the program the world needs now….
The Installation of Love!
Installing Love on the Human Computer…
Tech Support: Yes, how can I help you?
Customer: Well, after much consideration, I’ve decided to
install Love. Can you guide me through the process?
Tech Support: Yes. I can help you. Are you ready to proceed?
Customer: Well, I’m not very technical, but I think I’m ready. What do I do first?
Tech Support: The first step is to open your Heart. Have you located your Heart?
Customer: Yes, but there are several other programs running now. Is it okay to install Love while they are running?
Tech Support: What programs are running ?
Customer: Let’s see, I have Past Hurt, Low Self-Esteem, Grudge and Resentment running right now.
Tech Support: No problem, Love will gradually erase Past Hurt from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory but it will no longer disrupt other programs. Love will eventually override Low Self-Esteem with a module of its own called High Self-Esteem. However,you have to completely turn off Grudge and Resentment. Those programs prevent Love from being properly installed. Can you turn those off ?
Customer: I don’t know how to turn them off. Can you tell me
how?
Tech Support: With pleasure. Go to your start menu and invoke Forgiveness. Do this as many times as necessary until Grudge and Resentment have been completely erased.
Customer: Okay, done! Love has started installing itself. Is that normal?
Tech Support: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other Hearts in order to get the upgrades.
Customer: Oops! I have an error message already. It says, “Error – Program not run on external components.” What should I do?
Tech Support: Don’t worry. It means that the Love program is set up to run on Internal Hearts, but has not yet been run on your Heart. In non-technical terms, it simply means you have to Love yourself before you can Love others.
Customer: So, what should I do?
Tech Support: Pull down Self-Acceptance; then click on the following files: Forgive-Self; Realize Your Worth; and Acknowledge your Limitations.
Customer: Okay, done.
Tech Support: Now, copy them to the “My Heart” directory. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching faulty programming. Also, you need to delete Verbose Self-Criticism from all directories and empty your Recycle Bin to make sure it is completely gone and never comes back.
Customer: Got it. Hey! My heart is filling up with new files.Smile is playing on my monitor and Peace and Contentment are copying themselves all over My Heart. Is this normal?
Tech Support: Sometimes. For others it takes awhile, but eventually everything gets it at the proper time. So Love is installed and running.
One more thing before we hang up. Love is Freeware. Be sure to give it and its various modules to everyone you meet. They will in turn share it with others and return some cool modules back to you.
Customer: Thank you, God.
God/Tech Support: You’re Welcome, Anytime.
- Anon
A Drop Of Paradise On Earth – Brazil
Thank you Ana Paula, for sharing these beautiful photos of your recent trip.
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Contact Ana Paula Photography : paula_caria609@hotmail.com
Hope
This is my personal mission and the driving force of Pholia.
THANK YOU Danish Ahmed for sharing this post!
Find Danish at : http://www.facebook.com/OrdinaryWords
A Disservice To The Environment
During an interview and engaging conversation with the CEO of a solar panel company I realized what a disservice we green folk have been doing the environment by not being in green businesses earlier.
For so long, it’s been ‘wrong’ to be green and to profit. We’ve been living in a ‘this or that’ frame of mind instead of creating winning situations for people making a living doing goods for the planet. Thankfully, a few brave souls broke ground and paved the road – with environmentally friendly paving material – a showed us we can have both and it’s good to do both. Funny enough, most of these brave souls come from the financial industry, bringing their business sense to the world of green.
We are at the tipping point of the environmental movement and I can’t help but wish we realized that we would be doing ourselves and the planet a favour had we started sooner. As the saying goes, all in divine time.
Quesadilla’s, Ethical Business & The Envirnment
A recent conversation with the owner of an oh-so-cute Mexican lunch spot with the yummiest Quesadilla’s I’ve ever had left my taste buds satisfied and soul wondering about the definition of success and how we do business.
Jorge the owner is unassuming and brilliant. Before venturing to start one last business before retiring, he studied everything stats Canada had to say about the top three trends in the market, percentages, cities, demographics, colours and so much more. He used wisdom gained from past experience in the corporate world, his knowledge of having lived in other countries and his zest for life to breakdown what he wanted to do, where he wanted to do it and how it should be done. And he has indeed achieved success with sales tripling in a 3 year period. And you would never know just by looking at the place …
I applaud Jorge on his hard work and his incredible success and wish him the best of luck for the future. However, there was one thing he said that caught my attention, raising concern about the success and how we achieve it.
Location was chosen based on the kind of spending habits folks have in this area of the city, you know the folks that work all day in factories and plants and then spend every penny they’ve earned. Stuck in the vicious cycle of clocking in and out and then de-stressing by spending, they never save, get out of debt or achieve their dreams. These habits may make for one for very successful Mexican joint but it also makes for a very vulnerable city. One plant or factory closes and a whole lot of people are out of job and then the whole city is out of paying customers!
I started to think about how we use the statistics at hand. Statistics are an extremely powerful tool. What if we were to use the data to empower an entire city by educating them on how to use to the money they earn? How to save, plan to get out of debt and achieve bigger picture goals? Wouldn’t this make for a much livelier, happy and healthy group of people? Wouldn’t this make for a more sustainable, economic foundation for the city? And wouldn’t we still be doing business? But ethically??? A financial planner could charge modestly for a seminar and Jorge could provide lunch. Folks would still go out to eat but maybe not as often. Jorge could creatively fill that gap or expand in other ways.
I believe we reach a finite end when we use the power of statistics to prey on others. This type of success is limited. However, if we shift our perspective to serving and empowering others we nurture and grow abundance, sustainbility and experience infinity and limitless possibilities.
All of this is possible and we don’t need to wait for things to collapse before we discover there was another way. We only have to shift our perspective and ask ourselves if we’re being ethical and it can be done.
Better still we can stretch the same principle to environmental issues. We experience the planet’s resources as limited because of the way we perceive, manage and use them. If we applied a different philosophy, one that is grounded in ethics, respects all life and resources the way Native American practice reconciles every action with it’s effect on the next 7 generations, we would experience abundance and an infinite amount of resources. And we’d still have time for lunch.
That would be the coolest way to live.
Indoor Air Quality and Winter
My family and I first moved to the burbs when I was 12, into a brand new home. This was a big deal for my parents who moved to Canada very young, started with very little and worked their way to be able to afford this house.
For the first few years, we all felt sick with nausea, headaches and a kind of cloudy feeling after being in the house for a few hours. We all had our own theories about what was going on and it wasn’t until I was 17 and attended (back then, I’m 34 now) a ‘green’ workshop where a women spoke about ‘off gasing.’ It suddenly made absolute sense that this rewarding home was releasing toxins from all the new building materials and was making us sick. New materials will off gas anywhere from 3 – 7 years.
That’s where my passion for the environment first started, particularly in green building. I got my degree in Environmental Studies and have been running my own eco-painting and green building consulting company for the last 5 years. Our homes should not make us sick! And as green architect Martin Leifhebber says, it’s like putting ourselves and all these chemicals into a jar and then tightening the lid.
With the temperature dropping we are all spending more time inside and I want to share a few tips to keep the quality of your indoor air quality high to protect us and our little people. Indoor air quality is 5 times worse inside than outside*. We share the air and are likely to experience symptoms if we don’t take some precautions.
- Open windows daily, even a couple of times a day for a brief period. Do this in your car as well, especially if the car/home is newer.
- Bundle up and go outside, even if it’s just for a little bit.
- Duct cleaning (best time is before furnace season but it’s not too late)
- If you’re thinking about renovating or painting, use low or no VOC products. Yolo Colour House paint is my favourite for painting, other products will depend on what you’re renovating. There are lots of products claiming to be green, check specific levels and what standard they’re going by.
- House plants: NASA has performed extensive testing on indoor air quality and the capacity of plants to filter out the deadliest of toxins. The top 3 house plants to help in clearing the air are: Areca Palm (aka yellow palm or butterfly palm), Lady Palm and the Bamboo Palm. They are also easy to maintain*.
- HEPA filters (air purifiers, furnace filters or in newer vacuums)
(*Source : EPA, CMHC, How To Grow Fresh Air by Dr B C Wolverton)
