"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh with your whole being. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be ALIVE.”
William Saroyan 

Needed this little message this morning.  It is so easy to fall into the habit of just existing. I don't need big excitement every day,  I can be happy just taking pleasure from things that are there already.  Operative word is taking.  Being alive is a concious decision, you have to be attentive or you will miss it.

Anaemia is a Weedy Word

There was a child, a pale skinny waif, often listless and prone to fainting spells.  Wearing a pair of glasses, braces on her teeth, and with an obsession to grow the few hairs on her head into a ratty pony tail.  Paint on a bookish streak and extreme shyness, and you've met me as a teenager.   

If I was a plant, I would be some rangy weed, grown tall and translucent for lack of light.

Anaemia is described in the dictionary as a condition resulting in pallor and weariness.  Suggested synonyms for 'anaemic' include colourless, washed out, sapped and peaky.

At some point I outgrew anaemia, as our wise GP suggested would be the case.  I swapped the glasses for contacts, shucked the braces and cut my hair.  But I'm convinced that it was finally being a grownup that made me feel great.

Lately I've caught that weedy teenager looking at me in the mirror.  Depressed, lacking energy and enthusiasm, crying at the drop of a hat.  I speculated that I'm either going crazy and need to be institutionalized, or dying of some incurable disease.  At the very least I must be having the worst case of mid-life crisis ever recorded.  So off to the same (and much older) wise GP.
He took one look at me and said "Young lady, you have anaemia!" 

Oh relief.  Just the young lady part made me feel better already.  So, I'm fixing the problem with an iron supplement and eating lots of green veggies.

Soon I will overcome my weedy condition, and this blog will no longer look so peaky. 

Please note that Tin Soldiers Studio will be closed between 17 December and 25 January.

 

 

"What we want from art is whatever is missing from the lives we are already living and making. Something is always missing, and so art-making is endless." - Jane Hirshfield

Please note that Tin Soldiers Studio will be closed between 17 December and 25 January.

 

Please note that Tin Soldiers Studio will be closed between 17 December and 25 January.

New Year's Resolutions

The clock's a tickin' and in a few hours we will have our feet planted in a New Year.

Did you finish your New Year's Resolution List, or are you still scribbling?
I bet several of our lists have similar items on them.   
1.  Lose weight.
2.  Kick bad habit.
3.  Fix relationship.
4.  Make more money.
5.  Get better job.

Notice how we are always standing with our hands in our sides looking at what we 'don't have'?  Doesn't feel too good, does it?

I love this quote by Thomas Merton
 “We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.”

Every year we live brings unforseen journeys, but every year we achieve things too. Some of the things we achieve we never even had on that list.  We should not forget to stop and congratulate ourselves for what we have already accomplished. 

Close your eyes and imagine that you are standing 365 days into the future.  Look at everything you ticked off your list during 2014.  Doesn't that bring a warm feeling to your heart?  Sure feels good to have reached your goals. 

This is a fact.  Tomorrow is the first of 365 days.   If you start working tomorrow with a positive attitude towards your goals, it is possible that you will be standing in future where you imagine right now you are. 

Let 2014 be the year you let your positive attitude pull you towards your goals!