I’ve been listening to Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader on Democracy Now. The interview by Amy Goodman started with Dennis Kucinich apparently is the deciding vote on the healthcare bill as it stands. What I understood from the interview is that Rep. Kucinich had little choice as there is no consensus in the congress to provide a public option within the bill, which I still don’t understand what that means. Kucinich has compromised his desire for a fair healthcare system in order to get the bill passed. Rather this bill than none, is his position.  The conversation went into the war in Afghanistan and how we have become a society that accepts war as a natural course. Ralph Nader contends that we are being yet pushed aside for the bigger interest of corporations. He wants the American people to get angry and demand a system that provides healthcare for all. He wants us to take to the streets as the people in France do. Civil demonstration, peaceful demonstration, letting our voices be heard that we are not a society that wants war. We are a society that wants peace. We want love to be the dominant force in the world. I am in agreement that we must all take a stand personally. Begin with self. Let your desire for a peaceful and loving existence begin in your heart, your soul, your entire being. Be peaceful and loving. Peace and love starts right here.

The start of a new day, new week, new time zone and most importantly a slide into spring! Winter was a more difficult than most winters have been in the years I have lived in Asheville. But who wants to talk about snow when there are green shoots popping up in gardens, birds preparing their nests and a general feeling of “wooohooooo, we made it!” in the air? Let’s focus on possibilities. What is new today that wasn’t apparent last Monday? It seems we have learned that there is a time for every season. We’ve been strengthened by the more difficult moments, preparing to be all we are, through the restraint of being held captive through weather and economy. Think about the most glorious flower being groomed below the earth to grunt its way through the warming soil, soak up the nourishing rains to grow the bud and finally spring open and face the sun. It’s spring, y’all.

When I was in first grade, our reading workbooks were “Think and Do” books. “Dick and Jane, we look and see, we work and play, we come and go.” I just pulled this image off the internet. Did it really look so, well, 1950-ish? And the answer is of course, as it was 1950-ish. Oye, how time flies. Why I thought about Dick and Jane is this morning as I walked around Asheville, I saw a very defined and colored inside the lines print that said “Draw outside the lines.” While my friend and I puzzled at the depiction of such a directive, I immediately went back in time to the day that Sister Alice Mary smashed my little hands with a ruler and hung a sign around my neck that said “I am a dummy”. I had tired of coloring in the multitude of little leaves on the tree hiding Dick and Jane and friends faces and taken the broad side of my crayon and simply colored the whole tree (and spaces between) green. That day I learned to color strictly inside the lines. Note my very distinct black line art style. Good things do come from kinda icky things.

Sister AM’s message had a big effect on my life. Do not think and do on your own, but follow strict rules or experience pain and be labeled a dummy. My little 6 year old self bought that, as many little 6 year old selves did and do. We give our little ones messages that being who they are is not acceptable. Conform or lose. My mission in life is to counteract that message and encourage a new message that who you are is SO much more than enough.

So please. Let your little one (and that might be you) be who they are. Support and direct them to explore what that might be, who that might be. Watch them and learn for yourself how to live life with creativity and allowance.

Maybe you have noticed that I have been having difficulty writing every day for the last few weeks. Apparently I am in resistance to digging a little further into the truth. In these early weeks of 2010 I seem to be having an identity crisis. Who am I? Am I the person I think I am? When someone asks me what do I do, I respond with a clutch in my throat that I am an artist, a writer, a teacher, and finally that I make my living through graphic design. And I wait for some sort of etheric affirmation that doesn’t come clearly enough for me to believe I am right. And then how could I not be? The measure seems to be where does the money come from. I can only settle into the last part of the statement, making my living through graphic design. Kind of my blessed little fall back since I haven’t been able to slug through creating my living through what I believe is my purpose, my calling. And so I write my blog, I illustrate Verbal Remedies and post them, and offer them for sale. Hoping something sticks well enough to create traction. What does traction look like? Traction is the number of readers of this blog growing exponentially, sales of the product line taking off and supporting me, teaching gigs at least once a month, having a consistent partner to work with daily. “Where two or more are gathered, amazing things begin…”

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Click on image below to listen to Verbal Remedies podcast.

This weekend was full up with possibilities as the moon rose to full. Yesterday I went to Jubilee!, a “creation spirituality” church in downtown Asheville. I don’t go so much anymore, though when I do I am always touched either briefly or deeply. Yesterday was deeply moving. A friend I hadn’t seen in 6 years came up from Raleigh. When I knew him, he was sad because he wished his life to be full of love, a wife, a family. He came back yesterday with his family to celebrate his son’s 4 year old birthday. To see the peace and the joy on their faces filled me up with love like a rushing river of hope. Howard Hangar’s (the minister) theme for the day was magic. Seeing the magic. When we see the magic, we can have it. If we miss it, we cannot have it. Look for the magic this week. It is all around you.

Well, here it is. The Earthship is shaking some of the dust off…that would be us. Can you not hear the call to get busy? Sitting in your stuff twirling it around isn’t getting anything done. Get up, get out, do what you came here to do, be who you came here to be. Now is the time. What do you need to happen in your life to get your attention? Do you need some personal tragedy to wake up? Or can you take a deep breath, stretch out your legs, place your feet on the floor and get moving? Do whatever it is that comes to you as the most fruitful thing you can do with who you are. If it simply means being a nicer person, do that. Start there, in fact. However nice you are, however kind and loving you are, step it up a notch. Surely a song has been written about all this? We’ve sung it, we’ve danced to it, we hear it in our head. “There’s a place in your heart and I know that it is love. and the place could be much brighter than tomorrow…Heal the world, make it a better place.”

My mother sent this to me. My grandmother would have been the woman to whom this was addressed. Thanks to all the women who made things different for us here in the 21st century.

Here we are mid-way through the week and I am just getting back enough in my head to write some Verbal Remedies. If you’ve been reading, you know that last week I was in Phoenix filming a movie in Tent City. If you haven’t been reading, now you know. Tent City is part of the Arizona prison system. People who are arrested for DUI are sent to Tent City. Have you ever had a drink and then gotten behind the wheel of your car? If you’re like a whole lot of people, you have. If you are like the people I saw in the tents, you’ve gotten caught. You don’t have to be intoxicated to be arrested. One drink will send you to jail in Arizona and make your financial world turn upside down with fines cresting $10,000. Then for a year you are reminded (if not for other reasons) by the breathilizer installed in your car in order to make it start.

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Tomorrow I am flying to Phoenix to be in a film that is being shot in the Arizona prison, Tent City. The film is about being arrested and charged with a DUI. In Arizona, there is no way out once arrested. You are going to jail and your life will never be the same. I know, not firsthand but second hand. Two people very close to me have been charged with a DUI, a year apart. I spoke with both of them as they went in, during the days when they were given opportunity to call out, and afterward. One of the things that has come out of these experiences is this movie.

As I head into this experience, I am aware of the fear that rises up in me…

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No matter what your own personal beliefs are about Valentine’s Day, it is. Valentine’s Day. I am happy one such day exists. We do forget, as we go along on our way through the world that is a bit tougher than what we have been used to at present to focus on love. Today we are reminded by hearts everywhere that today is a day to focus on love. We have the excuse to be corny, cute, and extra loving today. You gotta admit, what the world needs now is love, sweet love. So forget that the retail world is asking us to dig into our wallets and buy, buy, buy, followed within a breath of the green holiday coming up. Buy it or not. Give love to everyone today, starting with yourself. If that seems too big a task, just find something about yourself that you think is pretty cool and realize that you are pretty happy to be you, warts and all. When you fill up with that enough that you feel like love is leaking out of your pores, go out into the world. Go to the grocery store and be extra nice to the cashier. Exude the joy of being alive. Walk up and down the aisles buying your food and, whether you even make eye contact with someone, that feeling of love will wash through them when you pass by. I know. Corny, right? Well, hey. It’s Valentine’s Day.