by DEBORAH CLAIRE PROCTER Mondays can be challenging, overwhelming, un-nerving...
It can help to imagine that you can drop all that tension and un-wanted thinking. "Drop it" - like you'd say to a stubborn dog or an angry friend. Soften your self-judgement. Throw away the perfectionism. Then - Keep your eyes open... Keep all your senses open. I truly believe that the key to productivity is to key into your creativity, your ability to change things around, your urge to look closer, deeper, further - with better attention and more love. That observation skill isn't only through the eyes - it's with every ounce of your being. Then is the moment that we can feel adequate to whatever task to hand in a world that is tugging at our sleeves in all directions. Then you'll know that every second of your life is the best it can be for now and that this Monday will be a good one. .
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Joyce van der Lely (Dutch artist and educator) has a wonderfully encouraging and infectious warmth to her which made it a pleasure to be interviewed by her for “All of You” - a series of conversations and explorations on how to include every fabulous thing that you have to offer, created for multi passionate women seeking harmony in life and work. This free event starts today / tomorrow as Joyce is in New Zealand so for many of us we are a day behind. She leads frequent facebook lives from her this cosy corner in her studio that is like a sanctuary. When I first chatted to Joyce in an interview to see if we thought we could work together there was one line of coincidence which was her memory of holidays in Wales, including to Aberystwyth and to that town with the name longer than the railway station. This mixed with my memories of a summer school with the amazing David Zambrano at the School for New Dance Development (now part of the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts) when I was a student. Then what clinched it for me was the combination of our fluid conversation and the painting Joyce has in her office which was like a wild circle. It could have been an illustration for a short story of Borges. I love spirals and when she told me it was a work she'd made when figuring out her relationship to time, I was convinced. She has gathered really wild and whacky bunch of speakers who are from the fields of Mindset, Self-empowerment, Spirituality, Branding, Business/Careers, Creativity, Shamanism and more. With such a combination of Doodlers, Educators, Creative Directors, Feng Shui Consultants, Lifestyle Business Coaches, Poets, Transformational Coaches, Film-makers and much more, this event won't be for everyone yet for anyone exploring, re-examining their life choices and pondering what else there is to life, then there is sure to be at least one talk that will catalyse some unsung aspect or dormant desire into finding its feet. All of You - 16th Sept 2019 All of You is a week long online summit hosted by artist & coach Joyce van der Lely as a series of conversations and explorations on how to include every fabulous thing that you have to offer and created for multi passionate women seeking harmony in life and work Stolen Moments - Joyce van der Lely
A poem - I think some of you will love this one - it certainly made me laugh creativity coach and author Sam Bennett's homage to "Women Who Workshop." I think it is to all workshop junkies out there in praise of our unstoppable search for more or better. Guilty as found! Can you go to too many workshops? I don't think so. http://bit.ly/Samantha-Bennett-Women-Who-Workshop-poem Fill in this form below if you'd like to get Clear Insight Production's monthly newsletter.
Transfixing and hauntingly delicate Karakuri puppet, mechanical dolls and automata from Japan.
"The word 'Karakuri' means a mechanical device to tease, trick, or take a person by surprise. It implies hidden magic, or an element of mystery. In Japanese ‘Ningyo’ is written as two separate characters, meaning person and shape." (LAW 1997, p 18) Watch video LAW, J. M., 1997. Puppets of Nostalgia. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sited from http://karakuri.info 31.08.16 What better gift for an 18th birthday than books, especially if it is a surprise gift from the Italian government. Christopher Hooton, in the Guardian describes the new and farsighted policy, "In a move designed to remind young people that culture can enrich one’s life and bring people together, Italian citizens are to get a €500 (£430) ‘culture bonus’ on their 18th birthday." Wonderful to see a government place such a high value on culture. Perhaps the move will be picked up by other countries as Italy sets an example. “The initiative sends a clear message to youngsters, reminding them that they belong to a community which welcomes them once they come of age... It also reminds them how important cultural consumption is, both for enriching yourself as a person and strengthening the fabric of our society.” See full article here The news around the world is a whirl wind. We search for a horizontals that seems it will take us forever to re-find. In this light whilst leafing through old journals I found an inspiring quote from the determined British film-maker Terry Gilliam who has seen his fair share of up and downs, and the twists of outrageous fortune. Read it to take your mind back to its creative problem solving centre... As a child, I always drew funny creatures, funny characters. But I think the trick is not to grow up, not to learn to be an adult. And if you can maintain the kind of imagination you all had when you were babies, you would all be wonderful filmmakers. But the world tries to make you grow up, to stop imagining, stop fantasizing, stop playing in your mind. And I’ve worked hard to not let the world educate me. Whole article: Ten Lessons on Filmmaking From Terry Gilliam It's a rainy Saturday in Buenos Aires and Oscar Edelstein just shared a homage to the late Muhammad Ali on his Facebook page. Maybe it's strange that an avant-garde composer would be moved to post about the passing of a boxer, especially with so many perceived divisions between high and low culture. Yet perhaps what Edelstein noticed with the nose of a life-long experimenter was Ali's spirit as a searcher speaking out, and looking for meaning and new perspectives. So it seems a moment to follow Edelstein's lead, and share the historic interview with Sir Michael Parkinson, who said today that Muhammad Ali "was the biggest star they've ever had boxing, and maybe ever will have." The interview is the famous speech where Ali asks why are all the cultural images - from angels to Tarzan in the jungle - are of white people. Asked about the first time he met him backstage, Parkinson said: "It's not often, given the job I had, that I was allowed to be gob-smacked, but he did gob-smack me as he walked across the floor. I'd never seen a more graceful and beautiful man. He was extraordinary." As Edelstein wrote, "This man was the greatest boxer that I have seen but someone who also thought, and this is what they never forgave. See the interview, it is really not to be missed." The interview is from 1981, an incredible 35 years ago, when this kind of discourse around race was not so mainstream. So it seems that Ali's bravery in the ring was really therefore nothing compared to his fight to speak out. Ali died the same day that in her final commencement address as first lady, to graduates of City College in New York, Michelle Obama talked about diversity; free speech; the achievements of United States such as Google, eBay, the artificial heart, the telephone, blue jeans, Russian-born Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," the Brooklyn Bridge and the White House; and she even acknowledged that she wakes up every day in a house built by slaves. She remembered "the son of Polish immigrants named Jonas Salk who toiled for years in a lab until he discovered a vaccine that saved countless lives" and "the story of the son of Jamaican immigrants named Colin Powell who became a four-star general, secretary of state, and a role model for young people across the country." Michelle Obama spoke about the danger of building walls. Of course we all know that walls can be physical but also intellectual and emotional, they can be of class as well as of race or religion. My naive hope is for a future where the only walls we will need are those to put bookcases against. In remembering the brave voice of Muhammad Ali, I hope that we also take a moment to remember to include in that list of achievements of the US many more figures such as (to name a few) John Coltrane, Spike Lee, Prince, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Josephine Baker, and of course next on the list, let us now hope, that Muhammed Ali will be there. Thank you for provoking us to see the world from a different angle, Muhammed Ali. When you get to heaven may you float like a butterfly, and please let us know that the angels really are from all walks of life. RIP Muhammad Ali. He who is not courageous enough to take risks Muhammad Ali Copyright © Deborah Claire Procter 2018 Clear Insight Productions, All rights reserved.
Recently I shared on the Clear Insight Productions facebook page the image above. Then this week I was amused when a colleague in the USA, a writing coach called Elaine Bennett, picked it up and wrote about it in her blog (see here). She took my impulse to share it (which I did partly just because for me the words fuzzy felt just make me feel warm and cosy), and wrote about it in a way that wouldn't have occurred to me in a blog post entitled "You don't think like us". Apparently Phil Lucas is a British comedian - a fact that I hadn't even looked into. What had struck me was the way the image humourously captures that certain kind of determination to adapt to the circumstances come what may - something with which all "creatives" can identify. Elaine Bennett wrote about another aspect, that of how her corporate clients say, "We love talking to you... Because you don't think like us and you don't talk like us" - sometimes it is good to be reminded that being absorbed in culture gives access to ways of thinking that are vitally needed in the world. Hats off to creativity and to Phil Lucas who made a great piece of viral marketing.
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