wordart with ❤ by becky jaine
poetic words from dawna markova, I will not die an unlived life.
i choose to risk my significance (wordart)
May 21, 2013
i am (a poem by my teacher)
May 9, 2013
My children are my teachers. I am amazed and inspired by how they see and interact with in our world, and how they use language to interpret and express nature through words.
One day last year I was feeling a bit sorry for myself because I have not yet become a published author (outside of business arena). That very same pity-filled day, my daughter’s poem arrived in the mail published and bound in a beautiful REAL book: a collection of children’s poems.
Opening the package, I realized my daughter is a “published author” because it’s more important that I give my total presence and attention to my children and not spend outrageous time away from them, promoting myself to achieve this particular personal goal. As their mama, I have the responsibility and privilege to love, nurture, help and witness my children SHINING and support them as they discover things that bring them joy.
It is important for my daughter’s creations to be celebrated so she develops a healthy sense of herself and her creative prowess. To celebrate Mother’s Day, I am humbled to share her amazing 9-year-old words with you.
I am
by Twinkle (written last year at age 9)
I am a lion with a lot of crazy hair
I am a furry wild animal that is called a bear
I am a bird and a mother that is giving birth
I am what I am and I am…THE EARTH!!!
I am a tree and clear sweet air
I am your body and I am your hair
I am green grass and I am a flower
I am what I am and I am… THE POWER!!!
I am the basil that grows everywhere
I am a table and I am a chair
I am the vines that have twisted and curled
I am what I am and I am … THE WORLD!!!
join the kindness cartel; three acts EVERY day
April 22, 2013
In New York City last August my husband and I discovered a national treasure NOT on our tourist map: the One Million Acts of Kindness bus. This vehicle (which is about to be retired) has helped Bob–the inspired driver–and Bogart–his dog– reach destinations across the US committing acts of kindness. Bob is living his life with the intention to commit 1,000,000 acts of kindness in his lifetime. What an amazing proposition.
Imagine our world if everyone lived with a similar intention.
Let me share some numbers. If Bob lived to be 85 he would have to commit 11,764 acts per year: That’s 32 acts per day.
Let’s see, I’m 42. If I do at least three acts a day for the next 40 years of my life that will mean I’ll have done 43,800 kind acts.
Sounds like a good round doable number. Yes, that’s it … I’m IN!!! I promise to commit at least 3 acts of conscious kindness a day starting NOW.
Won’t you join the Kindness Cartel? Imagine if our world used kindness as currency. Imagine yourself constantly looking for opportunities for kindness. Strangers and everyone in your life … how would their lives and your life change?
Kindness begets MORE kindness. If we focus on being kind we will not only generate positive good for others, but we will be surprised to find MORE goodness in our own lives.
Kindness matters. Kindness is contagious. More kindness means more joy and less suffering.
☼ happy earth day ☼
peace love & kindness
☮❤ becky ❤☮
come let’s be a new spring ~ Rumi
April 12, 2013
come
let’s fall
in love
again
let’s turn
all the dirt
in this world
to shiny gold
come
let’s be
a new spring
a love reborn
find our aroma
from the essence
of all who
emit heavenly fragrance
like a fresh tree
bloom and spread
all the blessings
right from inside
~Rumi
(translation by Nader Khalili)
♥ photo credit: all glory to the sun, mother earth, and cherry blossom trees ♥
happy ray #6, passionately blissful
April 2, 2013
When was the last time you felt total unrestricted BLISS? I heard this video on RadioLab this weekend and was so compelled by the audio, I HAD to see the man behind the bliss. He had been on travelling across Antarctica for 3 months and was digging for his final stash of necessities, buried at the beginning of his polar adventure. (You needn’t understand his beautiful language: bliss is like love, it shines across language barriers.)
Depression is not only demonstrated by apathy and sadness but also a deficit of expressing joy. Modern culture is totally joy deprived and bliss starved. Despite the vast array of opportunities for joy presented daily to us, more often than not we don’t “go there.” Perhaps we worry about what others might think. Perhaps we have forgotten how to experience bliss. Or perhaps we are locked into a normal routine.
If you don’t play or attend team sports, chances are you aren’t regularly jumping up and down for total bliss and joy and triumph when you have something wonderful happen in your life (or do you?). I need to work on this myself. I have much to be grateful AND much to jump for joy about.
Here’s my challenge to you, a bliss-infused dare: I double-dog-dare you to think like a 3-year-old. Next time you give yourself some ice cream, or open the cookie jar to indulge in a cookie, or are about to reunite with a friend or partner after being a part, DO the BLISS DANCE. Jump for joy! Allow yourself to feel totally alive and full and energized by the moment, a moment that may otherwise just slip by as less than remarkable.
Indulge. Allow yourself to feel really good. Feel the blissful life energy flowing in you. Do the happy BLISS dance and allow gratitude and bliss to flood your thoughts, your heart, your body, your total awareness, your complete being. You’ll be amazed by how good you feel AFTER this experience.
Oh, and while we are blissing out, watch and listen to this stunning and blissful song sung by Sirgun Kaur and Sat Darshan Singh. (I just found her tonight and her voice and light took my breath away …. bliss bliss bliss.)
I am the Light of my Soul lyrics
I am the light of my soul.
I am beautiful.
I am bountiful.
I am bliss.
I am. I am.
I am. I am.
love and bliss
♥ becky ♥
Oops, sorry, links were missing and wrong. I fixed and republished passionately blissful. Kindly view online here.
♥ heARTist in residence ♥
March 17, 2013
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” ~Pablo Picasso
When I was in high school (a couple of years back.. ahem) I was rarely found without paint on my hands or clothes. I filled my electives with studio art classes and music. I loved creating. I loved using my life force to generate a positive reaction in people. Art, music and people were my passion …
until…
one of my art teachers told me I wasn’t very good. Owieeee, I got a negative reaction. In that very moment I traded my art joy for his art perception. I made a conscious choice to stop doing what I loved and I let his opinion define me. I gave away my power and gave up something very dear to me and I betrayed myself.
He was right, at least from where he was sitting. My line drawing was unrealistic. My depth perception was imbalanced. I used a ton of different colors.
Now some 20 years later I ask myself, is being considered “good” the only reason to do something? I mean, our money-centered culture defines success as getting paid for what you do.
Until a couple of years ago, this was the last thing I painted, a painting I LOVED yet left unfinished my senior year of high school. It used to bother me that I never finished it. My dear friend Eliza gave me oil paints so I could finish it, but now I find great comfort looking at her as she is, unfinished. She represents a significant life lesson that took me nearly 20 years to learn: to create for my personal joy–the joy of being a creative human–not to create exclusively for the approval of others.
Success has two definitions and our culture favors the 2nd.
1. The accomplishment of an aim or purpose. 2. The attainment of popularity or profit.
I’ve got a challenge for us: Let’s redefine success, shall we? Let’s say that success really means doing something with joy, simply for the sake and joy of being human and creative–because we can! What do you think?
You may have noticed through some of my posts I have re-found and reclaimed my art joy! Hooray!!! (Now I call it my heART joy!) My creations come exclusively from my HEART, so I perhaps I’m a heARTist?!
I am deeply grateful to my children, my husband and my amazing friends for encouraging and supporting me back to creativity and to my art. I have profound gratitude to my art teacher, for giving me the possibility of this personal reclamation.
I have found my art joy–my heART joy–and I’m creating, painting, and coloring my life again. I have found the courage to create and get out of my head and live from my heart, and value my opinions. I have stopped criticizing and judging myself so harshly. I accept that I am not perfect; I am a work in progress.
I am me. I am the only ME in the universe (at least that I know of). I have only one life to be me (as far as I know), and I want to be the fullest, most creative and expressive ME I can be. I want to SHINE and inspire my children, like they have me, and I want to help others let go and define success differently, and to liberate others from the impossible perpetual external approval hunt.
You are the only YOU in the entire universe. You matter. Your opinion matters. What is YOUR heart joy? Have you always known your heart joy, or did you make yourself forget? Do you remember?
♥ becky jaine ♥
heartist in residence
