Great artists inspire us to play it forward

Creation inspires me.  Whether that is the creation of the creator throughout our planet in the natural world or the creation of others.  

When I look at the creations of others I am stimulated, feeling myself naturally moved to think about a part of life, be that mine of the universal life.  Sometimes I am motivated to create something of my own.  Other times, I am able through my reaction to the creation that I look at to learn more about myself.  I am one of those people who can sit and look at paintings or sculpture for hours on end.  Or just sit on a beach watching the waves, absorbing the light. 

I love to chase light.  Often driving for miles to catch a sunset, or rising before dawn to see the new day bathed in sunlight.   And, when I talk about places that I love, very often I will talk - usually at length -about the brilliant light, that I experienced there. 

Day Six of Jeff Goins Series (15 Habits of Great Writers) suggests that great writers and artists steal.  There is something that sits uncomfortably with me about stealing from someone else.  However, I think it might just be a semantic because I believe artists inspire us to play it forward.  In that I mean to create something of our own. Our own piece of work, that belongs to us but one which had its seed germinated by seeing or experiencing, feeling another piece of work.  Be that music or prose. Photographs, paintings, sculpture, jewellery, film, buildings, drawings, food.

My favourite bible verse is 'In the beginning God created ...'  

Simply I find myself marvelling at the idea, that before God did anything else he got creative.  He Created!  Today Jeff asked us to share something that inspired us to create.  I have chosen my iPhone photograph of Hawthorn Blossom.  This June snow turns the countryside hedgerows into a mass of white.  The blossom begins to turn light pink as it ages.  I took this particular picture as I walked through the field on an early morning walk with Foinn.  The form, of the buds of the flower, the sticky green tinged with red of the leaves caught my eye, and got me thinking about the intricacies of life, the beauty of life in the small things.  It left me feeling quite etheral.  I created my art in this photograph by chosing an angle and a perspective.

Does this picture speak to you - what of?

What inspires you to play it forward, let me know in the comments?

Today I am linking up with the wonderful Sweet Shot Tuesday community hosted by Kent Weakley, please do join us.

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle - Life Remarkable

Believing in ME

    

Image by Chrissie Grace 

I highly recommend you visit Chrissie's blog.  She is one of my favourite artist's.  Her work is full of colour, beauty and grace.  It inspires me every time I look at it.  I bought a print of this beautiful image last year, and it sits proudly above my desk, reminding me that regardless of what else or whatever happens around me, that 'I believe'.

That's the secret I think, to believe regardless of everything else that is happening.  Regardless of how we feel or what we think about ourselves at any given moment.  Believing in ourselves is permanent, many other things are transitory. 

It has taken me a long time to be able to say, 'I believe in me'. 

It didn't happen overnight. 

Trust me, it hasn't been an easy process.  Instead it has been one filled, with doubt, with shame, with fear.  A journey against the words spoken over my life, telling me I was, 'a failure', 'stupid', 'you'll never achieve anything', 'your lazy a waster'.  A desire to overcome the past, to not be a prisoner to it, and to walk fully into my future. 

And, even though I can say it out loud now, 'I believe in me'  the strength of my conviction behind the words sometimes faulters.  It may be a whisper.  A murmur.  Barely audible.  Spoken with a tinge of doubt.  Slow faltering words that sort of stumble out of my mouth, or from my pen. 

I believe.

I believe in me, regardless of what others think, I believe in me.

Sometimes that belief, isn't quite 100%. In fact it is often anywhere but that.  Somedays those words 'I believe' are all that I can say that will help me to get me through the day.  So, regardless of how I feel about them, I make a conscious decision to believe. 

To set my mindset to one of belief.  I chose to say it anyway, in whatever way I can.  I say it out loud, I write it down and sometimes I talk about it.  The more I say it, surprisingly the more I begin to believe in myself. 

That is why I have Chrissie's beautiful piece of art in my study because it reminds me to believe.  And, it reinforces my mindset that I do believe.  I want to encourage you to surround yourself with art that helps you to  believe in yourself.

It isn't a mistake to believe in yourself.  It isn't a crime.  It's not self seeking, or arrogant.  Instead it is real.  Saying 'I believe' is actually you stating, I am thankful for the gifts that I have been given in this life, and I am going to run with them.  I feel like I have a responsibility to the gifts that I have been freely given, to live them in the best way that I can, and to encourage you to live your gifts, and your life.

'I believe' are often the scariest words I say to myself, or to others. 

But, they are words that I have to speak because as surely as the air that I breathe, I have to create, to let out what is inside of me.  My voice, my words, my pictures, my food.   By believing, by opening myself up and putting my words, my art, my thoughts, my recipes, my creations out there I stand alone, naked on the edge.  My work no longer belongs to me.  I cannot control people's reactions to it.  All I can do is put it out there.  In hope that they do have a reaction to my work.

But the one thing I have learned is that if we don't believe in ourselves, neither will other people.  Which leads me to the question.  If we don't believe in our writing, why should other people?  That's a scary question, but I think, one worth thinking about. 

It also struck me as I wrote this, what if we chose not to believe in ourselves, and instead chose to reject a part of our identity, that identity as a writer, do we kill a piece of ourselves?  Do we destroy our voices, by a lack of self belief?  Although we share many comminalities, our voices are unique.  We have a responsibility to ourselves to let that voice out. 

I suppose the question that y'all might be asking is, what do you believe in or about yourself?  Well, I have written about there here when I wrote about who I am. 

Today is the second day of Jeff Goins, 15 Habits of Great Writers, today I am writing about believing in myself.  You can read my first post in the series here, or link up with Jeff & the community that are taking part here.

Tell me, do you believe?

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable

What do you hunger for, does it reverberate in your soul?

On Friday's I love to hook up with the Gypsy Mama - and write for five minutes on Friday, and to post photos on Darcy's theme for P52 - a year of photos week by week.  Join us - P52 - Five Minute Friday

Five Minute Friday Prompt -

Loud

Music belting until I feel the reverberations of the bass in my soul, that moment that moves into the sublime, where music takes over.  My hands grip my wheel, and I drive, blasting off into the dawn, wheels spinning, mind knowing that I am going to that place of rest that place I hunger for - the beach - where the ocean laps upon the shore - where the waves anoint the earth.

Soon the music softens, an ardaggio replaces the pumping sound.  I onto the sand.  The music is silent.  Turning the engine off, I hear nothing but the waves.  They call to me as they crash to the shore. 

'Come, enter the ocean. Let the water wash over you.  Let it soothe your mind.'

I pick up my board, and I run into the waves. 

The feel of the saltwater on my face, my body - it anoints me with joy, with a sense of freedom, with peace.

The ocean continues to crash, but the noise brings comfort, warmth even to the echoes of my mind.

Waves ...

Riding them, as best as a beginner can.  My heart laughs, loudly, it feels free, even though I am constantly moving, balancing, trying to stay upright.  I fall in again and again, but I get back up and start to ride once more.

My weary soul finds peace in the movement, in the ocean, in the weightless that I become in the water.

The joy the surf gives to me, to the world. 

Makes me smile

Stop

Darcy's prompt for P52 is hunger.  I knew instinctively that I did not want to show food as hunger, as I wandered with my camera.  This bee caught my eye, on the beautiful spring crocus, and I knew immediately this was my shot.  The bee that incrediable creature, that holds many secrets to our eco system, that takes from the flower, but does not kill, that creates for us the most incrediable honey. 

'If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four more years of life left.  No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man' Albert Eistein (attributed)

The other pictures, are what I feel hunger for spiritually, physically, emotionally - the light of the dawn, of a new period, that signifies an end to the present, that I trudge through, and the space, the light, the reflection of the water as it laps on the beach.

What about you - what do you hunger for?  What is loud for you?

Happy Friday Guys.

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable

What can animals teach us about leadership?

Great conversation rocks my world.

Many a night I have listened, and chatted with friends, old and new, until the sky is streaked with deep purple, and orange, and the glimmering sun begins to rise.  Talking and listening.  Thinking.  Having conversations that go on all night.  Oh, I love them, conversations full of questions, that we might never find the answer too, but that are endlessly fascinating to think about or discuss.

I am still having conversations with friends that were started decades ago.  We start something, unpick it, leave it, come back to it, think about it, challenge each other.  We widen our minds, and open up to a new way of thinking.  I adore it.  Not every conversation I have is like this, but the one's that are, I love.

MINDS WIDE OPEN - how that idea entralls me, challenges me, inspires me, gives me energy.  Open to possibilities, to the wonders of the world, to what we can learn or takeaway from our interconnectedness.

These conversations aren't necessarily about who is right or wrong, although they can get heated, they are about the exchange, of ideas, and thoughts.  A desire to fathom, and think about the world we live in.  Right or wrong rarely comes into it because it isn't personal it is about the desire to think, and think deeply, to respond to words, or ideas.  Things that often challenge us to our core.

I understand that not everyone has the wish, the interest, the desire, the want, the need or perhaps even capacity for such conversation as this.  Plus if we were to talk like this all the time it would get tiring, boring even.  Dull.

IT'S NOT ABOUT RIGHT OR WRONG, it's not about offence - BUT THOUGHTS, IDEAS, SUGGESTIONS, POSSIBILITIES...

But sometimes, great conversation, as nothing more than an intellectual argument, as well as rocking my world, brings great sparkle to my day, and many of my friends.  We ponder for the desire to do nothing but ponder or think, not to prove the other wrong, but to ponder.  I know there is a time and place for this, and I realise not everyone wants these conversations.  I in no way am trying to enforce a degree that we all must have deep and meaningful conversations 24/7/365.

When I lived in CS Lewis house 'The Kilns' I was inspired on a daily basis about the great conversation that Lewis would have had with Wardie, Toilken, Sayers, Barfield, Williams - to name a few of the 'The Inklings'.  As I wandered around the house, and the gardens, sat in the kitchen or Lewis's study, lay in my bed I imagined the conversations that would have existed there between these great minds.  In my head I pretended to be a fly on the wall, imaging what they might have discussed.  How long the conversations went on for, how they discussed things, what they said to each other. Through reading about them, I know that they returned to ideas again, and again, challengeing each other.  Poking, probing, questions.  A nudge to the mind, to think about something differently, a challenge that rocked the foundations of one's thinking, a quiet agreement, the wonder at how someone else could reach that opinion, and a sip of bitter.

Heaven, Hell, Wardlaw, the ring, hobbits, poetry, Narina, language, syntax - ideas, thoughts, wonders, dreams, Aslan, the wardrobe, the white witch, deeper magic, resurrection, rebirth, life ...

Endlessly they could have talked, discussed these ideas, and from what I have read about them, endlessly they did.  Even just thinking about them talking, walking among the spires, and colleges, the bicycles, and gowns, makes me smile.

Lastnight on my Facebook feed, I put the comment - 

'Humans are the only animals who will follow unstable pack leaders.'

What does this instantly tell us?

That animals have a better instinct than humans for finding and following the right leaders?  What animals don't let madmen become leaders?  That animals are faithful from the top down?

Or maybe - are humans animals? What's the difference between a human and an animal? Can animals think? Humans are better than animals?  Animals are made for our consumption? Humans are above animals?  Animals are not human?  Animals are animals?

The possibilities are simply endless, and fascinating to me. 

My post didn't get to these questions, instead it sparked some interesting reactions.  What struck me most, however, was the immediate desire, some felt to tell me the comment was wrong, or at least the first bit, that we as humans are animals. Many of the responses I got didn't want to engage in conversation, just to tell me I was wrong.  

Everyone is right.  Everyone has the opportunity to engage or not engage with an idea.  It's a person choice.

Everyone spoke from their own point of view which I respect.

But what really struck me was the immediacy of the desire for some to tell me I was wrong.  

A gut reaction to the quotation - trust your gut, its always right.  Yes, I would agree, but just because we agree with something, or disagree, or have a gut reaction, or see it an idea as fundamentally right or wrong, does not mean we cannot engage with it as a statement, an idea or a thought.  The statement doesn't challenge our worldview, we do that to ourselves.

Did people, feel challenged, by that quotation?  Where they offended? Did they feel threatened, or they feel their beliefs have been attacked, by a comment that they disagreed with? Did they attack my posting of it in their desire to defend themselves and their point of view? 

I truly don't know, all I know is that I found the response very interesting.  For me it sparked a whole other question - our responses to what is written on FB.  The instant world we live in.  But, that's for another post.

'Attack is the first form of defense' - (Professor Brian Black) - words of wisdom that my uncle gave me as a young child, that I have found time and time again, to be true.

From all the replies I received - both public and private responses - only one person got past the first part of the sentence.  Engaging in the conversation at what to me was deeper level, the part that most fascinated me. Thinking about not about the idea that people might be classified as animals, but the thought that humans follow unstable leaders - Mau, Hitler, Stalin ( a few 20th Century madmen) - whereas animals don't.  Why?  My facebook post responses didn't get to the why of the quotation lastnight, but in my mind, I have played with the why of those words all day.  

It sparked endless questions in my mind like -

Why do animals not follow unstable leaders? Why do humans follow unstable leaders? What is a stable leader to a human? What is a stable leader to an animal?  Do they share the same characteristics?  Do animals have a keener instinct for survival? Can they spot a despot leader, in a way that many humans can't? Is it because humans have the ability to reason in a different way, that perhaps gives them an intellectual type of freedom, that animals don't have?  Do animals have the ability to reason?  Why do we as humans follow certain ideas?  What can animals teach us about leadership?  What about the hold that certain leaders have over their followers? How do certain people attract us to their worldview, that we can follow without questioning? Or do we question, but decide its safer to be quiet?

I don't have any answers, but I'd love to talk about the questions with you.

Personally whether we see ourselves, as animals or not, makes for great, and very interesting conversation. The right or wrong I think it is more dualistic approach, that limits thinking, but also makes for what could be stimulating conversation.  Of course we can have our own ideas about what is right or wrong, but rather than simply stating them, isn't it more fun to engage with an idea?  To think outside the box.

No everyone will agree with me, not everyone will want this conversation, and that's okay.  But for me, I enjoy it, not everyday, but lots of days.

There are so many places this quotation could lead us - what do you think ...

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable

Delight in love

Daylesford Organic one of my favourite shops, that I have written about before here, is filled with hearts.  Made out of cotswold stone, willow, marble, wood and other natural materials.  Daylesford is a shop filled with love - a shop that allows its visitors to fall in love with its produce, and products.  It is a place of love, something that very few commerical enterprises even achieve.  

The moment you walk into one of their premises, a wave of love welcomes and warms.  Gently wrapping its arms around you, the presence of love in Daylesford inspires all that it does as a company.

As I wandered around I was very taken with the hearts that appeared throughout the buildings.  They made me think of love - of people I hold dear - reminding me that I wanted to live a life of love.  Overflowing with love.  I want love to be central to all my actions, to my entire life, I want to live life from a place of love.

Today I am sharing the love with Darcy and her P52 project, I'd love to see how you share the love.  I am also linking up with the Gypsy Mama and her five minute friday - this week's prompt is delight.  Here goes five minutes, no editing, just free writing.

GO

Delight in love.  Delight in Love

Live a life of delight

Find yourself excited at what each day brings

Allow the wonder of creation to linger in your mind

Delight in the love that others have for you

Delight in the love that you bring to the world

Delight in your life, it is a free gift

Make it one of delightfulness

Delighting in life is your choice

There really is nothing like the feeling of knowing that one is loved completely for who they are

A love that is unconditional, a love that keeps no record of wrongs.  One of the most beautiful passages of literature about love, comes from the Bible - 

This is how I want to live, this is how I delight in love, and living.  Of course I don't always succeed - after all I am human and have my flaws.  But living from a position of love, brings warmth, and light.  It touches the world with hope.

Delight in love

Delight in love

Delight in love

Let it pour over you like the breath

Let your breath be full of the delight

Know that in the hards times the delight of love cannot be stolen from you

Delight in the love that surrounds you

Delight in the grace that holds the world

Delight in the love everlasting

Delight

Just delight

Fill your lungs with the delight of wonderful

Let your mouth find delight in what it tastes

Salt your conversation with delight

Let delight be your sparkle

Let your dreams be your delight

Hold onto your delight, guard it like your heart

because it too is precious

Delight - such a beautiful word

One of my favourites, like love

Delight in love

Just Delight

STOP

That's it for now...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable

be brilliant

"The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake." - Meister Eckhart

How many times do we not do something because we fear the result? Tangled, and entangled in fear we creep forward, barely looking up because we are scared, frightened, worried, concerned, that something will go wrong. Then all of a sudden that thing that we had hoped for, that little flicker of hope that we had breathed on, and blown into a flame becomes a terrible mess with the results left squarely at our feet.  

This terror that we might fail, leads us to do nothing.  To miss opportunities.  To drop out of events, or trips.  o take a back seat. To stay quiet. To not take the chance, the risk, the jump, or leap of faith.  We paralyse ourselves with inaction.  We dream of what if? But we never want to take the risk to get there.  We do this because we become comfortable - not happy or content, and always wondering what if -  but comfortable. Is this state is one of the most dangerous places are mind can be?  Does comfort stop us from reaching out, and taking the opportunity that is at our fingertips.  

Does comfort stop us from being brilliant?

To take the chance is frightening, I will not deny it, but it is also exhilarating, exciting, and enticing.  We edge forward in the hope that things will happen.  We know they might not work out as we have planned, but we chose hope and we give ourselves the chance to shine, to be brilliant. 

The fear of failure, the fear of everything, curses us, and makes us immobile, it stops us from being brilliant.

Maybe we are afraid of our own brilliance?  So we hide behind excuses, that make us sound better, that give us a shield, that take the eyes off our inaction, and onto what can be extremely legitimate and well argued  case for why we stand still.  However, well articulated our case, nothing, absolutely nothing, can measure how much standing still affects us in a really negative way.

Be brilliant go for risk, chance making a mistake, and don't worry.  Our mistakes are parts of our journey, parts of our life that mould us, and change us, that teach us how to truly live our best lives, the ones filled with brillance and stories.

Don't let fear ruin your story, take a breath, stand up and BE BRILLIANT.

That's it for now

Nics

salt and sparkle - life remarkble

John Hunter on Ted - Ideas worth Spreading

Don't you just love TED, head over there at any time day or night, and there is definitely a talk for you.  What a privilege to get to hear all these people speak for free, to share their stories with us.  For me that is what it is really all about sharing stories.  As I listened to John Hunter talk, I felt honoured to hear how he created 'The World Peace Game' and how this grew out of him asking the question 'What do you want me to do?' and the answer not being prescriptive, but instead being 'What do you really want to do?' 

I often wonder what we all, what I would do, what I could create, if I was doing what I really wanted to do - then I remember, that I am doing what I really want to do - writing, broadcasting talking photographs, telling stories - and sure, there is a long way to go, and sometimes, I feel right at the bottom, of an endless climb.  I see parts of the endgame - never the end, but parts of it, the bigger picture, and pictures. Often I wonder, why aren't I there yet?  How long? Why?   Then I remember, and trust me this remembering it can take a while, and sometimes I need to constantly download these thoughts to myself.  

I am at the beginning of doing something I love.  Right at the start.  I am pursuing it with all of my being.  I need to accept that this is a growing period, something has been birthed.  And, now that it is alive, and needs nurtured, it needs fed, it needs sunlight, and water, it needs encouragement, it needs love, and looking after.  It needs support, and that I must allow myself the gift of time, I must not expect everything to happen instantaneously.  I must not look at others further on the journey than me, and ask myself 'why aren't I there yet?'.  Instead, I must love my dream, live my dream slowly, putting one foot in front of the other, and allow it to be organic, and to grow, mm by mm.

This quotation from the beginning of John's talk has been dancing with me all day - the idea of how so much that is so very important goes on in the empty space around a table, as we talk and dream, listen, and discuss with others.

"We would sit around that table every night, and as we sat around that table, I heard so much knowledge, so many insights, and so much wisdom come out around that table, that I began to call it the wisdom table.  When he passed on I took this table with me, and it reminds me of what goes on around an empty space…"

That's it for now...

Nics

salt and sparkle = life remarkable